The Case For Universal Healthcare

July 4, 1776 . . . .We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Life--not health insurance for profit--is an "unalienable Right". By not providing, or in some manner making available, health care the Government is depriving People of their Rights as stated in the Declaration of Independence. The Government has interceded on the behalf of organizations whose bottom line is Profit, at the expense of the People. Equal rights for Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness are unalienable Rights, of which Life is the most fundamental and tangible, for without Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness cannot be pursued and achieved.
There is nothing explicit in the Declaration and the Bill of Rights guaranteeing anyone profit. Health care however does promote Life and everyone has a Right to Live. Pursuing profit over Life is contrary to our basic beliefs, despite what the proponents of profit deriving health insurance promote. Universal Health care is not Socialized Medicine but what is guaranteed in our own Declaration of Independence. It is our Patriotic Duty to provide Health Care to our populace. The only question is how much health care will provide that Right to Life?

It's All Lou Dobb's Fault

The proponents of amnesty for illegal aliens (euphemistically called Comprehensive Immigration Reform) are blaming their lack of popularity on Lou Dobbs; because of his daily scrutiny of their propaganda. That is all their "arguments" are, propaganda. You know he is having some success when he receives mention in a national debate such as was held last night in Las Vegas. I made up a list of their "arguments" for amnesty in my blog of November l, 2007. Their "arguments" are really propaganda ploys. Lets list them again followed by what type of ploy or ploys they are.

l. Illegal aliens should be given amnesty because it is the "humane" thing to do. This is really an appeal to sympathy and not an argument. Why should anyone receive citizenship, before others, just because we feel sorry for them? It is also a non sequitur. Does it make sense to enact legislation which gives blanket amnesty to hard working individuals and gang members alike?

2. Illegal aliens should be given amnesty because they work hard? This is an appeal to sympathy and a non sequitur.

3. .....so that they will come out of the shadows. Propaganda slogan, a catch phrase. Doesn't really address the problem of illegal aliens, most of which would not be eligible for immigration into this country and would not normally be given a visa. This point is glossed over and if the argument were extended the propaganda ploy "card-stacking" would be applied.

4. The solution to immigration is to enact "Comprehensive Immigration Reform". A generalization which will offer a grand solution to the problem. A similar plan was enacted in 1986, which did not "solve" the problem, instead it exacerbated the problem. "Card stacking", a propaganda ploy which addresses some elements of the proposal and hides other elements.

5. "The Comprehensive Immigration Reform" is not "amnesty" because illegal aliens must pay a fine, learn English, have background checks, and pay back taxes. Card stacking. A lot of information is left out; such as, how much would the program cost to implement, who would oversee the program, how could back taxes and criminal activity be investigated, etc.?

6. Immigration should not be enforced because enforcement is traumatic to children. An appeal to sympathy and pity. The government does not hold back enforcement on other crimes and would not ordinarily establish precedent, of not enforcing immigration law, based on whether or not the illegal immigrant may have children.

7. Anyone who wants immigration laws enforced is a "racist". Propaganda ploy name-calling and labeling. I noticed recently that Lou Dobbs picture was displayed on a placard dressed in an SS Uniform. Demonizing the opposition is another propaganda ploy.

8. Illegal aliens are "law abiding". Card stacking. Some are, some aren't. The truth is that many working in the U.S. have obtained and are using bogus Social Security numbers, drivers licenses, etc. Many are dealing in drugs, are smugglers, and are gang members.

9. Illegal immigrants "deserve" amnesty because they have been "exploited" by U.S. employers. An appeal to sympathy. Card stacking as well. Again some may have been exploited, others not. Should all be given amnesty because some have been exploited?

10. Bill Richardson and others like to use the slogan--"Build a 12 foot fence and an illegal will build a 13 foot ladder". Card stacking and sloganizing. A non sequitur. Who is going to build and carry a 13 foot ladder over miles of desert etc.?

I can't see much in the way of "arguments" for amnesty here and would have to conclude there are few valid arguments for amnesty out there.

