Ideaology versus Reality

Today's Saying

You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance. ~Franklin P. Jones


Take the public option out of the big health bill and put it in a little bill all its own. Then it can be looked at and the costs can be figured and a debate carried on on the public option.
Having done that the Democrats and the Republicans should be able to get together and discuss the other things that can be done to help save the health system. There are apparently a large number of things that both parties agree on that could be passed that would have an impact on health care costs.
What prevents any compromise now is ideology. The Republicans ideologically can not vote for anything that extends the governments activity in health care and the democrats ideologically are committed to the government option.
Ideology is a bad legislator. It doesn’t allow for practical questions like:
Can we afford this now?
Will waiting hurt the long term progress?
Can just a public option really give the government control?
The task from moment the Democrats were elected was to get the public option. The task from the moment the Democrats were elected for the Republicans was to block it.
I really wish that our President had given us more real leadership. The great Presidents rose above ideology to meet the needs of the moment.
Obama doesn’t seem capable of doing that.
But the true believers on each ideological side cheer on their party.
Those of us in the middle have trouble watching the system lock up.

Mrs. Trumble rode her bicycle in to work today. It still hasn’t snowed and she figured she could use the exercise. As she passed the Fly Inn there sitting on the front step was Eugene. She fell off the bike.
She looked at him. He looked just like he did when they left 1890 and returned to 2009 and he was sober.
“I’m staying at the Fly Inn”, he said. “ Until I find someplace better.”
She went with him to the restaurant and treated him to breakfast. “ How did you get back?” she asked.
Eugene said he spent many good years with Anabelle but the time came when she felt he belonged back in 2009. So she and one other cast a spell that brought him back to 2009 and restored him to the age he was when he stayed in 1890. She wanted what was best for him.
Eugene said, with a tear in his eye, “ she really loved me. You know!. She really did.”
Mrs. Trumble refrained from asking why he just didn’t go now up to her cabin. He could have the best of both worlds. But she felt there was something he wasn’t telling her but she had no idea what that could be.
She told him to put a note on Nancy’s bulletin board that he was looking for some place to stay. “Somebody probably has a room to rent” she advised him.” It will cost less than the Fly Inn.”