Hope and Change and Fear

Why are Americans so stubbornly resistant to government health care?

Gerald F. Seib examines America's psyche in his latest WSJ article. His diagnosis: Americans are not happy with their health care, but are afraid of change.

Seib examines the reasons why.

This seems counterintuitive. People know the system is creaking, frustrating and way too expensive. They complain about it all the time. Yet they can't quite let it go.

Here in the real world, people put up every day with creaking, frustrating and way too expensive things: cars, houses, spouses... You take what you can get, remembering that the grass ain't always greener on the other side of the fence, no matter what some DC huckster tells you.

Maybe it's the Marcus Welby factor!

Americans maintain a gauzy, almost dreamy image of doctors and nurses. The image of the preternaturally soothing hometown doctor portrayed on television's "Marcus Welby, M.D." is the ideal to which Americans cling.

Earth to Gerald! Marcus Welby went off the air in 1976. A good chunk of the population wasn't even born then. Even I barely remember the show, associating Robert Young more with the Folgers commercials, and I can't recall the last time I heard someone wax poetic about her doctor.

He goes on to mention how we've become accustomed to health insurance being provided by the employer ever since it became an unintended consequence of government-mandated WW II wage and price controls. That should at least have given his propaganda march pause, but he kept on going, right past the Rube Goldberg factor.

DC's Rube Goldberg Institute

Yes! Americans are afraid of Government Rube Goldberg contraptions. Just like the Coyote when he gets some contraption in the mail from the Acme company. He thinks he'll catch the roadrunner this time, but ends up blowing himself up. Government works alot like that, so you'll excuse us for being skeptical.

We don't trust government to do this right. Seib calls it the Post Office factor:

Americans are deeply cynical about government's ability to do anything right. Putting a man on the moon, building an interstate-highway system, fielding history's most lethal army -- nothing has changed that.

First of all, the US government has nothing to do with the Army's success. That comes down to the blood, guts, brains and determination of the American fighting men and women who overcome all obstacles, usually in spite of bureaucrats and politicians. I hate big government people throwing this out because it's BS.

Man on the moon and interstate highway system? I'd be more reassured if Mr. Seib could produce an example that wasn't 40 years old. The space program's heyday was the 1960's, and by the way, powered by teams of military men and scientists unencumbered by today's bureaucratic snarls of red tape.

We don't trust that our government will do anything right because it hasn't done anything right in a very long time. A smirking liberal may chime in, "But you'll trust a greedy insurance company!" Yes, yes I will. Good companies with good reputations want to make money, and they can't do that if they screw all their customers in a marketplace where there is open competition.

Finally he concludes:

In short, lousy as the system may be, lots of people have a direct economic stake in it. Any wonder they don't like the idea of a leap into the unknown?

We just took one of those leaps into the unknown last November. Many are now wishing they had a bungee cord.

WSJ - Seib

Surprise! Government Free Money Program is a Success!!

Some guy named Dave Johnson over at Huff the Magic PuffPo aims a tired, intellectually flaccid finger at the eye of conservatives who are criticizing the Cash for Clunkers program.

Government can work, and the "Cash for Clunkers" program proved it. So, naturally, conservatives have to hate on it. The "Cash for Clunkers" turned out to be one of the most successful government programs in some time.

This was my favorite part:

What could be wrong with that?

Well, if you are a conservative, plenty is wrong with that. First of all, it makes government look good -- and conservatives just hate government. Government is those people who get in the way and tell companies they can't pour toxins into our rivers. Government is those people who show up and ask big companies to share what they make -- after building the roads and courts and schools that enabled them to do so well. That goes against everything conservatives stand for: dirty rivers, big corporations doing and taking anything they want for free, etc.

Yeah, we conservatives just love toxic rivers--makes the fishing so much better! And I guess he hasn't visited opensecrets.org recently, or he would know that even the hated pharmaceuticals industry gives more to the Dems than the Repubs. Can't let the facts get in the way of good lefty rant...

Here's my comment to his post, which I'm surprised made it through the censors:

A program that gives money away is a success. And you're surprised?

Let's go one better. Let's break every window in the country to stimulate glass manufacturers and construction business. We could kick off a really big construction boom by burning all our houses down.

Why not cash for refrigerators? Why does the car industry get subsidized but not home appliances?

The point here is that programs like this produce no net gain to the economy.

And don't start with the whole "helping people" trope. If Bush, and Obama in continuation, really wanted to help people they would have given all that government cash directly to the taxpayer instead of favoring businesses and Wall Street with it.

I only added the last part in to placate the censors. What I really mean to say is, if Bush and Obama wanted to stimulate the economy they would have drilled everywhere, built new refineries and new nuclear power plants, and given corporations a one-time good deal tax saving so they could repatriate the hundreds of billions of dollars they have sitting overseas.

That probably would have produced overload for the puffers...

HuffPo - Dave Johnson

Can You Believe It? The Age of Unreason

Credulity [kruh-doo-li-tee] –noun:
Willingness to believe or trust too readily, esp. without proper or adequate evidence; gullibility.

