Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Mass. Revolt

We have competing ideas in a democracy -- and hence competing parties -- for a reason. To paper them over and pretend they do not exist, particularly when the ideology of one of the parties has proven so devastating to the lives of everyday Americans, is not a virtue. It is an abdication of responsibility.
I don't disagree with this.
If Republicans had wanted universal health care, you would have seen commercials with heartless insurance agents stabbing babies and drinking their blood. You would have seen ads with desperate, laid-off old men offering to blow people for quarters so they could afford their insulin. You would have seen ads about how sad it is that a depressed middle-aged woman with a dream of a scrapbooking store is now suicidal over not being able to follow her small business dream because if she left her shitty office job, she'd lose her health care. The ad would have ended with a gunshot in darkness. People would have been begging for health care reform because Republicans would have made it seem like the world would fall apart without it.
Or this.

From David and Michael, respectively.

1 comment:

Angry Michael W said...

Sadly, it's the Senate itself we should be upset with. It's not a democratic institution when 41 people can deny all the desires of 59. The process of placing holds on nominations for petty ego-driven desires is exhibit 1. What else do we need to say enough?
Read James Fallows in the The Atlantic this month who suggests nothing less than that the US Senate is a danger to the future of the U.S. as the tiny populations of a handful of states will continue to deny any substantive change to the U.S. on any issue.