Michigan Congressman Mike Rogers testifying on health care reform quotes Abe Lincoln who said “you can’t make a weak man strong by making a strong man weak.”
Check out Mike’s presentation on the you tube below. Comments welcome.
Health care. What? Using queen size sheet on king size bed?
– September 26, 2009Posted in: Fresh Juice
Not a bad speech, except for the part about looking your daughter in the eye and say, “sorry honey, if you have breast cancer, you’ll have less of a chance of survival…”. Why do politicians do that? They have a good thing going and they have to throw in an extreme exaggerated comment… similar to the death panel accusation.
“you can’t make a weak man strong by making a strong man weak.”
In the world of competition, you bet your ass “you can make a weak man strong by making a strong man weak”. I’m not talking about the health care debate; just about the world of competition in general, whether is war, sports, jobs, promotions….
Lam Pho.
In the world of sports we have evidence of coaches who will run up scores in professional games regardless of how lobsided the score. I have seen cases where the opposite has happened such as a recent high school football game that was a blowout and the two team coaches met and agreed to permit a handicapped player to run for a touchdown.
If you don’t put the other team away they might gain confidance for your next encounter.
There is a parallel between sports and elected office. They are both contact sports.
I totally disagree with your assessment of the business world in terms of competition. Hertz and Avis do not feel sorry for the little guy who owns a Rent a Wreck agency. PS: I apologize in advance as this remark is not a knock on Rent a Wreck as I look for an illustration.
That is exactly what we do now, those who have insurance pay at least $1,000.oo more per year to pay for those who are not covered and use the ER for care.
The private sector has not fixed the problem of excessive yearly increases.
How much did this one get from the insurance companies last year?
“They are both contact sports.”
That’s exactly my point… it can be and is often brutal. Therefore, the “you can’t make a weak man strong by making a strong man weak” is false.
Jim Benson.
Is your question how much in campaign contributions did the MICH. congressman get from the insurance industry? I have not checked his disclosure forms but I can assure you that someone in the opposite party surely has looked at that data and would put it on the wires for all to see if there is linkage.
Lam Pho.
An imaginary tale to make a point. You have two sons. One is wealthy and the other is poor. By your logic you should cut the richer one out of your will and give all of your assets to the poorer one who took a different path in life or perhaps didn’t get the same breaks.
Is that one method of wealth distribution with a focus on the weak?
Larry, I wasn’t talking about wealth distribution. I was merely saying that in the world of competition, a weak man can be strengthen if a the strong man is weaken. I am NOT arguing that someone in the middle should purposely weaken a strong man. I do NOT want our government to take $50 billion from Bill Gates, just to make me feel better about myself.
I was just saying that the quote was not true all of the time, especially in competition. Ok, just for fun, say you are I will fight in the ring for the championship belt. You’re big, tough and brilliant while I’m a little weakling moron. Guess what? On the day of the fight, I wish you had the flu, headaches and diarrhea. That certainly would strengthen my chance of winning, wouldn’t it? Same with almost every other sports and even war.
Again, I was talking about competition in general. Wealth distribution SOMETIMES can be more complicated than that. Take your “2 boys” example, we can think of 100 different scenarios for their lives… but here one: What if both of them worked hard, took risks and one became a BILLIONAIRE and the other is barely making it. You have a million dollars Larry, what would you do? Split your million in half or give most if not all to the poorer son? (lets assume that both are good descent people)