And speaking of “responsibility.” A new poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center throws new light on the question of what’s-all-the-anger-about? In The Wall Street Journal, Pew Research Center president Andrew Kohut notes a national mood edgy and fractious, in the context of “a dismal economy, an unhappy public, and epic discount with Congress and elected officials.” Thirty percent of Americans, it seems, “view the federal government as a major threat to their personal freedoms.”
How come? What goes on here anyway, behind the oratorical battle smoke? A whole lot more goes on than one might surmise from tuning in to the Rush and Bill Show.
A cardinal principle of democracy is, don’t do things to demos — the people — against demos’ own ideas, notions and viewpoints. For instance, take over the health care system.
At the time of the final Senate and House votes on health care, polls indicated majority opposition to the bill, not the least reason being, apparently, that hardly anyone understood what the bill contained and proposed. Polls continue to show large majorities in favor of repeal.
No matter. The White House said we needed the bill.
Read it all (featured on the op-ed of the local paper today which is why I happened to see it).
I’m one of those disgruntled, angry voters who is FURIOUS over the passage of this horrible bill. I hope the Democrats pay BIG TIME at the polls this November. Throw the bums out!! Adding this huge, unfunded new entitlement to the national debt at this time of deep economic trouble isn’t just “irresponsible,” it’s totally RECKLESS.
David Handy+
But David, that is merely the tip of the iceberg (polar bear optional). You have a vast conspiracy between SEIU and the Administration to turn America into the latest “workers paradice”. You have Mr. Jennings trying to turn public schools into homosexual indoctrination camps. You have Lisa Jackson at the EPA trying to use Boys & Girls clubs to indoctrinate children on “environmental justics”. YOu have the President running all over the globe bowing to thugs and dictators and apologizing for America. You have the President disparing that we are still a world power. And I could go on for several more paragraphs but I think you get the drift.
It’s not just a matter of throwing the bums out, but we have to put the right people into their vacant places. That means support for the Constitution (period), limited Government, fiscal responsibility, strong national defense, and firm term limits.
If you put new clowns in to replace the clowns going out, you will end up with just a different three ring circus.
“polls indicated majority opposition to the bill, [b]not the least reason being, apparently, that hardly anyone understood what the bill contained and proposed.[/b] Polls continue to show large majorities in favor of repeal.”
Does the bold part indicate it’s not the Dems who are disconnected? They don’t understand it or even know what it does, but they don’t like it?
The bill has its share of problems abortion and a lack of any meaningful cost controls being chief among them. That said, I am not, and have never been a fan of government by public opinion poll. We elect people to make decisions based on their judgment. Otherwise we could just have Mr. Gallop serve as President.
I for one am having a hard time recalling the last time Congress actually showed some backbone and did something that defied public opinion polls. If not for the fact that I really don’t care much for this bill, I’d be tempted to say this was a refreshing change.
#4, the problem is that not even Congress knew (or probably today even knows) what is in that bill. The bigger problem is that the citizenry had been saying for quite some time not to pass this bill or anything similar to what was believed to be in it, but Congress was and is not listening. And in spite of its poll numbers being the lowest ever, it still is not listening. There is a disconnect here that I have never seen in my lifetime – it is we are going to cram as much down the masses throat while we can and wait for another opportune time to cram some more. There is a rising oligopoly in DC and the NE liberal establishment (and some on the left coast) that thinks it knows better than the masses what is good for the masses, and it is determined to make us take our castor oil, even if it kills us and our country. Sounds sort of like a Union of republics that used to exist before Mr. Reagan told its leader to tear down a wall or two – and it won’t work any better over here for these oligopolists than it worked for those over there – ultimately.
Mr Murchison is old enough to be on Medicare [socialized medicine?] – He’s got his, and don’t worry about the rest of them.
Trouble is these people have made the leap. They now truly believe that they are the rulers of the people and not their servants. There are new examples cropping up every day, For example the Democrats are setting up to pass cap and trade by reconciliation and Obama calmly states that a VAT tax is definitely on the table even though there is ample evidence that neither of these things are wanted by the people and that they will be terribly destructive to the country. It makes one wonder if they think they can avoid an election in November, doesn’t it?
