Happy Hour Roundup
* Michael Steele shows off his light touch, tells ABC News the nation won’t be “guilted” into supporting health care reform by the “passing of a great Senator.”
* Robert Gibbs notices that Mike Enzi isn’t really too serious about all that “Gang of Six” bipartisan stuff.
* And Gibbs wonders why anyone is still listening to Dick Cheney, given that his “predictions on foreign policy” haven’t borne “a whole lot of fruit over the last eight years.”
* Sam Stein has some funny quotes from Mike Huckabee protesting he didn’t cook the facts in claiming Kennedy might have died sooner under Obamacare.
* Michael Goldberg concedes that big majorities want talks between the U.S. and Iran, but insists that those voters also know that talk is cheap.
* Foreign Policy hires a replacement for Laura Rozen, who’s off to Politico. It’s CQ’s Josh Rogin.
* Is the media narrative swinging back in favor of health care reform?
* John Aravosis memorably translates the recent claim by John Kerry that Ted Kennedy would have ditched a public option to get reform done:
Shorter Kerry: Just hold firm and the Dems will concede.
* Brian Beutler parses the polls and discovers that support for the public option has slipped, but the sky isn’t falling.
* Ben Smith says the Obama White House has hit a new media stride.
* When Obama hit his all-time low of 50% in Gallup tracking last week, some wondered whether he’d dip below that mark. Not yet: Today he’s back up to 51%, though he remains uncomfortably close to that danger zone.
* And is it really possible that Mike Dukakis will replace Ted Kennedy? But he’s so boring! Cue up media groans about the tank and the helmet…
This blog’s homepage is here. RSS feed here. Twitter feed here. Email me here.
“And is it really possible that Mike Dukakis will replace Ted Kennedy? But he’s so boring! Cue up media groans about the tank and the helmet…”
What happened to Vicki? I love that idea. She’s as qualified as Sonny Bono’s wife.
And Obama’s numbers will go right back up when the health care reform bill passes – just like the Big Dawg said.
is it really possible that Mike Dukakis will replace Ted Kennedy?
For a few months until someone is elected to fill out the remainder of the term? Yes.
Presumably he’d be the 60th vote for cloture, and that’s all he’d need to be there for. No matter who would be appointed they’d have next to no clout, so what difference?
Besides, he wouldn’t be any more dull than John Kerry!
oddjob – I don’t care who it is as long as they vote the way Ted Kennedy would have.
Poor John Kerry – a standup guy, but you’re right about dull.
What happened to Vicki?
The scuttlebut reported more than once by the Boston Globe to date is that she has indicated she isn’t interested. She also hasn’t stated whether she’s interested in running for election in the January election or not.
What I read this morning indicated Atty. Gen. Martha Coakley and Representative Steven Lynch (who holds Joe Moakley’s old seat) are going to run on the Dem. side for sure, and that Representatives Ed Markey & Michael Capuano are both seriously considering doing so, but they’re waiting to find out what former Rep. Joe Kennedy intends to do.
On the GOP side former Lt. Governor Kerry Healy is reported to be seriously considering running (Please! She’s a joke.), and that former US Atty. Michael Sullivan may as well.
a standup guy, but you’re right about dull
WORD. Dukakis is the same, but with a less bubbly sense of humor……… (I kid you not.)
Vicki’s got my vote. Dukakis would be a huge mistake, if only for the obnoxious **** we’d get from the Right. The last thing we need is another distraction, especially one circa 1988. And to illustrate my point, I used The Google and typing in “Duk…” the top suggested searches were “dukakis tank” and “Dukakis Willie Horton”….. Mmmm… No thanks.
Dukakis is now 75. He’s been teaching at Northeastern University for years now. The odds of him wanting to run in January I suspect are low, so I can completely see the “elder statesman” logic in choosing him. He’s also quite the liberal.
Shorter Kerry: Just hold firm and the Dems will concede.
Next will come the public explanation of his remarks that will make him look even worse……….
oddjob – I thought it might be that she didn’t want to do it because I read something to that effect yesterday. Too bad. I really liked that idea.
But I can’t blame her. The last thing I’d want to be is a politician.
I have paid little attention to her, but from what I gather it appears to me that Atty. Gen. Martha Coakley’s well regarded.
I’m not keen to vote for Steven Lynch. He comes out of the state’s big labor Democrats and so tends towards the conservative on social matters. On the other hand, he chairs a House subcommittee that recently crafted and voted out a bill that would grant same *** partners of federal employees many (or all?) of the benefits conferred to spouses of married federal employees.
oddjob – like I said, I don’t really care as long as they vote the same way Ted Kennedy would have.
s*e*x
(Wow, what a ridiculous censor!)
I think it’s probably a safe guess that on healthcare legislation they pretty much all will vote as Kennedy would have.
Here is Spencer Ackerman’s post on the WaPo torture story from this weekend.