Upcoming November 15 Debate

Tonight there will be a "debate", which hopefully will clarify what each of the hopefuls stand for about social security, U.S. sovereignty, Iraq war, and amnesty for illegal aliens. They will muddy up the waters about the subjects as much as possible is my guess. Some questions about the subject I would like Wolf Blitzer to ask them:

Is illegal immigration a matter of U.S. sovereignty and National Security?
Do you believe that securing the U.S. border and enforcing the laws against illegal hiring of illegal aliens is the first and most important steps to take to solve the illegal immigration issue?
Do you believe the last question is the most important part of "comprehensive immigration legislation"?
If not what is the most important part of "comprehensive immigration" and how is it different than the legislation enacted in 1986?
Why did the 1986 immigration legislation fail?
Do you believe that employers who have been hiring illegal aliens should be granted immunity and if so what precedent in our legal system assures employers such immunity?
Should illegal aliens who have been obtaining and using false identity papers be given immunity?
What is your position on immigration in general: i.e., do you believe that there should be quotas or not, that allowing large numbers of particular ethnic groups causes problems of assimilation?
Do you believe an impact study should be made about the amnesty proposal before legislation is considered?
How much would it cost to implement that part of the comprehensive immigration plan regarding back taxes, background checks, and fines?
Why should illegal aliens be put in line for citizenship when other aliens following immigration rules not be put in the line for citizenship?
What would the long-term cost be for the program if "comprehensive immigration legislation" is passed?
Would you follow the "will of the people" regarding immigration or forge ahead as the congressional Democrats have been doing trying to enact amnesty?

The Democrats and some Republicans shy away from discussing the particulars and fine points of the proposed amnesty legislation. They "card stack" by discussing only those particulars that seem favorable to the People. The Devil is in the Details as is sometimes said.

Bush: Worst Ever?

The question is being asked "is G.W. Bush the worst President ever? To a small percentage he is as popular as Reagan, which to my mind was a bad President--because of Iran-Contra, using Carter's stolen debate notes, the Saving and Loan scandal, creating a propaganda machine in the White House, and "stealing U.S. arms to supply Iran with, etc. Both pandered to the corporate elite and made them much richer, at the expense of the Middle Class Americans.
What is G.W.'s accomplishments?Well, he has been good at lowering taxes for the rich and affluent; his first and main accomplishment. Corporations have received welfare at a historically high amount. The Military Establishment has done very well during G.W.'s reign.
But, his evaluation should be done in the context of the times--for no other President has had the military and economic power at his fingertips as this one. No other President has had the need to be as responsible as this one. Because of Bush the U.S. is now under obligation to rebuild Iraq and extract itself in such a manner as it doesn't leave a military and political vacuum. How the next administration is able to deal with the mess will perhaps absolve the Bush administration for some of the consequences on one hand, and put blame for the results on the Bush administration on the other hand. In reality all of the blame for bad consequences should fall on the Bush administration as Bush started something comparable to "Pandora's Box", that the consequences of the invasion were as uncertain as the "certainty" of the existence of "weapons of mass-destruction" before the U.S. invaded Iraq.
Bush's China trade policy has put the U.S. in jeopardy economically and militarily. Bush spouts rhetoric about Freedom and Democracy, all the while engaging in trade which enriches a Communist country; allowing that country to use U.S. currency against the U.S. in competing for world oil and other strategic resources.
Hasn't anyone in Bush's administration read "The Art of War" by Sun Tsu? Or watch the Communist Chinese arm and otherwise aid our potential enemies, develop its own war machine, go after oil resources, destroy our manufacturing base by providing us cheap goods? This "bird" will someday come back to roost.
Energy policy should have been one of the most important of Bush's policies. We are importing over 60% of our oil from foreign sources, yet nothing is being done to promote conservation and developing alternatives for oil. If the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car" has any truth to it there was a deliberate and successful elimination of an alternative to gasoline. Nothing has been done by this administration about raising the mileage per gallon of gasoline in American cars. Automobile corporations over citizen's and the national interest.
Bush's use of Propaganda--instead of honest persuasion and the laying out of valid facts this President has chosen to repeatedly use Propaganda campaigns to promote his agendas. Bush engaged in a six month Propaganda campaign leading up to the Iraq war, which I pointed out to the media at the time, and which they ignored, instead the media echoed the administration propaganda messages. The GAO and Congress should investigate this issue (misuse of public funds for propaganda purposes).
Wire-Tapping without warrants is against the law; no matter what the justification or need is. To do so without targeting particular citizens, by haphazardly casting a large net, is doubly, triply, compoundedly gross criminal activity, no matter how patriotic it may be or for who orders it. In fact it is unpatriotic to break the laws against "the people", which indiscriminate wire-tapping is.
Torture, whether in Iraq or in the U.S., is considered a no-no; placing our own forces at risk. The test should be if the act is considered torture if it is used on our troops and labeled as such; i.e., would our government consider "water-boarding" against our troops as being torture? The general consensus by many is "water-boarding" is torture. Bush is then condoning torture in order to get information out of what he determines to be "the bad guys".
Pardoning his cronies all the while letting U.S. Border agents rot in jail. Hypocracy, there is no doubt that a double standard exists in this administration--his father pardoned his cronies and G.W. does it.
Since G.W. has a year to go he has plenty of time yet to screw up or make changes. The "worst ever"? I'd say he is right up there with the worst, if not at their head. Since we are still in the dark about what he and his cronies have been up to, it might be worse than we think!

