Flash forward to the latest cacophony from “spoken word” Grammy winner President Obama and his Lefty Health Club Band’s radical “concept” album, A Health Dirge Night; examine a few select tracks; and, recognize the reprised promotional chicanery.

The album opens with the derivative 8-track era chestnut, With A Little Help from the Feds.  Here, President Obama’s Lefty Health Club Band warbles that a radical bill must pass – now! – because our broken health care system is in crisis.  Why?  Because they said so.  Yet, while concerned with rising costs, the vast majority of Americans believe our health care system is good or excellent, and they are satisfied with their current plans.  Why then did Obama’s band try to rush release a radical bill before the public could hear how it impacts their current health care plans?

Next, Being for the Benefit of Mr. Marx, features President Obama’s Lefty Hearts Club Band screeching that health care is a right.  Why?  Because they said so.  However, a cursory review of the U.S. Constitution finds no “right” to someone else’s hard-earned money and talents.  Because we are a compassionate country, America provides a social safety net to the less fortunate with the consent of the governed.  Thus, the government must not misuse this safety net to snare all Americans into the trap of socialized, government-run health care regardless of their situation and personal choice.

Seamlessly, the album segues into the “Great Society” homage, Lyndon in the Sky on Steroids, wherein President Obama’s Lefty Health Club Band bellow that only a government run health care schemes’ massive intrusion into the free-market can lower costs, increase quality and expand choices.  Why?  Because they said so.  (Stop laughing.  They’re serious.)  Nonetheless, much of the current crisis stems from government waste, fraud and abuse; and the costs of presently underfunded government health care programs are passed on to the bills of the privately insured.  Further, the outstanding liabilities of Medicare and Medicaid already stand in the trillions before Obama care’s nearly half a trillion dollar Medicare cut.  Does anyone in the sane center of American politics believe a third government-run health care program will fare better, let alone fix the other two programs?  No.  By focusing on “cost control” (i.e. rationing), the government will cut the supply of health care while inflating costs by pumping more public money into the system; thus, costs will increase, and quality and choices will decrease by government fiat and design.

Next up, Digging a Hole highlights President Obama’s Lefty Health Club Band crooning that only the radical intrusion of a government-run health care plan can fix our economy.  Why?  Because they said so.  This does not bear statistical scrutiny.  Over the years of rising health care costs, America’s economy has still grown.  Yes, everyone wants lower health care costs; however, this does not mean that absent government rationing of care the entire American economy will collapse.  In fact, we know government-run health care will add trillions in new spending to the federal deficit and debt; compel higher taxes on working families to “pay” for it; increase health care costs; reduce the quality of and choices within the health care system; and harm the American economy.

On the album’s closing medley, Good Moaning, Good Moaning/Getting Bitter/A Bray in the Strife, President Obama’s Lefty Health Club Band barks that all opposition to their radical health care bill is politically manufactured and motivated to preserve the status quo.  Why?  Because they said so.  Still, remembering that the Left ascribes its own sins to opponents, it is actually the White House and Congressional Democrats that support the status quo of big government – unless they deem making it even bigger and more intrusive as “hope” and “change.”  It is they who cut the deals with special interests to secure supportive media assaults for their radical health care scheme and, with the complicity of the Democratic National Committee, unleashed their own political astroturfers on elected officials and members of the public opposed to it.  Stunned by the spontaneous reaction of grassroots organizations that existed prior to this bill, the administration and its blank check Congress intensified their smear campaign against their opponents, perversely sinking to the gutter tactics of calling them “un-American” and accusing them of waving swastika covered flags. True, these grassroots opponents must more clearly, civilly and diversely make their voices heard; however, they are not the cause of disorder but a symptom.  The root of the moment’s madness is President Obama’s Lefty Health Club Band’s forcing their radical “concept” of health care reform on unwilling Americans.  Tone deaf to the times and public sentiment, the President is not above the fray.  He is directing it to foist a fossilized, 1970’s industrial-welfare state model governance on Americans’ health care, despite our globalized market place that empowers citizens and consumers.

Thus, unlike President Obama’s Lefty Health Club Band radical “concept” of health care reform, the issue is best addressed with prudent, targeted, multi-track reforms that use market forces to empower patients as consumers and increase the supply of health care to meet the rising demand and reduce costs.  Such initial, obvious measures include the reforming medical liability laws; expanding Health Savings Accounts; providing tax credits for purchasing private health insurance; allowing Association Health Plans; permitting health insurance purchases across state lines; encouraging individuals to insure against changes in health status; incentivizing preventative health care; applying information technology to enhance transparency and increase efficiencies.  All this can be achieved without trillions in new spending and taxes and government dictated, radical changes to Americans’ current health care plans.

