Thomas Jefferson on the Health Care Bill

by  on Thomas Jefferson
 
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
— TJ
Thomas Jefferson

My fellow Americans —

This is a glorious day in our great nation! No, I’m not referring to that tragedy of a health care bill, which I’ll get to in a moment. I’m talking about Free Pastry Day at Starbucks! Who doesn’t enjoy a tasty scone with his morning coffee?

Now, on a more somber note . . .

Goodbye, representative democracy! Farewell, consent of the governed!

President Obama today signed into law a far-reaching measure that will affect everyone living in these United States, now and in the future. It is opposed by most of the country and it is now law.

I would never have believed that the government I helped to establish would one day engage in this kind of forced sodomy against its own people.

We know what is right and we will do it, regardless of whether you want it done to you or not.

If Karl Marx were here, he would no doubt make a case for trading off liberty in favor of whatever it’s called when a centralized authority redistributes your income in the interest of “equality.” If you know even a little bit about American history, I guess you know which side of that fence old Tom Jefferson is on.

Switching from politics to economics: People with insurance use more health care resources than people without. Put another stitch in my head, doc! I’ve got insurance!

If more people have insurance, it will increase the demand for health care, which in turn will increase the price.

Now imagine that everyone has insurance. I got your health care reform right here: We’re going to drive the price of health care through the roof, then spend a titanic amount of money helping poor people afford it.

I have no (proven) living descendants and for that I say — Thank God! The next generation of Americans is going to be crushed under the burden of paying for this misguided vision of government.

Yours in sadness and in hope,

Tom

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Don’t Touch My Stuff

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Remote

“Anyone who knows me as well as you do,” I say to my son, “knows that one thing I really hate is when I put something in one place and somebody moves it to a different place, so the next time I need that thing I can’t find it. Which brings me to the topic of the DVD remote . . .”

“I put it to the left of the TV,” he says.

“Are you sure you didn’t put it behind the TV where no one would be likely to find it?”

“Did you find it?” he asks.

“No — Mom found it, and when I asked her where she found it she pointed behind the TV.”

“Hmmm . . . I would say it was to the left of the TV.”

“Let me ask you this: Why did you move it at all?”

“It was in my chair.”

“That’s not ‘your chair.’ You don’t have a chair.”

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The Importance of Doing Meaningful Work

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The Road to Ribblesdale

Over the course of each academic term, he asks undergraduate and graduate business students three questions:

  1. A year out of this program what do you expect your job will be?
  2. What kind of job contributes the most to general well-being?
  3. Practicality aside, if you could be doing anything 10 years from now, what would it be?

What’s striking is that there is almost no overlap among the students’ answers to these questions. . . .

The question then becomes: Why are students studying so hard and paying so much to reach objectives that are neither what they dream of nor what they think of as especially responsible?

— The Importance of Doing Meaningful Work – Forbes.com

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