I watch Fredo’s brother’s, NY Gov. Cuomo, presser today on Fox (turning what should have been a State level event into a national one). It basically was a smaller copy of the daily Presidential / Coronavirus Task Force presser generally held at 5:30pm (Steve is doing the yeoman’s work at having posts up where you can watch it when the Democrat with byline networks (CNN, MSNBC, et al) refuse to carry it).
I sat there, slack jawed. He’s always been known as a bullying sort – abrasive, angry, overbearing – and today was no different. However, let me add “Godfather” to that list adjectives. The whole time, I was thinking – how much more Mafioso can he get. Add in a LARGE dose of Socialism and mix well and you’d have my opinion of him. My raw notes edited “up” of the important bits.
Oh, and interwined in the presser, he talked about having just passed their new budget. Lots of stuff in it but there was one word that was highlighted: “broke”. Keep that in mind for this next sentence:
We’re gonna take your ventilators, like it or not. We’ll return them or reimburse you for them.
Broke and reimburse. Shades of Illinois and passing out IOUs (or was that California – I keep getting all those Democrat States confused after a while). He made it quite clear – while there are going to be (and are) many “curves” of infection rates all over the nation. He is demanding that the nation rally, with all of the resources HE believes is necessary, to hit NY Curve first to flatten it out. THEN (but only then), he’ll allow those resources to be redeployed to the “next” curve. Oh, he sounded nice on this – “we’re all in this together” but it is clear what his intent is.
When our need is over, we’ll help everyone else. But us first.
I remind you all that he had had the chance to purchase a whole bunch of ventilators for NY’s “stockpile” – and decided not to purchase them. He spent it on other stuff instead. So now when the pandemic arrived, he’s short. And I didn’t hear word one of his failing to prep for this kind of disaster even as that’s part of the job. Thus…
It wasn’t for a while that it finally hit me but it did become clear that his intention was to bust into private hospitals and facilities and take what he determined that NYC area hospitals needed – didn’t matter to him that the hospitals in upper NY also may have need of their own ventilators. No matter – he’s a Governor and they aren’t. If he wants it, he’s going to get it. It was clear that he had no respect for other peoples’ Private Property. Look, I get it – crisis. But remember Rahm’s admonition of never letting a crisis to go to waste – and in his outlook, it was always Govt over people – a transfer of Power.
No, not “borrow” – take it. Sure, he kept saying “borrow”. Borrow, borrow, borrow – all with the promise to either return them or reimburse them for “borrowing” them. If your “intent” is to return them, then using the word “borrow” is legit, right?
Er, and the private companies that had their private property taken by Cuomo – HOW will they know they can get their equipment back? He tried to cover his tracks with his unstated communitarianism and “we’re all in this together”. He brought up the hurricane scenario where electrical trucks come from all over to a besieged area. Cuomo tried to make the same equivalency of this crisis. Remember that NYC Mayor De Blasio, uber Socialist / Communist (a history and philosophy just as bad as Bernie Sanders) had called for the military take over.
Sorry, Fredo’s brother – all of those agreements between companies those are PRIVATE agreements, not Govt pulling rank with raw Power. And no, unlike the OTHER comparison, that we are all “brothers and sisters” (a common Democrat / Socialist trope that is used to continue the blurring the line between public and private realms – which IS part of the endgame).
No, we are not family and CERTAINLY not brothers and sisters. And no, we are not all the same (again, the specter that no one is an individual – only part of a Collective).
But he tried from another angle – by trying to co-opt the personal charity and generous nature of healthcare works that have voluntarily come to NY to help. He wants more to come – and then returning back to the “redeploy”, he let the cat out of the bag AGAIN:
Systemitize that volunteerism. Systemitize that generosity, that charity and that expertise.
In other words, instead of Individual volunteerism from the heart, let Government control it and “redeploy”. Co-opt yet another private area for the Government good.
BTW, are you seeing where I’m going with this? If not, I’ll explain later but this question from the Q&A should give you a much better feel for it:
Question: How many ventilators do you expect to seize from upstate hospitals, and how are you going to decide if the curve
Answer: First of all, don’t use the word seize. I didn’t use that word. that’s a harsh kind of word. It’s sharing of resources. We’re going to share resources. We’re not going to have any part of the state that doesn’t have the resources they need because we didn’t share resources.
