Ashton Kutcher Comes Out of the Closet on “Real Time”
I dread when leftist talk show host Bill Maher has celebrities, musicians and actors on his Real Time panels. They’re always such dead weight, totally unable to say anything intelligent or have any grasp of the issues. And politically they almost always argue from their position in Chomskyland. It’s just pure, endlessly pathetic radical chic.
That’s what I was expecting when I saw that Ashton Kutcher — star of “Dude, Where’s My Car?” and the celebrity prank show “Punk’d” — would be joining General Anthony Zinni and conservative columnist Ross Douthat for Maher’s chatfest. And I was stunned when those low expectations weren’t met. Instead Kutcher put forth sensible views and engaging, informed opinions on the issue of health care which brought some consensus to the table.
Discussing the issue of a greater need for an emphasis on promoting wellness instead of just treating sickness, Kutcher expressed a view on socialized medicine that hasn’t been discussed as much as it should:
“Frankly, I don’t want to pay for the guy who’s getting a triple-bypass because he’s eating fast food all day and deep-fried snickers bars. I don’t want to pay for him! Whether he’s wealthy or he’s not!”
He’s right. Should the taxpayer have to pay for other people’s unhealthiness? Should the taxpayer pay for the guy who smokes four packs of cigarettes a day and then gets emphysema?
Shortly following this witty outburst Maher decided he needed to find where everyone stood ideologically. He was probably beginning to detect that he was well to the left of everyone at his table:
Let me poll this panel. I don’t know what party you are.
Zinni stated clearly:
“American… No political affiliation.”
Then Kutcher revealed what was already becoming clear by his genuinely moderate, independent take on health care:
“I am a fiscally conservative, socially liberal independent.”
Turning then to Douthat:
“Well normally when I get into a situation like this I say something like I’m a conservative but I’m alienated from the Republican Party, but I feel like I have to take a stand — you know the Republican Party needs all the help it can get — I’ll say I’m a Republican.”
So Ashton emerges from the Hollywood closet: he’s not a leftist. He’s an independent with the brains to know that big government can’t save America. Hopefully his declaration wasn’t an incident of him “punking” us. Let’s cross our fingers that he doesn’t emerge next week with the admission that he’s actually a Maoist.
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Well,call me crazy,but I still think Red Forman was right…Kelso is a ‘kettlehead’
Kutcher says: “Frankly, I don’t want to pay for the guy who’s getting a triple-bypass because he’s eating fast food all day and deep-fried snickers bars. I don’t want to pay for him! Whether he’s wealthy or he’s not!”
I agree. Nor do I want to pay for abortions on demand for a gal who’s getting knocked up because she’s making irresponsible decisions regarding sex.
I don’t want to pay for abortions, whether she’s wealthy or not.
Well, well, well……Kelso’s a Rockefeller Republican…….looks like Demi’s sending one of the kids to bed without supper tonite……
LOL! (And a genuine LOL, your witticism really did make me laugh out loud. Thanks.)
This is interesting. Now we’re beginning to discuss what healthcare government should or should not pay to provide and to whom. It seems much of the truth in this debate, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder in that what is bad for me is even worse for thee. Where to next? Will government decide not to treat a car crash victim who was thought to have been speeding at the time his car went off the road? This may sound facetious, but it is a deadly serious indicator of the conflict of interest that lies at the heart of the notion of government as provider of last resort. What role should government play in the treatment and rehabilitation of addicts? What about seemingly innocuous issues such as the wearing of seatbelts of bicycle helmets? Will government now legislate the wearing of seatbelts because they save lives or because they reduce the cost of care that government must absorb? A law may be a bad law but bear good consequences, such as increased tax revenues or decreased governmental outlays. Should such a bad law be passed? Should government restrict even more freedom, because it pays government to do so?
Plenty of compelling thoughts and questions, as I’ve come to expect from you Cas.
One argument that seems to be bandied about a bit for single-payer is that it would simplify the already complex quagmire of health care insurance companies.
No.
Just, No. It would not. The nightmare that is healthcare insurance would be just as complicated — if not more so — under a single-payer system. It would just be complicated and nightmarish in ways we can only dream of.
What’s the “least worst” option in this debate my friends? Because it’s not like our current system is peaches and cream. Health care as it is now does indeed suck. But government health care will suck a great deal harder…
I agree. Tort reform is desperately needed. Will the lawyers in Congress vote to limit the rewards of their lawyer brethren? What say you?
