Medary.com

"Are you now, or have you ever been a RACIST?"

Who will be the Joseph Welch of this new McCarthyism? Who--at long last--will end this madness?

There were Communists actively operating for the U.S.S.R. in the U.S.A. in the 1950's. That didn't make the bullying tactics of McCarthy right then. There are real racists today. That doesn't make today's eerily similar melanin-McCarthys right, either.

It's not about racism. It's about suppression of dissent. It's despicable, regardless of who's doing it.

From the book Power in the People by Felix Morley, as linked by Gary Galles at the Ludwig von Mises Institute:

Self-government is the very heart and core of the American way of life … the dominant emphasis was on self-government rather than on imposed government; on the development of Society, not on the aggrandizement of the State.

Barack Obama.

No, seriously.

Although by his (or her) e-mail address, there's just a teensy little doubt in my mind that he (or she) is actually the 44th President of the United States. I mean, it wasn't a whitehouse.gov address, you know.

But why quibble?

Washington Post:

When critics lashed out at President Obama for scheduling a speech to public school students this month, accusing him of wanting to indoctrinate children to his politics, his advisers quickly scrubbed his planned comments for potentially problematic wording.

Uh-huh.

Why would there have been "potentially problematic wording" in the speech in the first place, hmmm?

Certified Black Man Lloyd Marcus reports the awful truth:

We made our way through the crowd to the bed of a pick up truck. National radio talk show host Mark Williams, blue star mom Deborah Johns, singer Diana Nagy, the Rivoli Revue (Ron and Kay) and I climbed on board. Someone handed Mark a bull horn which he used to encourage the extremely enthusiastic crowd. We said the Pledge of Allegiance and Diana lead in the singing of "God Bless America". Many in the crowd were sobbing. Then they showered us with thanks, hugs, bottled water, bags of shacks and homemade treats. I thought, "How many angry racist mobs bake and bring brownies and overwhelm a black guy with affection and hugs?"

Emphasis mine.

Somebody call Jimmy Carter. Somebody call the Southern Law Poverty Center. This man--probably the descendant of a slave, you know--is suffering such extreme oppression that it must be truly unbearable. As a white man, I acknowledge my innate guilt in wanting to give the guy a brownie and a hug, too.

A most excellent idea--from the Germans, of course.

From the book Power in the People by Felix Morley, as linked by Gary Galles at the Ludwig von Mises Institute:

Any system of government cherishing the individual should make allowance for many conflicting viewpoints and should not impede their voluntary adjustment. The only workable alternative to a governmental system that encourages agreement is one that in encourages repression. And the latter, no matter how fair its initial pretense, is in nature, and will therefore eventually become in action, a system of tyranny.

Simian-blogging, but not very much fun at all.

BBC:

"Gorilla meat is sold pre-cut and smoked for about $6 per 'hand-sized' piece. Actual gorilla hands are also available," says Mr Pierre Fidenci, president of Endangered Species International (ESI).

What kind of sick SOB wants a gorilla hand?

Andrew Napolitano, writing in the Wall Street Journal:

Last week, I asked South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn, the third-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, where in the Constitution it authorizes the federal government to regulate the delivery of health care. He replied: "There's nothing in the Constitution that says that the federal government has anything to do with most of the stuff we do." Then he shot back: "How about [you] show me where in the Constitution it prohibits the federal government from doing this?"

Rep. Clyburn, like many of his colleagues, seems to have conveniently forgotten that the federal government has only specific enumerated powers. He also seems to have overlooked the Ninth and 10th Amendments, which limit Congress's powers only to those granted in the Constitution.

One of those powers—the power "to regulate" interstate commerce—is the favorite hook on which Congress hangs its hat in order to justify the regulation of anything it wants to control.

Emphasis mine.

There's more:

Applying these principles to President Barack Obama's health-care proposal, it's clear that his plan is unconstitutional at its core. The practice of medicine consists of the delivery of intimate services to the human body. In almost all instances, the delivery of medical services occurs in one place and does not move across interstate lines. One goes to a physician not to engage in commercial activity, as the Framers of the Constitution understood, but to improve one's health. And the practice of medicine, much like public school safety, has been regulated by states for the past century.