For the less fortunate and most vulnerable amongst us, there must be an expansion of Federally Qualified Health Clinics, which will provide patients with preventive and routine treatment; end underserved people’s use of emergency rooms for primary health care treatments.  Doctors and other health care professionals can be incentivized to provide their services at these clinics for either immediate or future considerations; and a “Project Navigator” program attached to each FQHC can assist the underserved in accessing the health care system.  This approach is community based and will stand a greater chance of over time building true, community-based health care and empowering consumers, rather than continuing in perpetuity as dependents upon a government service.  Finally, people suffering from “orphan diseases” – rare afflictions requiring a lifetime of special care – should be compassionately assisted through our nation’s social safety net.

Of course, such ideas are muted beneath the present political circus’ din; however, one true note rings out:   on A Health Dirge Night, President Obama’s Lefty Hearts Club Band’s radical “concept” of health care reform “doesn’t go anywhere,” except down the tracks of higher costs, lower quality, fewer choices and lost jobs; its stale redistributionist tenets could fit on any nineteenth century socialist handbill; and, no matter how vehemently they says otherwise, it isn’t needed by and won’t work for Americans.

United States Representative Thaddeus G. McCotter (MI) is Chair of the Republican House Policy Committee and a Lester Bangs Wannabe

Her name was Neda. In Farsi, it means “the voice.” True to her name, she loved music; sought freedom; and she’s dead – shot down in the streets by the Iranian regime’s state sanctioned murderers. She must not have died in vain.

Today, Iranians and Americans face a generational chance for freedom – one that ensures a rogue regime’s implosion prevents a nuclear confrontation.

Regrettably, our president’s “post-American” foreign policy presumes talk can thaw the murderous mullahs’ hearts and attain a “grand bargain” for peace in our time; consequently, while Iranians demanded their freedom from a barbarous regime, the president vapidly opined: “It is up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran’s leaders will be… We respect Iranian sovereignty.”

Then, as the crisis escalated, the president optimistically noted:

“You’ve seen in Iran some initial reaction from the supreme leader that indicates he understands the Iranian people have deep concerns about the election… And my hope is – is that the Iranian people will make the right steps in order for them to be able to express their voices, to express their aspirations.”

Tragically, the supreme leader’s deep concern drove him to step on the throats of pro-democracy demonstrators, like Neda.

Next, on June 20th, the president stated, “The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.” It was painfully evident just how far behind them he stood: “The last thing that I want to do is to have the United States be a foil for those forces inside Iran who would love nothing better than to make this an argument about the United States.”

With these contradictory statements of support and appeasement, the president returned to square one: “The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.”

In truth, the Iranian people have already judged the regime and found it wonting. The supreme leader, his cleric cronies and their puppet government have never respected the dignity of the Iranian people or governed through consent. This is why the regime stole the election and shoots peaceful, pro-democracy demonstrators. Implying otherwise mocks the Iranians risking and losing their lives for liberty.

As for the claim that American “meddling” in support of the demonstrators plays into the mullahs’ hands, the Iranian regime will claim this regardless, for as our president noted, “That’s what they do.”

Yet, what matters is not what the regime says about America, but what the demonstrators think about America. Presently, brave Iranians watch as our president still holds an open hand to the regime that opened fire on them…that opened fire on Neda. This is the passive, disastrous policy of Jimmy Carter that led to the rise of this rogue regime; not the courageous policy of Ronald Reagan that led to the demise of an evil empire.

The surest, safest termination of Iran’s nuclear weapons program and support of terrorism is to hasten this fanatical tyranny’s collapse by supporting its people’s liberty. Taking its rightful place amongst the community of free nations, a democratic Iran will necessarily realize and reverse the insanity of this terrorist regime’s homicidal obsession with nuclear weapons. Thus, for their liberty and our security, the United States and the world must do everything in our power to further the Iranian demonstrators’ sacred claim to freedom. We know Neda did.

Further, in the grand strategy of our War for Freedom over terrorism, how we aid pro-democracy Iranians’ will remind the world who we are – we are Americans: the revolutionary children of freedom who have lived and died defending our liberty and extending it to the enslaved and oppressed. We will do no less today in support of our Iranian brothers and sisters.

Today, Neda’s voice calls to our consciences and warns that the fate of Iranians’ liberty is entwined with the fate of Americans’ security. We must not miss this generational chance for freedom – again one that ensures a rogue regime’s implosion prevents a nuclear confrontation; and that Neda and all liberty’s martyrs shall not have died in vain. As Americans, we must seize this moment and help Iranians seize their freedom.

