Okay, I started this post after getting no sleep (having been up all night watching the Ted Cruz not-a-filibuster), but I thought I’d pick it up and run with it (the first bit from a comment I left on a Telegraph article by the ever-insightful Nile Gardner), so here goes:
Ted Cruz’s Efforts to Shine Much-Needed Light on ObamaCare
The reason that I haven’t slept is that one senator (two, actually, because Mike King matters hugely in this) stood up in Jimmy Stewart fashion and told the truth. Americans aren’t used to hearing the truth (and haven’t been in decades, so this isn’t a swipe at anyone in particular–yet), so I watched it all (well, I was a bit late getting to the party, but only by about an hour or so). I literally stayed up all night to support Senator Cruz in my own inconsequential way: I thought if he can stand there on the Senate floor in suit and tie to speak for the American people, the very least I can do is to sit in my jammies on the couch for every minute of it (bonus: I got to take “bio” breaks, he didn’t).
Here’s the thing, I listened to all 20+ hours of that not-a-filibuster, and while I cringed a tad at some of the stuff (the Darth Vader impression was . . . weird), I can’t say that anything he said or read of substance was off-key, off-base, or in any other way off.
People forget how the Obamacare monstrosity was forged and then passed, but it really does matter because even the Dems would never have made this thing law if they could help it. What happened was the law was written, passed through committees (with this, that, and the other tacked on . . . because they can), and then . . .
Boom.
Scott Brown got elected to the Senate. He ran as the 41st vote against ObamaCare, and he won Ted Kennedy’s seat (as we all remember, Teddy was a progressive, single-payer fanatic). That was supposed to send, should have sent, a message to Washington that we, the people, didn’t want ObamaCare. Even uber-regressive Massachusetts was willing to send a (faux) conservative, running primarily on voting against ObamaCare, to the Senate. And not just to the Senate, but in Teddy’s seat.
It mattered.
But it didn’t change a thing: Dems saw it, understood fully that the people rejected ObamaCare, shrugged, and moved on with ramming this national disaster down our throats.
That special election meant that the haphazard, crazy, tacked-on, willy-nilly nature of that bill had to be either: a.) voted on as is (with Reid pulling a fast one and going with a”budget” vote that required only a majority vote), or b.) given the ideological divide, pretty much it being trashed and started over. Reid, as majority leader in the Senate decided to pass a major piece of legislation, one that directly affects every American’s life–mostly for the worse–with an up-down vote on budget rules (it all passes or fails and does so by a majority rule).
Laws in the U. S. are supposed to be passed by a 2/3 majority, a thing Reid didn’t have when Massachusetts elected Scott Brown to the 41st seat. So he fudged it, used a budgetary gimmick, and slammed ObamaCare through with exactly zero input from Republicans and without a single Republican vote.
Americans don’t like, don’t trust, and generally ensure there is no one-party “rule.” No major piece of legislation has ever been passed without votes from the loyal opposition. This was shocking to us all, left and right.
We like our Dem presidents to have Republican houses of Congress and vice versa. Some split is also desirable to we Americans, and generally-speaking, we avoid like the plague any one-party rule–one party’s control of the executive and both legislative branches of government.
Americans were–and, importantly, are–angry. In America, our representatives are supposed to (oh, with the crazy!) represent us, our voice, our wishes to DC. What happened with ObamaCare was that DC decided what was best for us and then tried to represent that to the people.
That’s completely backwards.
America is just not a nation of sovereign rule, Americans are not subjects of some ruler, and we don’t take kindly to being treated like subjects who must bend to the will of some centralized power that is far removed from us. That’s how revolutions–all revolutions–start.
So what Ted Cruz tapped into was almost primal, it’s in an American’s DNA, soul, collective unconscious (whatever you want to deem it) that we are a free people, that liberty comes first, that our government and its elected officials represent us; they do not rule us, they are not our “boss,” and they damned sure aren’t our “masters,” and we are not their “servants.” Indeed, they are “public servants,” and if anyone is “master,” it is we, the people.
And that, ultimately, is what Cruz’s not-a-filibuster was about: America, our republic. What it means to be an American, what it means when your American-ness is stripped away against your will, and that is what the fight for the soul of the republican party is ultimately about: do we continue to support weak-willed, self-serving GOP elites who are big government, big spending pawns of the Washington machine that sees us as servants and ATM machines for their largess, or do we enforce our will, that of the people of these United States, and reject that tried-and-failed socialist-communist-fascist rubric?
My vote is for the latter.
Fuzzy Logic 
Ah … but then there’s the sheeples the democrats in Washington represent. They don’t know what’s in the bill because their representatives didn’t read it. They’ll be mad later.
This is my thinking, too, Odie. As more and more people are immediately and directly impacted by ObamaCare, they are getting angry. Leftists might like the idea of free everything for everyone, but when the reality takes a huge bite out of their paycheck every month, they may begin to understand basic maths. Or at least resent that all this “free” stuff is being paid for by them.
I think we should just take the Obamacare bill (all 1000 plus pages) and teach it in high schools. Just say it’s a long lost Russian novel from the 19th century.
It would be nice if we had two parties in America. We have the Democrats and the Democratic lite party (the Republicans).
That’s why we have to work to support and elect constitutional conservatives and libertarians. We aren’t going to change the existing GOP establishment, they’re in bed with the regressives; our only hope is to vote in enough actual patriots to outnumber them.
It worked for the regressives. There isn’t a conservative dem left in Congress now who isn’t eager to vote with them on everything. The ones who wouldn’t do that, left Congress because there was no room for moderation on the left. We can do that on the right, too. Enough is enough.
“that our government and its elected officials represent us; they do not rule us, they are not our ‘boss,’ and they damned sure aren’t our ‘masters,’ and we are not their ‘servants.’ Indeed, they are ‘public servants,’ and if anyone is ‘master,’ it is we, the people.”
Surpringly, this is is getting to be a more unpopular view than you might think. I think too many people have begun to see being educated, worldly, and hip, as necessarily being conformists and toadies to the will of those beyond us– Light-bringers and such. It’s a sad state– and one that’s been repeated in other countries throughout history. It will be interesting to see if the American values that we cherish will trump this seductive (for some) line of thought or not.
Strange how the more educated and “worldly” people become (they think), the more they become truly mindless sheeple. Sad.
Great Post, though i have a question. What are the repercussions for failing to purchase health insurance and refusing to pay the “fine,” “tax,” “penalty” or whatever it’s being called now?
Thanks, Martha. That’s tricky, and I recommend doing some research and finding out (I’m not an attorney and cannot offer legal advice).
I do remember reading that there was nothing that the IRS can do about not paying that penalty, but I’m not so sure. I know that the Dems initially wanted the penalty for failing to pay the “penalty” to be jail time, but that didn’t get far among Dems and was taken out. With the Supremes supremely wrong decision on it as a tax, I suspect that the same penalties will apply as apply to other federal taxes. If that is the case, then you can be fined, jailed, have your home taken, your business taken, your bank accounts and other assets seized, and all the other things that the IRS is capable of doing.
Frankly, I have no idea why the IRS or federal government has the “right” to take people’s property, seize their bank accounts, or bankrupt us . . . but they do. As the highest court in the land has deemed the failure to comply penalty a tax and the IRS is enforcing it, I’d guess the above. Again, I am not a lawyer and do not know for certain (and it’s not likely anyone actually does at this point; Obama’s hordes are probably still writing regulations and coming up with inventive ways to ensure that their supporters are not affected by nonpayment, while the worst is brought down on conservatives. That’s how this petty, despicable disgrace to this country and all that is good and right works, after all.).