The Anchoress
President Obama’s plans are to appoint 32 Czars within his administration. These are people about whom Congress does not advise or consent, and about whom the press is conveniently incurious. So far, the press thinks they’re all just brilliant and they have no problem with a president appointing 32 Czars accountable only to him.
Whadda you think of that? You comfortable knowing that these “czars” escape serious but are given some rather potent power with little oversight?
I mean, come on…can you imagine if Bush had named 32 czars, while also “shredding the constitution” with all those policies Barack Obama is keeping place?
Can you imagine Bush naming almost three dozen czars while Michigan faced 15% unemployment, the deficit was topping a trillion bucks and a healthcare plan that no one who is being honest actually thinks is anything but a mirage was being shoved through congress, unread and undebated? And while Harriet Miers Sonia Sotomayor, who looks to be rather underwhelming, was being ushered to her seat on the SCOTUS? Would the press really be so quiet if this were going on under a different president? Would the left?
Would you?
They’re all interesting characters, so far as I can see. The energy czar hasn’t bothered to read the Cap and Trade Bill, but she’s you know…the Czar.
I don’t like it much. I know we’ve had a handful of “czars” in the past, but there has always been a sort of twinkly irony to the title – until now. Take a look at the damn list and ask yourself how you feel about seeing the word “czar” used without irony, over and over again, in reference to an American administration.
An Information Czar? A Pay Czar? A Copyright Czar? A Great Lakes Czar? An Urban Affairs Czar? Oh, look…a Terrorism/WMD Czar!
You feel good about it? I don’t. I see all those czars, and I know there are more where they came from, and that our nation is going to devolve into a sort of stagnant bureaucracy filled with connected elites on one side, handing out the goods, services and medicines, and the rest of us on the other side, putting our dreams away as we stand in line, hoping we will get what we need, and dreading the news that no…our sick grandmother is not worth saving. No, that third pregnancy is not allowed; too hard on the planet, based on these flawed and fraudulent and “fundamentally wrong” and flim-flamming hoo-hah and clearly “unsettled” sciences and lies that some have worked so diligently to sell.
Kinda wants to get me down on my knees, praying to a merciful God who should long ago have lost patience with us, and has never much liked others playing God for themselves.
Let’s start with a couple of prayer requests…Please pray for 6 year old Ethan, who has just been diagnosed with Giant Axonal Neuropathy (GAN) which is a rare genetic disorder. This disorder will slowly take away his ability to move, talk, see and think. Life expectancy is 20-30 yrs. I was asked to share this link to promote awareness.
Also, please keep 29 year old Liz in your prayers as she undergoes her treatment for a brain tumor.
Do you know, there are people in the world – and this won’t surprise you – who think that if a kid like Ethan is going to have a difficult life, he should be “spared” from it all by taking that life away from him, that doing so would be both “compassionate” and would help keep government coffers in the black? It does not matter to them that Ethan’s life is the life he has; they would not like that life, and so they think he should not have his life, either. Plus he is taking up room on the planet and costing money for a life that isn’t going to be productive enough “for the people.”
Do you know that there are people in the world who think a vibrant, beautiful 29 year old who has been given a poor prognosis should probably just be encouraged to take a few pills, lie down and die. That “easier” and “kinder” way is deemed by some to be more “sensible,” because they do not understand the value, meaning and mystery of suffering.
And heavens – they’re all so smart that if they don’t believe there is value or dignity to be found in our suffering, then there mustn’t be any!
The New York Times blares a headline, and they sound very excited, like Pravda announcing a new, glorious day: “Why We Must Ration Health Care”. That’s going to translate into “heathcare for Upper West Side Me and Mine, but not for Middle Class Yours and Thine” sooner than any of us realize. Obamacare hasn’t even been passed yet, but that’s a mere formality. In the heads of the elite press-progressives, they’re already there, and the rest are already deciding whose life is worth it, and whose is not.
“Bi-polar and over 50? Fat, Anemic and over 60? Didn’t go to Harvard and you have asthma? You’re just a plumber, and you need a valve replacement? Please go to the Edward G. Robinson Room, that’s right, the one with the big green door and the projector, the classical music and the red pill. No, the red pill! Thank you for serving your nation and “the people” by not putting up a fuss about staying alive.”
Here is a helpful video on rationing.
Bookworm expounds on the creepy, weird and troubling, “let’s just kill people and force abortions to save the earth” sorts that our president is naming as czars within his administration. Writes Bookworm:
People of goodwill have always envisioned a place in which everyone lives in harmony and material comfort. War is gone. Hunger is gone. Each community is a perfect amalgam of density and space, allowing for high functionality and rural aesthetics that flow effortlessly into each other. Heaven on earth.
The only problem with this whole Heaven on earth thing, of course, is those pesky humans. Humans are erratic. Some have the temerity to be born smart and some dumb; some are placid, some feisty; some strong, some weak; some submissive, some aggressive. Whole cultures are poisoned by these variables. The people who keep giving into their base human nature are making perfection impossible.
For many, the solution to these impossible humans has been a strong hand: Hitler promised perfection, as did Mussolini, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot and Stalin. Humans — damn their imperfect hearts — could be corralled into virtue, and if corralling didn’t work, killing would suffice.
Given the effort it takes to force humans to be perfect, all of these Statists, without exception, realized that some humans simply weren’t worth the effort it would take to perfect them. They were in the way. How much better, then, simply to rid the world of them before they even became nascent. The was Margaret Sanger’s plan. Hitler liked that idea too. Through a combination of genocide (Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, etc.) and sterilization (the generic “unfit,” although quite a few, my uncle included, came in for genocide too), he was acting with the best will in the world. How else, after all, could he make the world a better place for his good Germans? And undoubtedly, if asked, he would have said, “What’s good for the Germans is good for the planet.”
Do read the whole thing.
And then, if you missed it, read this surprising piece.
More on Obama’s Creepy Science Czar. Not comforting.
Glenn Reynolds talks about the Hidden Costs of National Health Care, and it’s a terrific read.
Obama: Buck Up, America and take your medicine.
UPDATES:
At Instapundit a debate as to whether or not this bill outlaws private insurance. It’s all a big guess, though, right? Since they’re not letting us see the bill, even though Obama promised we’d get all that sunshine and transparency, and five days to read things online before they’re voted on? Right? More here.
Ed Morrissey has more
Ann Althouse – who voted for Obama, by the way – wonders Why the Democrats won’t give us a chance to see the healthcare bill.
Blue Dog Dems: may “bring Pelosi’s healthcare plan down”. It’s Obama’s plan. He’s the guy out there selling it.
Michelle Malkin wonders: if the blue dogs have any bite, and she tells you who to call.
Jimmie Bise Jr: The People’s Glorious Healthcare
Jules Crittenden: Breaking America’s Healthcare to fix it. I wonder if Pelosi is going to be using the same coverage I’ll get?
Gateway Pundit: Video and lots of links
Mememorandum: has all the links. I’m gone for the rest of the day.
Maggie’s Farm: Says folks been played for suckers.
Push the healthcare through before the public finally clues in, and it’s too late!
Let me say this again – because some people seem unable to differentiate between “hate” of a man, and “well placed concern, maybe okay hate” of his suspect policies and the lack of any checks upon him by the press, or members of his own party – that I do not “hate” this president. But there is very little about his “lets not waste a crisis” presidency that I can support or trust. For some, my pointing out these things that make me uncomfortable is construed by them as “hate,” probably because that’s what they felt for the previous president so they can’t believe I can object this much and not hate. I can’t help what other people think, though. This is still America, and folks are free to think and believe whatever they like.
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