Sep 8, 2009 -- 10:09AM, amcolph wrote:

Sep 8, 2009 -- 9:51AM, dblad wrote:

IMO, if the federal government continues its quest for more and more power over all the people and all the states, then more and more states...

Right.  And if I am concerned about the power over my freedom wielded by corporations and other private sector institutions, which is greater than the federal government's

I'm nothing but a socialist and probably an atheist as well. UnAmerican, don't you know.

Big Government to watchdog Big Business?  Funny, you don't usually sound like Teddy Roosevelt republican.

Sep 8, 2009 -- 3:16PM, davelaw40 wrote:

Big Government to watchdog Big Business?  Funny, you don't usually sound like Teddy Roosevelt republican.

 LOL!  The question is, why is government necessarily bad, and business necessarily good?

In any case, my freedom has more often been interfered with by private interests than by the federal government.

Moreover, the interference with our freedom by private interests is more often ignored, explained away, excused or downright misrepresented than any interference by government.

For example, on the other thread we were discussing health care--and there was a lot of whining about the benefit, the necessity of "free markets" and how that evil socialist Obama was planning to interfere with them.

The fact of the matter is, that at the present time there is no free market in health insurance.  If you think I'm crazy, go get an introductory econ text and look up what a 'free market' is.

And now that I have, because of my great age and wisdom (great age, anyway) been accorded the privilege of socialized medicine by a greatful nation, I find my personal medical affairs much less often subject to outside interference than when I had private health insurance.

Cui bono?

The only socialized medicine model I have seen in the United States with full centralized government control is the Veterans Health Administration system.

No one I know currently considers Medicare "socialized medicine," although its detractors used this epithet in 1965 when it was being created.

It is a form of insurance that you and I pay for out of our own pockets.

And here we go again...

Sep 8, 2009 -- 4:27PM, dblad wrote:

The only socialized medicine model I have seen in the United States with full centralized government control is the Veterans Health Administration system.

No one I know currently considers Medicare "socialized medicine," although its detractors used this epithet in 1965 when it was being created.

It is a form of insurance that you and I pay for out of our own pockets.

And here we go again...

 

And detractors are using that same epithet again for a health care proposal that has a smaller federal government role than Medicare.

Detractors who, I might add, are being orchestrated by lobbyists who are getting upwards of 1.3 million a day from the health insurance industry.

Do you suppose that they are spending all that money in a disinterested effort to save us from the abstract evils of godless socialism?

"Good intentions will always be pleaded for any assumption of power. The constitution was made to safeguard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." -- Daniel Webster.

So I guess we become slaves to the government!