I believe they already voted on it and it failed. This is why all of the conservatives (not just Wilson) flipped out when Obama said illegals wont receive healthcare under the bill.

I agree that “rounding them up” is not a solution. But I dont think anyone is asking for that. John McCain certainly wasnt. If it were you and I running things, Im sure we could agree that a hefty fine a couple years probation would suffice for illegals to receive citizenship.

I agree that conservatives are pretty much just being obstructionists right now. However, the theory coming from the left is “they cant stand him because he's black”. I think it has more to do with the fact they feel he never paid his dues and they dont want to be lectured by someone so new to the national stage. The campaign in which liberals branded him as a “savior” also left a bitter taste in conservatives mouth. They want to prove to everyone that he's not half of what the left made him out to be during the campaign.

Thats my opinion, anyway.

I believe they already voted on it and it failed. This is why all of the conservatives (not just Wilson) flipped out when Obama said illegals wont receive healthcare under the bill.

I agree that “rounding them up” is not a solution. But I dont think anyone is asking for that. John McCain certainly wasnt. If it were you and I running things, Im sure we could agree that a hefty fine a couple years probation would suffice for illegals to receive citizenship.

I agree that conservatives are pretty much just being obstructionists right now. However, the theory coming from the left is “they cant stand him because he's black”. I think it has more to do with the fact they feel he never paid his dues and they dont want to be lectured by someone so new to the national stage. The campaign in which liberals branded him as a “savior” also left a bitter taste in conservatives mouth. They want to prove to everyone that he's not half of what the left made him out to be during the campaign.

Thats my opinion, anyway.

I believe they already voted on it and it failed. This is why all of the conservatives (not just Wilson) flipped out when Obama said illegals wont receive healthcare under the bill.

I agree that “rounding them up” is not a solution. But I dont think anyone is asking for that. John McCain certainly wasnt. If it were you and I running things, Im sure we could agree that a hefty fine a couple years probation would suffice for illegals to receive citizenship.

I agree that conservatives are pretty much just being obstructionists right now. However, the theory coming from the left is “they cant stand him because he's black”. I think it has more to do with the fact they feel he never paid his dues who got elected and they dont want to be lectured by someone so new to the national stage. Thats my opinion, anyway.

Let's take this on two levels. First, illegal immigrants will continue to receive care in emergency rooms across America whether or not their treatment is included in health-care reform legislation. Simple fact. Doctors and hospitals simply will not refuse to treat them. To exclude them from the legislation is politically expedient, because many Americans don't want to grant them any legitimacy whatsoever. But it's wrong-headed, because it simply ensures that the costs of treating them will continue to be passed along to the rest of us at ridiculously jacked-up rates. (Of course, those costs have always been a far smaller drop in the bucket than Lou Dobbs or Fox Nation would ever admit, but that's neither here nor there.)

On another level, trying to use illegal immigration (and abortion) to create bullshit wedges between Americans and their recognition of the need for health reform is callous, craven and self-defeating. Personally — and it pains me to agree with George Bush on this subject — I believe that the biggest problem with illegal immigration is not that folks “break the law to enter the country” (our immigration quotas are arbitrary and don't even serve the economic needs of the nation), but that illegals are “off the grid” once they're here. The solution isn't to build fences and threaten (completely unrealistically) to round up millions of immigrants and deport them. It's to get them on the books–to make sure their intentions aren't nefarious when they enter, and then to make them play by the rules once they're here (taxes, insurance, licenses, etc., etc.). Banning them from health-care reform doesn't benefit anybody, and doesn't get xenophobes any closer to the (by the way, did I mention it's completely unrealistic?) fantasy of kicking them out of the country. The real purpose of even bringing up the subject is to bring that xenophobia to bear on a separate issue.

All that said, Joe Wilson was full of shit because the language banning illegal immigrants from participating was already in the bills. You say the enforcement isn't there? FINE. Negotiate enforcement measures that will have some teeth — but do it within a framework whose end result is a realistic possibility that you'll vote for a compromise bill if you get some of the things you want. Republicans these days have figured out that if they act like petulant children and/or violent thugs, they can get some of their tangential issues addressed without even having to pretend that they might support the final product. I suppose it's good politics — in a banana republic — but it sure isn't American.

Steroids were banned in MLB but the league didnt test for it. So players used them.

Illegal immigrants will be banned from receiving government health care but we wont verify citizenship. But you expect a different result?

Of course, anytime you bring up real, factual objections to the current president, liberals call you a racist.

Do I have dealbreakers? Probably. Some on the environment. But I don't need someone to believe in everything I believe in to lead. I want a leader. I find it fascinating how the gay community is now criticizing Obama about his stance on gay marriage. Didn't they get the memo? He's always been against it. But now that they voted for him and consider him their messiah, they don't understand why he's not in their club. It's like they're saying “This is the stance of the club – how can you have an individual opinion on something that doesn't jive with the club. How DARE you!!” Our two parties are like gangs. Probably worse.

