Last week, I wrote this diary detailing why I thought the opt-out compromise is such a bad bad bad idea.
The whole idea is fascinating partly because it highlights some very deep divisions in the party -- and not just between progressives and moderates but between one group of progressives and another.
Now maybe the idea has begun to fade in popularity. If you think so, I apologize and suggest you stop reading now.
However, if you are still thinking you might back it but are persuadable otherwise, please keep reading.
One commenter to my original diary was in agreement with me:
The belief that health care is a right is incompatible with the barely disguised glee that people are expressing about people in the opt-out states being denied health care.
Sentiments like "they deserve it," "if they really wanted health care they'd toss the bums out," "maybe if they suffer for a little while they'll come around," are flying around thick and fast on this board.
They are doing exactly what the right wing accuses them of: screwing over rural, working-class Americans. And why? Because this is a "compromise" that we're told might have a chance of getting through Congress?
This idea is nothing less than collective punishment for the sins of the few.
The response from another commenter was fairly typical (although no less stunning):
No. It is simply an acknowledgment of the fact that there will be a process involved in enshrining that right into our laws and our culture.
Well, something just clicked when I read that. I googled "Missouri Compromise" and this is what I found:
In an April 21 letter to John Holmes, Thomas Jefferson wrote that the division of the country created by the [Missouri] Compromise line would eventually lead to the destruction of the Union:
" ...but this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. it is hushed indeed for the moment. but this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. a geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper.
Let me be clear: I understand that politics is the art of the possible. I believe that success is defined by steady progress toward a worth goal regardless of slow it may occur. I've written more than a few diaries on that topic. And/But I've been involved in many bitter arguments -- here -- where people disagreed with me. That's all OK.
I am also familiar with history. I understand that we probably would not have a US Constitution (or even the Declaration) in the first place had there not been a compromise on the issue of slavery.
But haven't we learned something from all the history that came after that hard and bitter lesson? The Civil War was truly our Revolution, overturning the very foundation of that original set of compromises.
It was also a near-death experience for our United States.
Since then we've learned (the very hard way) that you simply cannot compromise on issues of fundamental human rights.
Don't y'all remember this exchange in the US Senate from a few years ago during the debate on re-authorizing the Patriot Act?
Sen. Cornyn: "None of your civil liberties matter much after you're dead."
Sen. Feingold: "Give me liberty or give me death."
Simply put, there is no compromise on human rights. It's all or nothing. If you have rights and I don't, then neither one of us is free.
And for those of you who are hoping this will be challenged all the way up to the Supreme Court, be careful of what you hope for: you might just get it and when you do, the Supreme Court may then rule that opt out is constitutional. And if you're not sure what that means, google "Dred Scott."
Jefferson:
but this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union.
Please don't let it happen. You can stop it. Call your congressman and tell them NOT TO ACCEPT OPT-OUT.
UPDATE: I'm surprised at the number of Kossacks who are now declaring that health care is not a right, saying that there is nothing in the Constitution that guarantees it. But is it not universally accepted that the Federal government's job is to protect the people against foreign and domestic attackers? Of course it is.
So can you tell me with a straight face -- even for one second -- that death from disease is any different than death from war or terrorist attack?
What kind of nation do we have if our people die because they are lacking basic health care?
The people are the greatest natural resource we have. If we squander their -- our -- health and safety, what is to become of us in the long run?
UPDATE 2: Another argument for opt goes like this: "in a few years when the opt out state voters see the insurance rates in neighboring states drop while theirs continue to rise, with businesses migrating to those states with a public option, opt-out will do long term damage to the Republican party."
To that I say this: You're willing to see thousands of people die in the meantime -- from lack of proper health care -- in order to win a political battle THEN that you could have won NOW while saving those lives in the meantime.
I don't believe for one second that any of you would do that, given the choice.
Would you?