Transcript from Reagan's Operation Coffee Cup Campaign against Socialized Medicine.

Now in our country under our free-enterprise system we have seen medicine reach the greatest heights that it has in any country in the world. Today, the relationship between patient and doctor in this country is something to be envied any place. The privacy, the care that is given to a person, the right to chose a doctor, the right to go from one doctor to the other.

But let’s also look from the other side. The freedom the doctor uses. A doctor would be reluctant to say this. Well, like you, I am only a patient, so I can say it in his behalf. The doctor begins to lose freedoms, it’s like telling a lie. One leads to another. First you decide the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government, but then the doctors are equally divided geographically, so a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him he can’t live in that town, they already have enough doctors. You have to go some place else. And from here it is only a short step to dictating where he will go.

This is a freedom that I wonder if any of us has a right to take from any human being. I know how I’d feel if you my fellow citizens, decided that to be an actor I had to be a government employee and work in a national theater. Take it into your own occupation or that of your husband. All of us can see what happens once you establish the precedent that the government can determine a man’s working place and his working methods, determine his employment. From here it's a short step to all the rest of socialism, to determining his pay and pretty soon your son won’t decide when he’s in school where he will go or what he will do for a living. He will wait for the government to tell him where he will go to work and what he will do.

Here is an AP article today 12-20-10 "Study maps need for kids' doctors in rural areas".

CHICAGO – There are enough children's doctors in the United States, they just work in the wrong places, a new study finds. Some wealthy areas are oversaturated with pediatricians and family doctors. Other parts of the nation have few or none.

Nearly 1 million kids live in areas with no local children's doctor. By moving doctors, the study suggests, it would be possible for every child to have a pediatrician or family physician nearby.

There should be more focus on evening out the distribution than on increasing the overall supply of doctors for children, said lead author Dr. Scott Shipman of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice in Lebanon, N.H.

"I worry that it could get worse," Shipman said.

He said medical schools are graduating more students, but the result will be more doctors in places where there's already an over-supply. Indeed, previous studies have shown that doctors locate where supply is already high, rather than in areas with greater need.

Scott Shipman is exemplifying what Reagan was warning about. Shipman is talking about "evening out distribution" and "increasing overall supply" while referring to doctors; Human Beings! Does that not sound a little strange? Since the passing of the health care legislation there has been a change in the whole dynamic of health care. There seems to be a "consensus" that health care is a right, not health insurance, but health care. Now that health care is a right; do we not have the right to demand of those who provide health services to provide them as needed and where they are needed?

It will start with licensing. The state already dictates who can practice medicine; how hard is it to dictate where in the state a doctor's medical license is valid? Perhaps it will be limited by county.

The government is fighting right now for the ability to tax individuals for economic inactivity. If the government thinks that it has the right to tax people based on something they haven't done; how hard is it to believe that the government won't try to dictate the location of doctors based on studies like the one above? Based on what we've scene from Washington recently, is there any doubt that people aren't looking into this now?

What do you think?

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The UN has decided that it might be a good idea to "regulate" the internet? Let's see, where have we heard speech like this before?

WikiLeaks sparks push for tighter controls.

The United Nations is considering whether to set up an inter-governmental working group to harmonise global efforts by policy makers to regulate the internet.

Establishment of such a group has the backing of several countries, spearheaded by Brazil.

At a meeting in New York on Wednesday, representatives from Brazil called for an international body made up of Government representatives that would to attempt to create global standards for policing the internet - specifically in reaction to challenges such as WikiLeaks.

The Brazilian delegate stressed, however, that this should not be seen as a call for an "takeover" of the internet.

Anyone who thinks that this doesn't constitute a "takeover of the internet" is naive. The fact that the Brazilian delegate felt the need to tell people otherwise is an admission of true intent. In other words they want people to believe that there is some other way of controlling the flow of information without a takeover.

There seems to be a long pattern of "officials" expressing a need to limit freedoms, then a followup remark stating that there won't be any lack of freedom as a result of their actions. If what these "officials" were expressing were true, their message could be articulated very simply. The fact is that their intentions are the exact opposite of what they say.

Why is it that when there is a problem with government, such as loosing classified documents, the proposed solution, all to often involves an attack on freedom. Were the WikiLeaks document dumps the fault of too much internet freedom, or lack of security on behalf of the U.S. government?

Those who want to regulate things tend to use the following logic. Because one individual dies while using a hair-dryer in the bathtub, hair-driers are the problem. So if that same person would have died using a toaster in the bathtub toasters would be the problem.

Why is it that so often the agent of action is blamed (then targeted for correction) and not the cause? It's like a drunk driver blaming a tree because they crashed into it.

It's the same line of thinking which always ends with an erosion of freedom. The nanny state needs to limit your freedom for your own safety, or in the case of WikiLeaks, for the government(s) safety.

UPDATE! -- Chavez thinks internet regulation is a good idea.

Chavez's congressional allies are considering extending the "Social Responsibility Law" for broadcast media to the Internet, banning messages that "disrespect public authorities," "incite or promote hatred" or crimes, or are aimed at creating "anxiety" in the population.

