Scott Brown Stuns Martha Coakley

[Netzach]

another huge government run entitlement program.

Like highways or public hospitals or that shit.

 

[Betticus]

Yes and yes.
And when the entire economy continues to stall, it'll be at least another 10 years before someone says "we need to look at this trickle down thing again."

Reaganomics!!!!

 

[Betticus]

Libertarian bone to pick.

Who is more likely to come into your house and steal your stuff?

Guy next door?
Guy in DC when you live in Minneapolis?

I've sat with a friend's hand in mine as city council cut off his dick, using the new shiny eminent domain legislation. The WORST supreme court move in the last 10 years if not way longer, for sure.

But local mafia are the people allowing it to come home to roost. The Libertarian vision of small localized government as inherently better just puts more power CLOSER to you.

I'm told that I have an authority fetish when I like it big and abstract and "keep the Tzar farrrr away from us"

It is my opinion that in the exercising of their free will members of local councils may vote to seize private property and then turn it over to developers solely for the pursuit of personal profit.

It is also my opinion that the owners of said stolen personal property have a civic duty to exercise their second amendment rights in order to stop this tyranny and should neutralize the voting ability of those corrupt council members.

This should not be viewed as a crime or a murder. Instead imagine in your head every time a politician votes that they have to first insert their head into the pillory end of a guillotine and then the citizens hold the release cord, the politician holds a pen with which he/she votes.

 

[subwannabe]

I definitely think that something should be done on healthcare but I don't want a socialistic society where the government just takes care of everything and everyone. If you don't want to work, you don't have to - the government will support you. If you don't want to go to college or improve yourself so you can get a better job making more money with the benefits that come with it then the government will step in and make your pitiful life easier. I say BULLSHIT. There should be rewards for those who work harder and want to improve their lives and the deadbeats should not have life so easy with Uncle Sam taking care of them because they don't want to take care of themselves. There should be people making minimum wage and there should be people making million dollar salaries, and everywhere in between. We should also demand that excesses and illegal activities be punished (such as the banking meltdown) and we should also take care of those people who really can't take care of themselves. But, being lazy ass bums is not an excuse to have the government step in and take care of you.

 

[midwestyankee]

I definitely think that something should be done on healthcare but I don't want a socialistic society where the government just takes care of everything and everyone. If you don't want to work, you don't have to - the government will support you. If you don't want to go to college or improve yourself so you can get a better job making more money with the benefits that come with it then the government will step in and make your pitiful life easier. I say BULLSHIT. There should be rewards for those who work harder and want to improve their lives and the deadbeats should not have life so easy with Uncle Sam taking care of them because they don't want to take care of themselves. There should be people making minimum wage and there should be people making million dollar salaries, and everywhere in between. We should also demand that excesses and illegal activities be punished (such as the banking meltdown) and we should also take care of those people who really can't take care of themselves. But, being lazy ass bums is not an excuse to have the government step in and take care of you.

You really haven't been reading Netzach's posts about the plight of people who are underinsured, have you?

It's not about perfect people vs. the "deadbeats" as you put it. And it's not about wanting the government to make our "pitiful lives easier" at all. It's about creating a system in which everyone can count on a reasonable level of health care without having to deal with all the rationing that occurs now in the name of profit.

 

[Keroin]

I definitely think that something should be done on healthcare but I don't want a socialistic society where the government just takes care of everything and everyone. If you don't want to work, you don't have to - the government will support you. If you don't want to go to college or improve yourself so you can get a better job making more money with the benefits that come with it then the government will step in and make your pitiful life easier. I say BULLSHIT. There should be rewards for those who work harder and want to improve their lives and the deadbeats should not have life so easy with Uncle Sam taking care of them because they don't want to take care of themselves. There should be people making minimum wage and there should be people making million dollar salaries, and everywhere in between. We should also demand that excesses and illegal activities be punished (such as the banking meltdown) and we should also take care of those people who really can't take care of themselves. But, being lazy ass bums is not an excuse to have the government step in and take care of you.

