"It Takes A Pillage"
Come on, Hillary, we all know. We all know you want to make a run for the presidency. We know you miss the power, and you can’t resist the ego trip that comes with that White House address. And we know the only thing that will stop you from running is if George W.’s approval ratings remain exceptionally high into 2004, in which case you and your party will put forth Al Gore as your sacrificial lamb. Then you can proclaim you’ve deferred your decision to run in order to selflessly fulfil your senatorial duties.
Maybe I shouldn’t be so critical of the former First Lady. But, I can’t help but wonder: When the day does come when she begins her campaign for president, will she run on the same platform as she did during her run for the Senate? That campaign consisted of little more than an appeal to the “less-fortunate” who inhabit the outer boroughs of NYC, and the growing number of new naturalized citizens, relating to them with talk of how the government owes them a living. And now that she has been elected, is she delivering? Well, she sure is trying. In her first year on the job, she voted yes on every single spending proposal put before the Senate.
But what are Hillary’s real issues? Well, she’s big on education. For the eight years Bill was governor of Arkansas, she was in charge of overhauling the education system, which was ranked 49th among all states in the union. And after those eight years passed, where were they ranked? 49th. Hey, at least they didn’t get worse! 50th-ranked Mississippi ain’t got nothin’ on Hillary.
Nationalized health care is her other big agenda. Need we be reminded of the fiasco shortly after she and Bill took office, as her convoluted and doomed health-care proposal was deemed so utterly unusable that even Democrats couldn’t help but shoot it down?
During her run for the Senate, Hillary gave her undivided attention to every special interest group that came calling. However, with the exception of Rosie O’Donnell (Hillary is a favorite among the liberal Hollywood darlings), she shot down every one-on-one interview opportunity with journalists she felt she couldn’t control. But in her now-famous interview with Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today show (1/27/98), she was given an open forum to defend her husband against what she perceived as made-up accusations of a tawdry affair with a White House intern. That interview gave us the famed “vast right-wing conspiracy” theory. Oops. Well, even though the affair turned out to be real, I suppose it’s still possible she was right about the conspiracy, assuming Monica herself was heavily involved. Why not, right? After all, the conspiracy was supposed to be vast.
Want to talk ethics? How about the outright dumping of the Travel Office employees immediately upon entering the White House - and her subsequent eight years of abuse of this office at taxpayers' expense? How about signing an $8 million dollar book deal - which won't take effect until 2003 - just before becoming Senator and thereby prohibiting the deal?
And those don’t even compare to the suspicious legal activities. Where to begin? How about the numerous allegations of quid pro quo campaign contributions (estimated millions of taxpayer dollars) obtained under the guise of fulfilling her duties as First Lady? The pilfering of furniture, china, and silverware from the White House and Air Force One? And during her tenure in Arkansas, how she somehow managed to turn $1000 to $100,000 in the commodities market? We all know about the Whitewater scandal, and the entire incriminating web of deception around it. And of course, the involvement of her and her brothers in the pardons-for-cash scandal (including the pardon of Marc Rich), as she and Bill left office in 2001.
But this is the ideal time in America for Hillary to run for president. Forget about education and health care - she can run without even a single viable issue on her platform. She just needs to capitalize on the notion that it’s finally time for America to have its first woman president. She really doesn’t need anything else (and lucky for her). And please forbear any accusations of sexism, or any other -ism for that matter. If, hypothetically, the next election were to be between, say, Condoleezza Rice and Al Gore, I would be voting to elect our first woman, and our first black, president.
Oh, but wait! I’m forgetting the children! Hillary’s big on helping children. She’s famous for her saying (which also served as the title of her financial failure of a book) “It takes a village,” which purports the idea that raising children is not a task suited for parents, but rather the entire community as a whole. Please. For hundreds of years in this country, one stay-at-home parent was all it took. Only in the past few decades of the career-first, kid-second approach to parenting have we seen dramatic rises in the number of troubled children. Non-traditional families result in 63% of all youth suicides, 70% of all teenage pregnancies, 71% of all adolescent substance abuse, and 90% of all homeless and runaway children.
