Posted by
BrianR on Monday, July 16, 2007 1:27:55 PM
Last week, California State Senator Sheila Kuehl-(D) – you may remember her as Zelda on the old Dobie Gillis TV show – again brought forward for consideration her universal healthcare plan for California, one that essentially mirrors the disastrous plan in place in Canada.
California Governor Arnold Scharzenegger-(R) promised to veto it if it reached his desk. So far, so good, as government-run healthcare and insurance contravene sound conservative principles.
The fly in the ointment here is that the Governator’s promised veto is motivated by his desire to have his own version of state-mandated health insurance enacted into law.
This is the sad state of affairs that’s reached when conservative principles – once proudly enshrined in the self-definition of the Republican Party – are no longer even given lip service. Instead of a discussion of whether or not government involvement in healthcare is even proper, out here in Kalifornia the discussion is simply over the form it will take. Its passage in one form or another is a foregone conclusion, with the full endorsement of a Governor who alleges to be a Republican.
When the Gray Davis recall election was taking place, State Senator Tom McClintock-(R) – a very solid conservative – immediately stepped forward as a candidate to be his successor. There was a great deal of excitement, which unfortunately was very short-lived, as within a week or two the Terminator – a man with absolutely zero experience in any public office – threw his hat into the ring, and even though Ah-nuld was known to be a Kennedy consort and had absolutely no record on which to judge his conservative chops, the state GOP threw McClintock to the wolves and rallied around Ah-nuld with about as much dignity as Lindsay Lohan at a kegger.
They didn’t perform any better when Ah-nuld was formulating and getting passed into law – with the help of state Democrats – his bill to implement Kalifornia’s own Anti-Global Warming initiative, which will surely bankrupt the state. Fortunately for Ah-nuld, that will happen long after he’s out of office, and someone else will have to clean up the mess.
As much as I love so many things about this state, I fear it’s a lost cause politically. The reason for that is the self-prostitution of the state GOP (with a few exceptions) on the altar of vote pandering, without any thought to principles. The ultimate result will be, in my opinion, the ultimate collapse of the state as a viable entity due to economic and social burdens imposed by liberal policies. It will go the way of the Rust Belt, with jobs leaving the state as tax and other burdens drive companies away, leaving a dependant class of retirees and unskilled workers – many of them illegal aliens – scrambling to support themselves on the revenues generated by a few surviving industries, primarily agriculture, tourism and entertainment.
There’s an old saying: “As goes California, so goes the country”. As I look at the contemporary national political scene, I see the same problems writ large, so many people saying the same things I heard years ago during the Governator’s first campaign: “Well, he can win. He’s right on Topic X, and the rest doesn’t matter.” The problem is, the rest does matter.
I’m a realist, and I know that no candidate is going to agree with me 100%. But if he’s right on only one or two issues, and wrong on the rest, how can you vote for him? Worse yet, what message does the party as a whole take from that candidate’s victory?
Actually, it’s a very clear message: people will buy the label, no matter what product is actually in the bottle.
You wouldn’t even buy your wine that way. Isn’t the country’s future more important than your next dinner party?