From libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara:
A lot of analysis about the Alexandria shooting of Republican congressmen involves trying to decipher some connection between rhetoric and violence. But we should look to a deeper, more fundamental level than rhetoric. I’m talking about the ideas behind the rhetoric.
Bernie Sanders is said to be ‘Sickened’ That the Alexandria Shooter Was a Volunteer on His Presidential Campaign. As Bridget Johnson reports for PJ Media,
“We’ve got to stop the violence,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) after a shooter whose social media showed he was apparently a fan of the former presidential candidate opened fire on Republicans practicing for Thursday’s congressional baseball game.
Sanders undoubtedly doesn’t condone the shooting. But, given his hateful rhetoric against “the 1%” and assertions that healthcare is a right that should be guaranteed by the government, it shouldn’t be surprising that the man who committed the Alexandria shooting was a Sanders acolyte.
Once again we have an ideologue on the Right projecting horrible violence unto the Left, while ignoring the far greater and deadlier violence from the Right. Their willful blindness to the vast preponderance of right wing violence is astounding. But not surprising. We see it all the time, even here.
The author wrote:
It is to say that Hodgkinson’s violence and Sanders’s support for ObamaCare and eventually single-payer healthcare spring from the same source: They are both manifestations of aggressive force, the bane of mankind. Sanders doesn’t oppose what Hodgkinson did. He opposes Hodgkinson’s method.
Wow! That is an impressive mass of unhinged hate projecting from this guy! Healthcare as a civil right is “the bane of mankind”.
Right. And this guy seems to hate Bernie even more than Hillary.
What social system is based on a government constitutionally limited to retaliatory force? Capitalism.
So capitalism is a “social system” now? Whatever. We expect this sort of fanatic to redefine any word to their exclusive use. The Constitution is the only bastion of human liberty that can limit the predatory and destructive forces of capitalism run amok. Capitalism has nothing to do with constitutional power, except to undermine and destroy all constitutional regulation of commerce.
What social system is based on a government that is free to initiate aggressive force? Socialism.
Um, no. Unemployment insurance, Social Security, Medicare and food stamps is the opposite of aggressive force. These cultists are really wacked out.
Socialism starts with criminal aggressive force—that is, violence.
Um, no. As noted the opposite is true. In fact, capitalists Bush and Cheney initiated criminal torture, and criminal aggressive force, in league with their oily war profiteers, in Iraq. This war directly resulted in the formation if ISIS.
Thank you, capitalism. Or more accurately capitalism’s henchmen of the Cult of Rightwing Authoritarian Personalities.
Capitalism and C.R.A.P. don’t give a (lower case) crap about human welfare or human suffering. They are, and have always been, out for their own economic gain and political power.
This is the corporate aristocratic power the founders understood as a threat to a democratic republic.
Corporate aristocratic power is adversarial and openly hostile to equality, representative democracy, labor rights, public health, environmental protections, and our Constitutional regulation of commerce and provision for the general welfare.
It is this cold blooded machinery of corporate aristocratic power that is the true bane of mankind.
Their cult has millions of foot soldiers like this author, operating from their indoctrinated dogma of delusional hate, blame, and accusations for liberals and most Americans.
They will pay no heed to the violence and body count from the Right’s bloody assassins.
They are a dangerous and anti-American cult.
“Healthcare as a civil right is ‘the bane of mankind.’ ”
Not that it matters, but that is NOT what Mr. LaFerrara said. The Obama administration and the Democrat-controlled congress passed an egregious law stating that we supposedly free Americans now had to purchase health care insurance. The penalty for not doing so were fines and potential jail.
So simply because of the fact that I am alive and breathing air, I must purchase a product from from a private business because my beneficent President said I have to do so. Bernie Sanders supported that and wishes, like Obama, to take it even further to a single payer government run system.
It is not health care that is the “bane of mankind” as you twistedly put and wrongly attributed to the author. It is the coercion by government that we must purchase ANYTHING from a private company or face the penalty of law that is the bane of all free people. I know that many, especially on the Left, think the greater good is served by this, but eventually a similar law may be passed under government coercion with which you might not agree. It is especially possible under this current president.
