Reid Compares Opponents of Health Care Reform to Supporters of Slavery

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took his GOP-blasting rhetoric to a new level Monday, comparing Republicans who oppose health care reform to lawmakers who clung to the institution of slavery more than a century ago….

Senate Republicans on Monday called Reid’s comments “offensive” and “unbelievable.”

But Reid argued that Republicans are using the same stalling tactics employed in the pre-Civil War era.

“Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, ‘slow down, stop everything, let’s start over.’ If you think you’ve heard these same excuses before, you’re right,” Reid said Monday. “When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said ‘slow down, it’s too early, things aren’t bad enough.'”

There were some who said these things – Abraham Lincoln was one. He plainly and repeatedly spoke against the institution of slavery before the Civil War, and unashamedly based his view on the principles of the Declaration of Independence, that under the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” slavery was demonstrably evil. Lincoln’s goals were (1) preserving the right of free elections, (2) preserving the Union, and (3) pacing slavery in the course of ultimate extinction. In spite of this, in his first inaugural he stated “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” He based this statement on the lack of any Constitutional provision that gave the federal government the right to intervene, without a Consititutional amendment, in the internal order of the states. Was President Lincoln then, one of those condemned by Mr. Reid? One would logically conclude that this is the case, especially as Lincoln’s stance was based on the trivial (to modern as well as to antebellum Democrats) matter of Constitutional limits to federal power. The REAL opponents of limiting slavery in the day were…the Democrats.

He continued: “When women spoke up for the right to speak up, they wanted to vote, some insisted they simply, slow down, there will be a better day to do that, today isn’t quite right.

Of course many of those who said that themselves were women, even some of the founding activists of the women’s suffrage movement. Their stand wasn’t due to opposition, but due to their recognition that from where they were, it would take a long process of education and involvement to change political and social conditions. What finally tipped the scale was the recognition of the siginificant contributions of women workers in the efforts of war production during WW-I. Political opposition prior to this time was pretty much across the board…members of both parties were largely opposed to suffrage on a national level until after the war. Curiously, Utah, and Wyoming Territories were both early adopters…but were forced by Congress to cancel women’s suffrage as conditions to gain admission to the Union!

“When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today.”

Yep!  Sure did happen.   Southern Democrats (again).  The Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1964 could only be passed by the Democratic congresses of the day due to Republican support to overcome the Democrat “Solid South”.

To turn Reid’s rhetorical strategy back on him, one COULD note that Mussolini’s Italy, The Third Reich, and the USSR used “single payer” type government health care as a wedge to inject the state into all aspects of the people’s lives.

Of course Reid, Pelosi, and the libs today have no such motives…do they?