The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Germans Don’t Grasp Separation Of Church & State, Federalism

Posted on | May 13, 2012 | 24 Comments

by Smitty

Mrs. Other Smitty sends a Der Spiegel link that offers an external view of what remains one of the signature issues of this country, ObamaCare:

Germans Can’t Fathom US Aversion to Obama’s Healthcare Reform

Read the whole thing, but let me answer their section headings:

  1. System Only Works if Everyone Takes Part The U.S. has a Constitutional system, with a limited federal government. Health care, as a SCOTUS ruling next month could well show (or not) is not a federal concern. Miriam Widman in Spiegel may also think that the EU is a swell, in contrast to Nigel Farage:
  2. Competitive Advantage

    “A healthy workforce is a more productive workforce and recent German statistics would back that up. The country has relatively low unemployment and in many sectors the economy is booming.”

    Perhaps Widman is in the south of Germany, around Munich or Stuttgart. Those booms are the sounds of the Mediterranean economies imploding. OK, that’s a cheap shot. The correct answer here is what I’ll call the Global Warming Rule: you cannot make any comparative statistical assertions without making all source data, algorithms, and studies used to support the assertions available. Otherwise, the suspicion is that you’re engaged in what is crudely known as the “rectal pluck”. In a court of law, you’re innocent until proven guilty. In the court of trying to push a stochastic point, it’s the other way around.

  3. Don’t Religious Americans Love Their Neighbors?

    “For me the US is a very religious country. It doesn’t matter which religion I look at — love thy neighbor is a very, very important point in religion,” health insurance spokesperson Marini says. For her, the apparent deep religiousness of many Americans doesn’t jibe with their unwillingness to be part of a healthcare community.

    While there is much faith in God amongst Americans, the Golden Calf of Progress isn’t getting much veneration in the U.S. As somebody who demonstrated against the evil 111th Congress, led by the Wicked Witch of the West* I can tell you that ObamaCare was as illegitimate in this country as that Treaty of Lisbon was in Europe. Anyone who thinks that good ends can come of governments disenfranchising the people they purportedly represent is a servant of Hell.

That somebody likes the German system is a swell thing. My German wife also cautions that if you’re going to get sick, better do it at the start of the quarter, while the system has money to treat you.

As the EU unwinds, hopefully the notion of liberty will abound there, and the Socialists won’t be too ungracious about admitting how daft they were.

Had a call from the John Dennis campaign today. Support him. He’s the guy who can demote Nancy from House Minority Leader to Retired, Anti-Communist Parable.

John Dennis for Congress!

Category: Germany, John Denniss

Comments

24 Responses to “Germans Don’t Grasp Separation Of Church & State, Federalism”

  1. Pathfinder's wife
    May 13th, 2012 @ 8:53 pm

    It’s Der Spiegel; the only German rag possibly more anti-American is Bild.

    True enough, most Euros (western, not eastern ones — on average they are far more street smart and experienced with living in a truly socialist state and know the score) can’t understand Americans distaste for socialized medicine (and to be fair, our system desperately needs an overhaul…just not this overhaul; one that actually works would be nice).  However, experience has shown me that it isn’t as popular over there as the Euro governments and media would like to suggest — at least it isn’t very popular with the non-indoctrinated to the point of brain death parts of the Euro population that have had to deal with socialized medicine (granted, this is a smaller group than it should be, but it isn’t wholeheartedly enjoyed by the helots…the wealthy and well connected don’t have a problem with it, because they don’t use it).
    But granted, most of them have had relativism, nihilism, and new age quackery so ingrained into their cerebellums as to not be able to question anything suggested by the proponents of the same — which is the really dangerous thing (far more so than their awful, unjust, and barbaric healthcare systems).
    …and of course all anyone has to do is to suggest Americans don’t like something; they’ve been well indoctrinated in a knee jerk response there too — has worked like a charm for 236 or so years now…

  2. Pathfinder's wife
    May 13th, 2012 @ 8:59 pm

    …I would also like to add that I believe Mz. Widman I use Mz. because she would likely prefer it that way) should take a better look at her economic charts, especially in the realm of projections for the future.  Right now the German economy is only doing well in comparison to the rest.  The cracks are however, beginning to show (if you compare Germany’s performance over time and over the entire ecnomic spectrum you can see that it isn’t that healthy).  Germany could be in a very bad spot by this time next year, and going worse.

  3. Adobe_Walls
    May 13th, 2012 @ 9:30 pm

    Of course they don’t understand, if they understood they’d have republics instead of parliamentary systems.

  4. Terryk88a
    May 13th, 2012 @ 9:38 pm

    I just don’t get it. Conservatives keep saying that our h/c system needs reform.

    WHERE? HOW?

