This is the true story of the first ships built by the American navy and especially of the one ship still in active duty today, “Old Ironsides” The USS Constitution.

Launched in 1797, Constitution was one of the six original frigates authorized for construction by the Naval Act of 1794 Constitution; President; United States, Congress, Constellation and Chesapeake. The USS Constitution although it served with distinction in the Quasi War and the First Barbary War including the battle of Tripoli Harbor, she is most remembered for the War of 1812 in which she earned the name “Old Ironsides” when she defeated HMS Guerriere while sustaining almost no damage from the British Frigate. During the war of 1812 she also defeated four other British war ship including HMS Java, HMS Pictou, HMS Cyane and HMS Levant with the later two being defeated solo in the same battle.

Although they all distinguished themselves, they all awaited various fates. The USS Chesapeake was considered unlucky from the start. Being the smallest of these ships and the runt of the litter.  She was captured by the British in 1806 and served out her time as a British vessel. The Constellation had a long and distinguished career and was put to rest in 1853. The United States had a remarkable history serving in the Quasi War, both Barbary Wars and on both sides of the Civil war before she was put to rest in 1862. The USS President was misguided and hit bottom in New York Harbor in 1814 and was later easily captured. The USS Congress served through the second Barbary war at which time she was unfit for duty; she was unceremoniously broken up in 1835.

Built in an era when a wooden ship had an expected service life of ten to fifteen years, Constitution was now thirty-one years old. A routine order for surveys of ships held in ordinary was requested by the Secretary of the Navy John Branch; the commandant of the Charlestown Navy Yard, Charles Morris, estimated a repair cost of over $157,000. On 14 September 1830, an article appeared in the Boston Advertiser that erroneously claimed the Navy intended to scrap Constitution. Two days later, Oliver Wendell Holmes' poem "Old Ironsides" was published in the same paper and later all over the country, igniting public indignation and inciting efforts to save "Old Ironsides" from the scrap yard. Secretary Branch approved the costs, and she began a leisurely repair period while awaiting completion of the dry dock then under construction at the yard. Today, she is the oldest active duty commissioned ship in the world.

Oh, and the moral of this story? The President was misguided and ended up on the other team, The Congress became worn out and unfit for duty, but the Constitution survives to this day. I find this all very ironic, don’t you?

By its very nature mankind has advanced itself by rewarding success. The very fact that the natural order of things provides reward for success. If you grow a garden successfully, you are rewarded with food. If you run a business successfully you are rewarded with money. And if you raise a family successfully you are rewarded with love. That is no longer true. Welcome to the new world order, welcome to a world in which failure is rewarded and success is punished.

A Look at recent history will tell us where this change started. Starting with the Community Reinvestment Act the United States government has begun a policy of rewarding failure. For the first time ever we were giving loans to people that had shown an inability to properly manage their funds which in many cases was a direct result of poorly managing their lives. Yet in spite of their failure to manage their lives or their funds, we rewarded them with financing (who would ever guess that would blow up in our faces). Once you let the child get away with stealing the cookie, there is no turning back it would seem. So in 2007 when the inevitable result of rewarding failure ended in the housing crash, what did the government do? Why they rewarded failure. They bailed out the banks, allowed CEOs of failing businesses to get paid instead of taking their lumps for mismanagement.  

Let’s see… what have we done since then? We’ve bailed out the auto manufactures as well as the unions for complete and utter failure. We’ve bailed people out that made bad home purchasing decisions. We’ve bailed out people that made bad choices automotive purchases. Now we’re talking about bailing out people that have made bad health decisions. Now I must add that some people got caught in the chain reaction of all of this and are innocent victims of being in the wrong place and time. Oh and did I mention that all the while we’re punishing EVERYONE else? Yes those of you who have done everything right that haven’t had to be bailed out, that haven’t been rewarded for failure, you are being punish by footing the bill. For years to come you will be paying for the government rewarding failure.

First of all, I have bad news. The Marxist regime fully plans to shove ObamaCare down our throats and vote it through whether we like it or not. The president’s cronies are already talking about this in the past tense. Can we stop it? We better have a million man (women too) march on Washington. Let's make a date, I'll be there! But here is my question? Why the Schutz-Staffel? Why is Obama calling in the storm troopers, busing in opposition (http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=8303419 ) and the union thugs, the ACORN thugs to show some muscle to grandma and grandpa and the families that make up this horrible mob, this un-American swastika carrying group that don't want the government dictating their health?

The one thing that I am sure of is that the introduction of a public option is going to mean death to the most innocent and helpless in our society. Now I know that some of you are rolling your eyes and saying to your selves, Doc is a pro-lifer and this is going to be about free abortion. No it's not! This is about a death sentence to live born children. This our government saying that a child’s life has a price and government run healthcare isn't willing to pay for it. This is not speculation; this is already in practice in Canada, England, and EVERY other country that has single payer healthcare.

First, how do we get from here to there? Well lets face it, we all know that once that put a competing government run plan in place, the deck will be stacked to ensure that the government doesn't lose. Little by little insurance providers will be forced out of business as the government whittles away their market until it is no longer cost effective to compete in healthcare and they move to market in which fair trade still exist. This leaves ONLY the government to run healthcare. Now as the government looks to cut cost, we will find shortages as we do in Canada of supplies and equipment. A few years ago I meant a visitor to Florida that was here for an MRI. His Canadian doctor thought he may have a tumor in the brain but there was a 16 month waiting list for the MRI and he would have to travel 500 miles to get the MRI. We had more than 20 MRI at that time locally. He flew down, made an appointment for the next day and got his MRI. 

So stop complaining about Grandma, and eat your Soylent Green burger.

Sorry if you were looking for this post and couldn’t find it. I must have inadvertently deleted it while cleaning my draft folder.