With all the recent hype about “Obamacare”, and the deaths of several celebrities in the last year or so due to medication overdosing, it’s interesting to see just where we are with the mirade of medications available. I’m lucky in that for the most part I’ve been pretty healthy most of my life, and never had any inclination to willingly take medications of any sort, both those medications prescribed by my doctor, and particularly not the over the counter stuff recommended by assorted celebrities on TV. It’s not that I don’t trust the doctors, nor do I have any religious conviction on the matter, I simply don’t like taking medications of any sort. I’ll also admit that I’ve had a distinct aversion to needles after a few sessions in the “shot line” while a member of the military. Nowadays however, in consideration of my present “senior citizen” status and the assorted medical problems that go with aging, I find myself taking a medium sized handful of pills on a regular basis irregardless of my wishes! So, being the curious sort, I decided to look into the matter a bit.
It seems that nearly 130 million Americans (almost half our population) swallow, inject, inhale, infuse, spray, or pat on prescribed medication every month according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. There are nearly 3.5 billion prescriptions written every year, and Americans happily devour even more nonprescription drugs. Apparently we buy quite a bit more mendicants per person than any other country in the world. A growing number of doctors, researchers and public health experts are now claiming that Americans are overmedicating themselves, buying and taking far too much medicine, too readily and too carelessly, for their own health. (And that doesn’t include the huge amount of illegal drugs consumed annually.) Do we need all these drugs? A relative few of them do pull people away from almost certain death, while others help a small minority avoid heart attacks or stroke. Yet a balance of risk and benefit is hard to find for the many drugs that treat common, persistent, or daily life conditions: like anti-inflammatories, antacids, and pills for allergy, depression, shyness, premenstrual crankiness, waning sexual powers, or impulsiveness in children. Adding fuel to the fire, over 125,000 Americans die from drug reactions and mistakes each year according to several medical studies of the 90’s. That makes pharmaceuticals the fourth-leading nation wide cause of death, following heart disease, cancer and stroke. Our aging population is partly at fault, with ailments like cancer, heart attacks, stroke and Alzheimer's disease. Other medical conditions have mysteriously proliferated in recent years, including asthma, diabetes and obesity. Assorted studies have shown that exercise and diet ward off heart disease and diabetes just as effectively as drugs do, but Fred Eckel, who teaches pharmacy practice at the University of North Carolina, states that "There tends to be a reliance on drugs as the first option", which is reflected in the fact that prescription drug sales have increased an average of 11 percent per year over the past five years.
According to another study, American children are three times more likely to be prescribed psychotropic medication than are children in Europe. The study, published in BioMed Central’s “Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health” claims that this difference is accounted for by government regulations, and cultural beliefs about medication in emotional and behavioral problems. Julie Zito led a team from the US, Germany and the Netherlands in investigating these prescription issues, and said that “Antidepressant and stimulant prevalence were three or more times greater in the US than in the Netherlands and Germany, while antipsychotic prevalence was 1.5 to 2.2 times greater”. The study also claims that the differences may be due to differing diagnostic systems in that “The US trend of increasing bipolar diagnosis in children and adolescents does not reflect European practice”.
Direct advertising is also likely to account for the increased use of medications in the US, as we try to drug ourselves out of any uncomfortable circumstance. The pharmaceutical industry ran up more than $250 billion in sales last year, mostly in prescription meds according to industry consultants. That roughly equals the sales of all the country's gasoline stations put together! "We are taking way too many drugs for dubious or exaggerated ailments," says Dr. Marcia Angell, author of "The Truth About the Drug Companies." "What the drug companies are doing now is promoting drugs for long-term use to essentially healthy people. Why? Because it's the biggest market." We also overindulge ourselves far too often, the critics say, and violate the classic proscription of Hippocrates: "First, do no harm." Drug safety researcher Dr. James Kaye, of Boston University, remembers a medical school teacher telling the class: "All drugs are poisonous!" Even common vitamins can, if overdone, cause major medical problems. Hospital patients suffer seven adverse drug reactions and three drug mistakes for every 100 admissions estimates Dr. David Bates, a researcher at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital. That works out to about 3.6 million drug misadventures every year.
The use of multiple medications is high among the elderly, and many seniors are given ever larger amounts of drugs that are intended to treat side effects from other prescriptions. Seniors are also more likely to see different doctors who may do nothing more than take a quick look at whatever other medications you’re on, and without checking for side effects or assorted interactions. (I’ve run into that particular problem, and had a few choice words with the Doctors as a result!)