    Tort reform is a nice concept though it doesn’t really fit with federal and/or free market principals. IMHO. Otherwise what’cha gonna do? Force everyone to buy health insurance? Ban employer provided benefits? By Congress?

    What the heck reforms are needed, much less permitted to Congress?

    REALLY. I want to know.

    I tend to think the system works pretty darn well.

  5. Info
    May 13th, 2012 @ 9:55 pm

    No, they truly don’t get the concept of seperation of church and state.  If they had, historically, the Reformation might’ve been a genuinely reforming movement versus  a schismatic one  (many German nobles backed Luther for political reasons rather than religious ones). 

  6. Another Great Speech by Nigel Farage | marfdrat
    May 13th, 2012 @ 10:12 pm

    […] Another Great Speech by Nigel FarageBy marfdrat on May 13, 2012 var addthis_product = 'wpp-264'; var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true,"data_track_addressbar":true};var addthis_options = "google_plusone,facebook";if (typeof(addthis_share) == "undefined"){ addthis_share = [];}This guy is a great speaker, and representative of the UK Independent Party in the European Union, but it appears he is a lone voice shouting in the wilderness. (H/T Smitty at The Other McCain) […]

  7. Pathfinder's wife
    May 13th, 2012 @ 11:02 pm

    Tort reform would be great — we have lost an incredible number of general and family practitioners (many still practice but are insanely limited in what sort of patients/ailments they can see at their practice) due to the insanely ridiculous and expensive medical malpractice insurance guideline.  That these were the types of doctors that serviced rural and poor neighborhoods has caused many of our problems — many people wind up going to the emergency room because they simply cannot afford to go to a specialist or their HMO doesn’t have the local gen. prac. subscribed (the HMO/PP/whatever they call themselves now are also a big problem, for the reason see above).  This creates log jams in the ERs and those are far more expensive than a neighborhood general prac. used to be.

    Many of these same people are the ones now on some sort of medicaid/medicare/state aid program because even if they work, the insurance premiums are so high they can’t afford it  — this is usually coupled with very substandard coverage and an extremely limited number of in network providers that they can use (in rural areas often unrealistically far away from where they live), so they aren’t getting anything from it even if they did buy into it.  Of course most privately bought health insurance is nearly a thing of the past and also very usually expensive and does not provide adequate coverage.   Of course, most private pracs won’t take new patients on such care due to lag time in payment (or no payment in the foreseeable future), so where else is there for them to go than the emergency rooms.Being able to buy insurance  across state lines and being able to go to a physician of ones’ choice would also help.  It would doubtless give those underserved by their employer’s coverage plans another place to shop; it would give most employers that freedom to do so as well (which might result in better coverage for less expense).I don’t see how any of this is truly against free market principles: it creates more selection, choice, and thus competition for health care for everyone.  What it doesn’t do is allow the health insurance, big hospital/clinic racket to go on without competition, or so it would seem to me.

  8. Pathfinder's wife
    May 13th, 2012 @ 11:03 pm

    …and Luther in turn wouldn’t have backed those nobles so violently when the peasants revolted!

  9. ThePaganTemple
    May 13th, 2012 @ 11:16 pm

     Just like everything else, if you reformed the tax codes and slashed regulations, a whole lot of the problems with health care would eventually work themselves out.

    Tort reform would be nice too, as long as it doesn’t involve any “loser pay” bullshit, which would discourage legitimate lawsuits which need to be and should be filed. The main thing that should be done is disbarring lawyers and judges who file or agree to hear obviously frivolous lawsuits.

    Some kind of system to help doctors renegotiate the terms of their outstanding loan obligations would also be a big help.

    And of course, elimination of state health insurance monopolies would be a big help as well.

    Then, streamline the FDA approval process, and give tax credits based on finding actual cures instead of perpetual treatments only, and for offering comprehensive insurance coverage in a cost effective way. There’s a lot of things that could be done.

  10. ThePaganTemple
    May 13th, 2012 @ 11:19 pm

    Europe is a fucked up continent and we need to get the hell out of there, so I can prove to you people that without our “help” they would be every bit as violent and savage as the most backward country in Asia or Africa, something most of you can’t face up to. 

  11. TammyNowotny
    May 13th, 2012 @ 11:41 pm

    I kinda think that the Germans do get the federalism thing, given that they are a federation themselves. The official name of their country is (translated into English) Federal Republic of Germany

  12. Adjoran
    May 14th, 2012 @ 6:05 am

    Europeans have always been more disposed toward socialism than Americans; it is more our economic system rather than political which baffles them so.  They view the state through the lens of centuries of monarchies, aristocracies, and exploitation of citizens instead of empowering them, so the concept the state owes them something for their undying loyalty isn’t some academic fantasy to them.

