Pangloss

Having looked at some moderate conservative boards a bit more on this I've found that some of them have objections that are not as ludicrous as the ones being discussed above. Most of the hand-waving is along the lines of "don't turn our kids into socialists!" and it's pretty ridiculous. But there is a kernel of reasonable objection to the indoctrination issue. The issue revolves around the basic underlying assumption in American socio-politics that it's fine for older kids to step into politics, but younger minds need to be left free of ideological influences outside of the home. It's not that they don't get ideological indoctrination from their own parents (they certainly do), but because the parents are essentially operating without an owners manual, we need to support them and be careful not to undermine their authority in the household. This is such a dicey issue that sometimes minor changes in information given to younger children can have a major impact on home discipline, motivation, and educational and societal success. In short, they're saying that the administration may be injecting a specific ideological point of view into the minds of younger kids. It's not something we normally do, and there's a pretty good reason not to do it. Personally, I'm not at all convinced that that's what's happened here. From what I've seen so far this is a message along the lines of "study hard and you'll do well in school!" And the moderate conservatives I've talked to (some of whom have objections to this) have been very careful to point out that they APPROVE of President Obama delivering that message to their children. Their objections come in through specifics that look to me like they might have been poorly/accidentally/ill-advisedly phrased by the administration. Here's an example: Kennedy didn't say "Ask not what the country can do for you, but what you can do for the President", he said "country", and therein lies what may be the heart of the objection for more moderate conservatives. Understand, I'm speaking for others here so I don't know how well I'm representing the argument. But I think it's important to understand that not all Americans who have objections to the Obama administration are raving, illogical, uneducated lunatics (not that anyone suggested such). Like the guy says in the video above, sometimes even the right has a reasonable objection or two. Is that the case here, though? I'm not sure but I'm not really seeing something that begs for such an outburst.

Rofl!

Some off-topic posts have been removed from this thread. In the interest of stellar harmony I've also removed some of my own opinions that may have fueled the digression. Let's move on. Thanks.

I could have phrased that better. I was just agreeing with your point that it started way before Obama.

I haven't got a handle on this one yet. I've seen a couple discussions about it and saw an op/ed piece somewhere (WSJ?), but it seemed to be really trivial, about kids having better things to do (like learning). That struck me as daft because Presidents often speak to children in schools (Bush certainly did). So I don't really understand the objection and I'm looking around for more on it. Here's a link to the New York Times piece on the subject today: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/us/04school.html?bl&ex=1252296000&en=aca08736a6e52505&ei=5087%0A The meat of it: I dunno, maybe the right is even more lost than I thought it was.

Sure, absolutely. Just speaking for myself, I've never doubted that that return to civility (the lost public discourse you refer to) could come from either side of the aisle. Though I readily confess I didn't expect to see it from Al Franken. I'm still just completely aghast that he went ten full minutes without mentioning George Bush or the Republican party. I'm floored. But hey, I'm glad to see it. Really glad. He won HUGE points from me with that video. It's exactly what drew me to vote for Obama. As for the rest, I'll just second what TBK said above. The right is just repeating what the left did to Bush, which was a repeat of what the right did to Clinton. I think we have to break the cycle of political partisanship, which in my view is no less dangerous and emotional than the cycle of violence and retribution in the Middle East. I saw this video posted on some of my more liberal friends blogs and Facebook today, and it seemed to me that many of them learned the wrong lesson from this. It's not about putting those stupid "teabaggers" in their place. It's about respectful discourse and listening to one another's concerns. Those who support health care reform here at SFN, such as yourself and iNow, have been respectful and listened to the points of view put forth by myself, ParanoiA, and others, and then put forth your own opinions, even agreeing when we found shortcomings in the approaches that we're looking at. We've had an informative and detailed discussion that's probably impacted on every single person who read it. That's awesome. The whole country needs that public discourse, as you put it. We shouldn't implement ANY health care system -- or any OTHER political plan -- just because so-and-so says it's a good idea. Not ever! But with health care the problem is even more insidious, because nobody -- not one person on this entire planet -- knows how to do health care without any drawbacks. So I'm really glad Al Franken is out there telling people what he thinks, and listening to what they think, on this issue. That's awesome. That's exactly how this country is supposed to work.

Seems to be more or less safe now. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/mtwilson/ http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mtwilson-scientists3-2009sep03,0,308354.story

Yeah how about that? He doesn't insult their intelligence or call them "teabaggers", he patiently listens to their concerns and thanks them for their passion and interest, and then explains a different point of view. Shocking! I guess the far left is really upset with him! But yeah, I'm really glad to hear Al Franken doing that and not playing the blame-Republicans game (as he usually did on his show). Thanks for passing that along.

Bill Clinton was not prosecuted, he was impeached, which is a political process. He was not investigated by the Bush Justice Department. His deception was manifestly obvious and recorded on camera, but in the end there was no "justice" for this "crime" (probably because most sane people felt the punishment didn't fit the crime). The world did not come to an end. Though certainly many on the right were similarly "amazed". I suppose one could try and make a case that the illegal activities of the Bush administration (if they were illegal) might have been prevented had justice been carried out in Clinton's case, but all that proves is that partisanship begets partisanship. My response to "two can play at that game" is: "Fine -- you two play."

IMO Duffy is showing bias and helping Democrats lay a little ground work of their own, so they can accuse Cheney and the far right of conniving to prejudge. Not that he's wrong, that's exactly what the GOP will do. But he's using positive descriptions for Dems and negative descriptions for Repubs, speaking about Obama officials with smart and attentive words while using phrases like "darker explanation", "set up" and "gambit" when referring to Repubs and Cheney. In my opinion Democrats would do exactly the same thing (wrt blame for a future attack) if the shoe were on the other foot.

