Is Being the “Party of No” So Bad?

Leftists have been painting Republicans as “the party of no” in recent months because they have tried to put a damper on the Left’s agenda. And with the health care reform bill debate, Congressional Democrats have been pushing this notion even harder, suggesting that Republicans don’t care about children or the poor and middle class.

As you might expect, I’m going to take a different perspective on it. The health care reform debate reminds me of a little kid in a store who sees a toy he or she really wants. The child asks the parent for the toy, the parent says “no,” and the child retorts with, “But I want it.” As any parent will tell you, at that point you have two choices: continue to be adamant in the hopes the child will give up (after a period of whining, crying, kicking, screaming, and other kid activities designed to make the parent feel bad), or relent to make the child happy and, more importantly in some cases, keep him or her quiet.

With health care reform, the Left (surprise, surprise) is acting like the little kid. They want some form of government-run health insurance and they’ve asked the Republicans to let them have it. The Republicans have said no. And now the Democrats have unleashed the political equivalent of a temper tantrum.

The thing about it, though, is that being told “no” is a good thing sometimes. We may not know it when we’re kids, but usually parents have a bit more knowledge and wisdom working for them than we do, so their refusal to acquiesce to our demands helps us to avoid mistakes. Other times, we may not know that the parent doesn’t have the money to pay for the toy or may be getting the toy in question later for a special occasion, such as a birthday or Christmas. In that case, saying “no” isn’t designed to discourage or enrage a child, but rather to give him or her what he/she wants under different circumstances.

With the current health care reform bill, there are a number of alternatives that have either been rejected out of hand or not given full consideration. Granted, some of them aren’t going to work as well as expected, but if we are looking to reform the current health care system as it pertains to insurance, we owe it to the American people to consider all options. Just because Democrats won both houses of Congress doesn’t mean they can ignore what is right for the country, and the same goes for Republicans. It wasn’t right when they did it, and it’s not right now when they’re the victims of it.

Although “the party of no” is a catchy phrase and holds a lot of partisan negativity, I’m not sure it’s so much of a put-down anymore. If Republicans are just objecting to the Leftist agenda out of habit, then the label would be negative. But if the Republicans are objecting because they want to actually fix the health care system in this country, I’d prefer them to be “the party of no” if they object to the Democrat plans rather than saying “yes” to keep them quiet for a short time.

"We Have Seen the Enemy..."

Early this morning, Senate Democrats pushed through a vote to block Republican delays on the health care reform bill that all but guarantees its passage before Christmas. Hours before the vote, Senator John McCain appeared on "Fox News Sunday" and said there was probably nothing the Senate Republicans could do to stop it, but that Senate Republicans would "fight to the last vote."

The problem is we didn't really get a chance to see the Senate Republicans fight for the first vote.

It's time Republicans come to the realization that their Congressional leadership, such as it is, has betrayed them. It was a subtle betrayal, one that took years to come to fruition. What was once a party that represented fiscal responsibility, personal freedom, and small government has become a party of largesse, statism, and irresponsibility. But so many people, myself included for a number of years, were caught up in the "red versus blue" gamesmanship that we believed Republicans were different. If only we could have gotten Republicans elected, we wouldn't be in this mess.

Are you sure? I'm not anymore. Just voting for a Republican isn't going to solve the problems of this nation because Republicans learned over the past decade or so how cool it was to spend money we didn't have on projects we didn't really need, but would help them get reelected. In short, they became the very thing they bashed. Can anyone really tell me there's a difference between Olympia Snowe and Arlen Specter? Between John McCain and Charles Schumer? It's getting harder and harder to find a difference.

And it's one huge reason that, contrary to the claims of a certain Leftist blogger who hates me and yet can't posting about me, I do not support the current Republican Party in any way. And, no, I'm not a Libertarian any more, either, for the same reason I'm not a Republican: they went too far left for my tastes. (Figured I'd clarify that for Mr. Leftist Blogger, since he seems to think I'm a Republican who claims to be a Libertarian, not that he'd man up and admit he has been wrong about me from the very beginning...)

So what am I?

I'm an American who wants the GOP to stop being Democrat Lite.

I'm an American who wants Democrats to get their heads out of their collectivist backsides and realize that their party has been taken over by people who want government to control every aspect of their lives.

I'm an American who wants to see us get back to a government of the people, by the people, for the people.

I'm an American who wants America to go back to a limited constitutional government that allows people maximum freedom with maximum responsibility.

And I'm not alone. And that should scare the hell out of the Washington elite and their lemming followers.

But Is It Art?