.
http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2009/08/31/in-quasi-sorta-defense-of-the-washington-posts-torture-piece-actually-just-no/
(You may recall there was a petition circulated in the House last month where the Dem. progressive faction indicated that if there was no public option contained in the final bill they would not vote for it? The majority of the Mass. delegation signed their names to that petition.
Lynch’s signature is notably absent.)
“Is it really possible that Mike Dukakis will replace Ted Kennedy?”
You’ve GOT to be kidding me. Are they really considering changing the 2004 law?
“They said Democrats enacted the current law to block then- Governor Mitt Romney, a Republican, from being able to name an interim replacement for Senator John Kerry in the event he won the 2004 presidential election. Kerry, a Democrat, lost to incumbent President George W. Bush and remained in the Senate.
“It shows Democrats don’t care about principle,” said Massachusetts House Minority Leader Bradley Jones, a North Reading Republican. “They don’t care about debate. They don’t care about the rules. It really is disgusting.”
““It shows Democrats don’t care about principle,” said Massachusetts House Minority Leader Bradley Jones, a North Reading Republican. “They don’t care about debate. They don’t care about the rules. It really is disgusting.””
LOL! That’s rich coming from the party that gerrymandered states, passed bills at midnight to keep the Democrats from showing up, locked legislation that was going to be voted on away from Democrats so they couldn’t read it, had President who flew back to DC to sign illegal legislation over the Easter weekend at the behest of his brother – making the 2d time Bush was involved in a law that only applied to one particular person or situation.
Please stop – the Right has absolutely no leg to stand on to complain about anything at all.
“When Kerry was thought to be on his way to the White House, Beacon Hill Democrats yanked that power from Republican governor Mitt Romney.
Republicans at the time proposed the exact same temporary five-month appointment that Kennedy’s plan calls for, to no avail.”
O hell, I forgot the best one: Y’all changed the ethics rules for Tom Delay.
member? Right around the time Bush signed another illegal mandate?
Just wow. For the sake of one cloture vote…
@sgwhite: You might be interested in this article:
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/08/31/tom-ridge-did-not-backpedal-a-journey-inside-the-media-simulacrum/
“Note that Ridge never says he was pressured to raise the threat level for political reasons, nor does he detail anything that Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld or Attorney General John Ashcroft said to suggest that they were thinking about politics. He only says that the thought crossed his mind that politics may have been in play.”
Wow, Chuck Schumer just made a great analogy on the Ed Show: There are private universities and colleges in each state, and state colleges and universities in each state and we are better off for the mix.
That’s Public Option Nobody makes anybody go to a state school as opposed to a private school. It’s determined by economics, usually.
Well – same thing.
I do not think that the Democrats should rewrite the law, just because they would prefer to have a Democrat in the position right away. We can not play games with the law, ever time it benefits us, and change it, when it benefits the Republicans.
I do think that they should have put in a provision, to allow for a temporary appointment, until the election is held, when they last changed the law. They did not, so we should live with that. If they wish to change the law, to allow for temporary replacements, in future vacancies, that would be the honorable way to handle it. We have to not get caught up in the politics of the moment, and start to apply: The ends justify the means, rationalizations, when ever it favors us.
I think, Senator Kennedy was wrong to ask for that last minute change, and I say that as an unapologetic liberal, who would love to see a Single Payer Health Care system enacted into law.
Dutifully reciting the latest talking points?
http://forum.mtstars.com/misc/v/11/67647.html
“Higher education provides an example of an arena in which public and private options compete with each other. Are there lessons that can be drawn from this example?
“I think the differences are most instructive, with two differences in finances being most critical. In the education field, the private entities compete most effectively with the public options when they build up large endowments through philanthropy. I don’t see this happening to the same degree in health care, and then only around providers like hospitals and not the insurance companies.
“In the education field, the public entities are subjected to pretty severe budget discipline — California’s universities are getting squeezed now because their subsidy from the state is part of the state’s annual budgeting process.”
http://www.capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/andrew-samwick/973/when-private-entities-compete-public-option
Fine – I call that someone else’s opinion, sbj.
I’m with Schumer.
Now they’re talking Ted Kennedy’s nephew.
Yeah sbj, and its just a mystery of the universe as to why Tom Ridge “wondered” if politics was at play AND he ended up opposing raising the threat level, AND he subsequently resigned after the elections. Yep, now excuse me while I go walk my pink polka dotted elephant. Gnite
@tena: You are an uncrackable nut!
@sg: And here I thought you’d have some respect for Michael Scherer… Have fun on your walk!
SG, you forgot: “AND he conveniently has it all in his POS book.”
sbj
You really must have NEVER read my comments over at Swampland if you think I respect Scherer lol.
Seriously just plug his name into the search engine at my blog if you want to know how I feel about that guy.
sbj – whatever. You can put whatever you want into whatever I say. I just don’t consider you or by extension, your links, worth getting excited over.
You support the insupportable. You defend the indefensible. So I really don’t care what you say.
