I like that Flanders is a Beatles fan, because they are more popular than Jesus.
steve
· 2 months ago
No, he wasn't kidding - “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God”
So all of our politicians, including Obama, Pelosi, Bush, this Wilson guy - are all going to have a tough time. They're rich guys and gals all, and they too have benefited from the very pocket-lining of which you speak - which both deplorable parties perpetuate.
And the Wilson guy is as much of a douchbag as the presidential-appointed wacko czar Van Jones who just calls his opponents "a-holes", with a smile on his face. Ahhh.. .the state of American leaders. I hope they both remembered to buy fresh diapers and formula for themselves, babys can't go without these things for too long. Let's face the facts, the vast majority of our 'leaders' are childish, corrupt, power-hungry, and dishonest. And rich too, which is not in and of itself a bad thing, but when fused with their other wonderful traits make for the situation we have now.
Here's hoping one day we get term limits..... please...please...
JonCummings
· 2 months ago
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
I've said this before and I'll say it again, Steve: You can bitch and moan about all the money in politics, the shortcomings of the two-party system, etc., etc. all you want. But if that pox-on-both-your-houses attitude is ALL you ever bring to the table, then you are, by default, a puppet of the status quo because you would rather throw in the towel than lift a finger to change anything that's wrong.
Someone famously said that "politics is the art of the possible." Someone else famously said, in a message that applies much better here than it did when he said it, that "you go into battle with the army you have, not the army you might want." The players on the board, Democrat and Republican, are the ones we've got to work with. They are hardly perfect; their institutions are systematically corrupted by money, cronyism and lust for power. We all know this; we all recognize it as the baseline for all the activity that goes on in politics.
But that doesn't mean there aren't wars to run (if not necessarily "win"), bureaucracies to oversee, problems to solve. There's a party in power that sees access to and affordability of health care as a major problem to solve; there's another party that doesn't particularly care about those things, and would only like to tinker with the problems IT sees (those that restrict the free operations of businesses) while trying to wrest more power from the party that has it now. These people, whatever their considerable faults, are currently vying for advantage in public opinion, and eventually they're going to make policies that affect hundreds of millions of people.
And all you care about is how corrupt they are, and how there's no possibility of anything good coming out of these people and this system. Well, something's going to happen soon with health care ... or, maybe, nothing's going to happen ... but if all you've got to say is basically "you all suck," then I hope you recognize you're talking to yourself, because nobody else is really going to listen to you.
And term limits don't work, anyway. Capitol Hill may be a disgusting sausage grinder, but you need at least some of the people to be able to run the machine without losing their own limbs in the process. We have term limits for the legislature here in California, and most everybody's dying to get rid of them.
steve
· 2 months ago
Your, "well, we're stuck with this so I guess I'll choose a club and be a Dem, and believe all the BS that they believe and side with them in every little argument" attitude is defeatist Jon. Don't be a defeatist. I also love how you quote someone who you obviously hate with a passion, only when it's convenient for you.
If you think we have to "go to battle" with the current armies, and we're stuck with that, well, you've already been defeated and threw in your hat. I haven't.
And if you think "There's a party in power that sees access to and affordability of health care as a major problem to solve" - if you think that's their real motives, then you are very, very naive.
JonCummings
· 2 months ago
Well, thank goodness one of us has figured out the hopelessness and evil of the whole enterprise. Thank goodness one of us has decided not to play the game played by, let's see, every politician and government official, journalists and pundits everywhere, and 99.9 percent of the public (at least those who are paying attention) -- that game of "politics and government are about figuring out the best way to run the country and serve its people." Of COURSE the Democrats are just throwing up a smoke screen about health care ... and have been for 60 years, since Harry Truman! It's all an elaborate ruse! I can't believe I've never seen it before! Thank goodness you're here to set me straight, and make me realize that no matter what our current system of government does, nobody could possibly be positively affected by it (unless they're getting a kickback)!
Seve, re-read your second paragraph above. And then tell me about the things you've actually ever done -- or plan to do -- to change the two-party system, besides grouse about it. Are you WORKING to change it in any particular way -- membership in something like the Concord Coalition, striving to find and actively support third-party candidates in local races, giving money to and/or fundraising for such organizations ... working toward changes to the financing of politics (such as public financing and lobbying bans, which would remove much corporate influence)??