The Senate health care reform bill has overcome another hurdle with Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) stating yesterday that he would support the bill if it retained language to prevent taxpayer funds from going to insurance coverage that would pay for abortion. This move has been attacked from both sides of the abortion debate. Pro-choice advocates say Nelson's language would prevent women from getting abortion coverage, while pro-life advocates say the language doesn't go far enough. But I think we're missing an important distinction here.

At its core, abortion is a medical procedure that kills a human life. How exactly is that health care?

Granted, there are times when an abortion may save the life of the mother. Having said that, those procedures are rare, meaning the bulk of the abortions being performed are elective. You could make a case that an abortion could make the quality of the mother's life better, but that's not the same as a life-saving procedure.

Of course, some Leftists will say that I'm just anti-woman because of my position on this issue, but I would also add there are a lot of things insurance covers for men, such as ED drugs, that I don't think should be covered by insurance because of the same argument I made above. They don't save lives, only make the quality of life better for some. When we play the game of "whose life is worth more", we all lose. And I think that's where Senator Nelson's coming from with his opposition to abortion being covered under the health care reform bill.

Of course, that's not going to make both sides of the abortion debate stop to consider the absurdity of considering abortion to be a health care issue.

Ego on the Line

Last night, I posted something about the climate change agreement the Obama Administration announced yesterday where a few developing countries and the US would actively seek to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Now comes the news that the agreement, the one the Administration was so proud of, is...non-binding. Wow. Gotta love that strong leadership from Obama...

Folks, I'm going to say something that is being missed by most of the public. This agreement was never about global climate change and man's impact on it. It was all about getting Obama a victory of some sort in Copenhagen, considering he hasn't had very good luck there this year. His appearance before the International Olympic Committee to try to get the 2016 Summer Olympics to come to Chicago was a bust, and an embarrassing one at that. His winning the Nobel Peace Prize has become an international joke. Now with the UN climate conference, we're seeing how big a joke it is because of all the bickering and the weather.

In short, Obama needed a victory in Copenhagen. After coming off as a laughingstock the last two times he went there, his ego couldn't take another blow, so he was looking to come away with something, anything, to make the third time truly become a charm. But what this agreement has done is made him look desperate and incapable of being an effective world leader.

And the Left was concerned about how America was perceived in the world when George W. Bush was President?

Much Ado About Nothing?

Stop the presses! Stop what you're doing and let up a whoop of joy! Remember what you were doing on this day because...President Barack Obama helped bring about an "unprecedented breakthrough" with developing countries to curb greenhouse gases!

The United States, China, India, South Africa, and Brazil have all agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions and allow for independent entities to review these countries' plans and accomplishments. Also, we have committed to cap global temperature increases to 2 degrees! And all it takes from us is support of a global fund to the tune of $100 billion! Of course, we don't know all the details of the deal yet because there are some details to hammer out, but isn't it great that we've made such important progress?

Okay, enough sarcasm for one blog post.

Is it just me, or is this agreement destined to flop? For one thing, no matter how much we limit greenhouse gases, we can't overcome nature. Man's contribution to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is less than one percent. That leaves a whopping 99%-plus that we can't control, which includes volcanic eruptions. Unless Obama has a way to make volcanoes control their greenhouse gas output, our impact is going to be minuscule at best.

Then, there's the global temperature cap. We can't even predict the weather five days from now with any degree of accuracy. What makes these folks think we can control the planet's temperatures? And here's the trick. It's frightfully easy for the AGW cultists to "prove" that their efforts are working.

Adopt the science of those who have shown the planet has been cooling since 1998.

At the heart of the Left's environmental science is blatant dishonesty. (See the Climategate emails and the Left's attempts to spin or deny them for proof.) It would be easy to delay the release of the temperature calculations to coincide with any kind of plan they cook up in Copenhagen. All it takes is a little time, and the AGW cultists will believe that the Copenhagen agreement has impacted the planet (all without proof, of course).

I agree that we should do what we can to limit the damage we do to the planet, but making meaningless, expensive, simplistic, and unrealistic agreements isn't a way to do it. Let's actually...oh I don't know...do something that actually addresses the problem. Just sayin'.

Two Birds, One Stone

President Barack Obama is getting heat from both sides of the aisle for his policies, particularly health care reform and the economy. Critics suggest Obama took his eyes off the latter by focusing so much energy on the former, and they're right. If Obama had done a little thinking, he would have been able to take care of job creation and health insurance for the less fortunate in one fell swoop.

And it starts with manufacturing. Have you noticed that America doesn't make that much anymore? That's because our manufacturing base has evaporated due to numerous factors, including rising labor costs and government regulations. As a result, we're importing goods that could be made here if our manufacturing base were in place and active.

