Jlknapp505's Blog

To all my progressive friends: I regret having to throw cold water on your efforts to enact gun control legislation.
What are you willing to give up in order to get that?
The same political figures that constitute the ‘opposition’, the ones who oppose government programs that protect the poor and support the middle class, are the ones who will spinelessly roll over for the NRA.
So if you’re a young Mexican, brought here illegally by parents when you were a small child, are you willing to trade any immigration reform for better gun laws?
If you depend on Social Security or expect to do so when you retire, are you willing to give that up?
Health care? Would you want to go back to pre-Obamacare conditions?
Unemployment, even in a recession? How about SNAP, the food stamp program?
Tax hikes on the wealthy? Tax reform that will perhaps force huge corporations and very rich people to begin paying a fair share of taxes? Or would you let them continue to profit obscenely as the middle class shrinks and the only jobs available are working in fast food or perhaps a temporary job at Walmart?
ALL of these are things that Republicans support. And we’re watching the politics continue even as I write this. The President, who ran on a campaign pledge to raise taxes on those with incomes above $250 000 and to not cut Social Security benefits, has already signaled agreement to trade those things away, and the deal isn’t done yet. He may yet trade even more. And the people who LOST the election are still in the driver’s seat. I’m disappointed; even after winning his last election, he’s apparently not able to break out of the community-organizer mold. Or in other words, cooperation at any cost. Even when the cost is to be borne by the people who elected him.
Don’t expect much to happen. And that’s a shame.
We needed a Lyndon Johnson or a Harry Truman. We didn’t get one.

This entry was posted on December 19, 2012 at 4:28 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.