“Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

[Lex]

Is this foolish, or good advice? I just keep thinking about that quote as this HCR unfolds and I'm reading the threads here at DU.

[dkf]

1. Sometimes the imperfect leads you to disaster

In that case the imperfect IS the enemy of the good.

[northernlights]

2. more like don't let the decent be the enemy of the shitty nt

[katandmoon]

3. It's a classic copout statement. When you hear someone say this, you know they've copped out.

[Lex]

9. Really? Wow.

Did. not. know. that.

[Marr]

4. The bad is also the enemy of the good. n/t

[readmoreoften]

5. How about "selling the entire nation to insurers" is the enemy of the good,

even if it ameliorates conditions for a small few. If, in the long run, it does more harm than good, then it isn't good.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. "A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be....

"A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice." Thomas Paine

[tabbycat31]

7. the perfect would be single payer

try getting that through the Senate.

There is some good in this bill-- it lets young adults remain on their parents coverage longer (I was cut off on my 22nd birthday), it expands funding for community health centers, and ends some of the insurance companies' worst practices. THat all is good.

Whether you like it or not this is the most that the federal government has done on health care since Medicare was passed in 1965 (15 years before I was born). Medicare was fixed down the road and I believe this legislation will be too. I spoke with Rush Holt (D-NJ) this week and he thinks that this will be the same thing and that we'll have single payer one day. He said that Americans are very stubborn and when all else fails they will see what works for the rest of the world and adapt it.

[Lex]

10. I was hoping for single payer too.

But not sure the Dems would all be on board for that. Not yet anyway.

[Edweird]

11. 1) All the 'whipping' was done to move the 'left' further 'right'.

They could have passed anything if the 'whipping' was on the 'right' to move them 'left'. That's not what the admin wanted. Hence the 'inclusion of republican ideas' when not one will vote for it.

2) To get to 'when all else fails', things have to fail. This props up the onerous punitive system for quite some time. To move forward, the current system has to be done away with, not subsidized.

[Edweird]

8. "Don't let the good be the enemy of the Newt Gingrich".

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7971607

[Bluenorthwest]

12. I tell you this.

When we ask good people to endure slurs, being spit upon, taunted in public, we should always make sure that they are enduring such things for the most perfect possible policy. I don't like seeing people get spit on for 'half a loaf', for a bill no one is really happy about. Like sending people to war for less than excellent reasons. It is just not right. We should and must in future do better.

[Lex]

13. If this isn't the starting point

for a complete overhaul then I'll be sorely disappointed. But maybe I'm a naive, glass-half-full kind of person.

Case in point: DADT policy in the military. I think it will eventually be overturned altogether (it better!), but it was a half-way measure, a compromise.

[metapunditedgy]

14. It's just a meaningless slogan. The same people who spout it now will say the opposite

at another time when it benefits them.

The real questions are, what is the right thing to do at this point?

AND How will we punish those who have opposed the right thing?

[Lex]

15. Actually, it's Voltaire. nt

[metapunditedgy]

16. I would have expected more from him. :-) It's meaningless out of context.

You hear people saying that to justify all sorts of things, and then turning around to take the "high ground" in the next instance when it benefits them. Ignore the slogan and evaluate the issues on their own merits.