With due mountains of respect to Dr. K, his suggested approach of "quietly and civilly raising questions," politely pointing out that the numbers don't add up, etc., is exactly how we have come to be stuck with the stimulus, the bailouts, and obscene trillions in budget deficits.
This is not a nice, ivory tower, Oxford debate.
This is gut-check time about whether we are going to maintain the bedrock American relationship between the citizen and the state. We are in the battle against ruthless, radical ideologues who have the media and the daunting numbers on their side. On our side, we have the further burden of wavering moderates and in-Washington-too-long types who define success as making a deal — any deal — that they think they can sell as a bipartisan compromise that staved off something extreme (but what in reality would be a sell-out that is 3/4 extreme, with Obama simply coming back in 2010 or 2011 to get the remaining 1/4 ... plus)... [snip]
I just don't get the detachment from the real world here. We're not talking trivia here. We're talking about what kind of country we're going to be from here on out. That's something worth getting whipped up about. If we're not whipped up, we lose. If we are whipped up and the Democrats try to use that fact as an excuse to ram this through, then they were going to ram it through anyway.
We are a heavy underdog. To prevail, the needle we have to thread is to convince enough Dems and RINOs that there will be electoral hell to pay if this monstrosity is enacted. That requires an authentic demonstration of fervor. It's unfortunate that some people will go overboard — as happens in any human endeavor — but that's no reason to treat this as if it were an academic exercise.
If that's the approach, the game — like the country as we know it — is lost.
[As distasteful as raucous confrontations are, I'm no longer sure there's an alternative. Consider,
.....1) how do you 'debate' those who lie to your face (as is occurring daily, from Obama on down, re: what the bills will & won't do and their cost), i.e., our politicians keep 'answering' our questions re: their plans with blatant lies - we can't afford to be seen as accepting them - and
..... 2) the Democrats have already conveyed their intent to force a bill through using the Reconciliation ploy to side-step the 2/3 majority needed for the associated expenditure - regardless of how unpopular all polls show their intentions to be.
..... The only realistic chance of preventing them from forcing this change upon a majority opposed to it is conveying that there will be consequences to their doing so. The first point made in this piece is legitimate: quietly being 'civil' about our opposition was interpreted as sufficient apathy to enact the insane but power-acquiring bailouts and stimulus bills. If tactics aren't changed, outcomes won't be either...]
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