The Conservative Praetorian: The Second Boston Tea Party

Opinion 1.0

In 2010, I would have never believed that a republican could possibly take a senate seat in a very liberal state. As, Scott Brown said, "in all due respect, its not Ted Kennedy's seat, its not a democrat seat, it's the people's seat." All eye's are on the state of Massachusetts, a very tight senate seat that Ted Kennedy held for 47 years. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, D, thought that the seat was hers. Of course, the democrats felt entitled to this seat. It hasn't been in question since before 1962. John had the seat before Teddy. Today, numerous polls have Scott Brown, R-MA, accomplishing the impossible and is ahead in different polls by 2 to 4 points. Martha Coakley has made some mistakes speaking and doesn't seem to be very inpersonable. Also, she will vote for Obamacare if elected. I believe that the citizens of Massachusetts are skeptical of government takeovers and the independents of this state are not satisfied with the status quo. Massachusetts State Senator Scott Brown, R, has surprised everyone and ascended to a small, but impressive lead which has the democrat pundits scratching their heads. Within the last week, this senate race has become a national race. I sent money about a week and a half ago. I've read that Brown is raising about a million a day in contributions. I think 2010 will be the year of change. What I mean by that statement is the liberal left will suffer huge defeats in November because of the disconnect the super majority has displayed. They are very much out of touch with the American people and seem not to care about our opinions and views. If Brown can win this race, he will break the fillibuster proof hold the democrats have and could possibly stop Obamacare. The underlying effect this race will have is, the democrats coming up for election next november will be worried about their own seats seeing a republican winning in Massachusetts or just coming very close. I read Obama might come to Massachusetts and stump for Martha. Rudy Guiliani was stumping for Scott and I read it was very successful. I think this race wiil be determined by the independents, and if the thugs from ACORN and the unions (SEIU purple shirts) try to play hard ball. Please try to help Scott Brown win a senate seat in Massachusetts. This is a referendum on Obama and his policies. It will set off a string of events that will change the political climate for years to come. Lets make Scott Brown's senate win related to the merchant ship, Dartmouth in 1773.

Scott Brown handing it to David Gergen:

Coakley- Taliban is gone from Afghanistan:

Bad form:

The Truth about ObamaCare

By John Lilly

A senior Obama Administration official almost let the cat out of the bag about the real impact of Obama-style health care "reform." Here's the background.

The three most important things in real estate are location, location, and location. In health care, one could argue that it's reimbursements, reimbursements, and reimbursements. One in every six workers receives a paycheck that depends on physician and hospital reimbursement for services. Except for Medicaid, Medicare reimbursement rates are the lowest of all entities that reimburse physicians and hospitals. All private insurance and Medicare Advantage reimbursements are higher than traditional Medicare ones. Medicare and Medicare Advantage plans take a $425-billion cut in the current health care reform legislation.

In 2008, a Physician Foundation survey found that 36% of physicians said Medicare reimbursement is less than their cost of providing care, and 65% of physicians said that Medicaid reimbursement is less than their cost of providing care. Raise your hand if you work for free. Then why is the administration asking one-sixth of all U.S. workers to do just that?

Larry Summers, the Obama administration's Director of the National Economic Council, spoke at The Economic Club of Washington at their April 2009 meeting. C-SPAN was there, and at roughly minute 41, Summers said the following:

That's why health care reform is so important because a large fraction of the federal budget is health care and if health care spending is growing three to four percent a year faster than the rest of the economy then there is no way that the federal budget can be under control. And if you try to control federal spending without controlling overall health spending you know what's going to happen. The people in the federal programs aren't going to be able to ...

Then he paused before continuing:

The health care system isn't going to want to serve the people in the federal programs. That's why the health care agenda is crucial to the long term financial sustainability agenda.

I think it is obvious that Summers was going to say that "the people in the federal programs aren't going to be able to find a doctor if you have Medicare," but he rephrased it before his original thought came out of his mouth. When he talks about overall health spending, he is including all public and private entities that reimburse physicians and hospitals. Federal spending includes just Medicare and Medicaid.

