New Right-Wing Email: The Affordable Golf Club Act

Posted by Bob Lord

So, how would I describe the latest right-wing email I received? In a word: Adorable. Adorable in the way a pre-teen discovering and clumsily experimenting with sarcasm is adorable. Check it out:

The administration has passed a new law titled: "The Affordable Golf Club Act" declaring that every citizen must purchase a new set of golf clubs, before April 2014. 

This law has been passed, because until now, typically only the wealthy or financially responsible have been able to purchase new golf clubs without the assistance of their government. 

This new law ensures that every American can now have "affordable" golf clubs of their own, because everyone is equally entitled to new golf clubs. And if you want to keep the golf clubs you already have, you can do that, until April 2014.

These affordable golf clubs will cost from $1,000 to $3,000 each depending on your income level. This does not include taxes, pull cart, electric cart fees, green fees, membership fees, balls, tees, gloves, range finders, storage fees, maintenance, or repair costs.   

In order to make sure everyone participates and purchases their affordable golf clubs, the costs of owning golf clubs will increase 50% each year up to 400% by year 2018. This way, wealthy people will pay more for something that other people don't want or can't afford to maintain. People who can't afford or refuse to maintain their golf clubs will be fined. However, children under the age of 26 can use their parents’ golf clubs until they turn 27 at which time they must purchase their own golf clubs.

If you don't want or think you don't need golf clubs, you are still required to buy them. If you refuse to buy a set or make claims that you can't afford them, you will be fined $800 until you purchase a set or face imprisonment. 

People living in farming areas, ghettos, inner cities, Wyoming , or areas with no access to golf courses are not exempt. Age, health, prior experience or no experience are not acceptable excuses for not buying, maintaining, and using your golf clubs.

A government review board that doesn't know the difference between a hook and a slice will decide everything. This includes when, where, how often and for what purposes you can use your golf clubs along with how many people can ride in your golf cart. The board will also determine if participants are too old or not healthy enough to be able to use their golf clubs. 

They will also decide if your golf clubs have outlived their usefulness or if you must purchase specific accessories, like a range finder with slope adjustment or a newer and more expensive set of golf clubs.   

Those that can afford memberships at expensive golf country clubs will be required to buy memberships. If you are already a member and you like your membership you can keep your membership. After April 2014, a different country club will be assigned for you to purchase a membership.        

Government officials are exempt from this new law as they and their families and some of their friends and a few of their friends, friends can obtain golf clubs at taxpayers expense.

Of course, what's really funny here, in a pathetic kind of way, is that in order for the intended humor to be appreciated, your have to feel that the same rules that apply to health care rationally should be applied to golf clubs, such that providing for universal health care makes no more sense than providing everyone with golf clubs. Which means you either have to believe that golf clubs are a necessity or health care is a luxury.

As Bugs Bunny would say, "what a bunch of maroons."

Comments

[Bruce Freiberg]

The fact remains that Robert's convoluted and illogical opinion gives Congress a powerful new tool for using taxes as an instrument of social regulation. Congress now merely has to impose a tax on the failure to take an action. There is no principle limiting what Congress might expect to achieve by imposing a tax on inaction. You laugh about the difference between health care and golf clubs, but remember this: Congress now has the power to compel every American to purchase a Chevrolet to support the American auto industry and increase employment. Think it can't or won't happen? Who thought ten years ago that Americans could be forced to purchase a product from, and for the benefit of, private, for-profit companies, as we must now do for healthcare? Who believed that the Constitution could be so twisted to allow this?

[Bob Lord]

Don't the states require folks to obtain auto insurance? Isn't the principle behind the tax that if you don't buy insurance there is a risk you will drain public resources for emergency room visits, so you're being assessed for the cost associated with that risk?

The argument you're making is based on logic known as reductio ad absurdum. It's quite appropriate in areas such as mathematics, but does it really make sense in the context of lawmaking? For practically any piece of legislation, you could argue "well, if Congress can do x, then it could do y, which is absurd, so we don't want Congress doing x." But our system doesn't operate that way. Instead, we rely on the ability to vote folks out of office and the abiity to reverse bad decisions.

[movingazforward]

I think millions of elderly Americans have been happy to receive healthcare benefits via Medicare. I wonder why, in almost 50 years, few have complained about being "forced" to use or contribute toward this part of our government-sponsored health care.

A better question is "Who will be the first to give up their Medicare coverage?" Somehow, I don't see recipients of the "Affordable Golf Club Act" email racing to refuse Medicare benefits and cancel doctor's appointments anytime soon.

I'm glad that my taxes make it possible for my parents to receive Medicare, Tricare, and Social Security benefits while my children and my friends and neighbors and their children now have affordable health insurance through the ACA. That's progress!

[Bruce Freiberg]

The Founding Fathers wanted the judicial branch to serve as a check on the power of the legislature and executive branches, and gave the Supreme Court the responsibility of interpreting the Constitution in a way that would safeguard individual freedoms. Sadly, Roberts' opinion has twisted the Constitution into something that would be unrecognizable by the Fathers. Today we live under a government that exercises virtually unlimited powers while steadily eroding our freedoms. I hope you enjoy your Chevrolet.