Obamacare Worse Than Prohibition ... J. D. Longstreet

Obamacare Worse Than Prohibition
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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I am fully aware that most Americans today have no clue as to the damage one federal law brought to -- and did to --  America.  I refer to Prohibition.  It was then, just as it is today with Obamacare, all brought down on our heads by a bunch of people who were absolutely, positively, convinced they knew what was best for America and they were one hundred percent determined to "fundamentally change" America.

Boy!  Did they ever change America!

It was the 18th Amendment to the Constitution.  Americans referred to it as "Prohibition" just as today the "Affordable Care Act" is referred to as "Obamacare."  Both these nick names were/are intended to demonstrate the disgust in which Americans hold both Prohibition and Obamacare.

The grossly disliked Prohibition brought changes in and to American society and brought changes in American culture that have left their mark on this country.  Many of those changes we still feel today.   Not all these changes were for the better. There was a dark side to Prohibition. A very dark side.   See,  Prohibition actually fueled the very activities it was intended to eliminate: crime and drunkenness. It was, and remains, a classic case of what happens to a country when the "Law of Unintended Consequences" reigns supreme.

Consumption of alcohol in America actually increased during Prohibition, maybe sky-rocketed would be a better description.  And then there was the escalation of crime.

Boot-legging gangs took over.  Crime bosses, such as Al Capone, became what we would call today "rock stars."  Americans wanted booze and Capone gave it to them.  Capone is reported to have said:  "I am like any other man. All I do is supply a demand."

"Looking back, we can easily see that Prohibition was a failure. But it impacted us in ways we are still feeling. It did not purify American culture, as was intended. It irrevocably poisoned it. Drinking rates shot up dramatically, the federal prison population increased 366% (Organized Crime and Prohibition), and a young generation learned how much fun it was to be rebellious. Of course, we could also say that the spirit of rebellion was a positive outcome of the Prohibition; freethinking and nonconformity are two of the hallmarks of our society. But when these ideals were applied in such a lamentable way, as they were during Prohibition, they became not blessing, but curse." SOURCE:  http://voices.yahoo.com/how-prohibition-changed-america-7307854.html

Looking realistically at the political future of America, I still believe Obamacare will eventually be repealed. But I expect the earliest that can happen will be sometime after the year 2024.

Why?  Well, common sense tells me that should she decide to run for President, Hillary Clinton will become the next President of the United States.  THAT is a given -- at least from my standpoint.

It should be understood by now that the ONLY way the GOP can be successful in repealing Obamacare is with the House and Senate AND the Oval Office in Republican hands.  The only other possibility is having enough republican votes in both the House and Senate to override a presidential veto of any bill repealing Obamacare.

Just as the 18th Amendment wreaked havoc on America so will Obamacare.  Eventually, the 21st Amendment passed and repealed Prohibition (the 18th Amendment).   But -- a great deal of pain and suffering had ensued by the time that huge mistake had been corrected.

Understand, the Progressives (the Marxists) and the democrats (the Socialists) are never going to admit they made a mistake in passing Obamacare into law.  Never.  Which means that all efforts to repeal Obamacare will be met with total dedication to preserving the law from hell by the democrats.

In the meantime, we can stand back and watch the body count from Obamacare steadily increase until it finally becomes too much for compassionate Americans to bear.   From the millions of babies murdered by abortionists (paid with taxpayer dollars) to what some have called the "Eugenic disposal" of the elderly  (In other words:  "Let 'em die."). Death will become a hallmark of Obamacare.

Like Prohibition Obamacare has never been popular with the American people.  Unlike Prohibition the law was not even read by those who voted for it in the Congress.  At least, the 18th Amendment WAS read.

We can expect feelings toward Obamacare to sour extensively in the next few months when insurance premiums and taxes begin to skyrocket.  As of today, Americans understand -- generally -- that their President lied to them.   When they suddenly realize they will not be able to continue seeing the doctor they have entrusted their health, indeed, their lives to for decades, well, then it will be brought home to them.

