George Will, the critical need for the individual, and the regression of the government class.

I am a long admirer of George Will and his writing. While he is long time never-Trumper, often he expresses in a few sentences a magnificent explanation of the virtues of the conservative viewpoint that I could not in a longer article. And he has done it again, in this great look at the value of the individual vs the “collective,” which is the center aftar of the left, but not America.

Is the individual obsolete?
Progressives want to dilute the concept of individualism, but that’s antithetical to America’s premise.

During the 2012 presidential election, there occurred one of those remarkably rare moments when campaign rhetoric actually clarified a large issue. It happened when Barack Obama, speaking without a written text, spoke from his heart and revealed his mind:

“Look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. . . . If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet. The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together...”

...Obama was merely reprising something said less than a year earlier by Elizabeth Warren...said: “There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there — good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. . . . You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea — God bless, keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

What made Warren’s riff interesting, and Obama’s echo of it important, is that both spoke in order to advance the progressive project of diluting the concept of individualism. Dilution is a prerequisite for advancement of a collectivist political agenda. The more that individualism can be portrayed as a chimera, the more that any individual’s achievements can be considered as derivative from society, the less the achievements warrant respect. And the more society is entitled to conscript — that is, to socialize — whatever portion of the individual’s wealth that it considers its fair share. Society may, as an optional act of political grace, allow the individual to keep the remainder of what society thinks is misleadingly called the individual’s possession. Note that “society” necessarily means society’s collective expression: the government. Note also that government will not be a disinterested judge of what is its proper share of others’ wealth. This collectivist agenda is antithetical to America’s premise, which is: Government — including such public goods as roads, schools and police — is instituted to facilitate individual striving, a.k.a. the pursuit of happiness.

Warren and Obama asserted something unremarkable — that the individual depends on cooperative behavior by others. But they obscured this point: It is conservatism, not progressivism, that takes society seriously. Conservatism understands society not as a manifestation of government but as the spontaneous order of cooperating individuals in consensual, contractual market relations. Progressivism preaches confident social engineering by the regulatory state. Conservatism urges government humility in the face of society’s extraordinary — and creative — complexity. American society, understood as hundreds of millions of people making billions of decisions daily, is a marvel of spontaneous cooperation. Sensible government facilitates this cooperative order by providing roads, schools, police, etc., and by getting out of the way of spontaneous creativity. This is a dynamic, prosperous society’s “underlying social contract...”

What leftists call “greed” by many in the general public is better described as ambition, drive, and motivated self interest. And those are characteristics of America’s economy and society that make it not only functional, but the envy of the world. If this drive is so wrong, why is it millions attempt to come to this country every year to participate in it? And without this economy, which produces the wealth needed by government for its functions, would regressive like Obama and Warren be anything but a dumber joke than they are. Besides, for some reason they don’t use terms like “greed” to describe those who get wealthy off of government connections.

Once again Mr. Will hits it out the park.

Obamacare. Does anyone else think the screwups are not planned?

One thing I thank God for is (for now) I have affordable insurance for my family and I don't have to go through this crap on the exchange. For the moment. I'm scared my department will do that soon enough, but if I was a retiree I would be scared as hell. But I digress.

I heard of this blog listening to Michael Berry this morning and had to check the post out. This is what one woman had to endure on the exchange. From Menopause Express this morning.

My Healthcare.gov Experience This Morning

A little history…

After multiple attempts last week, I successfully created an account on healthcare.gov. I had to wake up at 5:15am in order to do so. The process still took me two hours, and at the end of those two hours, when I hit “Submit”, I waited and the screen flickered, then I was left on the same page as though nothing happened. I was never taken to a page confirming the process was complete.

I tried about 6 or 7 times. I even tried logging out and logging back in. Finally, I tried their chat support. They have this handy link at the lower right corner of the page that says, “Live Chat”. I figured their phone lines would be swamped, so I went that route. There was no disclaimer on what their chat did or did not support. Usually, when there is a chat link on such a page, it is level one support and they can help you with at least part of your problem. They can, at least, access your account.

Nope.

The agent informed me they could not access any account information or help with the application process on chat support. Although I just needed to know if my application completed, the agent could not even answer that question. I had to call phone support.

