Everyone is chanting, “STOP insurance companies from denying people with pre-existing conditions!” Here is a classic example of Stage One Thinking that is so common these days. We get an idea that sounds nice and start preaching it as the answer and never take the time to think through, what happens next? Well, if you are healthy and no insurance company can deny you coverage once you get sick, when are you going to get insurance? Obviously, you will get insurance when you get sick and need it. No one will get insurance when they are healthy, why would they. If you could get car insurance after your accident and the insurance would have to cover the cost of the repairs, what sane person would get car insurance before the crash? No one.

Some say the answer to that problem is a “National Mandate.” The government mandates that everyone must buy health insurance. There are problems with as well. The two main problems are first, it’s unconstitutional. The government does not have the authority to FORCE me to buy a product simply because I am alive. Wait, they make me buy car insurance how is that different? That is different because they are attaching that mandate to the privilege of driving a car on government provided streets. If you don’t want to drive a car then you don’t have to get insurance. With healthcare they are dictating that I must purchase something simply because I exist. That is unconstitutional, they have a lot of power, but not that much power. The second problem with this idea is that the government would have to ‘approve’ certain plans to indicate if they satisfy the mandate. If I want a plan that has a higher deductible, or doesn’t cover child immunizations, I don’t get that choice if the government says the plans have to be structured a specific way. And they will have to set minimum plan guidance.

The answer is to allow the free market to create a vast array of plans that individuals can chose from, some BMW plans and some Chevy plans. Get the employer based group discount systems out of the equation because they distort the market for the individual. If there is a wide assortment of insurance plan to pick from, and many are less expensive plans that only cover catastrophic health issues then most people will buy insurance. Those that don’t get insurance and there always will be some, will still go to the hospital and get help and we garnish their wages until they repay, but this I believe would be a small minority.

There is a lot of concern about the current Obama administration’s appointment of a horde of czars. The term czar (or tsar) comes from old Russian and was a title for one who was an emperor with great power. It is important to note that these positions don’t actually have the word czar in their titles. President Obama has appointed people who are direct advisors to him and who have influence over large sections of the federal government. Some have put the count of Obama’s czar’s as much as 40, Glenn Beck puts his count at 32, but only 18 of those report directly to the President or the Vice President. Some call this a shadow government because these czars do not go through congressional approval like cabinet members do.

The truth is that the President can organize his executive branch pretty much however he likes. The president could disband the cabinet outright and it would be within his rights to do so. Other presidents including Bush and Regan appointed special advisors. In fact, so do many congressmen and women. Unfortunately, appointments made without review can result in embarrassment when a communist or shoplifter has been appointed. Is the solution to have every advisor marched before congress? That would further slow down a congressional body that rarely gets anything done to begin with.

What then does the Constitution actually require? It is the second paragraph of Article II Section 2 which has the answer:

“he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.”

The key phrase is “Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States.” Supreme Court precedent holds that an "officer" subject to these requirements is one who exercises "significant authority pursuant to the laws of the United States." If you think one of Obama’s czars fit this description and have not been before Congress, file a lawsuit and let the Supreme Court decide.

So what does this mean the czars can do? Well they can spend money granted to the Executive branch through the appropriations process of the Congress. They can analyze, advise, develop strategies and plans, and lecture. However, their signature on any order, decision or regulation establishing or altering America’s or Americans' legal obligations would be meaningless and unenforceable. Fear not the Obama Czar, but feel free to watch them closely to keep them in line. We should be watching all these Washington D.C. types and keep them working for us. No easy task.

The following is the speech given by President Obama this morning at the United Nations. It was well delivered and he looked and sounded presidential. The speech was full of the expected rhetorical flourishes which sound grand but mean little, and to some extent are required of speeches of this kind. Most of the speech is just that, fluff that sounds wonderful but will change nothing, unfortunately. I have the full text of the speech here for your review. I have taken the liberty of highlighting sections of the text in either RED or BLUE. Red text depicts parts I have problems with and blue denotes parts that I agree with and think actually mean something and have impact that he said them. After red sections, I will put some personal comments in GREEN brackets explaining why I take issue with the remarks.

PRESIDENT OBAMA:

Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, fellow delegates, ladies and gentleman: it is my honor to address you for the first time as the forty-fourth President of the United States. I come before you humbled by the responsibility that the American people have placed upon me; mindful of the enormous challenges of our moment in history; and determined to act boldly and collectively on behalf of justice and prosperity at home and abroad.

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The most popular politician these days is “The Straw Man.” Why does it seem like the political parties are “talking past each other” like “ships in the night?” It is because of the Straw Man. The straw man argument is a logical fallacy used in verbal or written exchanges. To use the straw man you simply take your opponents argument, change it slightly so it loses its credibility and then you attack it and knock it down, just like you could if you were attacking a real straw man. Unfortunately, politicians are using this tactic almost exclusively. Watch the presidential debates and most of what takes place will be the genocide of populations of straw men, women, and children. Modern media format doesn’t help at all. Television has been bred for the laziest of attention spans. With only 60 seconds at your disposal, it is easy to feel that your only option is to prop up a straw man and show your constituents that you can beat the hell out of him. Dealing with the real issue on its real merits will always take longer than 60 seconds, and we just don’t have that much time these days.

An example is this: ‘republicans keep talking of death panels, and it’s simply not true, it’s not in the bill, they are using politics of fear!’  Simple, 60 seconds or less.

The reality is that there are numerous commissions and panels of this type and that type that are talked about in the healthcare bill. It is unclear what, exactly, many of these commissions or panels will be doing, and what power they will have. Combine that with the history of what we have seen in other countries like England and Canada, which is, that due to budget shortages they have to ration care because they simply cannot afford to give everyone every procedure they need right away, nor can they pay the doctors to service them all. So a panel decides to ration a procedure; someone waiting for that procedure dies because they can’t wait six or twelve months. That’s just the way the system works. If you have limited supply and high demand, rationing is the only reality. The panel didn’t decide that a given patient should die, but they did decide that a procedure would be limited because they are responsible for keeping the program within budget limits. Governments can’t (shouldn’t) bankrupt their nation. Therefore, they have to limit spending which results in limiting procedures. Limiting availability of procedures means patients have to wait and waiting patients die. Call it what you want but it may actually be in the bill. Unfortunately, that takes longer than 60 seconds to explain to someone.

We see this all the time when two politicians get on television news programs. They spend their precious time in front of a national audience setting fires to the anthropomorphic anthropomorphic
adj : suggesting human characteristics for animals or inanimate things [syn: {anthropomorphous}, {humanlike}] bail of hay they keep erecting, instead of giving the American people the candor they hunger. 

What is Nation Building? I would define Nation Building as: establishing the foundational infrastructure, policies and laws, processes, organizations, and human resources that would allow a nation to exist and continue to function after the Nation Building efforts have concluded. When is Nation Building needed? I would answer that Nation Building is needed whenever there is an significantly large population that exists in a common geography which lacks a central government and there is significant general suffering of the people. Who can perform Nation Building? In today's world I would answer, no one.

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