RoR: Forum

From the WSJ:
Coakley's Saviors The health-care industry rides to the Democratic rescue.

Post 1

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - 11:27am

Ted -- even if the Republican wins, the Obamacare bill still might get enacted due to bureaucratic foot-dragging by Democratic Massachusetts election officials:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/13/AR2010011302542.html

Basically, under state law, they have up to 15 days after the election before they must certify the election results and seat the winner of the race. It seems probable that the partisans running the certification process will wait the entire 15 days, which gives the Democrats enough time to cobble together a bill greased with enough pork to buy off wavering politicians.

The only question is whether any of the Senate Democrats would be disheartened enough by the signal sent by such a deep Blue state electing a Republican to switch to a "no" vote on cloture.

Post 2

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - 10:42pm

I could not have any less interest in sacrificing long-term, well-thought-out principles for short-term political gain. Both parties can go pound sand.

Post 3

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - 11:18pm

Well Steven, get ready to wait in line then while you're striking your moral pose.

Post 4

Thursday, January 14, 2010 - 6:41am

Steven,

While I understand your sentiment, I'd have to agree with John. The overall damage that this unpopular bill will cause far outweighs the smaller risks of bad judgement by one politician. Supporting the (any) Republican candidate in that race is simply a strategic decision, since it could potentially defeat the monster at our doorstep.

jt

Post 5

Thursday, January 14, 2010 - 9:21am

The fact is Stephen is not acting in his long-term interests by striking a moral pose. Acting in your interests requires that your actions actually result in something beneficial. Thumbing your nose and letting the looters have free reign because the alternative is not the Platonic Ideal is idiocy.

Post 6

Thursday, January 14, 2010 - 10:12am

Strike a pose, there's nothing to it!

Post 7

Thursday, January 14, 2010 - 10:57am

United Nations special envoy for Haiti is alive and well and campaigning in Massachusetts

By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
01/14/10 12:51 PM EST

Here in Massachusetts, it turns out Bill Clinton will make not one but two appearances tomorrow on behalf of Democratic candidate Martha Coakley.
The Coakley campaign, struggling against surging Republican Scott Brown, has been touting Clinton's appearance for several days, but in the last 24 hours there have been questions about whether the former president would actually appear. Clinton is the United Nations special envoy for Haiti and has taken a high-profile role in rescue and relief efforts following the disastrous earthquake there. But he is also the man who could possibly help save Coakley, and thus the Democratic national health care plan, from defeat on Tuesday. So the confluence of events presented the spotlight-loving Clinton with a difficult choice: save health care, or save the world? He chose to head to Massachusetts.

Post 8

Thursday, January 14, 2010 - 11:25pm

"It's a Brown-Out"

Poll shocker: Scott Brown surges ahead in Senate race

By Jessica Van Sack
Friday, January 15, 2010

Riding a wave of opposition to Democratic health-care reform, GOP upstart Scott Brown is leading in the U.S. Senate race, raising the odds of a historic upset that would reverberate all the way to the White House, a new poll shows.

Although Brown�s 4-point lead over Democrat Martha Coakley is within the Suffolk University/7News survey�s margin of error, the underdog�s position at the top of the results stunned even pollster David Paleologos.

�It�s a Brown-out,� said Paleologos, director of Suffolk�s Political Research Center. �It�s a massive change in the political landscape.�

The poll shows Brown, a state senator from Wrentham, besting Coakley, the state�s attorney general, by 50 percent to 46 percent, the first major survey to show Brown in the lead. Unenrolled long-shot Joseph L. Kennedy, an information technology executive w

Post 9

Friday, January 15, 2010 - 12:46am

John and Jay,

Your scare tactics are much like the ones used against me in 2004 when I was in College Republicans and openly declared my intent to vote Libertarian. And I watched, tragically, as Republicans under Bush increased spending more than Lyndon B. Johnson. So, spare me the cries of "Wolf", because you're not going to be heard.

Post 10

Friday, January 15, 2010 - 6:15am

Steven,

I'd hardly call my post a 'scare tactic', and you are more than entitled to your view on that race. While I've only taken a cursory glance at Brown's positions, his most important position is against this health care bill. The fact that he will be in the position to stop this monstrosity if he is elected (and he may be the only one able to stop it) , seems sufficient to merit supporting his run. This just my personal opinion.

Sometimes the "Wolf" really is at the door.

jt

Post 11

Friday, January 15, 2010 - 10:58am

Steven:

Your scare tactics are much like the ones used against me in 2004 when I was in College Republicans and openly declared my intent to vote Libertarian. And I watched, tragically, as Republicans under Bush increased spending more than Lyndon B. Johnson. So, spare me the cries of "Wolf", because you're not going to be heard.

Brown winning that seat which would allow for a filibuster of this awful Bill is in our self-interests. Brown winning a seat in the Senate is hardly a Republican majority, but at least a check against the outright Socialists. Anything else would just be suicide, and sorry I'm not a selfless individual. Say whatever you want about the "tactics", but your appeals to "Bush" aren't terrible convincing for the rest of us that don't want to wait in line for medical services. Striking a moral pose is not in your self-interests.

It's not a zero-sum choice, so while lending support to a candidate you may not think is the Platonic Ideal, shouldn't mean you can't continue to campaign for Objectivist principles.

(Edited by John Armaos on 1/15, 10:59am)

Post 12

Friday, January 15, 2010 - 11:58am

The connection between pulling a lever in an election booth and determining whose ass it is that fills a seat in Congress is a conceptual, not a perceptual one. So I can understand that some people find it a difficult one to make. Instead of concluding that elections are about influencing who in the real world directs the hands that hold the guns, a lot of people think elections are all about "supporting" a party or "sending messages" or "making statements" or demonstrating their own personal purity.

