I received this email today from a friend. He wishes to remain anonymous. Fine.

He toured the Senate with his family. It was a private tour. He is an idealist. He wants to believe. He and I were emailing about an interview that recently surfaced with BHO, as a new Senator from Illinois, slamming the Bush administration for pushing through important legislation without a proper debate. I thought his comments were worth posting here...

"Neither party should ever slam through legislation (and I know that is the “smart” thing to do and what the ''handlers" insist you must do) and I am glad the Bush administration got “slammed” for doing so. Today we toured the Capitol and sat in the gallery watching a senator from South Dakota telling nobody but himself how this healthcare bill needs to be debated, and how it should not be rushed through. I have not been to the Capitol in a long time, and I was blown away by the aura of “royalty,” “regality” and “palace luxury” that is everywhere. Titles, plaques, gold emblems everywhere, underground subways that go 40 yards, privileged drinking fountains, restrooms, and a gazillion young (attractive) staffers looking starry eyed for anyone with a title. I can see any person here feeling “anointed” after only a short time. I cannot see anyone in that environment serving the people in any manner, unless they are a superhero. While I think the ideal of a place where all of us can come together and solve our differences peacefully is very noble, I found the implementation disgusting."

The Real Issue with Socialized Medicine

So much in today's debate about a government run and dictated health system is about the costs and benefits. The argument has shrunk to one that is "utilitarian" and void of any principles. However, the issue is entirely about principles. This excerpt, from Dr. Hendricks, a minor character in Atlas Shrugged, who has gone on 'strike,' says it best...

I quit when medicine was placed under State control some years ago,” said Dr. Hendricks. “Do you know what it takes to perform a brain operation? Do you know the kind of skill it demands, and the years of passionate, merciless, excruciating devotion that go to acquire that skill? That was what I could not place at the disposal of men whose sole qualification to rule me was their capacity to spout the fraudulent generalities that got them elected to the privilege of enforcing their wishes at the point of a gun. I would not let them dictate the purpose for which my years of study had been spent, or the conditions of my work, or my choice of patients, or the amount of my reward. I observed that in all the discussions that preceded the enslavement of medicine, men discussed everything—except the desires of the doctors. Men considered only the ‘welfare’ of the patients, with no thought for those who were to provide it. That a doctor should have any right, desire or choice in the matter, was regarded as irrelevant selfishness; his is not to choose, they said, but ‘to serve.’ That a man’s willing to work under compulsion is too dangerous a brute to entrust with a job in the stockyards—never occurred to those who proposed to help the sick by making life impossible for the healthy. I have often wondered at the smugness at which people assert their right to enslave me, to control my work, to force my will, to violate my conscience, to stifle my mind—yet what is it they expect to depend on, when they lie on an operating table under my hands? Their moral code has taught them to believe that it is safe to rely on the virtue of their victims. Well, that is the virtue I have withdrawn. Let them discover the kind of doctors that their system will now produce. Let them discover, in the operating rooms and hospital wards, that it is not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man they have throttled. It is not safe, if he is the sort of man who resents it—and still less safe, if he is the sort who doesn’t.”

-- Storm

Keeping it Logical

Seeking the truth is what will unite us in this country, and in communities around the world.

Here is a video, right off of MSNBC, that does a good job highlighting what I think is the problem that many on the right have with Obama, and the way he fails to think things through.


This reporter points out the contradiction in his speech, and while I very much enjoy an articulate President, these types of statements are troubling with our current President. It is disturbing that the national networks did not call on him on this particular "positioning" speech, and I don't believe the current relationship between the President and the press is a good thing for the country. I was thinking about what would cause a leader to overlook such a contraction, and, in my opinion, this speech is the symptom of a man who “wants to believe” and “wants to be liked.”

I think the pointing out of this ability to be smoothly presidential and preposterous is particularly instructive to those who don’t understand why so very many find Obama repulsive. I believe I understand both his supporters and detractors, and I believe it is crucial that each understands what exactly is the "truth" of the other. Bush often was inarticulate. Obama is often irrational,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6-4wPVwNEM&NR=1

---- Storm