Saturday, July 04, 2009

Healthy debate

I'm breaking my pledge not to link to WaPo, because this is an important point. Assuming it's true, since it comes from the entitlement impaired Ceci, Obama wants us to stop targeting Blue Dogs and other corporate compromised Democrats.
President Obama, strategizing yesterday with congressional leaders about health-care reform, complained that liberal advocacy groups ought to drop their attacks on Democratic lawmakers and devote their energy to promoting passage of comprehensive legislation. [...]

"We shouldn't be focusing resources on each other," Obama opined in the call, according to three sources who participated in or listened to the conversation. "We ought to be focused on winning this debate."
Excuse me Mr. President, but these are the people who are blocking reform. Not us. If we don't target them for standing with the GOP and selling us out to their corporate overlords, what incentive do they have to do the right thing? This dump on the lefties so you can look non-partisan schtick is wearing a little thin.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Labels: , ,

Bookmark and Share

9 Comments:

Anonymous sandbun said...

So once the Dems sell you out again - and stick us all with a huge bill to do so - what will your next move be?

I really wonder if all the money and time spent over the last number of decades trying to get the govt involved was instead used to figure out a free market solution if they couldn't have come up with something by now. Asking the govt to get involved in any area will always and only result in back door deals and outright fraud in that area. That's why a small govt is the best kind. Now if only I could find a major political party that felt the same way.

10:50:00 PM  
Blogger Libby Spencer said...

It's not the government that's the problem sandbun. It's the politicians we have running it. Both sides sell us out. We really do need a strong third party. In fact we could use four or five to really rebalance the system. Not clear on how to do it.

2:11:00 AM  
Anonymous sandbun said...

Power will always corrupt. But yeah, a better voting system would help a lot. My current favorite would be instant-runoff voting, happy to see it getting some more love here in MN with Minneapolis adopting it for city elections and St. Paul not likely far behind. Maybe that could be your and the rest of the blogs next push - get a better voting method implemented and then and only then try to get the govt involvement in more of our lives.

Anyhow, Obama's complete avoidance of the topic of real election reform was sign #1 for me that he wasn't really interested in bringing change to Washington. Though I didn't expect him and most of the rest of the Dems to sell out so completely and quickly as they now look like they're going to do.

11:53:00 AM  
Blogger Capt. Fogg said...

I wonder - is it sand in the buns that makes people ignore the fact that we got stuck with the biggest debt ever, the second most expensive war ever and allowed the biggest corporate rip-off of public funds in history and fantasize about "the Dems" sticking us with the bill? The "Dems" stuck us with a surplus - were you born yesterday?

"Asking the govt to get involved in any area will always and only result in back door deals and outright fraud in that area. That's why a small govt is the best kind."

Gee - small government - what a complete philosophy and just the thing you can build a government and economic system on. Wow. Small government. Nothing like a grotesque oversimplification to make complex things clear for substandard minds.

And of course the government can't do anything and is always corrupt, so let's get rid of the police, the army, the postal service, the courts, the law -- and the government itself! Wow, that would be small enough to create paradise on earth!

Free market solution my ass, it's never worked and never will and never can because there is no freedom without a way to enforce it. This is just another religious credo that requires a degree of ignorance and dementia as large as any other religion requires.

11:57:00 AM  
Blogger Capt. Fogg said...

Complete avoidance? Damn that Obama - he isn't God almighty and can't fix everything the "small government" hoodlums screwed up in less than 6 months! What a failure!

12:04:00 PM  
Anonymous sandbun said...

Ah, childish insults because you don't agree with someone. You seem to think me a Bush fan, which is not the case. Ask Libby, I've posted my thoughts against our empire building overseas here and DetNews in the past. There are some things I accept that we need the govt to do for us, but the less we rely on them the less they can make laws that favor their buddies.

And I wasn't blasting Obama for not changing the voting system, I just thought that during the campaign he could've at least mentioned the topic. Is that really so much to ask for from a candidate of "Change"? Talking about a topic?

12:28:00 PM  
Blogger Libby Spencer said...

I've been pushing IRV for a very long time. Trouble is it's one of those issues no one thinks about until the elections come around and at that point it's too late to do anything about it.

1:26:00 PM  
Blogger Capt. Fogg said...

Well it sounds very much like the childish arguments I get all the time and of which I've had enough.

Is it too much to ask of a candidate not to talk about every prospect of change you can dream up? hell yes, it is and he'd be hung out to dry unless his talk included a carefully prepared plan with every detail thought out and no ambiguities or contradictions or costs. He could not have been elected without choosing the most urgent things and focusing on them.

And then there's your "smaller is better credo" or should I say fallacy of oversimplification. Like tax cuts and privatization it is a superstition -- an empty credo too resistant to calls for evidence and it's toxic. if we keep talking about all our problems in this silly, simplistic, superficial and evidence free way and keep bickering about minutia, we will never have a chance to keep this ship afloat.

It's real easy to say we shouldn't rely on government, but unless you have some examples that don't refer back to the articles of faith as support, it's an insult to people who have been reading the news since before you were born and are a little skeptical about Utopian schemes.

In what way should we not rely on government - trust human nature to be generous and altruistic and honest and selfless? See what happened when we got intrusive government out of regulating energy derivatives? We got Enron. We deregulated S&L's and they quickly collapsed, we deregulated banking and securities and it's taken the entire world down. Damn me if it's not insulting to have someone present such pap. Tell me what you think we could and should do without and maybe I can dredge up some respect for your arguments. Tell me what else we need to privatize and why corporations and schemers can be trusted when governments cannot and maybe I'll stop laughing.

5:48:00 PM  
Anonymous sandbun said...

If you're talking about changing Washington, it would seem the most basic type of change would be something that would affect the two party system that has failed us. Also, he was for IRV back when he was in the Illinois Senate, but that issue disappeared from his agenda when he moved up as far as I can tell.

I want a smaller govt because I don't want them to care who I sleep with, or say I can't serve in the military if I sleep with the wrong people. I want them not to interfere if I want to smoke pot in my own house as long as it doesn't affect anyone else. I want them not to involve themselves with companies that desperately need to be allowed to fail. I want them to stop inserting themselves in other countries issues. I want them to stop trying to keep alive a dying copyright system because big companies pay them to do so. I want them off my phone line. Speaking of phones, I want them to stop allowing telecommunication companies like Comcast to have monopolies.

And I'm sick of people complaining about Walmarts taking over everything and then shopping there. Or McDonalds. Or any other corporations. If you don't like the insurance companies, use an alternative!

I didn't say corporations could be trusted, they certainly can't, but you can refuse to use a corporations services. You can't do that with the govt. That's the difference.

7:57:00 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home