Obama’s Forced Healthcare
July 3, 2009 by Steven Ting
Filed under General, Health Care
This country was founded on freedom. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion. Freedom to do pretty much whatever we want. With our government becoming more socialistic, we are losing freedoms every day. The loss of freedoms has been gradual over many years. You have to pay taxes. You have to have car insurance. You have to submit to the harassment of the TSA at the airport. The latest in the long line of rights lost will be the requirement to purchase health care.
Under the Senate’s new proposal, those that refuse to sign up for health insurance will be fined $1000. What happened to personal responsibility? What happened to freedom of choice? If someone doesn’t want health insurance, they should be able to take care of themselves. They should accept any consequences of their actions. Instead, we have the government, once again, playing nanny to the public. Here is a quote from the article.
In a revamped health care system envisioned by senators, people would be required to carry health insurance just like motorists must get auto coverage now. The government would provide subsidies for the poor and many middle-class families, but those who still refuse to sign up would face fines of more than $1,000.
The details were unveiled Thursday in a health care overhaul bill supported by key Senate Democrats looking to fulfill President Barack Obama‘s top domestic priority.
What if I want to self-insure? Do people like Warren Buffet really need to have health insurance? They can pay for it themselves. It should be an individual choice. With the push for required health care, the government might as well require other things. Why don’t they require that congress spend within it’s mean? That is the kind of legislation we need. Legislation that promotes responsibility rather than enslavement to the state.
Guantanamo: Not Closing Yet
May 22, 2009 by Guest Writer 1
Filed under General, International, Politics
President Obama faces a major setback in his plans and promises of change, as the Senate has disallowed all funding for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay military prison. This marks the first real opposition to Obama’s agenda by Majority Democrats, who are largely responsible for blocking the funds for closing the prison.
Here is some of what has occurred lately in the Senate over this issue:
Democrats had been hammered by Republicans, many of whom don’t want Guantanamo shuttered at all, over the possibility that detainees could be sent to live in the United States — in prisons or otherwise.
… It’s unclear what Democrats would be okay with approving in a closure plan. The party has been a state of disarray over the issue recently.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., nearly had it both ways on Tuesday.
He first said, emphatically, that Democrats “will never allow terrorists to be released in the United States,” and then said Democrats also don’t want detainees to be transferred to U.S. prisons.
The suggestion was that the United States should not taken [sic] any prisoners under any circumstances, raising questions about where the Democratic leadership wants detainees to go should the closure plan be executed.
But Reid’s spokesman walked back his statement, saying the leader went too far and would actually be open to putting them in American prisons, if the administration puts forward a plan to do so.
The discord between Reid’s own words was emblematic of the clash among Democrats on Capitol Hill.
Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va, said on a Sunday talk show that he opposes the release into the United States of 17 Chinese Uighurs who were captured in Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001. The prisoners, de-listed as enemy combatants by a federal court that deemed them not a danger to the U.S., are eligible for release.
The administration is considering releasing them in Northern Virginia, something Webb vehemently opposes. Webb’s language left the door open to an even broader opposition to any Gitmo detainees being released in the United States.
Sens. Jon Tester and Max Baucus, both Montana Democrats, have said emphatically that no detainees will be brought to their state. The same goes for Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb.
FBI Director Robert Mueller told the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday that he’s concerned some detainees could support terrorism if sent to the United States, either through financial support to terror networks, radicalization of others or taking part in attacks.
Still, Inouye left the door open to bringing the prisoners to the U.S. eventually, refusing to rule out any opportunity to incarcerate detainees on U.S. soil.
Reid’s No. 2, Dick Durbin of Illinois, told FOX News that while Democrats were very concerned about taking a vote defending moving prisoners to the United States, he is not opposed to it, adding that American prison facilities can hold these prisoners safely.
Durbin took on Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on the Senate floor Wednesday, saying that while it’s true no prisoner has ever escaped from the Guantanamo, “it’s also true that no terrorists have ever escaped from U.S. supermax prisons.”
The outcry in the U.S. over the issue of closing the prison and where to house the prisoners has also caused some problems with foreign relations, and presented no solutions to the Obama administration:
Both Democrats and Republicans have been retreating from an uproar in their districts over the possibility that terror suspects would be housed in local prisons.
That’s a fairly empty sales pitch for administration officials who are trying to persuade European and Muslim allies to take some of the detainees.
And they got no help Wednesday when FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress that bringing Guantanamo detainees to the United States could pose a number of risks, even if they were kept in maximum-security prisons.
Gibbs and Attorney General Eric Holder both quickly responded that Obama would never do anything to endanger Americans.
Obama has named senior diplomat Daniel Fried as special envoy on the issue. So far he’s had little success in garnering commitments abroad and his task only grows more onerous with the votes in Congress to deny money to close the prison.
While France has accepted one prisoner, fulfilling a promise made when Obama attended a NATO summit in April, other European allies have refused or given nonspecific commitments.
It seems that though Obama may be passionate about closing this prison, he has very little support from people in this country or others in how to practically make that happen. The people and leaders are justifiably concerned about the safety of their countries and/or states with the possibility that some of the most dangerous terrorists (and now possibly with more cause to hate the U.S. than ever) would be released or transferred to places where they could pose a greater threat than they ever had before.