The agent on phone support informed was friendly enough and asked me if I had an account number. I said, “No. I have an application number. I’m in the very last phase of the application process and that’s where things timed out. I clicked submit but I’m not sure if it worked. I just need to know.” I was told that without an account number she could not pull up my in-process application. She could not pull it up with the application number I had, nor could she pull it up with any of my personal information. My only option was to go through the application all over again on the phone (the same application I just spent two-hours completing and had no desire to go through again). If she took me through it by phone it would take 2-6 weeks for a confirmation; whereas, if I completed it online I got an immediate response.

WTF? Why the difference? Why couldn’t she get the same immediate confirmation? But that’s another rant for another day.

I didn’t want to dig up all the information again, so I logged out and logged in again so I could read through the in-process application and give her the responses she needed. Lo and behold! I received a new message! I had some file I had to download, indicating I’d been approved! I read the message to her and she confirmed this meant I’d receive an email shortly with my coverage options.

I never received it.

Fast forward to today…

I tried logging back in this morning. My username and password did not work. I thought, “Perhaps I forgot one or the other.” So I clicked on the link that said “Forgot Username”. I populated my name and my email address associated with my account. I did not receive an email. I checked my spam folder to be sure.

I contacted their chat support again. Surely, they can at least assist in resetting usernames and passwords.

Nope.

Now, before I go on, here’s a screenshot of the chat window you see while you’re chatting with the agent. Note the misleading phrase at the top, “Chat with someone who can help”.



Alas, I had no method of emailing the transcript from the chat window. I had to copy/paste. I wish I had something more … credible. Regardless, here is the text from the chat, because they have no method of sending the transcript:

[0 6:49:51 am]: Thanks for contacting Health Insurance Marketplace Live Chat. Please wait while we connect you to someone who can help.
[0 6:49:55 am]: Please be patient while we’re helping other people.
[0 6:50:29 am]: Please be patient while we’re helping other people.
[0 6:50:59 am]: Please be patient while we’re helping other people.
[0 6:51:05 am]: Welcome! You’re now connected to Health Insurance Marketplace Live Chat.

Thanks for contacting us. My name is Ada. To protect your privacy, please don’t provide any personal information, like Social Security Number, or any other sensitive medical or personal information.

[0 6:51:44 am]: (me)
Hello Ada. I’m trying to log back into the website but it isn’t accepting my username or password (I’m not sure which is incorrect).

[0 6:52:23 am]: (me)

I may have forgotten my username. I’ve been waiting for the email but nothing is coming through. I *know* I’m using the correct email address. Is this something you can help me with?

[0 6:54:25 am]: Ada
have you attempted to reset your username and password? If you need to reset your username or password, please use the “Forgot your username?” or “Forgot your password” links on the account login page.

[0 6:54:45 am]: (me)
Did you not read the description of my problem?

[0 6:55:03 am]: (me)
I tried that. I haven’t received the subsequent email from healthcare.gov

[0 6:55:31 am]: (me)
and I KNOW I’m using the correct email address for you to send me the information.

[0 6:56:09 am]: Ada
Thanks for your interest in the Health Insurance Marketplace. We have a lot of visitors trying to use our website right now. This is causing some glitches for some people trying to create accounts or log in. Keep trying, and thanks for your patience. You might have better success during off-peak hours, like later at night or early in the morning. We’ll continue working to improve the site so you can get covered!

[0 6:56:42 am]: (me)
Ok. So basically the chat agents are only good for sending scripted responses and not for actual assistance. Correct?

[0 6:57:01 am]: (me)
I’ll stop bothering you.

[0 6:57:16 am]: (me)
You should take this link off of your website.

[0 6:58:35 am]: (me)
the chat window even says “Chat with someone who can help”

[0 6:58:46 am]: (me)
You aren’t helping me.

[0 7:00:28 am]: Ada
I apologize. We are available to help you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-318-2596.

[0 7:00:50 am]: (me)
Yeah… because your chat support is useless.

[0 7:01:09 am]: (me)
I want this forwarded to a manager for a callback.

[0 7:01:21 am]: (me)
This is not the first time I’ve contacted chat support for assistance.

[0 7:02:58 am]: Ada
I apologize for the inconvenience.Is there anything else I can assist you with?

[0 7:03:22 am]: (me)
I want a manager to call me back regarding the problems I’ve had with chat support, overall.