I have a dear friend who has a form of juvenile arthritis. (He is 42 now). He would love to work. He would. He busted his ass trying to find a job but companies don't tend to want to hire people who might be a liability down the road, (which he very likely would have been, from their perspective), funny about that. Under our Canadian system, he is looked after - even though he is "technically" able to hold some types of jobs - and lives a decent life.

He's not a bum, he's not lazy, he's not a deadbeat. He just can't get a job doing something he is physically able to do.

Under your proposed system, he would be swept off into the gutters.

I'm glad he lives here in our socialist, "commie-topia" society.

 

[BiBunny]

I definitely think that something should be done on healthcare but I don't want a socialistic society where the government just takes care of everything and everyone. If you don't want to work, you don't have to - the government will support you. If you don't want to go to college or improve yourself so you can get a better job making more money with the benefits that come with it then the government will step in and make your pitiful life easier. I say BULLSHIT. There should be rewards for those who work harder and want to improve their lives and the deadbeats should not have life so easy with Uncle Sam taking care of them because they don't want to take care of themselves. There should be people making minimum wage and there should be people making million dollar salaries, and everywhere in between. We should also demand that excesses and illegal activities be punished (such as the banking meltdown) and we should also take care of those people who really can't take care of themselves. But, being lazy ass bums is not an excuse to have the government step in and take care of you.

Yeah, so here's one for you. I work. I've been to college. Got a bachelor's degree and three-quarter's of a master's. I'm self-employed and currently in the middle of one gigantic university clusterfuck, so I can't take the THREE GODDAMNED CLASSES I need to finish the master's.

I'm self-employed. My choices are to keep working with no insurance and no possible way of paying for insurance or to quit working and get on Medicaid. Even with my shit income, which, by the way, was just barely above the poverty line last year, even before all the self-employed deductions came out of it, is too much for me to work and draw Medicaid. A single person cannot make more than $111/month and draw Medicaid. Some months, I struggle to figure out how I'm going to keep the lights and the Internet on so I can work, for fuck's sake. My income is low enough that I could get on food stamps, but not Medicaid.

There are no jobs here, much less entry-level professional jobs. It's such an employer's market that you're fucked from the start. I've tried and tried and tried again. Most times, they won't even call you back. And the shit jobs like McDonald's or whatever won't hire you if you have a degree because you're overqualified.

So, explain this to me. I'm doing all these things "right,"--going to college, going to college again, working instead of taking handouts, not having kids I don't give three shits about just to get on the government dole--and I'm being PENALIZED for it?

Or let's talk about my "brother." (He's not really blood relation, for anybody wondering, but the joke is, he spends more time at my parents' house than his own parents' house, where he lives, so he may as well be my brother.) He's 21 years old. Went to trade school for his welding certifications. He's held several jobs, all of which have mysteriously ended on him after a few months. Just barely out of high school, and he's had the "I'm sorry, we just don't have any work for you to do anymore" speech more times than most 50 year olds.

He's currently running a hay business. He uses his dad's farming equipment to cut and bale his own and other people's hay. He sells his own and takes a percentage from the other people's he cuts. In the winter, of course, there ain't much hay to be baled, so he takes odd jobs to survive. Naturally, he has no insurance, either.

The current private system is set up in favor of the rich, or, more accurately, in favor of the assholes running the insurance companies. The current government system is set up in favor of the deadbeats. Unfortunately, nobody's got balls enough to do anything about the way the working and sometimes even the middle class get fucked over.

And nobody's gonna listen to an angry fat bitch.

 

[Keroin]

I'm self-employed. My choices are to keep working with no insurance and no possible way of paying for insurance or to quit working and get on Medicaid.

Or you could learn to say "eh" and move north.

 

[Netzach]

I definitely think that something should be done on healthcare but I don't want a socialistic society where the government just takes care of everything and everyone. If you don't want to work, you don't have to - the government will support you. If you don't want to go to college or improve yourself so you can get a better job making more money with the benefits that come with it then the government will step in and make your pitiful life easier. I say BULLSHIT. There should be rewards for those who work harder and want to improve their lives and the deadbeats should not have life so easy with Uncle Sam taking care of them because they don't want to take care of themselves. There should be people making minimum wage and there should be people making million dollar salaries, and everywhere in between. We should also demand that excesses and illegal activities be punished (such as the banking meltdown) and we should also take care of those people who really can't take care of themselves. But, being lazy ass bums is not an excuse to have the government step in and take care of you.

