Miko, I can’t tell from what you write or how you say it, which side of the fence you sit on. Maybe you’re just on the fence…

The question is as much about “winning” or “losing” an electoral contest as it is about what is “socially desirable” behavior. The Republicans have decided that the only socially desirable behaviour is behaviour that supports their position. They cast the debate in terms of “us versus them” behaviour, “you are either with us or against us”. One must wonder how they deal with the contradictions in their own districts and among their constituencies. 

The Democrats at least have stuck to the principal of promoting social service.

Personally, I believe that community services and tolerance for people who privately organize their lives around values other than the all-important contest is socially desirable behavior and I am willing to support this approach.

A society that is rich materially should spend some of its wealth to support artists who, at considerable risk to themselves produce art, entertainment, social services…, in whatever form. The person who supplies “social services” enrichens the entire community through his/her service.

Some form of redistribution is socially desriable, especially when the objective is a more tolerant and inclusive community. Those who oppose redistribution (yes we are talking about your own and my hard earned wealth) believe they are entitled to keep what they earn, no matter how gained.

This, my friend, makes no sense. My concern is that Washington should not set local policy when it comes to community development and the encouragement of local values.

I sat on the fence long enough. As a mid-western republican who has come to hate everything about conservative Southerners (many of whom are democrats), I feel very strongly that it is time for radical progressives. Radical Progressives will at least “anchor” the wishy-washy left.

@CT, you are on the money.

No health insurance reform is better than a sop to the insurance lobby and reactionary Republicans. Most of all though, I agree on Howard Dean’s electibility.

SINCE WE ARE DOING WHY NOTS, LETS TRY THIS. EXTEND MEDICARE TO
COVER ALL CITIZENS AND I MEAN ONLY CITIZENS.CHARGE FAMILIES
ACCORDING TO THE SIZE OF THE FAMILY AND ALSO PUT THE WH AND
CONGRESS IN THE SAME BOAT WITH THE REST OF US.NOW ISN’T THIS A
SIMPLE SOLUTION.

This pig bill throws sops to those who can afford insurance, at the expense of EVERYbody else—including the poor, consigned to corporate pill-mill clinics in some kind of unfunded (except for Nebraska, natch) Medicaid flim-flam.

If the Dems don’t have the stones to vote on Single Payer, but are determined to “win” something, they should stick strictly to “insurance reform”—pre-existing conditions, caps, and the like—and not much of it. With mandatory nothing, and no $ to the corporations.

Dump Obama / Draft Dean