I would love to be wrong about this, but I'm guessing you don't do any of that, because if you did you would be cognizant of the effects of your own puerile negativity on the debate. It's impossible to see you as being in favor of real, positive solutions to the problems you see, because you come here every week bringing nothing but name-calling for any politician who's in the news.
You're obviously quite happy in your little world of potshots and all-encompassing negativity -- and in that world I am clearly naive, as is everybody else who dares push for something good to come out of the health care debate. Nobody thinks it's going to be perfect, or even free of corruption -- the giveaways Obama has already ladled out to the drug companies and the insurance companies are infuriating, and the idea that individual and employer mandates will "bring the private insurance companies millions of new customers," as Obama noted in his speech, makes me want to wretch. But even with all that, I am in favor of legislation emerging from all this that is designed to make health care available and affordable to those who don't have it, introduce a public option (or at least something similar) that will force insurance companies to lower their rates, and end the insurance practices that deny or take away coverage for people who aren't perfectly healthy. I live in a horribly naive world where it's worthwhile to be FOR something, Steve. What are you for?
To bring this back to what this column was really about, John Lennon was hopelessly naive as well, thinking he could bring about peace simply by doing a bag-in or a bed-in or putting up huge billboards in Times Square and Piccadilly Circus. His efforts clearly had very little impact -- which is why millions around the world stopped what they were doing during the week after he was killed to remember him, and sang "Imagine" and "Give Peace a Chance" at candlelight vigils. That was all awfully naive as well -- but I gotta tell you, Steve, I'd much rather live in that world than yours.
steve
· 2 months ago
You ask a question, and since you don't know me, here's the answer. I'm a member of this
And although I'll state CLEARLY that I don't believe in everything they believe in, they are trying very hard (as I am) to break the 2 party JOKE that we have in America.
We need independent thinkers.
We need people who don't blindly take the view of their club on an issue without really thinking about it themselves.
We need fair ballot access for third parties or ANYONE who wants to run.
So yes Jon, I'm working to change things. And while you continue to throw your support behind people (the D's) who you - by your own admission and using your words - are "corrupted by money, cronyism and lust for power", I'll be busy trying to defeat them and their institutions, and change things.
Not fake "Obama change" real change.
Am I naive too, yes. So we can agree on that, you, me and John Lennon are all naive...
JonCummings
· 2 months ago
OK, great! Not universally great -- ARP seems considerably too closed-border for my taste, both in terms of immigration and trade, its environmental policies don't go nearly far enough, and its foreign-policy "platform" is skimpy as all get-out.
Other than that, though, I agree wholeheartedly with practically every element of ARP's campaign-finance and electoral-reform platforms...except for the "none-of-the-above" ballot option (which is pointless--if you don't like anybody, just don't pull a lever) and the endorsement of widespread ballot initiatives (which have played a huge role in bringing California to a state of near-collapse). The platform also is way too vague on what it refers to as "public funding options."
I think most people, if presented with a description of the way money corrodes the political system, and given a set of common-sense ways of getting special-interest influence out of the process, would be supportive -- right up until you say the words "public financing." Then -- even among those who don't reflexively scream, "You want to take MY money?" -- a lot of folks will think, "My tax dollars are supposed to fund a campaign for THAT anti- (or pro-) choice, war-mongering (or America-hating) asshole?" At which point the oil industry and the unions step in and say, "Don't worry...we'll keep spending OUR money on those campaigns...you just toddle off to Wal-Mart now, and we'll add the cost of our vote-buying onto your next gas bill (or union dues) where you won't notice it."
Damn, I just sounded like you for a minute! But here's the difference: I can recognize that the political system sucks, and that there are lots of things that could (but probably won't) be done to fix it -- but I still have firmly held ideas about public policy, and I'd like to see the people in Washington do things that I want done. And, yup, the things I want done are almost universally liberal, and the only people in Washington who are likely to do those things (at least in some, probably bastardized form) are Democrats, so I'm a Democrat.
I am just fine with you being an independent, a free-thinker, whatever you want to call it. But you've been commenting here for a year, and you almost never discuss in a substantive way what you'd actually like to see happen, or how a better result on an issue like health care might be achieved in a system without all this corruptive money in it.
