This plaque commemorates our nation’s 44th president, Barack Obama, whose haughtiness, deceitfulness, naïveté, and Marxist inclinations so scared the bejesus out of sane, rational Americans that it led legions of them to become involved in current events and the affairs of government.

Every big idea that works is marked by simplicity, by clarity. You can understand it when you hear it, and you can explain it to people. Social Security: Retired workers receive a public pension to help them through old age. Medicare: People over 65 can receive taxpayer-funded health care. Welfare: If you have no money and cannot support yourself, we will help as you get back on your feet.
These things are clear. I understand them. You understand them.

• The Constitution was never amended to support entitlement concepts at the Federal level.
• The demographics don't supply the necessary population to feed the beast.
• The moral hazard of that much cash before Congresses composed of that little integrity was too much.

Republicans will also have to put forth a comprehensive reform agenda.

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.How many times do we need to tell the policy wonks that, in opposition, conservatives ought not be too specific in offering alternatives to the policies of Obama, Pelosi, Reid et al.? Given the current powerlessness of the GOP, it is their duty as the opposition to remind Americans daily that the Democrats are leading the country straight to hell.

Republicans need not, and arguably should not, offer their own roadmap to heaven, which can then be picked apart at leisure by the Democrats' own policy wonks. In opposition, the GOP should instead concentrate on fomenting resistance to the incumbent party's agenda, campaigning on a pledge to reverse course, and be content that the policy specifics of that promised reversal will be hashed out after the Democrats are dismounted.

The Gerson/Wehner call for a "comprehensive reform agenda" is patent nonsense, the exact opposite of sound opposition strategy, a make-work project for underemployed former Bushlings.

Spot-on.

First of all, we should never pretend to be, or seek to be, Santa Claus.  The conservative philosophy is antithetical to immanentizing the eschaton.  That is why, when applied, it works: true conservatives understand that man and his world can never achieve perfection.

Secondly, Stacy is correct that any policy specifics we offer will be picked apart by the Left.  Not only that, they will be distorted and lied about.  The Left will do whatever it takes to win—they always have because they are relativists and, more importantly, because the believe so strongly that they have THE ANSWER to all of man's problems.  Morally we conservatives are prevented from lowering ourselves to their level and battling against them in the gutter.  Therefore, we cannot afford to give them the rope by which they will pull us down with their slimy hands.

Finally, offering to simply turn back the tide of Progressivism that has been engulfing our shores for a century and eroding our foundations is enough of a platform.  We have a real opportunity here to begin to reverse one hundred years of Leftist thinking.  A great many of the peoples of the United States have finally awoken to the dangers some of us have been warning about for decades.  This is our last chance.  If we fail, Caesarism will follow in the wake of our defeat.  And then Gerson and Frum and Parker, et. al. will be our Brutus and Cassius—and look how well that worked [too foolish, too late].

What would it mean to “win” the healthcare fight?

For some, the answer is obvious: beat back the president’s proposals, defeat the House bill, stand back and wait for 1994 to repeat itself.

Word. If only he’d stopped there.

The problem is that if we do that… we’ll still have the present healthcare system. Meaning that we’ll have (1) flat-lining wages, (2) exploding Medicaid and Medicare costs and thus immense pressure for future tax increases,(3) small businesses and self-employed individuals priced out of the insurance market, and (4) a lot of uninsured or underinsured people imposing costs on hospitals and local governments.

What the hell does the health care fight have to do with “flat-lining wages,” except in the sense that the higher taxes needed for President Obama’s “reform” will have an intense dampening effect on the economy, thus “flat-lining wages?”

Why is the “immense pressure for future tax increases” caused by “exploding Medicaid and Medicare costs” worse than the immense pressure for near-futuretax increases that Obamacare will require?

We’ll have entrenched and perpetuated some of the most irrational features of a hugely costly and under-performing system, at the expense of entrepreneurs and risk-takers, exactly the people the Republican party exists to champion.

They’re not already “entrenched?” Not already “perpetuated?” Expandingentitlements – even though we can’t pay for the ones we already provide – is going to un-entrench, and de-perpetuate them?

Is Frum taking too many prescription drugs? Or am I?

Te Salute, Trogfather.

On a related matter, Steve Burri has a very interesting idea, over at Grandpa John's, about what nickname we should give the House health care reform bill [tip of the fedora to Paco]:

Since [H.R. 3200] is sponsored by Dingell and its greatest backer is President Obama, I will strive for clarity when speaking of it. From now on this legislation will be referred to as 'The Dingell-Barry Bill.' This should help avoid any confusion as to the subject under discussion.

Makes perfect sense.

I just don't get the detachment from the real world here.  We're not talking trivia here.  We're talking about what kind of country we're going to be from here on out.  That's something worth getting whipped up about.  If we're not whipped up, we lose.  If we are whipped up and the Democrats try to use that fact as an excuse to ram this through, then they were going to ram it through anyway.

We are a heavy underdog.  To prevail, the needle we have to thread is to convince enough Dems and RINOs that there will be electoral hell to pay if this monstrosity is enacted.  That requires an authentic demonstration of fervor.  It's unfortunate that some people will go overboard — as happens in any human endeavor — but that's no reason to treat this as if it were an academic exercise.  If that's the approach, the game — like the country as we know it — is lost.

One gets the feeling that our quieter brothers and sisters do not understand what is at stake.  And they seem to have forgotten the early history of this country.  There is such a thing as being too conservative as when someone does nothing as a knife is about to be plunged in his back.

Please take the time to click here and read his full posting.

I never read the proclamations of generals before battle, the speeches of führers and prime ministers, the solidarity songs of public schools and left-wing political parties, national anthems, Temperance tracts, papal encyclicals and sermons against gambling and contraception, without seeming to hear in the background a chorus of raspberries from all the millions of common men to whom these high sentiments make no appeal.

            — George Orwell, “The Art of Donald McGill”

I certainly hope so, anyway.

[* Let’s be thankful, at least, that attempts to tag it as “Gatesgate” seem to have failed.]

Mr. D. is the one and only CrankyCon [said with much affection by me].

Please do take the time to click here and read the full Diary entry.

While you wait for each monthly diary posting, you can have the privilege of enjoying his weekly Radio Derb broadcasts by clicking here.