Polemics

Should young people vote for Barack Obama and Obamacare?

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The real inequality: young America and old America
The real inequality: young America and old America

From Donald Sensing at Sense of Events blog.

Excerpt:

Shikha Dalmia, responds to Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick, who was so, “Shell shocked by the shellacking that the Solicitor General Donald Verrilli received at the hearing Tuesday, [that] she went into a deep sulk and threw the intellectual equivalent of a hissy fit.” Shikha observes:

In our current health care system, a mix of taxpayers; (rich) hospitals/providers and (even richer) private insurers are stuck with the tab for uncompensated care. There are many problems with this. But isn’t it at least more compassionate than ObamaCare that would force asset-poor young people – trying to pay off their college debt and hang on to some beer money – to subsidize the coverage of relatively wealthier prospective geezers? If maximizing compassion is the issue, shouldn’t we stick with what we’ve got?

In other words, under Obamacare the young overpay for health insurance in order to subsidize the old, whose medical costs are magnitudes higher than those of the young. That is a key feature of the “individual mandate” that makes it mandatory to buy health insurance under Obamacare. I remember reading during the SCOTUS hearings that men and women younger than 30 (or so) average using about $1,800 of health insurance per year, but will have to pay $5,400.

It’s very important to understand that when government gets involved with spending money on handing out goodies, that it is tempting for them to buy the votes of those who are politically informed with the money taken from those who don’t know a thing about real life.

Now consider these numbers from socialist Europe – where Obama’s plan is a little further along.

Excerpt:

Youth unemployment now exceeds 50pc in both Spain and Greece as the number of people out of work in the eurozone as a whole hit a 15-year high of 17.2m.

The unemployment rate among Spain’s under-25s rose to 50.5pc in January, and to 50.4pc in Greece in December, according to the latest available data from Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics office. It compared with an average eurozone youth unemployment rate of 21.6pc. One of the lowest rates of youth unemployment is in Germany, where it remained at 8.2pc in February.

The rise in Spain and Greece reflects the deep financial woes of both countries, which are in the midst of far-reaching and highly unpopular austerity programmes, considered necessary by the broader EU to reduce huge deficits.

Spain’s unemployment rate now stands at 23.6pc, compared with a eurozone average of 10.8pc. The extent of Spain’s problems are further underlined by a housing market in crisis, with prices expected to fall the most on record this year. One-in-four homeowners in the country owes more than their property is worth.

I find it so sad that kids are brainwashed by unionized public school teachers to support nonsense like global warming, while despising free market capitalism. And then they go out and vote for more and more government, so that their “teachers” can be paid more and more. They will never fix their worldviews until they get out into the real world, and by then it they will have voted in many elections.

News

Alberta judge rules that it is legal to disagree with homosexuality

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Political map of Canada
Political map of Canada

Good news in Alberta.

Excerpt:

Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Paul Jeffrey has dismissed a Crown appeal of a decision from a lower court that acquitted Bill Whatcott of trespassing charges for distributing “Truth about homosexuality” pamphlets at the University of Calgary in 2008.

On Friday, March 30, Jeffrey upheld the November 2011 ruling by provincial court Judge John D. Bascom that stated the University of Calgary infringed on Whatcott’s Charter rights to freedom of expression when campus security arrested and detained him for distributing a pamphlet that addressed the “harmful consequences” of homosexuality.

The university had argued that the Charter only applied to “government actors and government actions,” not to the university itself since it was a private entity.

Bascom ruled, however, that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to the University of Calgary since “the University is not a Charter free zone,” in that it carried out “specific” governmental work by providing post-secondary education to the public in Alberta, making its actions subject to scrutiny under the Charter.

“Mr. Whatcott entered the university property with a purpose to distribute his literature to students, staff and public,” said the judge, adding, “His activity was peaceful and presented no harm to the university structures or those who frequented the campus. … Although Mr. Whatcott’s pamphlet is not scholarly, freedom of speech is not limited to academic works.”

