A common thread that seems to run in the comments of several of my last posts what type of approach would be more successful in the Health Care Debate.
In case I have been to subtle I am of the school that challenging the obstructionist is the way to go. Just as bully's on a school yard will only cease when some one stands up to them so I believe that the Rethuglican party ( this includes the Blue Dogs), and their bully boys (women) will only stop abusing the country when they are stood up to and their absurd arguments are laughed into the trash bin of society where they belong.
Others believe that appeasing them with "polite and reasonable words" will achieve some sort of livable compromise.
So to those who would appease the Neanderthals in this debate what do you hope to gain or on what basis do you think it will work?
FDR, Harry Truman and LBJ enjoyed their legislative success not through appeasement but through the use of political capital and strength.
LBJ finally broke the Civil Rights log jam of Dixiecrats with some serious arm twisting.
FDR called on americans to challenge the entrenched financial and political powers to pass the New Deal.
So why now is appeasement to the reactionary considered to be the only way to achieve a shell of a bill that offers no real improvement of health care to the majority of americans.
This is similar to debating biology with a creationist. To state that the scientific system  of repeatable experiments is equal to a set of beliefs based upon blind faith, willful ignorance and blind faith is absurd.
So it is with the Health Care debate.
Consider a few of the inane arguments of the opposition. For the sake of sanity and brevity I will ignore the low lying fruit of "Death panels, Euthanasia, Gov. take over of MediCare ( thats rich) and the other inanities that prove my point.
Consider the argument of cost
We are told their is no money.. I remember a speech by Gov. Cuomo before  the American Stock Exchange (I think) during the Saving & Loan crisis when he stated ( i paraphrase) "that Society must decide what is important and then they will find a way to fund it.In the Case of the S&L crisis it was decided that saving the financial system was important to the country so we as a country found the money to save it.If we as a country do not fund Health Care, crumbling infrastructure and education it is not that we do not have the money but that we, as a country have decided it is not important"
He echoed these statements during the 1992 D Convention when he spoke of how when Poppa Bush was asked for funds for education and health care Pres. Bush refused stating we have the will but not the wallet. But when the Saving and Loan Crisis, the First Iraq War and disaster struck Bush found the money for those problems.
Obviously That administration and Congress placed health care low on the totem pole of priorities.
Health Care would cost less then the misguided and purely elective war of conquest and aggression against Iraq. This is a provable and given fact.
If we can afford these foreign military adventures surely we can afford health care.
So I say to the rethuglicans and blue dog brethren that if in the last 8 years, they can find the funds for militaristic adventures in the Middle East we can find the funds for Health Care.
If we, as a country, can find the funds for tax cuts for the wealthy we can find the funds for health care.
If we, as a country, can find the funds to bail out AIG, the banks and pay outrageous bonus's to those who created the crisis we can find the funds for health care.
If we, as a country, can spend spend as much as the rest of the world on the tools of war we can find the funds for health care.
If we, as a country, can expend $19 Billion (in 2003) on a failed war on drugs we can afford health care.
To state that we as a country cannot afford health care is to place its importance below AIG bonus's, Weapons boondoggles, aflaweed war on drugs  and wars of aggression. 
So yes I feel that confronting those that have made those decisions and calling them on it is necessary. 
To pretend that their position is reasonable is to agree that the flat earthers should be treated as having an equally valid position as reality.
What, as a country, are our priorities?
Health Care or jingoistic militarism
Health Care or tax cuts for the top 1%
Health Care or wars of conquest
Health Care or rewarding financial malfeasance.
This is our choice.
i know where I stand.