Yes #5, take the Castor oil and no more salt for you. As predicted, ObamaCare is not about healthcare but about control. And that will become more apparant over time as executive fiat is used to create “laws” in the name of healthcare cost control. The nation is on edge because a lot of people feel uneasy. They may not even be able to define it and they are not policy wonks so they can’t give you data-specific justification for their feelings (and they don’t have to), but they know something is not right. This is not the America they grew up with and they sense that out of control spending and ballooning deficits and ratcheted up taxes are not the solution to what ails our country.
I am not really sure what all the screaming is about. Obama won the last election with a super-majority in both houses of Congress. Thus far I haven’t seen him doing more than what he very openly said he was going to do during the election. Nor do conservatives have much to whine about legislative tactics employed to advance his agenda. He is not breaking the law as far as I can see. And the GOP wrote the book on parliamentary maneuvering both to get what they want and to block what they don’t. We certainly rammed a lot of things down the throats of the libs when we had the majorities in Congress. This sounds like a lot of sour grapes to me.
Nor am I a fan of the hyper-ventilating from the far right with their hysterical shrieks of “socialism!” and “communism!” and other silliness. The sky has not fallen. That said, I have real concerns about where we are going. If people don’t like the current administrations actions then that message needs to be sent in loud and clear in November.
File this under “elections have consequences.”
#8, you wrote, “Thus far I haven’t seen him doing more than what he very openly said he was going to do during the election”.
I guess that depends on how you define the word “openly”. What you and I might agree was “openly” for all to see who were looking closely, most folks totally missed. And they totally missed it because of two things. First, the Obama Campaign expertly ran a strategy of controlling the message, eg, “we will transform America”. Many of us keyed into what that meant and tried to sound the alarm bells. Secondly, the main-stream media became part of his campaign apparatus and are still there today. What you and I may consider to be “openly” was not discovered through watching MSNBC or CNN.
Has the conservative political wing ever made mistakes or acted high-handedly? Sure. But there is a difference. As much as I disagreed with George Bush, I never went to bed at night thinking that he and his minions were working all through the night to subvert the country handed to us by our Founders. They might be making some poor choices which they would pay for but they were not fundamentally taking the country into a socialistic direction. They were not doing the things I outlined in post #2 above. And that is what all the screaming is about; and those are the alarms that will hopefully create a tsunaumi of change in November.
What’s going on in America is a socialist/marxist coup. These people have no intention of following the law as they do not recognize the Constitution. Their agenda is to overthrow the government and take complete control. And, please don’t say it can’t happen here. It is happening here right now.
RE: “Thus far I haven’t seen him doing more than what he very openly said he was going to do during the election.”
I entirely agree. Obama is a collectivist and doesn’t like the Constitution. Both of these things were quite clear prior to the election.
RE: “Nor am I a fan of the hyper-ventilating from the far right with their hysterical shrieks of “socialism!†and “communism!†and other silliness.”
Not silly to point out the facts. Obama is a collectivist. He was before he was elected. He is now. And he is enacting precisely what he articulated as his foundational principles prior to the election.
RE: “The sky has not fallen.”
True — the country is merely being forced into becoming more and more collectivist all around at all political levels. If one is a collectivist or doesn’t much care about this, it’s not a big deal. For those of us who are not collectivists and greatly value the Constitutional worldview, it matters a great deal — but not as much as if the sky had fallen, certainly.
We’re just going to have to “live into” the fact that a majority of the voting public either 1) knew what Obama stood for and voted for him anyway or 2) didn’t know what Obama stood for and voted for him for other reasons than his foundational worldview. Either option is most unpleasant for those who valued the Constitution, as one considers the future of our country.
All one can do is try one’s best to educate others about the values of the Constitution, the evils of collectivism, and get to the next election.
It seems more people should have paid attention in their 9th grade Civics class, after all.