Bait-and-OMGLOOKTHEY'RESTILLUNREASONABLE!

Over the weekend, the Obama Administration came out and said that they would be fine with dropping the public option in health care reform.

Republicans, who have been adamant that the public option must be dropped, responded by saying "NO! It still is a government take-over, even if it doesn't include the government taking over!" (...which really doesn't make any sense, but alright, sure.)

Then, today (and to a lesser extent on Monday, too) the administration comes out and says "Whoa, whoa, whoa! That's not what we're about. We're fans of the public option!"

What does this mean?

Well, you can look at this two ways.

First, you can look at it, and think that the Obama Administration doesn't have it's act together at all. Maybe they can't get their stories straight, and maybe they should sit down and think things out before any of them say anything to anyone ever again.

OR, you could think that the administration is... clever. What if this was a co-ordinated Machiavellian move by some administration higher-ups to point out that Republicans don't want health care reform. Maybe this could be used as a weapon against Republican politicians who constantly say that they're in favor of reform, while in practice, they are not.

The second option would sure be nice, but I can't go out and just say that's what's going on. Wouldn't it be nice though, if the administration took this and ran with it? Wouldn't it be nice if they stopped haggling with people over something they actually don't want to try to change?

Let's get it through the Senate without a public option, let's get it through the House with one, and let's SHOVE IT THE HELL THROUGH in the process of reconciling the two bills.

Please?

My "Humble Request"

Greetings, one and everyone!

I'm sure by now you've seen coverage of all these health care reform protests. People with signs denouncing "socialism" and all that. While I find them to be... somewhat misinformed and uneducated regarding what Socialism actually is, protest is a valuable part of our democracy.

You know what isn't valuable? Turning someone into a caricature of evil, a threatening being out to kill your loved ones and everything you hold dear. "Hold on!" You say, "That's just part of the debate!" No, it's not part of any useful debate, and, frankly, it's starting to scare me.

What happens when we start demonizing people way beyond the scope of their influence? What happens when we label doctors "murderers" or call reporters "Nazis" and the like? What happens, time and time again, is that we make it easy for the whack-a-do fringe in this country to justify "putting down" these "evil-doers."

Sure, no one who goes on cable news networks say they want to be interpreted in this way, but in reality, all that this kind of hyped up rhetoric is doing is scaring the crap out of everyone and encouraging people to bring assault rifles to town hall meetings, for God's sake. Why do people kill other people? Because they think they have a valid reason. Regardless of whether or not that reason is seen as "a-OK" by everyone else in the world, these people have their reasons. War, self-defense, protecting others, God [or Whoever]'s Will, to rid us of people "screwing up America," or whatever else, these people think they have valid reasons.

Depicting the President of the United States of America as Hitler? As the Joker? Saying the President has a hatred for a ethnic group? Joking about poisoning the Speaker of the House? These are problems, and they don't do anything to help further the debate. What this sort of dialogue does is it dehumanizes it's subjects to such an extent that they are no longer real people in the eyes of a number of people.

It's not productive, it's hateful, it's misinformed, and it's dangerous.

Anyway, I'd like it to stop now. Kthnxbai.

I Ain't Got No Title for this One

I've wanted to update this for awhile now, but every time I sit down to write something, I've come up against this problem:

Healthcare is the news lately. I have a fully-formed opinion when it comes to health insurance reform, and anyone who will read this isn't far enough on the other side of the spectrum to get into the nitty-gritty about it.

It's not that I don't care about healthcare reform, I do. It's just that I don't have anything helpful to contribute to the conversation that hasn't been said and hashed out a hundred times already. You want my opinion? Find the most leftest Democrat still considered "main stream" and that's me. Howard Dean, Russ Feingold, John Kerry, Rahm Emmanuel, Ted Kennedy. These are not ideas that you haven't heard, and it's hard for me to feel like I need to shove this down your throat, dear reader.