Quote:
Originally Posted by spence
I think a leftist position on health care would have been for single payer a line that Obama avoided. Many of the controversial provisions of the actual bill have been proposed by Republicans over the past several decades.
Also supported by many Republicans as a matter of national interest. Of course, I'm taking a relative view here recognizing that some would say those same Republicans had shifted to the Left.
The way the bill is written and, in my opinion, the desire of those who espouse it, will eventually lead to a single payer government system. Yes, as in past threads, I don't make a major distinction between Republicans and Democrats. I have several times referred to the Republican shift to the left for survival and to Republicans becoming Democrat light. As I've stated before, the Center is the Constitution. Authoritarian divergence from that center to the right or left is a shift away from the center. A shift away from responsible individualism united by a governmental system whose duty is to protect and preserve individual rights, toward anarchy in one direction and all-powerful government in the other, is a shift away from the center. And the creation of a federal health care bill is a shift away from responsible individualism, and away from the Constitution which grants such responsibility to the States and the People, not to the National Gvt., and is a shift toward government power. And the individual mandate, legalistically, creates an all-powerful government that can "regulate" the people at will without obstruction. And yes, when the "national interest" as determined by a select few overrides individual interest in areas that the Constitution does not allow, it is a shift toward authoritarian rule which, if supported by the masses, becomes the tyranny of the majority. The reason I question a so-called "center" other than the Constitution, is the constant progressive shift to the left with every''compromise.'' Yesterday's center becomes todays left or right position, and a new center must be established. The trend has been mostly to the left, so there is no center (other than the Constitution), only a, as you like to say, a trajectory.
I think the desire to raise taxes is born more from a matter of need to pay the bills that a punitive effort to soak the rich. The 250K threshold is there precisely because there is concern over economic impact.
If there were a desire to pay the bills, the sophistry of stimulating the economy by going further in debt would not happen. Stimulating the economy has been more successful by lowering taxes not raising them. Going further in debt to get out of it is a moronic contradiction. And if raising taxes was for paying down the debt, then the great majority of those tax payers who reside under the 250K threshold should get their taxes raised which would create far more "revenue" to pay the bills.
What ownership over governance has the GOP not taken or should have taken?
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By that I meant we would have increased joint ownership over policy rather than simple opposition.
That could be said for all administrations. Everbody acquiesce to the Presidents wishes to create "joint ownership" over policy. So what's the point of parties, of opinion, of alternate policies? After the election, the President rules as he wishes. Pretty much the preferred outcome of progressive ideology. And if the President's policies are damaging?
Unelected regulators are still appointed by elected officials and their bias shifts along with the electorate.
As I've said before, both parties and the SCOTUS are in for this administrative system. And though the regulators are appointed by elected officials, they are basically on their own with nudges by the President to rule without the advise or consent of neither the people nor the elected officials. They are fiefdoms with legislative, executive, and judicial power-- Madison's definition of tyranny.
I'd note that polls pretty consistently show a majority favoring much government regulation that you'd probably find unappealing
I think they've tried this and the result was that the individual isn't very responsible. When the accumulation of poor individual decisions ultimately weighs on the masses, there is a justification for doing something.
-spence[/QUOTE]
On the one hand you're saying the individual isn't very responsible, on the other hand we should be persuaded by polls that show a majority of individuals favoring something. One of the main objectives of early progressivism in this country was to shape public opinion through education, propaganda, creating a public will, and then presenting the administration that carries out that will. Woodrow Wilson said in his 1886 "Study of Administration":
"Whoever would effect a change in a modern constitutional government must first educate his fellow citizens to want SOME change. That done, he must persuade them to want the particular change he wants. He must first make public opinion willing to listen and then see to it that it listen to the right things. He must stir it up to search for an opinion, and then manage to put the right opinion in its way."
Under a system of individual responsibility, the individual should bare the weight of poor individual decisions. The progressive nanny state does not allow individuals to suffer their free choice to destroy their own life. The State must regulate individuals in such a way that individuals are free from harm. Thus individuals will have the protection of a proscribed "effective" liberty rather than suffer the dangers of far less limited Constitutional "legal" liberty. Woodrow Wilson also said in his 1887 "Socialism and democracy":
"The thesis of the state socialist is, that no line can be drawn between private and public affairs which the State may not cross at will; that omnipotence of legislation is the first postulate of all just political theory. . . For it is very clear that in fundamental theory socialsim and democracy are almost if not quite one and the same. They both rest at bottom upon the absolute right of the community to determine its own destiny and that of its members. Men as communities are supreme over men as individuals. Limits of wisdom and convenience to the public control there may be; limits of principle there are, upon strict analysis, none."