Yes, Nancy, we’re serious

Posted by Marc Hodak on June 26, 2012 under Collectivist instinct | 2 Comments to Read

Few statements better illustrate the dismissive condescension of a government official in a headlong power-grab:

Whatever one believes about the merits of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare), or whichever way the Supreme Court decides this law, the question of constitutionality was real. The concerns were there throughout the deliberations, in bipartisan opposition to the law, and in its lingering unpopularity to this day. But if one is blinded by their authoritarian ambitions, such concerns remain invisible to them.

Well, Ms. Pelosi, many of us were in fact more concerned about a dramatic and potentially unconstitutional expansion of government power over the most private part of our private lives than we were dazzled by the promise of unfettered access to low cost health care. We were serious about that concern. We didn’t deserve to be treated like dirt to be brushed off.

Besomyka said,

I don’t know about you in particular, but in general the opponents of the ACA have been the most intellectually disingenuous, hypocritical, crass liars I have ever seen in modern politics. That might not have been you, specifically, but the majority of the opposition had been supporting the proposal only MONTHS before it got support from Dems; supported by the the leadership, by the think tanks, and by the conservative population at large.

Previous co-sponsors suddenly decided to vote against it. And not because they changed their mind honestly, it’s not like the made ANY sort of a reasoned argument. There was no new angle that they hadn’t considered before. They just flat-out started lying, and acting like their new opinion is what they always thought.

Now, maybe you’re one of the people that wasn’t paying attention until the change of heart, and you honestly are concerned about the bill, or maybe you were concerned when it was a Republican idea.. but you aren’t the real opposition. It’s the Heritage Foundation, and the congressional leadership, and the other leaders of the Republican Party, and THEY were transparently motivated by politics only.

The sudden change of heart was so sudden, so transparently motivated – not as you say by a sincere concern about “a dramatic and potentially unconstitutional expansion of government”, but by your opposition to Obama – that it takes quite a bit of delusion to think that posting something like this will be taken seriously by anyone other than those acolytes that are already engaged in the double-think.

Sincere concern? No, I don’t think so. I’m not buying it, it was just politics.
Marc Hodak said,

There was a wide spectrum of opposition to the ACA, just as there was a spectrum of support. My personal opposition to the law was based on libertarian, not political concerns. Check out, for instance, Reason.com, or Megan McCardle at The Atlantic. You’ll find no flip-flopping in their archives on this issue. I think that progressives are similarly consistent in their statist desires. I always know where my leftist friends stand on an economic issue. No inconsistency there, either.

Politics is different. Republicans and Democrats are only crudely correlated to libertarians and progressives, respectively, and neither side has a monopoly on intellectual dishonesty (or inconsistency, if that is how you define it). The candidate who said “mandating the purchase of insurance to solve the problem of the uninsured is like mandating the purchase of a home to solve the problem of homelessness” was Barack Obama.

The Democrats pushed the ACA as a solution to our health care woes, but I know that many of them believe it won’t work, and are looking forward to the day when the incentives created by this law leads to skyrocketing insurance rates and degraded quality so they can claim–again–that “the free market has failed,” and push for the complete socialization of health care. Whatever one may think of the merits of that strategy, you have to admit it’s pretty cynical. I’m not saying that Democrats have a monopoly on cynicism, either, but it’s always harder to see it on your team than it is to see it on the other.

Thanks for visiting.