First there was the Death Star menacing humanity. Now, there is “the Death Panel.” Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin called President Barack Obama’s health plan “downright evil” on her Facebook page and warned American of Obama’s “death panel” that will hold the power of life or death over average Americans. Indeed, the Obama Death Panel appears to have their sights on little Trig. Presumably, the chair will be Palpatine (aka Darth Sidious), the Dark Lord of the Sith.
Palin states in her first statement after quitting her job as governor that “The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care . . .Such a system is downright evil.”
The following footage from one of the patient reviews of the Death Panel has been located:
The real news here is the disclosure that Palin’s page has 700,000 readers, making it the most popular comics page in the world.
For the full story, click here.
Everything is very open with a very clear clarification of the issues.
It was definitely informative. Your site is
extremely helpful. Thank you for sharing!
Incredible! This blog looks just like my old one!
It’s on a totally different subject but it has pretty much the same page layout and design. Outstanding choice of colors!
On August 9th, 2009 I wrote in this thread above:
One year later the evidence is in. Used car prices have risen sharply due to the supply destroyed by the Cash for Clunkers program, up to 30% in some cases. These prices increases will be paid by working families who can least afford it. The study was compiled by edmunds.com, and is beginning to be reported:
“If buying a used car is among your cost-cutting measures…be prepared to pay up to 30-percent more than you did last year.
It is a simple case of supply and demand.
Trouble is…there are fewer used cars.
The cash-for-clunkers program took a bunch off the market.
Plus, Edmunds Senior Editor Bill Visnick says 5-million fewer new cars were sold last year…which pares down the used car supply even more.
The used car models jumping the most in price include mid-size SUVs and mini-vans designed to carry around families.”
Perhaps between my typo (“health” for “healthy”) and nuance my message was not clear to the reader.
I am saying that a sense of community develops when one neighbor voluntarily helps another. I think most here would agree that this is a healthy dynamic. However, this dynamic is altered when one neighbor can use the power of government to compel his neighbor to support him. Generosity and appreciation devolve into hostility and entitlement.
In this manner government programs can have the unintended effect of undermining our sense of community.
puzzling writes: I would argue that a health dynamic exists when one neighbor voluntarily helps another of their own free will and underlying sense of responsibility.
okay great. when do you start medical school? let me know when you and your neighbors graduate, pass your boards and begin seeing patients.
other than this, there is not a single way any of my neighbors could begin to address each other’s health problems.
unless you mean that we pick up prescriptions for shut ins and make chicken soup.
puzzling writes: It sounds like we agree: neither you, I, or the government should be in the business of telling people what to buy. Yet these subsidies do exactly that!
and yet here YOU are doing just that.
so why not try this: sit down. shut up.
Puzzling:
interesting thoughts. The government does cause harm, intentionally or unintentionally. But it does some good to.
Mike,
You are correct that my argument on Cash for Clunkers is mostly an objection to the philosophy of the program rather than the scale of it.
Cash for Clunkers is bad precedent, just as the mortgage interest deductions contributed to the scale of home price speculation in years past. Just as crop subsidies destroyed family farms and created room for corporate agribusiness to mandate corn ethanol production. Just as centrally-set interest rates and government-backed student loans allowed the price of college education to soar. Government interference markets has both immediate and longer-term consequences that need to be considered.
On the idea of compassion, I would argue that a health dynamic exists when one neighbor voluntarily helps another of their own free will and underlying sense of responsibility. Resentment starts when one neighbor uses the power of government to coerce the neighbor to support him. I know which neighborhood I would rather live in.
GWLSM,
It sounds like we agree: neither you, I, or the government should be in the business of telling people what to buy. Yet these subsidies do exactly that!
The government is influencing the sales of autos, giving incentives for people to buy cars instead of other products or services. Those car payments will not be spent at the mall, or on manicures, or wine, … you name it. Jobs in these sectors will be lost because of the effect of Cash for Clunkers lowering spending in these areas. I’m not sure how else to explain it. The government is expanding its master planning role for the economy with moves like this one. If master planning worked, the old USSR would have been one of the most affluent countries on the planet!
You are right that much manufacturing has left the United States. As the US dollar weakens, the trade deficit continues, and job opportunities in other sectors disappear, we may yet see a return to manufacturing here in the United States. Being a “consumer” is not a job, although our government acts like that is proper role of good citizens. People are running out of money to buy things, and incentivizing them to buy cars only worsens that situation.
oh and btw, we don’t make tv’s in this country any more. we barely manufacture anything more sophisticated than a pizza because apple and sony and HP don’t want to pay american wages for manufacturing and assembly.
we do still make cars. this is the last frontier of american manufacturing… so Puzzling, don’t you think that is worth saving?
puzzling writes: eople can’t spend their paycheck twice. What they spend on these new cars will not be spent on other goods and services for several years, until the car and interest on the loan is paid off. Are we going to do a bailout for department stores? Television manufacturers? Carpet cleaners? Veterinarians? The government is simply diverting money from one sector of the economy to another.
you have stock in some TV company? own a carpet cleaning service?
who do you think you are trying to tell people where to spend their discretionary income? if its more advantageous for them to buy a nice new car that gets twice the mileage who are you to tell them they should not?
Just as a point of clarification rather than the “cash for clunkers” program I referenced Health Care, which is the real 800 pound gorilla in the fiscal responsibility room. A program costing less than 10 billion is about as important budget-wise as the latest unneeded weapons system going unnoticed in a bloated Pentagon Budget. Puzzling uses it as a mere rhetorical argument in his philosophy for much less government. In truth he is mainly rhetoric and supposition underlay with his own inability to feel compassion.
Gyges,
Oh I knew that, but CFC was just way over sold on the cost/benefit ratio.
“Not only are we consuming today what we will not consume tomorrow, but we are putting our children further into debt to pay for it.”
puzzling,
Were you protesting when GW Bush put us in deficit with a Trillion Dollar tax cut that benefited only the rich? Were you on the battle lines when an unnecessary and illegal Iraq War added another Trillion Dollars to the deficit? That you would fret so much over future generations paying for Health Care merely exposes the self centered nature of your positions. Under the current Health Care System many of our future generations may not have their parents and/or grandparents around to rear them. Why should you care though? You’ve obviously got yours, the Hell with all the rest. Yours is not an expression of sympathy for the progeny of fellows humans, merely a repitition of the old phrase “I got me mine.”
Gyges,
It is a failed tactic if you took the food from your children, and that’s exactly what’s happening here.
Not only are we consuming today what we will not consume tomorrow, but we are putting our children further into debt to pay for it. People can’t spend their paycheck twice. What they spend on these new cars will not be spent on other goods and services for several years, until the car and interest on the loan is paid off. Are we going to do a bailout for department stores? Television manufacturers? Carpet cleaners? Veterinarians? The government is simply diverting money from one sector of the economy to another.