"Please stop fixing things!"

At Regie's Blog we read about his father's heart attack.

At 8:30 PM my father was being rushed to the hospital with a heart attack. By 11:30 PM he was opening his eyes in the recovery room, feeling semi-normal. The fresh stent they put in his one blocked artery got his blood flowing correctly again. And as of this afternoon, he is home and living without any restrictions.

...I know we like to trash the healthcare system here in America. But whatever system has allowed us to go from major open heart surgery to a simple, two-hour procedure, followed by joking and laughing in the recovery room and a discharge from the hospital in less than 48 hours – in less than a generation – is doing something right. And I, for one, am excited to see where it goes from here.

...For my wife and me, the best option is actually to not get insurance at all and pay the fine.

“Why,” you may ask, “would a hotshot songwriter, who has written over 20 number one songs, broken chart records and earned millions of dollars not be able to afford health insurance?”

The answer? As it turns out, that same government that messes with and tinkers around with healthcare, COMPLETELY CONTROLS my profession. The songwriting trade is the ONLY trade in American history that has always been completely regulated and controlled by Congress and the courts. And so, me and my songwriter brothers and sisters are losing income, losing houses, losing our life savings and losing our minds, because technology has blown past the government’s ability to keep up.

...And so, now I can’t afford the healthcare THEY fixed, because THEY fixed my profession. If I could tell the government one thing it would be this: PLEASE STOP FIXING THINGS.

...One day people might begin to realize that the reason the government hasn’t been able to fix their particular problem is because, well, maybe …just maybe …the government caused it in the first place. Even if they had the best of intentions.

The best thing they could do for songwriters is write a bill that says:

1. This bill nullifies all other copyright law preceding it.

2. Content creators own their work outright and have full and free rights to negotiate rates on any and all media formats.

3. We will enforce whatever agreements are entered into by all parties, provided ALL parties have been allowed to sit at the negotiation table.

Bye …we’re now out of the songwriting business!

Take it from a songwriter. We know first hand.

Read more here.

"I would end ideological subversion!"

"The torpor of the West derives in part from the annexation by government of most of the core functions of adulthood." "A dependence on mass immigration is a sign of structural defect." Peter Robinson's 2010 interview of Mark Steyn is as relevant today as it was in 2010.

"Demanding that the government get very involved in women's bodies."

Ann Althouse disputes the claim of the women marchers that they want the government to go "boy bye."

Here's a list of the Women's March "unity principles," and it is not a "boy, bye" to the government. It's demanding that the government get very involved in women's bodies:

We do not accept any federal, state or local rollbacks, cuts or restrictions on our ability to access quality reproductive healthcare services, birth control, HIV/AIDS care and prevention, or medically accurate sexuality education. This means open access to safe, legal, affordable abortion and birth control for all people, regardless of income, location or education.
It's more of a "hi" than a "bye" — more of a hi, get in here and never go away.

Read more here.

"I'll fight for you!"

The federal government now thinks it is an equal partner with parents in raising your kids

Dave Blount writes at Moonbattery,

As Shrillary likes to shriek, it takes a village to raise a child. That is to say, it takes a bloated, intrusive, authoritarian federal bureaucracy. But don’t worry, parents — for now Big Government regards you as equal partners in the raising of your children:

The federal government is seeking to create a new bureaucracy that would intervene in family life and could even see state-appointed monitors conduct routine home visits to assess a child’s well-being.

The U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has published a draft document which outlines a plan that will treat families as “equal partners” in the raising of children, opening the door for government intrusion at all levels.

The paper describes how government employees will intervene to provide, “monitoring goals for the children at home and the classroom,” and that if parents are failing to meet the standards set, “evidence-based parenting interventions” will be made to, “ensure that children’s social-emotional and behavioral needs are met.”
The document reveals how the state will help oversee, “constant monitoring and communication regarding children’s social-emotional and behavioral health.”

No doubt this will also apply to ideological health, so advise Junior not to express any skepticism regarding the global warming hoax, the iniquity of white people, the peacefulness of Islam, etc. in front of authorities or he could end up an orphan.

The assault on the family is also taking place through language:
The document also extends the understanding of the word “family,” to include, “all the people who play a role in the child’s life,” a definition that could include not only teachers but government monitors.
Be sure to update your copy of the Newspeak dictionary accordingly.

