Following logically from the previous post, about idiocy...
I watched an interview of a nice young (twenty-five years old) guy, evidently one of the founding teabaggers. He wrote a book in which he refers, he acknowledged, to the health care legislation as "tyranny." It's a common theme. It says exactly who the teabaggers are: they are people who neither understand the meaning of nor accept the most basic premise of democracy. Elections.
People who describe the Affordable Care Act as tyrannical cite polls. But if governance were by polling, we'd not need elected leaders at all. In a democracy, people influence government via elections. ELECTIONS. Not polls. Elections. Because, as the previous post shows, people will believe anything; at least long enough to get polled on it. Longer, apparently. As George W. Lincoln said, "I can fool you all the time, but some people...uh..." Teabaggers can't and will never accept the results of an election they lost. Among the many words for that is "unAmerican."
Polling on the ACA remains all over the place, but one thing is sure: of those who oppose it, significant numbers do so because they've been deliberately misinformed by a "news" network with a hyperpartisan agenda, by Congressional Republicans, and, most unanimously, by the rest of the RWS™. How much of the public believes in forced microchips? Enough to pass laws outlawing them.
Which is why it's not tyranny to pass legislation based on campaign promises rather than the latest polls. Especially in the current environment of a deliberate propagandizing disinformation campaign by the most watched "..." network.
OK, guess you won't stop using the T-word...Your right about Elections being the premise of democracy, and I won't even point out that we live in a "Republic" not a "Democracy"...
ReplyDeleteYeah, we lost in 2008, just like y'all lost in 1968, 1972,1980,1984,1988,2000,2004, and you here that Train comin down the tracks??? It ain't Amtrack...
Seriously, Y'all control all 4 branches of government and you have the REAL Teabaggers heckling the President(Peace be upon Him) cause the Turd-Burlgars(how you like that "T" word Willis?) can't die I mean serve openly in Afghanistan...
I mean if "Don't Ask Don't Smell" isn't repealed now, whens it ever gonna get repealed?
Oh, and those poor innocent A-rabs Chaney tortured in Git-mo? There still there...
Still haven't got my middle class tax cut.
KSM's still waiting for that Manhattan Show Trial
But thats cool, cause all the boys will be home from Iraq this Summer, if by "all" you mean except for 50,000 "Support" troops, Wow, Obama(Peace be upon Him) really IS LBJ...
Hey did you catch PBS "Frontline" Tuesday??? "The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan"?? I thought Barney Frank looked a little deflated on C-span today...
Frank
"...can't and will never accept the results of an election they lost"
ReplyDeletehttp://motherjones.com/media/2005/11/recounting-ohio
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/07/23/billpress.column/index.html
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=2306865&mesg_id=2306869
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/06/hillary-ghost-h.html
Looks like it's mainly you people who really know and enjoy that "teabagging" thing who can't accept elections.
Point: entirely and enthusiastically missed. I'm shocked. Shocked.
ReplyDeleteYour point, then, is that the tea party is ignorant? I guess you disagree with Gallup...not heretofore known as a conservative organization:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.gallup.com/poll/127181/tea-partiers-fairly-mainstream-demographics.aspx
Or maybe you know better, since you watch all that Fox News? Maybe Rachel informed you? Keith? Maybe it was uberdem Al Franken? Leg Tingle Matthews? I know--the all knowing G Soros, puppet master of the left???
Point: ignored, idiotically. Predictably.
ReplyDeletePS: henceforth, if you continue to refuse to leave some sort of designator at the end of your comments, they will not be published. I'd explain why, but since you are unable to derive the point of anything I say, I'll save us both the time.
I'm trying my best to mine whatever your point is, then.
ReplyDeleteSo you don't think the tea party is ignorant. Or, you do, but it's not your point.
You don't think the legitimacy of the president is an issue. Or you do, but it's not your point.
Maybe your point is about governing by your campaign promises. This looks like a summary statement: "it's not tyranny to pass legislation based on campaign promises", plus it comes at the end, like you learned in freshman comp.
But Obama isn't governing according to his promises. How about this promise?
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/jul/20/barack-obama/obama-flip-flops-requiring-people-buy-health-care/
To be honest, of course, Obama is hardly governing in this. He let Pelosi and Reid write the healthcare bill, just voting "present" one more time. But he could have led, and he could have lived up to his promise.
Sorry about the anonymous thing.
X
Well, now, X, you finally got it. It's not about polls. A duly elected government is not tyranny just because polls, at a given moment, may show disagreement.
ReplyDeleteAnd, as opposed to those Democrats who claimed the election of Bush was stolen or dishonest, the teabaggers aren't claiming the election was stolen (except to the extent to which they claim Obama is Kenyan). They're rejecting the results of the election; they're saying that because they don't agree with what Obama is doing, it's tyrannical. Big, if subtle, difference.
