PrintMarch 22, 2010
The One Preexisting Condition Getting a Cure
We have the debate over ObamaCare to thank for one thing, at least: the treating of the preexisting childlike delusion that bipartisanship is possible, let alone desirable, when the other side is the Obama Democrats.
It is neither. And it never has been nor ever will be as long as there is a segment of a society that wishes to control the wealth and activities of other segments of society. With such people, there are only two options. Either you defeat them -- or they defeat you. If you strive to get along with them, you will awaken one day to the fact that they have won. Period.
This little reality is blurred by poll questions designed to bait Americans into answers that fall into the "can't we all just get along" category. Of course everybody wants that -- in a theoretical vacuum. The problem is, we don't live in a theoretical vacuum. We live in a world where you are either controlled by yourself or by someone else.
Conservatives desire control of one's own destiny. Liberals seek to control everyone else's destiny. These two desires by definition cannot coexist peacefully. To pretend they can, in the spirit of bi-partisanship, is frankly infantile. Yet so many purporting to be the brightest still cling to that notion.
But finally, the control freaks of the left have so exposed themselves for who they have always been that even folks unengaged enough to qualify for a Frank Luntz Focus Group are waking up to reality.
Welcome, folks, but what took you so damned long? You had plenty of warning shots.
For some inexplicable reason, the disaster of four-dollar gas was not blamed on the control designs of the left, yet it is clear that decades of liberal energy policy were collectively the reason for this economy-killing problem. Since before we knew the name Michael Jordan, let alone Google, liberals have blocked the production of nuclear power plants and any meaningful offshore drilling. Thus, liberal control of the means of energy production put America on the wrong side of that little law known as supply and demand. Our supplies were static or shrinking while our demand -- as well as the demand of others -- was soaring. Oops. Four bucks, please.
And no, the sixteen-cent profit is not the problem. But in the name of bipartisanship, too many folks who knew better went along to get along with that premise.
That little financial shock at the gas pump caused a lot of folks who should not have had mortgages to start defaulting on those mortgages. After all, if a family budget is tight while gas is two dollars, then something has to give when it doubles. What "gave" was the home that they moved into with no down payment thanks to a sub-prime mortgage.
Now, where in the world did these undeserving folks get those mortgages? They got them from lenders flush with cash and under severe liberal pressure to loan to the "underserved" community. Now, one would think that folks who are "not credit-worthy" should indeed be "underserved" in the world of lending, but that is not how the liberal mind works. And again, in the name of bipartisanship, too many politicians who knew better went along to get along.
Chalk it up to Cloward-Piven -- or Saul Alinsky-inspired bad intentions -- or simply liberal bleeding heart-inspired unintended consequences -- but the bottom line is that statist attempts to control the markets involving homeownership and mortgages crashed both. And at the bottom of the mess are the left-wing fiefdoms of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who managed to enrich liberal cronies like Franklin Raines and Jamie Gorelick while ruining millions of families' financial futures.
And yet the McCain Campaign, a towering example of colossal incompetence if ever there were one, thought that the answer was to blame "unfettered capitalism" and to "reach across the aisle" to complicit folks like Chris Dodd and Barney Frank to solve the problem. You know, damn the truth in the name of bipartisanship.
So with no adults in the political class and only a few in the pundit class admitting that what we needed was a good old-fashioned ideological partisan showdown, America swooned and propelled the undefined vapor of hope and change into power. John McCain's "honorable campaign," which assured us that we "have nothing to fear from an Obama presidency," went quietly to the ash heap of bipartisan history.
To anyone paying half-attention, a government dominated by Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Emanuel, et al was a predictable liberal disaster and highly partisan. Yet our nation embraced this notion of post-partisanship with approval around 70% as Obama took office. Apparently, only 16% were paying any attention, as this percentage of Americans strongly disapproved of Obama the day after the inauguration. That tiny remnant knew exactly what we were in for and embraced partisanship even tighter.
Not paying attention were luminaries such as Peggy Noonan, David Brooks, Christopher Buckley, Chuck Hagel, and Colin Powell. They bought the post-partisan, post-racial Kool-Aid and jumped aboard the Obama Express. They proved themselves the intellectual equals of "the ponytailed guy" of "can't we all just get along" fame from the 1992 debate.
Meanwhile, so-called right-wing extremists who were "out of touch" never bought in. The unofficial leader of this faction was of course Rush Limbaugh, who peered into the zeitgeist headwinds and proudly proclaimed, "I hope he fails." Only one in seven Americans knew at the time that Rush was right.
Yet now, thanks to the breathtaking and never-ending push for total control of our lives by way of ObamaCare, that number is higher than one in two. Moreover, many have come to realize that with this kind of control mindset, there is no meaningful compromise. It may sound enlightened to want Washington "to work together for the American people," but it is becoming evident that this is impossible when one part of our government wants to control the American people.
The only remedy is to defeat such people. And right now, all of those people are in the Democratic Party, and the only buffers between them and a socialist nation are in the Republican Party. This is about the partisanship, the whole partisanship, and nothing but the partisanship.
The toothpaste is out of the tube now. People do not want their health and their entire lives run by the folks who brought us Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, four-dollar gas, and the IRS. And they know now who those people are.
They are liberals. They are Democrats. They are extremely partisan. They are run by people elected from loony, left-wing extremist areas like San Francisco and Chicago. And there is only one way to defeat them.
We must beat them at the game of partisan politics. And the sad irony is that there has been the preexisting condition of belief in a bipartisan utopia that has allowed them to accumulate so much power. That utopian fog engulfed George Bush with his "new tone," as well as too many Republicans for too long.
The happy irony is this: The liberal push for the dream of ObamaCare might just be the cure for that misguided belief. And liberal-dominated Google just might be the antidote to another preexisting conditions the left relies on -- short voter memories.
