re: #47 EPR-radar

There is nothing wrong with the GOP making repeal of Obamacare its only platform plank. If they get control of the House, Senate and presidency with sufficient numbers to repeal the law, then it is gone.

What is illegitimate about the GOP’s antics is to try to use control of only the House to accomplish the same end via hostage taking.

You are absolutely right. As you say, “There is nothing wrong with the GOP making repeal of Obamacare its only platform plank.” I take your point.

I guess what I was trying to say about the GOP’s attitude towards the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is that they don’t even grant it constitutional legitimacy. The GOP’s attitude is that the ACA is an abomination that is flat-out unconstitutional, should be illegal on its face, and is some kind of destructive, malevolent freak of nature that never should have been brought into existence.

To give an example, I’m opposed to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that Congress passed, and President Clinton signed, in the late 1990’s. Sure, there’s nothing wrong with someone who makes repeal of DOMA their entire platform; I might do that myself. But what I would NOT do is deny that DOMA was legitimately passed and signed into law. I would not portray DOMA as beyond the pale, as something that was somehow shoved through “the system” illegally and maliciously. I wouldn’t do this (as much as I personally disagree with DOMA) because it would disrespect the Constitutional process that DOMA went through, which were precisely those “compromises” that the Constitution encourages.

I’m obviously nit-picking this point to death, but I’m really bothered that the GOP (and at times it seems like the entire GOP) has such an obsession with the ACA as a satanic, illegitimate freak of nature, an urgent threat to the country, like nothing else that was ever signed into law, etc. Frankly, the GOP opposition to the ACA is really getting into mental-health pathology.