Confused Colors: Liberal Red and Conservative Blue

As the Health Care Reform bill careens its way through the legislative process, it is encountering several unusual obstacles. The unusualness of the obstacles is that they are those rare and often presumed mythical creatures that we believe have gone extinct, if it’s true that they actually ever really existed. I am of course speaking of the Conservative Democrat or the Liberal Republican. It is the very oxymoronic nature of such beings as to render them elusive and ephemeral.

In an equally odd circumstance, it is these same rare members of their species that present the most challenges to the potential success of making the Health Care Reform bill a reality. And more significantly they are perhaps the only members of Congress that could help ensure that the American people are not left with yet another well-intentioned but outright unsustainable government program that will undermine the very security that it seeks to deliver.

The problem is that the Liberal Republicans and Conservative Democrats usually find themselves at odds with everyone else, whether Republican or Democrat. Amazingly, the Republicans have transformed the term ‘liberal’ into a brand of dishonor, a mark of the devil. To be liberal to a Republican is to be against a strong defense of America and to be against American family values, and to want to take away people’s rights to any number of things; religion, guns, business, …

This apparent reversal of some of the very core tenets of liberal philosophy would seem to contradict either the very positions expected of Republican views or of the ability of the Republican party to be inclusive of differences in opinions about how to achieve the protection of individual freedom from tyranny of Government or the majority. Being a liberal would include being a staunch defender of individual freedom and liberties. It may include other goals, like: being progressive toward change and being open-minded and tolerant. But it is essential that a liberal incorporates a guarantee of individual freedom within its scope. For the Republican party to consider a liberal view-point a sufficient reason to castigate and spurn someone is antithetical to their own dogma.

A complimentary relationship appears to exist for Democrats with regard to their ‘conservative’ brethren. Evidently being a person who believes in preserving traditional institutions, limiting governmental activism, and adhering to sound fiscal policies. It’s a wonder these people weren’t run out of town on a rail. How could you be a Democrat, and also be concerned about affordability of Government programs.

The intolerance of the ‘core’ party membership, often that small minority within the party that is radically tied into one or two issues that over-ride all other considerations, produces a dysfunctional and tunnel-visioned organization. The vitality of the party is threatened, and the organization is depleted of diverse views and contributions that would allow the party to be more creative and flexible in being able to confront new issues and situations and thereby be a party of leadership rather than a party of holding ground.

On the Health Care Reform bill, both parties have more or less demonstrated their failed visions of leadership. They cannot think outside their own framework; they cannot understand the concerns and needs of their counterparts in the other party;, and they cannot work out a consensus plan that while perhaps not what each side believes is everything that it should be, at least is what meets the general needs of members within both parties. Since politics is the science of compromise, it would appear that on the Health Care agenda that both parties are unprepared and uneducated in the scientific arts. This gap in their education is perhaps a result of the American Educational system on which Congress has done another of its admirable jobs. We all might hope that Congress will be as effective and successful with the Health Care system as they have done on Education. So we will only have to see a large portion of the population failed by the system. But don’t worry both parties will throw our money at different wasteful solutions to the other party’s wasteful solutions.