CANADIAN HEALTH CARE: A DEADLY MODEL

Here is an IBD article by a Canadian on that nation's much-ballyhooed and little-publicized socialized health care system--a deadly model of rationed and delayed care that even seeks to control the number of babies delivered by hospital!

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=331427651488835

BUDGET THOUGHTS GO POSTAL

Three anecdotes come to mind when I consider the hysteria that greets any cost-cutting proposal for California’s 20-billion-plus budget deficit.

The first is a classroom comment made decades ago by a naïve seminary student who’d obviously never paid a water bill in his life. The young man opined that various public services should be provided at no cost—just like water is.

The second was an observation made by a putative adult who declared that people should not have to pay for health care. Rather, she said, the government should pay.

Anecdote number three concerns a recent trip to the United States post office adjacent Ocean’s Eleven Casino in Oceanside. I was seventh in line upon entering the queue. Three employees stood behind the counter. Fifteen minutes later I was addressing the only one who’d been slowly serving a line that was now twice as long and stretched into the next room.

For a minute or two astonished patrons stood opposite three “next window please” signs, with no active server at all—perhaps victims of an ingenious Candid Camera ruse where employees busy themselves in position, raise hopes, then walk away.

These incidents dovetail nicely with California’s budget debacle. A substantial portion of the state’s population have been trained to expect services for which no one has to foot the bill—or for which “big oil” serves as the goose that can simultaneously be cooked and periodically utilized for golden egg production.

The result of such magical thinking (as a trip to California’s DMV makes clear) is a situation where results and revenues can’t possibly match expectations. This is especially true when one throws into the mix the clout of public employee unions whose pensions have done for state and local budgets what UAW contracts did for GM.

This something-for-nothing mania has fed the regular expectation that Washington or corporate villains or Sacramento will pay for things that cost “us” nothing—as if government “for the people” isn’t also a government that’s paid for “by the people.”

Indicative of the sad state of the state is an ingenious proposal to pay parents to look after their own kids—an idea that theoretically saves money on CalWorks recipients who receive education assistance and also get their child care expenses subsidized.

When government is in the business of paying parents to look after their own kids, something has gone desperately wrong. How far off course things are can be gauged by the strange sound of this Grover Cleveland quotation: “It is the responsibility of the citizens to support their government. It is not the responsibility of the government to support its citizens.”

Today, by contrast, it’s “cash for clunkers” and bailouts for bad mortgages. Locals take from Sacramento. The state returns the favor.

Under this system “free medical care” will doubtless operate like Oceanside’s I-5 post office—with Sacramento and Washington balance sheets.

DON'T TOUCH MY DIAL: RESISTING OBAMA'S ATTEMPT TO MUZZLE TALK RADIO

A letter writer to the North County Times recently complained because I noted in a column that “Obama’s minions” are intent on undoing conservative talk radio. The objector, who claimed that no facts supported my assertion, is doubtless dependent on the MSM for his view of things and oblivious to the fact that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, as well as Senators Charles Schumer, Dick Durbin, and Dianne Feinstein have all expressed support for the absurdly labeled “Fairness Doctrine.” And that’s only the short list.

Of course the anti-democratic elites who now govern America are clever enough to disguise their latest assault on free speech in the language of “diversity” and “localism.” The document that serves as the intellectual pretext for this new dose of liberal fascism was written in June, 2007, by a gaggle of “Progressives” at the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress. Its title: “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio.”

The problem, it seems, is not that listeners simply prefer Rush and Hannity to Al Franken, Air America, and NPR. Nor is it that Americans get their fill of leftist rhetoric from Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, and “Law and Order” reruns. No, the problem “is the result of multiple structural problems in the U.S. regulatory system, particularly …the elimination of clear public interest requirements for broadcasting, and the relaxation of ownership rules including the requirement of local participation in management.”

“Structural problems” is bureaucratese for “the way things are now,” while “public interest requirements” and “local participation” refer to government controls and oversight powers given to leftist activists. (Think ACORN and El Grupo.)

If “Obama’s minions” get their way, the composition of newly envisioned “local diversity boards” will doubtless resemble the makeup of a recently appointed FCC “Federal Advisory Committee on Diversity in the Digital Age”—a group chaired by a liberal activist and filled with MSM types, politically active minority groups, and representatives of leftist organizations.

Skeptics should note that then Senator Barack Obama signed on to this covert speech-muzzling strategy in September, 2007, when he endorsed “new rules promoting coverage of local issues” as well as “greater FCC scrutiny” and more frequent public input “to ensure that broadcasters are complying with their public interest obligations.”

No wonder dozens of talk radio hosts met in Washington in late April to discuss this impending assault on free speech. San Diego’s Roger Hedgecock was elected chairman of a new foundation whose slogan is “Don’t touch my dial.”

