I too think that people need to act on their own iniatives and not allow government to make decisions for them, especially on such personal matters as one’s choice of heatlh care. Moreover, with ObamaCare, Congress is usurping the respective authorities of the state legislatures in determining how healthcare can be dispensed in any given state. Apparently in the last twenty five years there have been several efforts by Congress to dictate to respective states various regulations, and they have been ruled as unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court. Yet another reason why I suspect ObamaCare is unconstitutional and why it will be overturned, if not by the Supreme Court, then by a future Republican-dominated United States Congress.

Yes, but I think both the major parties and their supporters are equally guilty of such behavior. Moptop, as I, would rather take their chances with the world understanding there is no guarantee in life. Others would rather have the Government making the choices because they feel such is somehow going to be more “fair”, and for whatever reason they think the Government will solve the problems better than self empowered citizens who take the time to understand things. I also realize many will never take the time to understand anything and when it goes “bad” they will blame all those uncaring neighbors…

Newsweek had an interesting article up: What Happens When Congress Fails to Do Its Job? (http://www.newsweek.com/id/235560/page/1). I find it interesting on many levels. They are making a big deal about the filibuster and the partisan gulf that has developed (noting it hasn’t been this split sense reconstruction…), along with the increasingly used technique of pushing off their duties to special panels and Presidential orders (started with the creation of the Federal Reserve which took a huge chunk – and the most important – responsibilities from the house and senate and gave them to a nonelected private organization…). My thought on that is such is the result of our loosing the “Republic” part of our representative democracy. The federal level wasn’t historically expected to deal with the things they currently involve themselves with, most of these issues where the domain of the state and local governments (as in health insurance regulation). We used to have something we called “voting with your feet” – if you really thought your state government was screwed up you could simply move to a state you felt was more in line with your view of how things should be.

Sort of like how many of the states surrounding California feel about Californians issues – “their state is a mess & I’m glad I don’t live there”. They also tend to dislike when the ex Californians show up in their state and start trying to make it more like California – “we like it this way, if you want all that crap go back to California…” is the general natives attitudes towards it. As we have forgotten what “Republic” means (or more like simply haven’t been taught), many have moved towards the attitude that it is the Federal Governments job to make all the laws\rules\whatever the same in every state.

As the country has never been in such agreement about how things should be, the continuing disintegration of the ability of the Federal Government to come up with things that the country generally agrees about is no surprise – they shouldn’t be doing such things in the first place (that’s my local governments’ job…). The result is that the more “national solutions” get pushed the more annoyed and angry the population as a whole becomes.

Expect it to get much worse before it gets any better.

moptop is a perfect example of the blog’s topic: “Nyhan goes on to talk about how we ideologically filter information to support our political presuppositions–e.g., conservatives will hold on to lies about “death panels” long after the bill’s passage.”

For the “west” the go-go years have been going for about 60 years. It’s known as the credit super cycle, and it’s in its death throes at the moment. It would have died awhile ago but the Gov and the Fed managed to pull a few rabbits out of the hat and kept the party going… we’ll see how much longer they can manufacture fake prosperity.

It’s easy to be happy when the credit card is out and the bill seems a long ways off… I don’t know anyone who thinks such a picture as you paint is the “normal, all the time” state in socialist countries. They do think such is the end result after all the money and credit is used up and there are few rewards for taking risks and trying to create a viable company (except for the elite, they always do well…) leading the economy to collapse. You seem to have a very short time horizon, the question is sustainability (just like the “global warming” stuff).

I do find it interesting that we, the country that for 200 years was the one place people from everywhere dreamed of being able to move to (even though they knew they would likely be treated poorly for a generation and had no social safety net at all) is now seen as evil and the owner of the worst system on the planet…

France is so in love with its version of ObamaCare that it is thinking seriously of replacing it with a more cost effective system that might more closely resemble what we have now.

