Thread: ObamaCare is an ill-defined fantasy, Healthcare reform

ObamaCare is an ill-defined fantasy, Healthcare reform

Why can’t we win?

By Henry Lamb
Saturday, August 29, 2009

Everyone agrees that the nation needs health care reform. If this is true, why can’t one side or the other actually win the battle for congressional votes and reform the health care system?

The progressives in Congress, mostly Democrats, want a system in which the government provides healthcare to everyone. Some go so far as to claim that health care is a basic human right. This side of the debate believes that it is immoral for people who need health care not to get it, and that government is the only entity with the money to provide it.

The conservatives in Congress, mostly Republicans, realize that before government can provide health care for anyone, the money to pay for it must first be taken from the people who earn it. This raises a question: if the money to pay for health care must first be taken from the people, why not let the people keep their money and pay for their own health care?

The answer is this: some people earn enough money to pay for their own health care, and some don’t. Therefore, government must take enough money from those who earn it to pay for the health care needed by those who cannot pay for their own care.

The progressives in Congress, mostly Democrats, consider this to be a perfectly legitimate function of a socialist government: take from those who have, and redistribute to those who have not.

The conservatives in Congress, mostly Republicans, consider this to be theft, a penalty upon the successful; and absolutely abhorrent to the Constitution and to the notion of equal justice under the law.

Where the Constitution first authorizes taxation (Article 1, Section 8 ) it requires that taxes “…shall be uniform throughout the United States.â€

Healthcare Reform Foes Using Radical Alinsky's Tactics

Influential Chicago activist Saul Alinsky wrote the book on community organizing for the left.

Now in an ironic twist, opponents of President Barack Obama and the Democrats' healthcare reform plans are employing some of the very same tactics that Alinsky, who died in 1972, espoused in his work "Rules for Radicals."

As healthcare reform foes angrily confront lawmakers at town-hall meetings, The New York Times observed: "It is an irony of the current skirmishing about healthcare that those who could be considered Mr. Alinsky's sworn enemies — the groups, many industry sponsored, who are trying to shout down Congressional town hall meetings — have taken a page from his handbook on community organizing."

Among the Alinsky "trademarks" that the Times' Noam Cohen pointed to are "using spectacle to make up for lack of numbers," targeting an individual — in this case Obama — and "using ridicule to persuade the undecided."

As for complaints from Democrats about the reform opponents' sometimes belligerent tactics, Alinsky stated that "any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical."

The Internet availability of many town-hall confrontations would have won approval from Alinsky, who urged activists to seek media attention — in particular by challenging public officials on camera.

The boisterous disruption of the meetings by reform foes also jibes with Alinsky's tactics. He advised organizers to "raise a din and clamor that will make the listener believe that your organization numbers many more than it does."

Among the many community organizers influenced by Alinsky, the most prominent today is — Barack Obama. He learned and taught Alinsky's methods for community organizing while working for the Developing Communities Project in Chicago.

Received by e-mail from Newsmax.com