The Smallest Minority

So, the feddle gubmint, with a storm of new bureaucracies to direct and control health care, requires a private army to enforce its authority? What will it be called? The Sturmabteilung?

I don't know. Schutzstaffel has a nicer ring.  "Protective Squadron".  If they get those Remington 870s , that would automatically make them Waffen Schutzstaffel, right?  "Armed Protective Squadron".

Get them some spiffy black uniform.  No need for cammo.  

My Google-fu is weak tonight. What was the name of the outfit went around beating people up for not buying enough bonds to support Woodrow Wilson's war? Home-grown, at least.

Perhaps we should sit on this one a little longer. I hold a naval commission and was also "personally appointed by [GWB] without the advice and consent of the Senate." That's how the uniformed services work. (Promotions are approved, typically en masses, by Congress.) Without looking deeper into it, it seems like this is just a tweak of the statute that deals with the commissioned corps of the Public Health Service (who for some reason wear naval-looking uniforms and use naval ranks).

You can say what you want about the existence of the service or this apparent expansion of it, but I simply don't see the reason to go nuts over this part of the law. We're talking about more doctors, nurses, and civil engineers on the federal payroll here, not the creation of an SA/SS.

I was aware that there was enough rooom to be skeptical when I posted this story last night under: ZeroCare.

So I included a reminder of the attitude of our wannabe rulers (Pelosi especially since she is also from San Francisco) by also posting this 4 second video:

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Whatever it is we don't need it, neither more doctors or nurses om the federal payroll. Federal money means federal control. George Wallace said it 20 or more years ago. He was right then as well as now.

See Hot Air, this is apparently a 60-year-old program.

Guys, let's try not to become the mirror-image of the unhinged BDS sufferers.

Well, okay then (grumpily puts away bowcaster). :-[

I'm reading the Rand Corporation report behind this, and frankly, I don't see any reason to trust this expansion.  I think Kevin's question, slightly modified, is the right one: "I know I may be paranoid, but am I paranoid enough". 

Look, no disrespect to Xenocles or anyone in the armed forces, but I see no reason to trust government.  The military is about the only group in government I'm even close to trusting right now.  I'm over 55, and for pretty much all my life I viewed government as a retarded giant.  They might help you, but they were more likely to squash you into a bloody stain without even noticing it.  In the last 10 years or so, they seem to have morphed into a more malevolent creature. But maybe it's just that I started noticing in the last 10 years. 

Katrina is the seminal moment for me.  I live in the hurricane zone, Florida, and all my life, every stinkin' year, at the start of hurricane season some somber commentator would predict what would happen if a big storm hit New Orleans.  All my life they were saying what would happen and they were exactly 100% right. And what did we get?  The result of 50 years of planning and practice, going into smooth motion, like an NFL team doing an off tackle run, or a dance troupe doing their best routine?  No, we got an enormous cluster, er, um, .... charlie foxtrot... with out of town looters taking everything they could grab; police abandoning their post to protect their families; local looters taking, not food or water but TV sets; police joining the looters; out of area police disarming citizens who were fully prepared for the storm and armed to protect themselves from the looters, and much, much more.

Leaders?  These guys couldn't lead a bunch of dysentery-racked Ohio tourists in Mexico to the bathroom.

It was because of Katrina, Ike, and to lesser degree the three or four hurricanes we had here, that I decided I'd better get armed and learn to defend my family and myself. 

So we have our President saying he wants a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded as the best military in the history of the world.  Srsly?  Is that a civilian force with Predator drones, Abrams tanks, F-35s....?  Why? 

I follow FerFAL's Surviving in Argentina blog, partly because it seems our current administration is following the patterns of Argentina that led to their economic collapse almost a decade ago.  A parallel "second army" seems to be getting set up there:  http://ferfal.blogspot.com/2010/03/very-disturbing-news-learned-this.html   It's an army of thugs. 

So pardon if I keep shields up and try to watch these people.  Situational awareness is the key to self-defense.   

I think the department of education is just envioius of the IRS who put out a similar bid a few months back.

One thing is for sure, with those shorties, they ain't TEACHING skeet shooting.......

Look, I'm not going to argue against the idea that the government needs all the scrutiny we can give it. This is especially true with this new health insurance law, since it's clear nobody official has given it any scrutiny to speak of. It's just that this dust-up here is over noise, not signal. I'll grant you that a major part of the problem is that there's so much noise these days. 

We need to keep looking for and responding to problems, but we aren't doing ourselves any favors by acting like more doctors on the government payroll is somehow the equal of a personal terror army. It just makes us look crazy and as long as our strategy is still one of persuasion we can't afford to give our enemies that kind of help.

I hate this bill just like everyone else, and hate to see an uneccssary expansion of government workers, which should have been debated.
But this is fairly innocuous.
The Surgeon General is the "Chief of Staff" of the USPHS, which is a "Uniformed Service" and has been around in one form or another since around the War of 1812. It started as doctors on Merchant ships (hence the Navy uniforms).
This just establishes a "reserve" program for them similar to the Army Reseve.

I dont think it is necessary, but I also dont think this The Ones private army.
Not yet...

Here's the best summary of the major items in the bill that I've seen yet:

Summary Timeline for Major Items in Senate Health Care Bill

Ok Marxy, where's your "3 sentences" from the Constitution that gives the FedGov the authority to do this stuff?

...So, the program is 60 years old, that makes it okay-fine?  More badged bastards from the Feds is a good thing?

     Nobody remembers that once upon a time, when the Constitution was still read and even, somwaht. observed, the Feds had to go roust _the_County_Sherrif_ if they wanted to arrest somebody.

     It's been grab, grab, grab ever since and as long as it was that way when _you_ popped onto the planet, why, that's How It Should Be.

     Except it ain't.  And it's never gonna stop until we stand up and say, STOP.  Liable to get squished like a bug but the way I see it, better a grease spot than another cog in the Federal nightmare.

I stand with Roberta X on this one.  I don't give a damn how innocently it started, nor how benign it seems.  If there is no Constitutional authority for it, it needs to go.