Rae Hart Anderson - A Strong Voice for Freedom and Values
Rae Hart Anderson is the clear choice for the District 50B Senate seat. Her simple, common sense conservative ideas and values reflect her beliefs in the right to life, the right to live ones life as they see fit, the right to keep what one has earned, and societal values that protect life, liberty, and property.
Rae's ideas are in stark contrast to her opponent, a career big government liberal who promotes a centralized command-and-control government to redistribute the wealth and control the lives of people as social planners in government see fit. The remainder of this post examines specific issues and positions and makes the case to the superiority of Rae's position over her opponents in each case.
Life
The most fundamental right of a human being is the right to life because without it any other rights are a moot point. Rae believes that it is a fundamental duty of government to protect all life from conception to natural death. No individual, group, or government entity has the right to take the innocent life of another for their convenience or monetary gain. "Abortion" is a still ugly sounding euphemism for infanticide and, no matter what it is called, the practice is wrong and is the ultimate violation of human rights.
Due to the blatant over stepping of its authority by the US Supreme Court in the Roe v. Wade decision, a woman has a legal "right" to an abortion. But, even as intellectually invalid and morally reprehensible the Roe decision was, the original ruling limited the slaughter to the first trimester of pregnancy. Since then further rulings by activist courts and liberal legislatures has expanded the practice to allow infanticide "procedures" right up until the baby has been fully delivered. And adding insult to the carnage the government has obligated the taxpayer to pay for it if the recipient of the "service" cannot afford to pay for it.
In many issues there is some arguable "gray area", but in the case of abortion on demand and the taxpayer funding of it there are only two sides, right and wrong. Rae is on the right side of the issue: prevent as many abortions as possible by opposing the expansion of the practice beyond the original legal ruling (as bogus as it may be it is still the law of the land) and working to see justice done by educating people to demand that Roe be overturned.
Rae's opponent says he is "personally against abortion" but supports current abortion laws. He has a 100% vote approval from NARAL, the leading pro-abortion advocacy group, and has yet to vote for even the most minor restriction against the carnage. When pushed on the issue he tries to define the debate as one of a woman's "choice" rather than whether or not one person can terminate the life of another with the approval of, if not the complicity by, government. If there was ever a clear-cut example of a politician being on the wrong side of an issue this is it.
Health Care
Rae Anderson is for health care access for all. Her opponent is for health care for all. At this simplistic of a level it may appear that there is very little difference between the two positions. Nothing could be further from the truth.
We do not have a health care crisis--we have a serious health care access problem. The health care available in Minnesota is among the finest in the world. By law, everyone has access to it in the case of an immediate emergency as hospital emergency rooms cannot turn people away if they show up demanding treatment. This is obviously not an efficient way to access health care from both an economics perspective as well as from the perspective of avoiding the need to seek care in the context of an emergency by proactive preventative measures.
Rae's goal toward health care is providing everyone access to health care through insurance that they own. Government waste and over-regulation of the health care and insurance industries have led to the situation that health insurance is generally priced out of the consumer market, so the only way some can afford it is to have it provided to them as a benefit of employment. The problem here is that this coverage is contingent on continued employment by the same employer. The situation is getting to the point where employers are often hard pressed to provide insurance and remain competitive in their industry (Ford and GM spend more on health insurance for employees than on steel).
In todays dynamic economy and world of mergers and out-sourcing very few people stay at the same job for most of their working life. When one changes jobs and starts from square one at establishing health coverage the factors of government mandated programs and regulations (e.g. COBRA), pre-existing conditions, gaps in coverage between employers, regulations of the insurance industry as to mandatory coverage levels, etc. enter into the equation. All of this drives up the cost of the mechanism of providing insurance before the actual cost of any medical treatment even enters into the picture. Compounding the problem is the fact the Minnesota government has so over-regulated and interfered in the insurance market to stack the deck in favor of HMOs that there is very little market competition to drive the cost of insurance down.
