Obamacare Architect Exposes Progressive Totalitarianism

Jonathan-Gruber-MSNBC-interviewProfessor Jonathan Gruber of MIT, who designed the Affordable Care Act, used to be the symbol of the Democrats’ technocratic bona fides, and an example of how big government with its “scientific” experts can solve social and economic problems from health care to a warming planet. Yet a recently publicized video of remarks he made at a panel in 2013, along with 2 other videos in the same vein, has now made him the poster child of the elitist progressives’ contempt for the American people, and their sacrifice of prudence and reason to raw political power.

In the video Gruber explains the spin and lies the Dems used to give cover to their Congressmen so they could vote for Obamacare. Especially important was avoiding the “t-word.” So, Gruber crows on the video, “This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure [the Congressional Budget Office] did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies.” He also explained how the bills’ writers covered up the obvious redistributionist core of the legislation, which to work has to take money from the healthy young to pay for health care for the sick and old. “If you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in — you made explicit healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed.”

Then this handsomely paid consultant to the “most transparent administration in history” revealed the foundational contempt progressives have for the “people” whose champions they claim to be: “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass.” As David Horowitz tweeted, “Progressive totalitarianism: We know what’s good for you and will lie, cheat and then compel you to agree with us.”

This modern version of the Platonic “guardians,” who possess superior knowledge but who must camouflage their tyrannical rule with lies, is now over 100 years old, and has become deeply embedded in our politics. It was the fundamental assumption of American Progressivism, which argued that modern technology and social change had rendered the old constitutional order a dangerous relic. The native common sense and wisdom of ordinary people to know their own interests and pursue them primarily at the local and state levels were now replaced by the allegedly scientific knowledge of “experts,” who alone could solve the problems created by the modern world. As Progressive Theodore Roosevelt said in 1901, the “very serious social problems” confronting the nation could no longer be solved by “the old laws, and the old customs,” especially the power given to state governments and laws, which “are no longer sufficient.” Woodrow Wilson agreed, complaining in 1913 that “the laws of this country have not kept up with the change” of economic and political circumstances. To achieve “social justice” and eliminate income inequality, the “laws,” particularly the Constitution, had to change.

But to effect such change, the old order of conflicting and balancing “passions and interests,” as James Madison described the political order, had to be transformed in order to create a more collectivist people united in their “collective purpose” to achieve a “vigorous social program,” particularly the redistribution of property. As Progressive Frank Johnson Goodnow wrote ominously in 1916, “Changed conditions . . . must bring in their train different conceptions of private rights if society is to be advantageously carried on.” Individual rights, especially property rights, “may become a menace when social rather than individual efficiency is the necessary prerequisite of progress. For social efficiency probably owes more to the common realization of social duties than to the general insistence on privileges based on individual private rights.”

In practical terms, these goals of “social efficiency” and “social duties” required more power centralized in the federal government and executive at the expense of the states and the people. The most important Progressive theorist, Herbert Croly, wrote in 1909, “Under existing conditions and simply as a matter of expediency, the national advance of the American democracy does demand an increasing amount of centralized action and responsibility.” Woodrow Wilson agreed, and envisioned a cadre of elites to address the national “cares and responsibilities which will require not a little wisdom, knowledge, and experience,” as he wrote in his 1887 essay “The Study of Administration.” As such, administrative power lies beyond politics, and should be insulated from the machinery of participatory government. And much like today’s progressives, Wilson’s ideas were based on contempt for the people who lack this specialized knowledge and so cannot be trusted with the power to run their own lives. Thus Wilson envisioned federal administrative bureaucracies “of skilled, economical administration” comprising the “hundred who are wise” empowered to guide the thousands who are “selfish, ignorant, timid, stubborn, or foolish.”

Sound familiar? From these early Progressive theorists to MIT Professor Gruber and the Democrats the line is direct, based on the same flawed and illiberal assumptions. The masses cannot be allowed, as envisioned by the Constitution, the autonomy to pursue their interests through local and state governments closest to them, their conflicts regulated by the balance of power, mixed government, and federalism, which prevent any one faction from amassing enough power to tyrannize the rest. Rather, administrative elites must be empowered to override those many interests in order to “solve problems” and achieve “social justice.” This in turn means growing the size and scope of the federal government into the bloated Leviathan it is today.

