Soviet echoes in the health debate

Discussion Policy

Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Congratulations to the compilers of The Post opinion page on a great juxtaposition of two Nov. 2 columns: "Murderous idealism" by Paul Hollander and "Hearts, minds and health care" by E.J. Dionne Jr..

Among the many reasons for communism's failure in the Soviet Union, Mr. Hollander eloquently identified a main one, "mendacious propaganda, which amounted to the routine misrepresentation of reality highlighting the gap between theory and practice." On the other hand, Mr. Dionne concludes that if our representatives don't stop haggling over the health bill, "they will undermine public confidence in the outcome. From now on, they are not simply enacting a bill. They are rolling out a product." I suspect the Dionne quote is not too dissimilar from the old Soviet Union's argument for its propaganda.

Democracy is messy, and I am not interested in our representatives "rolling out a product" that will bolster citizen confidence. It sounds too much like mendacious propaganda to me.

Robert K. Young, Alexandria