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Saturday, September 17, 2011

Backlash

In February of 2010, (Just prior to the passage of the Health Care bill) I made the first political phone calls of my life. I called my Representative in the U.S. House and both of my U.S. Senators. I told them that I was in my 50’s and had never been politically active. I had never sent any political campaign any money. From what I have been reading and seeing on TV, the Health Care bill was not popular. If it is passed against what I see as the will of the American people, I will become active and I will send in money. I figure that I am not alone.

I guess they figured that this was the only chance that they would get in the foreseeable future. So they passed it anyway.

“We have to pass this bill so that YOU can find out what is in it.” Man, they must have really, really wanted this bill. This burns so badly that I am worried about the strength of the republic. The backlash from this can only be hoped to be contained somewhat. A possible situation:

In 2013, the Republicans take control of both houses of Congress with huge majorities. The White House makes it a clean sweep. So they make a bill that eliminates 50% of social security payments and place it on a better financial footing. After the bill becomes law, THEY can figure out what it does. Now republicans address other social programs in the same way. After the bills are signed, THEY can figure out what it does. The next bill proposed makes all property owners votes count as five votes. Or how about making women’s votes count as ½ a vote? You get the picture.

The backlash can become even more extreme than the act of passing Health Care. I know that these are extreme situations and are very unlikely. It is more likely that the backlash will not have sustaining power beyond the next presidential election, but that is a roll of the dice. What I do want to point out is that desperate situations call for desperate actions. If the situation or ‘crisis’ is really, really desperate, who the hell knows what can happen if our leadership uses concepts like ‘We need to pass this so that YOU can find out what we are doing to YOU.” Anything could be a ‘go’ no matter what the American public believes or says. Where will the republic be then?

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