But remember, people. Using a word like “fascism” to describe, well, fascism, is overwrought and very, very unhelpful. Best just to pretend that the most tyrannical of our political opponents are good men (and women) who, once you bracket the tyrannical impulses with which they govern, just happen to differ with us on the issues.
We can be proud of our forbearance later, at home, while we’re masturbating to our own self-satisfaction — in a kind of infinitely recursive moment of onanism.
But I digress. Washington Examiner:
Conservatives have been warning for ages that economic rights are human rights. A government that will take away an individual’s property rights sooner or later will also take his freedom of speech. As British poet and essayist Hilaire Belloc noted, “the control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself.” President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, proved the point by threatening health insurers who dare to blame Obamacare for “unreasonable” rate increases. She will blacklist violators from participating in future government-run health insurance exchanges, thus putting many of them out of business. Since Medicare’s chief actuary predicts that “essentially all” Americans will be insured through these exchanges, Sebilius is telling private firms: “Shut up or we will destroy you!”
In a chilling letter, Sebelius warned members of the insurance industry’s national association that there will be “zero tolerance” for companies “using scare tactics and misinformation to falsely blame premium increases for 2011 on the patient protections in the Affordable Care Act.” Of course, what a political hack considers “misinformation” too often is an unpleasant reality that taxpayers have a right to know. The reality is that “patient protections” cost money. They include mandated removal of lifetime caps and exemptions for pre-existing conditions, keeping young adults on their parents’ policy up to age 26, and insuring 31 million extra people. That is why insurers are now seeking rate increases between 1 and 9 percent to cover these expanded benefits.
Sebelius cites estimates by “industry and academic experts” that the increased costs will be “minimal” – no more than 1 or 2 percent – and automatically defines any higher estimates as “unreasonable” even though nobody, including the HHS secretary herself, knows what the real costs will eventually be. This is Sebelius’ second attempt to prevent private insurers from exercising their First Amendment right to communicate with their own customers. As the Wall Street Journal noted, what’s she’s really telling them is to accept price controls now in exchange for being allowed to stay in business four years hence – and keep quiet about her undisguised bullying tactics in the meantime.
You don’t have to fall in love. Just fall in line.
Still, “fascism” is so crass and fraught a word. Perhaps we can go with something like “social justice,” instead.
Tar, Feathers, Politician. Some assembly required.
I’d settle for a few broken fingers from a sharp rap on her grasping hands.
How about “enlightened despotism” instead?
The further down they go at attempts to disguise, the darker the remedies ought to become.
Well, I certain hope they wouldn’t object to my using Vichy as a descriptor.
“Perhaps we can go with something like ‘social justice’, instead.”
Ah! I now have my definition that I had been seeking. Thanks for that!
I wonder if anyone could try a RICO action against a Cabinet Secretary? Sure looks like a casebook example of “racketeering” to me.
Obama and his people are dangerously out of touch. That is, they seem to have no idea what they are in process of setting off. Should a serious demand for justice take hold, they will be extremely fortunate to only have to suffer prosecutions for minor infractions of administrative law down this road. It can get much worse, and their own arrogance will lead them there.
It’s amazing how Obama is such an idiot, that he goes through life thinking big evil insurance execs are not evil enough to pack it in and destroy the economy. If stupid were an alternative renewable energy resource, Royal Dutch would move a rig onto the top of Obama’s head by next Monday.
The AP writeup on it.
I tried asking my crunchy granola friends what would happen if a socially conservative administration came into office and forbade the collection of FedMed providers from providing abortion services. They said, not surprising, that they’d raise a hell of a stink.
So then I asked what would happen if their doctor were threatened with losing her federal license to practice medicine if she dared speak up against the new policy. They said, not surprisingly, that they’d raise a hell of a stink.
So then I asked them why they were so hell-bent on setting up a system where this was guaranteed to happen in a few years. Wouldn’t now be a better time to raise a hell of a stink?
It got so quiet that I could hear the little hamsters dying in the little wheels inside their heads.
Sometimes, I can be a real asshole. Still, I’m the only person left who can afford to buy them coffee or beer, so they keep coming back for more. Come to think of it, that would make me something of a Democrat ward boss writ small.
that would make me something of a Democrat ward boss writ small.
Or a really soft touch. They say conservatives give more to charity than liberals do, but aren’t you taking it a bit too far?
Poor little hamsters.
It isn’t out fault they can’t think. They aren’t feeding us.
Jeff, if you don’t have the Good Doctor bookmarked, you should. The translations are well done, although of course they’re better in the original.
Regards,
Ric
They say conservatives give more to charity than liberals do, but aren’t you taking it a bit too far?
The occasional pitcher of beer seems a small price to pay for the pleasure of observing liberal cognitive dissonance at close range. I’m a scientist, dammit!
I’d like to take a moment to thank Peter Gabriel for bringing Dr. Milgram to my attention in my formative youth. Now there was a guy who could run an experiment!
The occasional pitcher of beer seems a small price to pay for the pleasure of observing liberal cognitive dissonance at close range. I’m a scientist, dammit!
You could glue a quarter to the floor and save yourself $5.75.
You’re a funny SOB, alp.
You could glue a quarter to the floor…
That experiment is reserved for the skyway outside the Target headquarters.
Okay, I got that, Squid, but so many here will not. I didn’t even know what a skyway was until I moved here.
“Come to think of it, that would make me something of a Democrat ward boss writ small.”