Perhaps as a preemptive move to head off this backdoor censorship, Salem affiliate KCBQ recently reinstated a hometown broadcaster to its morning lineup—Mark Larson. That strategy might be effective if the ideologues currently crying “localism” really meant what they say. (Consider, however, candidate Obama’s broken pledge to use public financing.) The real problem is that leftists loathe popular dissent and will do whatever they can to stifle it—as they already have in education, popular entertainment, and the “global warming” news media.

MARRIAGE: SWEDES VS INDIANS

The sociologist Peter Berger once famously observed that if India is the most religious country in the world and Sweden the least religious, then America is a nation of Indians governed by Swedes.

The November vote on Proposition 8 that reaffirmed the definition of marriage as the legal union of a man and a woman illustrated that even in Euro-leaning California, a gap between ruling class and people remains intact—at least for the time being.

Last year, despite the wishes of voters as overwhelmingly expressed by Prop 22, a bare 4-3 State Supreme Court majority imposed its enlightened mores on those ignorant masses who audaciously imagined in the year 2000 that they could stop the transmogrification of an institution that’s functioned for millennia as a civilizing institution for children.

Even candidate Obama gave lip service to these exotic “Indian” sentiments by publicly asserting his “personal belief” that marriage should be male-female. This wink-and-a-nod concession to popular mores was understood as exactly the political ruse it was by opponents of Prop 8—who didn’t hammer Obama for hypocrisy the way they recently savaged Miss California for being gushingly polite and honest about her beliefs.

Last week the California Supreme Court, by a 6-1 majority, allowed the state’s obstreperous “Indians” to have their way--for the most part. The justices did let stand several thousand same-sex marriages that were only made possible by the slick legal machinations that black-robed “Swedes” typically employ to deconstruct the laws of “their” state.

Outside of the law, the most effective means for imposing “Swedish” values on reluctant “Indians” is the mainstream media. Anyone with a modest capacity for honesty will acknowledge that the sympathies of those golden throats who selectively frame the news for viewers lie overwhelmingly with the pro-same-sex position.

Indeed, given the overwhelming barrage of dramatic and educational propaganda in favor of same-sex relationships (from “Day of Silence” school indoctrination to nightly TV portraits of traditionalists as dimwitted hatemongers) it’s surprising that an electoral majority could still be mustered in California in favor of the “bigoted” idea that male-female is a salient marital distinction.

Governor Schwarzenegger recently opined that the cultural tide in California lies with those on the anti-8 side of the issue. However, when advocates for that position point to Iowa as an impressive case in point, they’re engaging in a rhetorical shell game. It was the court in Iowa, not Midwestern voters, that legislated this radical change from the bench. The same is true of Massachusetts, where “Swedish” legislators went to extraordinary lengths to avoid letting New England’s “Indians” have their say.

Avoiding the public isn’t so easy in California, much to the chagrin of our Nordic nabobs. Still, absent a profound popular epiphany about the immense power concentrated in the hands of elites who still admire Fidel Castro, the “Swedes” residing in Sacramento, Hollywood, New York, and Washington will soon be setting the rules for marriage—and everything else.

John Rosemond: Flannery O'Connor on Educating Children

Here is family psychologist John Rosemond's take on the proper education of children--a position that draws on the insight of writer Flannery O'Connor:

In her 1963 essay, "Total Effect and the Eighth Grade," Flannery O'Connor's purpose was to argue for requiring children to read the classics that defined Western Civilization. In the course of making her case, she said something that every parent should be required to read and regurgitate on a regular basis: The whims and preferences of children should always, always be sublimated to the sense and judgment of their elders (paraphrase by Caitlin Flanagan, "The High Cost of Coddling," Wall Street Journal, April 17, 2009, page W11).

For the rest of the article see:

http://www.herald-dispatch.com/life/x1875270021/Proper-discipline-essential-for-kids

HARVEY MILK DAY--OR ELSE!

The Donald has declared that Carrie Prejean can keep her Miss California title. Trump’s “you’re not fired” decision ended a chapter in the media frenzy swirling around the Vista High School graduate--but it didn’t close the book.

Following Trump’s announcement, Keith Olbermann, MSNBC’s prime-time hatemonger, launched a six-minute tirade against Prejean that showed the leftist network’s verbal inquisition against Miss California wasn’t quite over.

Ten days earlier Olbermann had chuckled through a hate-fest with the Village Voice’s Michael Musto. Olbermann began by observing that Miss California “has fully endorsed…marriage between a man and a woman who’s partially made out of plastic.”

Musto was more blunt. “She’s dumb and twisted…a human Klaus Barbie doll… This is the kind of girl who sits on the TV and watches the sofa.” Olbermann added that Prejean is “not just a boob, but a fake boob.”

