Why I'm unhappy tonight

I'd like to think by now that even if you don't agree with my politics, you consider me a reasonable, and reasonably fair, person. (If not, why are you wasting your time here?) I'm not the kind of guy, for example, who will tell you that the Obama health plan = socialism, or that we are witnessing an attempt to subvert the Constitution. 

What I will say, on the other hand, is that while bare majorities have their moments, and while partisanship has its moments, and while expensive new programs have their moments, and while faith-based accounting has its moments, and while massive regulatory interventions have their moments, and while defiance of the popular will has its moments, I'm having a hard time thinking that there's an appropriate moment for legislation that:

• passes with a bare majority (at least in the House),
• passes with purely partisan support,
• is extremely expensive at a moment in our history when we can't pay for the programs we've already got,
• is based on accounting assumptions that read like political fantasy,
• consists of a massive, untested regulatory intervention, and
• runs counter to the will of the American public.

In fact, while I won't call such legislation socialist or tyrannical, I will call it undemocratic, unrepublican, unhealthy, and very unwise.  

Footnote: Yes, I did mean to distinguish between "undemocratic" and "un-Democratic," and "unrepublican" and "un-Republican."

Anklenote: I was at a bar on Friday night, and I got talking to a woman who was very strongly Democratic, and very supportive of the health care bill. When I raised all of my standard objections with her, she said, "I know, but we have to do something."

I didn't say this at the time, but I thought to myself, "What a perfect illustration of the difference between liberals and conservatives."

Shin-note: Shockingly, I went home alone.