Saturday, February 21, 2009

Partisanship Or Reaching Across The Aisle

Back in the olden times the Christian church believed that the sun revolved around the earth. This was very important to them. In fact, if you tried to explain that this concept was incorrect, you could end up in jail, disappeared, or dead. The father of astronomy Galileo Galilei learned this the hard way.

Back then if Galileo was talking with the Pope’s enforcers, meeting them half way or reaching across the aisle would have been plain stupid. Compromise was not possible. They were 100% wrong and Galileo was 100% right. Period. End of story.

This same concept applies to President Obama. When the Republicans want to lower taxes on rich people (who contribute to their campaigns) there is no point trying to reach across the aisle. They are simply wrong.

When millions of Americans do not have access to the health care system, it would be highly unethical for Obama to compromise with the forces from the right wing. Everyone living in America should have basic health care, whether they are young or old, rich or poor, lazy or hard-working.

Compromise and reaching across the aisle was not possible when Galileo was facing the Pope’s enforcers. The same concept will apply with many of the issues that Obama is going to face. On many important issues, he simply cannot compromise with the reactionaries in the Republican party and still be true to his beliefs.
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