A situation where you have 9 esteemed judges...and 5 of them vote for something...and 4 of them vote against it...

Well, that's a situation where it does become a legally established position. But...people can also argue against it forever, because how strong is the position of an opinion of 5 informed people over 4 informed people?

Sounds kind of like the average election victory...only that's more like 5 of the uninformed over 4 of the uninformed. ;-) And people argue over that forever too.

American doesn't need to become America to get a decent health care system. It needs to become Sweden or France or Norway. That's not going to happen, though, so never mind.

What I'm saying above has nothing to do with being either for or against Obama. Nor does it have anything to do with supporting the conservative position or, God forbid, cheering on the Republicans. I loathe the Republicans.

Obamacare, however, has mostly been a government give-away to the private health insurance sector rather than the kind of progressive health care plan one might have hoped for, based on the hopes people had for Obama when he was elected.

You'd almost think the private health insurance care sector wrote the plan! ;-) Well, maybe they did. Maybe that was the real plan all along. You know what I call Obama's form of Democratism? Stealth Republicanism! It accomplishes what the Republicans would, if in office, but not so anyone seems to notice...because people go by outer labels, not by reality. If their "team" is winning, they're happy, even while the stadium burns down around them.

NDAA, for instance...that is an even more draconian assault on the civil rights of Americans than Bush's Patriot Act was. It is unconstitutional. Even Bush couldn't get away with something like that, but it's just the kind of thing he would have done if he could have gotten away with it. Most people didn't even seem to notice when Obama got it passed while they were celebrating New Year's last January.

The Republicans didn't notice (except for Ron Paul). Hell, it's the kind of thing they would have done anyway. The Democrats didn't notice...because Obama did it, and he's a "good guy". So it must be okay, whatever it is, right?

That's what I call stealth Republicanism. Or fascism. You've really got only one political party down there, you just haven't figured it out yet. If you could vote out the big banks, you might then be able to do something about changing that. Maybe. Unless they declared martial law, and started "disappearing" the people who didn't like it.