I *am* an ideologue

Addressing Congressional Republicans, Obama said that he is not an ideologue.

In politics, ideology is about advancing specific solutions.  And an ideologue is someone who's more interested in his solution than in solving the problem itself.  An ideologue likes his solution even if it makes a problem worse.  What you call a problem, to an ideologue, is just an excuse to implement his solution.  Conversely, what troubles ideologues most is good reasons not to use their solutions.

Think of healthcare.  What liberals want is universal healthcare, and their biggest selling point is 47 million uninsured people.  If they truly wanted to solve this -- if they wanted to help those 47 million -- they'd pass the policies that the most politicians could agree on.

But if the 47 million uninsured are just an excuse for passing universal healthcare, then Democrats will do something else -- two other things, actually.  First, whatever they pass must constitute or facilitate universal healthcare, whether it's "the public option," a trigger, or an individual mandate.  The individual mandate is fine if it doesn't cover all 47 million, because after all it's the mandate, and not the uninsured, which Democrats serve.

And second, whatever Democrats pass that is not universal healthcare -- whatever it is, it must not reduce the 47 million.  To universal healthcare ideologues, those 47 million are not a problem: They are leverage for their particular solution -- hostages, really.  No changes can be permitted that will lessen that number, or reduce that leverage.  Except for universal healthcare, what liberals want is more millions of uninsureds for whom they can demand universal healthcare.  Make no mistake about it: Liberals are perpetuating their healthcare "crisis."

There would be no greater wound to the universal healthcare movement than passing a bill without universal healthcare that actually put a dent in the uninsured.  No such legislation will ever receive the votes of liberals, and in recent years several such Republican ideas have been rejected by libs.  Simple solutions -- like insurance portability, so you don't have to rely on your employer for healthcare.  Or guaranteeing the sale of health insurance across state lines like other products.

I too am an ideologue.  I don't want government "solving" anything because I am beholden to a specific solution -- liberty.  Not just markets, but free markets.

But what about government, and its duty to provide solutions?  Well, constitutionally, what the government's supposed to be protecting -- from the very first sentence -- is "the Blessings of Liberty."  In capital letters.

Those Blessings of Liberty -- think of them as golden eggs.  One of them is the solution to healthcare, and the Constitution tells us to look to those golden eggs for all of our solutions.

Think of liberals -- and Barack Obama -- as ideologues with an axe in one hand, and the neck of the goose in the other.

Comments

[J Green]

This is just the beginning, the start of the democratic drive to push the perceived reality of the average American's life to the depths of despair - all while their main Candidates focus on pushing tomorrows cures for today's world.

Everything I read recently is trying to tell me that, "nothing is happening!", the "Republicans do nothing/stop everything!", that America is heading down in every conceivable way, that the Right offers no action and therefore no solution, while the Left which somehow remains disassociated with this (which should indicate how detached from reality they are - this is hardly picked up on of late) remains in a position bathed by untainted golden sun-light let in through the door of their tomorrow's world opportunities that they graciously hold open.

America is a modern country proven susceptible to social media bias. When this propagated belief, this disturbia takes hold, the Left will be sat holding glowing solutions and the Right will be left once again fighting solutions in an attempt to battle the agenda's. The dream of America will no longer be lived, but simply dreamed of, the game will be blame, and the real solutions - those that fix the real problems will not be applicable to the disturbed reality of American extreme Leftism and Social immortality.

Something is seriously wrong in both the American political world, and the American population at large - it is this that needs to be resolved, otherwise the problems of a country become nothing more than symptoms of the people - and treating symptoms is simply a costly way of prolonging the life of the problem.

When people cannot take care of their own health and well being, as is becoming the norm for a large number of Americans, do not trust them to take care of the health and well being of their entire country.