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Thanks to Bart Stupak’s sell-out, Obamacare passed as we all knew it would. The Hill has the list of Democrats who voted against the bill — you know, the ones who actually had some backbone.
The most notable thing from the CSPAN footage last night for me? Hearing all of the Democrats clapping and chanting “yes we can”. It was creepy and disturbing. They were congratulating themselves on passing legislation that the entire country hates. They ignored the will of their constituents, and they were applauding themselves for it.
Each and every one of them needs to get kicked out of Congress.
Steve L. says: I am proud of our state’s delegation. Three of the four voted against it including two of the three Dems. The only Dem to vote in favor never met a government program he didn’t love.
Not really all that shocking. And the worst thing is that most people probably didn’t even realize it was going on last night. NCAA’s are on after all. A bracket’s much more important and fun to follow than some boring bill from Congress (yes, I’m being sarcastic).
In the end, the only blame that can be thrown around is at ourselves. Yeah, that’s tough, but then reality often is. If Congress does represent us, then what does that say about our society? These politicians came from our homes, our schools, our communities, etc. And if they don’t represent us, then we obviously weren’t doing our job as an electorate. Either way, the blame finger points at us.
So here’s my next question? Even if we vote a bunch of Republicans in come November, is that really going to turn the tide? I’m not so sure and have said as much for the past year. Judging by the way Republicans acted from 2000-2006 (and even from ’06-10), I don’t see them being so radical as to change this. Oh, they’ll make a few minor adjustments here and there, to show the good people that they’re doing something constructive. But those rookies will be sucked into the DC toilet just as much as their predecessors. Government’s growing people. Has been growing steadily decade after decade, even under (do I dare say this?) Reagan.
You have a generation, the Millenials, who have been essentially brainwashed by a decade or so of leftist education. They looooove government. You really think they’ll turn away from all of this? Hell, someone’s gotta pay for the essentials while they go off to buy the frills such as iPods, the newest cell phone, designer jeans, computer gadgets, etc.
BTW, you can forget the War on Terror. We can’t possibly pay for the type of military that we have now, not with this health care (and that’s just one aspect…we haven’t even started with social security). I’m sure the jihadis are cheering away watching the news now with this vote. We did to ourselves what they could never have done: deteriorate our military (which will happen).
I have said this a number of times on this blog. While we conservatives were focusing on the next election just around the corner, the left has steadily infiltrated and taken over the media industry (except for Fox, whoopdie doo…one network), the legal profession, and the educational system. The leftist Boomers who lost the fight in the 60’s never gave up. They simply switched tactics and continued their war. We need to start thinking really long term if we want to have any chance of re-balancing all of this.
Long term?
Secession. Let them have their worker’s paradise– we’ll have our constitutional free-market republic. Go grab a latte, and come back to check on the former USA. We’ll see who is the third world shithole and who is the world’s fastest growing economic power.
Daniel,
I thought I’d never say this in my lifetime, but yeah, it may come down to secession. I also know what such an act will lead to and am greatly bothered by this.
Mark Steyn wrote something pretty frightening in NRO. Something to the effect of: Thus far, every single country that has passed a health care program like this one, has done two things, no exceptions.
One, promote in its citizens a feeling of helplessness, and a dependent way of looking at life’s various challenges.
Two — abandon entirely the maintenance of a ready and influential military force. Only Americans need to worry about the first of those two things. Many other countries need to start worrying about the second, and worrying hard.
Mat,
Many progressive Americans I know are pretty smug about the secession thing– the general thrust of their argument is that the secessionist states should be allowed to leave, since they are SO convinced that Washington and its federal money is necessary that they think it will only be a matter of years before the “wayward conservatives” are begging to be let back into the Union.
Heh. A couple things about this idea: 1) They display a short-sightedness typical of Statists; 2) They fail to realize, given their hatred for the free-market and voluntary exchange, that secession of the more red states would be like “Going Galt” but on a federal level; and 3) The blue states need the red ones to subsidize their ridiculous fiscal policies, and it would be a handful of years before the US sent tanks and troops into the seceded states IOT bring them back.
