TheMiddleofSomewhere A grab bag of interests

This is a replay of an earlier post. Still relevant…

U. S. Constitution – Article II, Section 3.

A lot of Democrats like to call themselves Progressives. As in any such group, significant differences exist between individual members. Yet, as in any group, members share certain commonalities. Otherwise no “group.” So, at the risk of over generalizing, I offer these observations.

The label Progressive suggests that there is some destination toward which our nation is aimed and Progressives not only know what the destination is but are dedicated to the task of moving us toward that destination. The problem is that countries go on and on endlessly influenced by unforeseeable circumstances. President Obama’s policies, for example, while aimed at predetermined domestic political goals, are constantly beset by unwelcome and unforeseen foreign affairs challenges. These are obviously annoying to him and sometimes go unattended.

While “Progressives” claim prescience (their chosen name tells us so) the rest of us, apparently, are benighted. We muddle along pursuing our individual goals unaware of the destiny toward which our country must “inevitably” be moved. This limitation is thought to be true of educated and informed Non-Progressives, not to mention the numerous “uninformed voters” that we see in man-on-the-street TV interviews.

Regardless of the advanced educations of numerous Non-Progressives, they are generally portrayed as lightweights who don’t possess the wisdom to see the way forward that “Progressives” see. In fact, Non-Progressives have the audacity to resist and to fight against the enlightened programs put forth by “Progressive” leaders. But that, we are to believe, is only because of their ignorance of what is truly in their own best interests. This resistance, of course, must be overcome because it impedes national progress. To many “Progressives” the end justifies the means. That makes it ok, in fact laudable, to lie and mislead to achieve “progress.” (Saul Alinsky must be proud.)

When resistance is strong and a means can be found to force “progress” on the ignorant masses, it is used. President Obama’s idiosyncratic use of Executive Orders to foster major governmental changes are examples. Generally, central government control by “Progressives” is seen as a good thing by them because it allows the smart people of the world to determine what is best for the not so bright citizenry and put it into effect. Unfortunately, because it gets messy and slows things down (Obama won’t wait for Congress), such resistance must often be overcome by force. Little is achieved by “Progressives” that does not involve force, fraud, or bribery. Consider, for example the manner in which the so-called “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” was shoved down the nation’s throat. “Progressives” now direct the bulk of Federal Government agencies: the Bureau of Land Management, EPA, Health and Human Services to name just three in which similar high handed methods are evident. For that reason, and for the sake of accuracy, the so-called progressives of the world deserve to be called “Coercives,” a name that should be used wherever it fits.

When I saw Nancy Pelosi caught looking foolish on Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show,” I thought she would have done well to read this blog entry that I posted a while back. I decided to bring it back for a timely encore.

It appears to me that the President’s penchant for secrecy has come around to bite him. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was sold, much like the President himself, as a “pig in a poke.” Virtually no one read it before it was “passed.” It was thousands of pages long and legislators were told they had to “pass it to find out what was in it.” Obviously whatever was in it had to be kept secret. So what to do when it came time to set up the computer programs to enable the new law to work? If they hired one outstanding firm to assign their best programmers to the task, it was almost certain that the programmers would have to know what was in it. After all, how could they write code without knowing what the code was supposed to accomplish?

The way to keep it secret was, first of all, to use only people who could be trusted. The programming job had to be done by people who wouldn’t spill the beans. Spilling the beans prematurely could engender more resistance to the law than was good for the President’s objectives. But even that wasn’t fool proof. Washington, D.C. was prone to information leaks. To make such leaks less likely, the best plan was a.) to give the job to a Canadian company, after all, they already had a nationalized healthcare system, and b.) to divide the programming into separate smaller segments. That way the program could be written but be so fragmented that no one would have the overall picture. The right hand wouldn’t know what the left hand was doing. It could all be put together later.

One method programmers use when they don’t know specifically what goes into a certain position in a program is to enter “placeholder” language. When that is all “put together” without being edited by someone who understands the demands of the whole law, you get what we’ve got. But it all had to be kept secret. You know, like Obama’s college records, who it was who decided to say that the Benghazi killings happened because of a video, who gave the orders for the IRS to target conservative groups, and on and on.

The problems with the sign-up page are just the beginning. Who has any confidence that other aspects of the program are set to run any more smoothly? Millions of people have been told their health insurance doesn’t qualify under the new law. So much for “you can keep your plan.”