As I usually do, I’m reading with great interest the observations of many of my fellow travellers and not just a few patriots over at Lucianne.com. In particular is a thread devoted this this article. I’ve quoted it here so you can, hopefully, get the fully meaning of the content.

Let some of these thought sink in – this is not some amateur hour we’re watching. Oh, yea, the guy out front is most certainly an unaccomplished amateur, but those running him are not. And I say that with not a small amount of trepidation. We’re in for some trouble here.

One of the conclusions is telling: if enacted, this “entitlement” will be virtually impossible to “undo.”

Thank about it.

John Cassidy on ObamaCare – WSJ.com

Confessions of an ObamaCare Backer
A liberal explains the political calculus.

The typical argument for ObamaCare is that it will offer better medical care for everyone and cost less to do it, but occasionally a supporter lets the mask slip and reveals the real political motivation. So let’s give credit to John Cassidy, part of the left-wing stable at the New Yorker, who wrote last week on its Web site that “it’s important to be clear about what the reform amounts to.”

Mr. Cassidy is more honest than the politicians whose dishonesty he supports. “The U.S. government is making a costly and open-ended commitment,” he writes. “Let’s not pretend that it isn’t a big deal, or that it will be self-financing, or that it will work out exactly as planned. It won’t. What is really unfolding, I suspect, is the scenario that many conservatives feared. The Obama Administration . . . is creating a new entitlement program, which, once established, will be virtually impossible to rescind.”

Why are they doing it? Because, according to Mr. Cassidy, ObamaCare serves the twin goals of “making the United States a more equitable country” and furthering the Democrats’ “political calculus.” In other words, the purpose is to further redistribute income by putting health care further under government control, and in the process making the middle class more dependent on government. As the party of government, Democrats will benefit over the long run.

This explains why Nancy Pelosi is willing to risk the seats of so many Blue Dog Democrats by forcing such an unpopular bill through Congress on a narrow, partisan vote: You have to break a few eggs to make a permanent welfare state. As Mr. Cassidy concludes, “Putting on my amateur historian’s cap, I might even claim that some subterfuge is historically necessary to get great reforms enacted.”

No wonder many Americans are upset. They know they are being lied to about ObamaCare, and they know they are going to be stuck with the bill.

takeover, obamacare, evil, socialism

Some of you may not be aware of the wonderful Powerline Blog; for that reason, I’m taking this opportunity to post a very moving article published on 9/11 by Mr. Scott Johnson

Power Line – A day to be proud…

A day to be proud…
September 11, 2009 Posted by Scott at 9:14 PM

I first wrote about Rick Rescorla in 2003 after finishing James Stewart’s Heart of a Soldier, the book based on his New Yorker article “All the real heroes are dead.” (“The real heroes are dead” is what Rescorla would say in response to recognition of his heroism on the battlefield in Vietnam.) The book is good, not great, but it touches on all the themes of life in a thought-provoking way: life and death, love and friendship, heroism and sacrifice, destiny and fate, and man’s search for meaning.

Rescorla was a British native who moved to the United States to join the Army and fight in Vietnam. Rescorla was inspired to move to the United States in part by his friendship with Dan Hill. Their friendship is the one constant theme of the book. Hill and Rescorla had become friends in Rhodesia; they consciously modeled themselves on the characters of Peachy and Dravot in Kipling’s story “The Man Who Would Be King.” Later they both served as officers in Vietnam, where in 1965 Rescorla saw harrowing combat in the Ia Drang Valley.

In April 2001, thanks to Hill’s efforts, Rescorla was inducted into the Army’s Officer Candidate School Hall of Fame for his service in Vietnam. The famous photo below depicts Rescorla in action in the Ia Drang Valley It is moving to read of the officers who sought Rescorla out to shake his hand and have him autograph their copies of We Were Soldiers Once…and Young, in which Rescorla plays a key role. .

Rescorla died a hero’s death saving his charges at Morgan Stanley in the south tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11. Rescorla was head of security for the company; he directed the evacuation in which he had long drilled the company’s WTC employees. Using a bullhorn he shephered his charges into the tower’s one usable fire escape and exhorted them that it was “a day to be proud to be an American.” The book closes with the words of Hill, who remained Rescorla’s best friend until his death. His haunting words form a fitting tribute to Rescorla:

One of my life’s biggest regrets is that I couldn’t have been with Rick at the moment of his great challenge and crisis of his life. Then again, maybe it was so destined, because if I didn’t survive, there would be nobody left to tell the story.

Kipling wrote that “all men should count with you, but none too much.” I failed there. Rick counted as the world to me.

Somebody cautioned that if a person or thing means the world to you, and you lose that person or thing, then you have lost the world. I lost the world when Rick died.

(First posted in 2005.)