More from Spencer Ackerman on the WaPo Dick Cheney love story from this weekend.
.
http://washingtonindependent.com/57273/ex-fbi-agent-still-no-evidence-that-cheneys-torture-methods-work
I think sbj has a point here (re Ridge). The characterization made by some (myself included on my own blog) suggested more than the text explicitly said. And Ridge’s subsequent radio interview certainly contains a denial… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDhqN0Q5VdM&eurl=http://news.google.com/news%3Fhl%3Den%26source%3Dhp%26q%3Dridge%26um%3D1%26ie%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DN%26tab%3Dwn&feature=player_embedded#t=509
That said, we’re certainly not getting the full story here because of the compartmentalization of function in the WH. And there’s all else we know about the operations of the WH from those who worked in it and have reported on it. Political considerations were up front.
To prove the contention most of us here share, we’ll need more testimony or documents.
Liam, If we’re honest with ourselves, I have to agree with you. The election is what, 4 1/2 – 5 months away. If you believe in the rule of law on one front, for example torture, you pretty much have to agree on all fronts. They made the rules and now they want to change them. It sounds like politics as usual to me. Kind of reminds me of the “everyone else is doing it” excuse that I got clobbered with as a kid.
In case anyone misunderstands I am also a single payer advocate and most often identify with the dems except when we hedge our bets.
@sg: “You really must have NEVER read my comments over at Swampland if you think I respect Scherer lol. Seriously just plug his name into the search engine at my blog if you want to know how I feel about that guy.”
Never read your comments (or anyone’s) at Swampblog, and never have visited your blog.
Liam and LindaS
As I have said before last week, the truth is we are better off with that seat open anyway. It gives more cover for Democrats to use reconciliation to pass health care reform without being hammered as badly for it. As a matter of fact I predicted how media coverage might change after Sen Kennedy passed and it just so happens I was right. I posted this link to my post last night but Im going to share it yet again. I am hoping people rethink the push to fill that seat and instead fall back and let reconciliation happen.
.
http://smoothlikeremy.blogspot.com/2009/08/damn-im-good.html
Tena:
Please stop – the Right has absolutely no leg to stand on to complain about anything at all.
Anything at all? Really? So no matter what unprincipled, cheap, hypocritical abuse of power or law that Dems in any part of the country engage in to gain political advantage, it’s OK with you because all R’s deserve it?
Well, at least you are honest about your lack of political virtue instead of pretending that what the Dems are pulling in Massachusetts is perfectly ethical.
sbj
While I don’t endorse what the dems are intending to do with Sen Kennedy’s seat, a republican concern-trolling about its political or even ethical appropriateness is a laughable joke, at best. The latest exhibit from your side mark sanford.
Also, don’t whine about others parroting talking points, when you constantly cut & paste here from your side of blogs, newspapers and other media.
And please tell me you were joking about taking Scherer seriously.
You’re right sg. I read your blog over the weekend and I think you’re on to something. While I was referring earlier only to the hypocrisy of changing our own rules to suit our new purpose, I agree that our best bet for health care reform is reconciliation. It looks like the WH is beginning to lay the ground work for the same. I just hope it is a bill worth supporting. With all the money from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries in the game it really influences the decision for many dems in both the house and the senate. Hopefully, they will “do the right thing” but I’m still skeptical.
Greg:
If, as you claim, Grassley’s latest is an implicit admission that he had no interest in a bi-partisan compromise, then Nancy Pelosi’s declaration a few weeks ago that there was “no way” she would pass a bill without a public option was precisely the same thing.
Now they’re talking Ted Kennedy’s nephew.
If that’s a reference to Bobby’s son, former Rep. Joe Kennedy, I very much doubt I’ll vote for him. I won’t vote for a Republican under the present circumstances, but Joe Kennedy is simply not cut out for the Senate, and I can’t help but think he already realizes that. He stepped down from his seat in the House of Representatives because he found the endless “waiting his turn” too frustrating. He’s much better running his non-profit energy supply company. That truly does something worthwhile. It makes a difference to people who truly need it, while giving him the chance to run his own show, which is something he craves.
He won’t get that in the Senate.
He should not run for the Senate, no matter what his uncle wanted with regards to that seat remaining in the Kennedy family.
Scott C.
I think you may have mis-quoted the Speaker. I think she said there was “no way” she COULD pass a bill without a public option. The progressive caucus in both the house and senate are drawing their line in the sand, while blue dogs and other centrists are waiting to see which way the wind blows.
I admit that is not very impressive but we Dems seem to dance to our own drumbeat, especially when big health industry money is involved.
Most of us are hoping the blue dogs will come around in the final analysis.
LindaS:
You are correct…she did say “could”. But I am not sure that makes much difference. Whether she meant it as in “I couldn’t possibly in good conscience do it” or whether she meant it as in “Given the Democratic votes, I will be unable to do it,” either way it is a declaration that compromise on the issue won’t happen.
