Social commentary

 

At my place of employment I’m surrounded by flaming libs many people of  the “liberal” persuasion.  Being one of the few “out of the closet” conservatives there, I get the chance to banter about politics and other social issues with them.  The conversations have to be brief and to the point as we usually do this on our employers dime. Usually it goes like this, for example, I bring some news reports of some  progressive outrage against peoples constitutional rights on college  campuses.  They look at me bewildered and say “What! no way!  It’s like they have no idea what’s going on around them.  Now these are very nice people. Our rapport is always civil. They have their opinions I have mine.  Most are staunch Bernie supporters and don’t have  a very high opinion of Hillary. They are appalled that Bernie seems to be winning the votes but losing the delegates.    In the end though if Hillary gets the nomination a good percentage will vote for her because she is A. a women, B. a progressive democrat, C. a Clinton, D. the alternative is Trump and finally E. any republican. They live in a liberal bubble where all their information comes from “The New York Times. the Times Argus, and Time magazine.

Well deepred what about you? Don’t you live in a conservative bubble? Well I say it’s impossible to live in a conservative bubble. With ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN and 95 % of the print media, academia, and Yahoo,   all towing the party line. And it’s not so much what that report but what they choose not to.  The White house press corps are such know nothing sycophants that even Obama has no respect for them. Ben Rhodes the White House national security advisor and one of Obama’s closest aides is currently trying to backtrack on his gaff.  A gaff as you know is when a politician accidently speaks the truth.

David Horowitz, David Mamet. and the late Andrew Breitbart, to name three were all left leaning personalities would had a “come to Reagan” conversion, abandoned the liberal dogma,  realized that inside most committed  liberals is a totalitarian screaming to get out.  President Obama is a prime example with his latest “edict” that says that women and girls can no longer expect the privacy of their own gender in the “ladies room” and that insurance companies will now be forced to underwrite “sex change operations”. Obama is not a king but when the so called opposition party crawls into the fetal position every time he makes and “executive order”, well it’s understandable.

In the meantime North Korea is getting Nukes, China and Russia are kicking sand in our faces. we’re $20 Trillion in debt, And the Constitution is slowly going through the shredder.

The libs I know just want the rich to pay their “fair share”, everyone to use renewable energy to combat climate change, and to have “free healthcare” for everyone.  They’re not bad people but what they want can’t be achieved except by government force. And that’s when things will get sticky.

Oxymoron: Tolerant liberal

 

 

From The Daily  Wire.  Hopefully what happened to Nikolai Bukharin won’t happen to Ms.  Camille Paglia for the crime of failing to tow the party line .

It’s coming, government control of health care. “Population Health”,  here is how I see it.

• ” What does it mean?” It means Hospitals will no longer have to try and attract customers. They will be assigned. By who? I’m guessing our state government under the direction of the federal.  And who are the people going to be assigned, not “everyone” in a community of course…right.  Maybe just the 3.7%  without health insurance?   But isn’t everyone required by law to purchase it? A lot of people work part time, they can’t afford it. Many are not in the work force at all. They are not counted as unemployed, but they are still part of the community.  what of illegal aliens all the “undocumented people” that are streaming across our border…everyday. Those that settle in our community, will they be assigned? Of course they will. Will the elderly also be assigned?    As an added bonus you’re no longer responsible for your own health or the health of your offspring. It’s the hospitals responsibility “From birth to death”.
• “How do we fit in?” The hospital wants a person to stay healthy. Nothing wrong with that. Most normal people want to be healthy. But as in most cases it’s 20% of the population that account for 80% of the cost. You have cigarette smokers, drug abusers,  people who are very overweight,  alcoholics,  depressed people.  People being beaten up regularly by their “significant others”. Finally the elderly who with age related ailments put an increasing strain on hospital services, and are an ever growing percentage.   Looking at the all these “factors”, their “physical and social environments or their individual habits and behaviors” one can certainly encourage a person that a change in lifestyle would greatly benefit their physical and emotional well being. But what if encouragement and an offering of other options and services doesn’t work? Will it take some form of coercion?
• “How do we get paid now?” People who have coverage through an employer pay premiums pre-taxed out of their paychecks, (the employer subsidizes a large portion also, sometimes well over half the cost). The patient has a co-pay of a set amount for medications, doctors visits or trips to the ER. The Hospital or Doctor submits a bill to the insurance company for say $9000.  The insurance reimburses $4900. The patient gets a “statement” in the mail that all he owes is the co-pay.  This seem to work as it also helps cover the cost of people who have no means of paying anything.  The Vermont health exchange sells policies with varying premiums and deductibles, which for some is still out of reach.  But if this new system is working which according to the media it is, then why are we headed to “population health”?
• “How would payment work? The hospital would be “paid a fixed dollar amount” by the government from taxpayers to care for “everyone in a community assigned to our care.”  “The focus is to drive down cost…and prevent hospital admissions.” .

