Cause & Effect

I've often called the Democrat party the party of unintended consequences and through the years they've never proven me wrong. I'll stick with modern examples because there are so many it's hard to keep track of them all.

Pennsylvania: The new traffic lights used to replace the incandescent bulbs were of the LED variety. Low energy, long lasting and extremely bright. An initiative of the mostly democrat city council at the time, they never even considered the consequences of this earth friendly action. The LED's were installed during late summer of 2009 to great fanfare and applauded as a great step toward making the municipality a "green" haven. The cost savings were touted as a wonderful way to reinvest in the community. Every traffic light in town was changed and the city council prided themselves for their forward looking vision.

Now let's look at the reality those humanitarians didn't think of. When winter came around the LED's didn't create enough heat to melt the ice that continually built up on the metal housings. A rash of accidents occurred because motorists couldn't tell what color the light was. The ice blocked it completely. In response, the council was forced to pay city workers overtime to keep the ice from forming over the lenses. In total, the cost of the extra road crews and overtime amounted to three times the annual cost savings of the new, "green" LEDs.

Do I need to go on? I can but this isn't really the point. I've come to realize that any time a Democrat pushes a piece of legislation that "feels good" now, it always means it's going to hurt much worse later.

What I'm really interested in talking about is cause and effect. A simple scientific premise that is as immutable as truth and just as beautiful.

I'd like to use our new "free health care" as a more than adequate example. It's filled with lots of things that "feel good" right now but are bound to be extremely painful in the years to come. I'll start slowly so as not to make this too glaringly obvious and allow you, the reader, to acclimate yourself to both the reality of what we are all in store for and the sometimes peculiar way my mind works. I'll set this up in very simple vignettes that relate to a cause and an effect.

Cause: The new bill allows for free diagnostic screenings, mammograms, colonoscopies and the like. When I say free, I mean the patient pays nothing. The doctor and his office receive the same payment they would customarily receive from the patient's health insurance company.

Effect: My insurance company, in order to recoup their losses for all these free procedures will raise my premiums and rightfully so.

Cause: Obama has said often that his goal is to lower premiums by $2,500.00. A farce on it's face and ultimately deadly to an insurance company.

Effect: With ever shrinking premiums coming in, continued losses in the balance sheets leads inevitably to my insurance company going out of business. I am thus forced into the government "plan". I also like to call it the "final solution".

Cause: My employer, faced with staggering tax increases due to the stated goals in the health care bill of raising the money to pay for it all, decides to cut one of two things: payroll or health insurance. It is, after all, cheaper to pay the fine for not offering me health insurance than to actually offer it. Which do you think they will choose?

Effect: I am faced with unemployment which leads me into the final solution or the loss of my insurance which does the same thing.


I'm beginning to see a pattern here, aren't you? Two things spring instantly to mind. First: the death of private health insurance and second, and perhaps most insidious, the inevitability of all Americans to be dumped into the final solution.

I am not so naive that I don't know that both are the ultimate goal of the Obama administration. I've been vocal about the President's desire to see America become a single payer system. He's said it before and I suspect he's said it since taking office but only in private and never when he could be cornered by his words. For more than a year the Democrats in the Congress have made health insurance companies the biggest boogeyman since the Soviets of the 50's and 60's. They were made the enemy by the usual complement of class warriors who sought to instill anger and fear into an electorate that was already nervous and shaky from the collapsing economy.

The cause is universal health care and the effect will be the enslavement of an entire country. Likening the signing of this bill to civil rights legislation is reprehensible and diminishes the thousands who died for those rights. Mentioning Dr. King in the same breath as Barrack Obama is to spit on King's memory and his struggle.

The Great Pyramid

The Great Pyramid at Giza, believed to have been built for the Pharaoh Khufu, took more than 20 years to build and is a marvel of engineering. Compared to watchmaking of the present day for it's intricate measuring and construction, it stands today as it has for more than 3,800 years - the oldest of the seven wonders of the world. Though having been plundered by thieves and explorers for thousands of years but the monument itself stands as a testament to the ambition of one man. Tens of thousands of slaves and free men spent untold years creating this wonder. Thousands of others died during the construction. Some, worn out and tired from the work, simply died of exhaustion while others fell during the transport of the massive limestone blocks that were floated along the Nile or pulled through the sands of Egypt. Crushed beneath the blocks or between them as they were set into place, they died and became a permanent part of the pyramid. Their bones became the mortar with which the blocks became strong enough to survive the centuries that would follow.

While this little history lesson may seem a tad too random, allow me to tie this into a neat little package that perhaps may make more sense.

Those of you who have read my little rants in the past have seen me refer to Barrak Obama as the boy king - an obvious reference to king Tut. I made this comparison partly due to his age versus his lack of experience and partly due to how the left leaning press seemed to be treating his impending inauguration after the 2008 election more like a coronation. He was lauded for what he wanted to achieve, not for what he'd actually done. His nomination and subsequent award of the Nobel peace prize is evidence of is mindset. Never before had someone with so few accomplishments been afforded such latitude during a presidential campaign and in the ensuing months after his coronation ... or inauguration depending on your point of view or political affiliation. During the initial debate on Obama's push for health care reform, I referred to the first bill from congress as Obama's "great wall"- a monument to himself that would stand forever as a symbol of his presidency. This belief that health care reform was more about Obama then about the American people was proven true in the week more the senate bill made its way through the house.

