A lot of Democrats in both the House and the Senate are going to lose their seats in November. The heck of it is that the ones who most deserve to lose are not the ones who will lose. The people pushing the socialist agenda of Obama like Pelosi are not going to lose their seats. Republicans could not get elected dog catcher in their districts. No, it is the Democrats in marginal and certainly in the conservative districts who are going down. They are the ones whose arms had to be twisted to get them to vote for Obama's agenda.
The strange thing is that though these Democrats have poll numbers in the toilet, President Obama's are not. Oh, they have fallen drastically but they were unrealistically high to start with. Right now his approval ratings exceed his disapproval ratings by one point give or take a point. We find this strange that his agenda is hurting the Democrats badly in Congress but not causing him that much trouble when it is his agenda we are talking about. On top of that are his very visible personal failings. He seems to think nothing of telling outright whoppers which all but his most sycophantic followers know are not true. His decisions on dealing with the war on terror are incomprehensible and his appeasement foreign policy is a total joke. Yet still his ratings are not near as bad as those vulnerable Democrats in congress.
Right now, the Democrats are on the verge of losing both houses of Congress and unless things improve soon that is exactly what will happen in November. If Obama's agenda is killing the Democrats in Congress and it clearly is, why isn't the voting public just as annoyed with Obama? Why is that? Why is his personal approval so much higher than ratings for his agenda? There has to be some reason why this agenda has not pulled down Obama's approval to match that of the Democrats in Congress. We think it is because a lot of voters have been unwilling to admit they made a mistake in electing him. Perhaps others are less than truthful to polling companies because they do not want to be considered racists. Let's face it, the Obama administration has relentlessly played the race card and very effectively.
That brings up the question of why the Democrats in Congress have been willing to fall on their swords to advance this agenda when it only hurts them and not Obama. One would think that the vulnerable Democrats would have long since have seen the handwriting on the wall and told Obama they were all through paying such a heavy price for advancing his agenda. The election of Scott Brown does seem to have been the necessary wake-up call for a lot of them. Perhaps that is why his agenda has suddenly screeched to a halt. The odd part of all of this is that Obama is still pushing his far left agenda seemingly oblivious to the damage it is doing to his party. If you truly believe Obama's claim that he is not an ideologue then we have this great bridge in Brooklyn we can make you a great deal on.
We can understand why those Democrats from safe districts can enthusiastically support this agenda because it is no skin off their electoral hides. Not only that, but their constituents undoubtedly favor socialism or else why would they continually vote for these leftist wackos? But what about the rest of those Democrats who only got there in 2006 or 2008 at the expense of a Republican incumbent? Whatever possessed them to commit political suicide for this idealistic and yet totally unrealistic nonsense? Did they truly think the American electorate would let them turn this country into Sweden lite? If so they totally misread the message that the voters were sending them in 2008 as is now readily apparent to anyone who does not have blinders on. Enthusiasm for our first black President is not a mandate for socialism.
Some people just have to learn things the hard way so pity those blue dog Democrats who really were not very enthusiastic about this agenda and who are now paying the price for those who were. It is too bad that those who are all for this nonsense are getting off Scot free and so is Obama who will not get his comeuppance until 2012.
Pity the Democrat Members of Congress
We Will All Go Down Together
From The Marston Chronicles
We have watched with amusement as we read comments from our World News section here on The Marston Chronicles. Several snide news articles and comments have been made about how the American economy has slid into recession. Usually they accuse us of spending money like drunken sailors not just at the governmental level but at the personal level as well. One must wonder just what they think has been keeping their own mostly socialistic economies afloat lo these many years.
Now that the American consumers have reacted to the layoffs, credit crunch and home price deflation by being more frugal in their purchases, they are buying far fewer foreign imports. No more American tourists on a fling in foreign lands. The end result has been that other countries are feeling the economic pinch far worse than the United States is. Just what made these folks think that we could crash and burn economically and that they would still be peachy keen?
Here is just a sample of how wrong they have been:
China’s economic downturn has cost the jobs of 20 million rural migrants, prompting a call from the Communist Party’s security chief for efforts to calm possible unrest.
O2/03/09: Hundreds of British workers walked off the job Monday, part of a rising tide of industrial unrest sweeping Europe as the continent's economic downturn worsens.