I'm convinced you don't actually talk to people, read the news, or have any clue what a welfare or SSI payout actually looks like, if you think that lazy people are being taken care of let alone working people. Enjoy.

Like BB, I'm self employed and a college graduate. I'm also doing what WOULD be comfortably, were I not sick. I have insurance. I pay everything I make to walk around and work another day and hope that I can catch up with my illness. I make more money than anyone would be willing to pay an employee that may be hospitalized several weeks on end at any given time or too sick to come in at any given time.

I'm in catch up mode because when I was dxd'd at 31 I was NOT insured, and I was 400 dollars over the yearly limit for MA. I have no kids, I've never asked for anything more than the Pell grants I got for school - I'd like to be able to live the life I'm actually earning before I'm 50.

 

[midwestyankee]

I'm convinced you don't actually talk to people, read the news, or have any clue what a welfare or SSI payout actually looks like, if you think that lazy people are being taken care of let alone working people. Enjoy.

<snip>

I'd like to be able to live the life I'm actually earning before I'm 50.

Netz, you and I both know that you won't get an answer. The reason is very simple: people who like to talk about what life ought to be like if everyone were industrious and no one was on the dole are completely out of touch with reality (often quite intentionally) and do not want to be bothered with anything resembling the realities of real peoples' lives. That way they can go on their merry way living with this abstraction dream that lets them feel morally superior to anyone less fortunate than they.

Thinking that this belongs in the discussion: "Do not confuse your vested interests with ethics. Do onot identify the enemies of your privilege with the enemies of humanity." Max Lerner

 

[Netzach]

Netz, you and I both know that you won't get an answer. The reason is very simple: people who like to talk about what life ought to be like if everyone were industrious and no one was on the dole are completely out of touch with reality (often quite intentionally) and do not want to be bothered with anything resembling the realities of real peoples' lives. That way they can go on their merry way living with this abstraction dream that lets them feel morally superior to anyone less fortunate than they.

Thinking that this belongs in the discussion: "Do not confuse your vested interests with ethics. Do onot identify the enemies of your privilege with the enemies of humanity." Max Lerner

It tends to run out of people's thinking with their luck. I wish him continued good health.

For the rest of us who actually look at the unemployment numbers...there sure are a lot of lazy fucks out there.

 

[midwestyankee]

It tends to run out of people's thinking with their luck. I wish him continued good health.

For the rest of us who actually look at the unemployment numbers...there sure are a lot of lazy fucks out there.

And imagine the cheek of that Obama guy for kicking in a few bucks to keep 3 million people in the auto industry from instantly becoming newly minted lazy fucks.

 

[ZRT]

For example, if the inner city school is crap, one might volunteer to mentor individuals. If farmers have no reasonable insurance options, one might form a cooperative
like this. What one does would depend on individual skills, education, etc. The broader point is that, in all but the most extreme situations, apathy and good character are mutually exclusive.

It's not apathy in the slightest, it's exactly this.

Fuck the clown show in D.C. Stick to what you can affect and forget wrestling with the pigs. Don't buy into any campaigns, because the ones that sound good are carefully calibrated and focus-grouped, and the ones that sound bad are just run by morons.

(Hi Coakley!)

Getting excited about the red blue clown show in Washington prevents people from taking meaningful action. Every method of meaningful engagement becomes co-opted by the system very quickly and becomes another tool of the game.

It's not a giant conspiracy to keep people down, it's just power games with the beneficial effect of keeping people distracted by rooting for their respective teams.

