Friday, August 14, 2009

republicans are obviously evil.

When did the republican party allow itself to be hijacked and lambasted into a corner? I'm just wondering.

We all hear so many negative things about republicans all the time that I think most of us start to believe them at some point. It's no wonder liberals hate us; they honestly believe that we hate gays, poor people, minorities, and so on. At least, that's what I think they think. I don't know, when I try to think like a liberal I get a headache. But do we really hate those groups of people, or do we just have a really different way of wanting to help them?

Whatever happened to the old adage "Give a man a fish, he eats for a day, but teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime"? As conservatives, we are totally all about teaching people to fish. Get out there. Be productive. Make a life for yourself. We know you can do it! But liberals are all like "Hey, well, maybe he can't learn to fish because his ancestors came from a landlocked area in Africa, and you're being insensitive to his cultural heritage by asking him to do something like that... you need to give him a lifetime supply of fish because you're a racist bastard."

I don't care if he came from a landlocked area of Africa. He can still get out there and learn to fish! That's the beauty of America... if he doesn't want to fish, he can go plow a field or something. I mean, there is an actual infinite amount of things that people can do in this country. But when you hold their hand and tell them that the big scary world is going to swallow them up, they're going to sit there terrified to get out there and do anything. Its no wonder that people have a hard time breaking out of poverty... but its possible. I've seen the middle of the country. You can make a VERY decent life for yourself working an "easy" job that requires little education and training. That exists. You might not know it, but it does.

But back to my original point: how did we become the obvious bad guys at every turn? We don't really hate anyone, we just have different ideas about how they should be helped. The central idea in that respect is that we want limited government, because we believe that big gov't is the problem. Its not that we don't want people to be helped, its that we don't want the "government" helping them. Government is one big, ugly, festering pile of inefficiency. It sucks, but its true. Virtually any gov't agency you go into, you'll find a bunch of people who work about 1/4 as hard as they should and they get paid about twice what they're worth. It's hard to fire people, so they don't have to worry about keeping their job (if you don't believe me, think about any university you've ever been to... they are a mess of bureaucracy and red tape, where its difficult if not impossible to get the help you need). In the free market, people compete for their jobs, and the best workers get rewarded. In the business world, the lazy people are not able to make a comfortable life for themselves the same way that they can if they work for the gov't.

So, take healthcare for instance. Libs want the gov't to take it over. Hey, that's a good idea, it will be free, and poor people will get the coverage they need. Umm, FALSE. Why would you take it out of the hands of the private business sector (remember, where good workers are rewarded and bad ones are not) and put it into a gov't system where its just going to become a hurdle jumping contest and money starts flying down the drain because you're paying all kinds of useless people do do the jobs that the private sector did twice as well. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

But, sadly, this is not the message that's being circulated. Republicans care about healthcare too... and we believe that the poor should be served through charity and volunteering, rather than by an inefficient, wasteful gov't system. It doesn't mean that we don't want them served... just that we think we have a better way of doing it.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Universal healthcare

This universal healthcare project of Obama's has me scared out of my mind. It's not that I don't want everyone to have affordable heatlhcare... I just don't think that socializing it is the best idea. I know its tough and that there are lots of people in this country without coverage (heck, at the moment, I'm one of them!) but, there's no such thing as a free lunch, people. Everything has a price. Are you sure you know what the price tag on this one is gonna be? It sounds nice and pretty now, but it definitely won't stay that way...

I was speaking with someone the other day who is from the Ukraine. She was sharing about how worried she is about the current state of the country, since she came to America to get away from an oppressive government. She said that the current state of affairs reminds her a lot of living in the Ukraine... and that its a familiar feeling that she doesn't like. She shared with me how the healthcare system worked in her country, and that she can't imagine that mistake would be replicated here. What people don't realize is that the "universal" system quickly becomes a cesspool of corruption and abuse. Since everyone technically has equal coverage, if you have a problem, you have to get at the back of the line. What if the line is too long? Well, then, the rich people start throwing some cash around, and they move up the line. If you have money, you get service. If you don't, good luck. Have fun at the back of the line. She said that one of the scariest things was that she had to worry about which doctor to bribe when she was giving birth to her children.. the nurses are telling her "okay, ready to push?" and she's saying "no, I don't know whose pocket to slip the cash into!" She said she was much more worried about who to bribe than she was about actually giving birth. How sad is that?! Do you really want that kind of system here?

Universal healthcare seems like an effort to level the playing field. Some pay more, some pay less, and all get the same care. Except the rich still get better care, because they're rich. You can't ever level that playing field... any attempt to bring down the rich is just going to backfire. Its so simple its ridiculous. How people can't see this is just unbelievable. I really don't get it.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

astroturfing til they're blue in the face.

Sometimes I wonder if politics is where I should be devoting most of my time. I can't get enough of it. Literally. When I have a second of free time I'm checking Drudge or HotAir or The Ace... they're just all so awesome. How did we live without internet? How did we know what was going on when we had to rely on the mainstream media for correct information? It blows my mind.

Lately, they've all been talking a lot about the healthcare fiasco, the cap and trade crisis, and the economy in general. What I don't understand is when having a differing opinion became prohibited? If you only paid attention to the mainstream media, you'd think republicans were rounding up people to brainwash them against anything Obama wants to do. But you know what the great thing is? They can tell you that we're fearmongering a bazillion times, and its still not going to make it true. Thinking that government run healthcare is NOT a good idea does not constitute fearmongering. I sense some projection happening here....

What's all this about, anyway? You have your filibuster proof majority... all the convenient little votes you need in order to make the healthcare or cap and trade things happen. You don't need a single republican vote to implement those horrific changes to our country. So why come after us? If you think healthcare and cap and trade are such great, bulletproof ideas, then implement them. Do it. No one is stopping you. Oh, you don't like that idea? Little scared that it might crash and burn and it would take two generations for anyone to vote democrat again? That makes more sense. So let me get this straight... you want us to cover you in case it all goes to hell. You want to be able to shift the blame to somebody. Yeah, how about no.

We don't like your healthcare plan. We don't believe you when you say that we can keep our same coverage... because see, thats not how the free market works. Why would people pay for private coverage when the gov't is going to give it to them for free? So what will the private insurers do when they have less people paying them to be insured? Maybe... their prices will go up? So then how many people will be able to keep their plan and their doctor? And how is our broke gov't going to pay for all of that anyway? Magic money?? Haaa... yeah right.

I don't know about you, but I'm not particularly fond of the DMV. The thought of that being applied to my doctor is just down right frightening. So the next time you think that its only crazy, fearmongering right wingers who oppose the dictator, oops, i mean the president's health care plan, think again. Its pretty much anyone who isn't socialist.