On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 9:08 PM, Robert Munn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'll bet there were far better questions that Brokaw passed on. Apparently > they got 6 million questions from the Internet. That is not a mis-print. >
I thought that the questions, overall, were largely reflective of the most important issues right now: economy, healthcare, defense/foreign policy. I was glad to see that it largely bypassed fringe issues that aren't the biggest issues facing us, like abortion, 2nd amendment, church/state. Education is normally a big one for the left, but while Obama does give it a little time in each debate so far, it isn't the biggest issue on our plate. I was also glad to not see any comments from either of them on Ayers/Keating, which seems to be the attack of the day. > > That's probably going to be a very popular position, but it totally fails to > address the limits of health care. In nationalized systems, health care is > rationed according to whatever rules the bureaucrats make up. In private > care systems, health care is rationed according to who can pay. But all > health care is rationed - it is not a bottomless well. I realize Obama's > point about his mother; my sister went through exactly the same thing > battling cancer. But the reality is that we can't pay for every procedure > for every person. I don't think that stating that it is a right fundamentally fails to address the issue. I think it is an important starting point for the debate, rather. All rights have limits. Stating that something is a fundamental right does not imply in any way that it is unlimited. Freedom of speech has limits. We limit it in libel and slander, we limit it in direct threats, we limit it in a number of ways. There is vigorous debate about whether money is speech and what limits there should be on that. Similarly, the right to bear arms is not thought to be unlimited except by perhaps the most extreme proponents. Few people, if any, have a problem with denying violent felons access to fire arms. Few would consider it wrong for me to purchase a nuclear weapon. In the same way, I think it is important to establish health care as a human right and then to discuss how to make sure that all people have at least basic care and then work our way up. > > McCain's answer was a typical politician's answer, do it all, but I liked > the fact that he specifically addressed Social Security and Medicare reform, > acknowledging that we can't continue to provide the benefits we provide > today. > > Obama ran from that question like it was a demon from hell. He clearly > wanted no part of an association with cutting entitlements- that was > completely bogus. For a guy who promises to change Washington, that was a > very typical BS inside the Beltway response. These programs will eat every > federal tax dollar by mid-century unless they are radically changed. He's > playing defense, though, so I guess he decided to just dodge it and play it > safe. I'm not sure if Obama dodged it or not. He didn't put it in his top 3. I tend to agree with him. I don't think that reforming Social Security and Medicare is something that needs to be done in the next two years (which was the question). He said it could be done in the second two years of his administration. The point he kind of made and could have made stronger is that shoring up the economy is a priority before entitlement reform because if we have more money going into SS and we don't have to borrow from the SS fund, then we don't have to worry about SS reform so much. Similarly, if we reform health care, we won't have to worry about Medicare so much. They both need looking at, without a doubt, but how to reform them will change a great deal depending on what we do to shore up the economy and how we reform the health care system, so that needs to come first. Judah ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:273009 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
