He in fact does think we’re stupid.
Listen To You Tell Me Texas Friday 12/12/14
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Lost this week in the release by the Senate Intelligence Committee of what is simply being called the “torture report” was the grilling that Obamacare “architect” Jonathan Gruber endured in front of the House Congressional Oversight Committee.
Which is probably good for Gruber. But bad for the republic. It would have been better if Gruber could have been the lead story all by himself.
The putting of an elite, uber-educated liberal on the hot seat is informative from time to time. The video is worth watching.
There’ one exchange that exemplifies many. After committee chairman Darrel Issa (R-CA) pointed out that Gruber had failed to disclose, on the form sent to him in advance of the hearing, how much he had been paid for his work on Obamacare, Rep. Jim Jordan of (R-OH) followed up.
Jordan: Give me a dollar amount…the American taxpayers would like to know how much they paid you to deceive them, and got made fun of by the very dollars they paid you to make fun of them. They’d like to know that. So how much were you paid?
Gruber: As I’ve said, the committee can take that up with my counsel.
Jordan: So you’re not going to answer the question. You’re under oath. We’re asking you a simple question…
Gruber: As I’ve said, the committee can take that up with my counsel…
And so on and so forth. He never answered the question. He never stopped smirking.
The smugness, the condescension, the refusal to be even minimally accountable – they are all infuriating. Gruber perfunctorily regrets calling Americans (meaning you and me) stupid. But anyone can tell by watching that Gruber still thinks we’re stupid. He just wishes (momentarily) that he hadn’t said so on tape.
And it is also clear that Gruber isn’t the least bit bothered by the fact that none of the promises of the Affordable Care Act that he helped midwife have come true. Not one.
He is unconcerned that if you liked your plan you couldn’t keep your plan. He is unconcerned that premiums have gone up and deductibles have gone up and that affordable policies have been cancelled.
He is unmoved by or even unaware of the ill effects that Obamacare has had on fulltime employment.
As we have said here many times, elite, inner-circle liberals like Jonathan Gruber can afford their conceits only because they, unlike us, are seldom forced to suffer the resulting ill effects.
Liberals like Gruber have no regard for people like you and me. They don’t believe in free markets. They have no respect for ordinary people who don’t move in elite circles. And they hold that vast swath of continent filled with nearly 300 million people that covers what they consider a yawning void between the east coast and the west coast in dripping, condescending contempt.
From that condescension we get disasters like Obamacare.
Paul,
I believe this comment by you is a wonderful extension of your post on “Elitism is the very core of liberalism,” posted on Nov 20, 2014:
http://www.youtellmetexas.com/2014/11/20/elitism-is-the-very-core-of-liberalism/
I would like to add that this Gruber-man is a member of thousands of powerful Marxist policy advocates that work in the bowels of the federal bureaucracy who are the officials and consultants that foster the seeds of Elitism from which they are ordained to rule every aspect of our lives. Their justification is, of course, that the citizenry ARE stupid and below their level of intelligence. Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms for us “knuckle draggers” never enters their egotistical minds. Gruber is the mirror image of Obama and his ilk that are determined to “transform” America by any means necessary – damn the Constitution and its rule of law.
This same seed of Elitism is the noxious weed from which the “O-man” has sprouted from his youth and who nourishes his kind throughout the nation. We may not survive this Presidential interloper that is a master of deception as fueled by, and founded on, despotism as old as the ages since Evil penetrated the hearts of mankind. Despotism is the NATURAL extension of elitism if not stopped.
Where are the warnings of the Conservative leadership in Congress that says: “Beware American people for the demon that you may have given power over your unalienable rights as “Free Men” in exchange for the “promise of a fairer deal” that only despotism will bring you?” This is the despotism that replaces knowledge and wisdom with dogma and ignorance. The enemy of the freedom and prosperity of a meritorious society is a despotic ruler that enforces his judgment by subversion of the will of the people by stealth, if necessary. Despotic rulers are threatened by the creativity and industriousness of free men that create prosperity independent of his authorship and approval. Only when ALL of us are eventually “equalized by government enforced poverty” in a Socialist/Marxist utopia will that despot be happy marking the end of a meritorious society.
By eradicating individual initiative in favor of elitist central government planning, the “O-man” destroys the creative spirit given to us by our Creator that is the source of all prosperity. He tries to replace it with the false satisfaction that we are servants of the state to be rewarded “equally” as determined by our masters while we give our labor to support their life of luxury. This simplistic “O-man” is a worshiper of his own ego that is no better than the ghosts of the greatest murderers of all time that rose to power in the last century IF LEFT TO THEIR OWN DEVICES. In the Judo-Christian ethic, the man that hates is essentially guilty of murder in his heart. The “O-man” clearly hates America and its miraculous foundation of Constitutional Liberty as he wrecks havoc on the traditions and culture of American civility. Those hate-filled men of the last century, left unchecked, ultimately conducted mayhem on hundreds of millions of innocent souls that met their tortuous deaths by decree of the dictators-in-chief whose lord was “demonic self-worship” and were the self appointed gods of final justice.
We are on a path where the Almighty Federal Government and its “O-man” is determined to be our Father, Mother, Pastor, Teacher, Dietician, Employer, Doctor, Counselor, Psychiatrist, Bank, Retirement, Grocer, Farmer, Utility, Media, Transportation, Friend, and finally our transformed Conscience according to their false religion from which all blessings shall flow in their brave new Marxist utopian world. If America falls for the false promises and lies of the Elite, then we will be guilty of being, if fact, stupid!