I am hoping the blue dogs come around, too, but I don’t think we mean the same thing.
Re Sarah Palin as non-bimbo roll-out at CLSA Investors Forum…big news across the rightwing universe, as expected. And FOX’s Greta Van Sustern did the rah rah tonite (she’s in the company of other big hitters like Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Alan Greenspan). No mention as usual from Greta that her husband, John Coale was (and presumably still is) running Sarah Pac.
Next up, Joe the Plumber to be appointed as Dean of MIT.
Bernie Latham
I just can’t wait for her to go over there and get booed off the stage when she tries that “drill baby drill” sh*t in China
Scott C.
Given the timing of the comment and the fact that the progressive caucus in the house has stated their position I think the “unable to do it” is probably the most correct assessment of the situation.
While you probably hope the blue dogs ditch the public option, I am hoping their moral imperative streak kicks in.
I will quote bilgeman today and compare the current medical insurance industry to “HMO Holocaust”. This wasn’t exactly his interpretation of the facts, but I totally agreed with the label. When 20,000 die in a year because of lack of insurance and 14,000 lose insurance each day I think the argument can be made that something needs to be done to relieve the stress of the current system
I’m reminded of a boil that needs to be lanced or a smashed fingertip that needs to be drilled. The pressure of the current health care system needs to be relieved.
Unfortunately, the minority party seems to have very few suggestions to alleviate the situation.
Scott C said: Greg – If, as you claim, Grassley’s latest is an implicit admission that he had no interest in a bi-partisan compromise, then Nancy Pelosi’s declaration a few weeks ago that there was “no way” she would pass a bill without a public option was precisely the same thing.”
Grassley has expressed opposition to the public option since at least March. But I have little reason to grant credence to his spokesman’s claim that “I’m working to defeat Obamacare” referred merely to that option. His recent ‘deather’ remarks demonstrate with a high degree of certainty that he’s playing out the Luntz/Kristo/RNC stall then defeat strategy. That’s partisan and nothing but.
As regards Pelosi…to quote Dick Cheney, “Elections have consequences”. But to stick to the point, Pelosi has previously expressed a preference for a single-payer system. But she’s willing to settle for less than that.
Let’s see if we can spot the difference.
RE: Sarah Palin and CLSA-I guess it depends on who writes her speech whether it is received well or not. We know she can deliver one. The big question is whether she can answer questions regarding the content or not.
Honestly, I don’t really give a c**p. She is so on the outer edge of politics it makes her inconsequential.
Sunday programming notes: Chris Wallace interviews Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment Joseph Goebbels. Transcription follows.
Wallace: Good day, Mister Reich Minister, welcome back to Fuchs News Sunday.
Geobbels: It’s good to be back, Chris.
Wallace: So, let me ask you about “The Big Lie”. Your opponents, the ones still alive of course, have acccused you of speaking outrageous falsehoods and through repetition convincing many people that the falsehoods are true. It must be very traumatic for you and your family to listen to such accusations?
Goebbels: I’m glad you asked me that, Chris. We’re pretty strong individuals and we aren’t really bothered by these sorts of smears. But what I find deeply troublesome is the damage the people making these accusations are doing to Germany. The ‘Big Lie’ as I’m sure you appreciate is really a purposeful misconstrual – a propagandist reformulation, if you will permit me to be precise – of what we ought to understand as a set of policies that have led to Germany remaining both strong and pure in the face of so much evil and anti-German sentiment in the world, much of it, I’m sad to say, originating right here at home…
Wallace: It’s really more like “The Bigger Truth”, isn’t it?
Goebbels: I don’t think I could have put it better, Chris. It’s heartbreaking to see our nation led down this dangerous path towards…uh…you know I’m not one to mince words, Chris…
Wallace: No, sir, you certainly aren’t.
Goebbels: This disastrous path towards a sort of neutered and slavish worship of those very things which have crippled German power in the past. These are dangerous times, there’s no question, and when danger comes at you, the last thing you want to do is tell it the truth.
Wallace: I want to thank you for coming on today, Mister Reich Minister and I want to thank you for your service to the nation.
Goebbels: Keep up the good work, Chris.
Nice Bernie!
The interview Sunday was pretty close. What a joke!
Bernie L.:
That’s partisan and nothing but.
But the plan to pass health care reform through reconciliation isn’t? Or the Mass legislature’s plan to follow the advice of Saint Teddy to change the law…again…in order to fill his seat quickly isn’t partisan? Come on. Why do you guys pretend as though the Dems are oh-so reasonable, cooperative, and non-partisan, and it is only the Republicans that play hardball with partisan strategies? Are you that myopic, or just disingenuous?
A public option is no compromise. It is the smartest and most efficient method of transitioning to a single payer system. The left knows it, and the right knows it. The only reason the left pretends otherwise is in order to deceive the non-political public because they know the majority of people do not want want they want.
