Republicans are for states' rights, except for when they're not. The Los Angeles Times notes

On a party-line vote, a Senate committee approved a bill that would preempt state laws that require insurance policies to cover specific services, such as maternity care and supplies for diabetics.

It's just like how Republicans are for law and order, ethics, character, doing the right thing, honor, personal responsibilty, etc. except for when they're not. Or how they're for holding the president accountable and maintain that the president isn't above the law, except for when they're not. Or how they're for lobbying reform, except for when they're not. Or fiscal restraint, except for when they're not.

See here's the deal, states have the right to discriminate, or not fund education, or to pass laws outlawing abortion or any other law that goes along with the moral outrage du jour of the likes of James Dobson, but states don't have the right to do anything else, especially if doing so might hold multi-national corporations accountable. So much for being the "culture of life" party, because this vote will result in lots of early deaths and lots of suffering. And so much for the hollow talking point about how the free market doesn't "ration" health care. Only the morally bankrupt Republican Party would claim that cutting health care coverage is central to acutally improving it.

Maybe all those flip-flop chants and signs at the 2004 Republican National Convention were really a party slogan? Now, repeat after me "Culture of Life! Culture of Life! Culture of Life!"*

*Unless providing things that make life possible, like maternity care, diabetic supplies, mammograms, vaccinations, etc. would cost our friends sugar daddies in the insurance industry a few extra pennies.
posted by Idle Crank at 3/16/2006 03:59:00 PM