So it appears that in the future there will be “X” amount of dollars to take care “X” number of people. Will there be a set dollar amount for each person regardless of their health status. Lets for example say that the hospital receives “$5,000,000 a year to care for 500 people “assigned from birth till death” That’s $10,000 per person. Not much since dozens of people will shoot past that amount. Many through no fault of their own. Many on account of their lifestyle and bad habits. Will “tough love” be employed.  Clean up your act or no further treatment!  And what of the elderly? They say that the last six months of life can be the most expensive. Physician assisted suicide will be available. Will it be encouraged…to save money. Will parents with fetuses that could have possible birth defects be encouraged to abort…to save money. This is of course rationing. Help those who can be helped and want to help themselves. Reject those who can’t be helped or won’t help themselves.

Government has access to everyone’s medical records. They’re only a mouse click away.  Will decisions of life and death that were the preview of the patient, the patients family and the physician now include a forth, a  government bureaucrat who will decide yea or nay bases on cost? He who pays the piper calls the tune.

This is a brave new world we’re entering.  A nation of former free individuals with free will slowly becoming a herd… “the population”. And it seems the slide is inexorable.

Obamacare was intended to fail from the beginning. So single payer and further government control over the people will be the final result.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So much has already been written about the Titanic disaster.  What could I possibly add that would be of passing interest to anyone. All I can do is try.

Society today has gone stark raving mad.  Apparently the worse thing a person can be today is a white heterosexual male.  We seem to be held responsible for all the ills of the  earth. Yet practically  no credit is acknowledge for the our positive accomplishments. “The evil men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones”. Shakespeare knew what he was talking about.

In 1912 women did not have the vote, many professions were still closed to them. On the Titanic There were smoking rooms for 1st and 2nd class men…only. There were reading and writing rooms for the ladies…only.

Men were men, women were women and the vast majority seemed very happy with this arrangement.  Of course if men ruled it came with great responsibility. Men were expected to die so that women and children might live. To be labeled a coward especially by a woman would for a normal man be a fate worse then death.

Out of 1,316 passengers 511 were women and children.  There were 711 survivors total,  of which 353 were women and children, 146 were male passengers.  212 out of 913 crew of which 23 were women also survived. Class also had a big impact as to who survived and who didn’t.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that Captain Smith totally botched the situation.  Hindsight being 20-20 perhaps I’m being to harsh. Capt. Smith career he had never experience anything close to what had happened. Of course many factors led up to the disaster, but I’ll confine myself to after the iceberg was struck.

Titanic was state of the art for its day but it lacked one vital component. A public address system to enable the captain to address the entire ship. As soon as Capt. Smith learned that the ship was doomed he should have issued explicit orders that all lifeboats needed to be filled to capacity with women and children only and class should not be any consideration. Appeal to the men their duty as men to save their wives and children. Issue firearms to his officers to prevent panic. Everyone of them could have been saved.  Of course it didn’t happen that way. But I don’t think women were bitching about male oppression at the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElEQ_NvsYSY

Trigger warning…Vulgar language

From elly maye

To reflect back on our youth through the dusky lens of time can produce as many different emotions as they’re people. Some will be embarrassed or ashamed. With 20/20 hindsight many will lament the wrong choices made or the paths not taken. But the past is all water under the bridge. You can piss and moan about it or you can reflect on it. Chart the journey you and society took. To arrive at an understanding as to why were on the road to ruin today.