That’s what we do.

###

Click here “Tehran Scream” video of Neda’s murder. Viewer discretion is advised.

As with the Age of Industrialization’s dawning, this Age of Globalization’s advent is a time of promise and peril, wherein many Americans’ cherished way of life is being “creatively destroyed” by a tsunami of merciless changes seemingly beyond control.  The very concept of a sovereign nation-state is besieged by the discordant forces of disorder – and without order, there is no justice or freedom for the people. 

In most American lifetimes, only societal tumult of the late Sixties and early Seventies is comparable, if not equivalent.  Then, it was the “Destructive Generation” (as David Horowitz has termed the Hippy-Boomers) who assailed our nation’s traditional cultural, political and economic institutions.  Out of this madness arose a hero to restore order, justice and liberty:  Detective Harry Callahan. 

Stripping away the character’s now clichéd Byronic veneer of an alienated anti-hero, Detective Callahan was at heart a harkening to the traditional Irish beat cop.  The beat was different, but the challenges – imposing order upon disorder – were not.  A deeply conservative figure for his times, it was no accident that Detective Callahan served as a law enforcement officer in San Francisco, the time period’s epitome of societal disorder and cultural disintegration.  Here, in the radical New Left’s psychedelic citadel, “Dirty Harry” Callahan made his stand for tradition and the imposition of order to secure justice and freedom for law-abiding citizens.  

Audiences still revere him for it. 

Forty years on, Dirty Harry Callahan is retired and San Francisco’s New Left hippies have “evolved” into “limousine liberal” Boomers.  But the forces of disorder have found a new home; and traditional Americans have found a new hero determined to preserve their cherished way of life amidst the chaos. 

Walt Kowalski lives in what America perceives to be its present epitome of disorder and decay, Detroit.  He harkens to the traditional Polish United Auto Worker member who helped make Detroit America’s engine of prosperity and “Arsenal of Democracy.”  Born at the tail end of the “Greatest Generation,” Mr. Kowalski served his nation in Korea, the “Forgotten War,” before becoming an auto worker.  He lived through the heyday of Detroit as a prosperous manufacturing community of two million.  He’s witnessed its decline into a shell city of 850,000 people sifting through the ruins of what the myopic cynically deem “post-industrial America.”  Mr. Kowalski’s Yuppie, suburbanite kids are trying to get him to abandon his hard-earned piece of the American dream and move into what he would call an “old folks home.”  Despite the deterioration of his neighborhood, which mirrors the larger city, he refuses.  Indeed, when a neighborhood youth tries to steal Kowalski’s prized Gran Torino, this cultural conservative rises to instill order upon disorder to secure justice and liberty within his community.  In the process, he also transcends his own ugly prejudices by realizing his neighbors are fellow human beings and allies in the struggle to defend their shared and cherished way of life. 

Of course, while his life is devoted to conserving the permanent things that provide meaning to his life – his honor, independence, home and the proud symbol of his life’s labors, his Gran Torino – Mr. Kowalski is far from a modern Republican.  He probably holds all politicians in contempt (another wise trait).  As a retired U.A.W. member, he would most likely vote for Democrats.  However, he is undoubtedly representative of the culturally conservative blue-collar workers who supported the last President who brought order out of chaos and constructive change out of decline – Ronald Reagan.  Thus, Mr. Kowalski personifies the voter driven away by ideological, Globalist Republicans. 

Ironically, Walt Kowalski’s fictional attempt to conserve his cherished way of life is being performed in what amounts to a very bad – but very real – off-off-Broadway quality production in Washington, D.C.  In this “drama in real life” the heart of American manufacturing – the domestic auto industry – is fighting for survival.  For the people of beleaguered, abused Detroit, this is their Walt Kowalski moment.  They are not fighting merely to preserve an industry or a regional economy.  In the face of the callous disregard for the human cost of “creative destruction” advocated by ideologically driven Republicans and radical environmentalists, Detroiters are fighting to conserve a cherished way of life from being swept away by the amoral flood-tide of Globalization.  

If Detroit goes down and America’s domestic manufacturing base is scrapped, the rest of the country may well simply shrug its shoulders at the inevitability of the loss in this Brave New World economy.  Like Walt Kowalski’s kids who would blithely stow their “old man” in a human warehouse, most American’s believe they are “post-Detroit.” 

