Destruction of Our Freedom–We Can and Must Stop It Now!
by Nick Noel
About five hundred people holding candles surrounded an entire block of downtown Cincinnati on Saturday evening, March 20. They lined the sidewalks along Fifth, Vine, Fourth, and Race Streets to completely surround the Carew Tower office of Congressman Steve Driehaus.
The people, mostly associated with the Cincinnati Tea Party and the 9/12 Project, were there to protest the federal takeover of our health care system, and to petition for an Ohio constitutional amendment that would block the takeover in our state. A few hours later, our congressman found an excuse to vote against the people and against the freedom of all American citizens that the US Constitution was written to protect.
Freedom has been under attack in the United States for a long time, but large numbers of Americans have just recently begun to recognize the devastating consequences. Even among this newly awakened group, though, many do not fully understand how close we are to the end of “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
Across the street on Fountain Square, a few dozen people demonstrated their support for putting even more power over their lives into the hands of “government of the people, by the whim of bureaucrats, and for the benefit of elected officials.” Their answer to every real or imagined problem in life is the same: put more power into the hands of the federal government, and then beg elected officials and bureaucrats for favors.
The crisis we now face is not just about the federal takeover of our health care system and control over our personal medical decisions. It’s not just about using the power of the federal government to confiscate even more of our personal property through taxes. It’s not just about the destruction of free enterprise. It’s about the destruction of our freedom.
The crisis we face is whether our country will continue to be the “land of the free.” Will we become the next Venezuela, where freedom is gasping for its last dying breath, or will we become Cuba, where freedom hasn’t existed for more than fifty years? We’re closer to both than most Americans realize.
But still we have the power to halt our country’s demise. This year, we can replace many senators and all of the representatives in Congress who stand against our freedom. In two more years, we can replace many more senators and elect a new president. The current regime will do much more damage by then, but we can replace them.
If we don’t act quickly to restore our freedom, we may lose our ability to do so. If you don’t believe that, just watch the destruction of freedom that’s taking place in Venezuela. Then turn to Cuba to see how we could be living after our freedom is gone. We must act now. We have everything to lose and much to gain for ourselves and our children.
April 6th, 2010 at 1:50 pm
“The crisis we now face is not just about the federal takeover of our health care system and control over our personal medical decisions.”
It is NOT a federal takeover of our health care system. The health insurance companies and drug companies are still free to fleece the American people as much as they want.
In todays healthcare news. 2009 turned out to be a very good year for the CEO of the private health insurance company WellPoint. Angela Braly’s compensation package soared by 51 percent last year. She earned $13.1 million, up from $8.7 million in 2008. At least three other WellPoint executives received compensation increases of as much as 75 percent.
That’s right, private bureaucrats are making a killing off of our healthc are dollars. They stand between you and your doctor. They have control over your personal medical decisions and they make more by providing you less care.
Venezuala has a democratically elected government. They have freedom there and they have chosen Chavez.
April 6th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
Justin,
There may be some merit to your complaints about executive compensation in the healthcare industry, though history will record the health insurance industry as an opportune ’straw man’ making the American health care takeover possible. Additionally, it truly takes a miracle worker to squeeze out the meager profit the health ins. industry achieves; under 3 percent in most cases, but rarely have I heard this same complaint about yearly income for top names in the entertainment or sport’s industry. Also, the question begs to be asked, how do we reward big pharma for the failed drugs they spend billions attempting to bring to market and the additional billions tort lawyers grab? I must insist on an answer. if we decide to eliminate financial incentive, we can kiss future miracle drugs goodbye. The moment a breakthrough drug is approved it must somehow pay the freight for the numerous failed efforts. This is how Pharma R&D works and wishes will not change it.
Your term, private bureaucrats is a contradiction. By its very nature, forced tax “contributions” make the bureaucrat possible. Private companies still have expectations of productivity from employees and execs., while the much decried profit motive works to eliminate and streamline bureaucracy.
Finally, don’t even try to pretend Venezuela has a democratically elected govt. or freedom. Before responding please read:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/28/AR2010022803492.html
Sean Penn’s views aside, this is simply indefensible.
April 6th, 2010 at 9:20 pm
Ed, there is no takeover. Private corporations are still in the system. In fact they are more entrenched than ever before and their stocks have gone up. They helped come up with the current plan.
It doesn’t take a miracle worker to squeeze out profits, it takes a greedy bastard. The only way to squeeze out care is to raise prices and deny care. All the health insurance corporations make huge profits and they don’t run on 3%. Where in the world did you get that figure? I must insist on an answer.
