This Week In Quotes: 7/10 — 7/16

by John Hawkins | July 17, 2009 1:12 am

Meanwhile, as Europeans know, the most effective way to squeeze out costs, as Obama promises, is denial of care. Hip replacement at 60? Hey, that’s expensive and you’re too old. — Michael Barone[1]

Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’ The answer is yes, that’s what I’m telling you. — Joe Biden[2]

“Democrats treat judicial nominations like war — while Republicans keep being gracious, hoping Democrats will learn by example.” — Ann Coulter[3]

Obama couldn’t deliver a movie review of “Transformers 2” without referring to himself thirty-five times. — Dr. Zero[4]

More generally, a third of the foreign-born are uninsured, Census data analyzed by the Center for Immigration Studies show. That means something like 12.6 million people, or more than a fourth of the total uninsured, are immigrants, both legal and illegal. Since 1989, immigration is responsible for 71 percent of the rise in those without health insurance. The fact is, the problem of the uninsured would be a more manageable one if the U.S. were not admitting millions of uninsured immigrants. — James Edwards[5]

The Pelosi Congress dropped requirements that SCHIP applicants document their legal status, dumbed down standards so stolen Social Security numbers can be accepted, and allowed illegal aliens onto SCHIP for up to 90 days.

A recent Rasmussen poll found 80 percent of American voters oppose covering illegal immigrants in any health-reform bill, while just 11 percent support it. And 70 percent oppose universal health care if illegal aliens are included. — James Edwards[5]

The New Culture of “Pay Up, Mister-or Else!”

For Obama to pull this off, an entire sort of new vocabulary, rhetoric, and attitude is necessary. And the model is California: the carpenter and the bricklayer are laid off, and the state snoozes; while the assistant solid waste inspector of Green Acres is on television every night (his union can afford the advertising) to weep, and claim that if he and those like him (retire at 55 with $100,000 for life) are laid off, then Dantesque things follow.

Remember the logic: the poor Californian voter who works at Starbucks or Target is angry that the grandee social worker is unnecessary and grossly overpaid at $90,000 a year, with lush retirement and benefits, and so is told that if he does not raise taxes to over 10% income and 9% sales, then firemen, police, and water workers will quit/be laid off/furlow and so he will starve, be murdered, and have no sewage. — Victor Davis Hanson[6]

Why would Obama check out another woman? Hasn’t he read all the press reports about how his wife is the most beautiful woman ever ever? — Frank J.[7]

It took the CIA almost 8 years to develop a plan to target terrorists for assassination but only a day or so for Obama’s CIA Director to kill it.

Boy, we really dodged a bullet with this one. Of course, by ‘we’ I mean al Qaeda.

Dear liberals…this kind of crap is why conservatives think you guys aren’t very serious about dealing with America’s enemies. — DrewM, Ace of Spades HQ[8]

“Most activities do not exist for the sake of equality. They exist to serve their own purposes — and those purposes are undermined, sometimes fatally, when equality becomes the goal.” — Thomas Sowell[9]

It takes a prince, heir to the thrones of Britain and Canada and Australia, Jamaica, Papua New Guinea and a bunch of other places, to tell it like it is: You pampered consumerists are ruining the joint. In the old days, we didn’t have these kinds of problems.

But then Mr and Mrs Peasant start remodeling the hovel, adding a rec room and indoor plumbing, replacing the emaciated old nag with a Honda Civic and driving to the mall in it, and next thing you know instead of just having an extra yard of mead every Boxing Day at the local tavern and adding a couple more pustules to the escutcheon with the local trollop they begin taking vacations in Florida.

When it was just medieval dukes swanking about like that, the planet worked fine: That was “sustainable” consumerism. But now the masses want in. And, once you do that, there goes the global neighborhood. — Mark Steyn[10]

Beginning with FDR, wily statists justified the massive expansion of federal power under ever more elastic definitions of the commerce clause. For Obama-era control freaks, the environment and health care are the commerce clause supersized. They establish the pretext for the regulation of everything: If the government is obligated to cure you of illness, it has an interest in preventing you getting ill in the first place – by regulating what you eat, how you live, the choices you make from the moment you get up in the morning.

Likewise, if everything you do impacts “the environment”, then the environment is an all-purpose umbrella for regulating everything you do. It’s the most convenient and romantic justification for what the title of Paul Rahe’s new book rightly identifies as “Soft Despotism”. — Mark Steyn[10]

But there’s another interpretation of California’s rebellion, one with far sunnier implications for those of us who prefer our governments constrained. Faced with a political class that ignored bureaucratic inefficiency, that demanded higher taxes, that filled the newspapers with scare stories about people who will literally die as a result of budget cuts, the citizens of one of the bluest states in the nation collectively said we just don’t believe you anymore. If even California’s famous fruits and nuts can call the statists’ bluff, there may be hope for the rest of the country. — Matt Welch[11]

Endnotes:
  1. Michael Barone: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/07/13/chaos_on_capitol_hill_all_politics_is_loco_97421.html
  2. Joe Biden: http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=51162
  3. Ann Coulter: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32733
  4. Dr. Zero: http://hotair.com/archives/2009/07/11/a-seemingly-very-nice-middle-class-girl/
  5. James Edwards: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NDliZWM0MjI4MTA5ZTZlOGJlZmUxMzY1ZmJiNzUxYWE=
  6. Victor Davis Hanson: http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/the-war-against-the-producers/2/
  7. Frank J.: http://www.imao.us/index.php/2009/07/random-thoughts-50/
  8. Ace of Spades HQ: http://ace.mu.nu/archives/289731.php
  9. Thomas Sowell: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OGQ4YWQ2ZTUyM2QwZmY1ODY5NGMxNzkxZjZmNzNjZTA=
  10. Mark Steyn: http://thebulletin.us/articles/2009/07/10/top_stories/doc4a576b0ec9caa441243158.txt
  11. Matt Welch: http://www.reason.com/news/show/134445.html

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