I take you point about changing on mandates, a Republican idea. He did indeed change on that. On the other hand, what he promised was health care reform. I don't recall that he promised there would not be mandates; he disagreed with the proposal at the time, but always -- and this is why some on the left are angry with him -- has said he'd seek common ground and accept good ideas, whatever the source.
Contrary to the claims of teabaggers, he's not only not a socialist, but not even a hard-left liberal. From the beginning, I've been saying that.
Thank you for the X. I appreciate it.
If you're interested in true reasons and not just demonizing the right, this is an interesting editorial. I don't know if I support his conclusion, and I'll guess that you reject the WSJ out of hand, but this doesn't seem too partisan.
ReplyDeleteObama right to the right of where he is now. He promised no tax hikes, but now he says he promised no income tax hikes. That doesn't go unnoticed.
I would say the big fear on the right is the enthusiasm he has shown for increasing the size, and more importantly, the commitments of the government. Once an entitlement starts, it's very hard to undo it. Yes, I know Bush started Medicare D--and made zero friends on the right by doing it. And the new healthcare is one big entitlement. A good idea? Maybe for another discussion. But he's committed us to a giant expenditure that can hardly be undone, and at a time when (via the polls) most of us were begging him not to.
X
Those are all fair comments, X, and I appreciate your making them in a useful way. (Even though there was no link to the WSJ.)
ReplyDeleteI've said in this blog that I don't trust the numbers given, either for the costs of reform or for the revenues generated to pay for it. I've said I'd have preferred a single payer, because it eliminates the needless siphoning of money away from care and into pockets of insurance company profiteers and their investors.
I also think this country ought to be able to make health care available to its citizens, in an affordable way.
I share concerns about size of government, and about deficits. As I've said, it seems obvious that the solution must involve both tax hikes and spending cuts. Including defense, and entitlements. Taxes are near all-time lows, and it's not working.
But I also know that our health care system is badly broken and on an unsustainable trajectory. At no time have Rs addressed it in any meaningful way. Finally, someone has. I have no doubt it'll need adjusting along the way; I predict, because there's simply no way around it eventually, we'll end up with a single payer system, possibly/probably with private options for those who can and wish to pay for it.
Simply to criticize Obama for trying to fix what clearly needs fixing, while providing no meaningful solutions, makes for good politics, maybe, and lots of anger. But nothing positive.
Obama promised middle class tax cuts, and delivered. Regretfully, in my view. He also said, regularly, that restoring the taxes Bush cut from the Clinton era needs doing, and I agree. We suffer greatly from the Reagan-inspired delusion that you can cut taxes and raise money, and keep spending on defense, etc, with no deficits. It has to end. It did, for a while, under Clinton.
I'd love to pay no taxes, especially if could have fire departments, cops, roads, education, health care, anyway. I really really believe we'd have had a better health care bill had Rs actually pitched in, instead of making the calculation that they could win votes -- their only concern -- by objecting. And not just objecting: lying. Like McConnell did just now about bailouts. It's an obscenity, and destructive to our democracy.
PS: it's true, X, that I don't think much of the WSJ editorial board, but I think their reporting is generally good. Same as the WaPo. Hackery on the back page, decent work elsewhere.
ReplyDeletehttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704133804575198290459062592.html?mod=rss_opinion_main
ReplyDeleteOops.....
X
I read your WSJ article, X. Not too partisan? Yikes.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, I guess time will tell if he's right. As I've said, it's hard to get a message through the constant lies and harangues of the RWS™ and, most particularly, the steady stream of propaganda of Fox "news." It remains true, as far as I can tell, that when people actually understand what's in the ACA, they like it more.
As to the general anti-government sentiments, I guess it's true. I'm among those who don't think much of government, but for me it's more about the lack of a useful and helpful opposition party, and the extent to which they're willing and able to disrupt and deceive. There are polls that show Obama's approval numbers remaining higher than that Pew poll.
There are an impressive number of accomplishments of this Congress, despite the Rs, and of the President. Financial reform is coming, too.
My view of that hyperpartisan editorial is that it's wishful thinking. But we'll know better in November, won't we?
hh. You almost made it all the way through the thread without resorting to name-calling. I thought maybe you were interested in actual discussion, not just throwing a tantrum. Do you maybe start drinking during a thread?
ReplyDeleteIf that editorial was "hyper-partisan", then maybe you're more comfortable with the middle of the road Huff-Po, Kos, TPM, etc.
Enjoy your blog.
X
I do enjoy the blog, X, which is why I do it.
ReplyDeleteFor the life of me I can't see name-calling in that last comment of mine. Referring to the columnist as hyperpartisan? It's true in my opinion, and hardly insulting. And it was you who suggested that I, personally, "enjoy teabagging."
Meanwhile, I engaged your comments respectfully and even agreed on some points, in two long responses. I guess you found the prospect of an actual conversation too troubling. How truly bizarre.
We'll miss you. Sort of.