But as Wilson complained, “The bulk of mankind is rigidly unphilosophical, and nowadays the bulk of mankind votes.”  Since the citizens still have the vote and can exercise it every 2 years, they must be tricked into doing the “right thing,” as defined by the technocratic elite. One of the most chilling statements by an American president was made by Woodrow Wilson in his essay on administration: “Whoever would effect a change in modern constitutional government must first educate his fellow-citizens to want some change. That done, he must persuade them to want the particular change he wants. He must first make public opinion willing to listen and then see to it that it listen to the right things. He must stir it up to search for an opinion, and then manage to put the right opinion in its way.” What else has “income inequality,” “war on women,” “you didn’t build that,” and all the other slogans of this administration been other than the attempt to get the voters to “listen to the right things” and form a “right opinion”? Listen again to Wilson, from his essay “Leaders of Men”: “Only a very gross substance of concrete conception can make any impression on the minds of the masses; they must get their ideas very absolutely put, and are much readier to receive a half-truth which they can promptly understand than a whole truth which has too many sides to be seen all at once.” Is this not the spirit of Professor Gruber’s remarks on his “very clever basic exploitation of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter” in designing the Obamacare legislation?

The politics of today’s progressives all have their roots in the old Progressive assumptions––that enlightened elites know better than the people what is good for them, and that the people, being such unenlightened clods, need to be manipulated and lied to for their own good. Most important, the freedom and autonomy of the people must be limited by intrusive federal agencies and regulations in order for these utopian goals to be achieved.

Or to put it in other terms, this set of progressive beliefs––which we have seen acted on for the last six years by the president and practically every government agency––is totalitarian at its core. Not the brutal despotism of Italian fascism or Soviet communism or German Nazism, but Tocqueville’s “soft despotism,” the kinder, gentler Leviathan which undermines self-reliance and self-government by taking responsibility for the people’s comfort and happiness, and financing its largess by the redistribution of property. But no matter how comfortable in the short-term, such a condition is nothing other than servitude. And as Tocqueville warns, “No one will ever believe that a liberal, wise, and energetic government can spring from the suffrages of a subservient people.”

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  • Hi there

    As a member of the stupid non-elite, I would like to thank all involved parties for having kept me in the dark about what I’m actually going to get with ACA, so that I would, despite my best understanding be stuck with an insurance that is not affordable, provides little more care than I’m used to, and is an Act of Kindness for my underdeveloped thinking skills by the True Understanders and Believers.

    • Michael Garfinkel

      You’re welcome. Now move along, nothing to see here.

  • dwayne roberson

    Gruber is an interesting look at human nature. When people get away with something big, temptation often gets the best of them. In Philly years ago, Joey Coyle obtained some bags of money from an armored truck. As he begin to boast and give his friends $100 bills the truth, and the police were soon to catch up with him. Gruber, like Joey has been drinking Red Bull and letting his ego get away from him. He just had to share his clever deception thinking it would be met with approbation. The irony is the approbation, is an affirmation for his critics who like myself, despise this arrogant deceptive elitism. Thanks to Bruce Thornton for the concise summary of this central planner ideology.

    • CapitalistPig

      Nice summation AND analogy. Like a bunch of high school kids who pulled something & are to stupid to keep their mouths shut & just HAVE to brag about it—& I agree, there were lots of us that didn’t buy into this & knew exactly what the left was pulling. There just weren’t enough folks paying attention.

      • dwayne roberson

        I believe the law of supply and demand was introduced in junior high back in the day. The bells should have gone off for at least a few in the media, but not. Any politician who says we can add “folks” to the list of the insured,”fix the broken system”, and save lots of cash was obviously lying through his cheshire teeth.

        • CapitalistPig

          These people attempt to defy the laws of basic economics every day. Hey, why not just end poverty & have a $50 an hr minimum wage? It won’t kill jobs & people will have more money in their pockets.
          And unemployment insurance? Well, that’s a REAL job creator as it gets money into the economy to be spent according to Nancy Pelosi. You wonder why the government just doesn’t make all work illegal & send everyone a check—then again, that may very well BE her goal.

    • truebearing

      Good analogy. Arrogant people crave attention. Sooner or later they shoot their mouths off at the wrong time.

