The high price of scrapping Obamacare

[trish]

>>>Racism?

Of course I'm racist against Obama . . .

. . . but it's the white part of him I detest — the Marxist part — not the black part.

No, the black part be cool.

(Sigh. Obamabots always forget that the President's mother was white.)

Bullshit! This doesn't even address the issue.

...because they proved they were already stupid enough to vote for Hussein Obama...

Why fling "Hussein" out there as if it were an insult? It's not a puzzle. Your tactic is to irrationally rally anti-Islamic and racist prejudices against affordable health care. Why? Because any sleezy method you can think of to support your cause, from cherry picking statistics to exploiting prejudices and hatreds, is fair game, right?

[broncofan]

Yeah I don't see how it helps debate to show that one woman thinks Obama is going to give her a phone, and then mimicking her dialect and grammar. Does it show that some people support Obama's health program for the wrong reason? Should we post videos of Republicans threatening doctors in front of abortion clinics, yelling about the President being a Muslim (redundant in light of PC's insinuations), a Communist, or from Kenya? Are any of these falsehoods proper grounds for opposing whatever he does?

PaulClifford was indeed dipping his toes in the waters of racism, taking off the ku klux clan training wheels on his bicycle and trying to get serious. I'm glad you called him on it Trish.

[paulclifford]

>>>I don't see how it helps debate to show that one woman thinks Obama is going to give her a phone

She didn't simply think it. The "Lifeline Assistance" and "Lifeline Link-Up" phone programs are real, and she really did get a phone at taxpayer expense. The programs pre-date "The One's" arrival in the White House, but they literally exploded under his administration. I mentioned the famous "Obamaphone Lady" not because she was mistaken about getting a free phone, but to highlight a moral stance that is popular today and defended by spokespeople on the Far Utopian Left: "I need, I want, I deserve, THEREFORE my neighbor has to provide it for me."

That's the same moral stance underpinning socialized healthcare in its hard form (NHS) or its soft form (Obamacare).

>>>Should we post videos of Republicans threatening doctors in front of abortion clinics

I have no problem with that. Just be sure to post videos of abortion butcher Dr. Gosnell in Philadelphia, too. Let's hear women talk about his "procedures" of gently snipping the spines of late-term fetuses. He'll go to prison for a long time for that little "public service."

You might also post videos of the long-gone Margaret Sanger, who founded "Planned Parenthood" originally as a eugenics society for the sake of ensuring that blacks didn't procreate. In her autobiography, she referred to them as "human weeds."

>>>the President being a Muslim (redundant in light of PC's insinuations)

Insinuations? Sorry, but POTUS was the one who insisted on using his middle name, "Hussien", during his first inauguration and swearing-in. It didn't "leak" out from the right-wing press. He wants everyone to know that his middle name is Hussein by using it at a public event like a sweating-in? Fine. that means we-the-people get to use his middle name, too, when mentioning him. Obviously, he wants that. You're actually being disrespectful by NOT using it.

That Barry grew up for several years in Indonesia (after being adopted by his mom's 2nd husband, Lolo Soetoro, a native Indonesian and a Muslim) and that 1) it is customary for the children to be Muslim if dad is Muslim, especially in a country with a great majority Muslim population, and 2) he attended public school in Jakarta, and his admission form (available online) states that his religion is "Islam" — all of this is irrelevant, of course. After all, Barack (formerly, Barry) spent 20 years in a hate-church pastored by that wingnut racist, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, so that proves he is not (and never was) Muslim.

(this is why I love the left. It's not that they won't or can't "connect the dots"; it's that they go into deep denial-mode over the very existence of dots. "Dots? What dots? I don't see any dots? I only acknowledge the existence of dots when Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Markos Melitos, NPR, PBS, WBAI, Paul Krugman, or The New York Times tell me there are dots.")

>>>a Communist

I doubt he's a communist but he's certainly a Marxist. There's overlap between the two but they're not the same thing. In any case, Obama was a member of a Marxist political party in Illinois called "The New Party" before and during the time he was a state senator. The New Party's newsletter even openly congratulated "our member", Barack Obama, for having won the seat. It's available online — and if it was removed (as much embarrassing information regarding "The One's" past has), you can check "archive.org."

