Policy Approach Patriarch
In the late, great Harold Ramis’ cinematic classic “Animal House,” perpetual Faber College student John Blutarsky succinctly summed up the Left’s approach to policy.
Over? Did you say ‘over?’ Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!…
It ain’t over now, ’cause when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Who’s with me? Let’s go! Come on!….
Note the Left’s characteristic (historical) accuracy.
Bluto fictitiously rode this philosophy to the Senate. Several Leftists have in real-life taken it all the way to the White House. Too many to count have infested Congress and elected offices all over the country.
The Left has made an art form out of the maxim “If at first you don’t succeed – try, try again.” They perpetually push terrible, government-expanding policies – and no number of failures deters them from pushing until they win.
It is largely why they fight so hard to protect power grabs already won – no matter how huge the failures.
Trustees Say Long-Run Medicare, Social Security Deficit is $66 Trillion
Reform Or Go Broke: Medicaid, Medicare Must Change
They in so many instances fought so hard and waited so long to impose them.
Their incessant, infernal screeching is largely for effect – the Left is actually very patient in waiting to attain new government power grabs. A quintessential example – the abomination that is ObamaCare.
The Affordable Care Act – ObamaCare – was signed into law in 2010. Was President Barack Obama and this modern cadre of Leftists the first ever to a want top-down, government health care takeover? Of course not.
The Bill Clinton Administration floated in 1993 HillaryCare. President Harry Truman in 1945 proposed full-on federal government medicine. And piecemeal government-medicine expansion began all the way back in the mid-19th Century.
The going got tough – and the Left kept going. Do Establishment Republicans show this sort of stamina and intestinal fortitude? Not so much.
McMorris Rodgers Says ACA Likely to Stay
McMorris Rodgers…part of the Republican leadership in the House…said the framework established by the law likely will persist and reforms should take place within its structure.
The ObamaCare framework will certainly persist if the leadership of the Party that is supposed to be for repeal – publicly gives up on repealing it.
Why offer the exact same “Mend it – don’t end it” message as the desperate-to-get-out-from-under-ObamaCare Democrats? How does that delineate you – and help you defeat them in, say, November 2014?
Especially when the law has never, ever enjoyed public support.
After Four Years, ObamaCare Is Still Unpopular
ObamaCare’s Unpopularity Rises Among Uninsured
Oh, Look, ObamaCare’s Unpopular Again
Republicans have tried without success for repeal of a terrible, majority-opposed law for…four years. So sure, just throw in the towel.
The Left pushed for full-on government medicine for (at least) seven decades. And they are consistently persistent.
It’s Groundhog Day – Again: Government Taking Third Stab at Net Neutrality Power Grab
This is the (Left’s) third attempt at this particular power garb. It’s becoming fetishistic.
There was 2007.
Court Backs Comcast Over FCC on ‘Net Neutrality’
And there was 2010.
Verizon Wins Net Neutrality Court Ruling Against FCC
Yet here we remain – stuck in government overreach Groundhog Day.
Already twice bitten – they are not shy. Onward they push.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
The cost of a lack of vigilance is soaring and searing – and we’ve been paying it in skyrocketing increments for decades.
1913 federal budget: $715 million.
2013 federal budget: $3.45 trillion.
We here in Reality must be at least as vigilant and persistent in reducing government as the Left is at expanding it.
We have a lot of undoing to do.
Editor’s Note: This first appeared in Red State.