The Big, Bad Feds.

[pinto]

A lot of the Right Wing hoopla, imho, *isn't* about health care. It's about the big, bad feds.

You know, those folks that want to run every aspect of your life, make your health care decisions, kill your grandma and other untold - but definitely implied - horrors. Strawmen arguments, all.

These folks are against federal programs as a matter of ideology, facts be damned.

Yet the federal government also happens to administer, in the real world, two very popular programs - Medicare health care insurance and VA health care delivery. The disconnect is mind boggling.

We've lived with this meme since Reagan and his cohorts started dismantling federal programs as much as they could. Health care reform, while on the political ropes, is a good point to make a stand and stem that trend.

And we know enough to counter their real agenda, whether it's said up front or not.

Polls show most Americans want to see their fellow citizens get affordable health care. That's not the issue.

Right Wing zealots are willing to throw the baby out with the bath water, which means their fellow citizens, to accommodate some ideological point of view. That's the issue.

[paulsby]

1. i agree with them, to some extent

in that i am VERY cautious about expanding state power in general, and SPECIFICALLY federal power.

i simply believe that universal health care is important enough that this expanded federal power is warranted.

i have been concerned and will continue to be , with creeping federal expansion of power.

[pinto]

2. I hear you, yet I am unabashedly a fan of the federal role, when warranted.

I'm for all those big federal oversight agencies, from the Agriculture Department to the Weather Service, when run well and effectively.

[paulsby]

3. right

and i draw a sharp distinction between federal agencies/etc. that exert a lot of power (like law enforcement agencies, etc.) and those, like the weather service, which clearly do not.

one thing that i really like about the US, for instance, is that federal law enforcement powers are very limited.o we do not even have a true federal police force , like most countries. recently, though we have seen significant expansion in these areas.

a lot of the bills i see supported here, like federal "anti-bullying" laws and such i am strongly against.

health, imo, is one of the most obvious areas where federal involvement is a no brainer.

[pinto]

4. I read today that AG Holder is revamping Justice, back to a civil rights focus. A good move, imo.

Justice Department to Recharge Civil Rights Enforcement

WASHINGTON — Seven months after taking office, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is reshaping the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division by pushing it back into some of the most important areas of American political life, including voting rights, housing, employment, bank lending practices and redistricting after the 2010 census.

As part of this shift, the Obama administration is planning a major revival of high-impact civil rights enforcement against policies, in areas ranging from housing to hiring, where statistics show that minorities fare disproportionately poorly. President George W. Bush’s appointees had discouraged such tactics, preferring to focus on individual cases in which there is evidence of intentional discrimination.

To bolster a unit that has been battered by heavy turnover and a scandal over politically tinged hiring under the Bush administration, the Obama White House has also proposed a hiring spree that would swell the ranks of several hundred civil rights lawyers with more than 50 additional lawyers, a significant increase for a relatively small but powerful division of the government.

The division is “getting back to doing what it has traditionally done,” Mr. Holder said in an interview. “But it’s really only a start. I think the wounds that were inflicted on this division were deep, and it will take some time for them to fully heal.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/us/politics/01rights.html?_r=2&hp