This very evening the Republican controlled House of Representatives voted 210 to 206 with the help of numerous Democrats to pass the $1.1 trillion bill financing government agencies through September of 2015. I think it can be said that we have found the STUPID part of the (anti-conservative) Republican Party. Instead of passing a short term Continuing Resolution to finance the government until end of January 2015 when they take over both houses of Congress with the largest majority in the House since the Truman administration, they have sided with the Democrats to pass an Obama supported bill that funds almost all of 2015.
The STUPID members of the Republican Party have given Obama his demand for funding to pay for his illegal amnesty action for enrollment of illegal aliens for government benefits that begins immediately with “legalization” permits that override immigration law. As usual, the devil is in the details. “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools . . . .”
C.K. Solomon are you right on the money with your point, thanks.
We are stupid.
We must get smarter or lose this country.
Obama said at the beginning of his tenure “you bring a knife & we’ll bring a gun.”
Obama has never lost ANY….repeat ANY election.
What does that say??
It says he knows how NOT to & won’t accept losing .
The GOP apparently thinks that losing is ACCEPTABLE.
We just go along to get along.
The clear thinkers with integrity in this party are distained, ignored ( like Ryan, Kruz ,Walker, Gingrich, Romney, Palin, etc. ) or mocked.
McCain is bowed to for his POW status ….but his thought process is obviously left back there in Korea ( “the Japanese after WW II weren’t even waterboarded” Huh, ?? No logic there. That was 60+- years ago and the War was OVER!!)
Palin has been right about Obama-care how many times….yet is anyone showing her deference??? No…McCain is still touted among the many.
Yes, the dems are hypocritical but at least they don’t KILL their candidates like GOP does.
Maybe GOP needs to take a Logic l0l class & get its head back onto its NECK! & stop being a ‘WOO-OS’.
Take command!!!!
C.K. Solomon are you right on the money with your point, thanks.
We are stupid.
We must get smarter or lose this country.
Obama said at the beginning of his tenure “you bring a knife & we’ll bring a gun.”
Obama has never lost ANY….repeat ANY election.
What does that say??
It says he knows how NOT to & won’t accept losing .
The GOP apparently thinks that losing is ACCEPTABLE.
We just go along to get along.
The clear thinkers with integrity in this party are distained( like Ryan,
The leadership of the Republican Party in the House and the Senate is in the pocket of the crony capitalists (CCs) that have absolutely no loyalty to the Constitution or the sovereign borders of this country. These CCs will support both sides of the isle in order to get their way as their Trent Lott lobbyists continue to dangle campaign dollars in front of any politician that is subject to corrupt funding from any source. The Republican leadership has been caught many times saying how much they despise the small government, Conservative TEA Party movement, and have vowed to crush it at every turn. The mainstream Big Government wing that has dominated the Republican Party for decades has adopted the language of hypocrisy of the Left in order to get the votes of its Conservative base while having no intention of abiding by its false promises.
I hate to say this but the Republican Party is not a Conservative organization. It is jealous of the accolades that the Democrats get from the Left-wing media in this country and must play the hypocrite to get Conservative votes while looking for praise from the Democrats and the media for being “bipartisan.”
In effect, the Republican leadership has determined that its Conservative base is STUPID, and don’t know what is best for the country. There can be no other conclusion given their behavior as they slap us in the face with their complicity with the Obama agenda of open borders, billions for illegal aliens, ObamaCare funding, and refusal to STOP the Socialist/Marxist agenda of Obama, particularly after the last election. In secret, they have no basic disagreement with the Obama Socialist agenda, but want to be in charge of BIG Government, instead. They want that power to feather their own nest.
When you deal with trillions of dollars, corruption can be bought on both sides of the isle and all you have to do is reference the abominable debt that grew under Bush when the Republicans had both houses of Congress. Obama, in Democrat style, has doubled in 6 years what Bush did in 8 years.
The pathetic choice of parties that Conservative American voters have at their disposal is either hard left Democrat or Democrat-lite Republicans. The Conservative voter is without sufficient representation in this country because both elite establishment parties consider us STUPID just like Gruber does. It is obvious that the mainstream Republican hypocrisy has finally been exposed. The Conservative movement must use their means to crush these liars that pretend to represent us and get many more genuine Conservative Republicans to replace the current corrupt Republican leadership and their followers.
The stupidity goes all the way back to allowing the liberals to just run through someone as unqualified as obama in the first place. The stupidity was allowing race to be a factor in the putting of someone such as obama into Our House in the first place. Despite all the things brought out about obama, he was allowed to step into OUR HOUSE and the stupidity continued when he was allowed to run this country into the ground! So yes, we ARE stupid! Stupid is as stupid does…and we did it!!!
The bottom line is that the Republican Party is controlled by corrupt socialist sympathizers that have no desire to STOP the Progressive Big Government agenda of the Washington Liberal cabal. These despicable Republicans have declared war on its own Conservative base while thinking it is too STUPID to recognize their duplicity. Nothing is going to change until Conservatives win that war. The Republican leadership and its sycophant followers hate its own Conservative base MORE that the Democrats that run the Washington fortress of bureaucratic Socialism.