It required over a dozen years to repeal the 18th Amendment.   It may take even longer to repeal the profane monstrosity that is Obamacare.  It will take the combined efforts of the sane, responsible, ADULT people of America to maintain unrelenting pressure upon the lawmakers of this nation to lift the government's yoke of socialized medicine from our necks let us alone.

The rage in America is intensifying every day the jack boots of the federal government remain on or necks.

History teaches us that it is not within the character of the American people to allow an encroachment of overbearing government for very long.   It's either back off or -- backlash.

© J. D. Longstreet
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The Greatest Generation Shows The Way -- AGAIN! ... J. D. Longstreet

The Greatest Generation Shows The Way -- AGAIN!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
*************

The government had not been shut down for an entire day and already I was enjoying the feeling of, shall we say, a certain lightness in the yoke around my neck.

Allow me to ask, please, why do we have non-essential workers and non-essential departments within the federal government in the first place?  I mean, with the national economy in the godawful shape it is in, and with the knowledge that every dollar the US government spends since last week is borrowed from some other country, not necessarily friendly to the US,  why the dickens does the government have ANYTHING that is non-essential?

Come on folks, this NOT a shutdown.  As someone has rightly noted it is only a slowdown -- if that. 

The "government shutdown" terror has been invented by the democrats and the Mainstream Media (But I repeat myself!)  We have had almost 20 "shutdowns" since the late 1970's.  What?  You didn't know that?  Well then.  There must not have been much to them, huh?

It's all Bovine Scatology!  Horse hockey! Malarkey! Baloney! 

Stop moaning and groaning for a moment and think back, and/or ask yourself what we Americans did before all these government departments and government programs. 

Well? 

The answer is:  we did pretty durn good, that's what.  (Forgive the grammar!) Heck, we actually became a world superpower without them.  WITH all that government our world superpower status is, as they say, "ebbing away."

We have become conditioned to believe all that government is necessary, when, in fact, IT ISN'T.

Heck, I'm so old I can remember that ancient time when there was no air conditioning.  Here in the Southland, where the humidity was 95% at 7 o'clock this morning, I must tell you -- it was a different world back then.  In summer, even sundown brought little relief.  Trying to sleep in a bed upon which the bed linens were damp with moisture wicked from the air around you was uncomfortable in the extreme.  But -- we managed. 

These days we can't imagine living without air conditioning. Consider the number of generations who have never known a time in their lives when there WAS no air conditioning.

Now apply this little journey down Memory Lane to our bloated government today.  The moral of the story is -- we have become conditioned to both.  Air conditioning is very nice, indeed.  But -- if we had to live without it we could.  Heck.  We DID!  
The same applies to big government.  We can live, and some say -- live better, without it.  Heck!  We DID!

Look around you.  Are YOU better off today than you were , oh, say -- five years ago?  If so, then you must be a federal employee!

We've been suckered.  We've been had.  And we did it to ourselves.  I actually don't know if there is such a psychological disorder as "self-delusional." If there is, there is an epidemic of it in America.

You know, I believe you could take a couple of kids from a 1950's high school "Economics" class, give them the task of balancing the federal budget -- and they could do it. 

That's the easy part.  What's hard is mollifying the public, which has been conditioned to believe they cannot get along without a particular government program(s) and/or government department(s).

The point of all this rambling is simply this:  We have a chance, during this so-called government shutdown, to reevaluate our enormous, bloated, over-reaching, meddling, near tyrannical government.  If we are smart we'll take advantage of this opportunity.
In the meantime, be prepared for all the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth by millions of Americans who are simply unable to take care of themselves, or take responsibility for themselves and have, for all intents and purposes, become "wards" of the federal government.  Much like bond servants they have sold themselves into voluntary servant-hood -- or -- slavery to the state for a check once a month and an Obamaphone.  Many, if not most, of them could not care less about the welfare of the country.