So Hillary promises the answer to all our child-raising problems: free daycare for all. What a concept! Except that it’s entirely impossible to achieve, unless daycare workers don’t expect to be paid. Failing that, it really can’t be “free,” can it? The government must pay them, which means (since the government doesn’t really have any money), our “free” daycare would be paid for by - you guessed it - tax-payers (i.e. us). But I guess the solace is in the fact that tax-payers include those rich snobs who would otherwise be content to let parents and their young children suffer. And they also include all those evil money-hoarding corporations. Never mind the fact that raising their taxes results in less money for them to pay you, the worker. Understand this: there is no free lunch.
Private daycare means that parents have the ability (and responsibility - maybe that’s the problem) to find day-care that meets their standards of quality and affordability. And thus, daycare facilities must compete to meet those standards. But once a government program is instituted that will unconditionally pay their bills, what do you think will happen to the quality and the cost (which, remember, we’re still paying for anyway)? Now, let’s not disparage the government’s ability to run a productive and efficient organization, but… well, considering all their programs that exist today, there’s just no other way but to disparage it. And if the history of government spending (and Hillary-spending) holds true, poor performance by daycare facilities would result in increased funding for them.
Like most Democrats, Hillary is very much pro-choice. Except, that is, when it comes to choice of schools, choice of doctors, choice of investment of retirement funds, choice in spending our earned income - you get the picture. How telling is it that, while daughter Chelsea was attending a private school of her choice, Hillary was lobbying against school vouchers for poor people who wanted to do the same.
What it boils down to is, even putting the legal questions and political failings aside, Hillary’s approach to government is one of pure socialism. She favors a cradle-to-grave system of government support. Her ideal scenario is one where men and women who work fork over all their earnings, and in turn depend on the government to take care of our health-care, child-care, and retirement needs - to the best of its ability. Of course, it takes a pillage of the working class to do that. But really, aren’t we better off if we have the power over our own earnings, and the choice of how and where to allocate them?
I mean, whose village is it, anyway?
Come on, Hillary, we all know. We all know you want to make a run for the presidency. We know you miss the power, and you can’t resist the ego trip that comes with that White House address. And we know the only thing that will stop you from running is if George W.’s approval ratings remain exceptionally high into 2004, in which case you and your party will put forth Al Gore as your sacrificial lamb. Then you can proclaim you’ve deferred your decision to run in order to selflessly fulfil your senatorial duties.
Maybe I shouldn’t be so critical of the former First Lady. But, I can’t help but wonder: When the day does come when she begins her campaign for president, will she run on the same platform as she did during her run for the Senate? That campaign consisted of little more than an appeal to the “less-fortunate” who inhabit the outer boroughs of NYC, and the growing number of new naturalized citizens, relating to them with talk of how the government owes them a living. And now that she has been elected, is she delivering? Well, she sure is trying. In her first year on the job, she voted yes on every single spending proposal put before the Senate.
But what are Hillary’s real issues? Well, she’s big on education. For the eight years Bill was governor of Arkansas, she was in charge of overhauling the education system, which was ranked 49th among all states in the union. And after those eight years passed, where were they ranked? 49th. Hey, at least they didn’t get worse! 50th-ranked Mississippi ain’t got nothin’ on Hillary.
Nationalized health care is her other big agenda. Need we be reminded of the fiasco shortly after she and Bill took office, as her convoluted and doomed health-care proposal was deemed so utterly unusable that even Democrats couldn’t help but shoot it down?
During her run for the Senate, Hillary gave her undivided attention to every special interest group that came calling. However, with the exception of Rosie O’Donnell (Hillary is a favorite among the liberal Hollywood darlings), she shot down every one-on-one interview opportunity with journalists she felt she couldn’t control. But in her now-famous interview with Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today show (1/27/98), she was given an open forum to defend her husband against what she perceived as made-up accusations of a tawdry affair with a White House intern. That interview gave us the famed “vast right-wing conspiracy” theory. Oops. Well, even though the affair turned out to be real, I suppose it’s still possible she was right about the conspiracy, assuming Monica herself was heavily involved. Why not, right? After all, the conspiracy was supposed to be vast.