>>>or from Kenya

No, of course not! He was born in Hawaii, just as he insists, and as his completely legitimate online PDF of his birth certificate proves beyond any reasonable doubt! Electronic documents like PDFs can't be forged, we all know that! Of course, there's no record of his Hawaiian birth at either of the major hospitals there, but who cares? And there's still the mystery of why the press release for his first exercise in serious narcissism, an autobiography titled "Dreams From My Father", issued by the publisher, claims that this young, brilliant, author — president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review — "was born in Kenya, and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii." And when you look at the application for submitting works to the publisher, it requires that the author either write his own biographical paragraph, or at least supply factual information that an editor can then stitch together into a biographical paragraph. Hmmm. I wonder who supplied the data that Obama was born in Kenya if not the young Barack himself? Why would an editor simply invent it? The publishers originally claimed it was simply an error by the original editor . . . yet, according to "archive.org" which has all iterations of the biographical paragraph until 2007, that "uncorrected" paragraph remained, edition after edition. And why did that paragraph expunge the statement that he had been born in Kenya only after 2007? Because that was when senator Obama declared his presidential aspirations, and he (as well as his handlers) knew that admitting to Kenyan birth would automatically invalidate his run, as per the Constitutional requirement that POTUS be a "natural born citizen" of the US.

Nothing to see here, folks. No dots to connect. If Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews don't believe there's anything weird (if not downright suspicious), then I believe them!

>>>Are any of these falsehoods proper grounds for opposing whatever he does?

What falsehoods? Fact: He belonged to a Marxist party as a state senator; Fact: his own biographical sketch for his own book claims he was born in Kenya — a sketch that persisted through many iterations (including other text changes in the biographical information) and printings of his autobiography, and which wasn't expunged until 2007 when he declared his intention to run for POTUS.

You're taking the same attitude toward facts as NHS supporters take toward costs: if we simply don't look at them, and don't acknowledge their existence, we can pretend they don't exist. Then when others challenge our position by reminding us of the existence of facts and costs, we can instead impugn their motives, rather than debate their arguments. We can claim those who oppose Obama are simply "racist" (even if they greatly admire Shelby Steele, Walter Williams, Larry Elder, Thomas Sowell, Dr. Benjamin Carson, etc., and would support any one of them for public office), and those who oppose socialized healthcare are simply "heartless" and don't want "affordable healthcare" (even if they point out the great inequities under socialism, and the superiority — in terms of cost, access, and quality — of freedom).

[Stavros]

[QUOTE=paulclifford;1376860]
I mentioned the famous "Obamaphone Lady" not because she was mistaken about getting a free phone, but to highlight a moral stance that is popular today and defended by spokespeople on the Far Utopian Left: "I need, I want, I deserve, THEREFORE my neighbor has to provide it for me."

That's the same moral stance underpinning socialized healthcare in its hard form (NHS) or its soft form (Obamacare).
--What is 'socialized healthcare in its hard form (NHS)'?? The NHS is available to all, even those who have private health insurance plans or work for companies that provide their employees with one -and unless you can find the evidence, who in the UK wants a service paid for from salaries, to be abolished and replaced by a wholly private service? I don't think it would catch on here.
We need, we deserve, we share the burden of the costs.

That Barry grew up for several years in Indonesia (after being adopted by his mom's 2nd husband, Lolo Soetoro, a native Indonesian and a Muslim) and that 1) it is customary for the children to be Muslim if dad is Muslim, especially in a country with a great majority Muslim population, and 2) he attended public school in Jakarta, and his admission form (available online) states that his religion is "Islam" — all of this is irrelevant, of course. After all, Barack (formerly, Barry) spent 20 years in a hate-church pastored by that wingnut racist, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, so that proves he is not (and never was) Muslim.
--Indonesia then and now has a more relaxed attititude to Islam than exists in your one-size-fits-all concept of it patented perhaps in Saudi Arabia -Obama's mother married Lolo in Hawaii, as often happens with inter-faith and multinational marriages, which are not forbidden under Indonesian law--the co-existence of different religious communities in Indonesia has made the law on marriage controversial and often poorly drafted as it has attempted to satisfy Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and pagans, etc. Obama went to a Roman Catholic school -it's even called St Francis of Assisi in case you don't get the connection and Obama prayed with the other Catholics as a Christian.

