Disdain

I am elated that our Congress under our President's leadership has finally passed a Health Care Reform package and it has been signed into law. The bill is not perfect (I am still an advocate for single payer), but its a great start.

I gained a very small amount of noteiriety in the last days of the debate be getting my picture taken at a Health Care Reform rally discussing the bill with an opponent of reform. The thing that struck me about the opposition was their almost complete lack of knowledge on the bill. They kept telling me that it was 2700 pages long and that nobody knew what was in it, despite the fact that it had been passed by the Senate 3 months earlier and was available online for anyone to read. They kept telling me it would take away their freedoms but not one of them could tell me which part of the bill would violate any of their freedoms or which part of the bill was contrary to the Constitution. I was told I was a Communist or a Socialist and the I was destroying the Constitution and that I was pig-headed (they were right about that) and that I didn't have any facts.

But, with one exception, none of them could or would even try to answer any of my questions. None of them could define Socialism even though they knew I was one (or maybe a Communist but they couldn't define that either).

One man didn't call me names and was actually interested in discussing issues. He was of the opinion that Health Insurance Companies were not subject to regulation under the Interstate Commerce Clause of the Constitution because the states currently do most of the regulation of Health Insurance Companies. I disagreed that Blue Cross/Blue Shield or Anthem or United Health Care companies were not engaged in Interstate Commerce, but atleast he had a coherent well articulated argument. He did want to tell me how the Public Option sections of the House passed Health Care Reform bill would have inevitably destroyed all Private Insurance companies but I didn't really discuss that much since the Public Option was not in the Senate Bill that was being voted on.

One man in a crowd of 40 or so opponents that could intelligently articulate real arguments against the proposed bill. The rest either ignored me or just followed me around shouting slogans at me or just told me I was a pigheaded Constitution hating Socialist/Communist who wanted to destroy our Freedoms and didn't have any facts. At least they got the pig headed thing right.

Then today I saw this poll and it all sort of became clear.

For the most part, Republicans no longer seem interested in facts.

A new Research 2000 poll of more than 2,000 Republicans, conducted for the liberal blog Daily Kos, has some eyebrow-raising findings:
-- 63% of them believe President Obama is a socialist
-- 53% believe Sarah Palin is more qualified to be president than Obama is
-- 39% believe he should be impeached
-- 36% believe he wasn't born in the United States
-- 31% believe the president hates white people
-- 24% believe the president wants the terrorists to win
-- 23% believe their state should secede from the union

36% believe that President Obama is not an American. I wonder if many of the 63% who consider him a Socialist can actually define the term. So many of the objections that were made against the bill were simply not true. But Republicans/Conservatives just didn't seem to care about facts or the truth.

24% of Republicans think the President wants the terrorists to win.

What have they been smoking?

Over the course of this debate I ahve become more and more dismissive of Republicans/Conservatives because of the things this poll exposes. Largely they seem uninterested in the facts, prefering to stick to their talking points and slogans.

There are some Republican's/Conservatives who understand these bills and have intelligent articulate objections to them. I just have trouble finding them.

We, as a nation, have serious problems and they deserve serious intelligent debate. But thats not what we have been getting. And with the debate on Cap and Trade coming up I have little confidence that Republicans/Conservatives will be interested in discussing those bills factually either. It would be great, but I am not holding my breath.

24% of Republicans believe their state should secede from the United States. And they say I am the one trying to destroy America.

I don't belong to an organized Party, I'm a Democrat

Just when I think my Representatives in Washington might actually be getting their act together, this happens.

Retiring Republican Senator Jim Bunning, a man so unpopular that his leadership asked him not to run, decided last week that he was going to stand up for fiscal responsibility, after ignoring the concept for the entire Bush Presidency, he decides now is the time. So he opposes allowing a vote on a small short term extension of unemployment benefits and some other stimulus items in a $10Billion package. It wouldn't be noteworthy, he is a known nutcase after all, except my Party, the Democratic Leadership in the Senate lets him get away with it. Instead of calling for a cloture vote and squashing this idiot like a grape, they recess for the weekend and go home to complain about him.

F*(K!!!

So now the leadership of my party is allowing this nutcase to deny extended unemployment benefits to about 200,000 people, he has caused the layoff of about 2000 people whose jobs were being funded by provisions in this bill and some of those who were able to afford health care because of the extension of COBRA subsidies in this bill now cannot.

All I hear on the news is that the Democrats could overcome this idiot easily at any time, but they are enjoying having the issue instead of continuing to accomplish things.

No wonder the Tea Baggers are so popular!!

Sigh