But take heart!  The Greatest Generation is, once again, showing the way.  Earlier this week eighty and ninety year old veterans of World War Two crashed through the barricades around the World War Two Memorial in Washington.  They had been fenced out by the Obama Administration.

As it turned out, the Nazis couldn't stop them, the Japanese couldn't stop them and Obama, sure as hell, was not going to stop them!

Do you think for one moment that if THAT generation was in their 30's, 40's, and 50's this country would be in the shape it is in today?  Uh-uh!  Nope! Nosiree!

In the 1940's those men were at the point of Freedom's Spear.  Now, in the 21st century, in the winter, and deep winter, of their lives they volunteered for the van guard of freedom again as they show the way to take back our country.

We have to take America back from the Atlantic to the Blue Ridge, from the Blue Ridge to the Mississippi, from the Mississippi to the Rockies, and from the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean.   It CAN be done -- but -- it CANNOT be done sitting at our keyboards.  It will be done in the streets, in the highways, and in the by ways of every crossroads community, every small town, every city, every state, all the way to the Congress and the White House.

Taking America back will require the guts and determination of the men and women of the Greatest Generation. 

What say you?  The jackboots are marching again.  This time they are trampling freedom's soil.  The Greatest Generation just stepped forward AGAIN!  What about us?


As Hillel 'the Elder' (a Jewish sage from the 1st century B.C.) said:  If not us -- WHO?  If not now -- WHEN?

© J. D. Longstreet
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Tom Clancy Has Gone Home ... J. D. Longstreet

Tom Clancy Has Gone Home

A Commentary by J. D Longstreet
**************************

I feel as though I have lost a friend today.  I refer to the passing of author Tom Clancy.  Clancy died on October 1, 2013, in a Baltimore, Maryland, hospital. He was 66 years old.

I never met the man, though, I think I "sorta" did through his writings.   Clancy was a conservative and that makes him a brother.

I have spent many, many hours pouring over his books, savoring every single word.   He had a talent for painting what I call "word pictures."  His mastery of the English language was such that, using words alone, he could paint a picture on the canvas of your mind and you could view the scene he described as though it were real and in vivid color.

Many of his books were made into major movies, but none of the movies did the books justice.  Hollywood just could not produce -- on the silver screen -- what Clancy could produce in the minds of his readers.  Theirs was an impossible task.

Tom Clancy was a lifetime supporter of conservative and Republican causes in America. His books bear dedications to conservative political figures, most notably Ronald Reagan.

J. D. Longstreet

Oh, and Clancy was also a Life Member of the National Rifle Association since 1978.

Here are just a few of Clancy's awards and recognitions quickly gleaned from Wikipedia:

"Achievements and awards:

    Clancy was one of only three authors to have sold two million copies on a first printing in the 1990s (the other two being John Grisham and J.K. Rowling). Clancy's 1989 novel Clear and Present Danger sold 1,625,544 hardcover copies, making it the #1 bestselling novel of the 1980s.[21]

    Clancy received an honorary doctorate in humane letters and delivered the commencement address at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1992, and has since worked a reference to the school into many of his main works.[22]

    Clancy was an honorary Yeoman Warder of The Tower of London holding the title "Supernumerary Yeoman".[23] On the television show Ace of Cakes his wife commissioned, for his 60th birthday, a special cake in the shape of the Tower of London in acknowledgment of his status. In the episode, Tom Clancy referred to the Beefeaters as, "Just a terrific bunch of guys".

    Clancy received the Alfred Thayer Mahan Award for Literary Achievement from the Navy League of the United States in 1990.

In popular culture:

The BBC Radio 4 sitcom Deep Trouble, set on a nuclear submarine, features a humorous version of Clancy as a recurring character. He is portrayed by Ben Willbond, co-writer of the series.[24]

The British sitcom My Family has often shown the character of Ben reading a Tom Clancy book, particularly in the Series 5 episode "The Book of Love", in which Clancy's novel The Bear and the Dragon is referenced frequently.