I doubt he's a communist but he's certainly a Marxist. There's overlap between the two but they're not the same thing. In any case, Obama was a member of a Marxist political party in Illinois called "The New Party" before and during the time he was a state senator. The New Party's newsletter even openly congratulated "our member", Barack Obama, for having won the seat. It's available online — and if it was removed (as much embarrassing information regarding "The One's" past has), you can check "archive.org."
--The New Party was not a Marxist party, most of its rank and file were drawn from community activist groups which were in part a legacy of the radical action that was pioneered in Chicago by Saul Alinsky, a man ridiculed by Marxists. If you really think Obama is a Marxist, I would be fascinated to read your definition of Marxism. Or not.

You're taking the same attitude toward facts as NHS supporters take toward costs: if we simply don't look at them, and don't acknowledge their existence, we can pretend they don't exist. Then when others challenge our position by reminding us of the existence of facts and costs, we can instead impugn their motives, rather than debate their arguments.
--In my other posts I have again and again acknowledged the costs of the NHS, not least because I paid into it -your problem is that you never clearly state your own argument, which is that it is morally wrong for people as a collective to fund healthcare, you believe the national health service should be replaced by private health insurance which individuals choose and pay for -I have no quarrel with your free market utopian idealism, I can argue that it doesn't do what it says on the tin, but I don't know if you really are up to the argument bit. After all, we had private health before the NHS was created -and it didn't meet the needs of the people.

One of the many curious lacuna in your perception of Obama is that you pay no attention to the links that both his father and mother had to the CIA, nor to the implication that Obama himself worked for the CIA in the 1980s. Even a nutcase like Alex Jones is now wondering if he was wrong all along. I can't find the link but there was an interesting discussion on Obama senior at an important moment in Kenyan history though I suspect it would pass you by. Would it be surprising, shocking, a major conspiracy to discover that a US President had links to the CIA? Whatever next, that a British Prime Minister and half his cabinet graduated from Oxford?

[paulclifford]

>>>What is 'socialized healthcare in its hard form (NHS)'??

It means a "single-payer" system, as opposed to the "thin-end-of-the-wedge" strategy of Obamacare. They're all based on "I want it; you pay for it."

>>>I don't think it would catch on here.

Soviet peasants said exactly the same thing about bread production. ("You want to privatize ownership of farmland? Of wheat cultivation? Of harvesting? Milling? Baking? You're crazy! If we had that system, only the rich would have bread!") Right. And yet everyone in the US can buy all the bread, crackers, cakes, cookies, muffins, cupcakes, etc., he wants — from low-cost to high-cost and anything in between — yet there's no "Bread Czar" in charge of production and distribution of bread.

Guess what? The same systemic organization that works so seamlessly with bread could also work with healthcare, if only government got out of the way. And when government gets in the way even in bread production, you have the situation the USSR had for 60 years: severe shortages, even in Ukraine, which has some of the richest agricultural soil in the world.]

Re: the New Party

http://www.nationalreview.com/articl.../stanley-kurtz

OCTOBER 30, 2008 9:40 AM
Life of the New Party
A redistributionist success story.
By Stanley Kurtz

A variety of evidence now indicates, with a high degree of likelihood, that Barack Obama was a member of the far-left New Party, which also endorsed him in his first run for the Illinois state senate in 1996. Obama’s New party ties graphically illustrate the connection between his troubling “associations” and the core economic issues of the presidential campaign. The New Party’s agenda was radically redistributionist. More important, the New Party’s specific strategy for achieving its economic goals precisely paralleled Obama’s now infamous 2001 radio remarks on “major redistributive change.” So let’s take a tour of New Party ideology, after which we can explore the ever-increasing evidence that Obama himself was in fact a New Party member.

