Random thoughts on the passing scene:
Will the Veterans Administration scandal wake up those people who have been blithely saying that what we need is a “single payer” system for medical care? Delays in getting to see a doctor have been a common denominator in government-run medical systems in England, Canada and Australia, among other places.
Some people act as if the answer to every problem is to put more money and power in the hands of politicians.
Freedom means nothing if it does not mean the freedom to do what other people don’t like. Everyone was free to be a Communist under the Stalin dictatorship, and everyone is free to be a Muslim in Saudi Arabia. Yet whole generations are coming out of our colleges where only those who are politically correct are free to speak their minds. What kind of America will they create?
Sometimes I think that this is an era when sanity has become controversial.
Republicans in Congress seem to be drawn toward the immigration issue like a moth toward a flame. How turning illegal immigrants into Democratic voters, while demoralizing the Republican base, will help either the country or the Republicans is a mystery. If ever there was a high-risk, low-yield investment, this is it.
One of the scariest aspects of our times is how seldom either people or policies are judged by their track record.
Why in the world are the Baltic states in NATO? The Russian army could overrun them before NATO could get a meeting together to decide what to do.
If the Democrats retain control of the Senate after this year’s election, Barack Obama can load the federal courts from top to bottom with judges who will ignore the Constitution, as he does, and promote his far-left political agenda instead, long after he is gone.
I get nervous every time I see Mitt Romney showing up in the media. He seems to be maintaining his visibility, in hopes of another run for the White House in 2016. He might well get a second chance to fail. Romney is the Republican establishment’s idea of the perfect candidate for president — no matter how many times such candidates lose, even under promising conditions.
Antisemitism may have the dubious distinction of being the oldest of the group hatreds. You might think that the world would have gotten over antisemitism by now, but Jews have been singled out for separate treatment by the Russian insurgents in Ukraine.
Any fool can say the word “racism.” In fact, quite a few fools do say it. But clever people can also say “racism,” in order to get fools to vote their way.
Those people who want Hillary Clinton elected president, so that we could have our first woman president, seem to have learned absolutely nothing from the current disaster of choosing a president on the basis of demographics and symbolism.
The old saying that taxes are the price we pay for civilization has long since become obsolete. The amount that the government spends to defend us from foreign attack, or to maintain law and order at home, has been overtaken by the money it spends just to transfer some people’s money to other people who are more likely to vote for the reelection of incumbents.
Government policies to “bring down the cost of medical care” almost never bring down those costs, and often increase the costs. These policies simply refuse to pay the full costs of medical care. Any one of us can do that, but we know there will be consequences. There will also be consequences when the government refuses to pay the costs, but these consequences will be concealed and/or denied.
The old saying that “politics is the art of the possible” is dead wrong. Politics is the art of making the impossible seem possible, and even plausible and desirable. That is how ObamaCare got passed.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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