They're Always Shocked When We're Not Stupid
Frank J. is a very, very smart man.
Anyway, this got me thinking, it sure would be intellectually honest if more people started framing their arguments in the terms, “I don’t like freedom on this issue and here is why…” You pretty much never see that. I mean, gun control is an anti-freedom stance, but they never argue it that way. I think maybe that’s why they don’t understand how unpopular their stance is.
The same thing with the health care debate. The mandate is an anti-freedom stance, but they try to say they’re for more freedom by ending worries about health care, which is BS. One thing is freedom and one thing isn’t; it’s not debatable. Putting a gun to someone’s head and saying, “You must buy health insurance!” isn’t freedom and no one should pretend it is. It’s okay to take an anti-freedom stance, you just should frame it terms of why you think your ideas are better than liberty. And that will probably also help you understand why so many people don’t like your views, as the left always seems to get caught off guard by that.
Or, as Justice Scalia asked, after the government’s lawyer finished reciting all the problems that Obamacare was created to allegedly solve, “Why aren’t those problems that the Federal Government can address directly”.
The answer is: they are.
If the Democrats in Congress had been more honest, they could have built an alternate Obamacare that wouldn’t have run afoul of the Constitution. It would likely have set up a government system similar to Medicare, but for individuals and those with pre-existing conditions. The new system would by definition be very expensive so Democrats would have had to either 1) fudge the numbers so badly that not even the friendly MSM could obscure it, or 2) build a tax structure right away to dump a trillion dollars or so into it each year. In either case, everyone would have to pay more taxes — likely on the order of several thousand dollars. But once they were done, they’d have their government-run health insurance program that covered those relatively few Americans who want health insurance but can’t get it.
Of course, they would have had to sell America on the largest tax increase in the history of the planet to get it. Lots and lots of people would have asked them if there wasn’t some less expensive way to get the job done, perhaps a state-by-state option or a shift of tax incentives from employers to individuals. The questions would have been tough, fair, and in all likelihood hostile to a huge new bureaucracy and its attendant tax scheme, but the Democrats would have had to make a real argument and we could have have an honest discussion about our health insurance problems.
Obamacare was the Democratic attempt to avoid that discussion. The President hid behind a lie, almost completely unchallenged by the MSM, that if you like your health insurance plan, nothing in Obamacare would force you to change it. The Democrats promised us a fantasy world in which evil insurance companies deny care to sick children with glee could instantly become a bright and shining world where benevolent government officials granted nigh-unlimited care to anyone and everyone. They told us none of their plans would ultimately cost us money. In fact, they said Obamacare would actually save money.
They could have been honest with us. They could have come to us as men and women and talked with us, sought our counsel. They could have tried to convince us that the good of their ideas was worth all we would have to give up to get it. They did not. They lied and lied and lied some more. They called us ignorant and vicious and heartless and stupid. They pushed a bill none of them had read in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve. They fudged numbers so badly they ended up counting whole piles of money twice. They accused anyone who disagreed with them of wanting to kill old people and innocent children. They built a law their own lawyers can not ably defend. They resorted to threats and intimidation to get compliance (seriously, folks. Here’s the letter).
And then they acted surprised when we resisted their dishonest bullying.
But, as Frank wrote, their surprise isn’t an act at all. They genuinely do not understand that there are principled and intellectual disagreements with their philosophy. John Podhoretz nailed the problem in this article, which I recommend to you highly.
My hope for this election is that voters will so utterly repudiate progressivism that Democrats find themselves forced to reconsider how they do politics. Perhaps then we will see a left-wing party willing to understand the arguments its opponents make even if it doesn’t agree with them. Like Podhoretz said, the arguments are out there in abundance. Learning them would not be difficult at all.
Related posts:
- Wow, That's Some Expensive Health Care
- The Warrior and The Weasel
- The ObamaCare Cheat Sheet
- Why Are We Shocked That the President Broke A Promise He Had No Power to Keep?
Category: Health Care Craziness, Our New Democratic Overlords
About the Author (Author Profile)
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
This is one of the best and most articulate opposition pieces I’ve ever read. Reasonable, civilized tone, devoid of hyperbole. We need people like you writing speeches and policy papers for political candidates.
[...] and innocent children. They built a law their own lawyers can not ably defend.” – Jimmie Bise Jr., “They’re Always Shocked When We’re Not Stupid”Category: Barack Obama, Democrats, Health Care, Jimmie Bise Jr.Comments /*A Point of [...]
