Giving Liberals the Rope

I've been laying low and watching the disaster known as Obamacare crash and burn and taking great delight in watching the liberal/commie democrats run around in circles trying to keep the sky from falling.

Good times.

Some are even predicting the demise of liberal/progressivism as a result of this foolish attempt to socialize medicine.
I don't know if I'd go that far seeing as how I've been alive long enough to watch the closet communists reinvent themselves under other names over the decades.
Back in the 70's they proudly proclaimed themselves as liberals when Jimmy Carter was elected to his first and only term and then bungled the job so badly that liberalists/socialists slunk back to lick their wounds and reinvent themselves as "progressives" altering their message enough to get serial adulterer and his harridan wife elected to the White House. Where Billy boy pretty much rode the free market policies of Ronald Reagan while converting the oval office into a rendezvous boudoir for pleasure.

After demonizing GWB for 8 years they managed to put a true socialist in office by conspiring with the liberal/commie media to thwart any vetting of their chosen golden boy along with a majority in the house and senate so they could, with little opposition, force their vision of "hope and change" on the American people.
The biggest mistake we made was allowing them enough rope to hang themselves because in the process we let them damage the country.
The private health insurance industry is seriously damaged and the idea that Obama's fix can turn it around on a dime is a pipe dream. Even if they are willing to reinstate cancelled policies the premiums will never be the same.
Although I think it's pretty common knowledge that Obamacare was never about health care but about redistributing wealth.
There is no doubt that health care laws need to be reformed but there are better free market ideas out there that were never tried, the only option that was ever given was this monstrosity we are all going to be saddled with.
Unless we can get enough votes to repeal and then replace it with something that doesn't destroy the system that most people were happy with.

We've given the liberal/progressives enough rope to hang themselves with and even though they'll never give up trying to impose their idea of "social justice" on this country, hopefully there is enough evidence that their collective ideas don't work and the conversation can now move on how to effectively get health care to the masses in a reasonable and affordable manner.
 

Freedom of the Road

When I was really young there was a quaint little ritual we would all do on a Sunday afternoon (before and after football season).
All of us kids would crowd into the car and the whole family would take a Sunday drive.
Sometimes we would picnic, sometimes not, sometimes we would go somewhere specific and sometimes my Dad would just go in a direction just to see what was there.

The point is that we had the freedom to get in the car and go wherever we wished.

How times have changed.
Average cost of car ownership now $8946 per year

And you thought it was expensive to just buy a car these days.
The average cost to operate a vehicle in the United States is now $8,946 annually, according to the 2012 edition of AAA’s Your Driving Costs study.
That’s an increase of 1.9 percent over 2011 and encompasses the full cost of ownership, including fuel, maintenance and tire wear among other factors.
And it could already be a lot more than that.
Increases were seen almost across the board with fuel prices experiencing the biggest single jump at 14.8 percent. But that figure was calculated using a fourth quarter 2011 average price of 3.36 cents per gallon, which has risen dramatically this year.
Fuel was followed by tire costs, which rose 4.9 percent, and insurance, up 3.4 percent year over year.
The only bright spot for car owners was a decrease in the rate of depreciation of their vehicles by 4.9 percent due mainly to low auto sales over the past few years, a trend that is already reversing.
Overall, a typical driver can expect to spend 59.6 cents per mile this year. That compares to just 9 cents per mile when the study was first conducted in 1950, when the average price of a new car was about $1,500.

Freedom is relative, it's not just about constitutional freedoms it's also about the right to go where you want when you want, oh yeah of course if you can afford the high cost of car ownership, maintenance and gasoline then you're still free to do so.
But there used to be a time when you didn't have to have a trust fund to enjoy the open road.
The more government has interfered in the free market the more expensive it's become to have the simple freedom that was enjoyed once by the middle class.

To be able to take a sunday drive.