Is appears that we have an almost mystical faith in the ability of medications to instantly cure whatever major or minor ailment we might think we have. If we get a small scrape, we run for the antibiotic spray instead of plain old soap and water. A minor headache immediately calls for some “super strength” aspirin instead of just laying down and closing our eyes for a few moments. Minor aches and pains have their own remedies that cover acres of store shelves, while over the counter cold and flu relief do serve a purpose even if they are seriously overrated, and a real hazard if overused. The number of “do it yourself” allergy cures is quite impressive (and dangerous as well), while the flood of drugs promoted for “natural male enhancement” can cause real problems if the user has other medical problems. Many of the “super bugs” being discovered today have a simple origin, in that we commonly take unnecessary medications for every minor ill that besets us, and the bugs that cause those ills become drug resistant over time. Even worse, we tend to continue taking those medications even when the problem has long been cured. What’s going to happen when you suddenly and seriously need a particular class of medication, and nothing works because you’ve immunized yourself against them? Adding to the super bug problem, the country seems full of hypochondriacs, who often take huge numbers of pills every day, just to garner sympathy from their acquaintances?!
Writer and editor John W. Campbell once claimed that anyone who medicated themselves had a damm fool for a doctor. Considering how long a Doctor goes to school to learn the what, why, and how of drugs, I think he was quite right.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
New Laws
Sir Winston Churchill once said that all great things are simple, and many can be expressed in single words, such as freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, and hope. Along with being the consummate politician, Winnie was quite astute I’d say, and a keen observer of human nature. Historians often have a field day with quotes from his many speeches, and use them in a good many books dedicated to explaining his political shift from liberalism to intense conservatism. I think he explained that change in attitude best when he said that anyone under thirty who was not a liberal had no heart, and anyone over thirty who was not a conservative had no brains! I’m certainly not a Churchill fan, but I will give the devil his due, and I think Winston was one of the greatest politicians of the twentieth century. Another of his quotes was “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.” With that particular truism, I wonder just what he’d have to say about the political situation the United States finds herself in today.
Team Obama has proposed any number of new laws that force us onto the road to socialism and government control of every aspect of our lives, with Congress as usual, blindly following along. The American people, worshiping at the alter of “change”, are happily surrendering the rights, liberties, and legal protection that served us so well for over two centuries, and that not incidentally made the United States the greatest and most powerful nation in history. What am I babbling about? Well, for starters consider the so called "hate crimes" legislation that many are calling "The Pedophile Protection Act". Democrats were able to slip HR 1913 (S. 909 in the Senate Version) through the Pelosi-controlled House of Representatives. Before it came to the floor, Rep. Louie Gohmert tried to amend the bill to exclude a variety of sex crimes, including pedophilia (child molesting), leaving the liberals in Congress hysterical. The problem is that the supporters of this bill did not want to exclude any deviant, and voted down the amendment that would have excluded pedophilia. Hate crime laws now serve only one purpose, to criminalize any thoughts, beliefs, and emotions that are not considered 'politically correct' by the looney left. It also means you better learn to keep your mouth shut, because stating your beliefs in public is about to become a federal crime, and thus very dangerous. We’re also supposed to believe that this law would equally apply to such democratic favorites as women’s libbers attacking the Boy Scout membership rules, or gays attacking the beliefs of the Catholic Church.
Another, perhaps not so emotion laden upcoming law is Mr. Gore’s favorite, the “Cap and Trade” bill. At the moment only a Senate vote stands in the way of what the Wall Street Journal is calling "the biggest tax in American history." That's because Ms. Pelosi strong-armed the so-called American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (also known as "Cap-and-Trade") through the House. According to the Heritage Foundation this "national energy tax" could cost the average family "nearly $3,000 per household per year" (that adds another $250 per month to your energy bills). House Minority Leader John Boehner stated that it will "put millions of Americans out of work" as American jobs are shipped overseas, while even Mr. Obama admitted that "electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." And where are those jobs going… to China and India of course, countries that have no intention of crippling their economies with "Cap-and-Trade" schemes. “Cap-and-Trade" is being pushed as a system to encourage businesses to engage in "environmentally responsible activities", but it has little to do with the environment and instead will deprive you of your income, control your behavior, and stifle your liberties. Remember Obama’s campaign comment: "We can't drive our SUVs, and eat whatever we want, and keep our homes at 72 [degrees] all the time, whether we live in the desert or the tundra, and keep consuming 25% of the world's resources with just 4% of the world's population... That's not going to happen." Sounds to me like he was serious, and on that note I think I’ll start laying in a really large supply of candles and firewood, along with some extra groceries!