Left of Liberal

Obama’s New Party-endorsed first run for office began in late 1995. So it’s of interest that New Party co-founder Joel Rogers published an essay describing the Left’s need for the New Party in the March/April 1995 issue of The New Left Review. (The New Left Review, can fairly be described as a prestigious outlet for writing that is largely Marxist/Socialist in content.) Since the revelation of Obama’s New Party ties, Rogers has striven to paint his outlook as mainstream and moderate. Yet this 1995 article, contemporaneous with Obama’s run for office as a New Party-endorsed candidate, gives the lie to that claim.

It’s notable that New Party supporter and left-extremist Noam Chomsky is one of the few readers thanked in Rogers’s acknowledgments. From there, Rogers quickly links his political prescription to the claim that there are fundamental problems in the way American society is structured. Above all, Rogers expresses disdain for liberals, who characteristically refuse to take steps to gain “social control of the economy” or to put “serious constraints on capital.” Mere liberals (embodied for Rogers by Bill Clinton) are corrupt tools of “unconstrained capitalism.”

Incremental Socialism?
Does this make Rogers’s a socialist? Arguably, yes. But the answer to that question is not a simple one. Rogers hopes to avoid the socialist label. Like many on the far left, he couches his ultimate goals in euphemism and convoluted language. So instead of calling for socialism, Rogers demands “economic democracy.” That sort of euphemism produces locutions that would strike most Americans as odd: “The biggest ‘rule’ and barrier to democracy, of course, is capitalism–private ownership of the means of production…and what follows does not seek to change that rule directly.” In this passage, the word “democracy,” serves as a virtual synonym for socialism, to the point where capitalism itself is described as the greatest “barrier to democracy.” What Rogers seems to want to say here is that the entire capitalist system is blocking his ultimate socialist goal. But of course he can’t afford to say that out loud. So instead he simply calls capitalism “undemocratic.” Yet in the same phrase, Rogers notes that his strategy for undermining capitalism is long-term and indirect (“what follows does not seek to change that rule [i.e. capitalism] directly”).

Etc. Sounds Marxist to me.

Also see:

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/g...asp?grpid=7434

Co-founded in 1992 by Daniel Cantor (a former staffer for Jesse Jackson's 1988 presidential campaign) and Joel Rogers, the New Party (NP) was a socialist political coalition whose objective was to endorse and elect leftist public officials -- most often Democrats. Cantor and Rogers wanted NP to be “an explicitly social democratic organization, with an ideology roughly like that of Northern European (e.g., Swedish) labor movements.” NP's short-term goal was to move the Democratic Party leftward, thereby setting the stage for the eventual rise of a new socialist third party. According to author Stanley Kurtz, NP "is best understood as an attempt to build a mass-based political front for a largely socialist party leadership." Around the time of NP's founding, Joel Rogers himself penned a piece in the Marxist journal New Left Review, wherein he made it clear that the organization was a socialist enterprise at its core.

The initial strategic meetings to plan the New Party were held in Joel Rogers' Madison, Wisconsin home in the very early 1990s. Present at these gatherings were Rogers and his wife Sarah Siskind; Harriet Barlow (who would later become an IPS board member); Dan Cantor; Steve Cobble (affiliated with the Institute for Policy Studies, or IPS); Barbara Dudley (then-executive director of Greenpeace); ACORN leaders Jon Kest, Steven Kest, Zach Polett, and Wade Rathke; and Sandy Morales Pope (of the Teamsters union).

In the fall of 1994, a New Party publication listed more than 100 activists “who are building the NP.” Of these, fourteen were affiliated with the IPS, twelve with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), six with the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, and five with ACORN. Notable names among the list of 100+ were John Cavanagh, Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, Randall Forsberg, Maude Hurd, Manning Marable, Frances Fox Piven, Zach Polett, Wade Rathke, Mark Ritchie, Joel Rogers, Gloria Steinem, Cornel West, Quentin Young, and Howard Zinn.

The New Party's influential Chicago chapter began to coalesce in January 1995. Its members consisted mainly of individuals associated with ACORN, DSA, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and the Committees of Correspondence.

NP also had a front group called Progressive Chicago, whose purpose was to identify candidates whose agendas the New Party and its sympathizers might support.