They are wrong, because right now no one is post-disorder.  If the rest of the nation facilitates the decimation of Detroit through malign neglect, deeper social, economic and political chaos will accelerate and spread from the Motor City to the rest of America.  The “limo libs,” the globalist Gucci “conservatives,” and all arm chair ideologues will pale before the deluge and drown in their streams of intellectual adolescence.  All the while as the waters rise, an anxious citizenry will call out for intelligent, mature leaders – flesh and blood, heart and soul Gran Torino Conservatives – devoted to creatively achieving constructive change amidst Globalization’s chaos 

Until these Gran Torino conservatives arrive to restore order, justice and freedom to our American home, “Fasten your seat belts.  It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

United States Representative Thaddeus G. McCotter (MI-11) is the Chair of the Republican House Policy Committee

Dear Prudence, Won’t You Come Out to Play?

During the Beatles’ 1968 spiritual sojourn to India, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s more corporeal quest for “oneness” with his female acolytes quickly disillusioned John Lennon. As was his wont, Lennon tooled the clay-footed sage in the jaunty Sexy Sadie then sauntered about the ashram for other inspiration. Following his muse, he knocked on the hut of Mia Farrow’s shy sister, Prudence. Alas, the lass wouldn’t open up for him. Nevertheless, while this bird hadn’t flown her coop, she did move Lennon to pen:

Dear Prudence, won’t you come out to play?
Dear Prudence, meet the brand new day
The sun is up, the sky is blue
It’s beautiful and so are you
Dear Prudence, won’t you come out to play?

Today, at this crucible of American history, Congressional Republicans call upon Big Hollywood’s “C-List” of cloistered conservatives to come out to play.

It’s Beautiful and So Are You

True, the Congressional Republicans rapping at your doors aren’t standing in the clothes that we once wore: our majority was emaciated by electoral liposuction; our bold re-branding initiative put speed freaks to sleep; and our approval rating nose-dived faster than Bozo on a bender.

But some things haven’t changed. We still like long walks on the beach, faith, family, community and country; and we still dislike taxes, dieting and terrorists. Most importantly, we still share with you the bonds of camaraderie, universality, and creativity.

Look Around, Round, Round

Our camaraderie stems from our shared suffering as conservatives. Conservatism being the negation of ideology, our existence threatens the Left’s dogmatic ideologues, who revile, repress and retaliate against us: Congressional Republicans are targeted for political extinction; and Big Hollywood’s cloistered conservatives are targeted for professional ostracism.

Of course, there is an important distinction. Congressional Republicans voluntarily incurred Leftist attacks by entering politics. Republican oriented artists, however, have been involuntarily subjected to Big Hollywood’s new version of the old “blacklist’: the “C-List” of conservatives who are marked for censorship and career ruin for deviating from Left-wing orthodoxy. Nonetheless, though our specific struggles differ, we are equally embattled and immutably bonded, because we suffer for our love of America.

You Are Part of Everything

Mirroring Wordsworth’s description of poetic vision – “With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deeper power of joy, we see into the life of things” – we conservatives also accept human nature’s universality. We acknowledge each of us is frail, flawed, and blessed by God’s grace with dignity; we empathize with our fellow human beings’ existential challenges in the face of their imperfections; and we reject ideologues’ schemes to coerce humanity into an arbitrary, unobtainable image of perfection.

Let Me See You Smile Again

Finally, conservatives share a duty to channel empathy into creativity. For example, legislators must create just laws that reconcile the people’s need for order and freedom; and artists must create works that reveal the enduring human truths needed to preserve and renew the culture. Neither endeavor can succeed alone: an unjust country’s laws and culture impel death and decay; a just country’s laws and culture cherish life and truth.

Meet the Brand New Day

Bonded by camaraderie, universality, and creativity, Congressional Republicans and Big Hollywood’s cloistered conservatives must build a bridge across the counter-cultural divide of Big Washington and Big Hollywood.

This is no tranquil work. An enraged Left will intensify their attacks, and some conservatives could be hammered down the memory hole into political and professional oblivion before our bridge is finished.

Daunted, some conservatives may deem the chasm too wide and the risk too great. Yet, as has always been the case in freedom’s defense, others of us know courage has its cost, but silence has its price – Social censorship is a cultural sin; self-censorship is spiritual suicide.

These are the stakes and your choice. Will you defy Big Hollywood and break your silence to strike one true note in hope’s dissonant chorus? Will you unite with us to ensure America remains a community of destiny, inspired and guided by the virtuous genius of our free people and forever blessed by the unfathomable grace of God?

Will you come out to play?

United States Representative Thaddeus G. McCotter (MI-11) Chairs the Republican House Policy Committee