Scarey, but somehow, not surprising!

From an Op-Ed by Charles Blow, NYT

A Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll released last Friday found that 28 percent of Republicans don’t believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States and another 30 percent are still “not sure.” That’s nearly 6 out of 10 Republicans refusing to accept a basic truth. Then again, this shouldn’t surprise me. According to a Gallup poll released last summer, 6 in 10 Republicans also said they thought that humans were created, in their present form, 10,000 years ago. A Pew poll last month found that only 6 percent of scientists said that they were Republicans.

About the heath care debate he says that;

Democrats should be leading this discussion. Instead, they’re losing control of it. That’s unfortunate because the debate is too important to be hijacked by hooligans.

How true

America is Sick!

Time for a little tough love. All this nonsense with health care is making me sick. We need the lawmakers who are appearing at these town halls to stand up to those who are shouting them down. I believe in free speech. What I don't believe is to let someone shout lies in front of TV cameras without standing your ground and correcting those misguided, and sometimes, planted words.

Interestingly, lots of those who are shouting appear to be elderly, who while decrying a nationalized health care system, are comfortably enjoying one themselves by taking advantage of Medicare.

I believe in the power of debate as well. However, there is nothing advantageous to a debate that goes:

Interior: Congress. Men and women take their seats. As the mummer fades, a woman from Party A, stands up to speak.

Woman: "I believe we should have X and here is a detailed plan on how it will work."

As she is finishing, a man from party B stands to speak. Behind him stands a huge poster of a dragon and a Knight.

Man: "No, that sucks."

The end.

If there is an opposition to this health care plan, then lets hear alternative suggestion to fixing it, not just why it won't work.

Maybe I am being a pessimist, but when the small minority of leaders of a ideology so detests the ideas of another (an idea that's suppose to help every American) and offers no solutions, perhaps it is because they are protecting themselves from being irrelevant or, they really don't have the good of the people at heart.