 

[subwannabe]

For those of you who are interested I am also self employed with a chronic disease and have a wife and kids. I live from paycheck to paycheck and sometimes on my credit cards when necessary. Most of this is because I had to spend over $15000 last year on health insurance premiums and medical care. My life would have been one hell of a lot better if I didn't have to spend that 15 grand. I guess I could have tried to go it without any health insurance but I want to take care of myself and my family even if it costs 15 grand. Believe it or not I am a strong believer in needing health care reform but I don't want a socialist system where the government controls everything. Hell, the US government owes over 12 trillion dollars and now people want them to run things even more than they do now? We need a middle ground answer. I can see how some want a government run public option but the government isn't capable of doing it without fucking it up royally. Also, many people just want a program pushed through to give them the illusion that they have "healthcare" without even reading the fine print. None of this stuff either the House or the Senate have been doing gives people free medical care. It can give some free medical insurance but that is insurance. Even the so called public option is insurance. Everyone, including the poorest of the poor would still have to pay copays and probably 20% of all healthcare costs. So, even what the government was proposing wouldn't really help people at all. How are those poor people, lower middle income, and middle income going to afford free health insurance when they still have to dish out those copays and 20%'s?

 

[JMohegan]

It's not apathy in the slightest, it's exactly this.

Fuck the clown show in D.C. Stick to what you can affect and forget wrestling with the pigs. Don't buy into any campaigns, because the ones that sound good are carefully calibrated and focus-grouped, and the ones that sound bad are just run by morons.

(Hi Coakley!)

Getting excited about the red blue clown show in Washington prevents people from taking meaningful action. Every method of meaningful engagement becomes co-opted by the system very quickly and becomes another tool of the game.

It's not a giant conspiracy to keep people down, it's just power games with the beneficial effect of keeping people distracted by rooting for their respective teams.

Contempt for elected officials is, ultimately, contempt for the electorate itself. As I've already, I understand how and why someone might reach that point.

Problem is, if all "people of intelligence and character" turn their backs on the political process, this will guarantee rule by the most despicable among us - with no hope for effective checks and balances. As bad as things may seem now, they could be a whole hell of a lot worse.

Imagine a United States in which the passion of Thurgood Marshall had been spurned by 9 Thurmond clones. Imagine the decisions handed down by a court filled with Palin appointees. Imagine how different the world might be today, if Gore had been the acknowledged winner in 2000.

Elections matter.

However, I do agree with the assertion that red/blue drama and short term point scoring distracts everyone, politicians and electorate alike, from the whole fucking point of the governing process. In this sense, your Super Bowl analogy is a very good one.

 

[JMohegan]

It has been proven that their bottom line profit percents are far smaller than health care providers and companies.

Please provide a credible link to support this assertion.

Believe it or not I am a strong believer in needing health care reform but I don't want a socialist system where the government controls everything. Hell, the US government owes over 12 trillion dollars and now people want them to run things even more than they do now? We need a middle ground answer. I can see how some want a government run public option but the government isn't capable of doing it without fucking it up royally.

Are you also philosophically opposed to public options in higher education? I'd be happy to read your reasoning as to why UVA, U Michigan, Berkeley, etc., are fucking up royally.

With regard to health insurance, the relevant comparison is private insurance vs. Medicare. Knee jerk aversion to anything and everything labeled "socialist" by opponents thereto, do you have credible sources to support your assertion that Medicare is less efficient, less responsive, less effective in meeting the needs of those it covers relative to Blue Cross et al?

 

[Netzach]

Even the so called public option is insurance. Everyone, including the poorest of the poor would still have to pay copays and probably 20% of all healthcare costs.

That's pretty much because the opposition couldn't handle the idea that some homeless kiddies might get something FOR FREE. Or some newly minted Walmart working immigrant. Holy shit, waste of money.

So the idea was spun that single payer like they have in the UK is going to kill you. And people who like to think that they're somehow in control of their care when their private insurer runs their lives, liked it. And we looked to Japan and France and said "well that could work, but we can't make it TOO easy for people, and we sure like this Medica funded buffet here, burp."

If you expect people to engage in a society, sending the message "we don't give a fuck if you die in the street" may not be the most encouraging one.

 

[Netzach]

Please provide a credible link to support this assertion.



Are you also philosophically opposed to public options in higher education? I'd be happy to read your reasoning as to why UVA, U Michigan, Berkeley, etc., are fucking up royally.