My main efforts are to treat the existing two party system like a cancer. And just as we use chemotherapy to try to kill the entire body – in hopes of killing the cancer first, I think that approach can help us clear ourselves of this political cancer. We need to try to kill the whole system, in hopes of killing the Republican and Democratic parties. Yes, I'm naive.

Other than that, though, I agree wholeheartedly with practically every element of ARP's campaign-finance and electoral-reform platforms…except for the “none-of-the-above” ballot option (which is pointless–if you don't like anybody, just don't pull a lever) and the endorsement of widespread ballot initiatives (which have played a huge role in bringing California to a state of near-collapse). The platform also is way too vague on what it refers to as “public funding options.”

I think most people, if presented with a description of the way money corrodes the political system, and given a set of common-sense ways of getting special-interest influence out of the process, would be supportive — right up until you say the words “public financing.” Then — even among those who don't reflexively scream, “You want to take MY money?” — a lot of folks will think, “My tax dollars are supposed to fund a campaign for THAT anti- (or pro-) choice, war-mongering (or America-hating) asshole?” At which point the oil industry and the unions step in and say, “Don't worry…we'll keep spending OUR money on those campaigns…you just toddle off to Wal-Mart now, and we'll add the cost of our vote-buying onto your next gas bill (or union dues) where you won't notice it.”

Damn, I just sounded like you for a minute! But here's the difference: I can recognize that the political system sucks, and that there are lots of things that could (but probably won't) be done to fix it — but I still have firmly held ideas about public policy, and I'd like to see the people in Washington do things that I want done. And, yup, the things I want done are almost universally liberal, and the only people in Washington who are likely to do those things (at least in some, probably bastardized form) are Democrats, so I'm a Democrat.

I am just fine with you being an independent, a free-thinker, whatever you want to call it. But you've been commenting here for a year, and you almost never discuss in a substantive way what you'd actually like to see happen, or how a better result on an issue like health care might be achieved in a system without all this corruptive money in it.

Wanna talk in detail about Obama's giveaways to the insurance and drug industries in order to get their (unenthusiastic) approval, or at least silence, on the pending legislation? Wanna speculate about the motives and hypocrisy of individual legislators (of both parties) who have taken a particular stance while also taking millions of $$$$ from the insurance industry? Great! We could get really drunk (if you drink–I sure do) bitching about that for an evening. Wanna fight about whether government has a role in making sure everybody is insured in the first place, and whether they're going about it the right way? Great! I'm in for that fight (as long as it doesn't involve a bunch of distortions or wild assumptions).

And if you want to have a real discussion about whether third parties can ever get anywhere in our system, or whether the system can ever be changed to accommodate them, I'm happy to have that conversation too. I'm particularly interested in knowing whether any of the actual policy positions on that ARP website are deal-breakers for you, and if you could give financial support to a candidate who espoused that deal-breaking position, even if he was running on an ARP platform which you have supported in its abstract phase (i.e., right now, when your support is based largely on opposition to the two-party system).

But what makes me crazy is when you divorce policy substance so completely from your abject dismissal of all politicians. The ARP has ideas about changing the system that I like a lot, but it also has a distinct (if sometimes sketchy) policy platform. Even Rep. Wilson was sniping about specific things (illegal immigrants and abortion) when he prickishly heckled the president.

All I'm saying, Steve, in all my rambling responses to your diatribes, is that I'd much rather hear what you have to say about changing the system (and maybe even about the actual issues at hand) than continue to hear nothing but dismissals of everybody involved as corrupt “babies.” I'm also saying that there are real outcomes to these policy debates — whether the debates are happening between people who are clean or corrupt, and whether those outcomes are positive or negative for the people they'll affect.

Those policies and those outcomes are worthy of debate, worth choosing sides over and arguing passionately for their own merits. If they weren't, there wouldn't be people out there acting so piggishly, or so many people giving (and taking) money to influence the outcomes, creating that system you detest so much.

http://www.americanreform.org/ARP-State-Affilia…

And although I'll state CLEARLY that I don't believe in everything they believe in, they are trying very hard (as I am) to break the 2 party JOKE that we have in America.

We need independent thinkers.

We need people who don't blindly take the view of their club on an issue without really thinking about it themselves.

We need fair ballot access for third parties or ANYONE who wants to run.

So yes Jon, I'm working to change things. And while you continue to throw your support behind people (the D's) who you – by your own admission and using your words – are “corrupted by money, cronyism and lust for power”, I'll be busy trying to defeat them and their institutions, and change things.

Not fake “Obama change” real change.

Am I naive too, yes. So we can agree on that, you, me and John Lennon are all naive…

But please, talk to me some more about George Bush's truth-telling, Uncle Stevie! I love to hear fables from the olden days. You sound awfully defensive of the ol' boy.