Wanna talk in detail about Obama's giveaways to the insurance and drug industries in order to get their (unenthusiastic) approval, or at least silence, on the pending legislation? Wanna speculate about the motives and hypocrisy of individual legislators (of both parties) who have taken a particular stance while also taking millions of $$$$ from the insurance industry? Great! We could get really drunk (if you drink--I sure do) bitching about that for an evening. Wanna fight about whether government has a role in making sure everybody is insured in the first place, and whether they're going about it the right way? Great! I'm in for that fight (as long as it doesn't involve a bunch of distortions or wild assumptions).
And if you want to have a real discussion about whether third parties can ever get anywhere in our system, or whether the system can ever be changed to accommodate them, I'm happy to have that conversation too. I'm particularly interested in knowing whether any of the actual policy positions on that ARP website are deal-breakers for you, and if you could give financial support to a candidate who espoused that deal-breaking position, even if he was running on an ARP platform which you have supported in its abstract phase (i.e., right now, when your support is based largely on opposition to the two-party system).
But what makes me crazy is when you divorce policy substance so completely from your abject dismissal of all politicians. The ARP has ideas about changing the system that I like a lot, but it also has a distinct (if sometimes sketchy) policy platform. Even Rep. Wilson was sniping about specific things (illegal immigrants and abortion) when he prickishly heckled the president.
All I'm saying, Steve, in all my rambling responses to your diatribes, is that I'd much rather hear what you have to say about changing the system (and maybe even about the actual issues at hand) than continue to hear nothing but dismissals of everybody involved as corrupt "babies." I'm also saying that there are real outcomes to these policy debates -- whether the debates are happening between people who are clean or corrupt, and whether those outcomes are positive or negative for the people they'll affect.
Those policies and those outcomes are worthy of debate, worth choosing sides over and arguing passionately for their own merits. If they weren't, there wouldn't be people out there acting so piggishly, or so many people giving (and taking) money to influence the outcomes, creating that system you detest so much.
steve
· 2 months ago
Yeah, we could probably go drinkin and bitch about it. And I'm honest, I'm no healthcare expert. I don't know if I have the answers, but I do know that I don't trust those in power. I also know that lobbyists and their influence must be stopped. In addition to the trial lawyers. But, I'm not in favor of a single payer system as I know how much horrendous waste anything government-run produces. I have family members who are feds, and the stories I could tell you about blatant waste fraud and abuse would make your head spin.
Do I have dealbreakers? Probably. Some on the environment. But I don't need someone to believe in everything I believe in to lead. I want a leader. I find it fascinating how the gay community is now criticizing Obama about his stance on gay marriage. Didn't they get the memo? He's always been against it. But now that they voted for him and consider him their messiah, they don't understand why he's not in their club. It's like they're saying "This is the stance of the club - how can you have an individual opinion on something that doesn't jive with the club. How DARE you!!" Our two parties are like gangs. Probably worse.
My main efforts are to treat the existing two party system like a cancer. And just as we use chemotherapy to try to kill the entire body - in hopes of killing the cancer first, I think that approach can help us clear ourselves of this political cancer. We need to try to kill the whole system, in hopes of killing the Republican and Democratic parties. Yes, I'm naive.
Brian
· 2 months ago
Wilson (who is a douche) heckling during the speech the other night was not much different when some Dems booed and heckled Bush during one of his State of the Union speeches a few years ago. But I guess that was justified, right Jon?
annielogue
· 2 months ago
Why, the Democrats booing Bush was as justified as the Republicans booing Clinton! There are plenty of bad manners to go around, and if you want to play the "but he started it!" game, well, the ball is in your court.
Heckling is a new low for the party of old-fashioned moral values, though. And I'd argue that people showed admiral restraint during the GWBush years, given how the man was appointed to office and what an overall fuck-up he proved to be. I can't imagine that rational Republicans are happy about his performance.
JonCummings
· 2 months ago
If everything becomes a tit-for-tat argument, then everybody winds up like Steve here. Brian, you're right to an extent -- both sides have been known to boo, or even say things, en masse when a president reaches an "applause line" that the opposing party disagrees with vehemently. Those things happen -- they're even built into many speeches, particularly in political years when a president wants to play up the differences between the two parties.
