In reference to my earlier post, the link to which appears below, I respond to Kevin M. Brooks as follows: I appreciate you wanting to play devil’s advocate, Kevin. I enjoy assuming that role myself on occasion. But you dont know me. I dont routinely jump to unsupported conclusions. That I may do so from time to time, especially in a pinch, makes me no different – no better; no worse – than any other person, including you, I daresay. My conclusions are based, yes, as are all people’s, largely on personal experience, but also, and – I can say truthfully in my case – primarily, on what I learn from my voracious reading. My reading encompasses a wide range of topics and viewpoints, too, as well as a long historical perspective. On a handful of topics, I can lay claim legitimately to some expertise. Politics, I confess, is not one of those topics. But I do pay attention to it, as any responsible person must, weighing it against other topics with which it most often intersects: philosophy, science, religion, sociology, law, and psychology, to name the most obvious. Given the extent of my reading and the sheer volume of material that I routinely review, I have neither the time nor the inclination to hunt down and provide you with supportive (or opposing) evidence for every view I espouse. I didn’t post links to any polls supporting my earlier comment [in my original post] because they’re everywhere. The three Kelly posted are just the tip of the iceberg. I figured an intelligent, enterprising guy like you would be able to find such polls easily enough on your own, if you were so inclined. That said, I take most polls with a grain of salt – for precisely the reason you give: survey questions are often execrably worded, sometimes unintentionally, more frequently with an eye to leading respondents to a conclusion the pollsters support. So … you can take it or leave it when I say … The extremely low approval rating of the Republican-majority House (which is the real target of displeasure with Congress) isn’t surprising at all. Most conservatives – who vote Republican because they have few other viable alternatives and don’t want a three-party system – are furious with what they see as the GOP’s spineless abandonment of conservative principles of governance. GOP candidates run on those principles, win their seats, then quickly eschew those principles when confronted with a disapproving media. Yes, the Tea Party – which I hasten to remind you is a movement and not an official political party – is unpopular. With the left. And with the Republican establishment, which kowtows to the left rather than to its constituents. And that’s largely because the Tea Party is unpopular with the overwhelmingly left-leaning media, who miss no opportunity to disparage it and publish blatantly false information about it. I predict the left will misjudge to its peril the influence of the Tea Party again this November. Not everyone on the left is, however, convinced that the Tea Party is dead or dying. The Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights (hardly a right-wing group!) said in a January 21, 2014, report: “Against IREHR’s expectations, the national organizations at the center of the Tea Party movement have maintained stable memberships in 2013. During the past year, Tea Parties have endured leadership changes, significant splits, and the emergence of competitive forces. Nevertheless, core membership numbers have neither receded nor died, but grown by four percent.” You can read the full report at irehr.org/issue-areas/tea-party-nationalism/tea-party-news-and-analysis/item/527-status-of-tea-party-by-the-numbers. This report does contain some unflattering information about the Tea Party, but I have reason to believe that information is essentially correct. Some of that information dovetails nicely with what I know about the Tea Party that has made me unwilling to join it. However much I disagree with the personal viewpoints of some of its members, though, allegations of the MOVEMENT’s bigotry are grossly overstated, and I concur with many of the Tea Party’s overall objectives. There are signs – and, again, you can take or leave what I say – that the growing dissatisfaction with Obamacare in particular, but also with this president’s patently unconstitutional power grabs, his repeated and obvious lying, and his administration’s hideous and dangerous foreign policy failures, is driving more and more people to at least sympathize with Tea Party positions. We shall see what November brings. Now, let me address that deceitfully and risibly named “Affordable Care” Act. It is, as the media keep reminding us, this president’s “signature achievement” – regardless of how little it’s actually achieved. It is, therefore, Obamacare, Obamacare, Obamacare, and it will BE Obamacare until Christ’s Second Coming, at which point no one WILL care. (And that assumes, of course, that somebody’s still around who remembers it!) For whom, pray tell, are the provisions of this act “affordable”? Certainly not for the millions of Americans whose insurance policies, which they liked, have been, are being, or will be terminated and replaced with far more expensive, far less accommodating policies (Harry Reid’s, Nancy Pelosi’s, and Barack Obama’s ridiculous refutations to the contrary). And this during a time of economic stagnation (please don’t bother showing me the pathetic economic growth numbers), when more American’s hours and salaries or wages, if not their very jobs, are being cut and prices of everything are steadily rising. Certainly not for the millions of small businesses across the country that, in one way or another, will wind up footing much of the bill for Obamacare or suffer penalties. Certainly not for the millions of young people who don’t want, don’t need, and can ill-afford health care insurance of any kind. And not even for the intended beneficiaries of this massive redistributionist money-laundering scheme: the impoverished masses WHO AREN’T SIGNING UP FOR IT. WHY aren’t they signing up for it? Undoubtedly, their reasons are many. But some of those reasons are known, predictable, and basic: personal pride and embarrassment; lack of ready access to a computer; lack of even rudimentary computer skills; mistrust of strangers trying to “help” them; little money and few means to get around and go where they might need to go for help. That’s the short list. Sorry, but there’s nothing affordable about the “Affordable Care” Act. But, then, it was never intended to make health care or health care insurance affordable. It was never intended to improve the quality of health care. It wasn’t even intended to provide health care for the poor. It’s sole objective is to give the federal government more control over our personal lives, consolidate political power in the hands of the few, and transform this country into a “new kind” of collectivist paradise. That a majority of the American people now have a suspicion of this and fear a leviathan federal government is reflected in a number of recent polls. These polls address different aspects of government involvement, too, not all of them related to conservative issues (income inequality, for instance). I offer links to those that I have readily at hand: rasmussenreports/public_content/politics/general_politics/september_2013/63_believe_most_americans_want_government_to_have_less_power_and_money rasmussenreports/public_content/politics/general_politics/january_2014/59_say_less_government_not_more_would_help_close_income_gap bigstory.ap.org/article/poll-americans-have-little-faith-government (The AP notes that this AP-NORC Center poll “… finds Americans divided on how active they want government to be. Half say ‘the less government the better.’ However, almost as many (48 percent) say ‘there are more things that government should be doing.’”) And this article offers an overview of various polls also pointing to a growing desire for “less government”: americanthinker/2014/01/federal_government_less_popular_than_ever.html Make of this what you will. :-)
Posted on: Sat, 08 Mar 2014 23:42:45 +0000
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