Another group not represented or discussed ANYWHERE, are those of us who
eat nutritionally healthy and remain so…WITHOUT ‘health care’ insurance. I am one of those and have a 42 year old Vegan daughter whose muscled body, 0 fat and good health would put all the Hollywoodites to shame.
It’s official. The Obama Administration and proponents of government-run health care must think the American people are total and complete idiots.
On Sunday, the Obama Administration released a trial balloon that Obama was willing to “compromise” on health care reform by dropping the government-run “public option” from ObamaCare and replacing it with a so-called “health care co-op.”
On Monday, the Obama Administration started backing away, ever so slightly, from that trial balloon.
Linda Douglass, communications director for the White House Office of Health Reform, said Obama still “believes the public option is the best way” to achieve his goals.
And White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs emphatically stated that previous comments regarding the health care co-ops “were misinterpreted” but hedged the statement by saying that “Obama is happy to look at them [alternatives to the public-option].”
If your head is spinning, don’t be confused. The trial balloon is nothing more than an indication of what is to come in this battle over ObamaCare.
Simply put, after having failed to pass ObamaCare in the dark of night… after having failed to ram ObamaCare down the throats of the American people… the Obama Administration is moving to “Plan C.”
In short, they’ll try to put lipstick on this pig of a health care plan… they’ll change the terminology and announce so-called “compromises” until you believe that they are backing down from their statist plan to impose government-run health care on every man, woman and child in the United States.
So don’t be deceived. As with the Amnesty debate two years ago, every so-called “compromise” will be more of the same… every so-called “compromise” will essentially give the proponents of ObamaCare everything they want.
Something I haven’t seen elsewhere, that just came across my desk via the National Right to Work Committee, a group I know little about except that they are anti-union: provisions in the health care bill that mandate unionization of all health care personnel! Is this true? Makes sense considering the thug quotient at most town hall meetings. Sorry to be off topic on this article, but seems relevant to all of us! David, am hoping you can illuminate.
The more people claim the label “Independent” the more political community will devolve into factions fighting for supremacy or the arbitrary power of a single individual. I refer you to Robert Nisbet’s work Twilight of Authority. Affiliation with one or the other political party has generally been in decline since the early 70s. Who would seriously argue that politics has improved since then?
Nisbet writes, “No one has seen more clearly the vital relation between political party and freedom in a democracy than did Tocqueville. His analysis of the matter in Democracy in America has the great merit of placing political party under the larger heading of voluntary associations, bodies which Tocqueville’s insight told him were crucial to any freedom worthy of the name in modern society.”
Here Nisbet quotes Tocqueville at length:
‘There are no countries in which associations are more needed to prevent despotism of faction or the arbitrary power of a prince than those which are democratically constituted. In aristocratic nations the body of the nobles and the wealthy are in themselves natural associations which check the abuses of power. In countries where such associations do not exist, if private individuals cannot create an artificial and temporary substitute for them, I can see no permanent protection against the most galling tyranny; and a great people may be oppressed with impuntiy by smal faction or by single individual.’
Many will claim that the political parties are to blame for this situation. However, one cannot ignore the fact that the culture has made a virtue of the turning away from political community and and now a herd of “Independents” runs loose in the public square.
I would add to Kutcher’s comment that in the same vein: When the private healthcare market makes the same decisions in not insuring or charging extremely high premiums to our fast-food, deep fried snickers bar eating countryman; it is NOT a health care crisis.
Unfortunately, Kutcher’s desire to not want his tax dollar directed towards health coverage for people eating fast food lacks compassion and perspective. If you hadn’t noticed, we live in a society that markets fast food to us all of our lives. From the cradle to the grave, restaurants like McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, et al. push their poison on us. What’s worse, for many poor people in particular, fast food is often all they can afford or have available in their community. I agree with Kutcher’s premise that prevention and healthier lifestyles are an important part of health care reform, but to deny people health care coverage because they are engaging in an undeniably All-American pastime (eating cheap fast food subsidized by our agricultural policies) seems quite cold-blooded and, uh, un-American.
Disagree.
Those of us who eat fast food too much (guilty as charged) have only ourselves to blame. My wife and I eat McDonald’s and other fast food places too often. That’s our own weakness. Yes, we’re inundated with fast food propaganda whenever we CHOOSE to turn on our TV. But that does not absolve us of personal responsibility.