The interview goes on in the spirit of the vile, vicious, and morally vacuous Perez Hilton—the talentless judge whose question about same-sex marriage assured one of two possible outcomes: either Prejean would toe the gay-marriage line or she would be vilified, ridiculed, and destroyed by press lackeys like Access Hollywood, Musto, and Olbermann.

Locally, our TV hairdos couldn’t get enough of the “nude” photos that weren’t really nude, weren’t taken for publication, and were about as risqué as the bikinis worn at the Miss USA competition.

The bottom line of this brouhaha isn’t so much the courage and conviction of Prejean. As I noted in a prior column, Miss California’s response to the same-sex marriage question (“That’s how I was raised.”) was apologetic and shallow. The answer was, however, on an intellectual level appropriate for a pageant judged by the likes of Perez Hilton.

The real bottom line is the power and willingness of the mainstream media to slime and destroy anyone who gets in the way of its cultural agenda—a power that was nakedly displayed last fall to transform a popular and effective pro-life governor of Alaska into a Saturday Night Live caricature.

These media advocates regularly turn reality on its head. An apologetic utterance in defense of traditional marriage is labeled “divisive” and “controversial.” Meanwhile, Hilton, Olbermann, and crew viciously trash a decent person with impunity. The “1984” Ministry of Truth moment occurred when the supremely intolerant and self-infatuated Olbermann accused Prejean of “holier than thou…know it allism.”

Make no mistake, the left and the mainstream media will not tolerate dissent—especially on their “entertainment” turf. And now Obama’s minions are out to muzzle talk radio.

The same intolerance was on full display when opponents were targeted for financial reprisals during and following the Proposition 8 election—and when a member of the arts community had to resign for voting the wrong way.

If anyone wants to see the future of California, it isn’t “Carrie Prejean Day,” as Vista school board trustee Jim Gibson would have it. Rather, it’s “Harvey Milk Day”—or else!

THE MISS CALIFORNIA MESSAGE: WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU IF YOU OPPOSE GAY MARRIAGE

Miss California, Carrie Prejean, 2005 Vista High graduate and student body president, is asked a politically charged question about gay marriage by a gay activist and blogger who calls himself Perez Hilton. She provides an almost apologetic response at the conclusion of which she expresses her belief that marriage should continue to be—as it has been throughout history—between a man and a woman. “No offense to anybody… but that’s how I was raised.”

As a result, for perhaps the first time in Miss USA history, a contestant is booed for her answer—though there are also cheers and applause. Another result is that “judge” Perez Hilton, and probably his nearly-as-undistinguished colleagues on the pageant panel, ding Prejean’s scores—almost certainly costing her the Miss USA title.

The aftermath of this incident illustrates the depths of mendacity that surrounds the word “tolerance” in post-modern, deconstructed America.

Hilton, a talentless boor tagged “the queen of mean” by no less an authority than Rolling Stone Magazine, proceeds to publicly insult Prejean on his profitable and unprintably crude trash-blog. Hilton later apologizes for calling Miss California the “b” word. The very next day, however, Hilton retracts his apology while being more-than-respectfully interviewed by MSNBC’s Nora O’Donnell. O’Donnell doesn’t flinch when Hilton says he was actually thinking of the “c” word.

Later Hilton adds to his verbal insult a vile blog depiction of Prejean that can’t be euphemistically described in a newspaper destined for the eyes of decent citizens. All the while it is Prejean who is interrogated by the Fairness doctrine media about whether her answer was divisive!

Can anyone imagine the furor that would have ensued had an oddball judge zeroed out a contestant for giving a pro-gay marriage answer and then proceeded to insult her in terms that are increasingly punishable as hate-speech?

Can anyone imagine San Diego public relations representative Roger Neal urging a pro-gay Miss USA “to heal some wounds” with the traditional marriage crowd—a crowd that presumably, if disingenuously, includes the President of the United States?

Neal, a putative “advisor” to Prejean, went on to accuse Miss California of lying when she said recently at a North County church that she was told by pageant officials to apologize to the gay community and to avoid mentioning religion in her TV interviews.

It doesn’t take a lawyer to know that the word “lie” in this case is a pejorative way of parsing the legal difference between “solemnly encouraged” and “told.” Those who think Prejean wasn’t pressured by the same people who selected Perez Hilton as a pageant official probably also believe that Fidel Castro is Santa Claus.

So tolerance in America now means this: No gay marriage, no Miss USA. It means that one is free to insult and degrade a young woman for timidly supporting traditional moral views. It means that Hollywood sleazebags like Perez Hilton now define cultural mores and that decent individuals like Carrie Prejean will be trashed if they dare open their mouths.