"Seemingly Odd"

"Seemingly Odd"

Greg Sargent has the scales fall from his eyes. Almost.

Yesterday I noted the seemingly odd finding by Gallup that more Americans blame Democrats than Republicans or conservatives for the rash of violence that greeted the passage of the reform law.

Now Gallup has released some new numbers that shed a bit of light on this:

Regardless of whether you favored or opposed the health care legislation passed this week, do you think the methods the Democratic leaders in Congress used to get enough votes to pass this legislation — were [they] an abuse of power, or were [they] an appropriate use of power by the party that controls the majority in Congress?

Abuse of power 53%

Appropriate use of power 40%

No opinion 7%

A surprising 58% of independents, too, said Dem tactics constituted an abuse of power.

This suggests, I think, that the claim by Republicans and conservatives that Dems were going to “ram” the bill through Congress via dictatorial fiat really succeeded in riling up people up a great deal — even though Republicans repeatedly used the reconcilation tactic themselves to pass ambitious legislation.

Actually, I doubt that it's so much 'the claim by Republicans and conservatives that...' as it is the actual fact that which is doing the work here. However, at least you've made the big jump: the reason people blame Democrats for the threats of violence is that they don't see the problem as 'Republican rhetoric stirring up violence.'

They see the problem as 'a provocation by Democrats that might justify violence.'

We talked recently about the non-enforcability of the mandate meaning that violence probably isn't justified; and wouldn't have been, anyway, until the mandate went into effect. However, it's worth noticing that this is America's natural and native political tradition. The Founders were revolutionaries -- not in the vague 'this is revolutionary sense in which the term is mostly used today, but in the sense of forming armies and shooting people over political differences.

A wise politician will consider this poll carefully. The survival of the Republic is not guaranteed; adequate abuse will provoke a war. If one is not wanted -- and I surely do not want one, having seen the effects of war on a country -- it is time to start thinking about restoring the proper, Constitutional order. It is time to start thinking about how to restrain the Federal government so that it is not prone to such abuses in the future.