One of the peculiar sins of the twentieth century which we've developed to a very high level is the sin of credulity. It has been said that when human beings stop believing in God they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse: they believe in anything.
-- Malcolm Muggeridge

Malcolm Muggeridge was a British journalist and editor of the humor magazine "Punch". He found Christ late in life and turned his acerbic wit on the ignorant, materialistic culture he saw taking root in Western Christendom. To make his point, he famously pondered the result of bringing an African witch doctor to a modern Western country and subjecting him to television advertising. He posited that the shaman would be green with envy.

In Africa, he had to peddle his dubious potions to a poor, skeptical public by going door-to-door and town-to-town. Here in the Western world, the most highly educated, the most progressive, the most advanced part of the earth, there is a reservoir of credulity beyond his wildest dreams.

So true. Back in the old days, people were much more skeptical. If someone leveled an allegation or posited a point of view without proof or reason he would be laughed out of town and marginalized.

Nowadays, it's a 24/7 party in Kooksville, where crackpots on 500 channels and multifarious media outlets peddle unsubstantiated drivel to a gullible public:

Obama is a Muslim, Hillary is a lesbian, Sarah Palin had an affair, George Bush was in on the 9/11 conspiracy, Bush-Cheney-Halliburton invaded Iraq to steal their oil...

Each of these could be true, but there is no credible supporting evidence.

A related malady is the global warming hysteria. There is still credible scientific disagreement on this issue. Regardless, our government is willing to bet trillions of taxpayer money that Al Gore is right.

I'm incredulous...

For a more in-depth discussion that completely guts the arguments of the Environmental left, visit Ontological Angst...

It Happens to White Guys, Too

Phone Rage Leads to Arrest for Ohio Man

I saw this headline on Drudge and my first reaction was "get real... This is BS!" Then I read this: 

According to court documents, Charles W. Papenfus, 43, allegedly told a sales representative during a May 18 telephone call that he would burn down the building and kill the employees and their families. He was indicted for making a terrorist threat, a Class D felony; and he could be sentenced to up to four years in prison if convicted.

OK, that's kinda off the chain. I read the rest of the article, and got a more balanced picture of what happened

This is a case of the law gone wild. I can understand the company dropping a dime on the guy, and the cops descending on his house, but I think some on-scene assessment would have concluded the guy wasn't a threat.

Did he have the means to carry out his threat? Was there any evidence he planned on carrying out his threat? Did the man have a record of doing violence? Is he unemployed or embittered in some way that would cause him to irrationally lash out at a commercial enterprise?

The answer to all these questions is no. So why did they drag this self-employed man away from his family and the business that supports them to incarcerate him 450 miles away?

The authorities should have filed charges and given him a court date. Or merely turned him loose and dropped all charges. I guess they only do that for elite college professors.

St Louis Today - Phone Rage

A Tribure to WW II Veterans

The last British World War I veteran just died last week.  Frank Buckles, America's last WW I vet, is still going strong at 108.

WW II vets are dying at a rate of about 1,000 a day. A group of patriotic men, recognizing this, wrote a tribute to these veterans. It's very good. I can't post the video here, but you can see it at this link: Before You Go.

It's not what life deals you, but how you deal with life

OK, this is kind of sappy, but it has a good message. Courtesy of Papa Silverfiddle...

It was a busy morning, about 8:30, when an elderly gentleman in his 80s arrived to have stitches removed from his thumb. He said he was in a hurry as he had an appointment at 9:00 am.

I took his vital signs and had him take a seat, knowing it would be over an hour before someone would to able to see him. I saw him looking at his watch and decided, since I was not busy with another patient, I would evaluate his wound. On exam, it was well healed, so I talked to one of the doctors, got the needed supplies to remove his sutures and redress his wound.

While taking care of his wound, I asked him if he had another doctor's appointment this morning, as he was in such a hurry.

The gentleman told me no, that he needed to go to the nursing home to eat breakfast with his wife. I inquired as to her health.

He told me that she had been there for a while and that she was a victim of Alzheimer's Disease.

As we talked, I asked if she would be upset if he was a bit late. He replied that she no longer knew who he was, that she had not recognized him in five years now.

I was surprised, and asked him, 'And you still go every morning, even though she doesn't know who you are?'

He smiled as he patted my hand and said,

'She doesn't know me, but I still know who she is.'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

True love is an acceptance of all that is, has been, will be, and will not be. The happiest people don't necessarily have the best of everything; They just make the best of everything they have.

Have a happy weekend!

How to Start Each Day with a Positive Outlook

It's a cheap thrill, but in the era of Hope and Change, you take what you can get...
1. Open a New File on your computer.
2. Name it 'Barack Obama'.
3. Send it to the Recycle Bin.
4. Empty the Recycle Bin.
5. Your PC will ask you: 'Do you really want to get rid of 'Barack Obama?'
6. Firmly Click 'Yes.'
7. Feel better? GOOD! - Tomorrow we'll do Nancy Pelosi.

Courtesy of Larry, via one of his e-mail dispatches from paradise. Thanks for the laugh!