I don’t have much to say this morning about it because I think there are plenty of other people who can say it better than me and have better credibility. I didn’t know anyone who died in either New York or Pennsylvania, although I had a working dinner here in Houston the week before with the business partner of someone who was killed in the World Trade Center, and I think a day of rememberance should be spent remembering people.
May God bless and keep the souls of all who perished.
This is interesting news, but, just like Glenn Beck moving from CNN last year, it’s a little bit disheartening because it gives credence to the whole “echo chamber” complaint about Fox News when all of the talent gets concentrated in one place.
In the uber Facebook thread that I wrote about last night, another comment came up this morning that I think deserves some attention and another “part 2″ blog post:
Obama’s background isn’t any more radical than McCain’s. And “going around the parents” is what teachers, school administrators, and clergy have been doing for years and years. Why that suddenly translates into a 1984-feeling now is hard to grasp. Don’t go Billy Martin on us!
So the first sentence and the last sentence don’t make sense to me yet, so I’ll let those sit for a while and see if the commenter can clarify a bit for me, but the middle part? Hell yeah.
I tend to disagree when people, usually on the Left, say that there is no such thing as objective truth, because there quite clearly is: 2+2=4. Napoleon died on May 5, 1821, Elephants eat grass and hay, and the sun literally never set on the British Empire, among other things.
But when it comes to the dissemination of information, there is no such thing as an unbiased educator. This is why Neil Boortz calls them “government schools,” because ANY institution run by politicians is going to be inherently political and why home schooling and private schools will always be with us. Not because home schooling parents are religious jesus freaks or because they’re bad citizens, but because they see the only way to get away from the inherent bias in the public school system is to opt out altogether.
Sometimes this feels like the Facebook studio show, but I get so many good post ideas that I often have to come over here to flesh out an argument or verbalize more precisely a point that I try to make over there. This one is no exception: Obama is giving a speech to the schoolkids on Tuesday.
There is a full blown panic in many corners of the Right right now (hey now!) about “socialist indoctrination” and Nazis and the like, and, given some of his wacko associations, especially Bill Ayers and Ayers’s switch from violence to education as the “true motor” of revolution, I think there is reason to be suspicious. Hitler analogies are overused in today’s age, but this is truly an accurate analogy – if you are worried about what you see as a quasi-fascist takeover of our government by left wing totalitarian people (and I personally am), then there is some reason and cause to compare this speech to actions by other left-wing totalitarian people: Hitler, or the Soviets, or Mao, or whoever. There’s a reason that past tyrants went around the parents and directly to the youth – young minds are impressionable and it’s easier to just educate the kids than to reeducate the adults – and in principle, I can see the point that has some people so upset.
But I have to admit that even in spite of my disagreement with Obama’s policies and positions (anyone who has ever read this blog knows that I certainly not a fan), and the sympathy that I have for these people’s suspicion, my reaction is still closer to Ed’s right now than anyone else:
One pap-filled 20-minute speech about working hard and serving others is so lethal a threat to tender minds that they have to be yanked off the premises for the day to shield them from it?
I mean, he is everyone’s President and it seems kind of overwrought to say that he’s not allowed to tell kids to stay in school and do their homework and behave appropriately. If there was ever an opportunity for the bully pulpit of the presidency, surely that’s it, and especially for black students to whom he is a role model and an example of a black person who himself got to where he is today through education. As I said in the Facebook comment, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.
But I think the other part of Ed’s post (and the one he linked to at LGF) is good too, and very intriguing:
If this turns out to be some hamfisted attempt by The One to pitch his agenda to kids — which would be politically insane given the outcry it would cause, a sneak preview of which may be found here — there’ll be ample time for outrageous outrage later.
Exactly. Is Obama that stupid? Maybe, but I doubt it. Given the outrage that we’ve seen, that speech is going to be scrubbed all the way down to the number of syllables in the word “school” and we’re not going to hear or see anything that could even remotely be considered to be partisan. That would be absolutely nuts from a political perspective and would give so much ammo to the other side that his term would be dead before he even walked off the stage.
So yeah, I do see their point, especially on principle, but let’s give the President the benefit of the doubt. If we thought the criticism and panic at Bush was unfair and disuniting, then it’s only fair to practice what we preach. Let him give the speech and then get outraged if we actually need to be.
