Opuscula It’s not 1984: Big Brother Has Arrived

THE GOVERNMENT IS TRYING to protect us.

The question is: Who is protecting us from the government?

Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is deciding to protect us from ourselves. Ronald Reagan

 

IT STARTED WITH FDR.

Before Franklin Delano Roosevelt, FDR, people generally took care of each other.

Granted, the country found itself in a depression brought on by greed and lack of concern for our neighbors. The whole world suffered.

So FDR initiated a number of social programs, including Social Security, the TVA, WPA, and a host of more “alphabet soup” organizations, many of which linger on even today.

(At the same time FDR was creating “make work” programs for Americans, he kept Jewish refugees from Germany at bay by closing the borders to them.)

Another three-initial president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, LBJ, gave us Medicare, a social service into which citizens pay and pay and then, when retired, CONTINUE to pay — more every year.

Unfortunately, we — Americans — brought some of this on ourselves.

We allowed technology — that “miracle” that was supposed to save us time and money — to take over our lives . . . and our wallets.

Doctors DON’T know best

I am about to travel overseas for six months.

My Spouse and I have a Medicare Advantage plan that is SUPPOSED cover our prescription medicines, BUT when my Spouse tried to get a Vacation Override so she could get two 90-day supplies — enough to last six months (180 days by my count) she was denied.

The insurer also claims we will have emergency coverage while out of the insurer’s coverage area. But only for five (5) months. I’ll bet the insurer collects from CMS for the sixth month!

After going around and around with the insurance company, she discovered that the most she could get would be a 5 month supply of medications. The insurer told my Spouse that it would terminate her coverage if she was outside of the company’s service area for six months.

Understand, that she could be back on day 179 and needed her pills until she could get a refill from the pharmacy.

ONE DAY and the insurer refused to give the override.

None of her medications are narcotics.

To be fair, there was a person at the insurance company and another at the pharmacy that did their best to help my Spouse. The insurance clerk was about the 15th clerk with whom my wife spoke. Getting to the helpful clerk was a several-day process.

MEANWHILE, SEEING THE PROBLEMS MY Spouse encountered, and knowing that I have far less patience that she, I contacted my Primary Care Physician (PCP) and asked that he write a script for double the number of pills — from one-a-day to two-a-day. That way, my normal 90-day supply would last 180 days.

The pharmacy refused to honor my doctor’s order.

The insurer told the pharmacy that what my doctor did was “unethical.”

Again, no narcotics. Nothing to sell and I’m certainly not about to OD on a diabetes pill.

Still, it failed to meet some esoteric law in place to protect me.

The insurer knows better than my doctor how many pills I need? My insurer has never examined me and I doubt it ever has seem my laboratory results.

I’m 78 years old and I don’t think I need protection from myself; but I’m not so sure I don’t need protection from The Powers That Be.

Something new? Hardly

There was a time when a committee of prudes determined what made-in-America movies could include. Married couples had to sleep in twin beds or, Hollywood forbid, if they managed to share a double bed, each bed partner had to have one foot on the floor. (How did movies ever have babies in them?)

Opuscula LBJ to Bloomberg: Has nothing Been accomplished?

 

FROM LBJ TO BLOOMBERG, promises of equality. LBJ actually did something positive; why is Bloomberg offering more of the same?

Where is the “disconnect” between LBJ in 1964 and Bloomberg in 2020? Why is yet another “equality” program needed? Isn’t 56 years enough time to “catch up”?

According to the Associated Press (https://tinyurl.com/vse2axp),

Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg made a pitch to African American voters before the national holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr., visiting a black church in Tulsa, the site of a race massacre nearly 100 years ago that left hundreds dead and the city’s thriving African American community in rubble.

The former New York City mayor spoke out against racial income inequality and outlined an economic proposal aimed at increasing the number of black-owned homes and businesses. The plan includes a $70 billion investment in the nation’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods.

“I do believe the next president has to make the issue of economic inequality a top priority, and there’s no better place for me to talk about it than right here in Greenwood,” Bloomberg told parishioners Sunday at the Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Bloomberg described the initiative as a “plan for righting what I think are historic wrongs and creating opportunity and wealth in black communities.”

 

The history.com website (https://tinyurl.com/y6b3hjxp) notes that Lyndon Baines Johnson created the “Great Society” in 1964.

In March 1964, Johnson introduced the Office of Economic Opportunity and the Economic Opportunity Act during a special message to Congress. He’d hoped to help the underprivileged break the poverty cycle by helping them develop job skills, further their education and find work.

To do this, he created a Job Corps for 100,000 disadvantaged men. Half would work on conservation projects and the other half would receive education and skills training in special job training centers.

In addition, Johnson tasked state and local governments with creating work training programs for up to 200,000 men and women. A national work study program was also established to offer 140,000 Americans the chance to go to college who could otherwise not afford it.

Other initiatives the so-called War on Poverty offered were:

• a Community Action program for people to tackle poverty within their own communities
• the ability for the government to recruit and train skilled American volunteers to serve poverty-stricken communities
• loans and guarantees for employers who offered jobs to the unemployed
• funds for farmers to purchase land and establish agricultural co-ops
• help for unemployed parents preparing to enter the workforce

Beyond these programs, LBJ’s administration also brought

• Medicare for all and Medicaid for the indigent
• Head Start and Education Reform
• Urban Renewal

With all the programs available, why, 56 years later, does Bloomberg need to promise more of the same?

