I wonder why Obama and crew did not try that approach. Seems it would have been far less likely to get struck down by the courts and they would get the same amount of control.
IMO, the short answer is politics. We can both piss in each others Wheaties all day but I think we can both agree that very little seperates the 2 political parties that run things when you boil it all down. At that point, it just becomes a huge exercise in all the hogs slogging up to get fed. Even from the standpoint of a social insurance system, does it really take 2000 plus pages to do all that? I mean something as simple as shifting the cost and control burden of healthcare to gov't takes 2000 pages? A 20 page law can't fatten the pot for all those loyal lawmakers, for all those special interests, both corp. and public who are positioning for both power and influence. Besides, if one party didn't act as opposition, what's the point of having a 2 party system? Why is wrestling interesting if no one donns the bad guy mask? And if they are all of one mindset and one party, what happens when things go wrong? Think about this!
There is no 2 politcal parties, just one. Everyone is the same so now they enact some legislation and it goes wrong, who do you blame? In the past we always blamed either the democrats or the republicans in themselves and never attached to any other entity. We do this based on who holds/held more seats of power and controlled the political agenda at the time. It's a pure visual thing. When things go wrong, you just blame one side and switch to the other team come election day and problem solved. When it goes bad with the new team, you just switch back. But what happens if it goes bad and there is no other team? Everyone is on the same team so who gets the blame? Now we look and ask, since there's only one team, whose interests do they represent and behind that is the State itself although that's just another mask for a heirarchy in and of itself. The risk is we might actually look, see and blame the real source behind the continuing wrongs that befall us no matter which political party holds power.
I hear so much screaming about the gov't becoming an arm of the socialist international under Obama and that good ole' American Capitalism is being destroyed by these evil communists from Chicago. Vince McMahon couldn't have written a better WWF script had he tired in a 1000 years. American Capitalism has been in on the rig all along and we've been to blinded to see it. This is just the smallest tip of the iceberg but case in point. May 2005', Washington Times under the title
"Capitalist Socialism".
America is at a crossroads, thanks to the combinationof UnitedAirlines' record $10 billion pension default and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.'s operating deficit. A major challenge to conservative thinking is taking shape before our eyes. Capitalists are urging socialist measures to address the looming pension crisis. Unless clear thinking prevails in Congress, American corporations will succeed in shifting their employee obligations from the private sector onto the taxpayers.
This goes far beyond corporate welfare. The new deal corporations are seeking in a global economy is to offload their costs onto government, while preserving transnational access to markets, consumers and labor. We saw the glimmerings of this nascent era of capitalist-socialism in the 2004 presidential campaign. CEOs from smokestack and high-tech industries supported the concept of universal health-care as a way to shed the burden of employer-provided health insurance. And no wonder. With the annual price of premiums rising at double-digit rates, health insurance now ranks alongside pension benefits as costs that sink troubled companies into bankruptcy.
U.S. corporations are fighting for survival in an increasingly competitive global economy, trying to keep up with competitors operating in countries where most workforce benefits, from health-care to pensions, are either provided by government or non-existent. Sending jobs offshore is one response; cutting benefits at home in order to trim labor costs is another. Whether they individually want to or not, the pressures of globalism are forcing America's CEOs into becoming the vanguard of capitalist-socialism.
We live under an illusion that capitalism is free market and thus by extension promotes a society of individual freedom and limited gov't as well. This is an absolute pure illusion, a fiction. Today's capitalist corp. are about cartels, monopolies, market protections, favored status and profits at any and all costs. I got no problem with profits, profit and gain from one's efforts and labor are good and welcome but does this negate that one's profits and gain must be done in an honest manner by one's own hand and not using others via manipulation (using the force of the State) to position one's self with economic advantage to make said profit? If one's business model necessitates the use of gov't to profit then that model is unsustainable and using true free market principles are a misallocation of resources and should be completely abandoned. This would allow the free choice in the marketplace to move it's resources to other models that may offer sustainability and if those models prove otherwise the marketplace should and will abandon those. It's only by the State itself that we've been locked into business models that lack marketplace sustainablity and thus the continuing interventions by the State to keep them going. The Washington Times article above is just one more example of the social capitialist system we've had the last century plus including the improper way property is distributed by the State itself. (Hey Jones, think anyone is ready to move backwards beyond Locke and the Enclosure movement?
that can of worms?)
One other little tidbit for ya AV and you might enjoy this although you may not like what you find. Art. 6 of your beloved Constitution has the infamous Supremacy Clause which I know you are aware of but look real close at it. In the first part of clause 2 it sez:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof
and on that alone your standing on a lot of what you say is rock solid. Now you'll get argued back the welfare clause, etc. to support larger gov't but on those standing Dezzie and da boyz are wrong BUT they are absolutely correct that gov't has the authority and the correct standing in implementing all this welfare and they have the full and complete backing of the Constitution and all of it is Constitutional. That's right, all this stuff is completely valid under constitutional law. How? Just read the very next part of the Supremacy Clause and then hit the law library and do your homework and research as it's all there to see.
Here's the Supremacy Clause entirely:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
And just which nation has been the driving force over the last 100 years plus in treaty law, international economic law, etc. and which nation created and is homecourt to the largest international law body on the planet otherwise known as the United Nations? Who pushed the WTO, GATT, NAFTA? And whose behind this nation? Socialist Capitalism!
Brett above asked a good question about the "broke FICA Medicare system" and I think a major driving force behind universal healthcare whether it be ObamaCare, RomneyCare, BushCare was the obvious, growing problem facing Medicare going forward. Diesel, TOS, Klein, etc. can all rejoice that we got what is being said is a universal healthcare system but also understand this. The system you got is a privatized system controlled by the very monsters you said caused the problem to begin with. The evidence is there to see to support this and over time the results will bare this out but here's the comical irony. In time, the red staters will come to champion this program, oh they'll have to spin up some with a fresh coat of paint to proclaim "The Capitalist Way!" but they'll love the private side none the less just like they love the private monopoly of money in the Federal Reserve. But the other part will be you guys on the onehand having to love it since your new 21st century FDR created it (party loyality, you know the Reagan opposite! LOL!) while somehow twisting in the wind to decry it. But take heart, the repubs will put enough of their face in it over time that you can denounce it without bashing your zero.....I mean heros!
