The Daily Warning

In case you didn’t get the reference in the title

Today Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sent a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell requesting bipartisanship on “comprehensive health care reform”.

Now all in all this letter is actually quite hilarious.  The letter ends with the line “I hope your conference will recognize that this issue is too important to be manipulated for political purposes…”.

And in this letter, discussing this issue which is “too important to be manipulated for political purposes”, Harry Reid makes the following completely apolitical statements:

“We must discuss  how to help struggling Americans, not drown in distractions and distortions - or be sidetracked by squabbles about arcane Senate procedure, as some in your party seem intent to do.”

“In order for this bipartisan process to take root, Republicans must demonstrate a sincere interest in legislating.  Rather than just saying no, you must be willing to offer concrete and constructive proposals.  We cannot afford more of the obstructionist tactics that have denied or delayed Congress’ efforts to address so many of the critical challenges facing this nation.”

“Democrats believe all Americans deserve high quality and affordable health care.”

So it’s too important to be manipulated for political purposes?  Except for using it as an excuse to suggest Republicans are just ostructionists with no sincere interest in legislating because they’re too caught up in squabbles over arcane Senate procedure while the Democrats are the only ones caring about actual Americans, it absolutely cannot ever be manipulated for political purposes!  Harry Reid, defender of principle! 

Here’s the reality.  If the Democrats had any genuine interest in bipartisanship they would’ve made actual material attempts to make what’s going on more palatable for Republicans.  Jamming a trillion dollar stimulus down our throats, then jamming a $3 trillion budget down our throats, and trying to jam the extremely Orwellian titled “Employee Free Choice Act” (which exists to eliminate the secret ballot from unionization) and the preposterous “Freedom of Choice Act” down our throats are not actions of a majority party attempting to engage the minority party in a new era of bipartisanship.

The definition of bipartisanship for the Democrats is that the Democrats do exactly what they want to do and the Republicans do exactly what the Democrats tell them to do.  It’s fitting that the Democrats are whining that they apparently have to make the choice between doing what they want and governing partisanly or compromising with the Republicans and governing bipartisanly, considering the Democratic Party wants government intervention in the economy without damaging market function, they want Universal Health Care without damaging the beneficial impact of the market, etc.  They see reality as being unfair, that nature should bend to their whims, and that anyone who points out how unbelievably stupid that is does so out of mean-spiritedness.

This is reality.  The Democrats have overwhelming majorities in the House and the Senate, and control of the White House.  They get to do what they want with those.  If they are confident that they are supporting good policies, then there is nothing that should stop them from using the power the people of the United States have given them to jam these policies down our throats.

But that in no way, shape or form entitles them to the cover of “bipartisanship”.  Republicans don’t think these policies are going to work, and so it’s their responsibility to try to stop these policies.  That’s not “obstructionism”, that’s legislating, and whining about there being some concentrated power against the Democrat agenda is the equivalent of bitching at the ref because you don’t like the score.  It reminds me a lot of the part of Atlas Shrugged where the government was trying to steal Rearden Metal from Hank Rearden through court, trying to get him to pretend as if it were voluntary so they don’t seem like thieves.  If you’ve got the power to steal from us, then steal from us, but we’re not going to then pretend as if we voluntarily gave it to you.

Frankly, I’m not a huge fan of bipartisanship.  The absolute last thing we need is all of government working together.  And I also find it disturbing that there are so few people who’ve taken a Civics 101 class to figure out why bipartisanship is bad.

Politics is controlled by politicians.  Politicians are almost universally power hungry panderers, it’s a natural product of the political marketplace (those that are power hungry panderers are more successful than those who are not, so naturally we have almost only power hungry panderers in politics).  Any system that is dependent on politicians being good, sincere, mature individuals is doomed to fail.  This is why we have THE SEPARATION OF POWERS.  The only way the negative impulses of politicians are kept in check is if they check each other because of divergent interests.  Look at what happened under the Republicans between 2000 and 2008, they had almost total control of the government, and it was an absolute catastrophe.  Compare that to the 1990’s, where there was no good will between the Republicans who controlled congress and the Democrats who controlled the White House.  Republicans undermined the Democratic agenda, Democrats undermined the Republican agenda, and in the end we wound up with a massive budget surplus and the economy in the best shape it had ever been.  It wasn’t by cooperation, it was by the lack of cooperation.

So Harry Reid, go ahead, use the damn reconciliation process, and when people start seeing the down side of leaving our health care up to the same people that run the DMV deal with the damn consequences.  And for the love of God, please stop it with the whining, you’re supposed to be a grown man.

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