It's another thing entirely, at least in this country, for a congressman to yell something nasty while the president is in the middle of a sentence or passage -- particularly something like "You lie!" Don't pretend you don't remember that, for eight years -- as George W. Bush lied every time he opened his mouth about tax cuts, Iraq, Katrina, etc., etc., etc. -- Democratic politicians refused to openly use the word "lie" or "liar" to describe what he was doing, despite the fact that half (then way more than half) of the country was desperate for them to begin doing so.
Wilson engaged in a serious breach of decorum merely in heckling through the middle of a passage -- you may not think so, but I don't care what you think when members of Congress FROM BOTH PARTIES came out afterward saying it was inappropriate. The reaction in the hall -- all that hooting, like at the end of "Dangerous Liaisons" -- was all you needed to hear. Beyond that, Wilson crossed yet another checkpoint on the way to the Republicans' rapid descent into blithering ridiculousness when he used the word "lie" in the most public forum possible ... particularly considering how fricking EASY it was to prove, just by pointing to precise language of the bill, that Wilson (like the Republicans in general) was pulling his accusation completely out of his ass.
steve
· 2 months ago
translation to the above - "no, it's you guys! You're the reason!! I'm telling! Mom! They're doing it again!"
And I love "as George W. Bush lied every time he opened his mouth about tax cuts, Iraq, Katrina, etc., etc., etc"
Every time huh? Sensationalism and exaggeration can be good writing traits when used properly, but not when trying to make a point with someone. It's a credibility thing.
I can do this too - "Obama lied every time he opened his mouth about lobbyists in his administration etc etc"
See, that makes you angry huh?
JonCummings
· 2 months ago
Why would that make me angry, Steve? Obama did lie about allowing lobbyists into his administration. It was a stupid thing to do, and it did hurt his credibility.
But please, talk to me some more about George Bush's truth-telling, Uncle Stevie! I love to hear fables from the olden days. You sound awfully defensive of the ol' boy.
steve
· 2 months ago
I'll never defend Bush, nephew Jonny. Why the hell or how could I defend the person who made the single biggest foreign policy disaster of the last 50 years? But when trying to gain credibility on your argument, you do the exact opposite with statements like "..lied every time he opened his mouth about...". You're right, he lied many times, misled others, and a whole host of other politician-like things. And Obama is following in his footsteps....
annielogue
· 2 months ago
Did I really spell "admirable" like that? Oye.
JonCummings
· 2 months ago
I've never heard of "Admiral Restraint." Is he related to "General Reluctance"?
bagman27
· 2 months ago
Wilson was out of line but you all missed the point.
Steroids were banned in MLB but the league didnt test for it. So players used them.
Illegal immigrants will be banned from receiving government health care but we wont verify citizenship. But you expect a different result?
Of course, anytime you bring up real, factual objections to the current president, liberals call you a racist.
JonCummings
· 2 months ago
Nah, but in this case I will call Joe Wilson a heartless xenophobe, completely unrealistic and someone who's willing to construct any and every possible culture-war roadblock -- and in the most uncivil, disrespectful way possible -- to stop reforms that are desperately needed.
Let's take this on two levels. First, illegal immigrants will continue to receive care in emergency rooms across America whether or not their treatment is included in health-care reform legislation. Simple fact. Doctors and hospitals simply will not refuse to treat them. To exclude them from the legislation is politically expedient, because many Americans don't want to grant them any legitimacy whatsoever. But it's wrong-headed, because it simply ensures that the costs of treating them will continue to be passed along to the rest of us at ridiculously jacked-up rates. (Of course, those costs have always been a far smaller drop in the bucket than Lou Dobbs or Fox Nation would ever admit, but that's neither here nor there.)
