DEMOCRATS VS. OBSTRUCTICANS

Republicans have learned over the years that their best chance at winning elections when they aren't in power is obstruct the Democrats any way they can and hope for failure.

They do it by planting political IED's everywhere and then claim the Democrats can't get anything done. And so far, since Obama's election, both Obama and the Democrats in the senate have been playing right into their hands.

They seem to always lose the argument to Republicans because neither Obama nor anyone in the Democratic party is able to effectively frame an argument even when the Democrats have all the facts on their side.

A perfect example were the lies Republicans told about healthcare reform (something Obama has retitled health insurance reform which Matt Taibii in Rolling Stone accurately called an Obama bait and switch) during the so called healthcare summit. (Why there even was a healthcare summit with Republicans is another testament to Obama's political ineptitude and mistakes.)

During this "healthcare summit" Republicans repeated the lie over and over that America overwhelmingly rejected the Democratic healthcare plan. And the press simply played "Polly Doesnt Want a Healthcare Cracker" and repeated the lies which were a gross misrepresentation of the polls.

What Americans overwhelmingly rejected was the watered down compromise healthcare plan that came out of the senate which was cobbled together because of Republican obstructionsim and Obama's political inadequacy and lack of conviction(and maybe backbone).

What the American people overwhelmingly said they wanted was the government run public option to compete against private insurance. The most recent polls back in early January by the Washington Post and Kaiser Family Foundation showed that 57-58% wanted the public option. And that comes after all the Republican lies and misinformation that Obama was so unskillfully unable to refute. And back in June 2009 a CBS poll showed 72% wanted the public option and 66% were willing to pay higher taxes to get it.

But Mitch McConnell completely misrepresented the polls during the healthcare summit and ignored the latest polls from Kaiser and the Washington Post.

The biggest problem with Republicans is that when they are in power, unlike the present administration, they do know how to get things done. The problem is that what they get done is always, and has always been, a disaster for the country. Republicans probably have the worst track record and are responsible for more disaster going back to the Great Depression, than any political entity since the fall of the Roman Empire.

Not only does Republican initiatives blow up in their face, they blow up in the country's face as 8 years of the Bush Administration proved. And we have only just begun digging ourselves out of the damage from those 8 years.

But Republican and conservative obstructionism is not new. It is their credo. Their reason for being. It's who and what they are. Conservatives have never been about what they want -- after all this is America and they can get whatever their abilities and talents can get them. What Conservatives are really all about is what they don't have other people to have. That is what drives them.

This goes back to the founding of the country. The country's conservatives at the time were called Tories. They didn't want revolution. They wanted to make nice with King George. They wanted to stop revolution and then went nuts when those crazy liberals in Massachusetts opened fire on the British at Bunker Hill.

The Civil War was about southern conservatives not wanting the slaves to have freedom because of what it would mean to the south economically. After the civil war, during Reconstruction they didn't want freed slaves, now free citizens, to have the constitutional freedoms they were entitled to.

At the turn of the century conservatives didn't want women to have the vote. In the 20's they didn't want people to have whiskey or a beer. In the sixties they didnt want blacks to vote or go to schools of their choice, live in houses or neighborhoods of their choice, work in jobs or professions of their choice, and never wanted blacks and women to have equal rights.

With gays its about preventing them from having sanctioned, legal relationships with the same rights as heterosexual couples, or keeping them from serving in the military. And conservatives have always wanted to keep people from having sex, in word, picture or deed.Like many other things conservatives want or believe in, it goes against the laws of nature.

Preventing gays and lesbians from serving in the military or keeping them from legally sanctioned partnerships would understandably make mom and dad and little Jimmy and Debbie feel a lot more secure not to mention making splashing around in the pool on a hot summer day a lot more fun. And let's face it, that lemonade on the veranda always hit the spot just a little bit more when sodomy was illegal.

What the health care summit made clear , as well as the entire debate about healthcare reform, is that conservatives are about preventing people who can't afford health insurance from being able to acquire it at little or no cost, and to prevent a public option that would also force insurance companies to compete in terms of both premiums and coverage . They call it socialism but have no problem with government run socialist fire departments showing up to keep their houses from burning down.

Republican conservativism has gone from a legitimate point of view to a home grown form of neo-fascism where they believe they and they alone know what's good for everyone and they covet the power to ram it down other people's throats.

Sinclair Lewis wrote that if fascism ever comes to America it will come wrapped in the American flag. And that is the conservative way. To claim they are the true Americans and that liberals are out to destroy America. The talk show whackos like Limbaugh, Laura Ingram, Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter like to say that liberals hate America and many conservatives use that as their mantra and to justify what is simply their own home grown hate and inadequacy.

Liberals dont hate America, they created it. It was Thomas Jefferson who called the United States at its inception a "liberal democracy".

Who liberals hate are the neo-fascist strain of conservatives and everything they stand for -- the Tom Tancredo, racist type of Tea Party conservative who are more about fascism than freedom. But instead of facing and accepting that liberals dont hate America but only hate them, they wrap themselves in the flag so they can pretend its the flag that liberals hate instead of the people hiding behind it and their philosophy.

From the Tea Party activists who think they know what's best for America, to Republicans in congress who work hard at exploiting it, like John Boehner, waving the constitution over his head at an anti-healthcare reform rally and quoting from it only to learn later he was quoting from the Declaration of Independence not the constitution, conservatives promote the idea they are being patriotic by obstructing anything Democrats try and do.

The best way to fight that kind of self-deluded conservatism is defeat it and point out what a failure its been.

To hear conservatives glow about Scott Brown's election is to see how self-deluded they are. Scott Brown was a pro choice candidate who voted for a healthcare system far more liberal than anything Republicans were trying to block in the senate.And Brown kept the word " Republican" off every peice of campaign literature and signage he had.

What the Democrats need to do to overcome Republican obstructionism is pass a public option using reconciliation and stop playing games with Republicans no matter how much Obama wants to play with them.

When Republicans see Democrats mean business and the polls reflect approval of what the Democrats are accomplishing, their choice will be to stop obstructing and let voters decide based on the success or failure of the Democratic programs or face defeat.

And for the Democrats it means that if you believe in what youre doing then have the courage of your convictions. And forget the Republicans. And if you dont have that, then dont even bother.