NP's modus operandi featured the political strategy of “electoral fusion,” where it would nominate, for various political offices, candidates from other parties (usually Democrats), thereby enabling each of those candidates to occupy more than one ballot line in the voting booth. By so doing, NP often was able to influence candidates' political platforms. (Fusion of this type is today permitted in eight states -- Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Mississippi, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, and Vermont -- but is common only in New York.) NP's overriding goal was to elect leftist Democrats rather than third-party candidates, as evidenced by a 1994 New Party Executive Committee announcement that said: "Joining the New Party doesn't end your relationship with the Democrats, it changes it."

Though Illinois was not one of the states that permitted electoral fusion, in 1995 the political neophyte Barack Obama nonetheless sought NP's endorsement for his 1996 state senate run. He was successful in obtaining that endorsement, and he used a number of NP volunteers as campaign workers. By 1996, Obama himself had become a member of the New Party. (Obama also had been a prominent member of the aforementioned NP front group, Progressive Chicago.) A key figure in NP's Chicago chapter was Carl Davidson, a Marxist who became one of Obama's earliest political supporters.

Etc.

Regarding Obama's possible connections to the CIA, I'm aware of the allegations but hold off judgment for now. In any case, even if true, what makes you think the CIA is some great supporter of the Constitution and defender of individual rights? That whole apparatus — CIA, NSA, etc. — is clearly out of control, and has been for a long time.

[paulclifford]

More on Obama and the New Party:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/NewParty117-thumb.jpg

"October 1996 Update:

New Party members are busy knocking on doors, hammering down lawn signs, and phoning voters to support NP candidates this fall. Here are some of our key races:

Illinois: Three NP-members won Democratic primaries last Spring and face off against Republican opponents on election day: Danny Davis (U.S. House), Barack Obama (State Senate) and Patricia Martin (Cook County Judiciary).

Also see a blurb from "Democratic Socialists":

http://www.powerlineblog.com/Democra...ialists212.jpg

"Barack Obama, victor in the 13th State Senate District, encouraged NPers to join in his task forces on Voter Education and Voter Registration."

A key part of his "task force" on voter registration was a group called ACORN, which engaged in fraudulent voter registration. ACORN was finally exposed when a libertarian "activist/videographer" performed a "sting" operation at one of its branches in Brooklyn, NY:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/b...CcxLZhAEehLhmL

The scandal surrounding the left-wing activist organization ACORN has spread to New York, with employees at its Brooklyn office caught on video helping supposed ladies of the night get loans for their dream houses of ill repute.

Rather than reminding the women that prostitution is dangerous and illegal and advising them to change their careers, counselors at the social-services group shockingly offer suggestions on how they can launder their earnings.

"Honesty is not going to get you the house," a loan counselor at the offices told two activists posing as a mortgage-seeking pimp and prostitute

.

There are videos on YouTube of Obama speaking before ACORN, and telling them what an important part they will play in his upcoming policies as POTUS.

[Prospero]

The Marxist part of Obama... good grief Clifford. You are a veritable Goebbels aren't you. Eloquent screeds of right wing piffle.

[Stavros]

[QUOTE=paulclifford;1376912]
>>>What is 'socialized healthcare in its hard form (NHS)'??

It means a "single-payer" system, as opposed to the "thin-end-of-the-wedge" strategy of Obamacare. They're all based on "I want it; you pay for it."
--As I have told you, the NHS isn't free, we pay for it; but we don't hand people a bill for treatment when they are about to leave hospital because the costs are paid incrementally month by month. It's not that hard to understand.

>>>I don't think it would catch on here.
peasants said exactly the same thing about bread production. ("You want to privatize ownership of farmland? Of wheat cultivation? Of harvesting? Milling? Baking? You're crazy! If we had that system, only the rich would have bread!") Right. And yet everyone in the US can buy all the bread, crackers, cakes, cookies, muffins, cupcakes, etc., he wants — from low-cost to high-cost and anything in between — yet there's no "Bread Czar" in charge of production and distribution of bread.
--If farmers in the USA had to operate in a free market you would be importing your bread from Canada, because the farms growing wheat would collapse: the agricultural sector in the USA receives $20bn worth of subsidies, which probably means your farmers are more closely tied to the central government than Igor and Ivan in the now defunct USSR.