Bush: Deceit and Propaganda

As long as G.W. Bush continues to use Propaganda ploys against the American people I will continue to point out how he is using it.
Besides argumentative fallacies, such as argumentum ad populum, argumentum ad hominem etc., there are Propaganda ploys, such as name calling, glittering generalities, transfer, testimonial, card stacking, plain folks, bandwagon, and missing information, which appeal to emotion rather than reason and inhibit people's thought processes.
Our presence in Iraq is the result of a vigorous propaganda program prior to it's invasion. If anyone were to take a poll of our military today the majority would say that they are fighting in Iraq because of the attack on the twin towers on 9/11. That Saddam Hussein was behind the attack etc. No such link exists but G.W. and Cheney cleverly spoke about the attack of 9/11 and Iraq in one breath in a ploy called juxtaposition; where two dissimilar instances are spoken of together to give an impression that there is a link between the two. Cheney further linked Iraq to terrorism in general because a terrorist, Al Natal, hid out in Baghdad. What Cheney failed to reveal is that Saddam had his secret police assassinate the terrorist as soon as he knew of the terrorist's presence. This is called the "missing information" ploy.
G.W. loves to use "glittering generalities"; which are virtue words, such as freedom, liberty, American people, etc. He loads his speeches with them and uses them repeatedly. He also uses the ploy, "name calling'', which is the opposite of "glittering generalities". "Liberals", taxes, murderers, "social medicine, Saddam, Osama, etc. are bad virtue words in his propaganda arsenal. We know who the bad guys and good guys are from his speeches, and which side we want to be on.
General David Petraeus is a man above reproach, a hero, Bush's man. No one could possibly question his integrity; except the Liberals. Never mind Bush gave him his fourth star at the time he was given military command of Iraq. General Petraeus is an example of the transfer symbol ploy combined with the testimonial ploy. Question Bush's strategy and you have to answer to General Petraeus, the "commander on the ground", the man above reproach who would testify against his own results and at the same time undermine his commander in chief's legacy? Not out loud anyway. Pour enough money and men into a project and you will have better success than if you did not but what is the price for success ultimately. No one is saying.
Plain folks is another ploy that G.W. loves to use. Effusive "thank yous", back drops of Boy Scouts, old veterans, new recruits, town's folks, Texas drawl, lame jokes, cutting brush on the ranch; all are a part of the plain folks ploy. You never see him in a hostile crowd or situation. He has a "ranch" yet you never see him on a horse punching cows.
Card stacking is another ploy which emphasizes favorable attributes and ignores unfavorable attributes. Not revealing details about wire-tapping, water-boarding, energy policy experts, his Air Guard record, Harken, etc. is card stacking.
What I am hoping is that the media will do their job and point out the ploys that G.W. and his administration continue to use against the American people and by their efforts future Presidents will not resort to such ploys in their efforts to promote agendas. Resorting to such ploys destroys a Democracy and promotes despotism.

Where Are The Independents?

The Democrats get plenty of media coverage, the Republicans get plenty of media coverage, but where are the Independent candidates? Frankly there is little "choice" from either party, especially when you consider the front runners that most think are going to win candidacy for President.
What eliminates Giuliani and Hillary Clinton from my consideration is that neither one has had military experience, both show poor judgment, and side steps direct questions.
Giuliani, now professes he is against amnesty to illegal aliens, once made New York a sanctuary city: Hillary tries to gloss over the subject by professing that amnesty is a complex issue requiring obscure answers. How complex is it to enforce existing laws? Both show poor judgment. Giuliani's private life has been a mess, especially when you consider he is a Catholic. Hillary showed poor judgment in voting for the Iraq war. Anyone at the time should have realized that G.W. was up to no good when he engaged in such a great Propaganda campaign prior to our invading Iraq. Simply put there was no concrete evidence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction poised to attack anyone, or that he had any hid away. It was a belief! Not a fact; certainly not enough evidence to support an invasion.
But back to the lack of Independent candidates--where are they? What sort of a candidate is an Independent?
What I am looking for is someone who is prepared to represent the average American. Someone who has integrity, a good moral sense, with balance. Someone who can lead, who is prepared to consider both sides of an issue, taking the best from both sides and creating something that both sides can live with. Someone with a knowledge of history and philosophy. I'm looking for someone who is not afraid to answer a question directly and honestly. Someone who is not afraid to admit to a mistake and is willing to remedy it. Someone who has the confidence to talk to others directly.
So where is this person?