On the medical treatment side of the equation, costs are also pressured upward largely through government regulation and interference in the market. Out of control lawsuits have encouraged a myriad of regulations that drive up the costs of producing drugs and medical equipment. For example, latex gloves for the automotive industry often come from the same assembly line as those for medical examination use. The auto industry gloves are dirt cheap because they are mass produced and mass packaged through automated equipment. The same gloves designated for medical exam use (not sanitary surgical usage, but for use by health care providers for protection in common external examinations and procedures) often have to be rigorously tested, serial numbered, lot numbered, and tracked to protect the manufacturer from a ruinous lawsuit should an ambitious lawyer go after him for a minor manufacturing defect. This is probably necessary for sanitary surgery gloves, but hardly necessary for gloves used by a pediatrician when removing a diaper.
Costs are also escalated due to liberal "soak the rich" tax policies that drive doctors, insurance executives, and health care industry providers into higher tax brackets.
Rae's approach to the problem is to start unwinding the mess of over-regulation, waste, and stupid laws that promote litigation and stifle competition so that people can afford to purchase their own health insurance that fits their situation and needs and is not contingent of staying with one employer. Government would have only a limited role in directly providing coverage in catastrophic situations as part of a social safety net. Government doesn't pay our auto insurance or property insurance. People will be able to afford to pay their own health insurance if the market is allowed to drive prices to reasonable levels and the government doesn't confiscate an inordinate amount of private wealth.
Rae's opponent has advocated a Canadian style, single payer system, a euphemism for socialized medicine. This sort of system has been a failure everywhere it has been tried as can be predicted by any first year economics student. These schemes have cause out-of-control costs for the government that in turn must raise taxes or cut other services. Taxes can only be raised so much before the taxed are squeezed as tight as they can be. The result is rationing of health care and limiting treatment to those "who need it most" as determined by a government agency that has often been characterized as "efficient as the post office and as compassionate as the IRS".
Protection of Traditional Marriage
Rae Anderson believes that traditional marriage is the foundation to promote strong families and the proper upbringing of children to be good citizens. As such it should be considered an essential structure within the foundation of our free and prosperous society.
Unfortunately, traditional marriage is under attack by liberal special interest groups who have a financial interest and/or social agenda goal in redefining the legal definition of marriage to be whatever those with influence in the current government deem it to be, continually adjusted at the whim of the government. We can see the damage this sort of thinking has done in liberal Supreme Courts interpreting the US Constitution as "a living, breathing document". The same sort of damage to society will occur if we allow the legal definition and privileges of traditional marriage to be arbitrarily manipulated by whoever happens to be in power.
Rae supports the proposed constitutional amendment to specifically protect traditional marriage from being eviscerated by unwise legislation or activist judges. Based on what has happened in other states, there is a very real track record of activist judges invalidating Defense of Marriage laws enacted by the elected representatives of the people often on very "creative" legal grounds. For this reason, those who recognize how essential traditional marriage is to a civilized free society see that a constitutional protection is necessary. It's true that conservatives generally believe that the constitution should be messed with as infrequently as possible and only if there is a true need to do so. The assault on traditional marriage warrants such action.
Contrary to what opponents claim, the amendment does nothing to infringe on any rights that non-married people already have, nor does it grant additional rights to married couples. All it does is lock in the protections of the existing Defense of Marriage law (which passed with large bi-partisan support) to make it much more difficult for future legislatures or activist judges to arbitrarily nullify the law provides with a stacked vote or the stroke of a pen. In any case, the people would get to vote on the amendment and, should it be rejected, the law would still be in effect but in a more precarious state.
Rae's opponent claims to support traditional marriage, yet has gone out of his way along with a few others to run interference at the internal legislative procedural level to make sure that the amendment was bottled up in committee and never brought to the floor for a vote. He claims he did this because he does not believe in "discrimination". Make no mistake about it--the current senator has obstructed the promotion of this important amendment (that most observers say would easily pass if it made it to the ballot) to keep the possibility of legalizing gay marriage alive in Minnesota. It is no coincidence that a leading gay rights organization gives him a 100% legislative rating.
Protection of Freedoms
Rae Anderson believes that the government already spends too much and as a result takes too much money from the citizens. Confiscation and redistribution of wealth is an infringement of freedom as wealth often provides the means to attain ones goals and ambitions. Her opponent constantly speaks of "new revenue" sources and new benefits, socialized medicine, expanded programs, new taxes ostensibly to combat global warming, etc. Expressed in simple terms, Rae believes that the individual or family budget comes first--the state has already taken more than enough in money and individual freedoms.