He was mentioned in American History X at a family dinner table were Edward Norton and Edward Furlong were present. The mother of these two remarked to the father that they do not teach Tom Clancy at college.

Tom Clancy appeared in the "Diatribe of a Mad Housewife" episode of The Simpsons, wearing a cap saying "USS Iowa (BB-61)" and was tricked into giving Marge a quote for her upcoming book."  SOURCE:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Clancy

Thomas Leo Clancy Jr. was born on April 12, 1947, in Baltimore, Maryland.  He died October 1st, 2013.  His work will, hopefully, live on for centuries to come.

To say that Clancy will be missed is so, SO, inadequate.   His passing will leave a hole in the pantheon of American writers that will not be filled soon, certainly not in my lifetime.  His regard for truth and detail made his writings leap from the page.  His prescience was often reflected on the front pages of newspapers.  To say that fact was uncomfortable for leaders of many countries around the globe would be an understatement.

Clancy once said the following: 

"Nothing is as real as a dream. The world can change around you, but your dream will not. Responsibilities need not erase it. Duties need not obscure it. Because the dream is within you, no one can take it away."
– Tom Clancy

We can thank God for the talent that enabled Clancy to share his dreams with us.

© J. D. Longstreet
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An Obstinate Senate ... Alan Caruba

An Obstinate Senate

By Alan Caruba

Congress was not designed to operate in this fashion. In practice, the Senate is supposed to conference with the House to arrive at a compromise solution.

“The Senate voted 54-46 to reject a motion to go to conference with the House on the issue of funding the government, marking the third time in 24 hours the Senate has rejected an overture from the House related to avoiding a government shutdown. Senate Democrats have insisted they will accept from the House only a six-week funding bill with no provisions related to Obamacare.” – www.politico.com, Tuesday, October 1.

In a history of the Senate, “The Most Exclusive Club”, published in 2005, Lewis l. Gould noted that “For most members, as the 1990s began, it was more business as usual. That process led to another ten-year period when the Senate slipped further in public esteem and failed to meet its political responsibilities. By the end of the century, civility and a sense of common purpose had vanished from much of what the Senate did.”

Gould is the Centennial Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Texas. “Political oratory has been in steady decline over the course of the past century, if the Senate is any indication. Most Senators read speeches that staff has written for them. In hearings members often rely on questions that staff has prepared…Few modern Senators can think on their feet or make a sustained argument without supporting information or props. ’We’re just no longer a debating forum,’ said Robert C. Byrd in October 2004.” 

“It is hard to overstate this loss to American political life,” said Gould. “The Framers of the Constitution envisioned a Senate that would function as a wise and judicious check on both executive power and the House of Representatives. They did not imagine a body that would act as a rubber stamp for an incumbent president.”

The recent marathon speeches by Senators Rand Paul (KY) and Ted Cruz (TX), both Republicans and both elected with Tea Party movement support, have invigorated what little passes for debate.

The current membership of the Senate is 53 Democrats, 45 Republicans, and 2 independents.

Each State has two Senators for a total of 100. They are elected for terms of six years.

In practice, the members of the Senate have generally regarded the members of the House with a bit of disdain, given that they must hustle to be reelected every two years and tend to the constituency of a particular district. This attitude was reflected in the way the Senate went home for the weekend while the House stayed in session to address the possibility of a shutdown.

How long the impasse will continue is anyone’s guess, but the cause is the growing public concern over the Affordable Care Act otherwise known as Obamacare. It is so abundantly a disaster that the Democrats have decided to brazen their way toward its full implementation while the Republicans are reflecting the outcry from tens of thousands of telephone calls, email, and all other manner of communication.

In short, the Republicans are doing what is expected of politicians while the Democrats are expressing their contempt for the voters. It is the same contempt that led to the near-midnight, 2009 party line vote in the Senate that passed Obamacare. None of the Senators had read the huge bill that is filled with many new taxes and puts the government in charge of one sixth of the nation’s economy and, in effect, the entire healthcare system. Its impact is already being felt as large companies lay off more and more workers while smaller ones put them in a part-time status, reducing the number of hours with which they can earn a living.

