Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Best explanation I’ve seen of it yet. How do you get the monstrosity of a health care bill through the two houses of Congress, when you don’t have the votes to do it?
Under the “reconciliation” process that began yesterday afternoon, the House is supposed to approve the Senate’s Christmas Eve bill and then use “sidecar” amendments to fix the things it doesn’t like. Those amendments would then go to the Senate under rules that would let Democrats pass them while avoiding the ordinary 60-vote threshold for passing major legislation. This alone is an abuse of traditional Senate process.
But Mrs. Pelosi & Co. fear they lack the votes in the House to pass an identical Senate bill, even with the promise of these reconciliation fixes. House Members hate the thought of going on record voting for the Cornhusker kickback and other special-interest bribes that were added to get this mess through the Senate, as well as the new tax on high-cost insurance plans that Big Labor hates.
So at the Speaker’s command, New York Democrat Louise Slaughter, who chairs the House Rules Committee, may insert what’s known as a “self-executing rule,” also known as a “hereby rule.” Under this amazing procedural ruse, the House would then vote only once on the reconciliation corrections, but not on the underlying Senate bill. If those reconciliation corrections pass, the self-executing rule would say that the Senate bill is presumptively approved by the House—even without a formal up-or-down vote on the actual words of the Senate bill.
Democrats would thus send the Senate bill to President Obama for his signature even as they claimed to oppose the same Senate bill. They would be declaring themselves to be for and against the Senate bill in the same vote.
So it isn’t about bringing health care services to people who need them, and it isn’t about responding to The Will of the People, Consent of the Governed, or any of that.
Back to the Architects and Medicators paradigm. People who bristle at the idea of being dependent on someone else, by & large really don’t care how others choose to live their lives; but people who adapt more easily to the idea of becoming human cattle, overall want everyone else to be as dependent on someone else as they are. Architects do not care how many other Architects there are but Medicators want everyone else to be a Medicator.
That really is what this is all about.
I’ve been hearing lately that the democrat party wants to commit “suicide” to pass this turkey of a bill — if the Slaughter Option, Reconciliation, whatever it takes, leads to some kind of bloodletting in November, well then the democrats say Bring It On. So they’re invoking a kamikaze attack against the American principles of freedom, liberty and independence.
That isn’t really what this is. You aren’t going to see a new wild exuberance for Republicans as a result of this. There is a reason we don’t want a health care system like this in America, and the reason is that laws like this have a deep and profound impact on the people who come under them. It changes the way they think. You cannot declare yourself independent of a government that is in charge of authorizing your next dose of blood clotting medication, or heart attack pills, or No-Doze.
It would fundamentally change the nature of the relationship between government and governed. That is why they want it. And once that relationship is so changed, it won’t be that hard to get back in again if you’re a democrat. To a nation of zombies, it would be second nature: Need my stuff. Put this guy in. He go get me my stuff.
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Morgan, you may have trouble convincing some folks that your opinions prove out, because “lust for power” is not something that most people see. They may know a lot of liberals, and assume that since none of them act like the Emporer in the Star wars movies, that your conclusions are over the top and off-base. I choose the Emporer because he assumed power by staging a crisis, and was trained as a doctor of sorts (Medicator).
What you may not know is that when someone realizes (usually at an older age) that the choices you’ve made during your life are not rewarding them, that they act out in ways that do serve them (soothe their ego). Like the teacher who sees the troublesome student become a rich capitalist, they resent the risks they didn’t take. No one along the way said that risk taking was a more profitable trait than book smarts, and so to assuage the shame of wasting their “talents”, they simply wish to exert whatever advantage they have to even the score. Do not underestimate the resolve of folks who “live” with this regret – their fears are deep and old. They want power, but not the Emporer kind – they just want safety (job, health) and to be rewarded for their fear.
- wch | 03/19/2010 @ 12:07Absolutely agree. It brings to mind a passage in The Fountainhead. When she introduces Elsworth Toohey, the villain, she drops the narrative of the story for a full I-don’t-know-how-long. Something like twenty pages…just goes through a biographical sketch of Toohey. How good he made people feel, all his life, and how utterly helpless and dependent they all became. She sought to provide a Cliffs-notes bio of a human fungus, and she succeeded. Just that tiny passage, is a real masterpiece.
- mkfreeberg | 03/19/2010 @ 12:56