Category Archives: Democracy

Recovered from the Memory Hole: Sen. Obama Opposed to the Individual Mandate in ‘08

Culture, Democracy, Democrats, Election '08, Election '12, Healthcare, History, Multimedia, Politics, Recovered from the Memory Hole, Republicans, Taxation, The Welfare State, Theory and Ideas

“If a mandate was the solution, we could try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody buy a house. The reason they don’t have a house is they don’t have the money.” – Sen. Barack Obama during the 2008 Democrat Primary.

A long, long, time ago, way back during the 2008 primaries, then Sen. Barack Obama attacked then Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. John Edwards for the mandate provisions of their respective healthcare plans. Sen. Obama went on to explain how the RomneyCare mandates were not helping indigents in Massachusetts acquire the healthcare they needed leaving some without health insurance and paying the fine.

Fast forward to the present: President Barack Obama’s signature legislation, the so-called Affordable Care Act (A.K.A. ObamaCare, modeled after RomneyCare) is upheld by the Supreme Court, the main question being whether or not the federal government can force mandate individuals to purchase a product. Meanwhile on the Republican side, with about a dozen or so candidates to choose from in the course of the 2012 campaign, Gov. Mitt Romney will be the G.O.P. nominee who pledges to repeal ObamaCare if he is elected the next President of the United States. Mitt Romney, the man behind the very policy that Obama criticized and now embraces at the federal level.

Now isn’t politics fun!

Stephen Littau
http://fpffressminds.blogspot.com/

Doug Stanhope – Liberty (Re) Defined

Activism, Civil Liberties, Crime and Punishment, Culture, Democracy, Democrats, Elections, Freedom, Government Incompetence, Government Regulation, Government Waste, Humor, Independents, Individual Rights, Legal, Libertarians, Liberty, Multimedia, Politics, Republicans, Strategies For Advancing Liberty, Theory and Ideas

Brad has posted a version of this comedy routine by Doug Stanhope before. This version has been edited to include images and video by Fr33 Agent Beau Davis with a more honest than the traditional “pledge of allegiance” at the close.

I thought that since today happens to be Flag Day, this video would be an important reminder about the true meaning of liberty albeit with an (at times) crude, comedic delivery. True liberty has nothing to do with a flag*, much less worship for the government for which it stands.

WARNING: some of the material in the video will be offensive as hell to some of you. Enjoy!

Related: The Un-American Pledge of Allegiance

*Of course the flag can mean different things to different people. I think it’s one thing to show appreciation for the flag with its original intended meaning by the founders and quite another to “pledge allegiance” to its government regardless of how hostile to freedom the government becomes. I seriously doubt that Thomas Jefferson (who advocated separating political bonds with any government that becomes hostile to the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence BTW) or other founders would have ever pledged allegiance to the flag of the federal government.

Stephen Littau
http://fpffressminds.blogspot.com/

Rasmussen Poll: 61% of 500 Likely Voters in Colorado Support Regulating Marijuana Like Alcohol (Amendment 64)

Activism, Culture, Democracy, Democrats, Election '10, Election '12, Elections, Federalism, Government Regulation, History, Independents, Individual Rights, Legal, Libertarians, Politics, Republicans, Strategies For Advancing Liberty, The War on Drugs

This is one of the most encouraging polls I’ve seen in a long time. Honestly, I didn’t think that Amendment 64 [full text here] would have much chance of being approved by the voters, especially since a similar measure, Prop 19 failed in California in 2010. The Huffington Post reports:

The survey of 500 of likely voters in Colorado conducted on June 6, 2012 shows sixty-one percent are in favor legalizing marijuana if it is regulated the way that alcohol and cigarettes are currently regulated.

[…]

That is the highest percentage of Colorado voter support that any marijuana legalization poll has shown to date. In December of 2011, a similar poll from Public Policy Polling showed only 49 percent in favor of general legalization of marijuana.

I also found this to be interesting (continuing the same article):

Amendment 64 also recently received support from both Republicans and Democrats — in March, 56 percent of the delegates at the Denver County Republican Assembly voted to support the legislation, and in April, the Colorado Democratic Party officially endorsed Amendment 64 and added a marijuana legalization plank to the current party platform.

Bipartisan support for legalizing marijuana and regulating it like alcohol in Colorado? This is quite encouraging and fascinating (in California, you may recall, there was bipartisan opposition from the blue and red teams).

This isn’t to say there that Amendment 64 will sail through unopposed. There are anti-64 groups mobilizing so those of us who want to see 64 pass cannot be complacent. Also, with about five and a half months until election day, anything can happen.

Stephen Littau
http://fpffressminds.blogspot.com/

Tomasky: Kill personal freedom for government and crony capitalist well-being

Corruption, Culture, Democracy, Doublespeak, Dumbasses and Authoritarians, Economics, Freedom, Healthcare, Individual Rights, Liberty

Michael Tomasky penned a sickeningly ignorant and immoral piece in the Daily Beast… even more sickening than he considers sodas and 1/2 pound hamburgers. The most stomach-turning part:

We have this “liberty” business completely backward in this country, and if Bloomberg can start rebalancing individual freedom and the public good, God bless him, I say.

Got that? Individual freedom has to be balanced with the public good.

But, wait, you say, ain’t we the public? Not in Tomasky’s view:

The costs to the health-care system are enormous, so the public interest here is ridiculously obvious. Obesity is a killer. Are we to do nothing, in the name of the “liberty” that entitles millions of people to kill themselves however they please, whatever their diabetes treatments costs their insurers?

The health-care system is a hybrid crony capitalist/government enterprise. Health coverage in its current form exists because of myriad laws and regulations. Hospitals and clinics are highly regulated. Doctors and nurses must pass through regulated courses of education. In every way that matters, government has been driving for decades.

Washington has created a system where certain private, individual behaviors create a drag on the system. Therefore, it’s now in the “public interest” to limit commerce to discourage individual behaviors that cost the system money. Unlike with communicable diseases like tuberculosis, obesity inherently affects only the individual. The “public interest” here is entirely a construct of government.

Now, let’s restate Tomasky in a more truthful fashion:

We have this “liberty” business completely backward in this country, and if Bloomberg can start rebalancing individual freedom and the well-being of the government and crony capitalists, God bless him, I say.

I’d say those who are opposing this have ‘this “liberty” business’ quite right.

Reason.com has more on this.

Quincy
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