Anyway for someone who vowed a “transparent” Presidency, Obama has a lot more in common with William Marcy Tweed than with “Honest” Abe Lincoln, with regards to how he “persuaded” pharmaceutical and health insurance companies to accept key provisions of the ObamaCare bill. That wasn’t the “Hope and Change” I had expected, nor did many other Americans either, which is why there is widespread opposition to the bill and to the Axelrod – Obama regime.

The question isn’t how happy everyone was during the go-go years when money flowed easily and there seemed to be no end.

No, that actually wasn’t my point at all. My point was that many conservatives have the view that life in these “socialist” countries is horrible at all times and must be avoided at all costs. Life under a democracy that provides social services is thought to be no different from life under Stalin. These nations a full of cold, unhappy people standing in long lines to get loaves of moldy bread. It is a miserable way to live.

Well, no, it’s not. It’s just different, and not necessarily bad, and the citizens of these countries seem to rather like it. It is not the miserable hell that Glenn Beck seems to think it is.

The liberals I know are as angry as the conservatives I know (though from different sides of the coin). It may have taken a couple decades, but I think the two parties have finaly managed to compleatly split the country… Few I know see any “common ground” – they wanted a war zone and they are getting it, likely much more so than they ever realized or thought through.

Have one in moderation… But yes, things are very, very ugly out in the “wilds” of the American streets. I’ve never seen so many angry people (on all sides) – and I worked Probation for 5 years (where no one is happy to see you…).

Interesting times…

The question isn’t how happy everyone was during the go-go years when money flowed easily and there seemed to be no end. The question is how happy are they going to be during the radical restructuring they are in the very early stages of, when they have to actually start living somewhere close to their actual means again. The crash of the late 80’s took a decade to stabilize, and that was a small ripple in comparison to the current mess. Why I just have to chuckle when people think this thing is “resolved”. Look at the headlines and how they are slanting things – “Unemployment down” – well, yes. But it was up in 27 states, down in 7 and stayed the same in 16… so definitely time to throw a celebration party… It’s just become a sad joke.

As for the Icelanders in particular, they have that little issue with the financial noose around their necks with their banks creditors. I don’t blame them for vetoing the initial screw themselves plan – but then I don’t think anyone should have to bail out those whom chased returns with no care of risk. Unfortunately for them they are being blackmailed into doing something, and chances are their government will give in to something due to the level of pressure they are under (and heck, Britain already guaranteed all their investors loses, stupid, but they did it anyway, so now they are on the hook for it and will make Iceland pay somehow…).

Those comparisons are really subjective, and it’s hard to compare this country with most others – our population, diversity and physical size lead to far more complex issues than most of them have ever had to try to cope with…

Jon,

Just didn’t seem like you to post something like that. While I may not usually agree with you, there is usually more substance behind your posts…

Solitha,

The problem is health care will be rationed – it has to for reasons ranging from number of doctors to financial ability to pay for advanced procedures. The question is do we let the market do the rationing with the knowledge that not everyone will have everything, or do we have the government do the rationing where no one has certain procedures because they aren’t “cost effective”?

I’m really rather surprised that a group of people who seem so aware of the limits of the biosphere in relation to “climate” are so seemingly clueless that it is these same underlying limits that drive the economies over periods of time (as I’ve said, most “economic” cycles run around a decade in length – both up and down, and then there are the longer term cycles that those short cycles work inside…). While many may find this a strange link for gaining an economic understanding, I’d really advise reading this series of posts. It starts here: http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2009/09/why-economists-fail.html, and runs (with a few side trips into other things) into December. It may help in understanding the disconnect between our monetary notions and the physical realities they abstract…

Sort of like everyone moaning about the banks not lending – they aren’t going to, and if they did we would be absolutely crushed by inflation as all that money hit the system. It’s all for balance sheet repair in the hopes that extending will keep the fall manageable and has nothing to do with getting money out on the street (and unless you’re a primary dealer it wouldn’t help you anyway, the first access to the money gains the most, by the time it got out to us on the street prices would already have moved to adjust for the added supply…)