      The American people have been insulted, ripped off, and are facing a serious increase in mortality. Will that be enough to rile them into sustained and convincing action? It has to scare the Washington insiders or it won’t be enough.

      • dwayne roberson

        Hope we can scare some DC excrement out of ‘em. Talking with my congressman and I think he gets it. I think I should send some plastic water. I’m not sure what happens along the Potomac. I actually voted for Spector, the owebamacare pivot. Ouch!!.

      • cathnealon

        Elitism is as bad as racism. It shares many of the same characteristics–it’s passed down from one generation to the next, hatred of a group of people you deem inferior, a different set of rules for the elites than their ‘inferiors,’ not socializing or living near that group, rejecting others based on their educational/economic lack of credentials.
        We have to ask ourselves in this age of Obama do we only accept people with letters after their name? Are we only receptive to the fashionable herd and close ranks shutting out others with great ideas and insights?

  • JDsHandsomeSon

    OK, so now we all know the truth. The people have seen it and so have Obama’s elected opposition. We’ve all had it directly shoved in our faces in blunt, direct language by the very guy who engineered the law. Now what? The opposition is now in power. The people have the truth and can now demand that opposition stop it. There are things the opposition can do even without a 60 vote majority in the senate, or a government shutdown, or any other trick that backfires on them. So? What? I’m betting the GOP will makes lots of noise, and polls will show most Americans want real change, but in the end Obama and Gruber will prove their point, that we will simply stick our collective thumb in our mouth and go back to sleep like a two year old after a tantrum, realizing there’s no fighting his parents.

    • wildjew

      We are good at pointing out the totalitarian methods and the duplicity of the left (they are legion) but we rarely analyze how we failed to prevent a monster like Obama from reaching the White House in the first instance or why we failed to remove him.

      (Jonathan) Gruber: Romney Is “Lying”; Romneycare and Obamacare Are “The Same F***ing Bill”

      11/16/2011 @ 6:17PM 2,814 views

      Architect of Romney’s healthcare law says it’s ‘the same’ as Obama’s

      By Sam Baker – 11/16/11 09:02 PM EST

      White House hopeful Mitt Romney is “lying” when he says the healthcare law he signed in Massachusetts is substantively different from President Obama’s, a key architect of both plans said Wednesday.

      Jonathan Gruber, a healthcare economist and a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, made the comments in an interview with Capital New York, criticizing Romney’s attempt to argue that the federal healthcare law goes further than what he signed as Massachusetts governor….

      • daisypony

        They have the media. That’s how obama got into the White House. The MSM stroked the American public’s white guilt and said “it’s time to have a president of color”.
        Be careful, they’re pushing the first female next.

        • nimbii

          That is exactly it. And Fox is the only TV outlet covering it now.

    • Hewlett Harris

      Absolutely perfect. You describe it to a “T”.

    • tomte

      Well, yes… vote and go back to sleep… or…
      lift up your pitch forks and torches and pour out into the streets.
      I’m not trying to be clever here…
      these are really our options…
      inhabit the world of voting, blogging, writing, thinking, thumb sucking, etc.
      …or be a physical presence on the street, holding signs and so on.

    • truebearing

      We have to stop thinking in terms of what our politicians will do. We need to do the things that make them do what we demand. The Tea Party was successful in 2010 because people went into the streets and protested. It scared the Left and the Republican leadership. A scared politician is the best kind to have. When they aren’t scared, it is because they know we aren’t paying attention or willing to take action.

  • Gamal

    Socrates believed that the wise philosopher was the only person suitable to govern others. Progressivism has a long history.

    • MukeNecca

      Kindly identify a few of these “wise philosophers” among today’s governing progressive elites. OK then, how about just one?

      • Gamal

        I can’t identify any wise philosophers but I can identify people who consider themselves wise philosophers. Jonathan Gruber is one of them.

        • MukeNecca

          Exactly. You can’t identify because there is none to
          identify. Or, the prerequisites specified by Socrates don’t exist today, which makes your first comment rather incongruous. And that was my little comment about.

  • Kruton

    All progressives should be obliterated with out mercy!

    • barney59

      Slowly obliterated

      • Earthling

        I have a feeling they will obliterate themselves — and maybe not so slowly.

