Partisans Just Sayin' "No"

So Evan Bayh says he's not coming back. Partisanship and gridlock, he says. I wonder what his constituents think of his "leadership". Is running away from challenges what they were thinking when they voted for him?

(As a sidebar, a lefty blogger who no longer visits here thinks his excuse was better than Palin's when she stepped down as governor of Alaska. Don't think so. He quit because of the job. SHE quit because lefty haters were interfering with her ability to do her job with their goofy lawsuits and such. In addition, her Lt. Gov had already proven himself in her place as she campaigned with McCain, so it's not as if she left her people hanging.)

Back to Evan. More precisely, back to partisanshihp and the party of "No". First of all, I don't think partisanship is a bad thing at all. Gridlock indicates there are some real problems with what one side is trying to propose. In a time when one side lost there power after forsaking principles, holding fast to those principles is a good thing. (When the government can't operate, they can't get in our way.) I don't think the founders meant that anyone just roll over and accept what they think is a bad idea. I think they meant that these things get hashed out extensively before imposing anything on the nation.

But we know that the idea is to ram stuff through as quickly as possible before anyone can really get a handle on what is being proposed. This is definitely NOT what the founders had in mind at all. So any obstruction is a good thing. And what we've seen over the past year is that when there is obstruction, time is had to pour over just what Barry & Co were trying to do to us. (They'd say "for" us, but it's really "to" us when the impact is felt.) There's really no excuse for any administration to rush any legislation, especially considering the size and scope of things like health care reform, the banking industry, stimulus packages, etc.

So now, of course, we hear that the GOP is just the "party of 'no'". We hear that the right has no alternatives. Let's look at this.

Suppose there's an apartment building on fire. A guy name Barry O rushes forth and says "I can fix this!" and he whips out a big bucket of gasoline and is intent on throwing it on the fire. A bunch of guys scream at him "NO!!!" and Barry insists that if they don't have an alternative, they should shut up and let him throw the gasoline on the fire. Of course they have an alternative. They have water and history has shown that water is a good thing to use to put out fires. But did they really need to have an alternative in order to be justified in telling Barry "NO!!! Don't throw gas on the fire!!"? Of course not, because they know his idea is stupid and only going to make the matter worse.

This is what we are witnessing now in Washington. Barry is intent on throwing gasoline on the fire that is our messed up economy. We know his proposals are detrimental because they parallel similar moves in history. The right doesn't need an alternative in order to be justified in telling him his ideas suck.

But the right DOES have ideas. This Randle Hoven article lists a few health care proposals. This Christopher Chantrill article lists some budget cutting ideas. Check out Newt Gingrich's American Solutions.com and more ideas can be found there. Wisconsin's Rep. Paul Ryan(R) has a mess of ideas.

There's plenty from the right and we know that Barry doesn't even give them the time of day. They've been kept out of meetings, though now Barry says he's going to invite them to talk health care. I hope they continue to obstruct because frankly, he's not about to do anything about their ideas anyway. And we know Senate buffoon Harry Reid is intent on using reconciliation to push whatever the hell he thinks is a good idea.

No. Keep saying "NO" and obstruct as long as you can. If they want to really discuss, then discuss and articulate the superiority of conservative ideas. If we can obstruct until the mid-terms, that'll be far better than allowing more economy destroying liberal policies to go into effect.

Just say "NO!"