A bipartisan group of senators huddled in the afternoon to decide whether to move forward on an overhaul plan that Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.) began circulating over the weekend. The plan includes some of the stiffest penalties Congress has proposed for Americans who don’t carry health insurance coverage.So the "public option" is out in the Senate version of the bill, but an enforced tax on families who don't purchase health insurance (which is, by nature, a completely voluntary act) is in.
10. Responsibility is a more important value than either liberty or equality.I believe (individual) responsibility both leads to and follows from liberty. And as I have said before, conservatives believe in equality of opportunity, not equality of results. It is difficult for me to separate those three values and assign priority to one or the other, but I think he probably has the order correct.
Consider the way our views normally evolve. We sort of hunker down in our ideological bunkers trying to fend off various attacks and challenges. Sometimes an especially forceful argument will require a modification in the fortifications—and on rare occasions, we’ll even be forced to abandon a position. Which is to say, we learn from other perspectives largely in a defensive mode, through a kind of Darwinian selection of arguments. But what if instead we tried to use the insights available from our own perspectives, not to defeat or convert the other guy, but to give his argument its best form? This might sound like giving aid and comfort to the enemy, but even in terms of the Darwinian struggle, there’s value to being able to show how your view trumps even the optimal form of the competition.
Typically, when we’re not at battle stations, we recognize that the other guy’s values are genuine values; we just give priority to different ones.
"There are those who are focused on the so-called politics of health care; who are trying to exploit differences or concerns for political gain. That's to be expected. That's Washington. But let's never forget that this isn't about politics. This is about people's lives. This is about people's businesses. This is about America's future. That's what is at stake." - B.H. ObamaLook, health care for all my friends sounds like a great idea before you've thought about any of the consequences. But we've seen how government runs things (into the ground), and we're just not so sure that we won't wind up taking it in the keester. Money doesn't grow on trees, you know. Well, unless you consider middle class Americans to be trees. I think we're thru being your birtch.
Dear Congressman,
When you came to our city the other day for your town hall meeting, you said that you were here to listen. It has become apparent that you and other "national heath care" supporters have made up their minds already and are not interested in hearing what the American people actually want. You would probably consider me conservative, but I want to remind you that being a conservative neither makes me rich nor racist. Nor am I an old blue-hair. That little excuse of "racism" that people like Diane Watson(D-CA) use for discounting every conservative's opinion is ignorant at best and tells me that they are racist because they themselves refuse to use their brains in order to think past their own skin color. It's infuriatingly obtuse, and I won't put up with it.
Let me remind you that this evil thing we call capitalism has helped this nation become one of the strongest and best in the world. You say you believe in that. Prove it with your vote from now on. Our standard of living is high in the US, and it's not because of government. Look at Wal-Mart which is always lowering prices and offering increasingly better products. It has increased the standard of living for people both rich and poor because it has to compete with other businesses like Costco and Target. It doesn't offer lower prices out of the goodness of its heart. It does it because it has to compete. We know this works, and yet, I hear nothing in this health care "debate" about increasing competition in order to lower health care costs. All you are talking about is increasing the coverage by distributing wealth.
Rather than causing all ships to rise, you will cause them to sink because they are all tied to the same government anchor. What motivates your need control all aspects of American life? Why do government fingers have to be in every piece of American pie? Almost everyone has some sort of sad story. No one's life is perfect. But you cannot give everyone food, water, shelter, health, peace, and prosperity. You can try, but you'll find in the end that you've worsened the standard of living for all because you've redistributed profits and the incentive to outdo the competition. And then we'll spend the next 100 years recovering from your "help". It is our job, the people's job, to help each other without your controlling us.
If government tries to step in everywhere to help, the people of this nation will become helpless and worthless. Think how far we've come already. If you don't want to, you don't even have to be responsible for getting yourself pregnant anymore in this country! It's legal to literally suck a baby out of a woman's insides, tear it to pieces, and chunk it in the trash. Making that legal is one of government's many contributions. Is that the kind of legacy you want to leave? Is that how you want to be remembered by history, by people, by God?
Examples of higher cost, slower performance, and decreased quality abound when government takes something over which is meant to be controlled by the people (ie free markets). Think about minimum wage. It is a racist law. It has helped keep a lot of minorities unemployed. A business owner might want to hire a minority to do a job but cannot because minimum wage is too high to make him/her affordable. Therefore, the business owner decides he/she cannot hire that person at all. Consequently unemployment. Now that person, instead of starting at the bottom and working up, stays at the bottom and goes nowhere. Why is that a hard concept for you in congress? I think it's because you like to promise people more money to get votes and not have to deliver on that promise. You fool people into voting for you. At least for a while. I assure you that we are catching on.
Your government career will not last unless you remember who you work for and represent. Please remind our President of the same. He and his wife think that we are all uninformed and unengaged. We hired you both to represent us, not yourselves. Now do it. Be what you are meant to be, and we, the people, will appreciate you for it. Or you can spend your life trying to impress our moronic media and congress' liberally minded wannabe dictators.