Remember comrades, children do not belong to their parents, but to the “community,” i.e., the State.
- See more at: http://moonbattery.com/?p=68821#sthash.nssXzYlp.dpuf

Defending big government, no matter what it does

Timothy Carney writes at aei.org,

When Bernie Sanders, President Obama, or the New York Times editorial page advocate big government, it’s usually on the premise that big government is needed to protect the powerless. But look carefully, and the pattern becomes clearer. When big government oppresses the powerless, the Left is equally likely to defend big government.

He gives many examples here.

Bureaucratic negligence

Victor Davis Hanson writes,

...The Environmental Protection Agency spilled 3 million gallons of toxic sludge into a tributary of the Animas River in Colorado. The stinky yellow flume of old mine waste — rife with cancer-causing mercury and arsenic — threatens to pollute the drinking and recreational water of three states.

Had a private oil company acted so incompetently and negligently, it would have been fined billions of dollars by the same EPA. The company’s top executives might have been subject to criminal prosecutions. The business’s reputation would have been tarnished for years. Just ask BP officials what the Obama administration did to the corporation after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico.

But who will police the green police at the EPA?

When EPA administrator Gina McCarthy promises that the agency will take “full responsibility,” what does that tired banality mean? Will she resign? Will bureaucrats responsible for the toxic spill face fines and jail sentences? Will residents be able to sue McCarthy and her subordinates for diminishing their quality of life? Will the Sierra Club and the Environmental Defense Fund rush to federal court to file briefs?

Consider the vast bureaucracy of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Is it culpable for knowingly not enforcing immigration law and thus allowing some undocumented immigrants to commit violent crimes?

In cases where innocent Americans are killed by undocumented immigrants with long histories of felonies and deportations — such as the recent killing of Kate Steinle in San Francisco — can the victims’ families sue ICE or sanctuary cities for either releasing or hosting criminals who were residing in the U.S. illegally?

In our litigious society in which plaintiffs sue fast-food franchises for serving excessively hot coffee, why do government bureaucrats escape culpability when the innocent die or are injured as a result of bureaucratic negligence?

When the IRS hounds citizens about their taxes, can Americans inform the agency that they are invoking the Fifth Amendment and refusing to answer out of fear of self-incrimination — and expect to face no criminal consequences?

No? Why, then, was high-ranking IRS official Lois Lerner able to sign off on the excessive scrutiny of some conservative nonprofit groups, lie about it, and then invoke the Fifth — without any legal consequences?

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton likely broke a number of federal laws while secretary of state in using a private e-mail server at her home to conduct both private and public business. One, she kept documents containing classified information at an unauthorized location. Two, she either destroyed or removed official communications entrusted to her as a public servant. Three, she was legally responsible for the loss of information involving national defense. Four, she likely destroyed documents to block federal agencies’ examination of them.

So far, Clinton has escaped any consequences.

What is the common denominator in these government scandals — as well as the recent scandals involving the needless deaths of veterans waiting for care at Veterans’ Health Administration facilities, the sex and booze escapades of Secret Service agents, the Las Vegas junketing at the General Services Administration, the snooping at the National Security Agency, and the lack of cyber-security at Office of Personnel Management?

The bigger that government gets, the more employees who are hired, and the more unaccountable power that accrues to bureaucracies, the more government takes on a life of its own. Public grandees resemble Hollywood’s out-of-control androids or Frankenstein monsters that turn on their creators — in these cases, us, the taxpayers.

...Under the Obama administration, there is also a more disturbing trend: the equation of big government with social justice and hostility to private enterprise. If the EPA and other federal agencies are felt to be on the “right side” of fairness and equality, then why object when their means to supposedly noble ends violate or neglect the law?

Big government has become the new Terminator, at war with those who created it, who fund it — and who must obey it.

Read more here.

Government picking winners and losers

Does the FCC want some broadcast television stations to go dark, while allowing cable and satellite operators to continue to thrive? Fred Campbell writes,

A big broadcast selloff occurred after the FCC issued a public notice on March 12 announcing new standards for reviewing broadcast transactions. Analysts have since determined that limiting television sharing agreements would weaken the over-the-air television market, especially in smaller markets.

Read more here.

Envy is getting us nowhere

John Tamney writes,

If China can rebound from Mao, the U.S. can and will surely rebound from Obama.

To be blunt, if the Republicans can't field a candidate in 2016 to beat Hillary Clinton and all her baggage, or another Democratic Party candidate carrying the heavy weight of President Obama's numerous failings on his or her shoulders, they'll only have themselves to blame. Logic dictates a Republican victory in light of Obama's implosion, and if not, a logical answer for why will be the ongoing failure on the part of the GOP to look in the mirror, and wake up to the fact that the electorate got it right in firing an aimless, increasingly statist, and largely anti-growth party in 2006 and 2008.