With regard to health insurance, the relevant comparison is private insurance vs. Medicare. Knee jerk aversion to anything and everything labeled "socialist" by opponents thereto, do you have credible sources to support your assertion that Medicare is less efficient, less responsive, less effective in meeting the needs of those it covers relative to Blue Cross et al?

They're both fairly equally suckass. Honestly, the remaining energy and bucks that having my emergency care delivered to me by each route is the only bone of contention I have. My grandmother is on medicare - granted she is possibly the world's craziest patient with all her faculties intact.

The problem is also with delivery and consideration of care in the US.

Both are terrific at extending your life and patching you up. As for living a life you actually *want* to live, that's another matter entirely. It's partly money, but it's also partly initiative, self-education, reading between the lines and seeing when Pharma promotions and rewards might be influencing your MD's suggestions - there's a whole miasma of crap to get through when you are sick, and getting things paid for is just about 50 percent of it. Wellness is really and truly up to the PT - and this is where one's own education is a defining factor.

Health care is a game, and most people don't know the rules. I give my own example, the one I know best.

For example, right now, I'm trying to get a 3T CT enterography reading to see if my latest fun is flareup or scarring from flareups that means I need a resection. I'd like to know. The MD gave me a line of "well that won't be easy for me to determine from that." Bullshit. It's simply not true. The enterography allows an MD to make that determination clearly. It's an expensive test, but I'm NOT about to go on 8000 dollars of remicade without knowing if there's no point to that. He'd LOVE to get me on 'cade because - well he's probably promised Centocor that he's going to deliver them 100 percent of his Crohn's patients and they pay him for lectures at their seminars when he does.

He's acting as Blue Cross wants him to. I will go in there and say "here - write this down. PT is frightened about risk of death due to recurrence of deep vein thrombosis in abdomen." I am. Really. See my terror. Well, I DO have every reason to be, I threw a clot 3 years ago and spent a year on coumadin therapy, injected pig entrail juice in the gut - this is hardly a fraudulent action.

I imagine I will then get the test I need. "Fear of death" probably has a numeric code attached to "oh shit lawsuit possible" in your records. Go ahead and push for tort reform people, before the entire industry is reformed, and sign your own death warrant. Have fun. Right now, the power of lawsuits is the ONLY leverage you have when you go into your clinic. Of course the MD is the one who pays for this, but why the fuck should the insurance companies care?

They'll be elated to pay for surgery then, they always want to cut and gut - or they'll be equally as happy to pay for remicade, the latest and greatest thing which helps *some* people get into remission and helps others develop drug-induced lupus, and others just die outright. Take your chances.

Would most people be equipped for this kind of analysis? I admit now - I had help from another MD friend in the interpretation, an obstetrician I went to college with.

I've passed myself off as someone who had been considering premed when MD's asked me "are you in the field? Are you a nurse or something?" The expectation is for passive, uninformed, uninterested patients who aren't even compliant with something as simple as a course of penicillin. Because sadly, that's what they usually get.

 

[subwannabe]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/09/profit_and_the_insurance_indus.html

 

[JMohegan]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/09/profit_and_the_insurance_indus.html

Thanks for the link.

Insurance accounting and asset requirements differ significantly from the other entities on that list, so I don't find those comparisons particularly helpful. Leaving the ranking issue aside, however, let's assume that the 3.3% profit margin is accurate.

3.3% of your $15,000 annual expense is roughly $500. What are you getting for it? That's not a rhetorical question. I'm asking, because I do not believe the private insurance industry adds value to the funding process for health care delivery. In fact, just the opposite is true.


Consider Klein's quote from your link:

"That said, the current insurance market does drive cost growth in two main ways.

The first is that it's fractured among thousands of plans and competitors and business arrangements, and that fracturing is inefficient. Medicare negotiates better rates because Medicare has a large customer base, giving it power in those negotiations. An insurer covering a bunch of small businesses in Iowa does not.

The second is that the insurance market is broadly parasitic on the employer-based market, which as I've argued before, allows everyone to pass costs onto someone else and tricks individuals into thinking they're getting a good deal when they're really getting a terrible deal."

