Let's sum up the opposition to health care reform

[30ashopper]

30a, I would gladly concede that the bill is flawed, and I think most people would (what bill isn't?). Now compare your sane reaction to the demographic described by Rich. Do you see what I'm saying? There is something else going on. I believe there is a reaction to a cultural shift in this country that has nothing to do with this bill. You can't deny the cultural shift. Obama won Florida, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Nevada, and Colorado. This shift frightens and angers a lot of people.

Any democrat (Clinton for example) would have won those states. That was a reaction to Bush and the Iraq war, little else.

Demographics change slowly, this is the same base population that elected Reagan, the same that ushered in the republican revolution of the early 90's, and the same population that voted solidly republican in 2000, and 2004. If Rich wants to try and paint this over as some sort of racial issue in an effort to disparage the other party, whatever. Future elections will disprove his theory.

 

[30ashopper]

Further, I don't see how the racial makeup will alter politics in the country down the road. People don't immigrate here looking for a free ride, they come here for the opportunity to succeed and flourish financially on their own.

Now, if you want more people moving here looking for a free ride, well, free healthcare is certainly one sure fire way to do it! California is a perfect example.

 

[Matt J]

Further, I don't see how the racial makeup will alter politics in the country down the road. People don't immigrate here looking for a free ride, they come here for the opportunity to succeed and flourish financially on their own.

Now, if you want more people moving here looking for a free ride, well, free healthcare is certainly one sure fire way to do it! California is a perfect example.

Funny, I haven't seen the Canadians crossing the border in giant hordes. Perhaps you're wrong?

 

[30ashopper]

Funny, I haven't seen the Canadians crossing the border in giant hordes. Perhaps you're wrong?

They're too busy trying to keep people out of their country due to their large welfare state. Most countries with social democratic models basically seal their border and only let a few chosen folks in. If that's what you want for our country, well, you're voting for the right party to accomplish it. ;-)

 

[Matt J]

They're too busy trying to keep people out of their country due to their large welfare state. Most countries with social democratic models basically seal their border and only let a few chosen folks in. If that's what you want for our country, well, you're voting for the right party to accomplish it. ;-)

My apologies, clearly this is what the Mexicans, Guatemalans, Cubans, Haitians, any country in Africa, the middle East, and just about everywhere else has been waiting for to come here.

Were we misinterpreting the GOP's stance as simply anti-immigration?

 

[30ashopper]

My apologies, clearly this is what the Mexicans, Guatemalans, Cubans, Haitians, any country in Africa, the middle East, and just about everywhere else has been waiting for to come here.

They come here for the right reasons, now.

Were we misinterpreting the GOP's stance as simply anti-immigration?

I'm a proponent of open immigration. The GOPs official stance is xenophobic. One of the things I don't like about the republican party.

If we do succeed in building a large welfare state, we will need to seal the border, just as most european countries do, because people will be coming for all the wrong reasons.

 

[Alicia Leonard]

This article is on the money. Op-Ed Columnist - The Rage Is Not About Health Care - NYTimes.com I realize it's nyt and Frank Rich but it says what's on a lot of our minds. I stated earlier that I think the overly hostile reaction against reform is really a reaction against perceived cultural upheaval in this country. A few quotes:

How curious that a mob fond of likening President Obama to Hitler knows so little about history that it doesn?t recognize its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht. The weapon of choice for vigilante violence at Congressional offices has been a brick hurled through a window. So far.

No less curious is how disproportionate this red-hot anger is to its proximate cause. The historic Obama-Pelosi health care victory is a big deal, all right, so much so it doesn?t need Joe Biden?s adjective to hype it. But the bill does not erect a huge New Deal-Great Society-style government program. In lieu of a public option, it delivers 32 million newly insured Americans to private insurers. As no less a conservative authority than The Wall Street Journal editorial page observed last week, the bill?s prototype is the health care legislation Mitt Romney signed into law in Massachusetts. It contains what used to be considered Republican ideas.


To find a prototype for the overheated reaction to the health care bill, you have to look a year before Medicare, to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Both laws passed by similar majorities in Congress; the Civil Rights Act received even more votes in the Senate (73) than Medicare (70). But it was only the civil rights bill that made some Americans run off the rails. That?s because it was the one that signaled an inexorable and immutable change in the very identity of America, not just its governance

But the explanation is plain: the health care bill is not the main source of this anger and never has been. It?s merely a handy excuse. The real source of the over-the-top rage of 2010 is the same kind of national existential reordering that roiled America in 1964.

I read this last night and I agreed with it, Not because of where it was printed, or who it was written by, but becuase it states what I have said and thought in the past. Our demographics are changing and that always involves both sides pushing against each other. I know many that I grew up with that have issues that are being expressed as political, but are much more deep rooted.

 

[30ashopper]

I read this last night and I agreed with it, Not because of where it was printed, or who it was written by, but becuase it states what I have said and thought in the past. Our demographics are changing and that always involves both sides pushing against each other. I know many that I grew up with that have issues that are being expressed as political, but are much more deep rooted.

Isn't that mostly a generational thing? With time, it passes into history.

 

[Alicia Leonard]

Isn't that mostly a generational thing? With time, it passes into history.

I agree and it is only interesting because I was too young to be a part of the Civil Rights movement.