Even those who still support this bill must acknowledge that this is not even close to what WE want.
It was OUR country once. Now we talk of which punishment we should suffer - and tear at each other's throats for it. It's ridiculous.
We are not a Democracy. I'm not being hyperbolic - We don't have representative democracy.
Consider this Health Care spectacle, or any legislation, for that matter: what relevance, exactly, does the House of Representatives have?
All roads run through the senate. The flagrantly undemocratic Senate. A Senate whose existence, contrary to popular propaganda, was not a crafted design of some wise forefathers. It was established in a 5 to 4 vote as a means to placate states that had more slaves than citizens to keep a fragile union extant.
We have been at the mercy of it's corruptibility ever since.
My greatest reason for not supporting this bill - and mind you, contrary to the memes going around that only over privileged people would reject this bill, I haven't had health insurance in 22 years - is that this is the time for change, real change. Saying no now will not turn people to Republicans. Saying no now will not put this issue away for another generation - how could it? We are here because this is so important to all of us that we rallied behind a man with vision. I don't believe he has betrayed us but he is just one man against a monstrosity of a system intent on defeating him. He has chosen to pick his battles, as they say, and the results are inevitably found lacking. It was not enough to elect him, now we have to back him by destroying the business as usual of the senate.
I'm not sure what to do, but some ideas come to mind. If we surrounded the Senate house and refused them exit until they brought out a bill that we could understand and support, I'd be there.
But ultimately it's time to start the conversations that will end the existence of the Senate, because I'm done with all the grammar school reverence that we all use to dismiss the crimes that are perpetually committed by this body.
It should not be a radical thing to want democracy in America.