Thursday, January 21, 2010

Elections have consequences

See if you can find the inherent self-contradiction in this statement regarding the first election of a Republican Senator from Massachusetts in 38 years from today's NY Times lead editorial.

To our minds, it is not remotely a verdict on Mr. Obama’s presidency, nor does it amount to a national referendum on health care reform — even though it has upended the effort to pass a reform bill, which Mr. Obama made the centerpiece of his first year.

Right. This is a classic case of delusional thinking and of a piece with the reaction of Gail Collins (the editor of the NYT editorial page) to Scott Brown's victory and America in general: ram through the most unpopular and corrupt piece of legislation that the Senate has created since the creation of C-SPAN (at least). After all, this is the same Gail Collins who last week complained that elected representatives for 10% of the country (Senators representing the least populous states) could block health care reform for the other 90% and who wondered why the other 90% weren't marching on Washington to rectify that abomination. Throw the facts in a river (the #2 most populous state has 2 Republican Senators, the health care bill opposition is well over 50%) and the policy implications (why should any Southern state have this bill imposed on it when none has two Democrat Senators?), the statement just indicates the idiocy of a Leftist.

Elections have consequences. It took a questionable recount in Minnesota and an unethical prosecution in Alaska to divest two Republican Senators of their positions, but the Democrats obtained a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Then the Democrats sought to impose laws upon the public, not govern with the consent of the governed. Americans finally figured that out last year when the far left-wing of the Democrat party took control over the health care bill and the climate change bill and the president did nothing but urge passage of both. With the opportunity to correct that mistake, the people of a state that Obama won by 26 percentage points halted some excesses of the ruling party. And that should be celebrated, not derided nor decried.

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