26 Democrats have gone on record opposed to using the reconciliation process to pass climate change legislation, thus handing the Republicans a victory without cost to them. Most of those Democrats will most likely take the same position on health care, thus dooming the American people to a broken health care system, and thus a broken social system and economy, for the foreseeable future. All this because the Democrats don’t want to be seen as being unfair to the Republicans by using a parliamentary tactic that was used against them, time and again, by the Republicans.
There is an oft misunderstood Biblical injunction that prescribes “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”. In the days when it was written punishments were often meted out that were disproportionate, as they so often are even today. The Biblical injunction was a limitation on the severity of a punishment, a ceiling and not a floor. That formula of equivalent penalty is one the Democrats should keep in mind.
Years ago I read an article in the Scientific American, the burden of which was that the best way to prevent bad behavior, including bad political behavior, is to engage in a tit for tat. That is, if your opponent does something to you, you should do something equivalent to them. No more, but no less. An overreaction causes a spiraling series of provocations; overreaction is therefore “too hot”. Underreaction, or (as the Democrats prefer) no reaction is “too cold”. Equivalent reaction is “just right”. This is the reaction most likely to prevent future tits, so to speak. The Democrats were subjected to numerous tits, and their reluctance to deliver any tats will surely come back to haunt them, when their inability to deliver on their promises puts them back in the minority, as it most surely will, and sooner than you might think. When the Republicans are back in the saddle they will revert to their own ways, all their talk about respect for the rights of the minority forgotten. The Democrats can delay their return to minority status, and prevent those future tits, if they engage in a few tats now. Don’t hold your breath.
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