New saying I'm tired of already "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good"

[PretzelWarrior]

It sounds an awful lot like Democrats warming up to essentially negotiating with themselves as the majority and creating a false opposition that needs to be placated so they can explain why they are doing much, much less than they should in the interests of "compromise".

Compromise with whom? The 40 Republicans? On most issues of social concern, you've got 2 of those Republicans with you most of the time anyway. I think it's compromise between their paymasters in big businesses like insurance, oil, pharma, wall street, etc. vs. THE ACTUAL REAL AMERICANS who elect them in large numbers.

We do need to hold their feet to the fire.

Single Payer health care or at LEAST a legitimate public insurance option.
GET OUT OF IRAQ NOW!
Try and convict those who tortured.
CLOSE GUANTANAMO.
CLEAN ENERGY INVESTMENTS
MASS TRANSIT INVESTMENTS
Don't let them fool you into taking a so-called compromise when we have the opportunity to do the things RIGHT and make effective, positive, long lasting change.

[sandnsea]

1. The legitimate public plan IS

exactly what we're talking about needing to fight for. Don't let single payer be the enemy of an open enrollment public plan.

As to the rest of it, except the torture trials, it's in progress. Ralph Nader or Dennis Kucinich haven't had any luck getting any of it done.

Oh, and here's my saying...

While we probably won't get a health care plan that is 100% of what every individual believes is needed, we can't forget the 47 million whose health is in peril as they wait for a solution.

[Coyote_Bandit]

18. Public option

is not progress.

It is a government insurance company that cannot deny coverage for pre-existing conditions. Anybody who has employer provided insurance will opt out as will anyone who can otherwise secure comparable coverage for cheaper rates. That means the public option will likely turn into something resembling an insurer of last resort with higher rates. Regardless of who is and is not insured under the plan it will still be true that anyone who cannot afford health insurance now will most likely not be able to afford it with a public option. Two reasons why cots will not be reduced: (1) the pool of insured and (2) failure to take advantage of the administrative savings available with a single standardized plan.

But I guess we can all feel sanctimonious and self righteous if public option passes. Never mind that public option health insurance won't do shit for most of the uninsured/underinsured.

[XemaSab]

2. In the 2000 election, did you vote for Ralph Nader or Al Gore?

:shrug:

[PretzelWarrior]

3. Al Gore. I didn't like Ralph Nader one bit.

Despite his rosy sounding talk about cleaning up Washington, there is no way that even if I thought he had a chance of winning I would vote for him because the office of President of United States needs more sound reasoning and stable personality than what Ralph seemed to provide.

[Ken Burch]

13. Ralph's campaign ended up being destructive, but OUR party provoked it.

There wouldn't have BEEN a Green Party in the 90's if Bill Clinton hadn't been obsessed with making the Democratic Party a progressive-free zone. And a democracy-free zone, since no real debate on issues was allowed in the party in those years.

The lesson to be taken from Ralph is, you can't prosper by dissing the base and the activists. "Swing voters" aren't useful if there's nothing left for them to swing to.

Demonizing "Ralph" and those who supported him is an ugly and pointless activity. We're not supposed to be McCarthyites in THIS party.

[MADem]

4. I don't like it because it is an expression that pits factions against each other.

It suggests that the idealists and the pragmatists are "enemies." And they aren't--they simply have different approaches to getting to the same place.

I prefer to take the attitude that the ship of state turns slowly and incrementally, and it carries us ALL along in it's own rather ponderous but steady time, rather than one group berating another group for not "getting with the program" and having to go along/git along with the pragmatists.

[PretzelWarrior]

5. yeah. that's a good way of putting it. I hated how it essentially tells those

who feel a WHOLE solution a bit delayed is better than a partial and ineffective solution right away that they need to readjust their thinking.

We will achieve equilibrium. Whatever is the center point of our needs will be what the Congress ends up doing unless we abdicate our responsibility of stating our needs.

GET VOCAL!

[XemaSab]

7. That's the point of the saying

I first heard this phrase from my man Howard, and I think it's calling a spade a spade here.

It's the pisser about being a liberal. If someone has a plan to provide healthcare to 90% of Americans, or save 90% of the Amazon rainforest, or provide college to 90% of kids, or bring 90% of the troops home, SOMEONE would have a problem with it, ya know? :(

[eridani]

8. I'd have a problem with it. The 10% of people excluded from "coverage"

--would be the actual sick people.

[Ken Burch]

12. I'd love to have the chance to support some proposal that did 90% of the job on ANYTHING

Something. Just once.

We've never been offered anything like that in the last three or four Dem Admins.

And Xema, it was the Clinton people in the Nineties who started that phrase, and when they said it it meant(even in 93-94, when we had a DEMOCRATIC Congress)that progressives should just shut up and the party's base had no right to expect anything, because the ceo's and the finicky "swing voters" in the 'burbs were all that mattered.)

It's bogus to tell people that they have no right to speak up on things that they have concerns with. And nothing good has ever come to this party from the progressive wing being forced to keep silent(as we were in '93-94) because when we ARE silenced, the only people that have a say are those to the right of this party.

[MADem]

15. I always thought the point was "don't fight over the approach" but the tone of it is so damned

didactic that if you're on the "perfect" team you want to slap the living crap out of the "good" crew. As a member of the "good" crew, myself, I want to try to bring those "perfect" people along, not piss them off. I guess that's my objection to it.

I heard it from Howard, too. I know what he means, I just find the phrase a bit irksome.

[Demeter]

17. this proposal doesn't reach 90%, it doesn't reach 9%

You must remember even those now insured are one pink slip away from having no health care whatsoever.

[Jim Sagle]

6. The motto is now "Don't let the good get in the way of the bad, otherwise you'll get even worse."

[Ken Burch]

9. It's not a new saying. The Clintonites used it through the whole Nineties

to silence all dissent. And they STILL blamed the party's left wing for their failures.

[eridani]

10. Nobody ever won a damned thing by asking for "good" first

Demand the perfect, and you might wind up with something good.
Demand the good, and you are likely to get something mediocre.
Ask pretty please for mediocre, and you are guaranteed to wind up with 100% garbage.

[Greyhound]

11. It's not new, it's Voltaire and the quote is, "The perfect is the enemy of the good."

ETA more detail.

From http://www.famous-quotes.net/Quote.aspx?The_perfect_is_the_enemy_of_the_good">Famous Quotes

The original quote in French is "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien.", from Voltaire's Dictionnaire Philosophique (1764) Literally translated as "The best is the enemy of good.", but is more commonly cited as "The perfect is the enemy of the good."

In other words, pursuing the "best" solution may end up doing less actual good than accepting a solution that, while not perfect, is effective. One could also infer that the best makes that which is good seem to be worth less than it is.

[Greyhound]

14. And it rarely applies to politics. It is a cop-out since they always leave out

the part about the good being sufficient or IOW... good.

Politicians use it to sell you a turd salad while trying to convince you that it tastes just fine.

[ashling]

19. As soon as I saw "new" in the OP

I wondered if somebody would make this point.

[cali]

16. New saying? LOL!

and like most such sayings, it has some truth to it. but whatever.