When Medicare reimbursement does not cover the cost of doing business, guess who will have a tough time finding a doctor. If there is a choice, then doctors, like any rational consumer, will prefer plans like Medicare Advantage and private insurance, which have higher reimbursement rates. The administration's idea of holding down costs is forcing all reimbursements down to Medicare levels or lower. They know that if there are alternatives, patients who are stuck with traditional Medicare won't be able to find a doctor. Recently, one of the Mayo Clinics in Arizona stopped taking Medicare because it's a money-loser. Mayo's hospital and four clinics in Arizona, including the one that stopped taking Medicare, lost $120 million on Medicare patients last year. The program's payments covered only 50% of the cost of treating elderly primary-care patients.

If all reimbursement rates are forced down to Medicare rates or lower, then get ready for five-minute doctor visits and waiting times measured in weeks and months before appointments for major diagnostic testing like MRIs.

Unfortunately, the Republicans do not have the answers, either. Their proposals will not control costs. Only when you introduce free-market competition and eliminate the current reimbursement system will you get lower costs. That will require a fundamental change in Medicare and all reimbursement systems.

John Lilly, MBA, D.O. is a family physician and the vice president of The YOUNG Conservatives of America (tycoa.com).

Daft statement of the week:

"Pro-life Catholics probably shouldn't work in hospital emergency rooms."

Martha Coakley

Green Piece:

Greens Flip: Senate Cap-and-Trade Bill ‘Not a Serious Proposal’

by Christopher C. Horner

This story in E&EM News PM (subscription required), “Murkowski floats plan to force Senate vote on cap and trade next week”, is spectacular.

Here are the money lines, all noting Sen. Murkowski’s clever plan to simply call the Left on their rhetoric and posing about the Kerry-Boxer cap-and-trade bill S. 1733, a bill that was marked up in the Environment and Public Works Committee in a somber yet urgent November affair, reporting it to the Senate floor and, oh yes, the Copenhagen conference:

"Boxer-Kerry is a non-starter, and the amendment — if that’s what it said — it would expose that,’ said Murkowski spokesman Robert Dillon. ‘We obviously don’t want to pass the bill; we’re confident that it would fail.’ Holding a vote on the Kerry-Boxer bill would ’show the sense of the Senate, where it is,’ Dillon said….

‘What she’s trying to do is force Democrats to vote against a bill that is clearly one that is not ripe to be brought to the Senate floor,’ said Daniel Weiss, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, noting that the bill was intended to be combined with an energy bill aimed at lowering energy costs and spurring investments in technology.

"This is Lisa Murkowski giving the finger to those who believe we need to reduce global warming pollution because this is not a serious proposal,’ Weiss said.”

Well, that’s not quite what it is, but it does reveal that someone was giving the rest of us the finger all along. And I am more than a little amused to note how the “us” includes not a few fellow travelers in Copenhagen.

Team Soros’s Dan Weiss calls the marked-up, EPW-approved Kerry-Boxer bill, rushed through to impress the Europeans with the Dems’ seriousness of purpose and courageous stance on the precipice of bicameral enactment, ”not a serious proposal.”

Gosh that’s great stuff. And quite a turnaround for our eager green beaver who, when peddling the pose, touted the bill as “another signal to the international community that the U.S. is serious about achievement of real reductions in its global warming pollution.” But, hey, being a green means never having to say you’re sorry. Just ask all of those Third World children who’ve paid the price for the agenda.

Still, no kidding. Nice you finally admit that when it looks like this bill — “marked up” in, and voted out of committee to the floor for quick packaging overseas — looks like it might be something your pals can have held against them in a meaningful way. Something about the prospect of a hanging and how it aids one’s thinking, etc. Or, maybe, it’s just that it’s rather easier to strike a silly pose for some Euro-love (still an epic fail, incidentally) than it is to confront your voters.