On another level, trying to use illegal immigration (and abortion) to create bullshit wedges between Americans and their recognition of the need for health reform is callous, craven and self-defeating. Personally -- and it pains me to agree with George Bush on this subject -- I believe that the biggest problem with illegal immigration is not that folks "break the law to enter the country" (our immigration quotas are arbitrary and don't even serve the economic needs of the nation), but that illegals are "off the grid" once they're here. The solution isn't to build fences and threaten (completely unrealistically) to round up millions of immigrants and deport them. It's to get them on the books--to make sure their intentions aren't nefarious when they enter, and then to make them play by the rules once they're here (taxes, insurance, licenses, etc., etc.). Banning them from health-care reform doesn't benefit anybody, and doesn't get xenophobes any closer to the (by the way, did I mention it's completely unrealistic?) fantasy of kicking them out of the country. The real purpose of even bringing up the subject is to bring that xenophobia to bear on a separate issue.
All that said, Joe Wilson was full of shit because the language banning illegal immigrants from participating was already in the bills. You say the enforcement isn't there? FINE. Negotiate enforcement measures that will have some teeth -- but do it within a framework whose end result is a realistic possibility that you'll vote for a compromise bill if you get some of the things you want. Republicans these days have figured out that if they act like petulant children and/or violent thugs, they can get some of their tangential issues addressed without even having to pretend that they might support the final product. I suppose it's good politics -- in a banana republic -- but it sure isn't American.
bagman27
· 2 months ago
"You say the enforcement isn't there? FINE. Negotiate enforcement measures that will have some teeth -- but do it within a framework whose end result is a realistic possibility that you'll vote for a compromise bill if you get some of the things you want. "
I believe they already voted on it and it failed. This is why all of the conservatives (not just Wilson) flipped out when Obama said illegals wont receive healthcare under the bill.
I agree that "rounding them up" is not a solution. But I dont think anyone is asking for that. John McCain certainly wasnt. If it were you and I running things, Im sure we could agree that a hefty fine a couple years probation would suffice for illegals to receive citizenship.
I agree that conservatives are pretty much just being obstructionists right now. However, the theory coming from the left is "they cant stand him because he's black". I think it has more to do with the fact they feel he never paid his dues and they dont want to be lectured by someone so new to the national stage. The campaign in which liberals branded him as a "savior" also left a bitter taste in conservatives mouth. They want to prove to everyone that he's not half of what the left made him out to be during the campaign.
All Comments
So all of our politicians, including Obama, Pelosi, Bush, this Wilson guy - are all going to have a tough time. They're rich guys and gals all, and they too have benefited from the very pocket-lining of which you speak - which both deplorable parties perpetuate.
And the Wilson guy is as much of a douchbag as the presidential-appointed wacko czar Van Jones who just calls his opponents "a-holes", with a smile on his face. Ahhh.. .the state of American leaders. I hope they both remembered to buy fresh diapers and formula for themselves, babys can't go without these things for too long. Let's face the facts, the vast majority of our 'leaders' are childish, corrupt, power-hungry, and dishonest. And rich too, which is not in and of itself a bad thing, but when fused with their other wonderful traits make for the situation we have now.
Here's hoping one day we get term limits..... please...please...
I've said this before and I'll say it again, Steve: You can bitch and moan about all the money in politics, the shortcomings of the two-party system, etc., etc. all you want. But if that pox-on-both-your-houses attitude is ALL you ever bring to the table, then you are, by default, a puppet of the status quo because you would rather throw in the towel than lift a finger to change anything that's wrong.
Someone famously said that "politics is the art of the possible." Someone else famously said, in a message that applies much better here than it did when he said it, that "you go into battle with the army you have, not the army you might want." The players on the board, Democrat and Republican, are the ones we've got to work with. They are hardly perfect; their institutions are systematically corrupted by money, cronyism and lust for power. We all know this; we all recognize it as the baseline for all the activity that goes on in politics.
But that doesn't mean there aren't wars to run (if not necessarily "win"), bureaucracies to oversee, problems to solve. There's a party in power that sees access to and affordability of health care as a major problem to solve; there's another party that doesn't particularly care about those things, and would only like to tinker with the problems IT sees (those that restrict the free operations of businesses) while trying to wrest more power from the party that has it now. These people, whatever their considerable faults, are currently vying for advantage in public opinion, and eventually they're going to make policies that affect hundreds of millions of people.
And all you care about is how corrupt they are, and how there's no possibility of anything good coming out of these people and this system. Well, something's going to happen soon with health care ... or, maybe, nothing's going to happen ... but if all you've got to say is basically "you all suck," then I hope you recognize you're talking to yourself, because nobody else is really going to listen to you.