“We had to pass it to find out what was in it,” said the then-Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Significantly, no Republican in either the House or Senate voted for Obamacare.

The intransigence of Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), the Majority Leader of the Senate, reflecting the same view as President Obama, is the reason why the shutdown has occurred. There is much more to this than just politics, though obviously both parties are rolling the dice as to the outcome of the 2014 midterm elections.

To their credit, I think the Republicans have the high ground. Despite the criticisms, they have shown a united front in their effort to delay Obamacare’s implementation for a year, strip out the taxes on medical instruments, and require that members of Congress and their staffs enroll in the program in the same way everyone else must.

Ultimately, it is the Tea Party movement that will get the credit for resisting Obamacare and it should surprise no one that the White House and Harry Reid keep calling them terrorists, anarchists, extortionists, and other names.

It will be interesting to watch President Obama say whatever he can to affect the outcome of the shutdown. With nearly five years in office and with a thick volume of lies he told about Obamacare to get its passage, he is likely to suffer a significant injury to his power to influence events in the days and years ahead.

The shutdown is a good thing. Enjoy it.

© Alan Caruba, 2013

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Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" and shared on dozens of news and opinion websites. His blog recently passed more than 2.9 million page views. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. For information on his professional skills, Caruba Editorial Services is the place to go! You can find Alan Caruba on both Facebook and Twitter as well.

The Madness of Leadership ... J. D. Longstreet

The Madness of Leadership
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
**************

"The day may dawn when fair play, love for one's fellow men, respect for justice and freedom, will enable tormented generations to march forth triumphant from the hideous epoch in which we have to dwell. Meanwhile, never flinch, never weary, never despair." ~ Winston Churchill

Did you know that Churchill was a depressive?  Oh, yes.  He struggled with depression most of his life. 

The world would be surprised, indeed, to know the depressives who became great leaders in politics, in arts and sciences, and yes, in religion, over the past decades and ages.

Why do you suppose that happened? 

I have a theory.   See, depressives are great "thinkers."  They tend to turn inward under stress.  Instead of relying wholly on advisers and an entourage of sycophants, they rely upon themselves and their own abilities and, for the religious among them -- they also lean heavily upon their God -- for they have learned, more than most men, I think, the inherent weakness of man from wrestling with that weakness every waking hour of their lives.

Despair, as Churchill mentioned above, was a condition he lived with almost daily.  He understood it as few did or do. 

But, here's the thing about recognizing despair and over coming it -- or enduring it -- if you will:  You no longer fear it -- and -- you learn that each bout survived makes you stronger much as a fiery crucible refines it's contents.

Having survived despair, the depressive knows the "worse that can happen" and his mind has broken the shackles that fear had previously imposed and he is free to think, to plan, to call forth his creative abilities, to attack whatever the problem is before him.  In Churchill's time and place it was World War Two.

I am convinced that Churchill learned to use the repressed anger and melancholic depression to his advantage.  That is what great men do, nay, that is what great human beings do!

John Adams, 2nd President of the United States and one of America's founding fathers was a depressive.  Charles Dickens, that great British writer was, too, a depressive.  So were/are Buzz Aldrin, American astronaut, the second man to set foot on the moon;  Hans Christian Andersen, Danish writer;  Dick Cavett, American talk show host;  Ray Charles, African-American singer;  Charles Darwin, British naturalist;  Bob Dylan, American singer-songwriter, poet and artist;  William Faulkner, American author;  Harrison Ford, American actor;  Ken Griffey Jr., American MLB player;  Ernest Hemingway, American writer;  Abraham Lincoln, American lawyer and politician, 16th President of the United States; John D. Rockefeller, American industrialist;  Leo Tolstoy, Russian writer;  Mohandas Gandhi,  leader of Indian nationalism in British-ruled India;  Mark Twain, American writer;   Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., American civil rights leader; Mike Wallace, American journalist on 60 Minutes;  and Boris Yeltsin, first President of Russia;  SOURCE:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_major_depressive_disorder            

Depressives tend to see the world as it really is.  As a rule, they do not fool themselves into believing they are "in control."  Normal people do.