A key component in the protection of liberty is the right and ability to defend oneself and one's family. Rae Anderson supports the right of the people to keep and bear arms. She is an NRA member and their endorsed candidate with an "A" rating. She will support the simple NRA concept of punishing the criminal for the crime instead of punishing the owners of guns who use them for legitimate self-defense and sporting purposes. She understands that while Americans often utilize their right to bear arms to hunt, the purpose of the Second Amendment is to assure ones right to defend themselves, their family, and their property.
Her opponent has a history of introducing and supporting restrictions and onerous regulations on firearms, including being the author of a ban on semi-automatic weapons for Minnesota after the ridiculous federal law was allowed to expire. This ban was so out-of-line that even hard core liberals in the Minnesota Senate and House would not sign on in support and the bill thankfully died.
In an effort to hide or play down his abysmal record on gun owner rights, Rae's opponent tries to pass himself off as an "avid hunter and outdoorsman", but pulls it off about as well as Pee Wee Herman auditioning for the role of "The Terminator". Judging from some of the statements the man made in trying to sell his semi-automatic ban, I'm not sure he knows which end of the tube a round comes out of. He also needs to take note that avid duck hunters generally don't clad themselves in head-to-toe blaze orange, even for a political photo-op. Is it any surprise that this doofus has had an "F" rating from the NRA for most of his 10 year legislative career and has never scored higher than a "D"?
Government Should Serve the People, Not the Other Way Around
Perhaps most importantly Rae Hart Anderson is believes in and trusts people over government. She understands that government was created by the people to serve the people. Judging from the legislative record of her opponent, he seems to put a lot of stock into the need of the government to control the lives of the common people because they just aren't smart enough or skilled enough to get it right for themselves.
When reduced to these terms that's what the choice in this election is about. And it's pretty clear that Rae Hart Anderson's positions are superior to what her opponent stands for.
Rae's ideas are in stark contrast to her opponent, a career big government liberal who promotes a centralized command-and-control government to redistribute the wealth and control the lives of people as social planners in government see fit. The remainder of this post examines specific issues and positions and makes the case to the superiority of Rae's position over her opponents in each case.
Life
The most fundamental right of a human being is the right to life because without it any other rights are a moot point. Rae believes that it is a fundamental duty of government to protect all life from conception to natural death. No individual, group, or government entity has the right to take the innocent life of another for their convenience or monetary gain. "Abortion" is a still ugly sounding euphemism for infanticide and, no matter what it is called, the practice is wrong and is the ultimate violation of human rights.
Due to the blatant over stepping of its authority by the US Supreme Court in the Roe v. Wade decision, a woman has a legal "right" to an abortion. But, even as intellectually invalid and morally reprehensible the Roe decision was, the original ruling limited the slaughter to the first trimester of pregnancy. Since then further rulings by activist courts and liberal legislatures has expanded the practice to allow infanticide "procedures" right up until the baby has been fully delivered. And adding insult to the carnage the government has obligated the taxpayer to pay for it if the recipient of the "service" cannot afford to pay for it.
In many issues there is some arguable "gray area", but in the case of abortion on demand and the taxpayer funding of it there are only two sides, right and wrong. Rae is on the right side of the issue: prevent as many abortions as possible by opposing the expansion of the practice beyond the original legal ruling (as bogus as it may be it is still the law of the land) and working to see justice done by educating people to demand that Roe be overturned.
Rae's opponent says he is "personally against abortion" but supports current abortion laws. He has a 100% vote approval from NARAL, the leading pro-abortion advocacy group, and has yet to vote for even the most minor restriction against the carnage. When pushed on the issue he tries to define the debate as one of a woman's "choice" rather than whether or not one person can terminate the life of another with the approval of, if not the complicity by, government. If there was ever a clear-cut example of a politician being on the wrong side of an issue this is it.
Health Care
Rae Anderson is for health care access for all. Her opponent is for health care for all. At this simplistic of a level it may appear that there is very little difference between the two positions. Nothing could be further from the truth.