Then we have the plot to impose socialized medicine on us. Mr. Obama offered a hint of our future under his version of health care reform when he suggested that one way to save costs is not to spend on procedures that “…are not necessarily going to improve care” for the sick and the dying. “Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller,” he said. Perhaps, but who decides if those extra dollars will or will not be spent on your care or the care of your family? Under the plan advocated by President Obama and his allies that someone will be a government bureaucrat, not a Doctor, and bureaucrats aren’t concerned about your long life. If that bureaucrat is doing his job, his only concern will be for the government’s bottom line. These are becoming scary times, and if you're over age of 55 or in ill health, be real scared. If you're chronically ill your future doesn't look very bright either. However, I wouldn’t be all that concerned about local health care, as under a liberal designed medical system every “Red State” village in the country will have its own government certified Witch Doctor, while the few remaining MD’s will be busily caring for Obama’s minions. The takeover of health care is nothing more than another power grab similar to his takeover of the banks and the automobile industry. Its goal is not to improve health care, but to reward political allies, and punish political dissent. After all, the feds already own 60% of GM, and the lord only knows how much of the financial industry. What are they going to do with that control? I don’t know, but it’s interesting to consider that of Mr. Obama’s ten top advisors, not one has any experience at operating a successful business. But they continue telling us that they know what’s best for American business… Following the “success” we’ve had with envirofreaks controlling our public lands and natural resources, I’m real curious to see what happens when those same crazies put their hand to designing cars and trucks. Does anyone besides me remember the “high quality” (sarcasm intended) of Soviet produced consumer goods as came from their government owned and controlled factories in the 50’s and 60’s? There was after all, a good reason for the high demand for western produced goods among the Russian people. You might also have noticed the news report about the federal dispersal of stimulus funds. It would seem that the “blue” counties across the nation are receiving approximately twice the stimulus funding as are the “red” counties, despite whatever needs they might have. I guess that’s the reward for supporting Obama and company.
I have little hope that these infringements upon our Constitutional rights and our liberty will fail to be passed by our rather insipid representatives in Congress. As Churchill said, Americans will try anything, and our current spineless Congress will buy anything Mr. Obama says. But I think that once the American population finally figures out just what they’re loosing, sanity will prevail, we’ll rear up on our hind legs and elect hard-nosed freedom-loving politicians at all levels of government, these laws will be repealed, and the federal government will be put firmly in its place. I’d also hope that the loony left will be told not only “no” but “HELL NO”, and America’s experiment with socialism will be exiled to history’s trash bin where it belongs!
Team Obama has proposed any number of new laws that force us onto the road to socialism and government control of every aspect of our lives, with Congress as usual, blindly following along. The American people, worshiping at the alter of “change”, are happily surrendering the rights, liberties, and legal protection that served us so well for over two centuries, and that not incidentally made the United States the greatest and most powerful nation in history. What am I babbling about? Well, for starters consider the so called "hate crimes" legislation that many are calling "The Pedophile Protection Act". Democrats were able to slip HR 1913 (S. 909 in the Senate Version) through the Pelosi-controlled House of Representatives. Before it came to the floor, Rep. Louie Gohmert tried to amend the bill to exclude a variety of sex crimes, including pedophilia (child molesting), leaving the liberals in Congress hysterical. The problem is that the supporters of this bill did not want to exclude any deviant, and voted down the amendment that would have excluded pedophilia. Hate crime laws now serve only one purpose, to criminalize any thoughts, beliefs, and emotions that are not considered 'politically correct' by the looney left. It also means you better learn to keep your mouth shut, because stating your beliefs in public is about to become a federal crime, and thus very dangerous. We’re also supposed to believe that this law would equally apply to such democratic favorites as women’s libbers attacking the Boy Scout membership rules, or gays attacking the beliefs of the Catholic Church.
