So on Tuesday, we’ve got a special election here in Massachusetts to fill the senate seat left by the late Ted Kennedy. Naturally, the primary candidates for the seat are a Republican — Scott Brown — and a Democrat — Martha Coakley. I’m very torn as to how I’m going to vote. Without revealing too much, here’s my dilemma.
We’re told that this vote will determine the balance of the senate and — consequently — the success potential of the current health care legislation being considered in the two houses. Voting Coakley is, we’re told, a vote for the current health care legislation and voting for Brown would logically be a vote against it. The trouble is, I don’t agree with some primary items within the health care legislation, so this election for me is more about ideologies going beyond this particular piece of legislation.
Do I send in someone who will maintain the status quo of the current Democratic platform and continue moving things in the direction that they’re going, which is not necessarily a good thing? Or do I send in someone who will attempt to override the status quo with a different kind of status quo that is what I feel the country is trying to run from.
Whatever I end up deciding, please try and see that this upcoming special election is not just about health care — no matter how many well-written radio ads may tell you otherwise.
This is an election about personal liberties, responses to terrorist plots, the war in Afghanistan, the FED, and everything else that is plaguing the country at this point. The health care bill as written does nothing but ensure that health insurance companies will always have customers. Period. No matter what other reforms are within the x-thousand pages of that document, it forces every american to have health insurance. Mandates under penalty of law that we all purchase insurance from some gigantic corporation. Reform? Maybe. Maybe not.
In the long term, there are many other issues at hand than this year’s particular bill, and those are things we need to think about when casting our vote on Tuesday. How will Brown and/or Coakley handle the approvals of a supreme court justice? Potential impeachment? Future bills on domestic security? Vote your conscience, vote your voice.
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