Its Not Just About Health Care

A lot of liberals are making the mistake in thinking that all of the protesting out there by the citizenry is just about the health care bills.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Some of it is....it is the issue du jour. But there is a lot more. A lot.

Victor Davis Hanson, is great essay, says it this way:

"There is a growing sense of a “we’ve been had”, bait-and-switch. Millions of moderate Republicans, independents, and conservative Democrats — apparently angry at Bush for Iraq and big deficits, unimpressed by the McCain campaign, intrigued by the revolutionary idea of electing an African-American president — voted for Obama on the assumption that he was sincere about ending red state/blue state animosity. They took him at his word that he was going to end out-of-control federal spending. They trusted that he had real plans to get us out of the economic doldrums, and that he was not a radical tax-and-spend liberal of the old sort."

Read the whole thing here.

Professor Hanson goes on the give reasons for why "we have been had" but there are others he misses.

And he misses one important thing: these protests are also against the Republican policies of the last few years.

The people are tired of the government messing everything up. They are tired of the corruption, the power of the big lobbyists, the huge and growing deficits, the move to have the government control every aspect of our lives, the terrible, huge bailouts of the financial institutions, the nationalization of Chrysler and General Motors with the concurrent gift of 40% of the stock in GM to the United Auto Workers, an adjunct of the Democratic Party, and a whole list of other things.

While the Democrats may be the worst offenders, Republicans started us down the path to the bailouts and the nationalizations, and certainly were running up huge deficits. They also really enjoyed slopping at the trough when they were in power.

Much of this anger is directed at the entire political process. Some did, as Hanson points out, foolishly think that Obama might really change things, and hope that government could be made to work better.

Obama's only interest is to make it work better for his political allies. Anyone who thinks differently is still being foolish.

My view is that Americans do want their government to work better than it has, but they also want it to be limited to those things government can do best.

They want the government to stay out of things that the government is incapable of doing, like making medical choices for over 300 million Americans. Some regulation, yes. Deciding when to put granny down, or whether grandpa can have a knee replaced, or a neonate should be saved or not, no.

Hell no.

Running Chrysler and General Motors, no.

Taxing energy and destroying our economy (even more), no.

Running up trillions more in national debt, no.

Expanding government at the expense of the private sector, no.

One could go on and on. Obama is trying to cram the very opposite down our throats. The Republicans so far have not really put forward credible and effective alternatives, at least none that have been well publicized.

Message to Republicans: don't try to regain power by saying "we will do better." Nobody will believe you.

Show us.

Message to Democrats: Get off the socialism now.

What is the real agenda?

Why all of the rush, all of a sudden? Ever since the Democrats came into full power in January, they have been in full hurry-up mode.

I remember the so-called stimulus bill was rushed through before anybody could read it or understand it. Turns out it didn't stimulate much but it did feather a bunch of Democratic nests.

A bullet train from Southern California to Las Vegas for good old Harry Reid, for instance.

It is easy to recognize that some action was called for at the time. A day or two or even a month would not have made any difference. So why the rush?

The energy bill, aka the cap and trade bill, was similarly rushed through the House, with no time to read it, and no amendments permitted ( Ms. Pelosi makes Tom DeLay look like a warm fuzzy kitten).

And now the President is pushing it through the Senate, trying to pass it by August.

This so-called problem ended in 1998 when the globe started cooling again. Why not take a few months and have a good debate on it? Why the big rush?

And now we have the big push to pass socialized health care (disguised as "reform") by August as well. The health care business has been around for a long time, and Medicare and Medicaid have needed reform since they were initiated.

So why are we rushing into all of this? These are major bills that will have lasting, perhaps permanent, effects on our lives and our economy.

And we must pass them without even having a debate or being able to read and understand them before they become law?

Wait a minute. Just wait a minute. Is this the kind of "hope and change" we want? Does this constitute the transparency Obama promised? Or the bi-partisanship?

Maybe its just Rahm Emmanuel not wanting to lose the benefit of a good crisis to ram things through.

Could there be another agenda at work here? Not just health care reform, or solving global warming? Is this an attempt to transform the United States into a socialist state, where everyone has equal results in the pursuit of happiness?

Consider the energy proposals. This would levy high direct and indirect taxes on everyone who uses energy.

Companies that manufacture or produce things would be the heaviest hit. It would make those industries even more uncompetitive than the labor unions have managed to do. That would produce a huge drag on employment. This has very deleterious effects on the entire economy, because we have to produce things to create wealth.

Of course, we would all be hit, depending upon the energy we use. Walk to work and do away with all of your modern appliances, including lights, and you might avoid most of the tax.

The health care industry is also a large part of our economy, and employs a very large number of people. The proposals before the Congress would create a number of taxes on various aspects, and particularly employers within and without the industry. Uninsured individuals who don't want insurance ( about 40% of the total according to a study for the CBO) will be taxed, forcing them to buy or pay the tax. (Free country, right!).

Both of those bills will contribute to severely crippling our economy right in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression.

And anyone with any degree of intelligence should know it.

Now I know that Obama and his team are intelligent and should know this is true ( that does not apply to Lenin's "useful idiots" in the Congress).

So is it their real agenda to bring the US to its knees? Where are they heading us?

They have already nationalized the biggest automaker. Who will be next?

Will we wake up?

Starting the blogging day wondering if the people of the United States will realize what a drastic transformation of our country Obama is attempting in time to stop it.