How convenient for Mr. Paine to argue here, while joining the greedy extremist in ignoring the elephant of far Right violence in the room. As I say, not unexpected. This is the cult belief that liberals are the violent ones, just as blacks are the real racists too. Another lesson in how to think like a con-servative.
The author said health care is a “manifestations of aggressive force” and the bane of mankind, did he not?
Here it is.
It is to say that Hodgkinson’s violence and Sanders’s support for ObamaCare and eventually single-payer healthcare spring from the same source: They are both manifestations of aggressive force, the bane of mankind.
Here is what Mr. Paine claimed he said:
It is the coercion by government that we must purchase ANYTHING from a private company or face the penalty of law that is the bane of all free people.
How’s THAT for a twist?
Now imagine a right wing politician proposing to cut back or eliminate one of America’s socialist programs, like Medicaid expansion under ObamaCare, that takes those earnings of others to satisfy your “right” to health care. Hell hath no fury like a parasite scorned.
How more hateful and dehumanizing a term can they use than “parasites”? This is the hate of fascism! It is a term Nazis used for Jews and the mentally ill. I wonder if Mr. Paine agrees those on public health benefits are parasites. His silence on the hate speaks rather loudly. How con-servative is that? He seems quite immune to the hate from the author. Are we to understand Mr. Paine shares the author’s sentiments? I can only surmise he does.
Name one socialist policy that doesn’t begin with armed aggression—the taking of private wealth..
In other words, Constitutional taxes for the public good, including the military and law enforcement etc are “armed aggression”. This man is demented.
Capitalism forbids government from infringing on the rights of individuals to work, trade, freely associate, and to keep and dispose of earned property..
Holy C.R.A.P.! This idiot thinks capitalism is the law of the land, more than our Constitution!!
They are a VERY dangerous cult. More human suffering and deaths will result from their hateful, greedy, resentful, arrogant, and ignorant agenda.
Time to cut the C.R.A.P. out of the government of we the people.
“They are both manifestations of aggressive force, the bane of mankind.” ~ Mr. LaFerrara
If one’s native tongue is English, it would seem that Mr. LaFerrara was saying that “Hodgkinson’s violence and Sanders’s support for ObamaCare” are both manifested in their desire to see a government-coerced outcome. In this case it is regarding health care. It could just as easily have been nearly any other newly created Leftist entitlement. To them, the ends of universal health care justify the means of government coercion. “The bane of mankind” was manifestations of aggressive force; not “universal” health care.
In other words, it was not necessarily “health care” that Mr. LaFerrara was complaining about, but rather the government coercion of it (or any such program) foisted on the American people, many of whom did not want it. (INCLUDING some of the uninsured.) The fact that the murderer and Sanders seemed to support such governmental coercion was what his screed was regarding.
I guess I felt the need to clarify that part of the article as I read and understood it. I understand that you seem to have read and understood it from a completely different way Mr. Dubya. That still doesn’t give you the right to twist LaFerrara’s words into saying something which he did not seem to be saying. I also understand that though, as I have similarly had my words twisted in pretzel logic to imply that I support racism and authoritarianism when the opposite is absolutely the truth.
For the millionth time on Leftist websites, let me again state that I absolutely and unequivocally denounce all violence, regardless of political ideology or party affiliation, as a means to further a political agenda. Further, it is not Sanders’, Obama’s, Hillary’s, or anyone else’s fault that the left-wing murderer tried to kill people at a congressional baseball practice. It isn’t even the fault of the inanimate gun. It is the would-be murderer’s fault alone.
And such is the case for every right wing kook that similarly resorts to such violence. I condemn ALL of them and have no desire to get involved with “the other side does it too” argument now.
There is too much hate and violence in the world as it is. We don’t need people fanning the flames and proclaiming that people said things they simply did not in order to make sophomoric political points.
I don’t understand the objection to laws that force us to pay for some product or service. How are they meaningfully different from taxes that require us to pay the government, which then pays people to offer us products and services? Does the existence of a middleman really matter? Would it be OK, then, if we all just paid the government what we would owe to health insurance companies so that it can pay them for us?
Furthermore, how is “eventually a similar law may be passed under government coercion with which you might not agree” a significant objection? Our government already has many powers that can ruin the country, including taxation. The fact that it could, for example, impose a 100% tax rate on us does not mean that it should not have the power to tax us at all. There is no way to avoid depending on good leaders for good governance. Our debate should be about the merits of the actual law in question.
