Category Archives: Conservatism

The Inevitability And Irreversibility Of Government-Sponsored Health Care

Christianity, Conservatism, Healthcare, Morality, Political Economy, Socialism, The State, Welfare

Unz Review columnist Dr. Boyd D. Cathey muses about another government power-grab called Trump Care. Naturally, he hopes it’ll be slightly better than the one to precede it. Dr. Cathey hearkens back to a different, inegalitarian time when the principle of noblesse oblige drove the faithful and the wealthy to take care of the needy. With the triumph of 19th century liberalism and the fanaticism of progress, the quest to level society saw the Church robbed of its lands and traditional role. Conditions soon arose that predisposed the downtrodden to Socialism, Communism and the modern welfare state.

Long, sad story; the end of history, but in a bad way.

Dr. Boyd D. Cathey:

“A large portion of ‘news talk’ yesterday and this morning has been about the repeal of Obamacare and its replacement by a Republican-sponsored medical program. The one thing that is crystal clear is this: whenever a new entitlement is enacted by Congress, whatever it may be, it is almost impossible to completely undo or repeal it.”

“If we consider, beginning at least a century and a half ago, the history of legislative initiatives—and not just in what is called euphemistically ‘welfare,’ but also in such areas as ‘voting rights’ and, generally, ‘civil rights’—passage of legislation, even if stoutly opposed and unpopular at the beginning, usually stands. I can think of only one major piece of social or political legislation, actually an amendment to the Constitution—the 18th Amendment, or “Prohibition Amendment”—that was ever repealed.”

“So, it should not surprise us that the Republican majority, especially in the Senate, will probably end up tinkering with rather than completely undoing the massive power grab by the Federal government known as Obamacare. Even in the House of Representatives many ‘moderate’ and establishment GOP solons fear an active backlash from frenzied Leftist demonstrators and, even more, negative characterizations and attacks by the Mainstream Media [MSM].”

“We shall be fortunate, in these circumstances, to get a modified bill out of the House, and who knows what the pusillanimous scaredy-cats in the Senate will do.”

“Right now, to listen to various pundits, it is the pre-existing conditions question that appears to be the sticking point. That is a central feature of Obamacare: that those already sick and already with an illness would be covered by healthy participants. But then, as anyone can see, this is not insurance we are talking about, but, rather, just another form of taxing the healthy to pay for the sick.

“The present Republican plan appears to separate those two groups of people, sets up a separate special fund for the pre-existing ill, with the hope that then the healthy folks remaining in the program can get much cheaper rates. State waiver permission would be given for those states that wish to operate the program differently.”

“It remains to be seen whether this approach will get through the layers of lobbyists influencing Congress and the abject fear that too many Republicans have of the MSM.” …

“… In any case, government-sponsored health care in one form or another is probably here to stay. And therein lies a long history of modern society that affects us all every day. …”

“IN CENTURIES PAST, it was institutions like the Church or local familial communities (especially here in the US) who were responsible for caring for the sick. My friend, the late Spanish scholar Rafael Gambra once prepared an extensive study of the Spanish Pyrenees commune of Roncal. For nearly 1000 years Roncal was almost a self-contained and self-governing entity, owing allegiance to the Kings of Navarra, but administering most of its local services by itself. The Church possessed about a third of the land, the municipality owned about one-third, and the rest was in private hands. Those families without a freehold had the right to graze their stock on both Church and municipal land. The Church, as part of its mission, maintained a kind of primitive medical facility, with both religious sisters and doctors who looked after the inhabitants. Payment was most often in goods, and, for the poor, the Church did not charge. That system was destroyed by the triumph of 19th century liberalism (in 1839) that expropriated all Church lands and municipal lands, then selling them to Madrileno capitalists. The result was that thousands of the poor, who had once had a stake in places like Roncal, were displaced and forced to migrate to industrial cities like Barcelona, where they found harsh impersonal jobs in factories at dirt level wages. And from that condition arose the eventual appeals of Socialism and Communism—and the modern welfare state–to the downtrodden.”

ObamaCare Lite:

UPDATED (5/17): Witless And Wall-less In America. Lots of Wars On The Go, Though

Ann Coulter, Celebrity, Conservatism, Donald Trump, IMMIGRATION, Media, Neoconservatism, Pop-Culture, Private Property, War

UPDATED (5/17):


Stephen Colbert: Witless.

Another banal brain. So boring:

The Wall?

Those grants of government privilege, continued.

Nothing changes. Fox News never keeps them honest.

Borders abroad: We’ll pay to protect those.

MAGA? No. This doesn’t even making Afghanistan Great Again.

