talkpolitics | ...And the Crowd Goes Wild

Texas Primary Voter on Governor Rick Perry allowing the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, a man who was probably innocent: It takes balls to execute an innocent man.

Brian Williams to Governor Rick Perry: Your state has executed 234 death row inmates, more than any other governor in modern times…

(Audience bursts into applause and whistles)

Wolf Blitzer: ..you're a physician, Ron Paul, so you're a doctor. You know something about this subject. Let me ask you this hypothetical question. A healthy 30-year-old young man has a good job, makes a good living, but decides, you know what? I'm not going to spend $200 or $300 a month for health insurance because I'm healthy, I don't need it. But something terrible happens, all of a sudden he needs it.

Who's going to pay if he goes into a coma, for example? Who pays for that?

Ron Paul: Well, in a society that you accept welfarism and socialism, he expects the government to take care of him.

Blitzer: Well, what do you want?

Paul: But what he should do is whatever he wants to do, and assume responsibility for himself. My advice to him would have a major medical policy, but not be forced --

Blitzer: But he doesn't have that. He doesn't have it, and he needs intensive care for six months. Who pays?

Paul: That's what freedom is all about, taking your own risks. This whole idea that you have to prepare and take care of everybody –

Blitzer: But Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?

Audience: Yeah! Yeeeesss!

Zealotry is the worship of an idea at the expense of human beings. This is true whether the idea being worshiped is Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Jehovah, The State, or the Master Race.

Or the Free Market.

Zeolots are marked by their willingness to go that extra mile, to cheer on the death and suffering of those outside their own sacred circle. They think it’s a sign of strength, of courage, of heard-jawed will. At worst, they’ll torture and kill. At best, they’ll not just allow others to die from sickness and hunger, they’ll cheer on those deaths as a salutary cleansing of society.

It is becoming more and more apparent that the Tea Party is made up of zealots, who are not only willing to see fellow Americans die, but are downright enthused about the idea.

Yessir, they like them some dyin’.

It’s interesting to note Ron Paul’s response to Blitzer’s question. After glancing rather nervously out at the audience, he replied:

No. I practiced medicine before we had Medicaid, in the early 1960s, when I got out of medical school. I practiced at Santa Rosa Hospital in San Antonio, and the churches took care of them. We never turned anybody away from the hospitals.

That’s nice, but in the context of Paul’s earlier comments, it makes no sense. Really? Private charity is sure to step in every time and save a life? If that were the case, why would people have less expectations about being taken care of in the event of sickness? I thought the whole point of Paul’s opposition to “welfarism” was keepin 'em scared.

Paul is, to put it quite bluntly, lying. He knows about Mark Price dying in Arizona because he couldn’t afford a heart transplant. He knows that charity has never been able, and won’t be able to fill the gap left if government doesn’t offer assistance for healthcare.

Ron Paul thinks people should literally and reasonably fear dying, not because a cure isn’t available, but because they couldn’t afford it. He thinks a young man dying in that way would be a good thing, would put the fear of God in all those lousy deadbeats who can’t afford to pay for health insurance. In short, Paul’s answer is inconsistent with his earlier statements.

The audience’s response isn’t. The audience response is the honest one.

Crossposted from Thoughtcrimes

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Of course. People overlook the dangers Proposition 8 shows can happen from an excess of democracy.

Then what is your prescription? You've lashed out at those, like myself and others, who would prefer the 17th amendment be repealed as being anti-democratic in the pejorative, even though no-one here has held that position while suggesting that the House shouldn't be a democratically elected body.

Have we already achieved balance? If not, what would you do to further ensure that we reach a better balance?

I lash out at people who want to refight battles that they've already lost over a century ago, yes. At a certain level that this has already been lost indicates the prior system did not work well so leaping back into Sunday won't work. Unfortunately the Republicans want to leap back into an imagined version of the 1790s that resembles nothing of the reality of that era.

First of all, I didn't ask you why you lash out. I asked what your prescription is.

Secondly, what was the problem the seventeenth amendment was supposed to solve in the Constitutional framework? What is the evidence that it worked, and how have you ruled out that perhaps in enacting it, that it didn't swing the balance further off center and that we're suffering some of the long term effects of majoritarianism absent a satisfactory check, something we agree at least should exist in some format?

My prescription is to alter the entire Constitutional framework, not to tweak small parts of it to shoehorn the 21st Century onto the 18th.

The 17th Amendment took the power to select senators from state legislatures and gave it to Joe Blow. Given my experience with the Louisiana legislature Joe Blow would need to be a drooling knuckle-walking idiot to be worse than it is.

We don't have to be that bad (knuckle-walking idiots, to use your term) for it to be worse, we only have to be predictably fallible.

You keep bringing up how out of date the constitution is in support of your outright rejection of it, but have yet to give any clue as to what you think a more 'modern' structure would look like by comparison. The image that conjures in my mind most when I hear someone dismiss the Constitution as being 'out of date' is of the person who thinks it's not "democratic" enough, and sees no place for that check against mob rule we both agree should be there. So tell me how you differ from them. How do you structure a new Constitution, the Constitution according to Underlankers? You don't have to write the whole thing in detail, give me a few broad strokes to understand what it would look like, something a little more specific than "Not what we have now".

I've given plenty of clues as to what it'd look like in long text-wall posts before, they tend to be ignored in threads dedicated to what we could do if we had the power to alter everything. I'll find that post and copy-paste it here in a comment that'll wind up being a reply to this one.

One of the first things on the list would be to pick either Congress or the President as able to run war consistently and stick with that. The new Constitution would also retool the provisions as regards the military to reflect that we now have a standing army and navy, providing rules for what we can and cannot do with them. The new Constitution should also make explicit Separation of Church and State and make certain basic provisions of liberal democracy as non-negotiable as the electoral college and the all-state Senate with 2 Senators to a state is under the current framework.

Some of the most basic non-negotiable aspects of the new Constitution should mandate only the Federal government can raise money, that states must at minimum run an equal exchange with the government for what they take out of it, mandating an income tax (it's not the 18th Century anymore, we can have one sans amendment), mandating that gerrymandering is entirely illegal and an impeachable offense, instituting national requirements for political parties and in fact including the existence of political parties in the system, things like that that reflect what reality did to the Founders' beloved nostra.

Ultimately a 21st Century Constitution has to address three basic realities: redesign Congress so that its political structure reflects a mostly urban society, not the 18th Century freeholding republic Jefferson wanted, put provisions for a modern military, not the skeleton made up for by volunteer militia that the Founders had in mind, and provide rules for political parties, not a system designed for either one or no parties.

And the biggest things to do about military matters and security are to clarify such basic necessities as who declares suspension of the writ of Habeas Corpus, a process of declaration of war that is responsive to needs of modern warfare, defining what qualifies as insurrection......

...And the Crowd Goes Wild

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