We do not have a health care crisis--we have a serious health care access problem. The health care available in Minnesota is among the finest in the world. By law, everyone has access to it in the case of an immediate emergency as hospital emergency rooms cannot turn people away if they show up demanding treatment. This is obviously not an efficient way to access health care from both an economics perspective as well as from the perspective of avoiding the need to seek care in the context of an emergency by proactive preventative measures.
Rae's goal toward health care is providing everyone access to health care through insurance that they own. Government waste and over-regulation of the health care and insurance industries have led to the situation that health insurance is generally priced out of the consumer market, so the only way some can afford it is to have it provided to them as a benefit of employment. The problem here is that this coverage is contingent on continued employment by the same employer. The situation is getting to the point where employers are often hard pressed to provide insurance and remain competitive in their industry (Ford and GM spend more on health insurance for employees than on steel).
In todays dynamic economy and world of mergers and out-sourcing very few people stay at the same job for most of their working life. When one changes jobs and starts from square one at establishing health coverage the factors of government mandated programs and regulations (e.g. COBRA), pre-existing conditions, gaps in coverage between employers, regulations of the insurance industry as to mandatory coverage levels, etc. enter into the equation. All of this drives up the cost of the mechanism of providing insurance before the actual cost of any medical treatment even enters into the picture. Compounding the problem is the fact the Minnesota government has so over-regulated and interfered in the insurance market to stack the deck in favor of HMOs that there is very little market competition to drive the cost of insurance down.
On the medical treatment side of the equation, costs are also pressured upward largely through government regulation and interference in the market. Out of control lawsuits have encouraged a myriad of regulations that drive up the costs of producing drugs and medical equipment. For example, latex gloves for the automotive industry often come from the same assembly line as those for medical examination use. The auto industry gloves are dirt cheap because they are mass produced and mass packaged through automated equipment. The same gloves designated for medical exam use (not sanitary surgical usage, but for use by health care providers for protection in common external examinations and procedures) often have to be rigorously tested, serial numbered, lot numbered, and tracked to protect the manufacturer from a ruinous lawsuit should an ambitious lawyer go after him for a minor manufacturing defect. This is probably necessary for sanitary surgery gloves, but hardly necessary for gloves used by a pediatrician when removing a diaper.
Costs are also escalated due to liberal "soak the rich" tax policies that drive doctors, insurance executives, and health care industry providers into higher tax brackets.
Rae's approach to the problem is to start unwinding the mess of over-regulation, waste, and stupid laws that promote litigation and stifle competition so that people can afford to purchase their own health insurance that fits their situation and needs and is not contingent of staying with one employer. Government would have only a limited role in directly providing coverage in catastrophic situations as part of a social safety net. Government doesn't pay our auto insurance or property insurance. People will be able to afford to pay their own health insurance if the market is allowed to drive prices to reasonable levels and the government doesn't confiscate an inordinate amount of private wealth.
Rae's opponent has advocated a Canadian style, single payer system, a euphemism for socialized medicine. This sort of system has been a failure everywhere it has been tried as can be predicted by any first year economics student. These schemes have cause out-of-control costs for the government that in turn must raise taxes or cut other services. Taxes can only be raised so much before the taxed are squeezed as tight as they can be. The result is rationing of health care and limiting treatment to those "who need it most" as determined by a government agency that has often been characterized as "efficient as the post office and as compassionate as the IRS".
Protection of Traditional Marriage
Rae Anderson believes that traditional marriage is the foundation to promote strong families and the proper upbringing of children to be good citizens. As such it should be considered an essential structure within the foundation of our free and prosperous society.
Unfortunately, traditional marriage is under attack by liberal special interest groups who have a financial interest and/or social agenda goal in redefining the legal definition of marriage to be whatever those with influence in the current government deem it to be, continually adjusted at the whim of the government. We can see the damage this sort of thinking has done in liberal Supreme Courts interpreting the US Constitution as "a living, breathing document". The same sort of damage to society will occur if we allow the legal definition and privileges of traditional marriage to be arbitrarily manipulated by whoever happens to be in power.
Rae supports the proposed constitutional amendment to specifically protect traditional marriage from being eviscerated by unwise legislation or activist judges. Based on what has happened in other states, there is a very real track record of activist judges invalidating Defense of Marriage laws enacted by the elected representatives of the people often on very "creative" legal grounds. For this reason, those who recognize how essential traditional marriage is to a civilized free society see that a constitutional protection is necessary. It's true that conservatives generally believe that the constitution should be messed with as infrequently as possible and only if there is a true need to do so. The assault on traditional marriage warrants such action.
