Reconciliation Redux
LA Guy wisely suggested that we move the continued discussion over reconciliation of the health care reform bill to the top of the blog.
When our heroes last met, Vermont Guy was asking me:
QG (or Veronica, if you will), I assume you're on board with this bill, or at least some major portions of it, but for the moment, I'd like to ask you how you would handle reconciliation, if you were on the other side of it.
I'm not at all happy with the bill. It lacks the vast majority of the possible cost-containment measures that I think are vital to our future survival as an economically prosperous nation, focusing instead on emotionally meaningful but big-picture trivial issues such as policy recission and pre-existing condition denials for children. Every case is heartbreaking, but the fact is that not that many kids have pre-existing conditions. I think those large-scale cost-containment measures either could be regulatory-based or market-based, but likely not both (we covered this a few weeks ago). This is neither, and unless it's heavily amended over time, will go down in history as a big give-away to the very insurance companies crying about being thrown into the br'er patch. That said, it can be fixed, and is better than the alternative of waiting another generation to even try anything because another set of politicians got their fingers burned. In a big-picture sense, it will have its own momentum that will need to be steered, but sideways momentum is better than a standstill.
To answer your question, VG, I would give a nice long speech focusing on the (lack of) merits of the reconciliation and health care bills, followed by a "no" vote. There is a real danger here of alienating the moderates by seeming a bit too rabid, and poisoning the well of your own election issue by refusing to eliminate the worst part of a law because you believe the only way to address it is to tear it out root and branch. That's a level of zealousness that plays poorly outside the base.
To the anon. poster who continues to maintain that it is more likely that Rep. John Lewis is lying or mistaken than that a random group of protesters called him a nigger, I will say only that Rep. Lewis has served in congress since 1986 without once previously publicly accusing someone of using racial slurs, and he has no good motive to start now. Unless you can come up with a good reason why he it would make sense for him to start doing so while his party was winning on a major piece of legislation, I will reject your analysis. Emotions are running irrationally high on the losing side, as exemplified by the "baby killer" comment you've so quickly forgotten about.
posted by QueensGuy @ 4:02 PM
12 Comments:
"To the anon. poster who continues to maintain that it is more likely that Rep. John Lewis is lying or mistaken than that a random group of protesters called him a nigger, I will say only that Rep. Lewis has served in congress since 1986 without once previously publicly accusing someone of using racial slurs, and he has no good motive to start now. Unless you can come up with a good reason why he it would make sense for him to start doing so while his party was winning on a major piece of legislation, I will reject your analysis. Emotions are running irrationally high on the losing side, as exemplified by the "baby killer" comment you've so quickly forgotten about."
His party was not winning. It was neck and neck, and until Stupak caved, in fact, it was losing. In any case, it was close, and pulling out the race card even when things aren't close is second nature to Democrats. John L. Lewis generally calls five people racist before breakfast.
Lewis was walking with several other members of the Congressional Black Caucus, some of whom claim they heard "nigger" a bunch of times. I've watched more than one video of the event (on YouTube) and I cannot make out a single racial epithet. There's a tremendous amount of booing, and people shouting "kill the bill." There may be people shouting "traitor," which might have led to the confusion. Certainly the blinkered, hateful view of America that so many of the CBC share makes them prone to believe that any large group of mostly white people shouting at them must be racist in some way.
Alas, Democrats actually believe in this crazy world where white people shout out "nigger" in public, when in fact most white people (and an even higher percentage of tea partiers) wouldn't consider saying it in public, and the fringe element that might be willing to use the phrase generally don't when they see a black person around.
These kinds of accusations of racism are a commonplace, and the vast majority of times anyone investigates, if actual evidence can be found, it turns out to be a hoax. It doesn't matter, because, as we saw with the Duke students, there's a whole cadre on the left who have built their careers on fervently believe such things must be true. I'm sorry that Queens Guy now joins them in equating accusation with guilt.
By the way, if you read the comments section on YouTube under the video, you can read lots of people saying they clearly hear "nigger." Interesting, since I've tried and can't hear it, and my hearing is pretty good. You don't suppose some people can just naturally hear "nigger" if they believe in it enough.
We need to give John L. Lewis a blind test. He'll listen to 10 groups shouting loudly and we'll ask him to pick out the groups that have someone using the N word. Actually, none of them will, but it'll be interesting to see how often he hears it.
I think most people want this bill killed dead. Anything that moves toward that is not only the right thing to do, but the proper political strategy.
"Alas, Democrats actually believe in this crazy world where white people shout out "nigger" in public, when in fact most white people (and an even higher percentage of tea partiers) wouldn't consider saying it in public..."