And term limits don't work, anyway. Capitol Hill may be a disgusting sausage grinder, but you need at least some of the people to be able to run the machine without losing their own limbs in the process. We have term limits for the legislature here in California, and most everybody's dying to get rid of them.
If you think we have to "go to battle" with the current armies, and we're stuck with that, well, you've already been defeated and threw in your hat. I haven't.
And if you think "There's a party in power that sees access to and affordability of health care as a major problem to solve" - if you think that's their real motives, then you are very, very naive.
Seve, re-read your second paragraph above. And then tell me about the things you've actually ever done -- or plan to do -- to change the two-party system, besides grouse about it. Are you WORKING to change it in any particular way -- membership in something like the Concord Coalition, striving to find and actively support third-party candidates in local races, giving money to and/or fundraising for such organizations ... working toward changes to the financing of politics (such as public financing and lobbying bans, which would remove much corporate influence)??
I would love to be wrong about this, but I'm guessing you don't do any of that, because if you did you would be cognizant of the effects of your own puerile negativity on the debate. It's impossible to see you as being in favor of real, positive solutions to the problems you see, because you come here every week bringing nothing but name-calling for any politician who's in the news.
You're obviously quite happy in your little world of potshots and all-encompassing negativity -- and in that world I am clearly naive, as is everybody else who dares push for something good to come out of the health care debate. Nobody thinks it's going to be perfect, or even free of corruption -- the giveaways Obama has already ladled out to the drug companies and the insurance companies are infuriating, and the idea that individual and employer mandates will "bring the private insurance companies millions of new customers," as Obama noted in his speech, makes me want to wretch. But even with all that, I am in favor of legislation emerging from all this that is designed to make health care available and affordable to those who don't have it, introduce a public option (or at least something similar) that will force insurance companies to lower their rates, and end the insurance practices that deny or take away coverage for people who aren't perfectly healthy. I live in a horribly naive world where it's worthwhile to be FOR something, Steve. What are you for?
To bring this back to what this column was really about, John Lennon was hopelessly naive as well, thinking he could bring about peace simply by doing a bag-in or a bed-in or putting up huge billboards in Times Square and Piccadilly Circus. His efforts clearly had very little impact -- which is why millions around the world stopped what they were doing during the week after he was killed to remember him, and sang "Imagine" and "Give Peace a Chance" at candlelight vigils. That was all awfully naive as well -- but I gotta tell you, Steve, I'd much rather live in that world than yours.
http://www.americanreform.org/ARP-State-Affilia...
And although I'll state CLEARLY that I don't believe in everything they believe in, they are trying very hard (as I am) to break the 2 party JOKE that we have in America.
We need independent thinkers.
We need people who don't blindly take the view of their club on an issue without really thinking about it themselves.
We need fair ballot access for third parties or ANYONE who wants to run.
So yes Jon, I'm working to change things. And while you continue to throw your support behind people (the D's) who you - by your own admission and using your words - are "corrupted by money, cronyism and lust for power", I'll be busy trying to defeat them and their institutions, and change things.
Not fake "Obama change" real change.
Am I naive too, yes. So we can agree on that, you, me and John Lennon are all naive...
Other than that, though, I agree wholeheartedly with practically every element of ARP's campaign-finance and electoral-reform platforms...except for the "none-of-the-above" ballot option (which is pointless--if you don't like anybody, just don't pull a lever) and the endorsement of widespread ballot initiatives (which have played a huge role in bringing California to a state of near-collapse). The platform also is way too vague on what it refers to as "public funding options."
I think most people, if presented with a description of the way money corrodes the political system, and given a set of common-sense ways of getting special-interest influence out of the process, would be supportive -- right up until you say the words "public financing." Then -- even among those who don't reflexively scream, "You want to take MY money?" -- a lot of folks will think, "My tax dollars are supposed to fund a campaign for THAT anti- (or pro-) choice, war-mongering (or America-hating) asshole?" At which point the oil industry and the unions step in and say, "Don't worry...we'll keep spending OUR money on those campaigns...you just toddle off to Wal-Mart now, and we'll add the cost of our vote-buying onto your next gas bill (or union dues) where you won't notice it."