Depressives are pragmatic and have the ability to adapt to a changing reality even when they don't particularly like it.  They don't care about society's "norm" and structures, nor do they care for doing "what is expected of them."  Example:  "When Neville Chamberlain returned from signing the Munich agreement with Hitler in 1938, only Churchill and a small coterie refused to stand and cheer in parliament, eliciting boos and hisses from other honorable members."  SOURCE:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904800304576474451102761640.html

Churchill saw Chamberlain's blunder with the clarity and realism that many, if not most, "normal" persons lack.

Depressives also value, highly, other people's opinions.  That, alone, makes them next to unique! BUT -- a warning:  those empathetic depressives may not be out to defeat you as an opponent, but they are fixated upon showing you the error(s) of your ways and changing your mind along with your opinion!

Nassir Ghaemi, (runs the Mood Disorders Program at Tufts Medical Center in Boston)  in an article for the Wall Street Journal entitled:  "Depression in Command," said the following:  "When times are good and the ship of state only needs to sail straight, mentally healthy people function well as political leaders. But in times of crisis and tumult, those who are mentally abnormal, even ill, become the greatest leaders. We might call this the Inverse Law of Sanity."

Mr. Ghaemi continues:  "Great crisis leaders are not like the rest of us; nor are they like mentally healthy leaders. When society is happy, they toil in sadness, seeking help from friends and family and doctors as they cope with an illness that can be debilitating, even deadly. Sometimes they are up, sometimes they are down, but they are never quite well.

When traditional approaches begin to fail, however, great crisis leaders see new opportunities. When the past no longer guides the future, they invent a new future. When old questions are unanswerable and new questions unrecognized, they create new solutions. They are realistic enough to see painful truths, and when calamity occurs, they can lift up the rest of us."  SOURCE:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904800304576474451102761640.html

So, where DOES their strength come from?   "Their weakness is the secret of their strength," according to Mr. Ghaemi.  I believe him.

I am now, and have been for most of my life, acquainted with a number of depressives.  One thing I have found to be -- oh, so true -- is their honestly in answering a probing question.   Many depressives are reluctant to offer an answer to an unasked question, but, when the question is PUT to them, they tend to reply with clarity, realism, pragmatism, truthfulness, and on occasion, biting humor. 
When asked for a suggested solution to a problem, they will often surprise by offering a creative solution that defies the normal thinking patterns and can be -- and often is --  described as being "out of the box."

Consider this:  In 2006 an article was published by psychiatrists at the Duke University Medical Center which reviewed the biographies of American presidents from 1776 to 1974. This study, which was published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease analyzed the historical data of 37 presidents looking for symptoms of mental illness as defined by the criteria of the DSM-IV, the Diagnostic Statistical Manual. What they found was startling. According to the Duke researchers, 49% of former presidents had experienced some form of mental illness. Depression was the most common type of presidential mental illness (24%) which some experts say is a high percentage compared with the national average.

 Here is a list of the presidents who have been diagnosed with depression through analysis of historical data:

John Adams

Thomas Jefferson

James Madison

John Quincy Adams

Franklin Pierce

Abraham Lincoln

Calvin Coolidge
SOURCE:  (We highly recommend that you read this article.  You'll find it at:    http://www.healthcentral.com/depression/c/84292/150467/7-depression

There is an old saw that says:  "Have you ever noticed that when all hell breaks loose, and destruction is assured, there always seems to be one person who steps forward with all the right answers, who knows EXACTLY what to do to save the day?  Have you ever noticed that, more often than not, that person is insane?"

I hope that through these humble scribblings you can now see the truth in that old "saying."  

It is also true that while it my not pay to be nuts, quite often it REALLY does help!

© J. D. Longstreet
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