This is not a post taking up for Governor Mark Sanford. See below if you don’t believe me.
I was checking my RSS feed a few minutes ago and noticed the following on Daily Kos:
Like the Taliban and Islamic fundamentalists, conservatives seek to impose their morality on the rest of us via governmental coercion (legislation and the bully pulpit). They are incapable of minding their own business, and seek to stick their noses into peoples’ bedrooms and doctor offices. Yet time and time again, their relentless moralizing is proven to be hypocritical grandstanding, as they are unable to meet even the lowest of bars they try to impose on others.
For starters, not all conservatives seek to impose any morality on any one via governmenaal coercion or any other method which would invade the liberty we are all priveliged to have. Next, it is very important to remember that Governor Mark Sanford was quite far from claiming to be a social conservative. To my knowledge, I don’t know that he ever tried to stick his nose into peoples’ bedrooms or doctor offices (although he may have been too busy sticking his nose in their pocketbooks to fund his extramarital affair.)
However, let’s not forget that statists are far from innocent when it comes to “sticking their noses” where they don’t belong. For instance:
1) President Obama signed legislation Monday that will give the federal government broad new power to regulate the manufacturing, advertising and marketing of cigarettes and other tobacco products.
2) A vote this week will decide whether we as Americans pay for the greenhouse gas emissions of the energy companies we use. Democrats seem to think that making companies that contribute to emissions pay a “credit” to companies that don’t is a smart idea. They leave out the fact that in places like Georgia, wind energy isn’t exactly happening any time soon and if the market demands cleaner energy, the market will create it. Now, government oversight is going to determine that Georgia Power and other companies like it “need” to be cleaner, thus raising everyone’s bills. Great timing, right?
3) Let’s not forget healthcare. This also from the Daily Kos:
Public option available = Americans get the health care they need.
Public option not available = Americans have much more trouble paying for health care, put off needed treatment and visits, and end up incurring more serious conditions.
No viable public option = No health reform.
Again, let’s make my argument. If we determine that it is our job to pay for other people’s health care, everyone’s rates go up and everyone’s quality of care goes down. Let’s keep in mind a few things here:
- The amount of people that are uninsured, not by choice and with no current public option, is grossly overestimated. In fact, 75% of uninsured folks only stay that way for about a year. Further, many people are quite eligible for medicaid or medicare and choose not to take it.
- Many “uninsured” that Statists love to talk about are also illegal immigrants. Estimates show that about 9.7 million of the nation’s uninsured are not U.S. citizens.
- The plan introduced by Senator Kennedy will probably only insure about 1/3 of the current uninsured and it will cost upwards of one trillion dollars over ten years
I don’t think the Daily Kos reads my blog. Actually, I know that they don’t, but to those who consider themselves left-leaners, please tell me: what justification is there for this ridiculous health care reform that everyone is talking about? To me, the answers are not in more governmental oversight and I just don’t even understand the argument. Consider this a wide-open thread.
By the way, one of my buddies has a great blog at Americanly Yours.
R.I.P. Michael.