Bernie:
Chris Wallace interview…
How can you lecture others about mindless and cliched rhetoric and then write stuff like this? Have you no self-awareness at all?
Let’s see…The Nazi’s were responsible for rounding up tens of millions of Jews across Europe and slaughtering up to 6 million of them.
If we assume the very worst of the left’s characterization of Cheney, he is responsible for rounding up hundreds of suspected terrorists, and torturing 6 of them.
Killing 6 million innocent Jews, and torturing 6 suspected terrorists. These are comparable? In Bernie-world, I guess anything is possible.
BTW, spare me the defense that you were indicting Wallace’s journalistic standards and not comparing Cheney to a Nazi. Would it have ever occurred to you write such a post after watching Obama give one of his numerous softball interviews with CNN, NBC, ABC, etc.?
Bernie:
BTW, I sympathize with your frustraion over the friendly interview. For years I sat in frustration watching the networks lob softball to Democrats. (Remember Dan Rather wishing on air that the rest of us could be as wonderful as the Clintons? That was journalism at its toughest, eh?) But I do find it amusing to watch the left howl now that they are getting a taste of what it was like to be a conservative prior to FOX News.
Scott C.
You can’t even begin to explain how we could go from the public option to a single payer system. Hollering “socialism” won’t help you either. The truth is a public option would almost guarantee that we will NEVER have a single payer system because if you think the insurance companies are fighting hard now, just wait until their profits get cut into and they actually have to lower their premiums. Besides that the way our own side has now described the public option versus a single payer system, any move to expand the public option would REALLY be seen as a government takeover. We will never get another bite at this apple if the public option goes through. It is what it is.
@Scott C. – I’m pretty close to giving up on you. Your shifts into generalizations and refusals to make differentiations get profitless. Why not just advance the theory that bipartisanship is a romantic delusion and that cooperative legislative effort is inevitably doomed to failure and that politics is always binary and about power alone. You may as well go there. It’s the way you operate here.
As to paragraph two, it’s logically incoherent. Obviously, if a public option results in citizens choosing it over private insurance options, then the people will be demonstrating that they “want what they want” and that would be remedy from the profit-driven system presently in place.
Your ideology-based refusal to even allow citizens such a freedom of choice (because you know better than they what is good for them or because you can determine which social policies are bona fide American, quite aside from what those other citizens might choose or think) doesn’t stand you in good stead as a fan of either real freedom to choose or of democracy.
My Goebbels post was about propaganda. Goebbels had, in his library, a copy of Edward Bernay’s book on marketing/propaganda. Larry Tye’s book on Bernays contains the following jacket promo…
“For the vast punditocracy who think they created spin and the chattering classes who disdain what they think is a modern phenomenon, Larry Tye provides the un-spun history of the father of it all. A must-read for the aforementioned and wannabe spinmasters.” That’s from Mary Matalin.
Greg, Baucus is positioning himself to step aside from his current roadblocking of HCR legislation. Get on this!
Linda:
Unfortunately the majority party seems to have very few suggestions to alleviate the problem.
Actually the R’s do have proposals. But in a sense I agree with you. No one, not even the R’s, are being honest about the problems in healthcare and what it would take to fix them. Indeed, most of the proposals from either side would either have no effect or simply compound the problem.
One of the biggest problems driving healthcare costs higher is that the consumer does not actually face the true cost of the healthcare he gets, so he has no incentive to make economic choices. People use “insurance” for costs that are outside of what insurance is intended for. We buy house insurance in order cover for an unpredictable catastrophic event…a fire, a flood, a hurricane, etc. All other house maintenance costs come out of our annual household budget. But imagine if, every time you needed to do anything for the health of your house…fix the windows, unplug a drain, change your furnace, get a new hot water heater, replace a lightbulb, get a new dishwasher…you used your house insurance instead of paying out of pocket. You would have no reason to seek out the best price, or to economize in anyway, because you have nothing to gain by doing so. Your expense is fixed no matter what you do. Do you suppose that if you, and every other house owner in the country, did this, that your insurance premiums would start to rise?
Well, this is what we do with health insurance. Instead of insuring for catastrophic events (ie a truly insurable event), and paying for our ordinary, everyday, largely predictable costs out of our annual household budget, we “insure” everything. And one of the reasons we do this is because the government incents us to. When our employer provided “insurance” pays for our annual doctor visits, it is paid with pre-tax dollars, but if we pay out of pocket, it is with after tax dollars. Even if we tried to buy insurance outside of our employer, it would be after tax.