You know, like prayers.

It's funny that Democrats see the actual effect of winning elections, and can plan far enough ahead to actually steal one, while even in a tight election where every vote "counts" Objectionist Libertarians stand by with their hands in their pockets or over their orifices.

(Edited by Ted Keer on 1/15, 3:27pm)

Post 13

Friday, January 15, 2010 - 6:46pm

The connection between pulling a lever in an election booth and determining whose ass it is that fills a seat in Congress is a conceptual, not a perceptual one. So I can understand that some people find it a difficult one to make. Instead of concluding that elections are about influencing who in the real world directs the hands that hold the guns

Gee willikers, Ted, did you stop to think that I might grasp the concept and in so grasping still come to the conclusion I have? I vote Libertarian - that group of folks is who I think fit best to "hold the guns". How hard is that? More accurately, I think that group is closest to realizing that I need less guns pointed at me in the first place. There is not anything purity-based or holier-than-thou about it, because I compromise when it comes to Libertarians as well. I just have to compromise a whole lot less, and less shit to swallow is never a bad thing.

Post 14

Friday, January 15, 2010 - 8:04pm

"Shit swallowing"? What, like being a Cleveland Browns fan? Politics is not sports. It's not about the team you root for. It's about who actually controls the guns. To think that what you "eat" depends on what team you root for is a very popular delusion. But Obama knows the difference between whether Coakley or Brown wins this election, and so do you.

This notion of "being" a Libertarian and therefore free from having to compromise lies somewhere between Calvinist predestination of the saints and Lutheran justification by faith alone. It requires no compromises because it requires no worldly acts. But there is no Libertarian heaven. Libertarians don't avoid the actual results of elections, not in this world, and not in the next.

The idea of not doing what is better, but if identifying with what is perfect is a kind of perverse asceticism. If your candidate never wins you can never be blamed. If there were two parties which, by today's standards were libertarian parties, each of which won elections, you can bet there would be a third anti-victory ("Objectionist"?) party that would run under the slogan "we're perfect, and that we never win proves it."

The fact is that if Coakley wins the Democrats will declare victory and we will all be eating the same shit no matter whom we supported.

Post 15

Friday, January 15, 2010 - 8:57pm

We went through this same argument with Obama, McCain and the Libertarian candidate. I'm convinced that it is Obama's victory that will result in our country's return to Capitalism. That, of course, is just a practical consequence of the principles that Steven is arguing for. You have to vote for principles - not the particular idiot whose name in on the ballot. Otherwise you end up with the wrong principles in charge and idiots on office.

It is the horrors of ObamaNation that is waking the people up. Without that the people would just carry on choosing between the lessor of two evils - and government would just grow more and more evil. This is a natural process and it has taken us to a special time where we are standing closer to the basic premises and they will yield greater dividends, but a time where failing to do so will let a special opportunity go to waste at much greater costs.

We are at a time when demanding that people support capitalism is critical because this is a time when it is becoming a popular theme. And that means that our national debate is finally being defined as free enterprise versus big government. The first time that has happened in maybe 100 year.

Obama said nothing to support the people demonstrating in Iran, and that is obscene. Supporting a Republican progressive to defeat a Democratic progressive, if there is Libertarian running is like failing to speak up for the Iranian demonstrators.

Post 16

Friday, January 15, 2010 - 9:28pm

So, the argument is, vote Libertarian . . . for the Iranian dissidents? Are you even aware that Kennedy is a Paulite isolationist? Is he running on aid to Iranian dissidents as his issue?

Can we have some concretes? At what point do we actually start voting for the truly better candidate in the context, rather than the guaranteed loser, in the hopes that out of control car we are sitting in will spin so far it is facing forward again? Can we start after Obamacare and Cap and Trade have passed? After the Supreme Court is packed? Or do we have to wait for hyperinflation and riots in the streets? Please, do vote Libertarian, or Communist, or Green for that matter, if the election isn't close and the outcome is indifferent. But when do we try to stop bad things, rather than just saying we are ideologically opposed to bad things happening? Or are we not opposed to bad things happening? I, for one, don't see this election like Avatar, as juvenile suicide fantasy.

Post 17

Friday, January 15, 2010 - 10:28pm

This notion of "being" a Libertarian and therefore free from having to compromise lies somewhere between Calvinist predestination of the saints and Lutheran justification by faith alone. It requires no compromises because it requires no worldly acts. But there is no Libertarian heaven. Libertarians don't avoid the actual results of elections, not in this world, and not in the next.

I say again, it has nothing to do with purity, because I compromise with Libertarians - however, I compromise much less. Would you like me to type it more slowly next time?

Post 18

Saturday, January 16, 2010 - 5:31am

I wish I could agree with Steve W's hopefulness about such atrocities helping define the debate on free enterprise and government, but I see that even as the debate may be defined... it is being consistently lost in a tsunami of awful government actions.

So many of the absurd arguments that are being made in favor of the abuses by government, are being made with complete aplomb. There is more murky thinking being given credence, than there is logical thinking getting mention. And permitting - that is the right word - permitting it to occur seems to me to be an untenable, futile, self-defeating position.

The Obama administration is mounting one monstrosity upon another, and is capable of doing more damage to our Constitution and values than can be easily undone. We can look back today and say that Hitler's successes led to his ultimately being discredited, yet would anyone say that was the best course of history. I'd say no - you pick up whatever weapons are at your disposal, and you fight tyranny.

jt

Post 19

Saturday, January 16, 2010 - 7:30am