Random thoughts on the passing scene:
Will the Veterans Administration scandal wake up those people who have been blithely saying that what we need is a “single payer” system for medical care? Delays in getting to see a doctor have been a common denominator in government-run medical systems in England, Canada and Australia, among other places.
Class warfare rhetoric would have us resenting “the top 10 percent” in income. But that would be a farce, because most of us would be resenting ourselves, since more than half of all Americans — 54 percent — are in the top 10 percent at some stage of their lives.
Some people act as if the answer to every problem is to put more money and power in the hands of politicians.
Republicans in Congress seem to be drawn toward the immigration issue like a moth toward a flame. How turning illegal immigrants into Democratic voters, while demoralizing the Republican base, will help either the country or the Republicans is a mystery. If ever there was a high-risk, low-yield investment, this is it.
President Theodore Roosevelt said that his foreign policy was to “speak softly and carry a big stick.” President Barack Obama’s foreign policy is to speak loudly and carry a little stick. They say talk is cheap, but loose talk by a President of the United States can be very expensive in both blood and treasure.
One of the scariest aspects of our times is how seldom either people or policies are judged by their track record.
Why in the world are the Baltic states in NATO? The Russian army could overrun them before NATO could get a meeting together to decide what to do.
If the Democrats retain control of the Senate after this year’s election, Barack Obama can load the federal courts from top to bottom with judges who will ignore the Constitution, as he does, and promote his far-left political agenda instead, long after he is gone.
The old saying that taxes are the price we pay for civilization has long since become obsolete. The amount that the government spends to defend us from foreign attack, or to maintain law and order at home, has been overtaken by the money it spends just to transfer some people’s money to other people who are more likely to vote for the reelection of incumbents.
Government policies to “bring down the cost of medical care” almost never bring down those costs, and often increase the costs. These policies simply refuse to pay the full costs of medical care. Any one of us can do that, but we know there will be consequences. There will also be consequences when the government refuses to pay the costs, but these consequences will be concealed and/or denied.
The old saying that “politics is the art of the possible” is dead wrong. Politics is the art of making the impossible seem possible, and even plausible and desirable. That is how Obamacare got passed.
To let the world’s leading terrorism-exporting nation get nuclear weapons can prove to be the most irresponsible and catastrophic decision in the history of the human race. It was also an irresponsible and catastrophic decision of the American voters to elect as president someone who would let that happen, basing their votes on rhetoric and racial symbolism.