What poseurs! he is effectively admitting about a bill reported to the floor as well as publicly and we now know dishonestly hailed, if adding his own touch of absurdity: nothing added by other committees would unring the bell of cap-and-trade — the objective of which our president has admitted is to cause your energy prices to “necessarily skyrocket” and “bankrupt” coal and dependent industries. So they’re reduced to some strange line of saying it’s painful but, you see, we were planning on adding some windmill and pixie dust “green jobs” nonsense to it and suddenly take away the pain (or, well , at least distract from what we’re really doing).

Second, recall and prepare to catalogue the promiscuous use of the line, in promotion of “must act now!” legislative pain, that “hey now…we don’t want EPA to do this!”. It does provide them a nice hard place against which to be pressed: possibly they might be forced to say “but I don’t want Congress to either!” (or they do want that but just not via the bill marked up in and voted out of committee and sold to the Europeans et al. as being really great shakes and almost there…)?

Great stuff. Really. And yet another wonderful exhibit about how seriously to take these people.

Kill Bill Vol. III

Opposition to Senate Healthcare Bill: Call your Senators!

"We the people" must stop the Obamacare Proposals: I am formally asking (pleading) with you to muster up the initiative and enthusiasm to fight the healthcare bill that will emerge in the end of the year. First, there are 2 bills (proposals) that will somehow be merged into one bill. Liberals are adamant about some form of "Public Option" (Government Run Option) and federally funded abortion. I think the democrats believe they can push this bill through while we are sleeping. The democrats have blocked many bills that would allow the final bill to be posted on the internet 72 hours prior to a vote. Why? you know why. We must oppose this more than we did over the summer. Let them know, we are not against healthcare reform, just not a total makeover. Call and email your representatives. I have emailed and called mine so many times, they are referring to me by my first name. Write an old fashioned letter, it has a lot of importance. Attend your local tea parties and townhalls to voice your opinions and make a overwhelming presence. Below, is a little list how you can get involved. It is our civic duty. "It is our Country."

http://www.congress.org/
http://www.joinpatientsfirst.com/
http://www.freedomworks.org/
http://www.resistnet.com/
http://www.teapartypatriots.com/
http://www.teaparty.org/
http://www.taxpayer.org/
http://www.taxpayer.net/
info@cmpi.org
http://www.fairtax.org/
http://www.conservativeamericansunited.org/

CALL YOUR SENATORS! EMAIL YOUR SENATORS! CALL YOUR SENATORS! EMAIL YOUR SENATORS!

Quote du jour:
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

John Adams (The Works of John Adams, ed. C. F. Adams, Boston: Little, Brown Co., 1851, 4:31)

Common Sense - continued

By Thomas Paine

EPISTLE TO QUAKERS

To the Representatives of the Religious Society of the People called Quakers, or to so many of them as were concerned in publishing a late piece, entitled "THE ANCIENT TESTIMONY and PRINCIPLES of the people called QUAKERS renewed with respect to the KING and GOVERNMENT, and Touching the COMMOTIONS now prevailing in these and other parts of AMERICA, addressed to the PEOPLE IN GENERAL."

THE writer of this is one of those few, who never dishonors religion either by ridiculing, or cavilling at any denomination whatsoever. To God, and not to man, are all men accountable on the score of religion. Wherefore, this epistle is not so properly addressed to you as a religious, but as a political body, dabbling in matters, which the professed quietude of your Principles instruct you not to meddle with.

As you have, without a proper authority for so doing, put yourselves in the place of the whole body of the Quakers, so, the writer of this, in order to be on an equal rank with yourselves, is under the necessity, of putting himself in the place of all those who approve the very writings and principles, against which your testimony is directed: And he hath chosen their singular situation, in order that you might discover in him, that presumption of character which you cannot see in yourselves. For neither he nor you have any claim or title to Political Representation.

When men have departed from the right way, it is no wonder that they stumble and fall. And it is evident from the manner in which ye have managed your testimony, that politics, (as a religious body of men) is not your proper walk; for however well adapted it might appear to you, it is, nevertheless, a jumble of good and bad put unwisely together, and the conclusion drawn therefrom, both unnatural and unjust.

