[detbuch]

Spence, the irony is not in Coburn's amendment, which you say is more government that would cost more (as I said previously in this thread--"conservatives" are not perfect--they will also stoop to procedural tricks), but that you would point his amendment out as ironic but not complain about the cost of the HC bill. His amendment, which you say would, in contradiction to "conservative" tendency, cost money, was a procedural trick to impede the bill, to help pave a way to defeat it, which would SAVE money.

The great argument between "conservatives" and "progressives" is not about procedural tricks. It is about the struggle between the individual versus collective authority. The purpose in founding this country was to retain the power of individuals to seek their own "happiness" versus the power of the State to dictate how and what that happiness would be. It is an age-old struggle in which the State seems always to eventually win--perhaps, because most are too weak to resist it or perceive themselves as too weak to succeed on their own. Statists understand that weakness and win power because of it. I believe that the vast majority do have the ability to be self-sufficient, and are weakened to the extent that they are persuaded that they can't. The temptation to giver over the difficult portion of existence to a protecting power is great. But if it is resisted, one will be stonger. A nation of strong, self-directing citizens is a strong, free nation. The change in the 200 years, to which you refer, is a change towards weakness, of acceptance of social power over individual power. The "health care" bill is another step in that direction. The creation of this nation and its Constitution were the foundation from which movements, right and left diverged. The foundation was freedom. A move to the "right" from that foundation would be to even more personal freedom than the Constitution provided--a move toward anarchy. A move to the left of that foundation would be to less personal freedom and more power to the State. The move has constantly been to the left. And any "centrist" stance would be, always, in the middle of what remains of original intent and what has shifted to the left. So "centrism" is merely a middle aquiesence to whatever shift has occured. "Centrists" are leftists light.