Government opponents and press freedom groups have been critical of the plan, saying it is one of several measures being considered that could restrict freedoms in Venezuela.

"We aren't eliminating the Internet here ... nor censoring the Internet," Chavez said during his weekly television and radio program, "Hello, President." "What we're doing is protecting ourselves against crimes, cybercrimes, through a law."

What do you think?

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Obama campaigned with such vagueness that most people didn't know how he was going to lead. Once elected he began to lecture the country on what he considered important issues; these specifics opened the gate to criticism. His vagueness was his strong point now it's no longer there to protect him.

Obama didn't have many question and answer sessions with the media for the entire first year of his presidency. I think he might have learned his lesson this year.

Jan. 14, 2010

President Obama has not held a full news conference at the White House since July 22, the night he said that the Cambridge Police "acted stupidly" in the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates.

Since then, the president has delivered dozens of speeches and taken a few questions from reporters while with world leaders on foreign trips. But, lately, it is rare for him to take questions from the media at events or meetings at the White House.

Obama had five news conferences at the White House last year, one more than President George W. Bush had in his first year in office.

Gibbs was referring to last year when the cable pundits were chattering about how everywhere you turned, there was Obama.

The White House spokesman said, no, the president was not avoiding reporters and reiterated the media's concern about overexposure.

The White House says the president is not hiding and, indeed, does regular interviews with a wide variety of media. But they're one-on-one interviews, not a large collective news conference.

Reuters' Bohan said she hopes the White House adjusts its thinking on the issue of access to the president.

"I think it's very important that they do make him more available for press conferences," she said. "I think that the unfortunate trend in presidencies is that each year access gets narrowed more and more and I think we're seeing that trend this year."

Now, because of Obama's inability to answer questions, or respond off-the-cuff, seguey Bill Clinton.

Former President Bill Clinton held a remarkable, spur-of-the-moment news conference at a White House podium on Friday to announce his backing for the tax compromise President Obama reached with Republicans this week.

“I have reviewed this agreement that the president reached with the Republican leaders,” Mr. Clinton told reporters who assembled quickly for the hastily called remarks. “The agreement taken as a whole is, I believe, the best bipartisan agreement we can reach to help the most Americans.”

The president stood by Mr. Clinton’s side for several minutes as Mr. Clinton held court in front of the White House logo that often hovered behind him a decade ago.

But after Mr. Clinton began taking questions, the current president excused himself, saying that his wife, Michelle, expected Mr. Obama’s presence at one of the many holiday parties that presidents host during the month of December.

“I’ve been keeping the first lady waiting,” Mr. Obama said, excusing himself.

“I don’t want to make her mad,” Mr. Clinton said. “Please go.”

And with that, Mr. Obama departed, leaving Mr. Clinton to continue his extended conversation with the media.

I'm not sure what Obama's staff was thinking when they let Clinton do the sitting president's work. Who really thought that this was going to go over well with anyone?

I love the way the media is portraying this too, saying things like, "Bill Clinton seems the perfect validator for Barack Obama -- which is why the president is utilizing the former president for selling his tax deal." - Robert Reich

Clinton is not Obama's validator. Clinton is being used because Obama lacks validity; otherwise why would Obama have someone else explain a deal that he supposedly brokered? Either Obama is incapable of explaining his own deal or people will not believe what Obama says when he says it. None of this makes any sense other than to say that Obama is becoming more of a burden than an asset.

What do you think?

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Obama is saying that tax cuts could create millions of jobs.

Angry House Democrats voted today to table a proposed tax cut extension that includes the nation's wealthiest Americans, even as President Obama said his deal with Republicans has "the potential to create millions of jobs."

Of course this gets back to the idea that if tax cuts / maintaining the current tax rate, creates jobs and stimulates the economy; why would you not want to make the Bush era tax rates permanent?

The problem here is that the democrats are making statements not based on facts. The question is where does the majority of government revenue come from? This table is on page 97. of the PDF.

Quick math will reveal the following:

Income Taxes: 1.146 Trillion

Other Taxes  : 1.359 Trillion

There are more taxes collected by means other than personal income taxes. The next logical question would be this...

Does a decrease in income tax revenues at all levels equal an increase in other tax revenues? Without having Douglas Elmendorf on speed dial I would have to argue that a decrease in income tax revenue will result in an increase in overall revenue to the government.

If the majority of tax revenues come from sources other than income taxes, wouldn't it make more sense to let all people keep more of their money, which in turn, will result in more spending and more jobs. More people working will result in more people spending. This is the basic idea behind the Reagan economic model. An economic model that has been proven to work.

So, the current tax rate should be made permanent (for everyone) that is -- if long term economic growth is the goal. If a tax increase will result in fewer jobs created; why let it increase? Do politicians want the country's economy to stay down?

What do you think?

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The CAPTCHA install went smoothly. That means I don't have to filter Viagra, Dutch Shoes and Web Hosting spam comments.

I don't want to miss any of the real comments, which are sometimes are very weird, like this one... This was a response from a Resomation company!

Now that the spam is gone it's easier for me to find comments like the one above.

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