Damn, I just sounded like you for a minute! But here's the difference: I can recognize that the political system sucks, and that there are lots of things that could (but probably won't) be done to fix it -- but I still have firmly held ideas about public policy, and I'd like to see the people in Washington do things that I want done. And, yup, the things I want done are almost universally liberal, and the only people in Washington who are likely to do those things (at least in some, probably bastardized form) are Democrats, so I'm a Democrat.
I am just fine with you being an independent, a free-thinker, whatever you want to call it. But you've been commenting here for a year, and you almost never discuss in a substantive way what you'd actually like to see happen, or how a better result on an issue like health care might be achieved in a system without all this corruptive money in it.
Wanna talk in detail about Obama's giveaways to the insurance and drug industries in order to get their (unenthusiastic) approval, or at least silence, on the pending legislation? Wanna speculate about the motives and hypocrisy of individual legislators (of both parties) who have taken a particular stance while also taking millions of $$$$ from the insurance industry? Great! We could get really drunk (if you drink--I sure do) bitching about that for an evening. Wanna fight about whether government has a role in making sure everybody is insured in the first place, and whether they're going about it the right way? Great! I'm in for that fight (as long as it doesn't involve a bunch of distortions or wild assumptions).
And if you want to have a real discussion about whether third parties can ever get anywhere in our system, or whether the system can ever be changed to accommodate them, I'm happy to have that conversation too. I'm particularly interested in knowing whether any of the actual policy positions on that ARP website are deal-breakers for you, and if you could give financial support to a candidate who espoused that deal-breaking position, even if he was running on an ARP platform which you have supported in its abstract phase (i.e., right now, when your support is based largely on opposition to the two-party system).
But what makes me crazy is when you divorce policy substance so completely from your abject dismissal of all politicians. The ARP has ideas about changing the system that I like a lot, but it also has a distinct (if sometimes sketchy) policy platform. Even Rep. Wilson was sniping about specific things (illegal immigrants and abortion) when he prickishly heckled the president.
All I'm saying, Steve, in all my rambling responses to your diatribes, is that I'd much rather hear what you have to say about changing the system (and maybe even about the actual issues at hand) than continue to hear nothing but dismissals of everybody involved as corrupt "babies." I'm also saying that there are real outcomes to these policy debates -- whether the debates are happening between people who are clean or corrupt, and whether those outcomes are positive or negative for the people they'll affect.
Those policies and those outcomes are worthy of debate, worth choosing sides over and arguing passionately for their own merits. If they weren't, there wouldn't be people out there acting so piggishly, or so many people giving (and taking) money to influence the outcomes, creating that system you detest so much.
Do I have dealbreakers? Probably. Some on the environment. But I don't need someone to believe in everything I believe in to lead. I want a leader. I find it fascinating how the gay community is now criticizing Obama about his stance on gay marriage. Didn't they get the memo? He's always been against it. But now that they voted for him and consider him their messiah, they don't understand why he's not in their club. It's like they're saying "This is the stance of the club - how can you have an individual opinion on something that doesn't jive with the club. How DARE you!!" Our two parties are like gangs. Probably worse.
My main efforts are to treat the existing two party system like a cancer. And just as we use chemotherapy to try to kill the entire body - in hopes of killing the cancer first, I think that approach can help us clear ourselves of this political cancer. We need to try to kill the whole system, in hopes of killing the Republican and Democratic parties. Yes, I'm naive.
Heckling is a new low for the party of old-fashioned moral values, though. And I'd argue that people showed admiral restraint during the GWBush years, given how the man was appointed to office and what an overall fuck-up he proved to be. I can't imagine that rational Republicans are happy about his performance.
It's another thing entirely, at least in this country, for a congressman to yell something nasty while the president is in the middle of a sentence or passage -- particularly something like "You lie!" Don't pretend you don't remember that, for eight years -- as George W. Bush lied every time he opened his mouth about tax cuts, Iraq, Katrina, etc., etc., etc. -- Democratic politicians refused to openly use the word "lie" or "liar" to describe what he was doing, despite the fact that half (then way more than half) of the country was desperate for them to begin doing so.
