The Wages of HillaryCare

[concerned]

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama agree on most policy issues, but that makes their rare differences all the more revealing. To wit, their running scrap over Mrs. Clinton's "individual mandate" for health care, which Mr. Obama has now had the nerve to expose for its inevitable government coercion.

Mrs. Clinton's proposal requires everyone to buy health insurance, along with more insurance regulation, a government insurance option for everyone and tax hikes. Mr. Obama likes all that but his mandate would only apply to children. He argues that the reason many people aren't insured is because it's too expensive, not because they don't want it. Mrs. Clinton counters that coverage can't be "universal" without a mandate.

online.wsj.com/article/SB120234937353949449.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks

[rrogers40]

I don't think that its been said enough- democrats=socialists.

We live in the most freest country yet Clinton, who says the Republicans are taking away our rights, want to get rid of our right to choose.

[Swimmy]

Unless it involves abortion, then a woman can choose all she wants.

[dgriffin]

Keep your hands in your pockets and don't let go of your wallet.

[frankcor]

Until said wallet is confiscated under threat of imprisonment.

[dgriffin]

Sounds like taxes.

[frankcor]

You gotta get up PRETTY early in the morning to pull one over on Dave.

[Swimmy]

I think I should become a moderate libertarian.

[frankcor]

Moderate libertarians are considered radicals by both the right and the left, swimmy. It's sort of like the impossibility of a 2-dimensional being ever comprehending what a 3-dimensional world would look like.

The Quiz has been around for quite a while but it still applies fairly well. Try the World's Smallest Political Quiz to see where you fit in. I'm pretty much off the top of the chart.

[Swimmy]

According to that, I'm 100% on the personal and 90% on the economic (I don't believe the government should end barriers to international trade until other nations end their barriers to our trade on their ends), making me a libertarian. Which is interesting because it's the liberals who want free trade.

[frankcor]

Well, you'll note that libertarians can be either liberal or conservative. And that liberals can be either libertarian or statist. I like the quiz because it shows the weakness in trying to fit people on a 2-dimensional left-right axis. That paradigm ignores the role that personal liberty plays in forming public policy.

What I find surprising is that so few people who take the quiz end up in the Centrist block. It may support Rush Limbaugh's theory that a moderate has never changed the course of history because they just don't stand for anything.

[Swimmy]

I just had my father take it, and he ended up at the upper right corner of the centrist box.

[frankcor]

He must be so ashamed of you.


just kidding -- I imagine he's pretty proud of you, actually. From what you've said about him here, I think he and I might get along well.

[suz]

it's time for a third party, don't you think.

[Swimmy]

I still believe George Washington was right. Political parties have cause America to lose its vision. Look at the recent economic package. Congress couldn't pass it without a ton of political posturing, meanwhile the people they're supposed to be serving suffer.