Supply and demand reality is one reason why Obama’s claims about his plans are patently false. He claims that under a government plan he is not going to ration care. Of course he is going to ration care…he is going to have to. It is fact of economic reality that any commodity or service, which is by definition of limited quantity, will have to be rationed in some way to satisfy what is an unlimited demand. In a normal free market, prices will do the rationing. As prices move higher, people who either cannot or will not pay for it reduce the demand, hence allowing the limited supply to cover the remaining demand. But if prices don’t do the rationing, it must be done in some other way. By his own accounting, Obama wants to provide healthcare to an additional tens of millions of people. This will necessarily increase demand. These people, also by his own accounting, cannot afford to pay for it, so there is no reason supply will increase to meet this demand. And he also promises to reduce cost to everyone else. So the only possible way to achieve these things is to manage the demand coming from everyone else by fiat…ie to ration care. There is no way around it. It is an unavoidable fact of reality. And Obama either knows it, or he has the dumbest economists in the history of the world advising him.
From Paul W.’s link:
“They [Enzi, Grassley, Snowe] are being told by the Republican Party not to participate.”
Well, yes, we had that one figured out.
And Norm Ornstein has an interesting piece… http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/31/AR2009083102913.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
And, Jack Bauer supports the Canadian system (as does the Canadian Council of Churches)… http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/undergod/2009/08/jack_bauers_health-care_reform.html?hpid=talkbox1
Bernie:
Your shifts into generalizations and refusals to make differentiations get profitless.
I don’t know quite what it is you are talking about here. My sense is that you object to when I point out that the Dems exhibit the same behavior that you condemn in the R’s. But perhaps you could be a bit more specific.
Why not just advance the theory that bipartisanship is a romantic delusion…
Bipartisanship is of course possible. But hardore partisans exist on both sides, and I object to you pretending as though Republicans are largely, if not soley, responsible for the lack of bipartisanship.
Obviously, if a public option results in citizens choosing it over private insurance options, then the people will be demonstrating that they “want what they want” and that would be remedy from the profit-driven system presently in place.
First of all, a public option that results in employers ceasing to provide insurance coverage is not an example of citizens “choosing” anything.
Also, a public option which offers the same service (hah..good luck with that) as a private entity at cheaper upfront price by subsidizing the service with taxpayer money is not an example of “citizens” as a whole choosing a better option. It is an example of some citizens choosing to get a free lunch at the expense of other citizens. And any thinking person knows that the only reason the public option needs to be “public” is so that the government can use taxpayer money to subsidize the cost. This is not an example of lowering cost. It is an example of shifting cost, from those who get the service to someone else.
By the way, you really should stop talking about “the people” as if it was a singular existing entity that makes chioces. That is one of your ideological blinders that prevents you from seeing thins clearly.
Your ideology-based refusal to even allow citizens such a freedom of choice…
Wow, are you confused. Forcing Peter to pay for Paul’s healthcare is not an example of giving Paul freedom. It is an example of restrciting Peter’s freedom.
…doesn’t stand you in good stead as a fan of either real freedom to choose or of democracy.
You obviously don’t understand the concpet of freedom. Freedom is something that individuals either have or not. it is not something that “the people” or “the citizens” as a singular entity have. Again, if Paul forces Peter to pay for Paul’s healthcare, Paul is not exercising his freedom, he is restricting Peter’s. Freedom, if it means anything, must mean the same thing and be applicable for everyone. And democracy, of course, is just as capable of subverting freedom as any dictatorship. Its targets are just generally more focused.
Scott C. “Bipartisanship is of course possible. But hardore partisans exist on both sides, and I object to you pretending as though Republicans are largely, if not soley, responsible for the lack of bipartisanship.”
In the present, it clearly is. Bill Kristol has again formulated a strategy of obstruction and killing Obama’s healthcare plans as a means to further republican electoral opportunities. Grover Norquist has not changed his position that “bipartisanship is date rape”. Frank Luntz has provided the polled talking points to achieve the above. Which of the above facts do you contest? Perhaps you have a quote to hand from Rush Limbaugh extolling the virtue of bipartisan cooperation with the Obama administration? That would be an aid to your argument that no differences exist here. I’m simply not going to continue with you if you remain so dishonest on specifics.
“You obviously don’t understand the concpet of freedom. Freedom is something that individuals either have or not. it is not something that “the people” or “the citizens” as a singular entity have. Again, if Paul forces Peter to pay for Paul’s healthcare, Paul is not exercising his freedom, he is restricting Peter’s. Freedom, if it means anything, must mean the same thing and be applicable for everyone. And democracy, of course, is just as capable of subverting freedom as any dictatorship. Its targets are just generally more focused.”
Your formulation and conception of “freedom” here allows for no cooperative community enterprise at all. All taxation, whether for bridges or the building of a townhall or the policing of a city or for military provision are instances of individuals coerced into paying for that which they are unfree to refuse contribution towards (for the general good because there is no such thing as a general good, only an individual good). And if the majority of citizens in your community (if “community” makes sense at all in your conception) hold a different ideological position, you retain the right, holding the only proper conception of freedom, to deny that majority of others in your political realm the ability to assume some other framework than your own personal one.
How, I suppose I ought to ask, is any taxation for anything at all, not a violation of your formulation above? And how, I might ask, are laws prohibiting abortion an instance of this cherished individual liberty you speak of?
