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That's a Pretty Bleak Silver Lining

December 21, 2009, 9:13 am

The bad news:  The Democrats are going to pass a half-baked mess of health care insurance changes.   Several opponents of the bill are saying there is a silver lining -- that this will allow Republicans, who did such a bang-up job when they last controlled Congress and the Presidency, to get back in power.  Color me less than excited.

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Category: Politics
  • Slider

    Being a middle aged curmudgeonly old cynic I naturally find home in the "ani-establishment camp.

    I have a couple of questions that I can't find an answer to elsewhere and wondered if your readers could help. Sorry that its not directly to do with this thread.

    If you go to:

    http://shipchartering.blogspot.com/2009/02/world-shipping-tonnage-capacity-hits.html

    ... this site says that there is now 1.12 billion tonnes of ships now sailing the seven seas. This is their "empty" weight (I don't know the average cargo weight of the average ship).

    Question - at what point, if ever, does the total displacement of the world's fleet have any impact on sea levels?

    Secondly, I understand that we (the world) pumps sea water underground to force the oil out for drilling. At what point, if ever, might this impact sea levels?

    Sorry if he questions are really naive.

  • Chris K.

    Like I posted in a different thread, this was written by a friend of a friend:

    Though I find much in the life, philosophy and words of Malcolm X with which I disagree, there is one phrase of which I am perhaps more fond than he:

    By Any Means Necessary.

    This great Republic is filled with men who - like me - will not submit to tyranny.

    Though I have maintained medical insurance throughout my adult life - at great expense, especially during periods of unemployment - This I vow:
    if this disgusting travesty is signed into law I will immediately and permanently drop my coverage.

    Further, I will take any and all possible steps to avoid paying any taxes or penalties associated with this ridiculous abuse of power.

    Let me be plain: I hereby announce my intention to do everything within my power to willfully violate the so-called "coverage mandate" - for no other reason than the fact that I am a free man and will not be subjugated by this or any other regime.

    Let this statement serve as my declaration and confession of guilt - if I am without coverage it is due to a deliberate and willful act on my part.

    Further, let this serve as a warning that I will resist any and all attempts to use physical force to compel my compliance (or punish my non-compliance) by any and all means which are or may come to my disposal.

    By Any Means Necessary.

    Let me be clear: I have always maintained health insurance and will continue to do so - but an out-of-control government's demand that I do is probably the only thing which could PREVENT me from doing so.

    I am a citizen, not a subject.

    I will not submit.

    I will resist.

    By Any Means Necessary.

  • DrTorch

    Slider,

    I don't consider your question naive. It's interesting.

    From this site
    http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/infopage/oceans.htm

    we get the surface area of oceans as 335,258,000 km^2
    or 3.35 x 10^14 m^2

    1 tonne of ship displaces 1 tonne of water. The density of sea water is is very close to 1 m^3 /1 tonne.

    So from your source, there is 1.12 x 10^9 m^3 of water displaced.

    Dividing that number by the surface area:
    we get 3.3 x 10^-6 m. Or 3 microns (micrometers). Not a whole lot.

    Feel free to check my math.

  • Mark

    Yeah,

    The Republicans only have a backbone, and follow the beliefs of fiscal prudence when they are out of power.

    As soon as they have power, they are feeding on the pork just like the dems. Of course the Dems seem to want to increase the deficit 3x as much as Reps into perpetuity. So in actuality, I guess the Reps in power is the same as having Dem light.

  • Doug

    I always maintained that the democrats main gripe was that the republicans weren't spending enough, not that the republicans were spending on the wrong things. The results of the election of 2008 have pretty much validated my take, I think.

  • Eddie

    Once again, what will happen is: the Republicans will sweep into Congress with a desire to undo the disasterous meddling of the Democrats in the economy and lives of the citizens. However, as soon as they start to work, they'll run up against the fact they never have a supermajority, so can't even get bills to the floor the way they want. Then if they manage to pass something, they'll never get it past the veto power of the White House without crippling compromises. Then by the time the Administration changes, the voting populace will be tired of those damned Republicans who never seem to do anything... and back we'll go again.

    However, if you truly believe that Republicans want the exact same things as Democrats, just not as much or as fast... if someone tells me he's going to drive the wrong way at 15 miles per hour, and the other guy says he's going to go that way at 80, I'll go with the first guy every time.

  • Methinks

    Good point, Eddie.

  • Mark ii

    The problem with this is that once they vote it is almost impossible to overturn. It will require either 60 votes in the US Senate AND a Republican president in 2012 or 66% of Congress.

    WHat this legislation demonstrates is that there is significant differences between a Republican and Democrat. Everyone who rode Obama's band wagon claiming otherwise has just been proven, almost irreversibly, to be an idiot.

  • Dr. T

    If the health care financing bill that gets enacted into law includes compulsory purchase of health insurance, then it is unconstitutional. The limited and enumerated powers granted to the federal government by the Constitution do not include the power to force citizens to buy a service. The bill also transfers powers from state governments to federal government, which also violates the Constitution. Chris K. will not be the only one fighting such a law. It's possible that our current Supreme Court (with a majority of justices holding an 'expand the federal government regardless of the Constitution' viewpoint) will uphold the health care financing bill, but civil resistance may sink it.

  • Mark again

    Dr T.

    It is only unconstitutional as long as there are supreme court judges that believe it to be constitutional.

    Nick off a few conservative judges or stack the court with gvmt loving liberals, and by the time the lawsuit makes it up to the top, they might think forcing everyone to buy insurance is just grand.

  • Mesa Econoguy

    Worse news: McCain says “We’ve only begun to fight!”

    Oh, great…..

  • Link

    "If the health care financing bill that gets enacted into law includes compulsory purchase of health insurance, then it is unconstitutional. "

    No it's not. That's why the individual mandate is written as part of the tax code, to be enforced by the IRS. This tracks the Supreme Court arguments over social security back in the 1930s.

    I'm not saying it should be constitutional, but that it is under precedent.

  • me

    @Mark II

    "WHat this legislation demonstrates is that there is significant differences between a Republican and Democrat. Everyone who rode Obama’s band wagon claiming otherwise has just been proven, almost irreversibly, to be an idiot."

    As the kind of idiot who believes that there is ample evidence that both Republican and Democrats predominantly spend tax payer money in their personal self-interest and on their cronies, as well as restrict all those freedoms citizens really shouldn't have (so that everyone can conform to whatever moral code they believe correct), I disagree a bit.

    The individual agendas vary, but the price tag seldomly does.

    I for one would like a libertarian in office, together with total control of a libertarian party. Yeah, I know.

    Then again, a bunch of monkeys would have done a better job than the current or last administration, and we'd have stood less of a chance of looking like a banana republic on the world stage.

  • me

    I ran into a few folks who argued that passing the last fundamentally flawed bill would actually be advantageous in the long run - after all, wasn't social security originally very similarly defective piece of legislation?

    I wish those folks would consider where social security is today and where it's headed for a lesson in economical inevitability.