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Today, from Krauthammer:
...there is an exit strategy [for Obama on health care]. And a politically clever one, if the Democrats are smart enough to seize it.
(5) Promise nothing but pleasure -- for now. Make health insurance universal and permanently protected. Tear up the existing bills and write a clean one -- Obamacare 2.0 -- promulgating draconian health-insurance regulation that prohibits (a) denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, (b) dropping coverage if the client gets sick, and (c) capping insurance company reimbursement.
And from today's LA Times:
With a virtual civil war raging over parts of President Obama's healthcare agenda, the smoke of battle has obscured a surprising fact: Democrats and Republicans actually agree on a bundle of proposals that could make medical insurance better for millions of Americans.
The consensus proposals include such popular ideas as barring insurance companies from denying coverage to people with preexisting injuries and illnesses, cutting insurance coverage off when a policyholder gets sick and imposing a lifetime cap on benefits.
Exactly what Krauthammer predicted, is already being attempted, per the LA Times. What are the dangers of this? It's all the horrors of Obamacare, smuggled into law by stealth. Per Krauthammer (same link):
What's not to like? If you have insurance, you'll never lose it. Nor will your children ever be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions.
The regulated insurance companies will get two things in return. Government will impose an individual mandate that will force the purchase of health insurance on the millions of healthy young people who today forgo it. And government will subsidize all the others who are too poor to buy health insurance. The result? Two enormous new revenue streams created by government for the insurance companies.
And here's what makes it so politically seductive: The end result is the liberal dream of universal and guaranteed coverage -- but without overt nationalization. It is all done through private insurance companies. Ostensibly private. They will, in reality, have been turned into government utilities. No longer able to control whom they can enroll, whom they can drop and how much they can limit their own liability, they will live off government largesse -- subsidized premiums from the poor; forced premiums from the young and healthy.
It's the perfect finesse -- government health care by proxy. And because it's proxy, and because it will guarantee access to (supposedly) private health insurance -- something that enjoys considerable Republican support -- it will pass with wide bipartisan backing and give Obama a resounding political victory.
Isn't there a catch? Of course, there is. This scheme is the ultimate bait-and-switch. The pleasure comes now, the pain later. Government-subsidized universal and virtually unlimited coverage will vastly compound already out-of-control government spending on health care. The financial and budgetary consequences will be catastrophic.
However, they will not appear immediately. And when they do, the only solution will be rationing. That's when the liberals will give the FCCCER regulatory power and give you end-of-life counseling.
It is essential for all of us who oppose Obamacare to recognize this terrible danger, and let our elected officials know that we are on to them and this horrific bait-and-switch will not be tolerated.
Per the following definition, there is reason to ask whether President Obama is a pathological liar.
From WikiAnswers.com:
Q: How can you tell if someone is a pathological liar?
A: Identifying a Pathological Liar
Pathological liars, or "mythomaniacs," may be suffering from histrionic personality disorder or narcissistic personality disorder. The following comments basically reflect a pathological liar who has the characteristics of histrionic personality disorder.
Some characteristics
1. Exaggerates things that are ridiculous.
2. One-upping. Whatever you do, this person can do it better. You will never top them in their own mind, because they have a concerted need to be better than everyone else. This also applies to being right. If you try to confront an individual like this, no matter how lovingly and well-intentioned you might be - this will probably not be effective. It's threatening their fantasy of themselves, so they would rather argue with you and bring out the sharp knives than admit that there's anything wrong with them.
3. They "construct" a reality around themselves. They don't value the truth, especially if they don't see it as hurting anyone. If you call them on a lie and they are backed into a corner, they will act very defensively and say ugly things (most likely but depends on personality), but they may eventually start to act like, "Well, what's the difference? You're making a big deal out of nothing!" (again, to refocus the conversation to your wrongdoing instead of theirs).
4. Because these people don't value honesty, a lot of times they will not value loyalty. So watch what you tell them. They will not only tell others, but they will embellish to make you look worse. Their loyalty is fleeting, and because they are insecure people, they will find solace in confiding to whomever is in their favor at the moment.
5. They may be somewhat of a hypochondriac. This can come in especially useful when caught in a lie, for example, they can claim that they have been sick, or that there's some mysteriously "illness" that has them all stressed out. It's another excuse tool for their behavior.
6. Obviously, they will contradict what they say. This will become very clear over time. They usually aren't smart enough to keep track of so many lies (who would be?).
Examples of Lies Told by President Obama:
Analysis
Let's go through the checklist to see whether Obama appears to qualify as a pathological liar.
1. Exaggerates things that are ridiculous. Many of these lies are ridiculous exaggerations. See December, 2008 re: Arne Duncan and August, 2009, re: diabetics.
2. One-upping. Whatever you do, this person can do it better. You will never top them in their own mind, because they have a concerted need to be better than everyone else. This seems to describe Obama's presentation of himself, i.e. what has been called "Obama's Messiah Shtick."