        • barney59

          Sort of like self dissolving stitches?

          • Earthling

            Self dissolving stitches disappear without your even noticing. The obliteration of the progressives will be much more noticeable. It won’t be long before the very brand “progressive” will be seen for what it is: the (not so) slow march towards totalitarianism and the extinguishing of creativity, freedom, critical thought and joy in life.

    • PhillipGaley

      Of course, and so easy to do: Children who grow up without a favorable impulse toward The Great Command — which is on the order of: Go forth! Be fruitful! Fill the earth, and subdue it! — will look rather, to the stores of wealth of others. And in that way, “The self-reliance in My people, is destroyed, . . . for lack of knowledge in the simplest things.” is proved true. Principally, the nation would have to put home ec. classes, and industrial arts classes back into the education of their children, . . . and, in no way shape or form do I see that as forthcoming—do you?

    • SCREW SOCIALISM

      Send “progressives” to Syria.

      Let ISIS deal with them properly.

  • I_Am_Me

    I’m wondering if Americans are ready to fight and die for freedom and truth or if this 100+ year slide back into the old ways is inevitable.

    • sundance69

      Ready when you are, lock and load.

    • http://www.stubbornthings.org NAHALKIDES

      I think a lot of us are. What we lack is (1) a political party dedicated to freedom, and (2) some good leaders.

      • truebearing

        We need to bullrush the Republican Party and simply take it over. The dynamics don’t favor the creation of a new party. That would only help the Left recover from their shellacking.

        Constant, loud pressure needs to be applied to the Republican leadership. The tea Party may not have won a lot of new seats this time around, but their threat has forced Republicans to the Right. We need to bend them to the Right by force of will. if they break, we’ll replace them with someone who is stronger.

        This is a republic. It is up to us. 10,000 small groups start to look large to them. Organise small cells of like-minded people and put pressure on the party, the reps, the senators, the media, and the local school board. The Left used incrementalism. So can we.

        • http://www.stubbornthings.org NAHALKIDES

          I agree with you. In fact I wrote an article on the subject (Mission: Take the GOP) because it should be quicker and easier to do that than to establish a third party and drain the Conservative elements from the GOP, leaving it a dried husk. I especially feel that Conservatives need to know who their GOP Committeemen are, and challenge those who aren’t Conservative, because from these ranks come the state party chairmen who right now are almost all Establishment-men from what I can determine. That is why the RNC is as bad as it is.

      • Canadianpatriot

        If I may offer my thoughts, I would suggest that the leaders will emerge, but first decent Americans who know what is going on must stop thinking “Oh, I just don’t want to get involved.” Either Americans speak out, and take an active role in not only exposing the rotten core running America, but in voicing what must be done to fix the problems, or all is lost. Show your faces, be there physically. Out of this, the leaders will come.

        • http://www.stubbornthings.org NAHALKIDES

          Your thoughts are welcome – besides, I agree with them! I too think that the leaders we need are currently outside of professional politics, still in private life. We need to bring them forward.

  • Brandan Babineaux

    “The organizer’s job is to inseminate and invitation for himself, to agitate, introduce ideas, get people pregnant with hope and a desire for change and to identify you (the community organizer) as the person most qualified for this purpose.” Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals.

  • PhilByler

    Wilson was very much the primary progressive — Teddy Roosevelt, not so. Teddy Roosevelt hated Wilson and thought Wilson very bad for the country. Teddy Roosevelt said plenty that was and is music to the ears to conservatives. He was a reformer and thus he did have a dalliance with some progressive ideas. But it is not historically accurate to speak of Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt in the same breadth.

    • cree

      However, that dalliance had enough of elitist narcissism to plant some seeds; had the Constitution framers been there, they would have surely obstructed his drift from Constitutional rule of law intent. In that the Representatives and Senators of the time did not or failed to correct the drift surely gave Wilson with his progressive bent the opportunity to try his hand. Wilson took the Constitutional intent effectively out of the American people’s conscience and our Congresses since are accomplices after the fact.

      Socialism’s history and our present day condition reveals all the proof needed that the framers were brilliantly right. Where are we headed if we don’t do something about it for posterity?