Fighting wars of choice is the neocon way.

Linguistic evolution needed.  Tribal leaders say they don’t have word for Wall in their languages. Then time to invent one. Languages evolve.

Is an epic betrayal in the offing?

Ann Coulter is mad as hell this week and was mad as hell last week. As she should be.

UPDATED (5/11): We’re ‘Incredibly Blessed’ To Have Barbie In The White House

Celebrity, Conservatism, Donald Trump, Ethics, Family, Feminism, Gender

If Ivanka Trump’s signature superlatives—“incredible, “amazing,” “tremendous”—don’t get on your nerves; if the insipid emptiness of her words, the stuff of “a contestant in a beauty pageant,” don’t creep you out—then, at the very least, WHAT White House barbie says should disturb.

Remember, “What Ivanka wants, Ivanka gets.” And Ivanka seems to want to be loved by the Davos crowd.

Someone continues to inflate this silly woman’s worth. President by proxy Ivanka Trump on possibly bringing in those Syrians; laying down her global vision for a Syria refugee policy:

“I think there is a global humanitarian crisis that’s happening, and we have to come together, and we have to solve it,” she said to NBC reporter Hallie Jackson.
“Does that include opening the border to Syrian refugees in the U.S.?” inquired Jackson.
“That has to be part of the discussion, but that’s not going to be enough in and of itself,” came the reply.
“I’m incredibly hopeful that legislation is put together,” Ivanka continued.

UPDATED (5/11): Sidelined.

Conservatives Who Supported Trump Being Systematically Excluded From Trump Administration. Which is why, face it, Trump is stumbling.

Paul Gottfried Ponders Richard Spencer’s Strategy (& My Paleolibertarian Take)

Conservatism, Critique, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Logic, Multiculturalism, Old Right, Paleolibertarianism

Well, at least some in the Moron Media have corrected course and are calling Richard Spencer a “white nationalist,” instead of a white supremacist.

Watching Richard’s performance at Auburn University, renowned scholar of the Right Dr. Paul E. Gottfried shared these impressions:

When I criticize him, I am not making moral judgments, except when I note his futile attempt to keep up with leftist Millennials by siding with gay rights and abortion. What I object to in Richard is his, well, strategic stupidity, not the fact that he has committed the “sin” of being a white nationalist. Since “educated” whites are taught to hate their own race, I can’t see how one can appeal to Millennials and leftist college students by calling for white nationalism. Nor does one win their sympathy by mimicking their positions on feminism and homosexuality while trying to convert them to a racialist ideology. What seems to me the only chance left to the Right to be effective is by mobilizing the “Deplorables” and then turning them against the social-cultural Left. I was delighted to see how the pro-Trump people took it to the Antifascists at Berkeley. And I knew these counter-demonstrators were on the side of the angels when David French at National Review began to rail against them.

My impressions? The young, white men in the audience seemed receptive, even enthusiastic, although Richard may be talking above their heads. What Richard was saying conjured an interview I gave, “Self-Segregation Trumps Imposed Multiculturalism.” My views are decidedly LIBERTARIAN, a slant Richard Spencer rejects:

Multiculturalism as practiced in the West amounts to top-down, centrally enforced and managed integration. Show me a historical precedent where forced integration has worked. As it works across the Anglo-American and European spheres, one group (the founding, historical majority) is forced by self-anointed and elected elites—no contradiction there—on pain of public and professional ostracism, to submerge its history, heroes, customs, culture, language, and pander to militant minorities, who’ve been acculturated by the same elites in identity-politics warfare. As a libertarian, I believe that the right to include or exclude; associate with or dissociate from, is inherent in the right of private property. Private property is a civilizing institution. How better to keep the peace than to respect the right of free private-property owners to keep their distance (or not)—to hire, fire, and, generally, associate at will? This foundation of civil society is being dismantled for the sake of militant multiculturalism and policed pluralism.
An interesting new book, reviewed by one Barnaby Rogerson, makes the point that the Levant of the 18th century was peaceful and prosperous (and surprisingly libertine), because it was made up of “a grid of self-governing communities.” Integration between disparate communities was not enforced. And surprise, surprise: communities freely chose to live in complete segregation. This freedom fostered “remarkable tolerance” among diverse communities across the cities of the Levant of that time. “Deals before Ideals, City before State, Trade before Politics,” as the reviewer puts it. This freedom of association was the source of strength. These autonomous ethnic communities were free of the top-down, punitive, forced integration that has become the hallmark of the 19th-century nation-state that usurped their authority.

See: “Self-Segregation Trumps Imposed Multiculturalism.”