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Massachusetts Senate Race (Ted Kennedy's old seat)

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Most of those who strongly want government-run healthcare are strongly Democratic and anecdotal evidence shows that they did not stay home pouting but were trying to get other less committed Democrat-leaning voters to go out and vote.

I was thinking of people like Jane Hamsher of the left-wing site Firedoglake, who has come out quite strongly against the current version of the health care bill.

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Just for fun, I decided to switch to MSNBC and see how they would try to spin this. It was HILLARIOUS!!!! Chris Mathews talking about how "dems didn't lose because people don't like healthcare. The Dems lost because they weren't liberal enough." He actually said that the only way they can turn things around is if they just ram healthcare through reconciliation. And that it would convince people to vote Democrat in November.

He actually thinks the way to fix this is to get EVEN MORE extreme! How out of touch can these people get?!?!

To a large extent, that big-headed goof is correct. Large as the conservative rage is, there is a fast-growing anger on the Left too. To them, Obama and the Dems have sold their ideals for political gain.

Bleh, should've read rest of thread before responding.

Edited by TheEgoist
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(3) the American people are being exposed to the rapid spread of Objectivism and are becoming more likely to adopt free-market views based on the appeal of the ideas, rather than only as a response to economic problems (though the latter is providing a short-term acceleration to the spread of these ideas, the spread of Objectivism has been growing quietly for some time, particularly with the spread of web sites, blogs and forums on the Internet).

Until we have candidates for office willing to advocate and vote for individual rights, electing Republicans, or keeping gridlock, is an effort at buying time while the culture moves to embrace capitalism.

I don't know if I'd call it "rapid" or widespread just yet.

But I would agree that you have to be heartened by the recent surges in the sales of Atlas Shrugged and what appears to be more public awareness of Ayn Rand. More people than ever before are likely aware of her prescience. I think awareness will continue to grow, but probably not nearly as fast as many here would like.

She called it clear as day more than 40 years ago (my emphasis added):

The country at large is bitterly dissatisfied with the
status quo
, disillusioned with the stale slogans of welfare statism, and desperately seeking an alternative,
i.e.
, an intelligible program and course. The intensity of that need may be gauged by the fact that a single good speech raised a man, who had never held public office, to the governorship of California. The statists of both parties, who are now busy smearing Governor Reagan, are anxious not to see and not to let others discover the real lesson and meaning of his election: that
the country is starved for a voice of consistency, clarity, and moral self-confidence
—which were the outstanding qualities of
his famous speech
, and which cannot be achieved or projected by consensus-seeking anti-ideologists.

As of this date, Governor Reagan seems to be a promising public figure—I do not know him and cannot speak for the future. It is difficult to avoid a certain degree of skepticism: we have been disappointed too often. But whether he lives up to the promise or not, the people's need, quest for, and response to clear-cut ideas remain a fact—and will become a tragic fact if the intellectual leaders of this country continue to ignore it.

Since the election of 1966, some commentators have been talking about the country's "swing to the right." There was no swing to the right (except, perhaps, in California) -- there was only a swing against the left (if by "right," we mean capitalism -- and by "left," statism).
Without a firm, consistent ideological program and leadership, the people's desperate protest will be dissipated in the blind alleys of the same statism they are opposing.
It is futile to fight against, if one does not know what one is fighting for. A merely negative trend or movement cannot win and, historically, has never won: it leads nowhere.

-Ayn Rand, The Wreckage of the Consensus (reprinted in
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
)

An election like this one in MA always sends the talking heads spinning. Watching MSNBC last night was hysterical. The left knows that their ideas are not supported and they don't care. They think they just know better. This is not a surprise because it is intrinsic to their entire ideology. They think of humans in terms of classes, not individuals. They have plainly stated that they just need to pass healthcare and then people will see how good it is for them. They are a different (better) class than the peasants workers who must have decisions made for them, in their own best interest. It is delusion and it is why they won't ever stop.

The reaction against the left (statism), when exposed for what it is, is understandably broad. If the right lacks enough voices to articulate the WHY that reaction against the left is so strong, then any progress towards the right is short lived and eventually lost.

History often repeats itself, but that isn't to say that it has to. Unlike in the past, free communication between individuals is more widespread than ever before in human history and will continue to become even more fluid. In addition, lessons can be learned from history.

So, does the cycle continue? I guess that all depends on the individual.

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Now Barney Frank is calling for a constitutional change to eliminate the rule requiring a 60 vote supermajority and to ban the filibuster.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/19/b...r_n_428408.html

We have a serious constitutional problem. There has been a de facto amendment of the U.S. Constitution in an anti-small-D democratic direction."

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Now Barney Frank is calling for a constitutional change to eliminate the rule requiring a 60 vote supermajority and to ban the filibuster.

And to think it was just four or five years ago when it was the Republicans who wanted to do away with the filibuster in response to its use by the Democrats to block Bush's judicial nominees. Back then, the Democrats said the filibuster was a Pillar of Democracy™, absolutely essential to the proper functioning of the government. Fucking hypocrites. (Of course, the same goes for the Republicans, who have flipped positions in the opposite direction for the same reason.)

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I'm sincerely shocked by the Democrats actual recognition of their situation. They've kept their heads firmly buried in the sand for a year now, but now they've actually been made to take a look around. Part of me thought they would find yet another way to shrug it off as just more of the vast right wing conspiracy fooling the plebs with their pocketed insurance company money.

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I'm sincerely shocked by the Democrats actual recognition of their situation. They've kept their heads firmly buried in the sand for a year now, but now they've actually been made to take a look around.

Nothing focuses the mind like the prospect of being hanged in the morning -- or voted out of office in 10 months, apparently.

In some ways I'd have preferred it if their craniorectal inversion had continued for another year. Their political values haven't changed. They're still statists and collectivists, and they're still out to destroy our liberties. They've just realized that their tactics are flawed, but all that means is they'll change approach to something that will sell better. Never forget that Bill Clinton got reelected two years after the original Republican 'Revolution'.

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Just for fun, I decided to switch to MSNBC and see how they would try to spin this. It was HILLARIOUS!!!! Chris Mathews talking about how "dems didn't lose because people don't like healthcare. The Dems lost because they weren't liberal enough." He actually said that the only way they can turn things around is if they just ram healthcare through reconciliation. And that it would convince people to vote Democrat in November.

He actually thinks the way to fix this is to get EVEN MORE extreme! How out of touch can these people get?!?!

Denial and counter-aggression are the defense mechanisms of dictators and their cronies.

Antagonizing the electorate is just the means to fight back against an imposing reality; consciousness is primary so influencing the consciousness of others (preferably at gunpoint) changes reality itself. You can't educate or reason with this mentality; they are essentially bipedal animals who use random words instead of growls and grunts.

Edited by Mister A
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"I think it's important that everybody gets some form of health care, so to offer a basic plan for everybody, I think, is important."
He voted for the Mass. Health care law.

On economics, the GOP is basically a left-wing (i.e. statist) party, only they're a little less so than the Dems.

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