After all this time, I thought I had understood the basic platforms of each of Missouri’s and the nation’s two political parties. Recent events, however, have shaken those long-earned beliefs.
When the whack jobs in Jefferson City decided “privacy concerns” were more important than people dying of opioid overdoses, St. Louis County, which takes in the city of Eureka, started its own prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) in 2016 and invited other counties and cities to join. So far, 14 have, including St. Charles County and Ste. Genevieve County.
The Jefferson County Council, which is made up of six Republicans and one Democrat, has been dragging its feet on joining a PDMP. Missouri is the only state in the union not to have one, presumably because conservatives in the Legislature have “privacy concerns.”
Translation? We don’t want nobody coming for our guns. Amazingly, during the dragged-on debate, the Jefferson County Council invited a county commissioner from Monroe County to explain why PDMPs are a conspiracy to do just that.
How gun-grabbing relates to PDMP, whose goal is to slow down doctor shopping for prescriptions and maybe make a dent in the deadly opioid overdose epidemic, seems to be a tortured path. That guy from Monroe County and like-minded legislators in our state capital must know something every other state doesn’t know.
The Jefferson County Council has been debating (stalling) whether to join since November. Ste. Genevieve, by contrast, agreed in principle to join after 10 minutes of discussion.
Outgoing Jefferson County District 3 Councilman and Assessor-elect Bob Boyer has now introduced a new ordinance with “safeguards” that apparently will be debated for a while. Perhaps Boyer, who puts the T in Tea Party, wants to stall the vote at least until he leaves the council in September to take over as assessor.
The council was supposed to move ahead with its first ordinance, one way or the other, at the April 10 meeting, which has now been pushed to April 24.
Meanwhile, we report opioid overdoses and deaths nearly on a weekly basis. But, hey, what’s the hurry?
Republicans confuse me. They are so concerned with privacy rights, yet every year they fall all over themselves trying to pass a voter ID bill in Jefferson City to solve a problem that doesn’t exist – massive, systemic voter fraud.
What it really does is discourage minorities and poor people (who typically support Democrats) from voting. Making it harder for them to vote easily trumps Republican philosophy on privacy.
On the national level, Congressional Republicans last week voted to undo consumer privacy protections to make it easier for internet service providers (typically phone or cable companies) to sell our browsing habits and other personal information.
We pay these companies for service, so let’s make it easier to turn around and sell our private information to somebody else?
Again, allegiance to titans of industry overrides an alleged commitment to privacy.
Democrats confuse me, too.
They are all for free speech, but are just as intolerant of opposing views as the Republicans. In their women’s protest marches shortly after President Trump’s inauguration, all women were invited to unite and march, but only pro-choice advocates were allowed to speak at the rallies.
Free speech and sisterhood – so long as you agree with our issues.
Wasn’t it just last year that the Democrats went nuts when Republicans wouldn’t even consider President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, for the U.S. Supreme Court? Now, they are urging lockstep opposition to the current nominee, Neil Gorsuch.
Both men have the experience, intelligence and background that seem to qualify them, so what’s the deal?
It’s because just as Barack Obama, in Republican eyes, couldn’t order breakfast correctly, now Democrats are just as dug in to oppose anything Donald Trump suggests, touches or even thinks. He’s always automatically wrong.
At least it is a common approach by both sides, a bizarre form of agreement in a world where agreement is not allowed: “If he suggests/nominates/says something, we’re against it.”
The merits of any idea, nomination, bill or action are absolutely ignored. The only thing that matters is identifying which side came up with it so that the other side can condemn it.
Even those of us in the hinterlands who think we are reasonable bear some of the responsibility – we elected these clowns.
Imagine a school, city hall or business that divided itself so absolutely. Sides are determined; the only rules are that the other side is wrong 100 percent of the time and that cooperation and compromise are forbidden.
How would that work, in a school, town or business, or at your dinner table (“No way am I passing you the potatoes!”)? So how stupid is it that it is the model for state and national government?
It’s totally stupid, of course, and leads to easy examples of blatant hypocrisy such as “privacy concerns,” free-speech-so-long-as-we-agree and ridiculous obstruction on qualified judicial nominees.
That third political party is looking better and better.
It could be like the peace-making middle child who can talk with both older and younger feuding siblings.
The Middle Child Party. The idea is still intriguing, but the name might need a little work.