Another, perhaps not so emotion laden upcoming law is Mr. Gore’s favorite, the “Cap and Trade” bill. At the moment only a Senate vote stands in the way of what the Wall Street Journal is calling "the biggest tax in American history." That's because Ms. Pelosi strong-armed the so-called American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (also known as "Cap-and-Trade") through the House. According to the Heritage Foundation this "national energy tax" could cost the average family "nearly $3,000 per household per year" (that adds another $250 per month to your energy bills). House Minority Leader John Boehner stated that it will "put millions of Americans out of work" as American jobs are shipped overseas, while even Mr. Obama admitted that "electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." And where are those jobs going… to China and India of course, countries that have no intention of crippling their economies with "Cap-and-Trade" schemes. “Cap-and-Trade" is being pushed as a system to encourage businesses to engage in "environmentally responsible activities", but it has little to do with the environment and instead will deprive you of your income, control your behavior, and stifle your liberties. Remember Obama’s campaign comment: "We can't drive our SUVs, and eat whatever we want, and keep our homes at 72 [degrees] all the time, whether we live in the desert or the tundra, and keep consuming 25% of the world's resources with just 4% of the world's population... That's not going to happen." Sounds to me like he was serious, and on that note I think I’ll start laying in a really large supply of candles and firewood, along with some extra groceries!
Then we have the plot to impose socialized medicine on us. Mr. Obama offered a hint of our future under his version of health care reform when he suggested that one way to save costs is not to spend on procedures that “…are not necessarily going to improve care” for the sick and the dying. “Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller,” he said. Perhaps, but who decides if those extra dollars will or will not be spent on your care or the care of your family? Under the plan advocated by President Obama and his allies that someone will be a government bureaucrat, not a Doctor, and bureaucrats aren’t concerned about your long life. If that bureaucrat is doing his job, his only concern will be for the government’s bottom line. These are becoming scary times, and if you're over age of 55 or in ill health, be real scared. If you're chronically ill your future doesn't look very bright either. However, I wouldn’t be all that concerned about local health care, as under a liberal designed medical system every “Red State” village in the country will have its own government certified Witch Doctor, while the few remaining MD’s will be busily caring for Obama’s minions. The takeover of health care is nothing more than another power grab similar to his takeover of the banks and the automobile industry. Its goal is not to improve health care, but to reward political allies, and punish political dissent. After all, the feds already own 60% of GM, and the lord only knows how much of the financial industry. What are they going to do with that control? I don’t know, but it’s interesting to consider that of Mr. Obama’s ten top advisors, not one has any experience at operating a successful business. But they continue telling us that they know what’s best for American business… Following the “success” we’ve had with envirofreaks controlling our public lands and natural resources, I’m real curious to see what happens when those same crazies put their hand to designing cars and trucks. Does anyone besides me remember the “high quality” (sarcasm intended) of Soviet produced consumer goods as came from their government owned and controlled factories in the 50’s and 60’s? There was after all, a good reason for the high demand for western produced goods among the Russian people. You might also have noticed the news report about the federal dispersal of stimulus funds. It would seem that the “blue” counties across the nation are receiving approximately twice the stimulus funding as are the “red” counties, despite whatever needs they might have. I guess that’s the reward for supporting Obama and company.
I have little hope that these infringements upon our Constitutional rights and our liberty will fail to be passed by our rather insipid representatives in Congress. As Churchill said, Americans will try anything, and our current spineless Congress will buy anything Mr. Obama says. But I think that once the American population finally figures out just what they’re loosing, sanity will prevail, we’ll rear up on our hind legs and elect hard-nosed freedom-loving politicians at all levels of government, these laws will be repealed, and the federal government will be put firmly in its place. I’d also hope that the loony left will be told not only “no” but “HELL NO”, and America’s experiment with socialism will be exiled to history’s trash bin where it belongs!
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Danger! Danger!
"The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." -- Albert Einstein
It’s a sad day for America when our citizens, long known for their individualism and love of freedom, have accepted a childlike faith in the powers of big government. Our new federal administration is quickly taking this idea to astronomic new levels as it proposes a seemingly unending series of centralized government plans to regulate, control, and now subsidize, every facet of our lives. And it's not just the far left who are so happy with the thought of individuals bowing to government wishes, with many self proclaimed Republicans now believing that government can protect us from all evil, make us moral and upright, and in whatever spare time is left we can impose democratic governments on other nations. Today’s entire political scene… from the far right to the far left… has become nothing more than an insane grab for power with the vast majority of Americans stuck, seemingly powerless, in the middle.