It is incorrect.
Read this: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/8800.php
“U.S. wastes more on health care bureaucracy than it would cost to provide health care to all of the uninsured. Administrative expenses will consume at least $399.4 billion out of total health expenditures of $1,660.5 billion in 2003. Streamlining administrative overhead to Canadian levels would save approximately $286.0 billion in 2003, $6,940 for each of the 41.2 million Americans who were uninsured as of 2001. This is substantially more than would be needed to provide full insurance coverage.”
No government bureaucrat makes millions of dollars in Medicare government health insurance system. That is why single payer systems are cheaper. The VA-which really is socialized medicine-gets 40% off of drugs because it can negotiate like Wal-Mart does. Would you like to get rid of the VA because it is socialist medicine?
The US isn’t the only country that develops drugs, but we do pay more for drugs than any other nation does. (Obama guaranteed the drug companies we wouldn’t negotiate better prices.) Also the government pays for most of the research that goes into developing drugs and then hands it over to drug companies to bring to market at a huge profit. The US drug corporations pretend they spend more on research than they do because they mix their massive marketing budget with their research budget to try to justify their outrageous profits.
Nobody needs to go to a sports game or to a movie, but everybody needs to see doctors and nurses when they are sick or injured. You’re comparing apples and oranges.
“Your term, private bureaucrats is a contradiction.” No it isn’t. A bureaucracy is simply a system of administration marked by officialism, red tape, and proliferation. People are forced to buy health insurance otherwise they can be denied care or they have to pay much more than what those with insurance have to pay.
Hospitals have to keep track of every aspirin given out so they can bill it back to you or an insurance company. In Canada’s Medicare-for-all system they just give aspirin out as needed. There’s less paper work. Insurance companies make more profits by not covering all of your aspirin. Their main goal is to maximize profits, not care. Government health insurance (like Medicare) only has the goal of maximizing care.
The article you cite is an editorial. Editorials are opinions, not a news report. Chavez is a democratically elected leader. Read this before responding:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1229348.stm
I don’t necessarily agree with him on everything, but that certainly doesn’t make him a dictator. There are real dictators that the US supports like in Saudi Arabia and Indonesia etc.
April 7th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
if anyone here is worried about there freedom i highly suggest you visit this sites http://www.prisonplanet.com/ because it feels like were are living in a prison #2 http://www.infowars.com/ because there is a war out for mind and then there is Ron Paul who is fighting the fed’s tooth and nail for freedom
April 7th, 2010 at 11:22 pm
Justin,
I will attempt to accommodate because you insist. According to a WSJ article dated Aug. 5, 2009, WellPoint, the biggest, and I might add, one of the most profitable private health insurers on Wall Street, which has about 35 million customers nationwide, paid out 83.6% of revenues in expenses. Net, after-tax income as a percentage of total revenue came to a blistering 4.1%. Who do you know that would run a business if the best they could expect was a 4 percent profit? University of Michigan economist Mark Perry calculated, “that the industry average profit margin would have been closer to 3 percent”— $100 per policy. The recently passed health care takeover bill mandates that private health insurers substantially increase the percentage of revenue paid out in claims. Justin, the truth is that you will have your dream of a single-payer style government run health industry as the private companies fold, one-by-one.
I am surprised that you have chosen the Canadian model of health care as a standard bearer of exceptional service and product. Don’t bother listening to the overwhelming evidence of long waits and rationing that we conservative types have relayed over the previous year. Get the facts from Canadians like the current president of the Canadian Medical Association, Dr. Anne Doig who states that their system is “imploding” and is “unsustainable.” Read the entire article here: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/08/18/national-post-editorial-board-canadian-healthcare-is-no-model.aspx. Better yet, read any of the fine healthcare related articles in National Review written by Mark Steyn, a Canadian who has also lived in England. I might also mention Sally Pipes, CEO of the Pacific Research Institute, another Canadian now living in the U.S. who studies healthcare issues. She has the stats to verify that there are currently 17 percent of Canadians on a waiting list to see a primary care physician.
Finally, it seems a tad bit unfair if I mentioned the excellent heart surgery provided in February by Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami, Florida to Danny Williams the Premier from Newfoundland Province. Let us hope that these wonderful choices remain available to all of us.
I suppose it is necessary to revisit Hugo Chavez. There are several articles, readily available showing the supposedly fair elections (2004) in Venezuela were rigged. Allow me to provide a couple for you and for other readers to peruse: http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/8/29/222820.shtml and “Conned in Caracas” Sept. 9, 2004: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005586. By the way, opinion columns packed with solid facts and research should not be discarded and moreover many traditional main stream media sources have abdicated their responsibility to dig for facts and present an evenhanded account of events and legislation.
