Input Junkie

Sure. It's much like pointing out to liberals who favor health care that the current proposal in fact imposes legal requirements on people like me, who can't afford health insurance, to buy it anyway, from the same old overpriced uncompetitive carriers; offer pathetically inadequate subsidies; do nothing to lower the costs of health insurance or health care; and when we don't get insurance, because we still can't afford it, imposes annual fines on us that will make it even harder for us to afford health care. I've had one friend . . . actually a progressive who would like European style health care, whereas I'm a libertarian and would like radical free market reforms . . . turn against the Democratic proposals because of the mandate, and I know that Jane Hamsher over at Firedoglake has done likewise, and has identified the proposals (correctly, in my view) as fascist . . . but that's far from the usual response. Very few people are systematic or analytical thinkers about political or moral issues, regardless of where in the political spectrum they are. As H. L. Mencken pointed out a long time ago.