The Left hates the private sector even as its believers enjoy the fruits of our “despicable” market-based system. Leftist leaning government workers profit by regulating, controlling, and bossing around everyone else, yet somehow it's OK for them to live off the fruit of the land. You've got to wonder about people who are so obsessed with divvying up Americas apple pie, and yet want to regulate and completely control the people who grew the apples, milled the flour, built the oven, and even baked the pie! Certainly people have the right to profit from their efforts, but the left would strip the productive of their gain in order to “redistribute the wealth” to those who are not productive, all in the guise of numerous “reel good” social welfare programs. It was once claimed that no government could afford to ignore the social needs of its people if it intended to stay in power. Quite so I think, but neither can any government afford to address every social need of every citizen unless it wants to soon become bankrupt. In our case that’s shortly after we go broke funding the needs of big business!
Yes, there are things government legitimately is tasked to do. People who criminally violate other people's rights need to be stopped. We need government to protect our nation from foreign invaders. Given the fallible nature of government (and of human beings), our founders created a system filled with checks and balances and limitations on government power. Americans started out grudgingly letting government protect life, liberty and property, and now we’re cheering a government that is obliterating all those things! George Washington once said, "Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master." Advocates of bigger government, even in the guise of social programs, are doing nothing less than calling for the creation of more masters and more servants, with most of us destined to fall into that latter class.
Several years ago a friend asked me why I was so “down” on college educated people. I don’t remember what my answer was, but his question has stuck in my mind ever since, and I’ve never figured out just how to properly answer it. In truth, I have nothing against education… in fact I’m a firm believer in the educational process, and I’d think that without a very long line of educated people behind us we’d still be living in the stone age! What I do object to is the huge number of people who are “educated” far beyond their level of competence, and consider themselves the greatest living experts in their chosen field. Many of them seem to believe that they have all the answers to the problems of mankind, and manage to get themselves hired by the government in order to regulate our lives in accordance with their half-baked theories!
Is it really a surprise that America was for so long a bastion of wealth, ingenuity and freedom? Was it because we had more public-spirited and intelligent government officials, or was it because our government was designed with strict limits so that the private sector could flourish? I don't really like Soviet and Nazi analogies, but there's a reason those systems were so brutal and evil. They were systems that gave full control of daily life to the government. The beauty of our nation's founding is that it drew strict lines around governmental authority. Over many years, those lines have grown dim, and now we allowing them to be erased completely. An editorial in Russia's Pravda newspaper recently chastised America for heading down its current path: "Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western-sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our 'wise' Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride. … The proud American will go down into his slavery without a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world how free he really is. The world will only snicker." Yet even as America heads down that socialist trail, we still lecture the world about our freedom.
I for one am greatly concerned about the sheer number of issues Barack Obama is cramming down the throats of Congress and the American people. Everyday we see more items on his "I want” list, while he doesn’t bother to ask the American people what they want, and refuses to tolerate any opposition to his position on any subject. What did we do, somehow manage to elect a king? Despite evidence to the contrary from countries and even our states (California) who have tried his policies, he doesn’t change his efforts to destroy the United States from within, and turn us into a socialist regime. The national debt he has piled-up will take centuries to pay off, the energy bill will cost us millions of jobs and make any sort of energy unaffordable. His "health care" plan will turn into another nightmare of government inefficiency. Congress is never given time to read (if they even can read) proposed bills, or even to know what is in them, yet they’re expected to happily turn out "yes" votes on command of the omnipotent one. What has happened to our Constitution, and our common sense?
The American people watched the fall of the once mighty Soviet Union, as their version of socialism failed and their government collapsed under its own weight. Daily we watch Red China struggle with their efforts to remain a socialist state and yet allow the private enterprise they can’t survive without. We see the failings of European style socialism displayed on television and in the newspapers nearly every day. We can see starvation marching across socialist North Korea. Yet our left leaning administration is grabbing all the reins of power they can get, and seems hell-bent on forcing the United States to follow in the footsteps of those failed socialist states!
Under no president except Abe Lincoln have the American people ever wanted to leave the union, yet today we have a growing secessionist movement all across the country, primarily I think because so many Americans are well aware that no government in history has ever voluntarily surrendered its power over the common citizen. And unfortunately today’s average American seems far more interested in the doings of movie stars and sports icons than in what our elected politicians are doing to us.
It’s a sad day for America when our citizens, long known for their individualism and love of freedom, have accepted a childlike faith in the powers of big government. Our new federal administration is quickly taking this idea to astronomic new levels as it proposes a seemingly unending series of centralized government plans to regulate, control, and now subsidize, every facet of our lives. And it's not just the far left who are so happy with the thought of individuals bowing to government wishes, with many self proclaimed Republicans now believing that government can protect us from all evil, make us moral and upright, and in whatever spare time is left we can impose democratic governments on other nations. Today’s entire political scene… from the far right to the far left… has become nothing more than an insane grab for power with the vast majority of Americans stuck, seemingly powerless, in the middle.