[0 7:03:49 am]: (me)
Every time I’ve tried to get help through chat all I get are “scripted responses” followed by “call tech support”.

[0 7:04:08 am]: (me)
If I wanted to call and wait on hold, I would have done that in the first place.

[0 7:04:26 am]: (me)
If you have chat support, use it. If you don’t have chat support, don’t put the link up on your website.

[0 7:05:16 am]: Ada
You can reach us toll free at 1-800-318-2596.

[0 7:06:27 am]: (me)
… wow. When I was over an outsourcing call center, making sure their chat support was functioning properly and our customers were satisfied, THIS kind of thing would never happen.

[0 7:06:47 am]: (me)
Live chat… more like warm bodies in a chair.

[0 7:07:25 am]: (me)
Can you send me a transcript of this chat so I can forward it to a manager I reach by phone?

[0 7:09:35 am]: Ada
I apologize, but we do not have that ability.

[0 7:09:50 am]: (me)
Of course.

[0 7:10:50 am]: Ada
I apologize, but if there is nothing else I can help you with I am going to have to disconnect from this chat.

[0 7:11:05 am]: (me)
Unless you can give me a survey link, I think we’re done here.

[0 7:11:18 am]: Ada
Thank you for contacting Health Insurance Marketplace Live Chat. We are here to help you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

And she ends the chat with the sentence, “We are here to help you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.” Just how are they there to help?? As far as I can tell, they’re serving as a bottleneck for phone support. Can you imagine how many calls they’d be getting if the chat link wasn’t on the page?

A point I've made more than once is none of this bad news is unintentional. Now this was approved in 2010, the contracting was screwed up from the start, HHS kept changing the requirements and it failed the little testing it got. But that did't stop the Obama regime from going forward.

The administration has refused to say how many people have been enrolled, but they have said how many people have checked out the web site and said it crashed due to overload. As of today, the numbers are twenty million have logged on and half a million have signed up. Twenty million in three weeks. Amazon.com has over seventy-eight million visitors a month and they haven't had an outage like this.

I've been in government long enough to know that if the boss wanted this to be successful , he would have known about it. But for some reason he's "Going to get to the bottom of this.", as if he has nothing to do with his signature legislation. Could it be he is waiting for this to all crash down so he can say, "We'll we tried and it's all screwed up...sorry you we're bankrupted by lack of health care insurance and then you got cancer...but I'll do this, let's just eliminate the middle man and we'll set up single payer for the entire country."

Far fetched? Remember a quote from B Hussein Obama's mentor, Saul Alinsky. One of his more famous quotes, "The despair is there; now it's up to us to go in and rub raw the sores of discontent, galvanize them for radical social change." So just make everyone desperate by means out of their control, like having the federal government deliberately destroy the private health care system and leave them with no hope so they will settle for third rate care at twice the cost. No way you answer? Look at that son of a bitch from earlier this month. He deliberately made his government shutdown as painful as possible to insure distress for the American people. Why do you spend money to put up barricades on walking paths?

B Hussein Obama is as cold and unfeeling a son of a bitch there is and if people get hurt in his desire for power, so be it. He doesn't care. I only pray the conservatives in the Congress can limit the damage and a conservative president elected in 2016 can start to undo the damage. If Hillary is elected, put a fork in the United States.

I like Ted!

Someone with this little time in office I would generally like to see get a few more years under his belt. But we need help NOW and this may be the New Hope we've been praying for!

Cruz 2016 | National Review Online

Freshman senator Ted Cruz is considering a presidential run, according to his friends and confidants.

Cruz won’t talk about it publicly, and even privately he’s cagey about revealing too much of his thought process or intentions. But his interest is undeniable.

“If you don’t think this is real, then you’re not paying attention,” says a Republican insider. “Cruz already has grassroots on his side, and in this climate, that’s all he may need.”

“There’s not a lot of hesitation there,” adds a Cruz donor who has known the Texan for decades. “He’s fearless.”

For the moment, Cruz’s inner circle is small: mostly aides from his Senate campaign; his father, Rafael; and his wife, Heidi. They didn’t plan on having these presidential conversations so early in his first term. Yet Cruz’s rapid ascent and a flurry of entreaties from conservative leaders have stoked their interest — and Cruz’s.