The two first pages, (and the whole doth not make four) we give you credit for, and expect the same civility from you, because the love and desire of peace is not confined to Quakerism, it is the natural, as well as the religious wish of all denominations of men. And on this ground, as men laboring to establish an Independent Constitution of our own, do we exceed all others in our hope, end, and aim. Our plan is peace for ever. We are tired of contention with Britain, and can see no real end to it but in a final separation. We act consistently, because for the sake of introducing an endless and uninterrupted peace, do we bear the evils and burdens of the present day. We are endeavoring, and will steadily continue to endeavor, to separate and dissolve a connection which hath already filled our land with blood; and which, while the name of it remains, will be the fatal cause of future mischiefs to both countries.

We fight neither for revenge nor conquest; neither from pride nor passion; we are not insulting the world with our fleets and armies, nor ravaging the globe for plunder. Beneath the shade of our own vines are we attacked; in our own houses, and on our own lands, is the violence committed against us. We view our enemies in the characters of highwaymen and housebreakers, and having no defence for ourselves in the civil law; are obliged to punish them by the military one, and apply the sword, in the very case, where you have before now, applied the halter. Perhaps we feel for the ruined and insulted sufferers in all and every part of the continent, and with a degree of tenderness which hath not yet made its way into some of your bosoms. But be ye sure that ye mistake not the cause and ground of your Testimony. Call not coldness of soul, religion; nor put the bigot in the place of the Christian.

The partial ministers of your own acknowledged principles! If the bearing arms be sinful, the first going to war must be more so, by all the difference between wilful attack and unavoidable defence.

Wherefore, if ye really preach from conscience, and mean not to make a political hobby-horse of your religion, convince the world thereof, by proclaiming your doctrine to our enemies, for they likewise bear ARMS. Give us proof of your sincerity by publishing it at St. James's, to the commanders in chief at Boston, to the admirals and captains who are practically ravaging our coasts, and to all the murdering miscreants who are acting in authority under HIM whom ye profess to serve. Had ye the honest soul of Barclay* ye would preach repentance to your king; Ye would tell the royal tyrant of his sins, and warn him of eternal ruin. Ye would not spend your partial invectives against the injured and the insulted only, but like faithful ministers, would cry aloud and spare none. Say not that ye are persecuted, neither endeavor to make us the authors of that reproach, which, ye are bringing upon yourselves; for we testify unto all men, that we do not complain against you because ye are Quakers, but because ye pretend to be and are NOT Quakers.

"Thou hast tasted of prosperity and adversity; thou knowest what it is to be banished thy native country, to be overruled as well as to rule, and set upon the throne; and being oppressed thou hast reason to know now hateful the oppressor is both to God and man. If after all these warnings and advertisements, thou dost not turn unto the Lord with all thy heart, but forget him who remembered thee in thy distress, and give up thyself to follow lust and vanity, surely great will be thy condemnation. Against which snare, as well as the temptation of those who may or do feed thee, and prompt thee to evil, the most excellent and prevalent remedy will be, to apply thyself to that light of Christ which shineth in thy conscience and which neither can, nor will flatter thee, nor suffer thee to be at ease in thy sins."- Barclay's Address to Charles II.

Alas! it seems by the particular tendency of some part of your Testimony, and other parts of your conduct, as if all sin was reduced to, and comprehended in the act of bearing arms, and that by the people only. Ye appear to us, to have mistaken party for conscience, because the general tenor of your actions wants uniformity: And it is exceedingly difficult to us to give credit to many of your pretended scruples; because we see them made by the same men, who, in the very instant that they are exclaiming against the mammon of this world, are nevertheless, hunting after it with a step as steady as Time, and an appetite as keen as Death.

The quotation which ye have made from Proverbs, in the third page of your testimony, that, "when a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him;" is very unwisely chosen on your part; because it amounts to a proof, that the king's ways (whom ye are so desirous of supporting) do not please the Lord, otherwise, his reign would be in peace.