Wilson engaged in a serious breach of decorum merely in heckling through the middle of a passage -- you may not think so, but I don't care what you think when members of Congress FROM BOTH PARTIES came out afterward saying it was inappropriate. The reaction in the hall -- all that hooting, like at the end of "Dangerous Liaisons" -- was all you needed to hear. Beyond that, Wilson crossed yet another checkpoint on the way to the Republicans' rapid descent into blithering ridiculousness when he used the word "lie" in the most public forum possible ... particularly considering how fricking EASY it was to prove, just by pointing to precise language of the bill, that Wilson (like the Republicans in general) was pulling his accusation completely out of his ass.
And I love "as George W. Bush lied every time he opened his mouth about tax cuts, Iraq, Katrina, etc., etc., etc"
Every time huh? Sensationalism and exaggeration can be good writing traits when used properly, but not when trying to make a point with someone. It's a credibility thing.
I can do this too - "Obama lied every time he opened his mouth about lobbyists in his administration etc etc"
See, that makes you angry huh?
But please, talk to me some more about George Bush's truth-telling, Uncle Stevie! I love to hear fables from the olden days. You sound awfully defensive of the ol' boy.
Steroids were banned in MLB but the league didnt test for it. So players used them.
Illegal immigrants will be banned from receiving government health care but we wont verify citizenship. But you expect a different result?
Of course, anytime you bring up real, factual objections to the current president, liberals call you a racist.
Let's take this on two levels. First, illegal immigrants will continue to receive care in emergency rooms across America whether or not their treatment is included in health-care reform legislation. Simple fact. Doctors and hospitals simply will not refuse to treat them. To exclude them from the legislation is politically expedient, because many Americans don't want to grant them any legitimacy whatsoever. But it's wrong-headed, because it simply ensures that the costs of treating them will continue to be passed along to the rest of us at ridiculously jacked-up rates. (Of course, those costs have always been a far smaller drop in the bucket than Lou Dobbs or Fox Nation would ever admit, but that's neither here nor there.)
On another level, trying to use illegal immigration (and abortion) to create bullshit wedges between Americans and their recognition of the need for health reform is callous, craven and self-defeating. Personally -- and it pains me to agree with George Bush on this subject -- I believe that the biggest problem with illegal immigration is not that folks "break the law to enter the country" (our immigration quotas are arbitrary and don't even serve the economic needs of the nation), but that illegals are "off the grid" once they're here. The solution isn't to build fences and threaten (completely unrealistically) to round up millions of immigrants and deport them. It's to get them on the books--to make sure their intentions aren't nefarious when they enter, and then to make them play by the rules once they're here (taxes, insurance, licenses, etc., etc.). Banning them from health-care reform doesn't benefit anybody, and doesn't get xenophobes any closer to the (by the way, did I mention it's completely unrealistic?) fantasy of kicking them out of the country. The real purpose of even bringing up the subject is to bring that xenophobia to bear on a separate issue.
All that said, Joe Wilson was full of shit because the language banning illegal immigrants from participating was already in the bills. You say the enforcement isn't there? FINE. Negotiate enforcement measures that will have some teeth -- but do it within a framework whose end result is a realistic possibility that you'll vote for a compromise bill if you get some of the things you want. Republicans these days have figured out that if they act like petulant children and/or violent thugs, they can get some of their tangential issues addressed without even having to pretend that they might support the final product. I suppose it's good politics -- in a banana republic -- but it sure isn't American.
I believe they already voted on it and it failed. This is why all of the conservatives (not just Wilson) flipped out when Obama said illegals wont receive healthcare under the bill.
I agree that "rounding them up" is not a solution. But I dont think anyone is asking for that. John McCain certainly wasnt. If it were you and I running things, Im sure we could agree that a hefty fine a couple years probation would suffice for illegals to receive citizenship.
I agree that conservatives are pretty much just being obstructionists right now. However, the theory coming from the left is "they cant stand him because he's black". I think it has more to do with the fact they feel he never paid his dues and they dont want to be lectured by someone so new to the national stage. The campaign in which liberals branded him as a "savior" also left a bitter taste in conservatives mouth. They want to prove to everyone that he's not half of what the left made him out to be during the campaign.
Thats my opinion, anyway.