Further Kutcher isn’t saying that such people shouldn’t be able to get health insurance, he’s just pointing out the ethical problem that arises with giving them a government-funded health care system. It’s not fair for other people’s vices to be subsidized by their fellow citizens who have the strength to resist them. Would you have the same position on this if Kutcher had made his point with tobacco as the example?
I have to disagree with you about this, because, regardless if you want to accept it, it is a socio-economic problem.
I live in Baltimore. (While I was employed, before I was laid-off) I would take the Route 35 bus into downtown, every morning. I’m not sure if you, yourself, have ever been through “Pig Town” but, let me assure you, there is no Wholefoods in this neighborhood. This is the neighborhood where they film “The Wire”…and there are families who live in these neighborhoods. Parents will walk their children to school past the drug addled prostitutes, soliciting business on Wilkins. These people are VERY poor. Public education in Baltimore City is awful and children have to worry about being attacked. If you’re on foodstamps, you’re going to buy what is cheap to stretch your dollar so everyone in your family can be fed.
Ok, what’s cheap? Mac & Cheese. Ramen. Lots of fats and starches.
These people can’t afford to shop at Wholefoods, and they don’t necessarily have access to healthcare. So, they will develop more health problems.
Ashton Kutcher is nicely isolated in his Hollywood utopia, not considering the single mother on food stamps, or her children.
And the lack of care provided for people in neighborhoods like this is one of the reasons why this is a generational problem. People get stuck in cycles of poverty.
These children of single mothers grow-up to become men and women…and without proper healthcare, education or nutrition, they fall through the cracks.
Think outside the bourgeois. This is why there needs to be a Public Option (If not a single payer system — like in Germany. — and remember, Germany came out of the recession first.)
Care to elaborate on that?
I get a vision of the French Revolution. Whether or not Marie Antoinette actually said “Let them eat cake” is debatable. But this attitude of “I don’t want to cover anyone who eats McDonald’s until they need bypass surgery” smacks of the same sentiment. His statement is very ignorant, bourgeois and elitist.
Some people don’t have choices. If you’re poor, and it is what is available, that is what you eat. If you grow up eating McDonald’s (because your parents were/are poor) a lot of damage has already been done to your body. Then, if you can only get a job at McDonald’s, you’re going to be eating A LOT of McDonald’s.
But you know what, I forgot to mention, I don’t have health insurance. I would consider myself middle class. I didn’t opt-in to COBRA because I couldn’t afford it. I don’t eat McDonald’s. I’m mostly vegetarian, but I’ve got genetic risk factors for heart disease and cancer. I live a healthy lifestyle, and that may not matter in the end.
HOW DARE Ashton Kutcher, a multi-millionaire, make a statement like that.
Most people don’t know much about nutrition, because they don’t really teach it to PUBLIC SCHOOL children (beyond the four food groups)…and when you’re forced to attend a school in a school-system where they count Ketchup as a vegetable in your cafeteria school lunch, you’re probably going to have limited understanding of your nutritional needs.
THAT’s what I meant by thinking outside the bourgeois.
(**It’s a play on words. Think outside the box.)
Do you ascribe to the theory that there is a “bourgeois” and a “proletariat”? Do you consider yourself a Marxist?
So who is stopping these same people from eating at a Subway or a Quizno’s restaurant or ordering a salad at Wendy’s instead of the “Baconator”? Nobody is shoving bad food down anyone’s throat, restaurants serve what people want to eat and because of this there are more healthy choices then ever. I disagree regarding Taco Bell, it’s food is actually fairly lean over all compared to the Kentucky Fried Chickens that they are frequently paired with.
Hello,
So last week I see that this first class “IDIOT” Bill Maher was on the Tonight-Show with Conan O’Brian and he has the audacity to call Americans STUPID. Says this President just should shove the health-care bill down “OUR” thorats no matter what. Why do people have anything to do with this “IDIOT” What a complete loser he is. Some day before he goes to get judged I would love to see God Almighty send a message to him, and show him what is in store for him. It is never to late to change, even for Bill Maher, but I already know the answer to what will be happening to him in the not to distant future. We need to remember he is nothing except what people have made of him. I you were like me you would discontiue your sub. to HBO in protest of him having that stupid show on it. Listen if people can screw over Glenn Beck from FoxNews then I do not see why we cannot make HBO get rid of this piece of human-trash.
Thanks,
Larry D. Crumbley
bearone7777@yahoo.com