Re: the New Party Etc. Sounds Marxist to me.
It would appear that you know little about radical politics in the USA, most of which have been organised around community-based groups and which, in the ideological sense of the terms, have been both 'left' and right' if you accept that the Ku Klux Klan was a radical organisation. It suits people of a particular political persuasion to characterise this or that group as 'far left' which is in reality a meaningless phrase, and not just in the USA. As you should know, there have always been community-based groups which organised protest meetings, voter registration and campaigns, all of which are legal, and allowed under your Constitution -indeed, one of the strengths of Alinsky's activities in Chicago was that he was arguing that what people were demanding from City Hall was their right under the Constitution rather than some special privilege. Martin Luther King's moral authority came from the same source -the Constitution, yet MLK was regularly portrayed as being, in effect, a Communist or a Communist sympathiser.
But if Barack Obama is or was a Marxist, why would he be part of the New Party anyway rather than the Communist Party of the USA? Angela Davis made that choice; while ACORN was an effective organising body until it collapsed under the weight of allegations of criminality -which is not how the vanguard of the working class is supposed to behave, and by which time Obama was out of the loop anyway.

Regarding Obama's possible connections to the CIA, I'm aware of the allegations but hold off judgment for now. In any case, even if true, what makes you think the CIA is some great supporter of the Constitution and defender of individual rights? That whole apparatus — CIA, NSA, etc. — is clearly out of control, and has been for a long time.
--In other words:
Obama is unacceptable because he is a Marxist;
Obama is unacceptable because he is a CIA plant;
Obama is unacceptable because he is a Democrat
Obama is unacceptable because he is a ---fill in blank as you wish, it doesn't matter, the first part of the clause is all that you think matters.

You could present a coherent argument about the modern state, and whether or not we have too much or too little government; you could present an argument about taxation and freedom; about private property and freedom; you could discuss the concept of the 'military-industrial' complex in the USA; you could challenge the scientific 'establishment' on climate change or Genetically Modified Crops; you could analyse US trade relations with China; US relations with Israel and the Middle East; you can criticise the Obama administration on the use of drones, the handling of the deficit, economic and industrial growth, etc etc: yet it seems to me you are obsessed with one man as if Barack Obama were the cause of all your problems; it does rather limit the quality of your statements.

[thombergeron]

You might also post videos of the long-gone Margaret Sanger, who founded "Planned Parenthood" originally as a eugenics society for the sake of ensuring that blacks didn't procreate. In her autobiography, she referred to them as "human weeds."

This is simply false. Margaret Sanger opposed abortion. She (mistakenly) believed that human life began at conception. She promoted increased access to contraception, which, according to about a century of evidence, liberates women and helps to lift them out of poverty.

Sanger never referred to blacks as "human weeds," neither in her autobiography (which I've actually read), nor anywhere else. James Hubert, president of the Urban League and a black man, specifically asked Sanger to set up a birth control clinic in Harlem in 1929. W.E.B. Dubois, founder of the NAACP, served on the board of Sanger's Harlem clinic.

The remainder of your post is similarly characterized by outright falsehoods, so obviously I won't spend any more of my precious time on earth specifically refuting each of your distortions. I just wanted to briefly point out the fact that you are plainly a liar and a dissembler.

I continue to wonder, though, why it appears to be impossible to construct a rightist argument in 2013 without simply lying.

[thombergeron]

Soviet peasants said exactly the same thing about bread production. ("You want to privatize ownership of farmland? Of wheat cultivation? Of harvesting? Milling? Baking? You're crazy! If we had that system, only the rich would have bread!") Right. And yet everyone in the US can buy all the bread, crackers, cakes, cookies, muffins, cupcakes, etc., he wants — from low-cost to high-cost and anything in between — yet there's no "Bread Czar" in charge of production and distribution of bread.

Strangely, you seem entirely ignorant of the fact hunger and poverty exist in the U.S.

Speaking of bread:

http://www.bread.org/hunger/us/

Done with you now. Go propagandize elsewhere.