Negotiation
I'm suspicious of people who like to write pieces about "If I were the President, this is what I would say..." or similar comments, but I am giving in to it on this occasion. I can't understand why the Democrats won't put this shutdown fight in simple terms:
The time to negotiate and compromise on a piece of legislation is before it is passed. And that is what the Democrats did, massively compromising on their desire for a single payer system in order to get enough Republican support to narrowly pass an insurance reform originally created by the right wing Heritage foundation. Once a bill is passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President it is a bill no longer- it is the law. And neither the members of Congress nor the President have the right or the authority to negotiate away the law in the face of extortion threats and blackmail.
To do so would be to leave the country forever vulnerable to anyone who was treacherous enough to deliberately destroy our economy in order to get their way. Until now, the nation has had the good fortune that, however dishonest and self-serving its representatives may on occasion be, they have never conspired to ruin us all, to subvert the form of government left to us by the founding fathers, in order to substitute for it the rule of force.
Now, as difficult as it is for many to accept, we face this challenge. We are confronted with a threat by a small minority to cause immense harm to us if we do not capitulate to their demands- demands which they can clearly not win through the ballot box, no matter how they try to rig the vote, and which they cannot win through the legislative process. To allow them to have their way would effectively end democracy in any meaningful form in the United States. The Democratic Party, as long as it exists, will never give in to demands like this. This is our duty as Americans and we intend to fulfill it.
The time to negotiate and compromise on a piece of legislation is before it is passed. And that is what the Democrats did, massively compromising on their desire for a single payer system in order to get enough Republican support to narrowly pass an insurance reform originally created by the right wing Heritage foundation. Once a bill is passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President it is a bill no longer- it is the law. And neither the members of Congress nor the President have the right or the authority to negotiate away the law in the face of extortion threats and blackmail.
To do so would be to leave the country forever vulnerable to anyone who was treacherous enough to deliberately destroy our economy in order to get their way. Until now, the nation has had the good fortune that, however dishonest and self-serving its representatives may on occasion be, they have never conspired to ruin us all, to subvert the form of government left to us by the founding fathers, in order to substitute for it the rule of force.
Now, as difficult as it is for many to accept, we face this challenge. We are confronted with a threat by a small minority to cause immense harm to us if we do not capitulate to their demands- demands which they can clearly not win through the ballot box, no matter how they try to rig the vote, and which they cannot win through the legislative process. To allow them to have their way would effectively end democracy in any meaningful form in the United States. The Democratic Party, as long as it exists, will never give in to demands like this. This is our duty as Americans and we intend to fulfill it.
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