I applaud Mr. Paine in condemning murder by his fellow believers on the Right. I condemn ALL of them and have no desire to get involved with “the other side does it too” argument now.
I am disappointed that he has failed to acknowledge the hate, that both fuels the violence and is found in the author’s post, and has actually supported the accusatory rhetoric.
And I must point out, “the other side does it too argument” is not even an argument. There is no argument that the body count from violence of the Right was higher than that from Jihadists from 2001 to 2016. This is a fact.
Mr. Paine prefers to flee from this reality because the bloody murders were committed by those who share his beliefs. He feels it more necessary to claim taxes for health care of “parasites” is the “bane of mankind”. He would rather agree with accusing liberals of supporting gun violence because they support public health care.
We get it. Con-servatives are allowed to make this outrageous conflation, but not liberals. Not that liberals would.
Mr. Paine is doubling down on the demonizing. He is agreeing with the author’s insidious conflation of supporting public health care with not opposing violence. This is their cult’s blame game in play.
This is what hate looks like. Mr. Paine may not see Right wing hate, but he is quick to agree, or at least deflect from it.
”Sanders doesn’t oppose what Hodgkinson did”… “Parasites”.
And Mr. Paine accuses me of “fanning the flames”. See how that works for them?
We get it.
Now public health care by “governmental coercion” is the evil manifestation of aggressive force. And supporting public health care is just like not opposing firearm violence. You betcha!
Every damn war of aggression is the Right’s beloved governmental coercion. The merciless drug war is their beloved governmental coercion. Torture is their beloved governmental coercion.
But those are all sweet acts of con-servative compassion. The real evil aggressive force of governmental coercion is in taxes for health care. You betcha.
Since he fails to see the hateful rhetoric from the author, I suggest Mr. Paine try this on for size:
It is to say that Tim McVeigh’s violence and Mr. Paine’s support for shrinking the federal government all spring from the same source.
Taking food stamps from the poor, cutting people off Medicaid, deregulating Wall Street, removing environmental regulations, and gutting worker safety rules, wars of aggression, torture, and brutal law enforcement all spring from the same source: They are manifestations of con-servative aggressive force, the bane of mankind.
Mr. Paine doesn’t oppose what McVeigh did. He opposes McVeigh’s method.
Sounds reasonable to me.
But what do I know? I’m just another scorned liberal, “fanning the flames” and defending parasites in need of food and health care.
Some examples extrapolated from the title:
“Sanders Should Look to His Socialism for Answer to Political Violence” = Sound con-servative reasoning, aka “Con-sense”.
“Mr. LaFerrara Should Look to His Hate for Liberals for Answer to Political Violence” = WTF!! Nonsense! This violates “Rule number One, IOKIYAR or a Con-servative “libertarian”, Double Standards for the Right must be defended at all costs. How dare those evil liberals think they are equal to Real Americans (TM)!
And finally:
“Mr. Paine Should Look to His Con-servatism and demonization of Liberals for Answer to Political Violence” = The opposite of con-sense.
What was I thinking? None of this will make sense to those who most need common sense.
“I don’t understand the objection to laws that force us to pay for some product or service. How are they meaningfully different from taxes that require us to pay the government, which then pays people to offer us products and services?”
Respectfully Ryan, there is a world of difference between paying taxes to fund public infrastructure, schools, and to provide for the common defense of the nation. These things are used and/or benefit the general welfare of the nation.
When the government forces a hypothetically free American to purchase a product or service like health care from a private company, then they have crossed their constitutional boundaries. When I was in my twenties and was strong and still invincible, I didn’t want to spend my money on health insurance. I’d rather spend that money on beer or hiking trips. If I had gotten seriously hurt, I would have had to suffer the consequences of not having had the foresight to get insurance. That said, the government does not have an obligation, let alone a right, to insist that we must do something in order to protect us from ourselves.
“Does the existence of a middleman really matter? Would it be OK, then, if we all just paid the government what we would owe to health insurance companies so that it can pay them for us?”
And THAT is precisely what many good folks on the Left and President Obama envisioned was an incremental process towards getting to that single-payer, government-run health care system.