Oh, and by the way, I should confide two other things here. First, I often have drugs for my personal use which are prohibited by state and federal laws. I presume that’s ok with you. Secondly, I have a rather sophisticated garage out back where I’m presently working on finalizing the design for a small nuclear device. I’d like to have my own of course but would also wish to market them to other individuals through local gun shops. I’ll probably call it the inuke. As your and my personal liberties are paramount, indeed absolute, and as I thus cannot abide any communitarian infringement of them, I know you’ll stand with me in the event of statist incursions upon my property and my rights. Yes?
Bernie:
Presenting a list of Republican commentators that decry bipartisanship is no demonstration that Republicans are the primary cause of partisanship. Are there really no partisan left-wing commentators, calling for the Dems to use their power to push through all manner of changes regardless of Republican agreement? Have you never heard of Paul Krugman? Please.
Your formulation and conception of “freedom” here allows for no cooperative community enterprise at all.
Of course it does. In fact, that is precisely what it allows for…cooperative enterprise. If you think forced wealth reallocation is an example of a cooperative venture, you need to get yourself a dictionary. Freedom, in a political sense, means freedom from coercion. That is what the founders spoke of when they spoke of freedom, that is what political philosophers meant when they spoke of freedom, and that is what I mean when I speak of freedom.
All taxation, whether for bridges or the building of a townhall or the policing of a city or for military provision are instances of individuals coerced into paying for that which they are unfree to refuse contribution towards.
That is true. I am perfectly willing to acknowledge that all taxation is an exercise in the restriction of freedom.
But still there is a distinction to be drawn between the examples you give above and a strict wealth transfer. (And, as we know, you fancy yourself a big recognizer of distinctions, so this should be easy.) The distinction between the police/the military and wealth transfers is that the former are, to the extent the term has any meaning, a public good, while the latter are plainly individual goods. When a police force is created, or the military is formed, or even to an extent when a bridge is built, it is difficult if not impossible to identify either the direct beneficiary or the value of the benefit. With a wealth transfer, both the beneficiary and the benefit is crystal clear. It is not, in any sense, a “communal” benefit.
And if the majority of citizens in your community…hold a different ideological position…
If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have? Answer: 4, because calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it one. If a majority of people in my community “hold a different ideological position” and hence call using coercion an act of freedom, it doesn’t make it one. It is fine to argue that a majority of people ought to be able to do literally whatever they want to a minority. But you ought to at least be honest about it and not pretend that doing so is an act of freedom rather than a violation of freedom.
For freedom to mean anything significant, all individuals must be able to co-exist with equal freedom. This can be true only if we understand political freedom to mean freedom from coercion, not freedom to use coercion against an unprotected minority.
…you retain the right, holding the only proper conception of freedom, to deny that majority of others in your political realm the ability to assume some other framework than your own personal one.
The only “framework” my conception denies them is a framework that identifies freedom as the right to use coercion against others.
BTW, although it offends my ideological purity, in practice, I do not strictly oppose any and all taxes. But I also do not deceive myself into thinking I am advancing freedom by supporting a given tax. I am at least honest in acknowledging that someone’s freedom is being restricted.
And how, I might ask, are laws prohibiting abortion an instance of this cherished individual liberty you speak of?
Geez, Bernie, that is too easy. If a fetus is an individual human, then it too has a right to individual liberty, and the right to kill it is no more extant than the right to kill a 2year old. Again, freedom cannot mean the ability to coerce others, even those who live in a womb.
The only relevant question in the abortion debate is whether or not a fetus is a human being. If it is, abortion is wrong. If it isn’t then abortion is fine. (And pretty much everyone knows, deep down, that it is a human being. Hence the “emotional trauma” of getting an abortion that someone spoke of the other day.)
Bernie:
First, I often have drugs for my personal use which are prohibited by state and federal laws. I presume that’s ok with you.
It is.
Secondly, I have a rather sophisticated garage out back where I’m presently working on finalizing the design for a small nuclear device….As your and my personal liberties are paramount, indeed absolute…
As I have made clear through my admission that I do not oppose any and all taxation, I do not hold that such liberties are absolute. A commitment to live in freedom need not be a suicide pact. Yes, you can come up with challenging scenarios, but, as the saying goes, hard cases make bad law. Taking from Peter to pay Paul is not a hard case.
Bernie:
I said:
Taking from Peter to pay Paul is not a hard case.
That is not entirely true. I can actually conceive of situations in which it could be a hard case. What I should have said was that taking from Peter to pay Paul, Mary, John, Ed, Bill, and Bernie is not a hard case.
“Presenting a list of Republican commentators that decry bipartisanship”
None of the individuals I mentioned are mere commentators such as Krugman. Each are powerful and influential strategists and organizers at the top level of the modern party and movement. Krugman bears no resemblance to them. Your response is dishonest. Or perhaps just foolish.
” Freedom, in a political sense, means freedom from coercion. That is what the founders spoke of when they spoke of freedom, that is what political philosophers meant when they spoke of freedom, and that is what I mean when I speak of freedom.”