 

[subwannabe]

I am one of the people in the country who definetly needs healthcare reform but I want it done right. I don't want a public option or government run healthcare with all the costs that go along with it - adding even more to the country's already enormous debt. We can put things in place to control costs and make insurance more affordable without spending one dollar on a new government bureaucracy. Tort reform is one. Allowing insurance companies to sell policies accross state lines is another. Someone asked me how I would feel if one of my loved ones died due to someone's malpractice and the answer is obviously I would feel horrible but if there was, per say, a law capping my awards at one million dollars intead of me trying to get 50 million I would be happy with that (one million dollars is not chicken feed).

I just don't believe the Democrats get it and the Republicans don't get it either. That's why we had healthcare reform fall apart like it did. The Democrats wanted to cram something through, anything, just so they could tell their contstiuents that they did healthcare reform. If it had gone through the public would have found out in a few years that the whole thing was nothing but a worthless, expensive, huge piece of shit that didn't work. That's why Massachusetts voted for a Republican to fill Teddy's seat. They felt the health insurance they had with Massachusetts was far better than what was being crammed through congress. They didn't want to lose what they already had and have it replaced with something they knew was far worse. Very ironic that what Ted Kennedy fought so hard for for so long was ultimately rejected by his very own constiuents.

On the other side, the Republicans don't get it either because they are doing nothing but playing politics with the whole thing. They, unfortunately rightly, believe that if they put a monkey wrench in the whole thing so that it can't pass then Obama and the Democrats will take the heat in the next elections. But, they are too stupid to seize on the situation and now try to pass their own healtcare reform. That would be brilliant strategy because they could show the people that they are willing to do something that Obama and the Dems couldn't get done and if Obama and the Dems were to try killing healthcare reform they would take additional heat in future elections. A win, win situation for the Republicans. Unfortunately, as I said, they are too stupid to even think of it.

 

[DeepGreenEyes]

I am one of the people in the country who definetly needs healthcare reform but I want it done right. I don't want a public option or government run healthcare with all the costs that go along with it - adding even more to the country's already enormous debt. We can put things in place to control costs and make insurance more affordable without spending one dollar on a new government bureaucracy. Tort reform is one. Allowing insurance companies to sell policies accross state lines is another. Someone asked me how I would feel if one of my loved ones died due to someone's malpractice and the answer is obviously I would feel horrible but if there was, per say, a law capping my awards at one million dollars intead of me trying to get 50 million I would be happy with that (one million dollars is not chicken feed).

I think you make some good points in your post. But would tort reform and allowing insurance companies to sell across state lines really slow the galloping runaway Hogwarts Express that is health care costs? Really?

And, I don't really care if government does it or not. But a lot of times, when you have a huge task, it works. I like our local public schools, I like state universities and the interstate highway system and regulation of my air and drinking water. I like having a U.S. military and coast guard instead of legions of private armies (gated communities and Iraq mercenaries notwithstanding) and national parks and public libraries and the FDIC. These things have problems, but they work to make people's lives better.

...They felt the health insurance they had with Massachusetts was far better than what was being crammed through congress. They didn't want to lose what they already had and have it replaced with something they knew was far worse. Very ironic that what Ted Kennedy fought so hard for for so long was ultimately rejected by his very own constiuents.

I don't think that's why Brown won. And if it was, that wasn't very nice of them to screw over the rest of us, was it?

On the other side, the Republicans don't get it either because they are doing nothing but playing politics with the whole thing. They, unfortunately rightly, believe that if they put a monkey wrench in the whole thing so that it can't pass then Obama and the Democrats will take the heat in the next elections. But, they are too stupid to seize on the situation and now try to pass their own healtcare reform. That would be brilliant strategy because they could show the people that they are willing to do something that Obama and the Dems couldn't get done and if Obama and the Dems were to try killing healthcare reform they would take additional heat in future elections. A win, win situation for the Republicans. Unfortunately, as I said, they are too stupid to even think of it.