I know that many good folks on the Left that champion universal health care for all of us have nothing but the best of intentions with doing so. It is NOT the government’s place to tell me how to live, where to live, or how to maintain my affairs as long as I don’t “pick the pocket or break the leg” of my neighbor.
There is no longer a sense of self sufficiency and individualism in this nation. Now we all turn to the all-wise, corrupt, bloated, and inefficient government to solve our problems. Inevitably their “solutions” end up creating ten more problems besides the one they “fixed”.
One wonders what the response of many of our brothers and sisters on the Left would be if a “well-intentioned” federal law was passed mandating that every household purchase a rifle for the defense of the nation like Switzerland has done long ago. I bet the intrusion of government would be noticed then.
As for the hate-filled rhetoric of Mr. Dubya, I have nothing more to say to him for now. He intentionally twists words and finds fault only with his political enemies. He is a divider, just like our current and former presidents. It serves no purpose to try and discuss issues with someone so close-minded to other’s opinions.
“Respectfully Ryan, there is a world of difference between paying taxes to fund public infrastructure, schools, and to provide for the common defense of the nation. These things are used and/or benefit the general welfare of the nation.”
Health care also benefits the general welfare of the nation, so your objection makes no sense. But you missed the point as well. The question is: how do you object on constitutional grounds to being forced to pay for health insurance directly but not for any number of other goods and services that you might not want indirectly through taxes? (From a “freedom” perspective, the former is arguably better because you potentially get more of a say in where and what you buy.) It’s all just a word game that misses the reality of the situation. People are still being forced, by threat of fines or imprisonment or some other punishment, to give up their money for goods and services that they might not want. This is a question of consistency and reality, not of the merits of X vs. Y.
My position is that the power of taxation gives the government extraordinary and extraordinarily flexible power and that constitutional objections of this nature often ignore it. Don’t like the idea of the government telling you to buy insurance or else? Fine. We’ll just have the government create a new tax, then waive it for an individual if he purchases health insurance. Call it a deduction or a credit. All this does is reverse the “buy insurance or else” command: you start with the “or else” but can get out of it by buying insurance. Unless, of course, you believe that the Constitution limits the federal government to taxing us only for those goods and services that T. Paine regards as beneficial to the welfare of the nation or that deductions and credits are themselves unconstitutional.
And you did not address my second point. Instead, you just offered a specific example of a law that the Left would dislike. I will repeat myself:
That the ACA’s mandate could be used to mandate the purchase of something I don’t want to buy is *not* a compelling reason to oppose it. The government is constitutionally allowed (even by conservative standards) to do and does all sorts of things already that I oppose. If we’re going to play with hypotheticals, I could point out that the government has the ability to tax me far beyond my ability to pay. Does that mean that it shouldn’t be allowed to tax me at all? No. We vote in the hopes of getting representatives who use the vast power of the government responsibly. There is no avoiding our dependence on good leaders for good government. Any system can be abused by the wrong people.
“Respectfully Ryan, there is a world of difference between paying taxes to fund public infrastructure, schools, and to provide for the common defense of the nation. These things are used and/or benefit the general welfare of the nation.” ~ Paine
“Health care also benefits the general welfare of the nation, so your objection makes no sense. But you missed the point as well. The question is: how do you object on constitutional grounds to being forced to pay for health insurance directly but not for any number of other goods and services that you might not want indirectly through taxes?” ~ Ryan
My objection is in the fact that the government should only be involved, as the founders intended through our constitutional republic, to do ONLY those things that private citizens and businesses could not reasonably do on their own. The public through private business or through collective community efforts could not reasonably fund and constitute a navy or air force for common national defense. They could not reasonably build interstates and other such infrastructure. Those things are best left to the federal government to do.
My objection comes in when the federal government takes on for itself extra-constitutional (un-constitutional) duties that private citizens and businesses could and should be doing for themselves. Health insurance is one of those items. There is no added benefit, as we have painfully seen, for the government getting involved with mandating health insurance for everyone via private entities. You are correct; they simply act as a middle man – one that adds no value but does add greater inefficiencies and costs than if it were handled by the free market as it should be.
Now I grant you that a case can be made that we should all have to contribute something in taxes to provide medical insurance/care for those folks that are unable to provide for themselves. That is a separate issue.