I now proceed to the latter part of your testimony, and that, for which all the foregoing seems only an introduction, viz:

"It hath ever been our judgment and principle, since we were called to profess the light of Christ Jesus, manifested in our consciences unto this day, that the setting up and putting down kings and governments, is God's peculiar prerogative; for causes best known to himself: And that it is not our business to have any hand or contrivance therein; nor to be busy-bodies above our station, much less to plot and contrive the ruin, or overturn any of them, but to pray for the king, and safety of our nation, and good of all men: that we may live a peaceable and quiet life, in all goodliness and honesty; under the government which God is pleased to set over us." If these are really your principles why do ye not abide by them? Why do ye not leave that, which ye call God's work, to be managed by himself? These very principles instruct you to wait with patience and humility, for the event of all public measures, and to receive that event as the divine will towards you. Wherefore, what occasion is there for your political Testimony if you fully believe what it contains? And the very publishing it proves, that either, ye do not believe what ye profess, or have not virtue enough to practice what ye believe.

The principles of Quakerism have a direct tendency to make a man the quiet and inoffensive subject of any, and every government which is set over him. And if the setting up and putting down of kings and governments is God's peculiar prerogative, he most certainly will not be robbed thereof by us; wherefore, the principle itself leads you to approve of every thing, which ever happened, or may happen to kings as being his work. Oliver Cromwell thanks you. Charles, then, died not by the hands of man; and should the present proud imitator of him, come to the same untimely end, the writers and publishers of the Testimony, are bound by the doctrine it contains, to applaud the fact. Kings are not taken away by miracles, neither are changes in governments brought about by any other means than such as are common and human; and such as we are now using. Even the dispersing of the Jews, though foretold by our Savior, was effected by arms. Wherefore, as ye refuse to be the means on one side, ye ought not to be meddlers on the other; but to wait the issue in silence; and unless you can produce divine authority, to prove, that the Almighty who hath created and placed this new world, at the greatest distance it could possibly stand, east and west, from every part of the old, doth, nevertheless, disapprove of its being independent of the corrupt and abandoned court of Britain; unless I say, ye can show this, how can ye, on the ground of your principles, justify the exciting and stirring up of the people "firmly to unite in the abhorrence of all such writings, and measures, as evidence a desire and design to break off the happy connection we have hitherto enjoyed, with the kingdom of Great Britain, and our just and necessary subordination to the king, and those who are lawfully placed in authority under him." What a slap in the face is here! the men, who, in the very paragraph before, have quietly and passively resigned up the ordering, altering, and disposal of kings and governments, into the hands of God, are now recalling their principles, and putting in for a share of the business. Is it possible, that the conclusion, which is here justly quoted, can any ways follow from the doctrine laid down? The inconsistency is too glaring not to be seen; the absurdity too great not to be laughed at; and such as could only have been made by those, whose understandings were darkened by the narrow and crabby spirit of a despairing political party; for ye are not to be considered as the whole body of the Quakers but only as a factional and fractional part thereof.

Here ends the examination of your testimony; (which I call upon no man to abhor, as ye have done, but only to read and judge of fairly;) to which I subjoin the following remark; "That the setting up and putting down of kings," most certainly mean, the making him a king, who is yet not so, and the making him no king who is already one. And pray what hath this to do in the present case? We neither mean to set up nor to put down, neither to make nor to unmake, but to have nothing to do with them. Wherefore your testimony in whatever light it is viewed serves only to dishonor your judgment, and for many other reasons had better have been let alone than published.

First. Because it tends to the decrease and reproach of religion whatever, and is of the utmost danger to society, to make it a party in political disputes. Secondly. Because it exhibits a body of men, numbers of whom disavow the publishing political testimonies, as being concerned therein and approvers thereof. Thirdly. Because it hath a tendency to undo that continental harmony and friendship which yourselves by your late liberal and charitable donations hath lent a hand to establish; and the preservation of which, is of the utmost consequence to us all.

And here, without anger or resentment I bid you farewell. Sincerely wishing, that as men and Christians, ye may always fully and uninterruptedly enjoy every civil and religious right; and be, in your turn, the means of securing it to others; but that the example which ye have unwisely set, of mingling religion with politics, may be disavowed and reprobated by every inhabitant of America.

-THE END-

Source: Common Sense, by Thomas Paine, printed by W. and T. Bradford, Philadelphia, 1791.