Ever since Chavez was first elected in 1999, his iron grip has steadily tightened right through the rigged vote counting in the 2004 election and the final push toward nationalization of businesses. Chavez’ cult of personality among students in Venezuela and the steady flow of oil dollars from the U.S. greased the skids in February 2009 for the pandering tyrant to entice needy citizens to vote away term limits for him and his fellow thugs. Don’t be surprised if the length of his rule rivals his friend and mentor Fidel Castro.
April 8th, 2010 at 11:00 pm
Ed:
Chavez isn’t a real “Socialist”, and neither is the Obama administration. You are making a farce of yourself in your constant failed attempts to convince us that Obama is the first step down a road to Chavez-land.
Let me refresh everyone’s memory: Despotic kleptocracies like the Soviet Union, Communist Cuba, and Venezuela didn’t birth from a slow “stealth” creep into “Socialism” or “Communism”. They were all preceded by regimes that favored policies that granted wide latitude to corporate entities under the auspice of “fostering prosperity” while sacrificing the once-protected individual freedoms of their public to the will and desire of corporatists to rake in more profits, and wield more control over public affairs (the control intending to lead to “stability”, and thus “profit”). They vilified their opponents by calling them names (like “socialists” or “fascists”) and created scapegoats within the country to blame everyone’s problems on (many of which were the fault of the accusers).
All of these regimes you claim that the US is trending towards were actually born from bloody revolutions in reaction to the “unrestricted free-market” economy, and “hands free” governments that weren’t willing to stand up to protect public rights over corporate desires.
To claim that voting in a moderate-liberal president and a moderate-liberal Congress is the first step towards Stalin, Chavez, or Castro defies logic because that is not the way history has shown it to happen. There is not a country in the history of the world that created a “communist” nation, with all those totalitarian traits you describe, by slowly and gradually electing more liberal leaders in successive elections.
However, electing successively more and more “hands off” and “laissez faire” governments have, many times in the past, led down the slippery slope into a totalitarian, re-distributionist regime as a direct result of the ever increasing proportion of the population that gets left out of the national economy and “prosperity”.
By the way, Chavez was first elected in 1998, not 1999… a full six years after his first attempt at taking over the capital by force.
So, I suppose if you are going to “revisit Hugo Chavez” to make your point, it helps to actually read about him from factual sources that at least get their dates correct and not cite articles from a websites with names like “opinion journal”. Why not visit the library on “fantasy island” while you’re there?
April 9th, 2010 at 8:39 am
Coleman, the indoctrination against free markets and corporate entities that colors your worldview leaves little hope that either of us will change the others opinion on much of anything.
The only evil one can ascribe to corporations is when they eschew making “insane profits” by creating valued goods and services and instead partner with politicians to restrict the activities of their competitors. This has been standard operating procedure for most of the liberals currently in charge.
Regarding Chavez; he calls his own government a socialist revolution and yes, we can split hairs, the 1998 elections placed him in power in 1999.
April 9th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
What “indoctrination against free markets and corporate entities” are you talking about? Or, is it just sufficient to make up false interpretations of my remarks for your readers because you cannot respond to them head on?
Anyhow, your focus on trying to compare Chavez’s regime to the Obama administration is laughable. It proves how little you actually care to debate these issues in good faith. You throw temper tantrum after temper tantrum like a little child because you don’t get your way.
I’m sorry, but refusing to live within a system that we all agree upon and making up falsehoods because you have no substantial arguments to support your reasoning is not the America that the founding fathers intended.
Get over yourself and start acting like an adult like the rest of us who don’t get exactly what we want, but agree to provide for programs that we need so that we can live together and build a better country. Stop trying to blame other people for things they aren’t guilty of, and stop trying to make up nonsense arguments in an effort to smear those who actually committed themselves to improving the country in the ways that they feel will be best.
If you disagree with them, then at least attempt to find a mutually agreeable solution to the problem, and drop the rhetoric that makes you look stupid because it is just that: stupid rhetoric. Calling Obama a socialist or the second coming of Chavez or Castro is stupid. You’ve never once made one connection between any of them, because there are no similarities beyond the superficial.
April 21st, 2010 at 10:44 am
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by Nick Noel
About five hundred people holding candles surrounded an entire block of downtown Cincinnati on Saturday evening, March 20…..