Again…
“…how do you object on constitutional grounds to being forced to pay for health insurance directly but not for any number of other goods and services that you might not want indirectly through taxes?” ~ Ryan
There are indeed many things for which my taxes dollars are used to which I object. That is indeed my point. If the law of our republic states that it is in the purview of the federal government to do, then I do not have a valid argument against that taxation and expenditure, whether I like that expenditure/taxation or not. When my taxes are collected and spent in means NOT indicated as duties of the federal government, such as funding for the national endowment of the arts, or public broadcasting, or subsidizing Planned Parenthood etc., then I have a great constitutionally-valid objection.
The fact that most of our ignorant and uneducated or miss-educated public thinks that the general welfare clause encompasses EVERYTHING these days is at the very heart of the problem, sir.
I further agree that “the power of taxation gives the government extraordinary and extraordinarily flexible power”. But that power, as envisioned by our founders and our constitution is meant to be constrained by the dictates of that constitution. Just because the federal government has been given the power of taxation does not mean that everything they fund is necessarily authorized under our constitution. If you read what SPECIFIC powers are granted to the federal government, those items are very limited. We have gotten so far removed from those limitations today that the government now thinks they can mandate how many gallons of water is used when we flush our toilets or who can even use public toilets now. The over-reach is enormous.
I would submit that this is not just a matter of semantics and the involvement of the government-as-the-middle-man either. We have given the federal government so much extra-constitutional power in their duties and taxation abilities that we now fear the power of the government. Government should be fearful servants of the people; not the other way around.
Your hypothetical of just raising taxes to pay for things which we might object and then giving us a “credit” or “waiver” when we follow government’s mandates is a perversion of their power which is supposed to derive from the people.
“That the ACA’s mandate could be used to mandate the purchase of something I don’t want to buy is *not* a compelling reason to oppose it.” ~Ryan
You are right. That in itself is not reason enough to oppose it. The fact that the government has NO constitutional authority to force us to buy health insurance, or a firearm, or a vehicle, or widget is reason to oppose it. It is about the use of constitutional power and taxation at issue here; not what specific mandate the government makes when they abuse that power.
“”A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.” ~ attributed to Thomas Jefferson
“”A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.” ~ attributed to Thomas Jefferson
Falsely attributed.
https://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/government-big-enough-give-you-everything-you-wantspurious-quotation
OK, I understand. However, I don’t see “it’s unconstitutional” as a valid argument against something if the Supreme Court has ruled otherwise, especially if the country has gone along with it for so many years. It’s just wishful thinking. Where you see abuse of the welfare clause, I just see an interpretation that has been used and accepted. In reality, what the government is allowed to do is not determined by a piece of paper or a set of ideals, but by the government itself, its instruments of force, and the attitudes of the public. So while I can understand wanting to get us back to a point where we follow your ideals and have a government with much more restricted power, I do not understand the insistence that these ideals are themselves constitutional (and therefore that others are not) at the moment.
In any case, if the constitutional objection to Obamacare is just another objection to a particular reading of the welfare clause, I’m not sure why conservatives are so passionate about it. Put another way: I’m not sure why we’re not seeing the same (or a greater) level of passion for doing away with all of the other programs justified by that reading of the welfare clause. Yes, there are conservatives who want this and you may be one of them, but I don’t see it as a widespread, consistently followed principle. I regard the phenomenon much like the passionate conservative Christian attitude toward homosexuality: even though many behaviors, thoughts, and attitudes are said to be sins, homosexuality rather consistently gets the attention on the political stage–and it’s not just because of the legal struggle over gay marriage. Certain political forces are keen on engineering and fanning outrage for their own purposes.
It is unfortunate that Mr. Paine sees calling out hate as hate itself. He has no response to the double standards I illustrated. He has been checkmated and withdraws once again from the discussion.
Government doesn’t “run health care” any more than insurance companies “run health care”. Health care providers “run health care”.
It is unfortunate Mr. Paine twists these words as well. It is the way of the Right. When they can’t twist words, history shows they will redefine them to suit their agenda.
There is no longer a sense of self sufficiency and individualism in this nation
Is that a fact?
Well, “let the parasites die” is indeed the con-servative solution.