The same Congress that wants to tell family farmers what to grow in their backyards has declined "to keep regular" the commercial sale of insurance policies. It has permitted all 50 states to erect the type of barriers that the Commerce Clause was written precisely to tear down. Insurers are barred from selling policies to people in another state.

That's right: Congress refuses to keep commerce regular when the commercial activity is the sale of insurance, but claims it can regulate the removal of a person's appendix because that constitutes interstate commerce.

If you write a Constitution, and nobody obeys it, is it really a Constitution? Do we live under the rule of law, or the whim of legislators?

What we need isn't a "revolution" but a restoration. We need to either return to the philosophies and laws that what made this country the greatest one on Earth, or continue advancing into the Brave New World of being just another tired social democracy, and watch the rest of the world slide into a weary, hopeless age where our descendents will never really know what the word "liberty" meant, and how very powerful that word--that idea, was.

Once, America was the "shining city on a hill," a place that many around the world held to mean something special, a place where anybody could make it, a place where the Statue of Liberty's inscription once held real meaning:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Is it time to melt down Lady Liberty and turn her into so much copper for eco-friendly wind turbines?

Memphis Commercial Appeal:

If enacted as scheduled on Jan. 1, 2010, policy changes recommended by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) -- the government's insurer for the elderly and disabled -- will severely cut current Medicare reimbursements to cardiologists and oncologists for critical care services that are provided to patients in physicians' offices or other out-of-hospital setting, such as chemotherapy to treat cancer, and various cardiac procedures to monitor and treat heart disease, such as nuclear imaging and heart catheterization.

These cuts will force cardiologists and oncologists to limit care to their Medicare patients, withdraw from treating Medicare patients altogether or require their patients to pay more out of pocket to make up the difference in the cost of these services.

Unless these proposed changes are rescinded, current and future cardiac and cancer care patients will suffer the consequences, especially in rural areas where the proportion of Medicare patients is exceptionally high and patients have fewer choices of health care providers.

It doesn't make sense to create a whole new government system of regulating health care when the Federal Government has not shown it can successfully manage even a system with the (relatively) limited goals of Medicare.

There Is No Free Lunch.

People have the right to all of the health care that they can afford. Period.

People have the right to obtain freely given additional health care that they could otherwise not afford, via charity or via pro bono work by medical professionals. Both should be strongly encouraged as a virtuous behavior of those with resources towards those without.

But people do NOT have the right to force others to pay for their health care, against their will of the payers. People do NOT have the right to force medical professionals to provide health care.

The former use of force is extortion--theft, and the latter is involuntary servitude--slavery.

Perhaps you justify your position with a high-minded sympathy for those in need (usually expressed as "you just want poor people to die!"). Be careful with that though, because that kind of argument goes both ways.

In fact no, I don't want poor people to die. It is a loss to all of us when anyone dies. But if you want to use the caricature, the straw-man, the reductio ad absurdum argument that I'm a heartless selfish bastard for being stridenly pro-liberty, then you must answer the counterargument: Which do you want to be: a thief, or a slavemaster, or both?

Because if you strip all of the rhetoric away, here is the complete list of the choices before us:

1. Freedom and personal responsibility--with all of the good and the bad that comes with it;

2. Extortion, via taxation (call it "fees," or "mandatory contributions" or "mandatory insurance coverage" or whatever other euphemism for using the force of government to seize the fruits of one person's labors and give them to someone else), or;

3. Slavery--the forced conscription of health care workers in the service of those who have no ability to compensate them for their service. Again, use any euphemism you will, forcing health care workers to give services boils down to involuntary servitude.

You only get to choose one. No, actually, that's not true. #2 and #3 are compatible with each other, but neither is compatible with #1.

Now, maybe you want to reconsider the assertion (in place of rational argument) that "you just want poor people to die!"

Or, maybe you want to be a thug, or a slaveholder, or both. It's your choice--it's still a (marginally) free country.