Weaver’s at it again

So Timmy is back at politics again after swearing it off.  I’m not surprised.  I myself vowed not talk about politics but I couldn’t resist, so I wouldn’t expect him to either.  It’s compelling.  When you feel strongly about something, you just have to write about it.  That’s why we blog.

I’m not going to comment extensively about Tim’s latest desperate longing for someone else to pick up his hospital tabs.  I’m only going to illustrate a few flaws in his thinking that allow him to be liberal.

Flaw the first: this poll.  Tim took it and ran with it, saying “Today in America 76 percent of us say that having a public health option is important to us.”  Notice the way this question was phrased.  How do you suppose the results would have been different if a direct question like, “do you support a single-payer public health option?” were asked?  Of course they would be quite different, which is why pollsters write oblique indirect questions to get the results they want, not the results that are relevant to the policy at hand.

Here’s a simple example which illustrates this point.  “Is money important to you?” I would suspect about the same split – 75/25 - would answer “yes” to this question.  But ask the question a different way, for example, “Do you think the government should give you a million dollars?”  I suspect the results would still be disheartening, but I would be surprised if more than 50% of Americans would answer yes to the latter question.

Another analagous question pair would be, “Do starving children upset you?” versus “Will you donate 10% of your pretax income to help starving children?”

This is a classic example of the problematic way the liberal mind works.  First, the liberal trusts the poll – any poll – if it aligns with what they want the results to be.  They determine what they want the results to be out of some emotional perogative or rote subconscious self gain.  If the poll doesn’t give them the results they want, they will either change the poll by asking indirect questions like this one, or find some flaw in the polling mechanic such as, “this doesn’t take into account people with only cellular telephones” or “you only called on Tuesday.” 

The next step in the liberal policy maker is to immediately call to fulfill whatever it is the poll claims the Americans want without bothering to think about how it will work (and be funded) nor any tangential collateral damage caused by satisfying the majority’s perogative, according to some random cherry picked poll.

While enacting the so-called majority’s whims, they stand up on soapboxes and talk about how the majority oppresses the minority and we need to do more for the minorities in this country (as long as the majority of poll respondents says we do).  Even Tim proves this hypocrisy by opening his blog entry about the cruel majority and then trumpeting the need for universal healthcare by virtue of the majority said so in a poll in the Washington Post.

By the way, it doesn’t matter that a very large majority of people in this country already have health insurance or consciously choose not to pay for it even though it is well within their means.  The majority apparently says the choice of a public plan is “important” so it’s time to get the ball rolling.  How someone can go from such a vague assertion as “it’s important” to managing a trillion dollars’ worth of one of the most important resources in this country is another entry unto itself.

Flaw the second: “Life has become too complicated for small government to be viable anymore.”

I agree with Tim in some respects.  But, in keeping with my stereotypical conservative beliefs, I believe the complication of the world is the recent advent of the fate of the entire globe resting upon the individuals who operate national governments.  “Life” is more complicated because if Kim Jong Il wakes up on the wrong side of the bed he might decide to nuke Seoul.  A large government with the means and will to prevent such actions from occuring necessarily bloats the size of the government.  When you serve as protector of the planet – as America does – size does matter.

But the idea that an individual’s life is too complicated for him to manage himself without the aid of a nanny state is outrageous.  Simply outrageous.  Are there really voters who think this way?  I guess there are.

Who do you think this nebulous nanny state is?  It is people.  People we elect, and the people they appoint.  Tim has not spent enough time in the company of civil servants to realize that people employed by the federal government – the people Tim entrusts to manage details of his life that he has presumed himself unfit to manage himself – are the lowest common denominator of job holders in this country.  It is a well known and accepted fact that if you can’t make it in private industry there’s always a desk in some federal or state agency waiting for you.  This is a direct consequence of the total lack of consequences in government agencies.  Government agencies do not produce a product that must be sold against competitors.  Government agencies spend their budgets and their budgets are renewed regardless of how much is done or isn’t done.  The only threat to the survival of a government agency is the election of enough republicans so they can turn off the tap to useless programs.  The fact that Tim does not understand this (or accept it as fact) is a direct result of his inexperience in the real world.  The truth about waste in government is a white elephant.

The only reason anyone could or would question this truth is because they are on the government payroll.  Even little kids understand not to bite the hand that feeds you.

But regardless of the waste in government, the real problem with a statement like Tim’s is that it is so childish.  Life is too complicated?  All I hear when I read that statement is “wahh, wahh, wahh.”  Does baby want his bottle, Timmy?  Is life too hard?  Evidently, it is.  You want and need people to take care of you.  Why should we let you vote, again?  What was the reason?  So you can vote people in to help you?

Give me a break Tim.  Life is not more complicated than it was in 1776.  In fact, I would argue that it is far less complicated.  In fact, it is so obviously less complicated that people need to invent drama to keep themselves entertained.  Don’t believe me?  Watch a reality television show.  I’d be willing to bet that in a world where people starved to death and died from common illnesses that we laugh about today and where one out of five women died giving birth, they wouldn’t just dislike the fake non-drama we call entertainment, it would probably anger them.

Thomas Jefferson wouldn’t support public health care because he, like most responsible people, understand that health care is a service that must be paid for, and it is no more the government’s job to finance one free service than any other.  Also, he wouldn’t really need to worry about it because he was wealthy.  I’m sure a liberal would cringe at the very thought that our founding fathers were the same type of aristocratic wealthy people they hate today, but that’s the truth.  Wealth has its priviliges, and while I may also be jealous of the wealthy, I don’t seek to rob them to provide myself with free material trappings, such as health care.

Flaw the third: “Intelligent people change their minds.”

Actually, Tim, intelligent people are right the first time.  They don’t need to change their minds because they weren’t wrong.

A statement like this falls under the general laissez-faire mindset that liberals adopt to excuse any and all of their own flaws.  If we all lived in a world where we don’t judge, the basement dwelling liberal who’s turning 24 this year and still lives with his parents and doesn’t have a job hasn’t failed, he’s just different.  If we all had license to change our minds all the time, we’d never have to own up to being wrong, would we?  When the readiness to change one’s mind as a virtue trumps the virtue of not making mistakes thus necessitating said changing of said mind, what we have is a disaster.

Flaw the fourth, but certainly not the last: “Big government is here to stay, folks.  Isn’t it time that it started serving the needs of the unrich?”

Yes, Tim, big government is here to stay, mostly because of programs, entirely devised and enacted by liberals, that offer entitlements that are entirely impossible to eradicate once created.  While I agree that even without those programs I would still use the term “big” to describe a government whose only excess was military in nature, let’s not forget the difference between “big” and “bigger.”

My government does serve my needs, Tim.  It gives me a safe, fair environment in which I can pursue my fortunes and become rich.  Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.  The playing field is level, the referees are (mostly) unbiased, I am not likely to be attacked by foreign invaders, and I don’t have to bribe my way through life.  I’d say I have it pretty darn good, especially compared to the condition of every other human ever born.

Wealth is out there for you to accumulate, Tim.  You just need to know where to look.  If you had more initiative to seek that wealth and less initiative to bitch and moan about how hard life is on the internet, you wouldn’t be advocating other people less motivated than you are to take your wealth to fund their emergency room visits.

But I guess that’s the difference between conservatives and liberals, isn’t it.