I might as well point out that this is not too surprising:
Recent town-hall uproars weren’t just about health care. They were also eruptions of concern that the government is taking on too much at once.
That suggests trouble for the president and his party, and fears of losses in next year’s midterm election are likely to shape the Democrats’ fall agenda.
At August’s town-hall meetings, voters often started with complaints about health care, only to shift to frustrations about all the other things President Barack Obama and the Democrats have done or tried to do since January. The $787 billion economic-stimulus package, the government-led rescue of General Motors Corp. and climate-change legislation all came in for criticism…
Last year’s election gave Democrats a mandate for big changes that they feel still applies. They won seats by arguing that Republicans had failed to act to keep the housing market and financial system from crumbling.
It’s been pretty clear to me since last October that the Democrat “mandate” was going to be misread. Obama ascended amidst a perfect storm: an unpopular (and perpetually smeared) 2nd term president exiting the White House, an economic crisis reach its head just before the election, and a racial element that was never seen before, all combined to given him enough votes to win.
Obama wasn’t elected to “fundamentally transform America” (although it was clear that he wanted to); he was elected because he wasn’t Bush, and more generally, because wasn’t a 60 year old white guy with a degree from Yale and an (R) behind his name.
Given how obvious that is (at least to me), what amazes me is why there is any surprise at all that there’s opposition to turning America into a leftwing fantasyland. People weren’t voting for that, they were just voting against Bush (and McCain by association).
In a very cynical sense, Rahm Emmanuel was right about never letting a crisis go to waste, but at the same time, it’s kind of silly and amateurish for such “brilliant” politicians to overreach and create their own crisis, no? Maybe that’s because they’re not as “genius” as they’re thought to be?
I’ve been meaning to write this post for a number of days and either haven’t gotten around to it (like a lot of my posts lately -new houses simultaneous with new babies are not conducive to blogging, people) or otherwise just haven’t done it. Not that I haven’t tried or made a few false starts, but, like a lot of my posts, the idea for this post has bounced around in my head for a while and it’s just needed a catalyst to get going.
My catalyst here is the first 30 seconds of this vide0, where a woman waving an Obama “Stand Together for America” sign shouts out against all of the “selfish people” she apparently sees as being in between her and some free chemotherapy, or something. That video is the catalyst, because, to some degree, it ties together the different pieces of this post idea.
Now, a catalyst is not the same thing as inspiration, and the inspiration for this post started with a couple of similar, but slightly different posts I’ve seen on Facebook lately. I’ll keep the names anonymous, because this post isn’t about the people themselves, it’s just about the statements they’ve made.
Here is the first one (made while posting a link to a “the only way to fix healthcare is to turn it into the DMV and anyone who disagrees is doing so only for craven political reasons” op-ed in the Dallas Morning News):
It seems all I ever hear is ‘what’s in it for me?’ This disturbs me tremendously.
And here are the comments:
John M. Greene: Disturbs you how? That the author wants “free” healthcare or that other people disagree on its necessity?
July 23 at 10:30am
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ORIGINAL POSTER: I agree with the author, God-forbid any of us have to pay for something for the greater good, just because it might affect THEM in a negative way.
July 23 at 10:36am
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John M. Greene: Ahhh… I agree with you – people should be more charitable and take better care of the less fortunate among us. No argument here.
July 23 at 10:48am
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COMMENTER #2: I don’t know…most people are pretty darn charitable and just don’t bother talking about it in public.
July 23 at 4:06pm
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ORIGINAL POSTER (clearly exasperated): I’m not talking about charity, I’m talking about taxes, and their benefit to society at large.
July 23 at 4:14pm
Because taxes are for the greater common good and people who are opposed to taxes are selfish and just don’t want to help people. Got it.
Let’s try this from a different direction. Here is the other Facebook post, this one being a friend of a friend responding a question about her health. I didn’t respond to this, because I don’t know this person and, I dunno, it would have been rude to pick a fight on someone else’s wall:
I am tired of hearing all of these people in opposition to meaningful healthcare reform. I am also tired of paying almost $800 a month for barebones coverage when there are so many other things that I could be spending my money on, especially when the people who are opposed are people who could easily afford to have their taxes raised to help other people. We elected Barack Obama last November and need not be afraid of real hope and change in this country. This topic is just too important for us not to fix things.
