Health Care Reform

I was holding off on posting about this -- I figured everybody and her kid sister had heard about it ad nauseam and this whole slouching-toward-Bethlehem process to do the right thing about health care has gone on far too long. But the post-vote right-wing spew was too much. So, a missive I offered elsewhere, slightly altered:

Fascinating, as Spock might say, the disingenuous and facile statements that the Republicans are offering up after the historic vote:

This is not the democratic process! they whine. You are treading on our rights! After eight years of shoving civil liberties down the toilet during the Previous Occupant's tenure in the White House? Using the same loopholes to give the rich guys tax breaks? Nope, they don't get to say that.

Nobody is against health care reform, but this isn't the way! We should scrap it and start over! they lament. The way they offered health care reform up during Previous Occupant's tenure is the ticket? Pray for it? Naw, I hear that for what it is -- if we can stonewall it long enough, it'll die, like it always has before. And we are gonna keep trying.

We can't afford it! they piss and moan. Just as they pissed and moaned during the arguments against Social Security and Medicare. I'm not making this up, go look at the history. They said the same things then they are saying now. Wars? Always money for those. Health for the poor? Why bother? Let's go with Swift's "A Modest Proposal ..."

It won't help anybody! they bleat. Just as they bleated during the debate over the Civil Rights Act and giving women the right to vote. Separate-but-equal. Barefoot-and-pregnant.

No, it won't help as much as it should, because the ball-less Democrats couldn't get what really needed to be done done, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

The Republicans have become the just-say-no-except-for-tax-breaks-for-the-rich-white-guys party. Stand in the hallway, block up the door, offering nothing for, only against.

Oh, wait. They do have something they are for! Let's have a war, that'll fix everything!

Above all, guard the status quo.

Once upon a time, I was a Republican. But the days are long past when I can stomach any of their platforms. (And the Democrats don't please me all that much, either. Why I register as an Independent.)

They claim the big tent, the Republicans, but there are no seats in it for anybody except the white guys. Yeah, they want the Latino and Black and Gay and Lesbian and Atheists' votes, but that's all they want. Y'all stand in the back over there and don't make too much noise. If we could win without you, you'd be outside in the rain, so take what you can get and be happy you got that much.

Well, well, looky here. The worm turns, the karmic wheel rolls, the chickens come home to roost.

It's your turn in the barrel, guys.

That's how it works.