Liberal Hypocrisy

Ten questions for liberals**

1. Why would you support a health care law that requires people to report to the IRS what they do for health care but then vilify President Bush for wiretapping terrorist suspects?
2. Why would you rant about profligate Republican spending from 2000-2008 but then support trillions in new government programs and deficit spending under Obama?
   
3. Why did you rail against Republican threats of a "nuclear option" to bypass the filibuster in 2005 (to confirm judges) but then support the effectively the same tactic to pass health care in 2010?
4. Why did you harp about the Iraq war for 4 straight years, but now that Obama is president (and has "stayed the course" for the most part) you are silent? Why no calls to bring the troops home anymore?
5. Why do you care about 18,000 who supposedly die for lack of health insurance (this has been debunked) but you stand idly by while the lives of 1.2 million preborn children are aborted?
6. Why is the secret ballot sacrosanct for general elections, but not for union elections? Why is it okay for big labor unions to support political causes but big companies should be barred from doing so?
7. Why was Karl Rove style politics wrong during the Bush years, but Chicago style politics is just fine in 2010? Why isn't Obama called out by prominent democrats and reporters for 180 degree turnabouts on two major campaign promises to improve transparency and bipartisanship? (Have you seen his "50 plus one" statements before being elected?)
8. Why is big-anything bad (big pharma, big oil, big banks, etc.) except when talking about the government?
9. Why does your love of free speech stop at the doors of Fox News and Clear Channel Communications?
10. Why do you claim to be rights activists while attacking the 1st, 2nd, ninth, and tenth amendments?

I understand that a similar "conservative hypocrisy list" can be generated. Let's hear it. I'll answer it honestly if you answer this.

**Neo-liberals. Classical liberal = modern conservative

Why the current "demon pass" healthcare should be voted down

The "demon pass" health care bill should be voted down. Here is why.
(USA Today has a great summary of the recent changes as of 3/19/2010)

1. Forcing insurance companies to accept patients with pre-existing conditions destroys the concept of insurance. We will no longer have insurance in the U.S. but instead we'll have an inefficient form of socialized medicine that will magnify all the bad aspects of our current system.
2. This bill is a blow to freedom.
   
   • It takes away individual freedom by mandating that everyone purchase insurance. People are forced into economic relationships against their will. It forces priorities onto people that they may not otherwise choose for themselves. This directly interferes with freedom of conscience and the the pursuit of happiness. **
     
   • It forces companies to provide benefits outside of normal market forces. This is an affront to free enterprise and can only have the side effect of increasing unemployment and depressing wages.
   • It forces insurance providers to run their business in a way the government sees fit. They become agents of the government rather than agents of free enterprise.
     
3. One of the ways the bill attempts to pay for itself is with Medicare cuts. Medicare cuts in and of themselves would be a great way to ensure future solvency of Medicare, but the cuts should not be used to "rob Peter to pay Paul". Medicare is being used as a cow to milk. It is wrong to use this sleight of hand to create yet another entitlement which cannot possibly be anymore solvent than Medicare has turned out to be. (And who believes that these cuts will even stick? Every year congress relents and delays cuts that were supposedly already made in the past.)
4. New taxes. An increase on the Medicare payroll tax on high income earners. Does anyone believe high income earners will just "eat" tax increases without changing their behavior? A new excise tax on health insurance. Taxes and surcharges on individuals and companies who don't comply with mandates. When push comes to shove, these initiatives will backfire in ways that reduce the optimistic CBO revenue estimates. Which leads me too...
5. Exploding national debt. If you really believe this bill will "cut" the deficit (and the word "cut" here is like when a furniture store has a "sale" after marking up prices) then you haven't been paying attention to the last 30 years of entitlement history.
   

This assault on freedom will damage what our nation stands for possibly beyond repair. Rather than solving current health care problems, it will exacerbate them by further decreasing the incentives for consumers to be cost-conscious and for providers to be transparent.

See:
Right to Health Care: When Freedom is Slavery by Another Name
My Freedom Based Vision for Health Care Reform

**Some folks may in fact want to trade health for comforts of another sort. It is not up to the government to make those choices for them. By the same token, the government cannot be on the hook to bail out people who change their minds about being uninsured when it is too late...their care must be at the whim of whatever society can afford but be NOT guaranteed.