The leaders of the Republican Party (not Rush Limbaugh but people like Mitch McConnell, Minority Leader in the Senate, and Whatshisname Steele, head of the Republican National Committee) have stated flatly that passage of the Democrats' healthcare reform bill will mean economic, social and moral disaster for America.
They haven't qualified their statements or hedged them the way social scientists do. This means they're saying they have God-class knowledge of what's going to happen.
OK. I call on every registered Republican to mark their leaders' words--and the contrasting predictions of the Democratic Party leadership--and see which comes true through the next several election cycles.
And if the Republican leaders turn out to have been profoundly wrong (as they were about Social Security and Medicare, both of which prompted the same dire predictions), you need to either change the leadership of your party or leave it.
Same goes for the pundits. If the right wing talking heads' predictions prove wrong--why listen to them any more?
Unless they recant and describe what led them to say what they did, and how it's different now.
If healthcare reform does leave the country in a smoking ruin, I promise to help do the same on the Democratic side. Deal?
Above all, remember what everyone is saying now--and hold them accountable for what they say later. Otherwise unscrupulous pols and pundits will speak for the moment without regard for how well-founded what they say is.
Words matter. Predictions matter. Lying matters. And demagoguery really matters.
So say we all.
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