Barack Obama’s vision of America is one in which a President of the United States can fire the head of General Motors, tell banks how to bank, control the medical system and take charge of all sorts of other activities for which neither he nor other politicians have any expertise or experience.
Virtually everything that the government does costs more than when the same thing is done in private industry – whether it is building housing, running prisons, collecting garbage, or innumerable other things. Why in the world would we imagine that health care would be the exception?
People who refuse to accept unpleasant truths have no right to complain about politicians who lie to them. What other kind of candidates would such people elect?
One of the painfully sobering realizations that come from reading history is the utter incompetence that is possible among leaders of whole nations and empires – and the blind faith that such leaders can nevertheless inspire among the people who are enthralled by their words or their posturing.
Civil rights used to be about treating everyone the same. But today some people are so used to special treatment that equal treatment is considered to be discrimination.
An independent judiciary does not mean judges independent of the Constitution from which they derive their power or independent of the laws that they are sworn to uphold.
The way to get people’s votes is to say that all their problems are caused by other people, and that you will stop those other people from giving them trouble. But if you really want to help, then you can tell them the truth and risk losing their votes.
Someone once said that many bad policies are just good policies that have been carried too far. For example, we have taken tolerance to such an extreme that we tolerate the immigration into our country of millions of intolerant people who hate millions of Americans who are already here.
Many bad policies are simply good policies taken too far.
The promotion of “self-esteem” in our schools has been so successful that people feel free to spout off about all sorts of things – and see no reason why their opinions should not be taken as seriously as the views of people who actually know what they are talking about.
Subsidies are a shell game, not a net addition to national wealth.
Government central planning means over-riding other people’s plans.
After the risky mortgage-lending practices fostered by government intervention led to massive defaults and foreclosures that caused financial institutions to collapse or be bailed out, Congressman Frank changed his tune completely.
Politics is largely the process of taking credit and putting the blame on others – regardless of what the facts may be.
If increased government spending with borrowed or newly created money is a ‘stimulus,’ then the Weimar Republic should have been stimulated to unprecedented prosperity, instead of runaway inflation and widespread economic desperation that ultimately brought Adolf Hitler to power.
American society in recent years has been imitating behavior patterns that have produced negative – and sometimes catastrophic – consequences in many other countries around the world.
The government does not have some magic wand that can ‘bring down the cost of health care.’ It can buy a smaller quantity or lower quality of medical care, as other countries with government-run medical care do.
Even if her children or grandchildren are willing to spend their own money to keep grandma alive, when bureaucrats control the necessary technology or medication they may decide that it is not for sale.
Like so many before him who have ruined countries around the world, Obama has a greatly inflated idea of his own capabilities and the capabilities off what can be accomplished by rhetoric or even by political power.
Barack Obama has not only said that he is out to ‘change the United States of America,’ the people he has been associated with for years have expressed in words and deeds their hostility to the values, the principles and the people of this country.