Contrary to what opponents claim, the amendment does nothing to infringe on any rights that non-married people already have, nor does it grant additional rights to married couples. All it does is lock in the protections of the existing Defense of Marriage law (which passed with large bi-partisan support) to make it much more difficult for future legislatures or activist judges to arbitrarily nullify the law provides with a stacked vote or the stroke of a pen. In any case, the people would get to vote on the amendment and, should it be rejected, the law would still be in effect but in a more precarious state.
Rae's opponent claims to support traditional marriage, yet has gone out of his way along with a few others to run interference at the internal legislative procedural level to make sure that the amendment was bottled up in committee and never brought to the floor for a vote. He claims he did this because he does not believe in "discrimination". Make no mistake about it--the current senator has obstructed the promotion of this important amendment (that most observers say would easily pass if it made it to the ballot) to keep the possibility of legalizing gay marriage alive in Minnesota. It is no coincidence that a leading gay rights organization gives him a 100% legislative rating.
Protection of Freedoms
Rae Anderson believes that the government already spends too much and as a result takes too much money from the citizens. Confiscation and redistribution of wealth is an infringement of freedom as wealth often provides the means to attain ones goals and ambitions. Her opponent constantly speaks of "new revenue" sources and new benefits, socialized medicine, expanded programs, new taxes ostensibly to combat global warming, etc. Expressed in simple terms, Rae believes that the individual or family budget comes first--the state has already taken more than enough in money and individual freedoms.
A key component in the protection of liberty is the right and ability to defend oneself and one's family. Rae Anderson supports the right of the people to keep and bear arms. She is an NRA member and their endorsed candidate with an "A" rating. She will support the simple NRA concept of punishing the criminal for the crime instead of punishing the owners of guns who use them for legitimate self-defense and sporting purposes. She understands that while Americans often utilize their right to bear arms to hunt, the purpose of the Second Amendment is to assure ones right to defend themselves, their family, and their property.
Her opponent has a history of introducing and supporting restrictions and onerous regulations on firearms, including being the author of a ban on semi-automatic weapons for Minnesota after the ridiculous federal law was allowed to expire. This ban was so out-of-line that even hard core liberals in the Minnesota Senate and House would not sign on in support and the bill thankfully died.
In an effort to hide or play down his abysmal record on gun owner rights, Rae's opponent tries to pass himself off as an "avid hunter and outdoorsman", but pulls it off about as well as Pee Wee Herman auditioning for the role of "The Terminator". Judging from some of the statements the man made in trying to sell his semi-automatic ban, I'm not sure he knows which end of the tube a round comes out of. He also needs to take note that avid duck hunters generally don't clad themselves in head-to-toe blaze orange, even for a political photo-op. Is it any surprise that this doofus has had an "F" rating from the NRA for most of his 10 year legislative career and has never scored higher than a "D"?
Government Should Serve the People, Not the Other Way Around
Perhaps most importantly Rae Hart Anderson is believes in and trusts people over government. She understands that government was created by the people to serve the people. Judging from the legislative record of her opponent, he seems to put a lot of stock into the need of the government to control the lives of the common people because they just aren't smart enough or skilled enough to get it right for themselves.
When reduced to these terms that's what the choice in this election is about. And it's pretty clear that Rae Hart Anderson's positions are superior to what her opponent stands for.
posted by Right Hook at 10:18 PM |
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3 Comments:
Chaudhary won going away. (63% of the vote). Minnesota had over 60% voter turnout. Well, I didn't vote in that race, but it seems that Ms. Anderson was out of step with the District.
Anderson would have won by the same margin if she had had the magic letters "DFL" by her name on the ballot.
Chaudhary is an empty, but very nicely tailored, suit. He is very good at citing the DFL talking points and at tooting his own horn (actually he's a one man brass band in this department).
Unfortunately this shallowness is enough to get by if one has the magic letters by their name.
Maybe Rae Hart Anderson should speend a little less time worrying about other people's souls. You worry about your own soul, I'll worry about mine ok.
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