Notice the transference to the word “share”. No longer “borrow” meaning “I want it NOW but I’ll give it back”. Now, it’s “sharing” – which to mean that I VOLUNTARILY allow you to use what I have. What Cuomo’s intent is this:
I don’t care if you own it – I want it. And I’ll say whatever it takes to soften the blow (and PR blowback), but Government has first choice on anything and I am choosing YOUR stuff, like it or not.
He also tried to make the case that these smaller upstate NY hospitals, private that they may be, don’t “need” it:
…”They don’t need that excess equipment now”
“Need” – the tell of every Progressive / Socialist. Every time you hear someone say that, it is a mark of a micro-totalitarian. Notice (other than parents use of “you don’t need that” which is really “I’m not spending MY money so you can have that”) almost all Socialists make that declaration at some point about other peoples’ stuff. Right now in the US, they can say it but can’t generally enforce much. Take a REAL Socialist government, they can (and have). But Cuomo made it clear that he WILL enforce it:
So, am I willing to deploy the National Guard and inconvenience people for several hundred lives. You’re damn right I am. Several hundred ventilators doesn’t fix the problem obviously. But it is a significant number of ventilators when you can’t find ventilators anywhere else.
At the point of a gun. The true Power of Government – and he blithely said and made it clear that what is your’s will be Government’s. End of story. Thus, giving lie to his words of “borrowing” and “sharing” Really, “borrowing” at the end of a gun? Really, needing the south end of a gun barrel to point the north end to have you “share” your stuff?)
And then he should his utter disdain for the Constitution via another question:
Question: Are you sure that this [Executive Order] will stand up in court? Certainly these private hospitals can make a fourth amendment argument?
Answer: You think they might sue me? It would be a slow day if I didn’t get sued 5 times. But if they want to sue for borrowing their excess ventilators to save lives, sue me.
I will borrow them, I will return them or I will pay you for a new one. You want to hope I don’t return it so I pay you for for a new one.
I am not taking your last drill – you have five other drills in your tool box. You’re not going to use five drills between now and then (with a large smile on his face).
And he’s sure his order will and up in court. In other words, my oath means nothing as far as defending Constitutional values. The end justifies the means – and again, what is the hallmark of what kind of governmental organization?
I first started out in categorizing this as Mafioso-like. Nice ventilator you have there, pity that I’m going to take it. When he said the above about Fourth Amendment sent chills up and down my spine. It goes along with a lot of the other Executive Orders I’ve been reading about, not only from Governors but from tin-pot mayors as well. It seems that every not-so-micro-totalitarian believes they have the God given right to ignore any strictures at all. Restrictions? Naw, Government can do anything any time *I* think it will be for….wait for it….
The Common Good
ANY thing is justifiable if it is for “The Common Good”, right? We’re all in this together, right? We’re all family, right, brothers and sisters?
The proper answer should be NO! The proper answer is that we should NEVER just be allowing / handing Govt more Power that Constitutions NEVER gave them.
Socialist / communitarian societies are about “the Common Good” – hoping that the masses don’t realize what’s going on behind the smoke and curtains. They’re happy that they are being taken care of – like the Matrix? Just do what we “ask” (just another BAD use of our verbiage – Government demands, not asks)
Sidenote: and that is, if Cuomo were to be honest, what Govt is doing in this situation. There is no borrow, there is no sharing – only demanding and taking
I remind you that OUR Constitution was never about the common good – it IS to protect Individual Liberties. No more, no less. Yet we can’t even go to Church anymore.
And in this time, how is adding $2 Trillion to the National Debt, restricting our free movement, restricting our economic freedom, protecting that freedom. And please, don’t give me the blather of if this kills you, you have no rights. The flip side is that if Government takes these Rights NOW for the “common good”, we may never get them back again. Incremental “taking” (like Cuomo is about to do), never results in Government totally retreating back to a “RESTORE” point (like back to December)
Yet, here we are. And indeed, we are seeing power hungry politicians giving themselves more and more power. All because of the Common Good.
How good will that Common Good be when we find out that the resulting economy will result in more deaths by those seeing all they’ve worked for taken from them by Government? Is Guv. Cuomo (and Sununu here in NH) going to look at every entrepreneur in the eye and tell them “sorry, you are just collateral damage for the Common Good” as their business was ruined? That Government took that “pursuit of happiness” away from them in what I, more and more, see as exercises in mismanagement?
Oh.Does anyone really believe that Cuomo / government can effectively redeploy somebody else’s property back to them after “borrowing” it? Or pay for it because NY is “broke”?
This is far longer than I thought and a bit wide afield as well; I’ll end here.
