"Selling Drives Everything" - Palin Facebook-Success And Obamacare-Sorriness

There are only a few writers today that I wait impatiently to read. That's probably because I see very few pieces written that once begun actually deserve to be read all the way to the end. But every week, I go out of my way to read Peggy Noonan and Charles Krauthammer. I am now adding Dr. Zero to the list.

To say that both Peggy Noonan and Charles Krauthammer have little regard for Sarah Palen is a gross understatement. I have so much respect for each writer's individual perspective and pretty much agree with all their viewpoints, but for the life of me I cannot understand why the mere thought of Sarah Palin expressing her opinions forces them to pull on the asshat. I read Charles Krauthammer's Let's Be Honest About Death Counseling, and noticed the following slight toward Sarah Palin:

We might start by asking Sarah Palin to leave the room. I've got nothing against her. She's a remarkable political talent. But there are no "death panels" in the Democratic health care bills, and to say that there are is to debase the debate.

Now, I keep a steno pad by my keyboard and jotted down a note to go back to this at some date. But lo and behold, Dr. Zero has beat me to the ultimate takedown with Why Sarah Palin Should Not Leave The Room. Follow the link and read the whole thing. Special note to the following quote:

Those Facebook pages she’s tossing around like ninja throwing stars are eloquent proof that no one has the right to pat Sarah Palin on the head and send her out of the room, while the grown-ups settle down to serious talk. She isn’t just writing snarky rants. She’s providing both devastatingly effective criticism, and substantial policy alternatives. It’s fairly obvious the White House paid a great deal of attention to her infamous “death panel” column. I haven’t seen that many people turned into nervous wrecks by Facebook since the last time the “Mafia Wars” servers went down.

The highlight is mine but the metaphor presented shows the power of a well-phrased metaphor. "Death Panel" could have been referred to as a "Dying Panel," "End of Life Panel," or any other colorful term, but it succinctly labels the inescapable fact that the government is further involved in a way that we have never seen. It is hard to believe that abortion or end-of-life decisions will be a matter of choice and not be a recommendation that will further work toward favoring the collective. A collective, I may add, that will be stressed for funds.

Also note the following from Dr. Zero's article:

When was the last time you heard a leftist intellectual belittle a popular liberal politician, the way Charles Krauthammer treated Sarah Palin?

The answer is never. They know that to discredit the messenger is to discredit the message.

As you may know, I come from the perspective of residential construction and spent many early morning hours in a construction trailer. I eventually was promoted and moved out of the trailer, but only after learning that "Sales Drives Everything." I may have been one heck of a builder, but until I made the extra effort to tailor my actions to selling, I would have never got beyond the trailer. Selling and marketing is the difference between products that are seen or unseen.

To have truth and facts on you side is good but we saw from the last presidential election that having substance was not enough. To succinctly communicate in the language of the great unwashed should only be encouraged as we accumulate more under our philosophical tent.

Health Care Reform

Got some of my joking out of the way with the last post, but I have to wonder if we are going to see any kind of real reform. Real logical reform. You know. The kind that will improve illogical elements of something that is not really broken.

Here are some of my thoughts:

• Why are health costs so high? Everything involved should be looked at. It's obvious that certain Democrat 'sacred cows' (i.e. trial lawyers) are excluded from the discussion. (Akin to homeland security ignoring the borders).
• Why do we not discuss the business costs of health care? Just the costs related to setting up and operating a practice can be astronomical. Can we expect that these costs are not passed on to the consumer?
• How much does fraud and frivolous litigation contribute to the rising cost?
• Can the great unwashed expect that this coverage will extend to all citizens. Will politicians and our betters exclude themselves from participation?
• What about competition? And does the reliance on insurance company control limit competition? How many of you go to a certain doctor only because he or she is approved on your plan?
• Can I make a side deal to a pharmaceutical company? Or hospital or clinic system?
• What ever happened to catastrophic health (hospitalization) insurance? Is plain old catastrophic health insurance even available? You know, a lot of us are old enough to remember when hospitalization insurance was all that you carried. If you think about it, the threat of something catastrophic or major that requires a hospital stay is really the only thing that should cause worry. If I was younger, I also would worry about the cost of childbirth. But other than that, I can take care of myself and at the present time, I am.
• Can and should Physicians Assistants and Nurse Practitioners become the backbone of our health care system. My last check-ups involved ninety per-cent of the time spent with a Nurse Practitioner drawing blood. Seems like this would work well for rural counties and urban neighborhoods.
• What about Medicare? A lot of people have paid into these systems for a good portion of their working lives and this becomes something akin to a social contract between citizen and government. This is why we want to think any thoughts of socialized medicine through so that the next generation that spends into a program for thirty or so years won't be so ready for insurrection when the system is scrapped for being unsustainable. I could write more about this but I'll just state that with 401K's going to hell, housing prices falling and unusually high-unemployment for people with degrees, many of the things that people believed in are gone.
• I can't tell you exactly when, but dying is going to be in my future. I don't know about you, but all I want is a little dignity at the end. I don't want my family to watch me suffer and I really don't want to have anything extraordinary done if the end is near. I do, however, want to be the person who still makes that decision if I still have my wits about me or I want it to be the decision of the person that I designate if I am permanently addled.

Folks, I just want to hear what I have not heard so far. Now, I don't know all the answers (this is not my field), but my trust of my government (this is not their field) is at an all-time low. And what I am hearing at the moment is not alleviating my lack of trust.

Sunday Rule 5 - Health Care Reform

What we want:

What we expect:

What a Difference Three Days Make

Here I go, deadbeating on posting for three days, and the world changes in unexpected ways.

Read Peggy Noonan's Commentary: Common Sense May Sink ObamaCare.

The common wisdom the past week has been that whatever challenges health care faces, the president will at least get something because he has a Democratic House and Senate and they’re not going to let their guy die. He’ll get this or that, maybe not a new nationalized system but some things, and he’ll be able to declare some degree of victory.
And this makes sense. But after the news conference, I found myself wondering if he’d get anything.

And this from Byron York: Obamacare Haunted By Big Promises of Stimulus.

"People are less trusting now."

That diminished trust can be traced directly to the stimulus. When Obama and his Democratic allies pushed it through Congress, they spoke constantly of "crisis" and warned of "catastrophe" if their bill was not passed. So the public, ready to give the new president a chance, supported him, even though the stimulus spent billions on the pet projects of Democratic lawmakers.

Again, I think that the failure to recognize the severity of the economic downturn is having an effect that our betters are just not picking up.

Update from Instapundit: A “TERRIBLE TIME” to raise the minimum wage.

What can I say? Not a clue as to how real growth is created.