Undemocratic Democrats
According to John Harwood in The New York Times, public support for "reining in Wall Street" has Democrats about as exuberant as Democrats ever get any more. Scared Senate Republicans are looking for deals to cut. The public wants this thing, with three-fifths supporting it in a recent poll. Democrats—who always do the public's bidding—are ready to close the deal.
If there's time, that is, after Congress and the president force the public to take a deal on health care that only a distinct minority seems to want.
What the average Democrat thinks of public opinion these days seems to depend on which big government measure is on the table.
Financial regulation? Can't let it die—the public wouldn't forgive! Health—um, well, you know, people will love this thing once it gets done, never mind what they say now.
In other words, never mind that in the latest Rasmussen poll 44 percent want Obamacare and 52 percent don't. Gallup situates the division at 42 percent favorable, 49 against. An ABC News/Washington Post poll gives the Pelosi and Reid bills their closest (if still losing) margin—46 for, 49 against. Says Karlyn Bowman of the American Enterprise Institute: "I can't think of any other big piece of legislation that had so much opposition" before passing.
Somehow, in the counsels of the Democratic Party, none of this seems to matter. Open your mouths, folks; watch the spoon; take a big swallow and you'll love it.
Such is the Democrats' anti-populist approach on health care. We're to do it in spite of public opinion. On financial reform, the opposite view obtains. Can't deny the popular will, can we? Oh, no—only when it suits our purpose to deny the popular will.
Accusing a politician of hypocrisy is akin to blaming a size-five shoe for pinching a size-10 foot. A considerably more useful reaction is caution. Maybe the polls on health care—as Democrats insist—show little more than a foul public mood on this particular issue. Very well. When the public has such a mood, what is the right political approach—to say, "Shut up, you jerks," or to draw back for further consideration and the annealing of large aggravations and anxieties? The former, snaps Madam Speaker Pelosi. Shut up, America! Take your medicine!
The danger in this approach is of course twofold. First, the public could be right: The bill might really be a poorly thought-out and ill-digested one, a candidate for thoughtful improvement.
Second, telling voters—even the relatively small number who talk to pollsters—to proceed immediately to the hot place savors of arrogance. Arrogance contrary to democratic theory, be it noted.
No bill should pass solely because polls call it unpopular; nor should one pass solely because polls say the public wants it now. Public opinion, so called, can change in a few instants, as Barack Obama, once the nation's hero, now its main lecturer and finger-wagger, can surely attest. When the bloom is off the rose—health care is surely an instance of that—the sensible, as opposed to the frivolous, politician will ask how come and what ought to be done about it.
The need for caution extends to financial regulation, a nebulous term that can mean a million different things to a million different people. Strong support for the whole concept is waning—down 13 points in a year (according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll), with opposition 12 points higher.
Public disenchantment with Obamanism seems to grow daily. Which shows you what goes on, doesn't it? By golly, if people are going to quit loving the new regime, the regime is going to pop it to those same people while time remains. Rahm Emanuel must have had something of the sort in mind when he delivered his famous epigram about never letting a crisis go to waste. No, sir—not if mere voters (what do they know anyway?) might change their mind about you. More and more dangerous the Washington power games look every minute.
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Once they pass it, it'll be like herpes, you will never get rid of it. That's why they want it so badly. They will change it, over time, to suit themselves, and never ratchet it back.
That's the thing about borrowing money from China. A half-an-hour later, you're broke again.
When bank-robber Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, he said because “that’s where the money is.” Sutton's answer seems much more honest to me than anything Mr. Murchison will say concerning the Democrats stealing from the rich, or the Republicans robbing the poor. Why on earth a grown man of Mr. Murchison's stature would ever take sides in the present political climate is beyond me. As a youngster I always looked up to him as a tall Texan, but now I believe he is slipping into that senility and second childhood where one prefers the tall tales.
The Democrats are worse than the Republicans? A red herring.
I foresee the healthcare takeover as totalitarian control. Can anything not be taken and misconstrued as healthcare related? Does it cause stress? Does it cause obesity? Can it in anyway cause injury? Etc., etc…..
States are now lining up to use the 10th amendment as reason for their noncompliance of a federal healthcare takeover. This will create an interesting struggle not fully seen since Honest Abe. I can see the ruthless, cut-throat Obama cutting all federal aid (and anything else he can find) to such states, forcing them into submission. It will be an interesting diversion as the country staggers toward bankruptcy.
There is a terrible day of reckoning comming,and Vae Victis.
I know its disconcerting, but the only thing standing between Socialized medicine and unprecedented government contol of our lives are the Republicans. Unfortunately Americans have had an amazing capability to accept whatever their local, state and federal governments do to them for the past 150 years.
Not a Republican myself and having scant affection for the GOP, I think it is still possible to distinguish between a party that just wants wealth and power for its friends and is dumb enough to go along, albeit at a slower pace, with the revolution, and the current leaders of the revolution to destroy everything we have left that is worth having, our money, our children, our control over our families, our sense of history and identity. While I have no doubt that a McCain presidency would have been evil and disgusting, it is hard to believe that the average GOP crooks in Congress would have aggressively supported the Obama revolution. Neither party offers us any reason for optimism, but the Democratic Party, almost to a man, gives us many reasons to despair.
In the recent past, I have been wrong many times about the political scene, repeatedly failing to grasp how degraded, stupid, and cowardly the average American has become, but even a cornered rat will show some fight if he has no alternative. That is the only temporary blessing of the Democrats: They allow ordinary people no alternative but to fear, hate, and fight them. It won't last of course, and 5-6 years from now, they will be giving carte blanche to another war against the enemies of Israel, but as a cockeyed optimist, I am delighted with this temporary upsurge of imbecilic reaction against the party of Kennedy, Johnson, the Clintons, and Obama's gang of thugs.
"In the recent past, I have been wrong many times about the political scene, repeatedly failing to grasp how degraded, stupid, and cowardly the average American has become, but even a cornered rat will show some fight if he has no alternative."
Dr Fleming,
From one dirty rat to another --- I don't know about you but I am beginning to feel cornered.
#3 The Democrats are worse than the Republicans? A red herring.
Well said. The vote for Kucinich's resolution to end the war in Afghanistan went down 65-356 in the House of Representatives. How many of these 65 are Republicans? Just 5.
"resolution to end the war in Afghanistan went down 65-356 in the House of Representatives. How many of these 65 are Republicans? Just 5."
I heard Arlen Specter say recently that the reason Democrats should trust him ruuning as a democrat this time is because he has always supported them in "their fight to protect a woman's right to choose" When he ran as a Republican, President G. W. Bush said Republicans should trust him because he was chairman of the Senate Judiciary and Republicans could count on his leadership there to appoint conservative justices. That pretty much sums up the current duopoly. One candidate running on both tickets with endorsements from the leadership of both parties without ever needing to change his political stance on any issue. If it doesn't work out in the Democratic primary in May maybe he can take a lesson from Joe Lieberman's play book and run as independent in November.