Flyover Country

Would you give up your home to live in public housing?

I’m assuming, of course, that you don’t now live in public housing.  If you do, let me turn the question around.  Would you prefer to stay in public housing or own your own home?

Myself, I’ve never lived in any sort of government provided housing.  At least I don’t think I have.  My family certainly was not wealthy when I was growing up.  I’m sure we would not have been considered middle class, but I’m digressing here and getting off the point..

I have been around public housing.  I worked at a landscaping company in Dallas, TX and some of the work we did was at public housing facilities.  Let me tell you, most of them were scary places.  My dad (who owned part of the company) still makes fun of my reaction to being at some of those places.

I’ve also known people who have lived in subsidized housing, that is government doesn’t provide everything but just makes up the difference between what the tenant can pay in rent and what the landlord wants (or actually what the government says the landlord deserves.)  I’ve also known property owners who provide such housing.  Some owners I’ve known LOVES to provide the subsidize housing because they don’t have to maintain their property at a very high level because where else are the tenants going to go?  Now, the ethics of that aside, that is part of the problem with abandoning a free market economy in any industry.  See, property owners who rent property to the general public must provide a certain quality of dwelling or those general public people won’t rent the property, or at least won’t rent the property for a decent amount of money.  By providing tenants and a guaranteed amount of rent, the owners have no incentive to keep their property properly maintained, and vice versa. the renters have less of an incentive to maintain the property.

So.. here’s some Flyover Country homework for you.  Drive by some public housing this week.  No matter where you live it is there.  If you don’t know where it is, call your local HUD office and ask them where to find it.  Drive by and take a hard look at it.  Find more than one if you can.

The next step in our homework is to contrast and compare your current housing arrangements with what you see.  (Again, think in reverse if you currently live in public housing.  Compare with your desired housing arrangements.)  What is the quality differences between the two?  What are the visual differences?  Which looks safer to you?  What is the neighborhood like?  What are the schools like?

Now, having looked at public housing in person, are you SURE you want public health care?

Let’s not let the best health care system in the world turn into the equivalent of public housing!

Has ABC now ditched all pretense of being unbiased?  If this doesn’t frighten every freedom loving American, nothing will:

From the Drudge Report:

ABC TURNS PROGRAMMING OVER TO OBAMA; NEWS TO BE ANCHORED FROM INSIDE WHITE HOUSE
Tue Jun 16 2009 08:45:10 ET

On the night of June 24, the media and government become one, when ABC turns its programming over to President Obama and White House officials to push government run health care — a move that has ignited an ethical firestorm!

Highlights on the agenda:

ABCNEWS anchor Charlie Gibson will deliver WORLD NEWS from the Blue Room of the White House.

The network plans a primetime special — ‘Prescription for America’ — originating from the East Room, exclude opposing voices on the debate.

The media has been biased for a long time, but if this is true as reported then the media has stepped over the line from bias to complete alliance with the left.  This is insane!  Every American should be outraged that our free press has so completely turned their collective backs on ethical journalism.

It took a catastrophy to nationalize the auto industry and the banks.  Next in line is national health care.  A crisis is needed to help push it along.

From the Syndey Morning Herald:

A member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has dismissed claims that more than 150 people have died from swine flu, saying it has officially recorded only seven deaths around the world.

Vivienne Allan, from WHO’s patient safety program, said the body had confirmed that worldwide there had been just seven deaths – all in Mexico – and 79 confirmed cases of the disease.

I don’t understand this at all, but maybe I’m missing something.  Would some either comment or email me and let me know what I’m not getting here?  According to the CDC, approximately 36,000 people in the US die from the flu every year in the US.  7 confirmed dead from this swine flu and the world is in a tizzy.  Until someone explains this to me in a way that even those of us in Fly Over Country can understand, I can only assume that there’s some other reason the media is reporting this so heavily; such as the desire for nationalize health care.

Anyone want to clue me in?

Admin note:  Please accept my sincere apologies for the tone of this post.  My beloved Colts just lost a heartbreaker in the playoffs.

Socialism is running rampant in the land of the free and the home of the brave.  I want to say I never thought I’d see the day when Americans were so ready to give up their freedoms for a piece of the government pie, but that wouldn’t be entirely true.  I’ve always had this fear in the back of my mind that at some point more and more people would start buying into the nonsense that government stuff is free stuff.  As one of my favorite history teachers said over and over again, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”  Someone, somewhere has to pay and the more “free” stuff, the less there are people who are able to pay.

This bailout stuff is insane.  A $700 billion.. wait, let me write that out a different way to make it stand out a little better,  a $700,000,000,000 dollar bailout and now some are asking for $1 trillion.. oops..  $1,000,000,000,000 more.  This is NOT the government’s job to bailout failing companies!  I’ve said it in a previous post and I’ll say it again:  If we don’t have the freedom to fail, we don’t have the freedom to succeed.  Look at it this way:  We are taking $700,000,000,000 (and possibly MUCH more!) away from profitable companies and at least moderately successful individuals and giving it to those who are not profitable for one reason or another.  Talk about a lose-lose situation.  It doesn’t make any sense.

Add to that the liberal policies that are probably at some point at least going to be attempted during the next two, possibly four or even six or eight, years.  (I say two because hopefully the American people will wise up and elect a conservative congress in two years.)  The one that scares me the most is national healthcare.  Look around you and see the things that government provides to the people.  Look at public housing.  How would you like the government to take your house and force you to live there?  Look at the freakin’ DMV for crying out loud.  How would you like the government to run your local grocery store like they run the DMV?  Look at the difference between public schools and private schools in most areas of the country.  Attrocious.

Now compare all of that to healthcare.  We have the best healthcare system in the world.  The reasons why are obvious.  We have the best doctors because doctors from around the world come here to practice.  Why do they do that?  Because they can make a killing here.  Doctors are paid a TON of money in the United States.  My father just had a liver and kidney transplant a couple of years ago and I spent quite a bit of time at the hospital with him.  He had a multitude of doctors who cared for every aspect of his care.  At least 50% of them I couldn’t understand a word they said because they had such thick accents.  But you know what?  Each one was wonderful.  GREAT doctors all around no matter where they were from or how well they spoke English.  Why do you think they come here to practice medicine?  They get paid MUCH better than they would anywhere else they practiced in the world.  And since my dad is still alive today because of them, THANK GOD THEY DO!!

Here’s the thing, if we had nationalized healthcare and the doctors were paid similar to how our government run schools pay their teachers, not many people would want to be a doctor in the good ole’ USA, Americans or otherwise.  This scares the crap out of me.  Imagine going to your local emergency room and being treated how you are treated when you go to put tags on your car.  Listen, I used to work at the local equivalent to a DMV so I know how it works.  Half the people there liked their job and enjoyed helping people and the customers would pray they’d get one of those people and not the others that seemed to take joy in making it difficult.  Those employees would look hard to try to find some reason why the car dealership didn’t fill out a form correctly or why your license can’t be renewed.  So in your emergency room visit, you get one of those government who-gives-a-crap workers and you are left in the waiting room bleeding while they figure out if you have the right documents to get care or not because you aren’t a serious enough case to be seen within the next decade.

This scares me enough to give me a heart attack, but I guess if I’m going to have one I better have it now while I can still get good care..