Bascom concluded that “the means used by campus security halted Mr. Whatcott’s distribution of these flyers and violated his right of free expression.”

The judge also lifted the University’s ban against Whatcott that would have indefinitely prohibited him from setting foot on the campus again, stating that the ban was “arbitrary and unfair.”

Do you all remember that the University of Calgary is one of the ones that harassed pro-lifers with armed policemen? That’s still better than Carleton University, which actually had pro-lifers arrested by armed policemen.

This Alberta ruling dovetails nicely with a 2010 ruling from the province of Saskatchewan:

In 2010 Whatcott won an appeal in Saskatchewan when Justice Darla Hunter of Saskatchewan’s Court of Appeal overturned a 2006 Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal ruling that found him guilty of violating the province’s human rights code by publicly criticizing homosexuality through a series of flyers he distributed in Saskatoon and Regina in 2001 and 2002.

The tribunal had ordered Whatcott to pay $17,500 and imposed a “lifetime” ban on his freedom to publicly criticize homosexuality.

In her decision Justice Hunter ruled that Whatcott did not violate section 14(1)(b) of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code by distributing flyers to oppose the teaching of homosexuality in Saskatoon’s public schools.

“It is acceptable, in a democracy, for individuals to comment on the morality of another’s behaviour. … Anything that limits debate on the morality of behaviour is an intrusion on the right to freedom of expression,” Justice Hunter had remarked.

Alberta and Saskatchewan are the two most conservative provinces in Canada. Let’s hope that other provinces move in the same direction.

News

Mitt Romney outspent Rick Santorum 4-1 in Wisconsin

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From liberal CNN.

Excerpt:

Ads, phone calls and mailers have bombarded voters in Wisconsin in the days leading up to Tuesday’s vote — the next major battleground in the Republican presidential race.

The Badger State primary has gained significance over the last week as both Mitt Romney’s and Rick Santorum’s campaigns have indicated it could dramatically alter the momentum and duration of the race.

Romney and his allies have outspent their rivals by a little less than a 4-1 margin on television ads in the state, according to figures provided by an unaligned Republican media consultant that tracks ad spending in the nomination race.

Romney leads polls in Wisconsin and is expected to win in the District of Columbia and Maryland, which also vote Tuesday.

And something interesting from The Other McCain:

UPDATE 10:50 p.m. ET: Chris Moody of Yahoo News writes about Santorum’s campaign in Wisconsin, which included visits to seven bowling alleys and more than a few beers:

He has arguably been one of the hardest working candidates in the race, having labored his way up from the bottom of the polls when he held events in Iowa that literally no one showed up for, to becoming the lead rival to the frontrunner. The man has only taken five days off the campaign trail since last summer, and spent most of that time eking his way along financially. With weak organization to speak of and an entourage that consisted of little more than the candidate and a friend with a Dodge Ram, Santorum went from being the candidate who could hardly get his name on the ballot in some states to becoming a household name.

Ho-hum. Mitt Romney buys another state in the Republican primary. If they were spending the same amount of money, Santorum would win the primary by a landslide. This primary is being decided by money – Mitt Romney’s millions, to be precise. Romney also gets lots of money from global warming socialists and rich Wall Street bankers.

Here are Mitt Romney’s top contributors:

Goldman Sachs $521,180
JPMorgan Chase & Co $356,400
Morgan Stanley $297,550
Credit Suisse Group $296,160
Citigroup Inc $280,050
Bank of America $245,900
Kirkland & Ellis $225,202
Barclays $217,150
HIG Capital $188,500
PricewaterhouseCoopers $185,550
Blackstone Group $178,050
Bain Capital $151,500
Wells Fargo $148,950
UBS AG $140,650
EMC Corp $128,300
Citadel Investment Group $123,625
Elliott Management $123,500
Bain & Co $112,800
Sullivan & Cromwell $106,650
The Villages $97,500

Rick Santorum has to go door to door for his votes.