I agree! And they signaled from the beginning that their aim was to stop health care in order to win in 2012. Not because they had a better idea. Obama did try to bend over backwards to make it bipartisan, to bring in the GOP. To some of us, he was too willing to do that. I'd love to be wrong about the GOP and health care. But I just don't think they have the political interest to do anything.

 

[ZRT]

Contempt for elected officials is, ultimately, contempt for the electorate itself. As I've already, I understand how and why someone might reach that point.

A mob is an animal with a hundred stomachs and no brain. Individuals can have sense, but in a group they tend to drift toward the lowest common denominator.

So it's not entirely contempt for the electorate but more an understanding of how the herd dynamic works. Take the election of our latest presidential fraud- people got excited, the crowd started moving with purpose and energy, and not enough people asked 'Haven't we heard all this before in, like, every presidential election ever?'

Problem is, if all "people of intelligence and character" turn their backs on the political process, this will guarantee rule by the most despicable among us - with no hope for effective checks and balances. As bad as things may seem now, they could be a whole hell of a lot worse.

We're already going that way under the current system. Because the names of the players don't matter any more. Red Team gets their go, they screw it up, whoever Blue Team puts up gets their go, they screw it up.

That's bound to deliver us some bad boys.

Imagine a United States in which the passion of Thurgood Marshall had been spurned by 9 Thurmond clones. Imagine the decisions handed down by a court filled with Palin appointees. Imagine how different the world might be today, if Gore had been the acknowledged winner in 2000.

Elections matter.

Taking your example of a Gore victory. If Gore wins and 9/11 goes down, we still get USA PATRIOT and warrantless wiretapping.

Why? Because that was a goodly amount of what was proposed, in more unrefined form, in the Anti-Terrorism bill that Clinton and the Dems were behind after OKC. So, of course, the Republicans oppose it then because the Dems are behind it.

The kicker of it is that we probably would've had a McCain presidency in 2004 if Gore had gotten it. It's damn hard to control the White House for sixteen straight, as Bush the Elder discovered.

So the tides surge back and forth, with no regard to substance because it's simply teams.

I do keep apprised. If nothing else, it's best to know which orifice the government's gonna be aiming for this week.

However, I do agree with the assertion that red/blue drama and short term point scoring distracts everyone, politicians and electorate alike, from the whole fucking point of the governing process. In this sense, your Super Bowl analogy is a very good one.

Politicians don't stay in politics to serve the public, by and large. They stay because they love the game and the perks.

 

[subwannabe]

I realize that tort reform and allowing insurance companies to sell accross state lines won't cure the problem all by itself but those are two biggies. Other things have to be done as well.


I saw a small sampling of interviews of Massachusetts voters who basically did indeed say they were scared of losing what they had so they voted for Brown. Wrong? Perhaps, perhaps not. A good many of voters basically vote for what will make their life easier and to hell with the rest of the country.

The thing is the Republicans do have ideas on healthcare. Tort reform and the insurance selling thing are examples. They also have more good ideas too. The thing is they did not come up with a true healthcare plan of their own and try to promote it. They waited for the Dems to come up with all of the bad ideas and then they spend all of their time trying to fight the Dems ideas. I truly believe it was all political. After their stinging losses over the last several years the only thing they really care about is stopping Obama's plan for political gains and not actually putting forth a plan with the good ideas they do have. That's why I said now is a great time for the Republicans to seize the intiative and put their good ideas together in an actual plan and try to promote it. If Obama and the Dems get in their way it makes it look bad for Obama and Team. But, as I already said, the Republicans are too stupid to even think of that.

One last note, many Republicans just didn't get the message of their stinging losses over the last few years and now we are seeing that the Democrats just aren't getting the message either over the last few election set backs. Every time either side wins an election they make the mistake of thinking that voter sentiment has turned to their side. The fact is these election wins didn't have anything to do with the voter tide turning it was merely voters displeased with the party in power and not an endorsement of those not in power.

 

[JMohegan]

Taking your example of a Gore victory. If Gore wins and 9/11 goes down, we still get USA PATRIOT and warrantless wiretapping.

But would we have wasted thousands of American & allied lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, trillions of dollars, and the entirety of our post-9/11 global goodwill in Gulf II?

I think not.