The Overton Window

I didn't know there was a name for this political tactic beyond being a shameless asshole of unparalleled magnitude, but it's called The Overton Window.

---
Let's say you're a loud spoiled brat, and you want a $10/week allowance. Right now you get $5. So you scream and cry and rant and rave and throw a tantrum while demanding $100/week allowance. Your dad starts to entertain your tantrum and tells you you'll have to do more chores if you want $100/week.

You scream and rant some more and your mom tells your dad to be reasonable, and finally they give you a $20/week allowance, even though you do no more chores. They compromise their principles in order to be moderate and civil and compromise with you. You, as the shamelessly aggressive greedy brat, get what you want by pushing things to a ludicrous extreme, and you take advantage of their natural human desire to want to get along and avoid conflict.

---
Let's say you're a wacky insane radical, and you want $1000. So you scream and rant like a lunatic and push for $1,000,000,000. You've pushed so far past the fringe that you've reset the location of the fringe. The other side compromises based on where the edge of rational discourse now exists.

When you get $1,000,000, you've received a thousand times what you initially asked for; but the other side sees the compromise and thinks they've beaten you by only giving you 1/1000th of what you really wanted.

But now next time, when you push for $5,000,000,000, and they compromise again, you get another $5,000,000. Which is five thousand times what you initially wanted. You just keep pushing so hard that the new voice of "moderation" is one that's past the fringe.
---

Now, if you're reading The Patriot Perspective, you're probably not a wacky insane radical. Unless we've hit the big time, in which case you're reading through our past articles looking for discrepancies, and if so, feel free to call me or JBH when we're on Mark Levin's show just so we can hear him yell "get off the phone, you big dope!" But I digress.

Let's say some wacky radicals want to push for total government control of health care. And it's rejected. So they push harder. And they push harder.

So eventually the other side gives in and gives the ranting, screaming-child irrational radical a little bit of what it wants.

---
This is also apparent in a more immediately lethal extreme throughout Islamic nations, where killing gays, abusing women, and calling for the extermination of the Jews, the murder of apostates, and execution of missionaries or those who even question Mohammed is considered normal discourse and action, not some insane fringe. In fact, it's the accepted policy and laws of many nations that are represented at the UN. The discussion isn't how to save or convert groups they dislike, as in other religions, or even how to coerce, as in the more extreme, but to destroy.

The result of the use of the Overton Window as a tactic is that this:


results in death, rather than discussion. Murder, riots, and violence are viewed as a normal consequence, rather than as a lunatic aberration. Rejection of free speech is viewed as a good, moderate response, rather than a contemptible assault on individual rights.

---
The huge new taxes linked above proposed for US govt control of health care are the new extreme, and the simple US govt control and big new taxes are viewed as the good, moderate response, rather than a contemptible assault on individual rights.

Radicals force their extremism further and further through force and intimidation, and they gradually get what they want every time principles are compromised, no matter the type of radical. The tactic of The Overton Window is used by those with no reason to their argument, but who use coercion against the civility of those they wish to force.

Bullying, screaming, and violence beat reason in their world. Threatening a greater extreme doesn't lessen their initial exteme goal.

All we have to do to stop it is refuse to acknowledge any argument but reason.

---

Disclaimer: If you're offended by Mohammed with a bomb in his turban, reason away with your argument. The cartoonist's argument of Islam as violent stands. If you accept reason and fact, you have to acknowledge that. Though we detest jihadis as a general rule here at TPP; consider it noted that not all Muslims are violent. I've known several over the years who were really nice folks who I'd like to have as neighbors. But a comparison of the murderously intolerant side of Islam in contrast to the benevolent side is another discussion.

The Unconstitutionality of Government Healthcare

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution delineates what the Congress of the United States can do in a legal sense. No where in this area, or in any area of the Constitution is health care mentioned as a right.

However, Article 1, Section 8.1 of the Constitution of the United States reads as follows:

"The Congress shall have the power... to provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States...."

This clause known as the general welfare clause, is the clause that the leftist in Washington hang their hat on whenever they feel the need to pass laws that by nature are unconstitutional. However, James Madison, in writing The Federalist #41, said the following:

"It has been urged and echoed, that the power 'to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,' amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare."

Madison goes on to say that that very idea that congress can legislate whatever it wants is a "misconstruction" that:

"Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases."

The "no other enumeration or definition of powers of Congress" Madison was writing about is the rest of Article 1, Section 8, which tells us exactly what the Congress can do. There was no need to put into the constitution what the Congress couldn't do, all that needed to be present was what it could do, every thing else was to be off limits to the Congress.

Further explaining himself Madison, defends his idea by stating:

"Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars."

So, he is saying it is a natural thing to make a general statement and then to further define it by adding specifics. Which means that if anything falls outside of those specifics, that it should not be considered part of the broader, previously made statement.

The two points to consider are that:

1. The constitution does not specifically allow the Congress to legislate health care.
2. Just because it isn't an enumerated power granted to Congress by the constitution does not mean that Congress can legislate healthcare under the general welfare clause.
   

So how does one then legally legislate health care? This is a good question to be asking your representatives in the House of Representatives and the Senators in Washington D.C. Rasmussen polls suggest a majority of Americans do not want anything to do with the House's or Senate's version of healthcare reform. Why don't they listen to us? Why do they insist on fundamentally changing the best heathcare system in the world?

Because our president told us:

And that my friends is EXACTLY what they intend to do, unless we as Americans unite against these socialist that are now in power and vote them out of office starting in November 2010, and cleaning up the rest of the mess in November 2012.