That brought a smile… next step is garbage can lids, turkeys and paving alleyways.
Skyways are cool. Really cool. And very Minnesota.
Where is the MFM on this? Again, imagine if Bush had done this.
– I’m skeptical that even the 9% figure is just a first round to soften the blow and avoid all out panic. But it isn’t rocket science figuring the cost will increase, and it should be roughly calculable.
– A reasonably well run company should run about 1.13 – 1.15 times recurring costs for G&A + profit. With insurance, there is no G, or very little, since its mostly paper work and record keeping. That should make it even easier to calculate. In the interests of keeping it simple, a linear growth rate can be assumed. Given the body count before the plan and after, plus the modified actuary tsble’s should be pretty much all you need for a first approximation.
– This is so like the typical head up their ass approach by the Proggs.
– Bubblefuck thought he could bully the free market and businesses too. How’s that working out for him?
“Where is the MFM on this?”
They’re right where they’ve always been JD, acting to welcome tyranny as it’s handmaiden.
It bears remembering that the leftists are usually out doing the very thing they are wailing about their opponents doing.
If a Republican or a conservative did this, their collective heads would assplode, instantaneously.
this is part of why failshit America has tumbled down the rankings of economic freedom
Skyways are awesome, but Target girls really have to be seen to be believed. Imagine a few hundred twenty-somethings who embody every delusion ‘feets has about Palin.
Just do yourself a favor and don’t sit within earshot of them at happy hour. Trust me.
nasty bit*h …
Squid – yet another thing I will have to experience.
That jeff person that just typed nasty bitch does not appear to be a very nice person. And is blind.
Who could look at Ines Sainz and think “nasty bitch” ? Sebelius, I could understand.
I need pictures of the Target girls. I’m intrigued.
Ditto on the pix …
Has even 1 company stood up and said STFU you fascist bint? Has even 1 MFM thingie stopped and asked if that is appropriate? Has the MFM asked Gibbs or Barcky if that is the position of the Prezzydent?
JD, Squid, lived in Minneapolis better than 20 years. Well, actually bounced around between Bloomington, Edina, Hopkins, Crystal and Linden Hills, South Minneapolis.
Got very drunk many times at Kieran’s Irish Pub.
I think the music at Kieran’s was pretty good. But, By the time the music started, I had consumed many Guinness and Jameson. Which makes my judgment somewhat suspect.
blake – Matt’s or the 5-8 Club? Squid took me to Matt’s, so I am partial. I think Kiernan’s is where cranky and the rest of us will meet up next time.
the Intel guy stood up he’s been very heroic really this will probably end badly for him
We need more people doing that. The CEO of every one of those companies that Sebelius threatened should be in front of a microphone punching back.
oh. health care companies I don’t know of any what have spoken out I think they’re very very scared of what the America government will do to them and their families if they speak out.
*American* government I mean
happyfeet – If they do not stand up to her, it will just keep on happening.
this is true but I can’t help but think the dirty socialists are treating the healthcare companies not a whole lot worse than John McCain treated the supplement companies when that fascist homo got a small taste of power… at least the health care companies are technically still allowed to sell health care for reals… here suzanne somers wrote about it.
There is no shortage of supplements available.
yes that’s what Meghan’s coward daddy and his super best friend Byron Dorgan want to change
I loathe McCain, with the intensity of 7 suns. But he is a piker compared to the likes of Sebelius and Barcky. McCain might take away a Suzanne Sommer informercial. Sebelius and Barcky are fucking with my country, my healthcare, and my paycheck.
I just mean to say that your average nutritional supplement entrepreneur is feeling the same feelings about Meghan’s daddy
I am just going to continue to point out that the objectively fascist Dems are fucking up our once great country.
it’s awful
The Dems are utterly clueless as to how much they’re fucking the country up, because they truly believe it is for our own good.
As wise man once said:
As an additional point: if this evening’s especially smug Keith Olberdouche is anything to go by, the Dems think the GOP is going to get clobbered in November – and the Republican Party, and conservatism in general, are finished – all thanks to the “Teabaggers”.
Like I said, utterly clueless.
Let’s hope they fail to get a clue until after it’s too late.
Paul Ryan responds to David Brooks:
Oh, I’m sure they won’t. They’ll blunder headlong into another drubbing: they and their sycophants in the Media were completely blindsided in 1994, too. Even though the signs were there for all to see.
Of course, their “post-mortem” at the time (and still today!) blamed the failure to pass HillaryCare, oblivious to the fact that a large majority of voters were horrified by it.
This year’s “explanation” will be all too obvious: RACISM!!!
#51 reply to #49…
In ordinary times, political debate concerns the means, not the ends, of government. But we do not live in ordinary times; we live in a time when the first principles of governing are on the table.
Gee, I was just reading somewhere that the problem with pragmatic focus on means is that the ends towards which those means are directed become blurry.
Spiny, isn’t it funny how, even though the Democrats sometimes fail to win, they never really lose? The same goes for the Republicans, who never really win even when they fail to lose.
Conflicts over ends, as geoffb just reminded me, look far more like warfare conflicts than do conflicts over means where the ends are constituted in an existing consensus.
Ernst, that is a “reality” that Mainstream Media has been building for a good 50 years now.
A reality that too many good Republicans have been willing to accept Spiny. Maybe someday they’ll learn not to play the role “fate” has alotted them.