When will it end?

 

How long will it take?

By comparison, the State of Israel was declared in May, 1948.

It was immediately attacked by Muslim states which it managed to fend off.

Since then Israel has, despite other wars and constant terror attacks, managed to become the technological leader in the Middle East.

It has absorbed people from around the world, people of color as well as whites.

These immigrants, some from what most Americans would term “primitive” cultures with little modern education, have been integrated into Israeli society, partly through government assistance but largely through their own efforts.

Some of these immigrants have risen to high positions in government, the military, and education.

What is the difference between the people whose disadvantages President Johnson set the government to eliminate and, say, an immigrant from Ethiopia or Yemen?

To be absolutely honest, neither the Ethiopians nor the Yemenites were warmly welcomed by the Euro-Jews in Israel, but by their own effort, they overcame the disadvantages.

LBJ’s Great Society, if Bloomberg’s claims are correct, is a failure.

According to Bloomberg advertisements, only Bloomberg can be credited for any advancements in education and job opportunities.

New York, New York, a hell of a town.

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PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

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Comment on LBJ to Bloomberg

Opuscula Silent Dems bow As GOP’s Trump Speaks and acts

ALL GENERALITIES ARE LIES.
However, there is a grain of truth in all generalities; smoke and fire if you will.

THERE ARE MANY WHO condemn President Trump for everything he says and does – and a few who condemn him for things he does NOT say or do.

But unlike some of his Democratic predecessors in the White House, Trump DOES what he says he will do (if the Congress and the Courts don’t overrule him).

AMERICA AS “RODNEY DANGERFIELD”

American lost the world’s respect starting with one-termer Jimmy Carter who gave in to the Iranians and allowed them to capture and humiliate U.S. diplomats when the embassy was seized.

What did Mr. Carter do?

Nothing.

Mr. Clinton was no better.

When the Iranians – same folks that should have caused Mr. Carter a red face – successfully attacked the USS Cole, what did Mr. Clinton do?

Same as Mr. Carter: Nothing.

There are equally silent Republicans.

Ex-president Geo. W. Bush, a/k/a Bush 2, not only was silent after Muslim terrorists brought down the Twin Towers (9-11-2001), along with more than 3,000 innocents (including those who died in the disaster and the aftermath), but was a propagandist for the Muslims.

Geo. W also famously told the world that the invasion of Iraq was “successfully completed.” As the world knows, it wasn’t completed.

On the flip side, former president Lyndon Baines Johnson usually did what he promised; sometimes to the nation’s benefit (e.g., Head Start) and sometimes not (e.g., Vietnam). Granted, Vietnam was not LBJ’s war.

BOWING OBAMA

Two-term leftist president Barack Obama kowtowed to his Muslim friends and declared an “Arab spring,” but then did nothing when he and his secretary of state allowed Muslims to murder Americans during a planned “spontaneous” uprising in Benghazi. It was the secretary’s “do nothing” attitude before the “spontaneous” attack that directly led to the American deaths. (Imagine if she became president!)

Bowing, showing submission to someone or something¹ is Mr. Obama’s trademark.

According to The Atlantic², the ex-president has bowed to

1. 2009: Obama bows to the Saudi King
2. 2009: Obama bows to the Queen of England
3. 2009: Obama bows to the Japanese Emperor
4. 2010: Obama bows to a Republican
5. 2010: Obama bows to the mayor of Tampa
6. 2010: Obama bows to the Chinese
7. 2012: Obama bows to Felipe Calderon
8. 2013: Obama bows to a Communist

TRADITION

It’s a grand Democrat tradition to do nothing – at least until the polls and soothsayers approve an action. This goes back at least to Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) who preferred to violate U.S. citizens basic rights (by putting them into concentration camps) while sending a boatload of Jews back to Germany and death. FDR also forbade American bomber crews from dropping bombs on railroad tracks beneath them on their way to and from bomb runs on "approved" nazi targets.

Once the polls and soothsayers said it was OK – and with a little help from the Imperial Japanese Navy’s attack on Pearl Harbor (allegedly known to the White House BEFORE the attack) – FDR finally allowed Americans to save Europe (once again).

WHERE THE BUCK STOPS

President Harry S (no period) Truman proved that some Democrats are doers.

FDR had plans in motion to create and use an atomic bomb. Would he or wouldn’t he?

He failed to share his thoughts with his vice-president.

Mr. Truman who, having served in WW 1 knew the horrors of war first hand, decided “the bomb” could end the war in the Pacific and save American and allied lives. He ordered the bombing of two Japanese cities. That led to the surrender.

Mr. Truman, protecting the sovereignty of the president’s role as Commander-in-Chief, cashiered a popular general for disobeying orders. The president was roundly criticized for his action, an act that preserved presidential (civilian) control of the military and one that may have cost him election to a full four-year term. (He lost to a general.)

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Sources

1. http://kencarlson.org/bible/worship/we-bow-down-2/

2. http://tinyurl.com/y9qodvk8

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

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