I watched the majority of the debate, and I was bored out of my skull. I have to say that everytime I hear John McCain’s voice, it seriously makes me want to throw my cat into a blender to drown it out. There’s something creaky, Cryptkeeperish, cocky and condescending in it all at the same time. It screeches “I’M AN OLD, CROTCHETY POLITICIAN WHO’S JUST MEMORIZED HIS ENTIRE SCHTICK!” Every time he starts to talk, I want to hit the “mute” button.
On the other side Obama doesn’t have a shreaky, screechy, irritating voice. He doesn’t have the preachy, old guy inflection, but he’s got this smarmy superiority, especially when he starts lecturing us about our duty to be our brother’s keeper. In other words, my cat is in danger of the blender treatment no matter which candidate happens to be yapping his maw.
Oh, and by the way, I stopped watching NBC a lot time ago, so I have to wonder what the hell happened to Tom Brokaw. He looks puffy, like he’s had a severe allergic reaction (not an unlikely scenario given the two festering yambags whose debate he was moderating). How long has he looked like a smaller version of Fat Bastard?
Couple of things that struck me. Economics was the topic of the night, and neither one of the candidates appeared to a) be versed in the basics and b) respect the fact that the money the government is spending does not belong to the politicians. It belongs to the people.
OBAMA: I think everybody knows now we are in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
Um. Can we say “MASSIVE EXAGGERATION,” boys and girls? The banking crisis of the 1930s was so severe that thousands of banks failed in 1933 alone. Is there really a comparison here? Politicians screech about the credit freeze, and yet, there are plenty of companies still willing to lend, as long as there are borrowers willing to borrow. As economist Michael Mussa says, “Indeed, I think mark-to-market accounting has actually exaggerated to a significant extent the losses that are likely if we could calm the situation now. …I think that by the middle of next year, the financial crisis will probably subtract about 1% from the level of U.S. GDP and that foregone output between 2008 and 2010 will cumulate to 2.5-3% of GDP — which is plus or minus $300 billion in lost output. That’s not a trivial amount. It is not, however, the Great Depression.”
And yet, both candidates are shrieking about spending YOUR money on bailing out organizations that have done nothing but make bad judgments, knowing that nanny government will come rescue them at taxpayer expense.
MCCAIN: You know that home values of retirees continues to decline and people are no longer able to afford their mortgage payments. As president of the United States, Alan, I would order the secretary of the treasury to immediately buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America and renegotiate at the new value of those homes – at the diminished value of those homes and let people be able to make those — be able to make those payments and stay in their homes.
Is it expensive? Yes. But we all know, my friends, until we stabilize home values in America, we’re never going to start turning around and creating jobs and fixing our economy. And we’ve got to give some trust and confidence back to America.
OK, please tell me why the hell I would vote for a guy who has so little respect for the hard work that I do and the product of that hard work – my earnings – that he would order the government to use my money and the money of my fellow taxpayers to buy up crap mortgages, because other people were too stupid or too irresponsible to make responsible financial decisions? He seems to forget that ordering the Treasury to buy up bad loans is not just screwing with his money, but with the earnings of every single taxpayers in the United States. McCain can afford it. I can’t.
Second thing I’ve noticed ties in with the first thing: these two jerks have absolutely NO RESPECT for your hard work or the product of your hard work.
QUESTION: Senator, selling health care coverage in America as the marketable commodity has become a very profitable industry.
Do you believe health care should be treated as a commodity?
Obama doesn’t answer the question directly. Instead, he immediately launches into a blithering diatribe about what he would do as president – a plan which includes allowing those who don’t have their own health insurance to be able to buy the same kind of insurance federal employees receive. At whose expense? Who will pay for this benefit? If I work for the government, one of my benefits is health coverage, and it’s really not too shabby. I would imagine that in a free market, this coverage would be pretty costly, so who will fund this coverage?
Do I really need to even answer that?
OBAMA: …one of the things that I have said from the start of this campaign is that we have a moral commitment as well as an economic imperative to do something about the health care crisis that so many families are facing.
We have a moral commitment? Really? I have a moral commitment to fund a service for those who cannot or will not buy it on their own? Does a doctor have a moral commitment to provide treatment to sniveling freeloaders – to expend his own time and resources and energy because the government forces him to? Doctors take an oath to do no harm. Most of them will work hard to save someone’s life, regardless of whether or not that person can pay. But will you force every doctor to work for less than the value of his labor, or worse yet… for free, because some people can’t or won’t buy health insurance or can’t or won’t pay for the treatment?
Don’t get me wrong. I feel sorry for the folks who genuinely need treatment and can’t afford it. I would help them myself if I could. But there’s a difference between being free to follow a moral obligation and being forced to do so via government force.
MCCAIN: I want to give every American a $5,000 refundable tax credit. They can take it anywhere, across state lines.
That’s nice. What about those who don’t make enough to warrant it? What about those who don’t work at all? What about multi-millionaires who choose to pay for their health care themselves and can afford it without insurance? Do they get a refundable tax credit as well? What about those illegals to whom you want to give amnesty? It’s one thing to offer people choices. It’s quite another to do it at others’ expense.
So is health care in America a privilege, a right, or a responsibility? The replies are telling.
MCCAIN: I think it’s a responsibility, in this respect, in that we should have available and affordable health care to every American citizen, to every family member.
OBAMA: Well, I think it should be a right for every American. In a country as wealthy as ours, for us to have people who are going bankrupt because they can’t pay their medical bills …there’s something fundamentally wrong about that.
Someone PLEASE school Senator McCain on the definition of “responsibility!”
And someone PLEASE school Senator Obama on the definition of a “right!”
I’ve quoted this particular passage by Dr. Walter Williams before, and it seems very apropos here, so I will do it again.
At least in the standard historical usage of the term, a right is something that exists simultaneously among people. A right confers no obligation on another. For example, the right to free speech is something we all possess. My right to free speech imposes no obligation upon another except that of non-interference. Similarly, I have a right to travel freely. That right imposes no obligation upon another except that of non-interference.
Contrast those rights to the supposed right to decent housing or medical care. Those supposed rights do confer obligations upon others. There is no Santa Claus or Tooth Fairy. If you don’t have money to pay for decent housing or medical services, and the government gives you a right to those services, where do you think the money comes from?
What does this mean? That no one has the right to appropriate the fruits of another’s labor. It means that you exchange value for value. When you demand the right to health care, you are demanding the right to either a) steal money from another via government force or b) steal the efforts of another, forcing them to provide the health care that you claim a right to by government force.
It doesn’t matter if we’re wealthy. We worked hard to get there, and to appropriate our efforts and our earnings merely because we worked harder than others or were more successful than others is theft. Period.
That McCain doesn’t understand the definition of “responsibility” is abundantly clear. Ensuring that everyone has a valued, in-demand commodity at everyone else’s expense is not “responsibility,” and forcing those of us who work hard to sustain those who can’t or won’t through government dictates sounds appallingly like McCain believes health care to be a right for everyone, regardless of whether or not they accept the responsibility for paying for it.
I’m seriously revolted by both of these douchebags. One is an outright socialist who spells out his desire to steal from you to sustain others. The other is a cloaked one, who likes to pretend he respects freedom, until it comes time to hand out goodies to the Great Unwashed during election season.
The lesser of two evils?
No thanks.
. It has been awhile.