3. They "construct" a reality around themselves. They don't value the truth, especially if they don't see it as hurting anyone. If you call them on a lie and they are backed into a corner, they will act very defensively and say ugly things. In terms of constructing a reality around himself, per Victor Davis Hanson: "In the Cairo speech, nearly every historical allusion was nonfactual or inexact: the fraudulent claims that Muslims were responsible for European, Chinese, and Hindu discoveries; the notion that a Christian Córdoba was an example of Islamic tolerance during the Inquisition; the politically correct canard that the Renaissance and Enlightenment were fueled by Arab learning; the idea that abolition and civil rights in the United States were accomplished without violence — as if 600,000 did not die in the Civil War, or entire swaths of Detroit, Gary, Newark, and Los Angeles did not go up in flames in the 1960s." Also, Obama frequently says ugly things about his opponents. See especially August, 2009, re: doctors who treat diabetics.
4. Because these people don't value honesty, a lot of times they will not value loyalty. Obama is famous for throwing past associates "under the bus."
5. They may be somewhat of a hypochondriac. There have been no public reports of this in Obama yet.
6. Obviously, they will contradict what they say. This will become very clear over time. This describes Obama well. Per Victor Davis Hanson, "What is stunning about Obama’s hostile demagoguery about Bush’s War on Terror is not that he has now contradicted himself on one or two particulars. Instead, he has reversed himself on every major issue — renditions, military tribunals, intercepts, wiretaps, Predator drone attacks, the release of interrogation photos, Iraq (and, I think, soon Guantanamo Bay) — and yet never acknowledged these reversals".
Conclusion
Obama's behavior appears to match the textbook characteristics of a pathological liar.
This comment arrived this week from reader Dahlia (emphasis added):
dear vic, i have read these comments on your article by chance. i am a christian Egyptian . I would like to state some facts. Moslems in any Islamic country do not read at all, even in thier own religion books. they only believe what they are told by thier shiekhs. Most of the moslims are non arabic speakers (e.g pakistan, Philippines ect.) they don't even understand what they are praying. Secondly the hatred of jews is well established in the beliefs of moslims as they take it after the profit who in several ahadith (which are the sayings of Mohamed) he states that moslims must fight jews until when the jew hides behind a rock or a tree, the rock or the tree will call to the moslim to point where the jew is hiding. He even has a hadith which says that God damns Christians and Jews.
Thirdly most of the embarssing parts of the Koran and the ahadith are translated with a more appropriate meaning to the civilized European minds trying to covince them with the imaginary peaceful Koran and Islam.
Last the peaceful approach towards christians in moslim countries is just an outer crust. This is practised only infront of international media. the truth is that the christians suffer in moslim countries but only under the table. have you ever heard of a christian athelet (it is clear that all christians are weak and crippled maybe). have you ever heard of a dean of college in all these universities is a christian (it seems that the grandchildren of the pharoahs are stupid and ignorant). Are you allowed to change your religion from a moslem to any other religion (the opposite of course is most welcomed). History itself proves how all of the conquered countries by islam had to change thier languages to arabic. how all churches were converted to mosques. how it is up till now forbiden to build churches. who are they kidding themselves or the non arabic speaking countries, but certainely not us christians living in hell.
The oppression of non-Muslims in Islamic nations is a blot on the face of the earth.
From today's LA Times:
Obama aims to overhaul immigration jail system
The reforms would send detainees without criminal records to less-restrictive sites that would be under more federal oversight.
Pledging more oversight and accountability, the Obama administration announced plans Thursday to transform the nation's immigration detention system from one reliant on a scattered network of local jails and private prisons to a centralized one designed specifically for civil detainees.
This is a time when people are concerned that the Obama administration wants to take away our liberties - e.g., the recent AARP meeting where one speaker said, "This health care bill is not about health care. This is about our fundamental constitutional rights. It is a liberty issue." At such a time, the plan by the Obama administration to create a new system of state-run jails, specifically for "civil detainees," is alarming.
Clearly no one is going to believe that Obama would create a huge prison system just for illegal immigrants.
After all, if there were a need for that, the correct answer isn't better ways to lock up illegal immigrants - the correct answer for that is better border control. Why go to the trouble of creating a special system for locking them up when it's far easier just to not let them in in the first place? (For an approach to controlling the borders that is relatively low-cost and could be running in a short period of time, see this previous post.)
Since the notion of creating a special jail system for illegals is laughably absurd, and since there is already great concern that Obama is threatening our liberties, there is likely going to be concern that the true purpose of Obama in seeking such a jail system for civilians, is to have a place where he can lock up other civilians in addition to illegal immigrants - i.e. Obama's political opponents.
However, Obama isn't naive enough to think he can push for such a jail system, without causing exactly this kind of concern. Therefore it appears possible that his intention in releasing this proposal, is not at all to actually build such a jail system, but is in fact merely to chill free speech by creating concern among his political opponents that he will try to find a way to lock them up for their views.
I have never in my life seen the kind of outrage directed against our government that the Obamacrats are encountering at the current town hall meetings. It appears to me that the Obamacrats are desperate, and that this prison system proposal is one more sign of it.
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