Relax, Silly Americans...You're Gonna Love This!

Today, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat from Washington D.C., had this to say in response to John King's question about whether a Republican victory in the special Senate election in Massachusetts tomorrow should affect the pace or the content of the health care debate/legislation in Congress:

"I don't think you should rush, but I don't think you should put aside regular order either. If we're gonna finish, we shouldn't wait for somebody to come and kill it, uh, particularly when you consider that once the American people get to know what's in this bill and how it affects them, and all of the negative notions can be answered by what's on paper, then I think you will see things turn around. So I don't think we owe the people of Massachusetts if they change a senator to say, alright, we gonna wait until you get here and we're not gonna finish our business."

I suppose this is old news by now, but it's worth pointing out each and every time you hear it because it's so important. The Democratic Party's health care reform efforts are, like every liberal or "progressive" big government-oriented policy goal, premised on one basic proposition: that the experts know what's best for you, and so you should just shut up and let them insert themselves into every nook and cranny of your life for the good of society.

This attitude, so prevalent on the Left in the academy and the media, has permeated the halls of Congress, and it has reared its ugly head time and again during the health care reform debate. This attitude is firmly ensconced in the White House too. Barack Obama is the consummate liberal elite, a self-assured, Ivy League-educated "intellectual" who is simply more "enlightened" than his predecessor and the vast majority of Americans.

In Eleanor Holmes Norton's remarks that I quoted above, you have a perfect example of the Leftist mindset. The key line is, of course, her statement that "once the American people get to know what's in this bill...you will see things turn around." Think about the absurdity of this remark. After 6 months of the health care debate being front and center in American politics, Norton is claiming that the bill is unpopular because...we don't know what's in the bill???

Norton is not completely off-base on one point. The legislation in Congress is ridiculously complex and far too long. But who wrote the bill? The Democrats, without any substantive Republican input. Could it be, Eleanor, that voters object to a 2,000 page monstrosity that many legislators won't even read being forced down their throats? GASP.

And let's be serious. Barack Obama is supposedly a gifted orator/communicator, and he occupies the bully pulpit. He has had access to mostly sympathetic if not outright fawning coverage from a number of media outlets. President Obama and his fellow Democrats in Congress have had ample opportunity to make a case for their version of health care reform over the past few months. And, according to every poll, they have failed miserably. Voters don't think it's going to improve the quality of care, they think it'll make it worse. Voters don't believe the Democrats' proposal will reduce the deficit, they think it will make it even bigger. Voters don't buy the idea that costs will decline, they're convinced their premiums will go up.

But see, the committed Lefties don't care what the polls say. They don't care that fewer than 40% of Americans support the reform bill while almost 60% oppose it. Because, after all, THEY know what's best, not YOU. They know best how to spend your money, not you. They aren't interested in empowering individuals or expanding the sphere of liberty...they're intent on enfeebling individuals and shrinking the sphere of liberty. It's about power, it's about control, it's about regulating more and more and more, until there's nothing left to regulate. If they get health care, it's on to cap and trade...where lawmakers and bureaucrats will tell you how much energy you can and can't use in your home, what sort of car you can and can't drive, what sort of light bulbs you can and can't buy. For the Left, health care is a stocking stuffer compared to the gigantic Christmas present that is energy regulation.

So, when voters in Massachusetts go to the polls tomorrow, they should keep Eleanor Holmes Norton's words in mind. Liberal Democrats, the core of the Democratic Party, are going to do everything in their power to pass this bill, regardless of the election's outcome. But that doesn't mean voters should be demoralized. Far from it. If Scott Brown wins tomorrow, it will be the greatest upset in modern American political history- and his victory will be seen as a repudiation of Obama's first year in office and the course that he and congressional Democrats have charted for America. Committed Leftists like Eleanor Holmes Norton, Barack Obama, and Nancy Pelosi will have no qualms about ignoring the verdict rendered by the angry, unenlightened, unwashed masses in Massachusetts. But the shock waves of a Brown win would reverberate in a big way, perhaps causing already skittish moderate Democrats to defect on health care, cap and trade, etc.

If the improbable happens tomorrow night in Massachusetts, it will be the work of the American people, ordinary citizens getting involved and donating their precious time and money during tough economic times that brought it about. Hopefully, tomorrow, we'll have a victory. But either way, the backlash has begun. Look out Lefties.