    • nightspore

      No, Teddy was – more so than Wilson. Read up on the 1912 election. People like William Howard Taft gave up on winning that election just to keep Teddy from getting the Republican nomination – he had gone completely off the rails with his progressive ideas.

      • PhilByler

        No, Teddy was not more “progressive” than Wilson. Teddy’s 1912 election run was after he had been a governing President and was seeking another term at a time when “progressive” ideas were the academic rage. Desmond Morris’s take on Teddy was that the real Teddy was conservative, and I agree. Wilson, on the other hand, spent his life steeped in progressive thought and writing.

        • nimbii

          Teddy was put up up by those behind the Federal Reserve Act because Taft would not agree to it but Wilson would so Teddy was put up as a Bull Moose to split the vote and Wilson won. Now we have the Federal Reserve.

          • PhilByler

            Did I write that the 1912 election was Teddy’s finest moment? No; and it wasn’t. On the other hand, we really don’t know how a Wilson-Taft race without Teddy would have gone.

          • nimbii

            That’s true. To his credit (?) Wilson lamented near the end of his term that the Federal Reserve Act was something he wished he had not done and that it made Americans economic slaves to these bankers.

    • dwayne roberson

      Wilson like Gruber incubated their ideology in academia.

  • Hewlett Harris

    ACA…OBAMACARE….something you are forced to buy when you are healthy, young and don’t need it and then when you do need it they will deny you the services. A brilliant con that takes in cash and never pays it out to those that truly need it.

  • sundance69

    These videos should be run in every Republican/Conservative campaign ad until people are tired of hearing it. We preached that this was happening and were called every name in the book. It’s time to take this country back and bury this progressive movement once and for all. They will bleed this country dry if we don’t.

    • CapitalistPig

      Ha ha!………must be a racist hater to have that viewpoint..

      • sundance69

        I hope that was a joke.

        • CapitalistPig

          Yes, just having a bit a fun.

    • nimbii

      Had this surfaced two weeks ago, Scott Brown would have won in NH.

      • CapitalistPig

        Same with the Shaheen IRS/Lerner krap-pile she was stepping in. They can’t protect these crooks now. Too bad for Brown though.

  • TruthBeTold

    And his excuse? He made the remarks at an ‘academic conference’.

    Jonathan Gruber: ‘I’m smarter than you’.

    • daisypony

      I was perplexed when I heard him give that excuse. Now I get it.

      • nimbii

        His is only sorry he got caught, not that he did what he did.

  • http://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/ Edward Cline

    Is it my imagination, or did Bruce Thornton perchance read
    my column, “The Annotated Woodrow Wilson,” on Rule of Reason, Capitalism Magazine, and Family Security Matters (November
    9th)?

    http://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-annotated-woodrow-wilson.html

    And even some of my comments on Gruber on FrontPage magazine?
    See Daniel Greenfield’s article of November 12th at http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/obamacare-architect-obamacare-exploited-lack-of-economic-understanding-of-american-voter/
    for my Plato reference?

    Edward Cline •

    “Don’t be too hard on Gruber, people. He’s basically a nice guy. Pets his dog and doesn’t beat his wife. He’s your basic Platonic guardian, an “expert,” a “specialist,” he’s sitting outside the cave you’re all chained to the floor of, telling you what those strange shadows on the wall are or mean. He says they’re all
    silhouettes of Snoopy the Dog — when they’re actually hungry hyenas. But he
    won’t tell you that, it’s for your own good that you don’t know what’s about to
    start gnawing on your legs. Right now he’s feeling unappreciated because of all
    the cuss words we’re hurling at him. You’re making him weep.”

    Perhaps I should be flattered. Thornton is right about what he writes about Wilson, Roosevelt and Progressivism, but the references in his column are too coincidental. Excuse me for being highly suspicious.

  • Nyfarmer

    “Though the people support the government; the government should not support the people.” Grover Cleveland
    The man vetoed 584 bills, only 7 were overridden. The last great classical liberal. Check out the Texas seed bill.

    • CapitalistPig

      He was pretty unapologetic about it too.
      Classical liberal then–more like a libertarian now.

    • dwayne roberson

      Before the word was soiled. (Septic term)

  • Earthling

    Gruber is a perfect example of the old adage, “Give people enough rope, and they will hang THEMSELVES.”