But, I would add that modern technology has made 4th-generation warfare a viable alternative to force-on-force, and that one can only conquer a region that lacks dedicated guerilla warriors.
Mat says: Daniel,
“Heh. A couple things about this idea: 1) They display a short-sightedness typical of Statists;”
Well, short term thinking seems to be in large supply for both sides these days. That is what got us into this mess in the first place.
“2) They fail to realize, given their hatred for the free-market and voluntary exchange, that secession of the more red states would be like “Going Galt” but on a federal level;”
I’m not sure if any secession would necessarily go by state. There are a lot of “blue” states which have significant “red” areas. Case in point New York State. Most of the state outside of NYC/Long Island, with few exceptions (like Buffalo and Albany proper) is actually more conservative. Since I live in Central NY, I would love nothing more than for us to secede from NYC. Whether that actually happens or not is another thing entirely.
Given its controlling nature, I don’t think liberals/Democrats/leftists/progressives (pick a name) would just let us go that easily. Socialism/Communism, by its very nature, is a controlling ideology.
“and 3) The blue states need the red ones to subsidize their ridiculous fiscal policies, and it would be a handful of years before the US sent tanks and troops into the seceded states IOT bring them back.”
I don’t think it would be even that long. Progressives would move very quickly with the military to crush dissent. Why wait and bleed heavily when you can move quickly and bleed lightly? And yes, I do believe that the government would use the military in that case.
“But, I would add that modern technology has made 4th-generation warfare a viable alternative to force-on-force, and that one can only conquer a region that lacks dedicated guerilla warriors.”
Maybe. You’re assuming that the military would use a kid-gloves approach like they did in Iraq and Afghanistan. If we had gone into both areas with guns blazing, that resistance would have been decimated in days. Somehow, I seriously doubt that progressives would get all that choked up about killing conservatives in droves. After all, we’re pretty much sub-human to most of them (listen to some of these people and it’s amazing the stuff that comes out of their mouthes).
Mat says: Morgan,
It depends on what that military is used for. Right now, it could easily be turned on “we the people.” Don’t kid yourself.
And please don’t quote the posse comitatus stuff. It’s a wee scrap of paper. Besides, they’ll most likely use paramilitary forces first. Last year, when they passed that volunteer service act (the one where everyone had to volunteer time and stuff), they put in a very interesting branch to deal with “emergencies.” It’s called the national service reserve corps. The legislation on that is pretty vague and it’s kinda odd that they want veterans to join this outfit. Oh well, Obama did say he wanted a national security force just as strong and well funded as the military. Either way, it’s bad news for us.
Cylar says: Oh brother. Not this “secede” shit again. That turned out real well the last time it happened in this country. 600,000 Americans paid with their lives and the breakaway states were rejoined to the Union. One could argue that the situation was actually worse off than before in terms of power being further concentrated in the federal government.
Forget all this crap about the military being sent out to fire on civilians. We aren’t anywhere near that point. This isn’t Red China, it’s the United States of America. If that were the sort of country we are, Bush would have had all those reckless, inane, ignorant, stupid antiwar protests put down back in 2003. They were doing nothing but encouraging our enemies to keep fighting, and yet our government did not even send in riot police to break them up. So cut the crap about what they’re going to do to the likes of Tea Partiers who are orders of magnitude better-behaved.
Guys, get real with this breakaway state stuff. You really don’t want to go down that road. First of all, the Confederacy at least had the advantage of being a geographically-whole country. The “red states” in the modern US wouldn’t even have that advantage. Even if it were somehow pulled-off, the blue-staters wouldn’t take long to notice that they were being left in the dust in terms of standard-of-living, and then they would start moving to the red states…voting Democrat, putting socialist politicians in power….and it would be deja vu all over again. (It’s much the same reason that I dismiss suggestions of a third political party – it would just get infiltrated by the same stupid RINO-squish-moderate types that gave us John McCain For President.) What are you going to do, deny entry to anyone who is a registered Democrat?
Get back to me when you’ve got some solutions that are grounded in reality, instead of this dream-castles-floating-in-the-sky stuff.
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