That is a conception of political freedom and it is an essential one. But it is limited in profound ways. See Berlin’s “Two Concepts of Liberty”.
Re your distinction of “public good” as contrasted with “private good”. Why do I suspect that you do not support tax dollars going to an education system? Why would you exclude health of your neighbors as a public good given the consequences of increased productivity, happiness, and decreases in spread of disease? Would you, if a virulent disease is imminent in the community, enjoin the state to coerce those suffering into locations or regimens such that the spread might be lessened?
“But I also do not deceive myself into thinking I am advancing freedom by supporting a given tax. I am at least honest in acknowledging that someone’s freedom is being restricted.”
Limits to our freedoms are a function of being communal creatures. We each (each individual, community, nation) have our notions and preferences as regards how and why we ought best to sort these conflicts out. Your understanding of proper ‘freedom’ is shared by few (you do realize this, yes?) Popularity doesn’t make a thing right or wrong, of course, but it does determine the manner in which a representative democracy will organize itself. If those around you choose to organize themselves in manner which provides for much more taxation than you would like, you are left with several options. One, move elsewhere. Two, organize to change things (if a minority view, smaller chance to effect this). Three, establish your preference (regardless of popular will) through some autocratic and inherently coercive means.
Are you aware, by the way, of how your notions in all of this (and it is not simple stuff unless one needs simple) are consonant with Noam Chomsky’s notions?
Bernie:
That is a conception of political freedom and it is an essential one. But it is limited in profound ways. See Berlin’s “Two Concepts of Liberty”.
It is very odd that you say it is “limited in profound ways”, and then direct me to Berlin. Berlin believed that the pursuit of what he called “positive” liberty (what you advocate?) inevitably led to the abuse of power, and the destruction of “negative” liberty. He advocated the pursuit of negative liberty, or precisely the type of liberty that I advocate. It is odd that you say negative liberty is essential, but then seem to advocate for positive liberty which is destined to destroy it.
Why do I suspect that you do not support tax dollars going to an education system?
That is not entirely correct. I do not support the idea of government provided education. I am, however, not entirely opposed to the notion of government providing aid to those who cannot afford an education on their own. We do not feel the need for the government to produce food just so poor people can eat. Likewise, I do not see the need for the government to produce education just so poor people can get educated. School vouchers, baby.
Why would you exclude health of your neighbors as a public good given the consequences of increased productivity, happiness, and decreases in spread of disease?
In that sense, virtually anything could be described as a public good. Should we get the government to pay for my weekend golf because it makes me more productive during the week? Besides, those are very indirect benefits, if benefits at all. Who knows what they are worth, if anything? My neighbor may not be very productive at all. He might even be a Democrat! (That’s a joke…ha, ha.) The direct beneficiary of healthcare is, plainly, the person who receives it. He should pay for it. And if he is going to pay for it, there is no need to get the government involved.
Would you, if a virulent disease is imminent in the community, enjoin the state to coerce those suffering into locations or regimens such that the spread might be lessened?
Funny enough, I earlier had just this discussion with someone else here, patches, I think. As I said to him, it is just such a scenario, in which a contagious epidemic threatens the populace, that government force is justified, for the same reasons that government force is justified in combating crime or terrorism.
Limits to our freedoms are a function of being communal creatures.
I would say that limits to our freedom are a function of the type of communal arrangements we organize, arrangements which, of course, are necessary due to our communal nature. Perhaps we are saying the same thing. Anyway, it seems to me that it behooves us to make communal arrangement which maximize our freedom, even while we accept that completely unfettered freedom for all is never achievable.
If those around you choose to organize themselves in manner which provides for much more taxation than you would like, you are left with several options. One, move elsewhere.
Yes, but the very nature of the desire to transfer wealth means that the majority will do its utmost to prevent the minority from moving. If the minority leaves, there is no one left to exploit! That is why it is so nefarious and abusive, and why such efforts are always expanded to the highest governmental level possible, rather than the lowest. I am sure you do not advocate that a majority is always right. There are some things, I assume, that even you would militate against even if they were undertaken by a majority. If so, then you cannot justify wealth transfers simply by declaring that a majority wants to do it. There must be some other standard of behavior by which you decide whether or not to be a part of that majority.
Two, organize to change things (if a minority view, smaller chance to effect this).
That is what I am doing. I am trying to convince you that what you would do is wrong. Again, it is no justification for you to simply say “It’s what the majority wants.” You have to justify your own inclusion among that majority.
Are you aware, by the way, of how your notions in all of this (and it is not simple stuff unless one needs simple) are consonant with Noam Chomsky’s notions?
No, but it is perfectly conceivable that someone can start with the correct premises and still go terribly wrong in one’s reasoning. So, I presume, it is with Chomsky.
Bernie…sorry for the bad html. I presume you can work your way through it. If not, tell me and I will repost.