    • daisypony

      I have a brother who is just like him.

  • laura r

    what was wrong w/medicade? why not just give sick poor people that program? i never understood this obamacare.

    • daisypony

      Control, money and lots of it.

      • dwayne roberson

        A dependent electorate

    • I_Am_Me

      They want “cost containment” and death panels so they had to get way more control of the whole system. And we all know how well central planning works for cost containment. They did a great job of it in Logan’s Run. But Obamacare is more like Soylent Green.

      • objectivefactsmatter

        I can think of a half dozen major reasons why a wannabe totalitarian would try to implement such a scheme in a constitutional republic such as ours. But the bottom line is they need to take as much sovereignty over private property rights and human behavior as possible.

        The ACA is kind of a master stroke in fraud as legislation. Between that and accusing all of their opponents of racism, bigotry and hate crimes for opposing it and the perks become even greater for them. It creates a very solid platform for them to build serious socialism on.

        If the wheels don’t come off. And it looks like that might happen.

        What we have to do is make sure that we don’t allow the destruction of 0′Bamacare to look in retrospect like something evil caused by the vile, racist, rich conservative rightwing nutjobs.

  • Bash Brannigan

    He’s a classic run-off-at-the-mouth sort. His blabbering and sputtering and overall delivery shows the undisciplined thought process of someone who speaks before they think. He doesn’t have the slightest idea of the meaning of his words. Clearly, he does not take his own advice, given to himself while addressing Washington University student body, which was (paraphrased), “I’m going to tell a story first so I don’t tell you more than what you want to know.” And with that, proceeded to tell more than they wanted to know….as he sems to every tinme he opens his mouth. A Ph.D. in economics…uh, okay, so what does he do for a living??

    • I_Am_Me

      I had to listen to that a couple of times. He followed that sentence with something like “But I will tell you what I have to tell you.” or some other such arrogant nonsense.

      I always have an irresistible urge to punch smug pr1cks like this right in the mouth mid-sentence as the lies ooze out of their goofy grin.

  • http://www.stubbornthings.org NAHALKIDES

    Fine article by Thornton. I would only add that “soft despotism” will become “hard despotism” if its progress is not arrested. Notice that Democrats are even now trying to have their opponents convicted of trumped-up criminal charges, and that they advocate criminalizing criticism of the government. Even many of their gun laws in places like NY and CT are already “hard despotism” with innocent citizens turned into supposed felons by having unregistered rifles or too many bullets in a magazine.

  • herb benty

    Evolution, and the abandonment of God’s Wisdom and replacing this great American advantage with man’s corrupted views is playing out right in front of us. They actually think they can now direct mankinds “evolution”. And you know how totalitarians love the remorse-free, conscience-free and guilt-free evolution. See, Russia, China, Hitler’s “scientists”, and Imperial Japan. “And neither were they even thankful” are words from God, concerning those who deny Him. We are SUPPOSED to look at nature, space, DNA and every scientific endevour, and you will clearly see His wisdom and power.

  • CapitalistPig

    A “Gaffe” in the political sense is sometimes described as “when a politician accidentally or inadvertently tells the truth”. I know Gruber isn’t technically a politician–but the gaffe definition in this case is accurate.

  • nimbii

    Now Pilosi says she didn’t even know about Gruber until someone found that he showed up on her website during the run-up to the ACA vote. She is on video mentioning him back then.

    These people simply lie. They are liars and scoundrels.

    • I_Am_Me

      And they don’t care one bit.

      “What difference does it make?”

      • nimbii

        Pilosi, et al, will continue to pin their hopes on the stupidity of the American people.

        They have a choice?

  • truthBfree

    We’ve been #Gruberized royally! 100 years of progressivism rammed down our throats.

  • Hank Rearden

    There is a larger point here, of which Gruber is a good illustration:

    Liberalism is everywhere and always build on lies.

    Liberal statistics are lies. Liberal policies are built on lies. Since they don’t work they are measured with lies. And they are promulgated, as Gruber as so eloquently shown, with lies.

    Liberalism is lies. No exceptions. Everywhere and always.

    Why is this? Margaret Thatcher had the answer…”Life is conservative.”

    • dwayne roberson

      “The problem with socialism is you eventually run out of other peoples money.”

