Out of desperation, Obama makes the conservative case

Last week, President Obama gave an interview to Spanish-language media. In a question from the audience, a man observed that he can't afford the plans available to his family under ObamaCare. Obama's response is interesting.

I guess what I would say is if you looked at that person's budget, and you looked at their cable bill, their telephone bill... other things that they're spending on, it may turn out that it's just they haven't prioritized health care.

What is interesting is that this is a fundamentally conservative argument. The notion that individuals are responsible for their own needs, and that they must prioritize and make informed choices about what is best for them is not something we hear from the Left very often.

If only Obama actually believed this and championed policies that were grounded on this philosophy. We would be spared programs like ObamaCare, Common Core, minimum wage laws, "stimulus" bills, and the rest. All these programs are founded on exactly the opposite premise: that the needs of every person and family are the same, and that only a few Really Smart People in Washington know what those needs are, how they should be provided, how much they should cost, and how much you should be fined if you don't do as you're told.

The truth is, Obama doesn't believe the things he said in the interview. He only said them because they were convenient. When confronted with the on-the-ground reality that the "Affordable" Care Act isn't actually affordable, he adopted an argument his opponents have been making all along for why ObamaCare is a bad idea: Everyone's circumstances are different. They know their circumstances better than anyone else. And so they need as much freedom as possible to prioritize and make the choices that are best for them and their families.

Off the reservation

Actress Maria Conchita Alonso, best known for her work in Moscow on the Hudson, lost her job with a theater company in San Francisco’s Mission District because she voiced support for Tim Donnelly, a conservative candidate for California governor.

The show's producer, Eliana Lopez, had this to say:

We really cannot have her in the show, unfortunately. Of course she has the right to say whatever she wants. But we’re in the middle of the Mission. Doing what she is doing is against what we believe.

It's a shame that people routinely lose their jobs over such innocuous things as voicing an opinion -- that whole "free country" thing, and all -- but that's where we are. Still, it works both ways. Alonso can say what she wants; her employer can hire who she wants. Assuming no one broke any contracts, that's about right, I think, as far as fairness goes. But I also think we have gotten a little too sensitive about people expressing opinions -- and by we, I mostly mean those on the "tolerant" Left.

What was it Alonso said that was so offensive? According to the Washington Examiner, she used the word illegal to describe those who entered the country illegally. Say it isn't so!

This is what is so maddening. The term illegal immigrant is about as neutral and accurate a description of the people at issue as the English language allows. They literally immigrated here illegally, and it is that precise behavior that is at issue. The Left insists that we abandon this perfectly apt phrase and instead refer to these people as undocumented workers -- a term that is misleading and inaccurate.

We have no way of knowing whether they are workers or not, and their employment status is not what is at issue. Undocumented downplays the the whole deliberately violated our sovereign borders thing as if it were a mere clerical error.

But this is the go-to move of the Left. They can't win arguments on the merits, so they bully people by trying to control the language. Force people to use meaningless, innocuous phrases and they will think meaningless, innocuous thoughts. It's pure propaganda, but, too often, it works.

Alonso was also called out for her use of "vulgar language" in the ad. After watching the ad twice, I gather this refers to Alonso's comedic reduction of a host of California's chronic ills to "We're screwed." Pretty tame stuff as vulgarities go, and also ironic considering the show she was canned from: The Vagina Monologues.

But as one hyper-sensitive Mission District residents put it, “We don’t act like that. First of all, that is not a typical Latina."

A typical Latina? Now there's something to be offended about. How insulting is it to suggest that members of a group have to act, think, and talk alike? Think about that. This is the "tolerant" Left, calling for heads because someone dared to color outside the lines of their racial group. Can't have those Brownie's going off the reservation, now, can we?

Sad, and disgusting.

Red States vs. Blue States

Here's something.

The Mercatus Center has just released a study that examines states’ abilities to meet their financial obligations. It isn't a pretty picture, mostly due to rising health care costs and the burden of government worker pensions.

Here's the thing I found most interesting. Take a look at the top and bottom 10 and notice how Red States states compare to Blue States. (Wikipedia has some handy maps which show voting trends over the past couple of decades.)

Top 10:
1. Alaska
2. South Dakota
3. North Dakota
4. Nebraska
5. Wyoming
6. Florida
7. Ohio
8. Tennessee
9. Montana
10. Alabama

Bottom 10:
50. New Jersey
49. Connecticut
48. Illinois
47. Massachusetts
46. California
45. New York
44. Maryland
43. Hawaii
42. Pennsylvania
41. West Virginia
40. Kentucky

 Pretty definitive, no?

Eight of the top 10 fiscally solvent states are solidly Red; eight of the bottom 10 fiscally solvent states are solidly Blue.

Further, the same striking pattern emerges when we look at other measures of success. I took a look at William P. Ruger and Jason Sorens' latest edition of Freedom in the 50 States. In it, they rank the states by a host of measures of personal and economic freedom. If you take a few minutes to thumb through the various charts, you'll see that Red states consistently outperform Blue states, especially when it comes to fiscal issues.

There was a time when we didn't have the data to determine whether conservative or liberal policies lead to better outcomes over the long run. But that time has long past. We now have many decades of data to examine, and the results are clear: liberal policies don't hold up over time.

And this is true on the world stage as well. Compare East Germany to West Germany, Hong Kong to mainland China, or North Korea to South Korea. In each case we see free market policies along side state-controlled economies within the same culture and time. The free market approach wins every time, and the differences are dramatic.