What Hillary's Boo-Boo Means

Hillary's boo-boo during the debate clearly illustrates the dishonesty of politicians in general. It also clearly shows how off-base the Democrats are regarding representing the wishes of the public. Eliot Spitzer's arrogant dictate that New York give out driver's licenses, and Hillary's and the other candidate's approval of same, illustrates that giving illegal immigrants I.D., and ultimately amnesty, is more important to them than representing American citizens.
If these politicians were as aggressive and manipulating as they have been in furthering illegal alien's causes; by solving Social Security, universal health care, Iraq, Iran, off-shoring, government fraud, oil depletion, energy, and other issues, American citizens might then feel better about their government.
The media has been better at being skeptical of the Bush administration and of Democratic spin but they still are not doing a good job. They in turn have been intimidated by the Bush Propaganda machine, which is composed of some media outlets such as Fox News, partisan congressional members, partisan think tanks, elites, big-business, and the like.
Bush utilizes Propaganda techniques, which I have written about in earlier blogs. His favorite ploys used in his speeches are appeals to flattery, juxtaposition, one-of-you, patriotism, transfer symbols, glittering generalities, bandwagon, fear, demonizing, dishonest renditions of history, and parsing of facts. Propaganda--that is all his speeches are.
But back to the media. Their approval numbers are going down too--partly because they appear to be more "partisan" to partisan viewers and part because it is hard to get to the facts on issues. The media, unlike the government, cannot tie slick politicians down and "water-board" the truth out of them.
Pointed and explicit questions are side-stepped, smoke-screened, and misconstrued ever-which-way by politicians, the elite, business men and women, and others and there is little that can be done about it except by researching well and pointing out immediately deceptive answers and tactics. As the propagandists get better at deception those employed to ferret out the truth must also get better. Studying what constitutes a fallacious argument, what propaganda is, and how to deal with "spin" is a first step to skewering the fallacies bandied about these days. We do not put emphasis on critical thinking in this country. A person does not learn about critical thinking until he/she reaches College and even there one might only receive a brief introduction to logic.
An example of how the media is falling down in bringing out the truth is the uncertainty still in people's minds about the Bush administration's use of propaganda to sell an invasion of Iraq and their continued use of Al Qaeda to keep the war going. The use of the word "Freedom" is constantly being used by Bush in regards to Iraq. Juxtapositioning of a word with a war is a propaganda ploy. I would argue that "Our" freedom is not at stake here. Al Qaeda may attack us here in our country someday but it will not take away our freedom--unless of course our own government takes it away. We have seen that already take place when Bush imprisons suspects indefinitely, wire-taps without warrants, tortures suspects, and what else may we find out later?
So, the Hillary Boo-Boo illustrates clearly that the American public is not getting the truth; that politicians will do anything, say anything for power; that they will sacrifice American sovereignty and citizenship for potential votes. It is time to stop listening and start watching what they do. Actions speak louder than words. Remember Bill Clinton brought us NAFTA and look what that got us, and does anyone know what the definition of "is" is?

The "Logic" Used for Amnesty

To better understand the positions held and logic used to argue for amnesty for illegal aliens I tabulated the arguments and premises I've heard used by proponents of amnesty; or in their words "comprehensive immigration". Here they are"

1. Illegal aliens (immigrants) should be given amnesty because it is the "humane" thing to do.

2. ......because they work hard.

3. .....so that they can come out of the shadows, to become "legal" and "lawful".

4. The solution to immigration is to enact "Comprehensive Immigration"; i.e. the same plan passed in 1986--only this time for 12 to 20 million illegal aliens.

5. The plan is not "amnesty" because aliens will be required to pay a fine, learn English, and go to the back of the immigration line.

6. Immigration laws should not be enforced because it is traumatic for the children of illegal aliens.

7. Anyone who wants immigration laws enforced is a "racist".

8. Illegal aliens are otherwise law abiding.

9. Illegal aliens deserve amnesty because they have been "exploited" by American employers.

10. Building fences will only mean that illegal aliens will construct longer ladders.

I have forgotten one or more of proponents of amnesty "premises" but this covers most of them I've heard. When you put them together it highlights the foolishness of the issue.