The late great free-market columnist Warren Brookes long ago wrote that envy "is the single most impoverishing attitude of thought." The Republicans thankfully aren't the Party of envy as their reliably dense competitors in the Democratic Party are, but as evidenced by all their wailing about President Obama and Hillary Clinton, their thinking is similarly impoverishing. Rather than spending so much time obsessing about their opponents, and elevating them in the process, they should rejoice in their failures that are discrediting big government with each passing day, and that will reward the Republicans if they develop a clue about how economies grow.

Thanks to Webutante for reposting Mr. Tamney's provocative post.

Can your government bestow on you freedom?

What is freedom? Barack Obama gave a speech about it the other day to Democrats. GeoffB comments at Protein Wisdom:

During his speech to Democrats on Friday evening, President Obama pointed out that it was the Democrats, not Republicans that should own the word “freedom.”

“As Democrats, we’ve let the other side define the word ‘freedom’ for too long,”
[...]
“Freedom is the peace of mind of knowing that if you got sick, you won’t lose everything,”… “Freedom is the ability to change jobs and start a new business, chase a new idea without fear of losing your health insurance.”
[...]
“Freedom is signing for that new home and knowing it can’t be taken from you because you actually understand what you’re signing,” … “Freedom is getting that new credit card and knowing the stakes and understanding how you’re going to manage it; enrolling in college and knowing what you’ll owe once you graduate.”
[...]
“Freedom is the knowledge that your future in this country is secure; you’re not going to be treated like a second-class person once we fix our broken immigration system. That’s freedom,”
[...]
“Freedom is the ability to go into a store or a restaurant without the fear that you’d be refused service because of who you are or who you love,”
[...]
“So we’re not ceding that word,” Obama said…

Freedom as a “positive right” which government will bestow on you, not that negative one that you have from nature or nature’s god.

The iron triangle of modern liberalism

Gaghdad Bob points out that the left consists of an aristocracy that did not exist at the time of the founding of America: Big Media, Big Government, and Big Stupid (academia).

The bottom line is that aristocracy is a permanent temptation for the human being. As is its mirror image, democracy, AKA mob rule. Since these represent permanent possibilities, the founders built them into the system, with the executive branch being an expression of royalist tendencies, the senate for the contemplative and slow-to-change aristocratic trend, and the house for the hotheaded and mercurial rabble.

The history of liberalism shows that liberals are principled, loudmouthed authoritarians, or principled, loudmouthed anti-authoritarians, depending upon who is in charge. When it was Bush, they were reactionary anti-authoritarians. Now they are reactionary authoritarians (with a few principled exceptions).

Allied with this is the left's insistence upon equality unless equal treatment results in inequality, in which case they are all for unequal treatment. Not enough female firemen or marines? Okay, let 'em take the test. Oops! Even a strapping hulk like Michelle Obama can't pass it. Therefore, the law must treat men and women differently. Likewise, not enough blacks in law school? Easy. Just systematically treat them as inferiors.

The point is, just as the left is authoritarian or rebellious, depending upon whether they are in or out of power, they are egalitarian or discriminatory, depending upon how it effects one of their client groups, i.e., how it redounds to their power.

Big Media, Big Government, and Big Stupid compose

the iron triangle of the left, replacing the triangle intended by the framers. Looked at in this way, academia is the priesthood/church, the state is royalty, and old media is the elite/aristocracy.

Which is why Obama was so tough to defeat, what with (to paraphrase Siegel) his TV looks, his radio voice, his phony preacher's cadences, and his pseudo-intellectualism. He is the total package, three frauds in One. Thus, he is the three they've been waiting for since JFK, who also had the media looks, the royalist glow, and the superfical, liberal-approved intellectualism.

Taxpayers to our rescue!

"Marijuana affects reaction time, short-term memory, hand-eye coordination, concentration and perception of time and distance." So says Darrell Lingk, director of Colorado's Office of Transportation Safety. Just this weekend, the Colorado State Patrol said a "23-year-old suburban Denver man was arrested and charged with driving under the influence of drugs after he crashed into two state patrol cruisers that were stopped on a highway." He was high on marijuana.

Never fear, though. You, the taxpayer, are funding a $430,000 ad program starting in March to tell us Coloradans not to drive stoned.