So This is How Liberty Dies…With Thunderous Applause

As I watch the Democrats cheer and applaud this atrocity of a bill supposedly only about health care, I can’t help but think of one of the greatest movie quotes of all time:

Now, obviously not everyone was applauding this terrible bill. Far from it. Thanks to so many who have done a great service to this country, like conservatives in the media and in Congress, the American people were informed about this bill and it’s implications. This entire process was filled with deception and shrouded in darkness from beginning to end. Americans revolted against the the substance and the way it was crafted. Most of us acknowledge that health care in the United States needs some reform – this is anything but. Anyone who thinks Republicans don’t have ideas of their own and didn’t offer them need only look at Mitt Romney’s efforts in Massachusetts and the many ideas and bills presented by Republicans which were all soundly rejected. Mitt Romney wasn’t contacted even once by any of the Democrats in Congress in regards to Mitt’s experiences in reforming healthcare in Massachusetts. In spite of what has transpired, I haven’t felt this hopeful and proud of the Republican Party in years. The GOP is on the verge of finally becoming the party so many of us want them to be.

Top speeches of the day go to Paul Ryan:

Dave Camp:

Mike Pence:

Eric Cantor:

and John Boehner:

Absent of all the backroom deals we will inevitably find out about in the future, the ones we already know about, and the ones we might never know about, this bill would never have been passed. I’ll give Nancy Pelosi this – she is the best arm twister I have ever witnessed. However, that is where my compliments of that disgrace to our country ends. She is reportedly the primary reason Republicans were completely shut out of the process. Some Democrats were willing and actually wanted to work with Republicans on this issue, but Pelosi stood in the way of those efforts.

That, and so many other reasons, is why it’s time to fire Pelosi! She is one of the largest obstacles to bipartisanship and good government in Washington.

To the millions of us who tried to let Congress know how we felt about this bill, we can hold our heads high and know that we didn’t stand idly by as our country took another major step away from what our Founding Fathers envisioned for this great land. Several items related to health care are still to be acted on, but the major hurdle has been crossed. The states may still revolt against this and the Supreme Court may ultimately deem it unconstitutional, but we may also have to wait until 2012 when we have a better president and a conservative Congress to overturn this bill. The fight isn’t over. We still have our right to vote which we will exercise in November. Let us all pledge to each other right now that we will not forget what happened with this bill. Let’s pledge to hold our own representatives accountable and do what we can to educate others on what has transpired!

The United States of America was designed to have and needs an educated and engaged electorate in order to function properly. The American people are the ones who elected all members of Congress. Regardless of which party they are in, every elected official must be held to account for corruption. It’s not too late to bring America back, but conservative change begins with us!

UPDATE:
From Mitt Romney 3/22/2010

A Campaign Begins Today

America has just witnessed an unconscionable abuse of power. President Obama has betrayed his oath to the nation — rather than bringing us together, ushering in a new kind of politics, and rising above raw partisanship, he has succumbed to the lowest denominator of incumbent power: justifying the means by extolling the ends. He promised better; we deserved better.

He calls his accomplishment “historic” — in this he is correct, although not for the reason he intends. Rather, it is an historic usurpation of the legislative process — he unleashed the nuclear option, enlisted not a single Republican vote in either chamber, bribed reluctant members of his own party, paid-off his union backers, scapegoated insurers, and justified his act with patently fraudulent accounting. What Barack Obama has ushered into the American political landscape is not good for our country; in the words of an ancient maxim, “what starts twisted, ends twisted.”

His health-care bill is unhealthy for America. It raises taxes, slashes the more private side of Medicare, installs price controls, and puts a new federal bureaucracy in charge of health care. It will create a new entitlement even as the ones we already have are bankrupt. For these reasons and more, the act should be repealed. That campaign begins today.

— Mitt Romney is the former governor of Massachusetts and author of No Apology.