The Politico reported on a meeting between Obama and the black caucus that said essentially that passing health care reform was more important to Obama's presidency and his ability to implement any of his remaining agenda then it was about what reform meant to the average American. His ability to govern, his reputation , why... his legacy was at stake and no Democrat with a conscience was going to stand in his way. Today this reform seems less like the great wall than it did. It feels more like the boy king building the pyramid that would eventually carry his spirit to the heavens and secure his place amongst the gods.

The only problem with this analogy is that we, the American people, are the builders that will eventually be crushed under the weight of this monument. It is the bones of our Republic that will serve as the mortar with which this new structure will grow strong. Like the Pyramid of Khufu, it will be plundered and robbed by thieves for years to come but the man for whom it was built will be remembered as the one who made it all possible. In building his magnificent monument, he is destroying what was once great about our Republic. In his quest to get this reform bill passed, he has sullied a once noble institution whose seats were once filled with gallant men who died for their convictions and gave their fortunes for an idea that this boy king finds repugnant.

He does not deserve a monument and years of accolades for his bravery. He deserves to be exposed as the destroyer he truly is.

"Slaughtering" The Constitution

Nothing has brought out the glaring examples of "situational ethics" from those in congress as has the recent talk of reconciliation and the little known "deem and pass" rule, affectionately known these days as the "Slaughter Rule", so named for Rep Louise Slaughter who pulled it out of the rules committee to use to pass the Senate bill...without actually passing the Senate bill. These obscure parliamentary procedures have made news in the past few weeks simply because, on the surface, they seem to be a congressional "dirty trick".

Although both have been used in the past by Republicans while Democrat members howled about their egregious overstepping of power, those same Democrats today see no problem in using either to pass the most aggressive piece of legislation since FDR. Not unlike the Dems, the GOP is now standing up to howl at the possible unconstitutionality of their use today.

Case in point:

2010: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on the idea of passing health care with a self executing rule:

The House Democratic leader, Representative Steny H. Hoyer, also defended the maneuver on Tuesday. “It is consistent with the rules,” Mr. Hoyer said. “It is consistent with former practice.”

2003: House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer complaining about the Republicans' use of self-executing rules:

When the Republican leadership reported a self-executing rule providing for the adoption of the $82 billion plan over 10 years and an almost trillion-dollar plan over 20 years, accelerating the increased child tax credit for low-income people families, we didn't even get an opportunity to vote on the bill itself except by reference in a self-executing rule. What kind of lack of confidence does that display? What kind of process in pursuit of effectiveness does that mean that we are adopting? What kind of demeaning of democracy is the objective of efficiency resulting in?

...We should neither excuse those past practices nor count their occurrences. No one expects every rule to be open, but we do expect that the opportunity to debate legislation be the norm, not the exception.

(emphasis added)

Seems a bit hypocritical doesn't it? It's what is more commonly termed, "situational ethics" in modern politics as it exists today. President Bush, in attempting to lower the taxes of lower income people used this with an estimated cost of $82 billion. Louise Slaughter, current chairman of the rules committee and the person responsible for bringing it to the fore to pass this abomination, actually sued in Federal court when Bush did this. She eventually lost and it was never appealed to the SCOTUS. Another case of situational ethics.

The Congress of today is attempting to use this rule to effectively open the door to the permanent destruction of the private health care industry. And make no mistake, that is precisely what is occurring deep inside this bill. Hidden inside this travesty as well is the takeover of the higher learning system in a sense. If this bill passes, no longer will anyone be able to secure funds through a private lending institution for college. The government will effectively become the sole source for those funds. All loans will go through the federal government. Think about that for just a moment. Does federal funding ever come without strings? Does anyone believe the government will simply provide a loan with absolutely no desire to say what you can or can't learn? But I digress, rightfully so I think.

What I'm really talking about is an obscure parliamentary rule that while having been used in the past, is not appropriate in this particular case. In this instance, it's being used to provide cover for gutless politicians who are too afraid of their constituencies. They fear an open yes vote on this bill ensures a loss in November at the polls. This is essentially, passage of a law through executive fiat. Obama wants it, so he's going to get it, consequences be damned. As Marxism dictates, "The ends justifies the means." It's this precise example of the "whatever it takes" brand of politics the current administration seems intent on that will be it's ultimate downfall. The American people, while docile most of the time when it comes to our elected officials, will rise in numbers never before seen in Washington DC.

So, what exactly is this "Slaughter Rule"? This congressional trickery has a long and distinguished history. Those of you who smoke can thank this rule for not being able to smoke on airplanes anymore. Yep, it's a part of our lives, but how does it work?

Let's take a trip down hypothetical lane and we'll find out.

Let's say that I have a fairly unpopular bill I want passed but I know I don't have the votes to secure a victory. The Senate passes my bill but the House has too many linguine spined wimps to take it into the home stretch. Instead of voting on the bill as is, the house simply puts together a package of changes to the original bill and then votes on the changes, not the original bill. If the changes are voted on and it succeeds then the original bill is "deemed to have been passed". This is particularly nasty for two reasons. First, the Senate version hasn't been approved and any changes made then don't conform to what the Senate thinks it should be and secondly, no one ACTUALLY voted on the original bill so there's no real accountability to the people who vote these wimps into office.

In relatively small matters, like smoking on airplanes, I can almost see why this might be necessary with the caliber of scumbags we have in Congress these days but when you lay this cowardly procedural trick next to the largest, most comprehensive piece of legislation since the New Deal, it dives to new lows.

It's my opinion that ultimately this rule will not be employed to pass health care reform. The consequences would be devastating to the Democrat party and leave them out of power for many years to come. House Dems know this and won't commit the "assisted political suicide" that Obama seems to be asking of them. This will be done on a simple up or down vote on the Senate bill and those voting for it will be held accountable to their constituencies come November.