On the health care side, there are many people in the country who do not have health insurance or choose not to take it. The latter is hard to overcome, but the former can be addressed. Government health insurance isn't that great an idea (as we've seen with Medicare and Medicaid), so we need another option. These days, most companies offer health insurance packages for employees or at least give options for lower cost insurance policies. Now, all we need to do is get the people who need health insurance into jobs that offer them.

Reestablishing the manufacturing base in America would accomplish both job creation and helping the less fortunate get health insurance by opening up factories in America. At least in the short term, government can help bring this about by giving companies incentives to build factories here, including tax breaks. If it passes Constitutional muster, perhaps government could also put a 5 year moratorium on unionizing workers to sweeten the deal with the understanding that the company follow labor laws or suffer severe penalties.

This would be a win-win for everyone, including the President. People would get access to paying jobs and health insurance, thus improving both conditions. The economy would see a boost. Imports would start to decline, which also has an impact on carbon emissions and, thus, the environment because we wouldn't need to import as much. And, for the President, it would help shore up his falling job approval ratings while making him look like an economic genius and a caring President.

A simple solution to several problems. That pretty much guarantees government won't even consider it.

An Inconvenient Pitchman

One of the favorite "defenses" that the AGW proponents drag out to diminish discoveries by people who find flaws with their religion...I mean "factual arguments"... is to bring up that the skeptics aren't climatologists. Apparently, their logic is that, unless you're a climatologist, you can't understand the intricacies of AGW.

Enter Al Gore. In spite of his lack of scientific credentials, AGW proponents cling to what he says (which is pretty much cribbed notes of what others have said). This inconsistency should not go unnoticed, especially when you consider the following statements that show how little credibility the former Vice President has on the subject of our earth.

"People think about geothermal energy - when they think about it at all - in terms of the hot water bubbling up in some places, but two kilometers or so down in some places there are these incredibly hot rocks, 'cause the interior of the earth is extremely hot, several million degrees, and the crust of the earth is hot..." --- Al Gore, "The Tonight Show", 11/12/09

The inconvenient truth: It's estimated that the earth's core is around 4000 degrees Celsius.

"Some of the models suggest to Dr. [Wieslaw] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire polar ice cap during some summer months could be completely ice free within five to seven years." --- Al Gore, keynote address at the Copenhagen climate summit, 12/15/09

The inconvenient truth: Dr. Maslowski's study says nothing of the sort. Maslowski, who works at the U. S. Naval Postgraduate School, stated that his study projected an 80% decline in the arctic ice in about six years, but that there would still be ice. But you don't have to take my own word at Maslowski calling out Gore's exaggeration. Dr. Maslowski said, "I was very explicit that we were talking about near-ice-free conditions and not completely ice-free conditions in the northern ocean."

"For a long time, the scientists have been telling us global warming increases the temperature of the top layer in the ocean, and that causes the average hurricane to become a lot stronger." --- Al Gore, courtesy of http://www.woopidoo.com/business_quotes/authors/al-gore/index.htm.

The inconvenient truth: According to Ryan N. Maue of Florida State University, global hurricane energy has dropped to 30 year lows. [http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/] Although Maue admits activity may be on its way back up, the fact that there was this lull while Gore has claimed the earth has gotten hotter should give even the most ardent AGW follower reason to pause.

"So, the fact that the ocean temperatures did go up because of global warming, because of man-made global warming, starting around the seventies, and then we had a string of unusually strong hurricanes outside of this multi-decadal cycle that is a real factor..." --- Al Gore, courtesy of http://www.woopidoo.com/business_quotes/authors/al-gore/index.htm

The inconvenient truth: That may not be as accurate an indication of AGW as Gore and his followers think. Jo Nova compiles evidence that ocean temperatures may not be warming after all and shows a possible omission of pertinent information, not unlike the attempts to suppress data that doesn't coincide with the prevalent message. [http://joannenova.com.au/2009/07/ocean-temperatures-the-new-bluff-in-alarmism/]

"It's a complicated relationship, but the most important part of it is this: When there is more CO2 in the atmosphere, the temperature increases because more heat from the Sun is trapped inside." --- Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, page 67

The inconvenient truth: Scientists have noted that Gore's own graph shows that temperatures warmed before CO2 levels increased. [http://www.slideshare.net/guest3c5779/al-gore-climate-change-inconvenient-truth]

And last, but certainly not least...

The most inconvenient truth: Al Gore got a D in Natural Sciences 6 (Man's Place in Nature) during his sophomore year at St. Albans. But don't worry. He bumped that up to a C+ when he took Natural Sciences 116 during his senior year. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A37397-2000Mar18]

Kinda makes you question Gore's credibility, doesn't it?