I saw several comments in some of the previous Jane Hamsher diaries accusing anybody who disagrees with the current health care bill of being "purity trolls." This diary isn't about Jane Hamsher because quite frankly although I have a complex opinion on her and think that she has gotten way to much attention I think that we are already beating a dead horse and the struggle over her simply illustrates a wider struggle within the American political left. Instead I want to talk about the accusation of "purity trolling."
Here's one of the comments that drove me up the wall.
"No, Obama isn't Fidel Castro, so he's always going to suck bad. I understand.
Hey - I'm with you: I expected Obama to eliminate money and make America a Socialist collective and he didn't do that so he sold us all down the river, right?
I put all my hopes and dreams on Obama being a Communist Trotskyite leader abolishing private ownership of property and he didn't do that in his first day in office so yeah, let's primary him!"
Honestly, this sounds like something straight out of redstate or free republic. How ironic is it that in a diary where everybody gets pissed off at Jane Hamsher for being a pragmatist, people also get accused of being Communists because they disagree with the current health care bill? I suppose that having principals makes you a "purity troll," and if so then you have a proud purity troll right here. Because I think that health care should be a basic human right not driven by profit i'm a purity troll, because my starting point was National Medicare and at most I was willing to compromise for a robust public option, and because not willing to pragmatically support corporatism combined with the trampling of women's rights I suppose it makes me a fucking Communist.
Iv'e heard it said that the activist lefties, those that don't post fawning pictures of Obama are the teabaggers of the left. Well if that's true then the mainstream party hacks who accuse anybody who opposes mandates of not supporting health care reform are the neo-cons of the left. "With us or against us" anybody?
Wanna hear some more issues that i'm a purity troll on?
I think that we should pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan immediately, as well as all of our other military bases throughout the world, end the American empire and slash the military budget by 98% leaving a small and defensive armed forces and putting most of the federal budget towards domestic spending.
I think that we should universally forgive student loans, that a free ride through college should be available to anybody who is willing to do the work and that the reciprocation should come through simply being educated and contributing to society.
I support a steep progressive tax that mainly hits those in the highest tax brackets, I think that the entire point of having a progressive income tax is to ensure fairness and ensure that those at the bottom do not get hit the hardest. This is why I also support repealing most sales taxes, except sales taxes at stores that the wealthy tend to shop at.
I think that the drug war should be ended, that all drugs should be legalized along with prostitution and other victimless crimes, that all non-violent criminals should be released and that the death penalty should be abolished. This isn't to say that I don't think that prostitution should be regulated to prevent sex slavery and exploitation, in fact that is one of the reasons that I support legalizing it.
I think that pollution should be banned outright, and that the top climate scientists should work out how best to solve global warming, and it should be done for the sake of humanity, not for the sake of rewarding big corporations. None of this "green capitalism" nonsense.
I think that gay marriage should be legalized at the federal level, that the supreme court should overturn all anti-gay marriage laws as unconstitutional, and that equal rights should not be compromised. And yes, in my new small, all-volunteer and strictly for defensive purposes military DADT would be repealed.
If all this makes me a purity troll then your goddamn right i'm a purity troll, and what I want overall I think is a lot closer to Scandinavian Social Democracy then Communism. Supporting the current health care bill is pretty damn close to Italian fascism or Mercantilism. Whose with me purity trolls?