MAJOR LEGISLATIVE BREAKTHROUGHS ARE ALWAYS CONTROVERSIAL

[WI_DEM]

MAJOR LEGISLATIVE BREAKTHROUGHS ARE ALWAYS CONTROVERSIAL.... Americans now consider programs like Medicare bedrocks of our society, but it was not always thus.

Dem leadership staff is highlighting a series of numbers from 1962 on President John F. Kennedy's proposal. In July of that year, a Gallup poll found 28% in favor, 24% viewing it unfavorably, and a sizable 33% with no opinion on it -- showing an evenly divided public.

A month later, after JFK's proposal went down, an Opinion Research Corporation poll found 44 percent said it should have been passed, while 37% supported its defeat -- also showing an evenly divided public.

Also in that poll, a majority, 54%, said it was a serious problem that "government medical insurance for the aged would be a big step toward socialized medicine."

The point, as Greg Sargent emphasized, is that "passing dramatic, history-making reform in the face of intense organized opposition has never been politically easy."

In 1935, Republican opponents of Social Security insisted that Roosevelt's "socialistic" plan would, among other things, force all Americans to wear dog tags. Not quite a half-century ago, conservative critics of Medicare seriously argued, in public, that the law would empower bureaucrats to dictate where physicians could practice medicine, and open the door to government control over where all Americans were allowed to live. Around the same time, many opponents of the Civil Rights Act believed the fabric of America was being torn apart by the legislation.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_03/022891.php

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Did you watch Ken Burns' national park documentary?

There was enormous opposition to the formation of every single park, now everybody loves them.

[WI_DEM]

2. Yes, I did--very true!

[HeresyLives]

3. Yeah, happens everytime.

'The end of civilization as we know it', and then soon thereafter accepted as normal and forgotten.