Want to talk ethics? How about the outright dumping of the Travel Office employees immediately upon entering the White House - and her subsequent eight years of abuse of this office at taxpayers' expense? How about signing an $8 million dollar book deal - which won't take effect until 2003 - just before becoming Senator and thereby prohibiting the deal?
And those don’t even compare to the suspicious legal activities. Where to begin? How about the numerous allegations of quid pro quo campaign contributions (estimated millions of taxpayer dollars) obtained under the guise of fulfilling her duties as First Lady? The pilfering of furniture, china, and silverware from the White House and Air Force One? And during her tenure in Arkansas, how she somehow managed to turn $1000 to $100,000 in the commodities market? We all know about the Whitewater scandal, and the entire incriminating web of deception around it. And of course, the involvement of her and her brothers in the pardons-for-cash scandal (including the pardon of Marc Rich), as she and Bill left office in 2001.
But this is the ideal time in America for Hillary to run for president. Forget about education and health care - she can run without even a single viable issue on her platform. She just needs to capitalize on the notion that it’s finally time for America to have its first woman president. She really doesn’t need anything else (and lucky for her). And please forbear any accusations of sexism, or any other -ism for that matter. If, hypothetically, the next election were to be between, say, Condoleezza Rice and Al Gore, I would be voting to elect our first woman, and our first black, president.
Oh, but wait! I’m forgetting the children! Hillary’s big on helping children. She’s famous for her saying (which also served as the title of her financial failure of a book) “It takes a village,” which purports the idea that raising children is not a task suited for parents, but rather the entire community as a whole. Please. For hundreds of years in this country, one stay-at-home parent was all it took. Only in the past few decades of the career-first, kid-second approach to parenting have we seen dramatic rises in the number of troubled children. Non-traditional families result in 63% of all youth suicides, 70% of all teenage pregnancies, 71% of all adolescent substance abuse, and 90% of all homeless and runaway children.
So Hillary promises the answer to all our child-raising problems: free daycare for all. What a concept! Except that it’s entirely impossible to achieve, unless daycare workers don’t expect to be paid. Failing that, it really can’t be “free,” can it? The government must pay them, which means (since the government doesn’t really have any money), our “free” daycare would be paid for by - you guessed it - tax-payers (i.e. us). But I guess the solace is in the fact that tax-payers include those rich snobs who would otherwise be content to let parents and their young children suffer. And they also include all those evil money-hoarding corporations. Never mind the fact that raising their taxes results in less money for them to pay you, the worker. Understand this: there is no free lunch.
Private daycare means that parents have the ability (and responsibility - maybe that’s the problem) to find day-care that meets their standards of quality and affordability. And thus, daycare facilities must compete to meet those standards. But once a government program is instituted that will unconditionally pay their bills, what do you think will happen to the quality and the cost (which, remember, we’re still paying for anyway)? Now, let’s not disparage the government’s ability to run a productive and efficient organization, but… well, considering all their programs that exist today, there’s just no other way but to disparage it. And if the history of government spending (and Hillary-spending) holds true, poor performance by daycare facilities would result in increased funding for them.
Like most Democrats, Hillary is very much pro-choice. Except, that is, when it comes to choice of schools, choice of doctors, choice of investment of retirement funds, choice in spending our earned income - you get the picture. How telling is it that, while daughter Chelsea was attending a private school of her choice, Hillary was lobbying against school vouchers for poor people who wanted to do the same.
What it boils down to is, even putting the legal questions and political failings aside, Hillary’s approach to government is one of pure socialism. She favors a cradle-to-grave system of government support. Her ideal scenario is one where men and women who work fork over all their earnings, and in turn depend on the government to take care of our health-care, child-care, and retirement needs - to the best of its ability. Of course, it takes a pillage of the working class to do that. But really, aren’t we better off if we have the power over our own earnings, and the choice of how and where to allocate them?
I mean, whose village is it, anyway?