I have been personally fortunate to retain a fairly good memory of the events of my youth. Considering that I have partaken a  sampling of just about everything on more then one occasion.

It was a time of teacher turnover.  About 2/3 of them were “old school” they had been there since the late forties, and were nearing retirement. The Beatles and Twiggy had turned fashion upside down. The “old school” tried to apply some brakes. They had tried to enforce a “dress code”, specifically on boy’s hair (too long) and girls skirts (too short) sending individuals home with a note to their parents.  In the end of course they were simply overwhelmed.

Speaking for myself,  it was soooo hard… to concentrate on the lessons when You, a young man are surrounded by all those …young female thighs wrapped in… pantyhose.

For guys (and women) who would like to reminisce about those days I recommend this link.  It’s full of nostalgia from the times of pay phones, electric typewriters, and standard transmission.

As the “old school” left, the “new school” arrived. Young teachers in their mid to late twenties. Fresh from the teachers colleges. Civics and Social Studies were the courses where the seeds of a new political and ideological agenda could be planted. And they were planted in our “young skulls full of mush”.

My Memory isn’t that precise as to recall every detail of my freshman year but I do remember in Social Studies doing a report on Eugene Debs, the American Socialist party leader (Bernie’s hero) and getting an “A” on it.  I was being taught the notion that government could plan an economy that would be fair to everyone.  I don’t recall seeing many textbooks about life in Communist countries.  The few I did see didn’t go into much detail but stated they did have full employment and health care was free. What’s so bad about that?

In Civics the new young lady teacher took the time to spend a whole day with us listening and discussing the Beatles “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” and wither “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” was about an LSD experience.

She even brought in two real “Hippies” from the local college,  to discuss with us how being a hippie could shape one’s outlook on life.  Or was it one’s outlook on life that made you a hippie.

This of course was only the beginning. Soon would come our class trip to Washington D.C.

To be continued.

 

 

My how times have changed.

 

http://www.newser.com/story/169204/school-holds-firearms-buyback-for-toy-guns.html

What an amazing thing to remember a time when “political correctness ” did not rule our lives.

I was very fortunate to have wonderful parents and be born at a time when it seemed the whole country consisted of young children and middle age parents. The people who served in WW2 and Korea were in their late thirties and early forties. Many had vivid memories of their past service and many did not want to talk about it.  Like my friend “Charlie’s” father who did 25 missions as a ball gunner on a B-24 who saw other planes go down in flames. was shot down himself bailed out behind the lines and was rescued by the French underground. We were told of this by his oldest son, not him.

Vietnam was still on the horizon.

Kennedy was our President, we were proud of our military and our country.

Playing army was our summer pastime. Usually 8-10 of us would chose sides, one side (US) One side (Krauts). We would play in a small overgrown field behind a neighbors house across the street.  It had a big patch of poison sumac and several nests of fire ants, (I know, I sat in one, I ran fast).

My arsenal consisted of a battery operated 30cal. machine gun  , a bolt action M-1, hand grenades, a spring action mortar with rockets. My friends had similar equipment. “Charlie” even had a German Lugar.   We would go through rolls and rolls of caps. (Remember caps).

We would play for hours. Boys being boys.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPpQTxXDURU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP1F5m7EBpw

Today kids would have to be careful that the kind policemen and women don’t make Swiss cheese out of you. Times have changed.

“Remember, democracy never last long. it soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy that didn’t commit suicide. It is vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious then aristocracy or monarchy. It’s not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of government. and when unchecked, produce the same effect of fraud, violence, and cruelty.”    John Adams, letter to John Taylor 1814

“Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality.  but notice the difference: while democracy seek equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude. ”     Alex de Tocqueville