Category: Politics

Classical Values has a very insightful post on those who incite civil war:

Being human, we all want to get our way. There is, buried somewhere in each one of us, a spoiled, angry child ready to have a temper tantrum. Some control it better than others. Whether learning self control over that inner child that wants to throw a tantrum when he doesn’t get his way constitutes “adulthood” I don’t know, as such a pronouncement strikes me as awfully judgmental. I don’t get my way, and I’m used to it. Yet I think I am a very childish person who has yet to grow up, and learning to accept not getting my way has not helped much. I am still stubborn enough to cling to wanting what I want regardless of the likelihood of my getting it. That may mean that while I’m still a child, I’m just not given to childish displays. (At least, not in public.)

I also realize that it is unreasonable to demand that others control themselves simply because I think that’s a good thing to do, but still, there are few things I find more tedious than people who throw public fits when they don’t get their way, and then demand that others take their fits seriously. In that respect, I am so, so happy about the election results last week. Had the Republicans lost, by now I would be having to hear innumerable cries on the right about how the only alternative we have left is civil war, that the Declaration of Independence gives us the right to violently overthrow the government, etc., etc., ad nauseam.

I’m glad we can go back to bitching about how the Republicans suck, rather than watch the Democrats floor the accelerator off the side of the cliff. People have been pretty amped up the past two years, and here’s hoping everyone’s collective pissed-off-o-meter goes from pegged back down to where it was around the time Bush nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

Megan McArdle links to a well-researched piece that basically makes that argument, despite what a lot of other pundits are saying about health care not being the big issue. I have to wonder how much of a role polls, showing Americans are most concerned about the economy are playing into this. I myself have been polled in regards to issues this election, and also answered the economy was my chief worry. I’m always reluctant to answer this way because I don’t think government is a magic jobs fairy, that can correct our economic woes if they would just do X, Y, and Z. A better question might be “What has Congress done this session that’s pissed you off the most?” My answer there would definitely be passing the health care monstrosity.

Anecdotally, the Health Care issue would seem to be a big issue in Pennsylvania. It was a bloodbath for Dems that voted for it. Sestak, Dalkemper, Carney, Kanjorski, and Murphy all voted for it, and all went down to defeat. Demcorats Jason Altmire and Tim Holden voted against it, and all held on to their seats. Pennsylvania Democrats also tried to make Corbett’s joining the lawsuit against Obamacare an issue in the election, and Corbett won overwhelmingly. I think people were more angry over health care than pundits are giving them credit for. I think this was an anger driven election rather than a concern driven election.