Blue Dog Nothing

I honestly feel like the sky is falling. I don’t agree with the health care bill that just passed the Senate. I believe it is 100% about becoming a socialist nation. I could go on and on about the reasons why I hate it. I could go on and on about how it will fundamentally change our nation. But today I want to mention a surprising discovery that has come from this bill.

For years, I and millions of other American’s, thought there was such a thing as a blue dog Democrat. They were supposed to be centrists. Congressman who leaned towards the Democratic Party but struggled with full fellowship. These men identified themselves as blue dogs. They often have plaques or statues in their offices of blue dogs.

I’ve held the belief that you shouldn’t rely on blue dogs because they are conflicted—perhaps schizophrenic. People’s brains are just not wired to be liberal on social issues and conservative on economic. You are one or the other. If you are a centrist you can’t make up your mind. Thus, how can you be reliable in any situation? They hide behind the phrase, “I don’t discriminate. I look for good people in both parties.” What a crock. There are good people in both parties but their ideas don’t match up. Liberals and conservatives are like metric and standard wrenches. They are not interchangeable and they don’t work together. The principles and ideas of each group are in constant conflict.

Politicians try to make it out like they work together and come up with solutions. I’m convinced that politicians never, EVER have ideas. Congressmen don’t sit in their offices inventing. They don’t sit together around a table and say, “what if we do this.” It just doesn’t happen. They are editors. They champion other people’s ideas.

So how does this play out in 2009? Well, the democrats came up with an absolutely socialist healthcare plan. Forcing employers to provide healthcare? Forcing people to purchase insurance? Forcing doctors to provide services? Forcing insurance companies to cover specific ailments? It’s all about force and it’s all socialist.

So where were the Blue Dogs? Harry Reid needed every single Senator to fall in line and ALL of them did. How can a bill that is so far left that not a single Republican voted for it but EVERY blue dog did? Everyone knows the Republican Party is in a complete state of disarray. They are not nearly cohesive enough to compel consensus. How did the Democrats do it? Sure there was arm twisting. More than arm twisting there are well documented was pay off’s to for Senators who stuttered. (I hope Ben Nelson’s Medicaid deal for Nebraska is challenged in court.) But there were not enough of these payoffs to account for all the so called blue dogs. The only explanation I can see is that blue dogs are not nearly as centrist as they make themselves out to be.

This bill is socialist. It’s socialist in its social aspects, such as abortion, and socialist in its economic aspects. Its passage is going to give me an ulcer. But I’m also disturbed that so many went along so willingly.