NOW, the Academy wants to have a conversation on "the course we wish to set as a nation" due to Obamacare? Ha! - Granite Grok

NOW, the Academy wants to have a conversation on “the course we wish to set as a nation” due to Obamacare? Ha!

Obamacare -Year of the SnakeHere is the lament that the academicians are now having over the downside of the law they almost all willing supported Obama who said this was in the mix.  They supported it as the “Obamacare sausage” was being made by the Democrats in the House, the Senate, and the White House (with not a few of these Ivory Tower denizens snapping on the rubber gloves and shoving them into the vats).  They praised its passage.  They patted themselves on the back – “NOW we have social  justice” (as that and skin color diversity seem to be the real majors taught at our higher-level institutions for which parents pay tens of thousands of dollars).

And now they are shocked (SHOCKED, I tell you!) that the law they climbed that hill for is now rolling some of their fellow labrats back down it.  For all of their advanced learning, their often wide disconnect to the way the world outside academia actually functions is, as a famous black preacher associated to the Presidential campaign 8 years ago once said “coming home to roost”.  From Hahvad (er, Harvard for those outside of the Bawston area) economics Professor Greg Mankiw – Obamacare vs the Faculty (reformatted, emphasis mine):

I don’t know how widespread this phenomenon is, but I thought I would share an email I received this morning:

I have been teaching multiple sections of economics for four years now at several Colleges and Universities in the State of Indiana. I have also been a frequent user of your texts in the classes that I teach.  With the implementation of the ACA (Affordable Care Act) these institutions are giving notification to their part-time faulty that their individual teaching schedules will now be limited to three sections. At the college this will likely result in the cancellation of 20-25% of the class sections in economics, and I would assume other areas will have a similar result. The students are not fully aware of the situation and many will be surprised that their desire to get a college education is now being impacted by the need to avoid the full implementation of the ACA.

Regardless if you are a Republican or a Democrat I would hope full-time faculty would voice their concern regarding the impact the implementation of the ACA could have on the attainment of higher education for the current student population and upon the lives of the dedicated part-time faculty that have been devoted to serving this student population. My hope is that if faculty across the nation brought this to the public attention that we as a nation could have a more open and complete dialogue regarding the course we wish to set as a nation.

Right!

I hate to burst the email author’s bubble, but the conversation about Obamacare and its disastrous effects on the nation (medical, expense, the role of Government, and relationship of the citizens to the Government that is supposed to serve as a servant instead of serving as a master, Freedom, and serfdom) have been going on for, oh, a good 5 years now.  And if you wish to be more technically correct, go back to Hillarycare and “Medicare for everyone” discussions as well.

No, this “lament” is similar to that I’ve been hearing for a while – when the snake that is Obamacare rises up and strikes yet another group of clueless backers, one starts to see the “neocon conversion syndrome” applied to healthcare (where a necon is “a liberal that got mugged”).  I have no sympathy for these ostensibly Smart People who are really Smart but in living in their mostly tax / tuition / grant supported environments, they are often shielded from the happenings in the private sector (which is where their money originates from).    Welcome to the party, dudes.

I really think I sound like a broken record at times (maybe the hoary 60s relic profs would get that, but how many of the students get that metaphor?) but it seems that foundational truths are ignored over and over.  Of all of the values that should be learned by this time in someone’s lives, be their students or profs, these two should be preeminent:

  • TANSTAAFL – There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch
  • Decisions have Consequences
  • This is what happens when Socialists & the Left control government: legislation that doesn’t care about your personal circumstances

Remember, the TEA Party was against this.  Conservatives were against this. Anyone with a lick of sense about Individual Freedom and Liberty was against this.  And even the Republicans (aka “the Stupid Party) had an instance of Nobel Laureate brilliance and not a single one voted for it.

Yup, we were against it while you were for it. So, should you all be thanking us for standing up against something that NOW you are against?

 

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