So, I’ll ask again, just who is being selfish? Is it not selfish to covet someone else’s wealth – and endorse the government taking it and giving it to you – because you don’t want to spend your own money? Just whose responsibility is your own health? And if we have a duty to one another to take care of one another (and I think we do), then let’s do that, but let’s do it ourselves and literally take care of each other. It’s not compassionate to just sit back and endorse the government emptying your neighbor’s wallet because you think it’s horrible that prescriptions cost too much money and you really need a vacation. The government is not omnipotent, nor is it our proxy or are elections an excuse to pass the buck.
Look, it’s been few weeks since I made a meaningful blog post, but back in July I was writing almost every day about the healthcare reform topic and here we are 6 weeks later and nothing has changed. A vast majority of people in this county have insurance and are satisfied with it and only a very small percentage of those who don’t have it truly can’t afford it or be insured. And the thing is, we already have programs in place to help those people.
But- but- but- what about people with preexisting conditions? What about people who lose their jobs? What about the children?
Well, some of those problems could be fixed through some sort of policy change (especially the ludicrous employer-endorsed part), but generally, the answer to that one is to take care of yourself beforehand and don’t sit back and wait until there is a problem to complain that there is a problem. We’re not quite to the point yet where people are routinely denied coverage on congenital factors (yet), so all preexisting conditions were at one point new. Do you know what happens when someone has insurance and a new condition pops up? It gets fixed.
What’s so unreasonable about making existing insurance plans easier to obtain, harder to lose, and more responsive to people’s needs, and what part of any of that requires letting the federal government be in charge?
Similarly, you want to have kids? How about waiting until you can actually afford to have one and take care of him or her, including making sure that you can afford to pay to visit the doctor?
It’s not that hard, nor is it particularly selfish to point that out.
My Buddy Justin posted this on his Facebook page and I thought it was worth a repeat:
Yeah, it’s an old story, but you’d think they might try and be, ohhh, I don’t know…. responsible?
But as I soon realized, I also had little reason to be worried. I’ll confess I was somewhat ignorant of details behind the splashy swine flu headlines — but my doctor explained: swine flu is just a form of influenza-A. In other words, it’s no more dangerous than the regular old flu. It typically lasts a week — though I was sick a bit longer.
I mean, really.
Rush has been playing this all week. Definitely a classic.
This story is amazing, and it happened right here in Houston:
Patterico and Lone Star Times capture yet another banner moment from a town-hall forum hosted by Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) . In this clip, Roxana Mayer introduces herself as a doctor (a general practitioner for four years) in order to support ObamaCare and Jackson-Lee in a fairly hostile crowd. For her efforts, she gets a big hug from the Congresswoman, an image which the Houston Chronicle featured prominently on their website coverage of the event.
But was Mayer really a doctor?
Not only was Mayernot a doctor, Roxana Mayer was an Obama delegate, as Patterico discovered with some digging. What’s more, the Houston Chronicle apparently knew this and failed to include it in its glowing coverage of Mayer’s appearance. The reporter, Cindy Horswell, has admitted that she knew Mayer was an Obama delegate and that Mayer didn’t live in Jackson-Lee’s district when she wrote the Chronicle story. After getting exposed, the Chronicle quietly changed the caption on the photo without issuing a correction, removing the reference to Mayer being a doctor.
As the first comment explains, that the moron cultist lied isn’t really the story (although the Chron should have reported that rather than just airbrushing the old photo caption), the real story is who put her up to it?
My gut says that no one did – this seems like exactly the kind of thing that a mindless O-bot would just do on her own in reaction to all of the negative town hall press that’s been coming out lately – but again, a real journalist would at least make sure of that fact. Not the Chronicle, apparently.
I really wish I had a head-shaking emoticon on this blog…
UPDATE – I’ve been busy and didn’t even get around to blogging this. As of two weeks ago I no longer live in Queen Sheila’s district and am now in (gasp!) Tom DeLay’s old district in Fort Bend County (Pete Olson holla!) But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s still an embarrassment to the great city of Houston.
UPDATE 2: Looky here. (although I think the nose-holding is evident even through the interwebs)
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