Bravo, sir – just so!
There is no doubt we need substantial reform of the health care system in this country to get a handle on costs. We are going to need to put forth market-based reforms to help deal with the problem when ObamaCare falls.
But it was obvious it was going to end up a train wreck when Obama allowed the Democratic Congress to write the bill. Congress can’t do those big bills, everybody wants something thrown in and by the time it’s all in there, the thing won’t get off the ground.
Better it be derailed at SCOTUS or in repeal – by the time the wheels come off in practice there will be real lives at stake, and lost.
The links are swapped in the sentence “They resorted to threats and intimidation to get compliance (seriously, folks. Here’s the letter).”
The problem is the progressives haven’t learned the lesson yet. Just yesterday when Obama was out stumping, he was STILL selling his pack of lies that the Republicans want to kill old people, want sick people to die in the streets, etc.
I don’t think they’ll EVER admit the other side is anything but stupid, evil, racists. Because, frankly, it’s all they’ve got. When you reject reason, when you insist that the other side is evil and refuses to act in a principled way, then you can’t simply turn around and admit that they simply have ideas you disagree with.
The left has spent decades demonizing the right. That won’t change any time soon, because they want their voting base to believe that the world runs on unicorn farts and fairy dust. Because they’ll never admit their schemes will significantly raise taxes on anyone… except the evil rich.
Jimmie, you and Podhoretz are right. They aren’t listening to our arguments. And they aren’t going to. Because they figure they don’t have to. After all, we’re the conservatives. We are the people who play by the rules. The rules that say debts have to be paid. The rules that say laws should be obeyed.
They don’t need no stinking rules. They’re already (see Blumenthal) putting out the idea that a decision against them by SCOTUS just means that SCOTUS should be ignored in the future. Don’t like the decision by a prosecutor that a shooting was so clearly self-defense that charges won’t be brought? Threaten to start riots, send out your own bounty hunters, and all those rule followers will cave. The Left is hungrier for power, more ruthless, and counts nothing as out of bounds, and that means they’ll win. And they’ll be shocked when someone fights back.
There is no example in history of rolling back a tyranny without at least the credible threat of violence. And these people aren’t going to believe any threat, because they aren’t listening. Actual violence, in large doses, will be the inevitable result. The alternative is surrender and chains.
[...] From the Sundries Shack: [...]
[...] been fun enjoying the schock and upset of proggies at the possibility that Obamacare could be smacked down. John Podhoretz summed up decades worth of [...]
“My hope for this election is that voters will so utterly repudiate progressivism that Democrats find themselves forced to reconsider how they do politics.”
Highly doubtful. It was only two years ago that Republicans handed the democrats a routing at the ballot box. Did they reconsider their message? No. On the contrary, they ramped their message up. Could there be a breaking point? Yes. However, this point will only be facilitated when the Accomplice Media stops carrying their water.
[...] Who would have thought? The article begins with win and gets better: “Anyway, this got me thinking, it sure would be [...]
“My hope for this election is that voters will . . . .”
We can’t just hope. We all have to get involved in some way to help Get Out The Vote. Convince the “I won’t vote for Romney” people to vote. Convince the 35% of Republicans who couldn’t seem to get their votes cast in 2008 to actually vote this time. The best way to do that is to become a Republican Party precinct committeeman where you live. If we conservatives flocked into our local Party committees, we’d be able to create a strong, conservative Republican Party, as about half of the precinct committeeman slots are vacant in the Party right now.
Go here to learn more: http://precinctproject.us and http://theprecinctproject.wordpress.com
Thank you,
Cold Warrior
[...] 7pm: The Sundries Shack linked with some good thoughts on how Democrats could’ve done Obamacare without [...]
[...] unnecessary and unfunny aside about George Bush. I thought him less funny after that.If you liked my post about the progressive cocoon, you’ll enjoy Ace’s post on the subject as well. He made a couple excellent points that [...]
[...] that the final verdict on the ObamaCare debacle was not written by a Georgetown professor, but by a blogger named Jimmie Bise Jr.:“They could have been honest with us. They could have come to us as men and women and talked [...]
a few days late to reading this, but bravo.
well said.
(and somewhat echoes a sentiment i expressed while listening to the President’s speech yesterday – that I’m amazed at how many people miss the parts of the speeches where their intelligence is repeatedly insulted.)
I admit, I’m a bit surprised that people seem to like the “I’m smarter than you, so I should be in charge” part of the President’s platform.