    But the European markets are reacting to the election defeats of austerity-backing governments in France, Greece, and Germany, and the unsustainable yields (and spreads) on Spanish bonds (short version:  the costs will force the ECB back into the national bond-buying biz, and they are in worse shape than our Fed with the obligations already on record).   And the GDP numbers point to an impending recession on the continent.

  13. Quartermaster
    May 14th, 2012 @ 8:14 am

    Farage is right. There will be civil unrest (I see that as normal British understatement, however). TFP is right, Europe is a mess. I lived in Germany during the time of the socialist coalition, and before the socialist takeover in ’69, and it was a fairly pleasant place to live. By the 80s, there were areas that were dangerous for anyone to go.

    Liberalism can be viewed in two ways. Either it’s the product of minds that refuse to grow beyond 16 years old, or as mental illness. I’m more and more thinking it’s both.

  14. Pathfinder's wife
    May 14th, 2012 @ 8:15 am

    good ideas — thanks for expanding

    …and it all sounds pretty free market to me

  15. Bob Belvedere
    May 14th, 2012 @ 8:27 am

    In some places, the parliamentary system fits better [just as monarchies would suit some peoples better], but that’s a discussion for another time because it would take up a lot of room.

    The key here is the way they are constituted.  Any system that allows proportional representation or makes it easy for small parties to gain seats is doomed to fail because it is Democratic.  In other words: Democracy always leads to Soft Tyranny.

    We are unique in America. The only other countries where Constitutional Republics stand a ghost of a chance of succeeding are in the Anglosphere. The rest of them can’t handle it because they don’t have our history of Common Law and belief in Natural Rights.

  16. Bob Belvedere
    May 14th, 2012 @ 8:34 am

    People forget that we can pretty much give credit to Luther for the form of belief in Divine Right that Monarchs adopted readily and plagued Europe from his time onward.  He distorted the concept [made it Authoritarian] so that you never had a situation again like that when Henry II of England had himself publicly flogged for the death of Beckett.

    To be a bit crude, Luther told them, and they believed, that they crapped gold.

    This led to the beheading of Charles I and the Glorious Revolution and the horrible first Leftist Revolution in France.  With the other Monarchies of Europe, it led to the Fall Of Eagles during World War I.

  17. Bob Belvedere
    May 14th, 2012 @ 8:37 am

    What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
    By any other name would smell as sweet.

  18. ThePaganTemple
    May 14th, 2012 @ 10:10 am

     Germany is actually a federation of formerly independent little states, like Bavaria and Prussia. Federalism in their case simply means that all those former little states are combined under one federal government. There’s no intimation there that those former states are anything more than little regions, or counties.

  19. Adobe_Walls
    May 14th, 2012 @ 11:12 am

    Even when there are only two or three parties capable of gaining majorities those systems are merely alternating party one party states. This is why the Labour party was able to import so many immigrants into Britian for the purpose of Bastardizing their culture.
    Our Founders had an example to follow and then didn’t, wise men indeed.

  20. Adobe_Walls
    May 14th, 2012 @ 11:20 am

    It’s amazing that the austerity backing governments are falling in that with the exception of Greece none of them have actually cut spending. Raising taxes isn’t austerity and in a recession it’s madness, which we will surely rediscover here come January.

  21. Pathfinder's wife
    May 14th, 2012 @ 11:29 am

    Difference of outlook: for the Germans federalism (at least as it could heretofore been described there) has historically caused them many troubles (because of the rivalry between regional dukes, princes, barons and assorted little nobles who were self-interested at best.  It was a factor in a seriously disjointed and weak greater Germany that was a detriment to the whole (and a wonderful invitation by outside powers to use the German people as doormats) — thus they are a bit tepid on it (for likely good reason).

    It’s important to note that theirs is a very different understanding of federalism than an Anglo-American one (for whom federalism represents freedom and self-determination).

  22. Pathfinder's wife
    May 14th, 2012 @ 11:41 am

    Well, let’s just say he had to pay the piper back for saving his bacon, and they were not disappointed 😉

    My eldest wrote an absolutely lovely paper (as a high school freshman no less) in regards to Luther being a most establishment “revolutionary”; the title alone was fantastic (and she actually treated Luther far more fairly than it suggested; still, it was a very exact and biting piece).  When commended on the paper, the teacher asked her if she was going to show it to her family; to which she replied “probably my mom, but definitely not my dad” (I’m a relapsed and heretical RC, but he’s Lutheran through and through)!

  23. Pathfinder's wife
    May 14th, 2012 @ 11:44 am

    It might also be timely to remark that their concept of “empire” is also historically been quite a bit different from the Anglo concept; it has made quite an impact as well.

  24. PhillyCon
    May 14th, 2012 @ 12:17 pm

    Yet, the Leftists here are obsessed with Europe.  We are always told by our so-called betters that we should strive to become more like them.