  • William James Ward

    Curious how most that voted for Obama and the Leftist, Socialist,
    Marxist, Islamist front thought they were going to have good
    government. In reality all of the above promise makers were out
    to scam the Nation, rob everyone with cost of Insurance and
    phony jobs that robbed tax payers but paid them large salaries
    for doing nothing as in alternative energy and then going out
    of business. Yes the left is nothing but organized crime culling
    the herd of what is know as the uninformed. If the newly elected
    do not follow the money, trillions and nail the thieves, well that
    will be very telling and a new revolution will be in order. I hate
    being cheated, scammers should be on road gangs doing hard
    labor and Obama should have a new title, First Shovel……….William

  • tagalog

    On the issue of modern-day Guardians making up the difference between the failings of the Constitution and modern American problems, the reason why they’re so determined to avoid a government shutdown is that they don’t want us to learn how easy it would be for us to get along and run society without them, with the language of the Constitution, our native intelligence, and our belief in the Judaeo-Christian God as our guides.

    They want to persuade us that the Constitution is obsolete, we are too stupid to take the steps necessary to govern ourselves, and God is dead.

  • OLLPOH

    Exact and precise on every point!

    They have chosen that we are the slaves and they are the Slave Masters.

  • truebearing

    Intellectuals are always superior in their own theory-constipated minds. Those theories don’t always work so well in reality. Progressives are big on theory and drunk with delusions of grandeur, but they have never had a single idea that is truly sustainable. The wisdom of the framers dwarfs these arrogant bastards in every possible way.

  • Marrkedman

    Integrity must not be very important at MIT.

  • Pericles

    They don’t herd us into tyranny with their guns but with their laws.

    “The law has been used to destroy its own objective: It has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect. The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder.”

    - Frederic Bastiat, The Law

  • Pericles

    “Thus Wilson envisioned federal administrative bureaucracies “of skilled,
    economical administration” comprising the “hundred who are wise”
    empowered to guide the thousands who are “selfish, ignorant, timid,
    stubborn, or foolish.”

    What is it in some men that convinces them that they were born to bring “salvation” to mankind? Jesus did offer salvation and was crucified for it. Why are these mere mortals not crucified for purporting to do the same? Their “solutions” are far-fetched and violate common sense. But there are few “pharisees” to challenge their version of utopia.

    • I_Am_Me

      Some people are emotionally incapable of dealing with the harsh reality of the world. So instead of creating a useful civilization that is able to provide protected liberty and an economic system that harnesses some of these harsh realities (self-interest) like the Founding Fathers did, they want to “reprogram” humans to behave like perfectly selfless ants.

      But they never get ants. They get termites.

  • Pericles

    “And as Tocqueville warns, “No one will ever believe that a liberal,
    wise, and energetic government can spring from the suffrages of a
    subservient people.”

    As the election of Obama in 2008 and 2012 aptly demonstrated (keeping in mind that by ‘liberal’ Tocqueville referred to today’s ‘conservatives’).

  • IssacAdamBurke

    Gruber’s contempt of the American public is well-founded. Didn’t Americans elect Wilson, FDR, JFK, LBJ, (Nixon) Carter, Clinton, the Bushes and now the biggest mistake and greatest danger of all, Hussein The Traitor?
    All have damaged America.
    It’s time for a fundamental Constitutional redo to eliminate the cancer that is overwhelming the US body politic.
    And, to be able to accomplish this, I think we will need a NEW USA and a major redraw of the North American political map, otherwise Conservatives & Libertarians cannot effectively overcome the Socialist Totalitarians. It will be better for the socialist US states around the Great Lakes and Northeast to join the socialist Canadian provinces – ON, PQ, The Maritimes – so they can finally enjoy their atheistic Socialist Nirvana. The southern and western US states and the western Canadian provinces can then join to work at creating a truly free market country based on proven Judeo Christian principles.

  • Ron Gilbert

    As I am reading down this article, one of the ads that pops up on the left just happened to have been, ironically, one for eHealth. eHealth advertises that open enrollment for Obama Care is now open and easier than ever. I think I will completely disregard this article and trust that the government is on the up and up when it comes to taking care of my health. Yes sir! Sign me up for that “affordable” insurance that I can “keep my doctor if I like him”.