02/03/09: Greek farmers demanding more aid from the government are the latest to protest in the European nation, as the ruling party’s popularity slides.
01/31/09 NY Times: Protesters held demonstrations throughout Russia on Saturday, offering largely subdued, but pointed criticism of the government’s economic policies as the country continues to sink deeper into an economic morass.
NPR.org, January 30, 2009 · As the global economic downturn sinks in, some people in Europe are expressing their economic pain in the form of strikes and protests.
Jan. 29, 2009: More than 1 million protesters took part, with tens of thousands of youths, retirees and unemployed people marching across towns and cities, police said.
This is a link to an Iceland news broadcast (in Icelandic) that shows just how tense the situation in Iceland is becoming. It appears that Olafur Orn Klemensson (and associate), an economist at the Central Bank of Iceland pushed protesters.
An outstanding and frequently updated blog about the Iceland economic crisis by a native Icelander. Chock full of videos and information about the current state of economic affairs in Iceland. This blog is a must read!
N.Y. Times Article: Riots broke out once again in the Baltic states on Friday, this time in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, where a group of 7,000 gathered to protest planned economic austerity measures.
N.Y. Times Jan 14, 2009: Violent protests over political grievances and mounting economic woes shook the Latvian capital, Riga, late Tuesday, leaving around 25 people injured and leading to 106 arrests.
Ariz. police say they are prepared as War College warns military must prep for unrest; IMF warns of economic riots
Chuck Colson on socialized medicine
There was an interesting BreakPoint commentary today about socialized medicine in Britain.
Bruce Hardy probably doesn’t have long to live. But he could live longer, if it weren’t for the attitude and policies of the British government.
As recounted in a New York Times article, Mr. Hardy has kidney cancer that has spread to his lung. His doctor wanted him to take an expensive but effective new drug that has been shown to delay cancer progression for six months.
But Her Majesty’s government refused the request. The Times reports: “If the Hardys lived in the United States or just about any European country . . . Mr. Hardy would most likely get the drug, although he might have to pay part of the cost. . . . But at that price, Mr. Hardy’s life is not worth prolonging according to a British government agency, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence.”
(In a supreme irony, the institute’s acronym, NICE, is the same acronym C. S. Lewis used for the evil institute in his classic novel, That Hideous Strength.)
The Hardy case highlights many of the problems with socialized medicine: government rationing of health care, a lack of options, and an ultimate devaluation of human life. Remember, in most other countries, Mr. Hardy could have his treatment if he paid for part of it—but Britain isn’t even giving him that choice. The government makes the health-care decisions. It’s all out of his hands.
And the really scary thing is that other countries are starting to look to Britain as an example of how to manage health care!
Read the rest at Breakpoint.
Socialized healthcare is not without its problems
Cross-posted at Casey's Critical Thinking
I’m no expert on healthcare systems, but I think we better look before we leap. I believe the problems in our own system are fixable, and I’m afraid many people are unaware of the problems of other types of systems. Take Japan, for example. It seems like almost every month I hear a new story about critically ill patients in Japan being taken to emergency rooms only to be turned away and then die waiting for treatment. Most recently, an 82-year-old woman was turned away by five different hospitals and ended up dying in the ambulance. A month ago, a 36-year-old woman was turned away by seven different hospitals and eventually died after giving birth at one of the hospitals that had earlier turned her down. That’s simply heartbreaking. Sadly, these stories are anything but rare in Japan.
Why does this happen? Because the hospitals are full. Why are they full? I’d have to say that one of the reasons is socialized healthcare. When people catch a cold in Japan they go to a hospital. Whenever I catch a cold, people around me are puzzled when I refuse to go to the hospital. It’s practically an unwritten rule. Stuffy nose? Go to the hospital. Stub your toe? Go to the hospital. Did you just sneeze? Better get to the hospital, then.
Elderly people use ambulances as taxis because it is free. When you’re paying nothing or next to nothing for medical care, you go to the hospital for even the most minor illnesses. When you consider the ratio of doctors to patients, simple math will tell you that this isn’t going to work.
There are no doubt problems with the healthcare system in the United States, but there are problems with the systems everywhere. Personally, I think I’d rather be in the US if I was ever to get severely ill. I think it would probably be better to fix the problems with our own system rather than blindly going over to yet another system that doesn’t work the way it should.
