Dear Editor:
Countless Americans preach against the tyranny of government, the abuse of power and ineffective Congressional acts corporately funded seemingly only to help the wealthy or undermine the constitution, e.g. Patriot Act, bailouts, the renewal of the Patriot Act, war, etc.
Yet in regards to health care reform, most Americans seem to be comfortable with what may end up being an undemocratic reform. At the end of the health care summit, President Barack Obama made it clear that if the Republicans refused, in the next six weeks, to come together on the health care issues to pass legislation for the American people, the House and Senate would call for a 51 percent majority, eliminating the threat of a filibuster and pass the bill. That bill being the 2,700-page bill the Republican Party is afraid of.
Caught in the hypocrisy, all Americans want affordable health care coverage regardless of age, sex, ethnicity, class or pre-existing condition; they want qualified doctors and minimal risk of malpractice — and so do the doctors. But 50 plus one is mob rule. It’s the tyranny of the majority Alexis de Tocqueville discusses in his book “Democracy in America.”
It threatens to decay democracy, but it would allow me to see a doctor. This is a thought the American people ought to be having, and a thought that the Republican leaders need to act upon too: Do they compromise their politics and work with the Democrats in the House and Senate, or do they stand firm, live according to their philosophies and politics, and on the basis of some lofty idea, hand off democracy toward Tocqueville’s prophetic vision of democracy in America because they refuse to get along?
Greg Nofsinger
senior studying philosophy and psychology
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Actually, the count is 50 plus 9 in the Senate and 50 plus 207 in the House, constituting a clear majority, and one of the largest in recent memory. Based on your reasoning, wouldn’t all the bills forced through the 108th Congress, when the Republicans had a LITERAL 50 plus 1 majority in the Senate, constitute “mob rule?” Maybe Greg Nofsinger should add a political science or history class to his philosophy/psychology regimen so he can understand American government.
Republicans should not compromise their values, but at the very least, they should compromise with the majority party on the proposed legislation. COMPROMISE is how democracy works. Also, the filibuster was never meant to require a 60 vote majority to pass legislation! See Paul Krugman’s article on this: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/opinion/08krugman.html
The obstructionism of the Republican party is the clear threat to functioning government and democracy.
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SmartGuy,
If you want to harp about democracy, then Paul Krugman is not the guy you should be looking towards. This is a guy who believes he and his liberal elitist friends know what is best for you.
Although it is true that the Dems enjoy a majority in the House and Senate, poll after poll from Gallup, Rasmussen, ABC/WaPo, etc show that the clear majority of Americans do NOT want the Dems’ version of health care reform. If you are a proponent of our representative democracy, then you should be aghast that liberals are spitting in the face of what the majority of Americans want; to start over.
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