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I think one political problem that we in the US have is that for six years (2001-2006) the Republicans controlled the federal government. They occupied the White House, had majorities in both the Senate and the House, and their nominees made up a majority of the Supreme Court.
Yet they have little to show for it that I can think of. Not only in terms of grand accomplishments, but just in terms of bills passed that benefited the American people.
So today we have a situation where the Democrats pass the health bill. The Republicans say that they favor health reform, but not this bill. This bill is too flawed in many ways.
The problem as I see it is that the American people have no reason to believe the Republicans. They had six years to put forth their health bill (remember, the idea of health care reform was put into play in 1993 with Hilarycare), and they did nothing.
Commentators behave as if we have a two party system in which one party represents the liberal point of view and the other the conservative. Yet I can't think of anything the Republicans have done which can fairly be called conservative. For example, the whole Iraq War thing is out of Woodrow Wilson's playbook, not a conservative's. If there is a Republican member of Congress who agrees with the political views of conservative commentators like Pat Buchanan or Joseph Sobran or Christopher Manion, I am not aware of him.
I guess what I am saying is that those Americans who do not agree with the liberal agenda are stuck being represented in Washington by politicians who are grossly incompetent or insincere or stupid. I think that that is a real problem for the country.
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