Hear, hear. And an interesting post. Being a long-view kind of guy, I find myself often more interested in the process and the thoughtfulness of an event than the actual outcome. I think it's by doing and observing the outcome that we learn, and every time we get angry at one another and war DOESN'T break out, democracy is working, at least to SOME degree. It may simply be that democracy is always going to be a two-steps-forward-one-step-back deal, with the occasional second or third step back just to keep us motivated. It's a good point, and there's no doubt that the big tent is one of the great political challenges. However, one might look at FDR, who arguably faced an even greater set of challenges, and somehow managed to bring widely disparate political forces together by focusing them on a common goal (in fact not once but twice). One could argue that the outcome was better because of the acknowledgement, and even leveraging, of the big tent. But it is hard to argue that the challenges facing the US in that era were broader in scope than the ones we face today. For example, I don't think they were dealing with as many social issues as we are today (they existed, e.g. racism, but weren't really being addressed).

Frustration is understandable, but I think upset people should consider a longer view on this. There are long-term benefits of having him come out in public. The making of history is a process -- he's going on record, and that record won't disappear. Eventually the history books will assess this, and he won't be writing them. Scholars and historians will look it over objectively, weigh his opinion and his perspective (as is only fair), and look at the opposing evidence, and make an accurate determination of everything that happened. Any drama injected into this process is pointless, and is really more about current politics. My advice: People should worry less about next November and spend more time listening to people's concerns and questioning why Congress seems to find it so hard to address them. THAT's how you stop the wrong people from coming to power.

My opinion: People want change, and they're not seeing it. They wanted it in 2008 and they are still going to want it in 2010. http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/washington-whispers/2009/09/02/poll-lowest-congressional-approval-in-two-decades.html Of course the news is no better for Republicans (and arguably even worse), but it's not as if people suddenly decided that they loved Democrats in 2008 -- they voted Republicans out, they didn't vote Democrats in. This poll shows that that sentiment continues. What do you think?

Really? The mid-term elections are 14 months away. Would you like to wait on that discussion until we see if Republicans regain control?

Absolutely. Which is exactly why you want the public debate -- to address questions like that one right there.

I agree with john5746.

I almost started a thread on this, but I figured it would be like putting lipstick on a pig.

The global warming consensus is not an expression of natural law. But I agree that it has nothing to do with man-made law.

As far as I know there's no law forcing abortions to be covered by health care insurance. Insurers presumably make that decisions themselves. And since Obamacare is to be offered as a health insurance policy option (one that is subsidized by a tax), the decision would seem to rest with the policy directors of Obamacare as to whether or not it will cover abortion. Therefore the question would seem to be legitimate.

Interesting op/ed piece in yesterday's Washington Post by noted health policy expert and Brown political science professor James Morone, suggesting that pulling back on some aspects of health care may be a costly political mistake for Democrats. He seems to have a good point there. It feels presumptuous to add my own opinion here, but I do remember what it was like in 1994 and it does feel very similar at the moment. I think that's unfortunate because, as has been pointed out here already, so much of it is driven by misinformation and demagoguery. Why can't we make a choice based on intelligent analysis and good, hard common sense? At any rate, the politics of this is really interesting, and seems to run counter to what my own thinking has been. I was of the general opinion that, from a purely political perspective, Democrats should compromise on this issue in order to maintain control over political moderates. But it's hard to argue with Dr. Morone's point here. You sometimes hear that politics is not about avoiding fights, but picking the right ones. This would seem to be a good example of that. Morone also draws some interesting comparisons with the Medicare debate in the 1960s, and includes this fascinating quote from Ronald Reagan in 1963: "If this program passes, one of these days we will tell our children and our children's children what it was like in America when men were free." Reagan sure seemed to miss the mark on that one. Ouch! http://voices.washingtonpost.com/shortstack/2009/08/why_the_health_care_debate_is.html?hpid=news-col-blog

If abortions are covered in current medical care plans, then it is not a red herring -- it's a legitimate question, because it will have to either be covered or not covered under "Obamacare". If it's not something that's typically covered, then it is a red herring.

Gonna be kinda hard to top Sisyphus there.

bascule, I disagree that I misunderstood your post and I believe I have corrected your erroneous statement that if you need medical care you will get it under single-payer. I'm sorry you found that annoying but you drew this out by continuing to ask me questions (how can I not respond when you ask me a question?). I am ignoring your personal attacks.

I see universal coverage as an investment -- I'll pay for it if I get some benefit in return. And there is one -- having a healthier population around me means more opportunities for me to thrive as well. So I agree that the general concept of universal coverage really should extend beyond the usual left-versus-right memes and motivations. That doesn't mean, however, that the answers are easy. There's no linear, rail-like progression; some road that we simply need to walk down from point A to point B to point C, shoving aside anyone who gets in the way with inconvenient questions (though I agree it would be best if we could ditch the lies and fear-mongering from the right). We're going to have to continue to hash out some very ugly business in the public discourse and in government over the next few months. And when we're done: It's probably not going to be single payer. It's probably not going to cover everyone initially. It's probably not going to reduce costs initially. What it MAY do -- what we'd damn well better HOPE it does -- is provide a mechanism by which -- gradually, over time -- cost will come to drop faster than rising expenses, and coverage will become universal.

It's fine by me if you want to narrow your statement in that manner. As I said in post #27, thanks for clarifying. So no, not a strawman, or a red herring. The correct word for someone who points out a flaw in an argument without necessarily supporting the opposing view is "skeptic".