“Ted won’t be opening an Iowa office anytime soon, but he’s listening,” says a longtime Cruz associate. “This is all in the early stages; nothing is official. It’s just building on its own.”

Behind the scenes, there is a palpable fear on the right that the GOP will nominate a moderate Republican in 2016. There’s also growing unease with the field of likely contenders.

Don't argue with that. The morons running the Republican Party leadership who gave us McCain, Romney and Dole are gunning to give us another RINO like Jeb Bush. Hey guys, in case you haven't been keeping up on current events, each one of them got their asses kicked in the general election. And the reason is the party base, the flyover country hicks you are embarrassed of will not support you or your candidate. So if you want to keep loosing, give us a moderate again. But I digress.

Enter Cruz. His supporters argue that he’d be a Barry Goldwater type — a nominee who would rattle the Republican establishment and reconnect the party with its base – but with better electoral results.

Republican power brokers from the early-primary states have noticed. They tell me that the Cruz factor is a frequent topic of discussion among state-based strategists.

“You bet, he’s on my radar,” says Chad Connelly, the chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party. “Conservatives think he’s a rock star. I hear about him from everybody.”

Cruz’s allies whisper that the 42-year-old attorney, who holds degrees from Harvard Law and Princeton, doesn’t take the groundswell of enthusiasm lightly. Besides talking with conservative grandees, he has called his peers in the legal community and raised the prospect.

“We all see a path, and he does, too,” says a former Cruz colleague. “This isn’t someone who needs to be told the obvious. He didn’t run for the Senate to get cozy, so no one who knows him is surprised that he’s at least looking at it.”

Cruz isn’t worried that his birth certificate will be a problem. Though he was born in Canada, he and his advisers are confident that they could win any legal battle over his eligibility. Cruz’s mother was a U.S. citizen when he was born, and he considers himself to be a natural-born citizen.

I think he can show a birth certificate saying born of American parents while overseas or something like that. Unlike the current occupant of the White House.

As Cruz considers a run, his staff keeps adding new speaking appearances to his calendar. This week, he’ll headline the South Carolina GOP’s Silver Elephant dinner; in late May, he’ll speak to Wall Street heavies at the New York GOP’s annual dinner.

Earlier this year, Cruz gave the keynote speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he was greeted with a raucous reception and praised by Sarah Palin. She touted Cruz as a conservative who “chews barbed wire and spits out rust.”

Love it! Thanks Sarah for a great quote!

The debates over gun control, immigration, and President Obama’s appointees have fueled his rise. He has been out front on each issue, brashly battling Democrats and, if need be, his fellow Republicans. “He’s the purest of the young conservative senators — that’s how we see him,” says a consultant who works for a leading conservative group.

That ideological purity and Cruz’s presidential maneuvers make aides close to other Republican contenders nervous. The backroom Republican consensus is that a Cruz insurgency would hardly be a quixotic publicity stunt. He’d outflank almost all of the other candidates on the right, and his debating skills, which once won him national awards, would be formidable. It doesn’t hurt that much of the media already hates him with a passion.

He’s also tighter with Republican donors than most people realize. Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal, is a close friend — one of many donors with Cruz ties. Four years ago, Thiel poured more than $250,000 into Cruz’s aborted race for Texas attorney general, and he has recently donated millions to groups supporting Cruz, such as the Club for Growth. Sources close to other top Republican donors tell me that the senator is as good at wooing financiers as he is at wooing the Tea Party.

Cruz is obviously only one of several Senate conservatives gunning for the nomination. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, among others, have been busy traveling to the early states and slowly building up their political staffs. So have GOP governors such as Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal.

For now, Cruz is running behind in terms of organization. But sources say that doesn’t deter him in the slightest. “If he thinks this country needs bold leadership, he’s not going to shy away,” the former colleague says. “He is one of the most confident people I know, and he’d run to win.”

At least this keeps him on the farm team even if he doesn't jump in in 2016. However, the usual suspects (mainstream media, Democrats (redundant I know), RINOs) are starting to throw stuff at him. I pray he doesn't let those charges sit out there. Ted knows how to answer them better than others, but he cannot let a baseless charge like his birth sit unanswered.

Thank you Ted for shaking things up again!