What's fun is to read the noise of the rich who post here, who appear to believe that their income is due only to their own efforts, that they would have received the same rewards if they lived alone in a howling wilderness.

What is satisfying is to know that there's a great change coming. Oh, not revolution as they fear. Nope. What's coming is the complete overthrow of our economy as we know it--an overthrow that will come from within.

What will an economy look like in which no one has to work in order to have most things? What will an economy look like in which only a few services are really valuable and can't be duplicated by easily-duplicated technology? I don't know, but I do know it will look nothing like today's.

And this economy is not far away. When it comes, virtually all the rich today will be the same as everybody else tomorrow. It should be a great spectacle. Pass the popcorn!

You note "the darker corners of conservatism."

Where is there light? Whenever I turn to see what conservatives believe (as vs think), I see unrelieved ignorance, bigotry, foolishness, and the most puerile arguments imaginable being given voice.

Pray, tell us, where is there light amongst the conservatives of today?

But if its high quality care for a low price, say goodbye to private insurance

Quelle horreur!

We have "socialized military protection." Seems to work pretty well. For the most part we have "socialized highways." They work pretty well, too. Most people have "socialized water," "socialized mail service," and even, gasp, "socialized education."

Some things should be socialized. Health care (not "health insurance," which is a bogus, and different, issue) should be one of them.

Or have people not really looked as to where the US ranks in terms of, say, life expectancy and infant mortality, amongst industrialized nations?

Japan, Canada, France, and the UK all do better with life expectancy than the US.

Cuba does better than the US--according to the CIA Fact Book!

How awful! We might get better than Cuba!

Sorry: Cuba does better than us in terms of infant morality, not life expectancy.

However, Bosnia does better than the US in terms of life expectancy....

Yes indeedy, I'm lovin' it when the Right comes on these letters columns and whines and complains that you're actually covering their members, actually telling America what the Right believes.

Because it reveals them to be crazy motherfuckers, and they can't stand that.

Keep it up, Salon!

A debate involves at least two parties who present informed points of view, and discuss them and refute them, as possible, in a relatively rational way.

There's no "debate" about health insurance reform (this is not about health care) in this country.

There are people who are agin' it.

There are people who are for it, and who discuss the various possibilities rationally.

The people who are agin' it carry guns and shout at the tops of theirs voices.

These people will never be won over. They won't be convinced. They won't even speak in indoor voices.

Forget 'em. If they show up with guns, arrest them (on the grounds of disturbing the peace, inciting to riot, whatever you like--people who bring guns to a townhall should be arrested; they're deliberately intimidating others). Don't try and hold a dialogue, conversation, or debate with 'em. Ain't gonna happen.

We should move ahead and demand single-payer now. Period.

I'm hoping that BHO is smarter than the Republicans. Here's what I would do if I were him:

1) Spend a summer "wasted" trying to openly seek bipartisanship and rational debate.

2) Let the crazies come out of the woodwork. Let it be clearly seen that the Republicans are interested only in destruction, not in addressing the issues of the country. (Yea Tom Ridge!)

3) After Labor Day, and some discrete Blue Dog arm twisting, let the American people know that the Republicans are liars and crazies.

4) Pass single payer.

By the way, please stop calling the death panels a "myth." It implies that it sort of sprang up spontaneously, that the Republicans were out in their back yards one day and found it in a fairy ring.

It's a lie: a deliberate, no-holds-barred, crazier than a loon lie. It does no good to be polite. Be truthful. The GOP is stuffed to seams bursting with crazy liars.

Don't call these things "myths!"

They're not myths--they're lies.

Call them what they are. Don't soften it.

Say it with me, Alex: McCaughey is lying. She and other Republican shills are liar. "Death panels" is a pernicious, deliberate, lie.

There now. Don't we all feel better for airing the truth?

Why can't the press do it?

The press is tied to two things: first, they argue, "There's two sides to every story (and we can't tell you where the truth is)."

Of course, this is out-and-out bullshit. There aren't two sides to every story; there are dozens of sides. The press is too lazy, and thinks we're too stupid, to sort through it all. So they simplify.

And to point out actual lies (even Salon won't point out lies--they call 'em "myths")--takes balls. It takes the embrace of the fact that when you point out how somebody is lying, they won't come back; your sources will dry up; they won't buy you dinner anymore.

The press is too enamored of being part of the power structure, too afraid to lose the "access" they have, even if access means that they're not doing their job.

Stewart doesn't care. If McCaughey never again appears on his show...he doesn't care. If the Republicans stop giving him access...he doesn't care. He's not enamored of the power structure (save for Brian Williams; he likes Williams way too much). He has courage, and he's not looking out for a "career."

Would that people who profess to be journalists had half his courage and half his smarts. Instead, they care way too much about those steak dinners with power brokers.