The parenthetical made me curious. What is your basis for claiming that tea partiers would be less likely than the average white person to shout "nigger" at a black congressman, anon? My guess is that you're thinking it's because it's an overwhelmingly white movement, which makes folks hypersensitive to claims that it's a racism-based movement? I'm sure that argument applies to almost all tea partiers most of the time. But I still think that, absent conclusive evidence either way, there's a far higher likelihood that a few fringe white supremacists have embraced the tea party movement (at least for that one protest) than the entire Congressional Black Caucus collectively making up a Tawana Brawley-quality story on the spot. But then I don't approach the question with the basic assumption that any accusation of (white) verbal racism is a priori overwhelmingly likely to be false, as you seem to do. Assuming one accepted that premise, the answer is just as obvious as you clearly believe. I do not.
"I think most people want this bill killed dead. Anything that moves toward that is not only the right thing to do, but the proper political strategy."
Well, sure, if that's what you believe most people want, then that's what you should do. But the devil's still in the details. In what way does fighting reconciliation move toward the goal of killing it dead? It is going to be signed into law. Not maybe. Not "unless you keep fighting". It is. Once you accept that fact, the only questions that remain are: (1) in what form; and (2) which of those forms is most likely to lead to it eventually being killed dead.
To make it concrete, how comfortable are you going to be, as a hypothetical Republican Senator, explaining to your constituents that you refused to remove a provision that gives $10MM per year extra to the state of Nebraska at the expense of your state so as to make people more angry and thus more willing to change the law. My reaction would be, "convince me you're right and I'll be with you working for repeal, but I'd rather have my share of the $10MM in the meantime, thanks."
The Tea Party demographic tends to be better educated than average whites, so I'd expect them to be a bit less racist. This doesn't stop their opponents from calling them all sorts of names, of course.
It is simply not acceptable to shout "nigger" in public in this country any more. The few who would want are most of the time ashamed or frightened to, especially in the presence of blacks. Does it happen? In a nation of 300 million, of course, but it's exceedingly rare. I've certainly never seen it happen.
Yet, whenever there's a clash between black and white, you hear a lot of claims. When Reginald Denny or Yankel Rosebaum got beaten up by blacks, rumors started almost immediately that they'd used racial slurs, even though it didn't make much sense. In polls, it's been shown that African-Americans not only see racism against themselves where others don't see it, they also see racism again Asians, Hispancis and others groups at a higher percentage than those groups see it themselves. In addition, there have been a number of incidents on college campuses (campuses, those bastions of racism) where black professors or black campus groups had racial slurs written on their door or car or received racist emails or something similar. It usually turns out (if a proper investigation is done) that they did it to themselves.
So with plenty of hoaxes out there, and an atmosphere where African-Americans are so sensitive to racism, whenever you hear of something so unusual as a white person shouting "nigger" out loud to a black person, I think we get far more false positives than true cases.
If you listen to the rhetoric of the Congressional Black Caucus, you will discover that this is a nation with omnipresent racism. If two or more whites gather, it won't be long until they use the n-word, so much the better if in the presence of a black man.
With this attitude, that finds racism wherever it looks, particularly among those who disagree with them politically, yes, I expect when members of the CBC are tensely confronted on the street with whites shouting imprecations at them, they are almost certain to hear the word "nigger."
With this attitude, that finds racism wherever it looks, particularly among those who disagree with them politically, yes, I expect when members of the CBC are tensely confronted on the street with whites shouting imprecations at them, they are almost certain to hear the word "nigger."
The irony is that John Lewis' story fits your assumptions about the reality of day-to-day life, as opposed to your beliefs of CBC paranoia, to a tee. He said that it was the first time since the Selma to Montgomery march in 1965 that someone had shouted that to his face. Doesn't sound much like your caricature, does he?
Lewis is essentially never put in these situations. Whenever he's around a large, loud crowd, they treat him as the second coming. When riled up crowds that hate him are around, he avoids them. I can see him having a Selma flashback.
Meanwhile, his CBC compatriot claims to have heard the N word disctinctly 15 times in their short walk, but anyone who listens to the video will be hard pressed to hear it once. Fifteen times? Certainly we could make it one once. Makes you wonder if they heard what they expected to hear, in the midst of a screaming crowd that hated them. They certainly have no trouble calling their politlcal opponents racist every other day of the week.
Oh, don't worry, QG, the bill will be amended.
2010: Gosh, we need to reform it.
2011: Gosh, we need to reform it.
2012: Gosh, we need to reform it.
for i=1 to 1000
str(2012+i:) & "Gosh, we need to reform it."
if i<=4 then "Damned for profit insurance companies"
else "Damned Jews"
do
The Tea Party demographic will probably change as the dangerous wahoos, name-callers, "Kill" chanters and Palin-fans come to the forefront of the public debate (The people McCain basically disowned at the end of his campaign) and the more reasonable distance themselves.
Whether the bill is good or bad, the Dems won the TV pictures on sunday.
Sorry, but no one will ever beat the commie/astroturfer/blame America first crowd that make up the modern Left.
Like ants at a picnic, eventually the content-free name-callers always show up. Oh well, thanks for a good discussion, all.
So who wants to talk about the Mets' off-season acquisition of an outfielder while lacking a #2, #3, #4 or #5 pitcher?
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