The Left hates the private sector even as its believers enjoy the fruits of our “despicable” market-based system. Leftist leaning government workers profit by regulating, controlling, and bossing around everyone else, yet somehow it's OK for them to live off the fruit of the land. You've got to wonder about people who are so obsessed with divvying up Americas apple pie, and yet want to regulate and completely control the people who grew the apples, milled the flour, built the oven, and even baked the pie! Certainly people have the right to profit from their efforts, but the left would strip the productive of their gain in order to “redistribute the wealth” to those who are not productive, all in the guise of numerous “reel good” social welfare programs. It was once claimed that no government could afford to ignore the social needs of its people if it intended to stay in power. Quite so I think, but neither can any government afford to address every social need of every citizen unless it wants to soon become bankrupt. In our case that’s shortly after we go broke funding the needs of big business!
Yes, there are things government legitimately is tasked to do. People who criminally violate other people's rights need to be stopped. We need government to protect our nation from foreign invaders. Given the fallible nature of government (and of human beings), our founders created a system filled with checks and balances and limitations on government power. Americans started out grudgingly letting government protect life, liberty and property, and now we’re cheering a government that is obliterating all those things! George Washington once said, "Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master." Advocates of bigger government, even in the guise of social programs, are doing nothing less than calling for the creation of more masters and more servants, with most of us destined to fall into that latter class.
Several years ago a friend asked me why I was so “down” on college educated people. I don’t remember what my answer was, but his question has stuck in my mind ever since, and I’ve never figured out just how to properly answer it. In truth, I have nothing against education… in fact I’m a firm believer in the educational process, and I’d think that without a very long line of educated people behind us we’d still be living in the stone age! What I do object to is the huge number of people who are “educated” far beyond their level of competence, and consider themselves the greatest living experts in their chosen field. Many of them seem to believe that they have all the answers to the problems of mankind, and manage to get themselves hired by the government in order to regulate our lives in accordance with their half-baked theories!
Is it really a surprise that America was for so long a bastion of wealth, ingenuity and freedom? Was it because we had more public-spirited and intelligent government officials, or was it because our government was designed with strict limits so that the private sector could flourish? I don't really like Soviet and Nazi analogies, but there's a reason those systems were so brutal and evil. They were systems that gave full control of daily life to the government. The beauty of our nation's founding is that it drew strict lines around governmental authority. Over many years, those lines have grown dim, and now we allowing them to be erased completely. An editorial in Russia's Pravda newspaper recently chastised America for heading down its current path: "Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western-sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our 'wise' Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride. … The proud American will go down into his slavery without a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world how free he really is. The world will only snicker." Yet even as America heads down that socialist trail, we still lecture the world about our freedom.
I for one am greatly concerned about the sheer number of issues Barack Obama is cramming down the throats of Congress and the American people. Everyday we see more items on his "I want” list, while he doesn’t bother to ask the American people what they want, and refuses to tolerate any opposition to his position on any subject. What did we do, somehow manage to elect a king? Despite evidence to the contrary from countries and even our states (California) who have tried his policies, he doesn’t change his efforts to destroy the United States from within, and turn us into a socialist regime. The national debt he has piled-up will take centuries to pay off, the energy bill will cost us millions of jobs and make any sort of energy unaffordable. His "health care" plan will turn into another nightmare of government inefficiency. Congress is never given time to read (if they even can read) proposed bills, or even to know what is in them, yet they’re expected to happily turn out "yes" votes on command of the omnipotent one. What has happened to our Constitution, and our common sense?
The American people watched the fall of the once mighty Soviet Union, as their version of socialism failed and their government collapsed under its own weight. Daily we watch Red China struggle with their efforts to remain a socialist state and yet allow the private enterprise they can’t survive without. We see the failings of European style socialism displayed on television and in the newspapers nearly every day. We can see starvation marching across socialist North Korea. Yet our left leaning administration is grabbing all the reins of power they can get, and seems hell-bent on forcing the United States to follow in the footsteps of those failed socialist states!
Under no president except Abe Lincoln have the American people ever wanted to leave the union, yet today we have a growing secessionist movement all across the country, primarily I think because so many Americans are well aware that no government in history has ever voluntarily surrendered its power over the common citizen. And unfortunately today’s average American seems far more interested in the doings of movie stars and sports icons than in what our elected politicians are doing to us.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)