America needs *you.* Now! [UPDATE 3]

This week is a critical week in the life of modern America. By the end of the week, Obamacare will either be on the books or in the ashcan. For America—and for the world that relies on American medical innovation—this is the week that really matters.

How close is it?  According to Paul Hsieh, in an email posted at Thrutch, it’s so close that the Democrats are actually “a few votes shy of the majority they need”!  So after all the shouting and hollering, why are they taking the risk this week of putting it to the vote when they’re not even sure they have enough votes? Because, says Hsieh,

    the Democrats are … (correctly) concluding that time is not on their side. They have made the calculation that if they push for it now, then maybe then can squeeze out the last few votes via a combination of threats and bribes...
   “On the other hand they recognize that if they wait much longer, then when these wavering Congressmen go back home for the Easter recess, they will get an earful from their constituents who are strongly opposed to the bill, and they'll lose even more support.”

So if they delay, they will fail.  If they don’t delay, they might fail.  On this calculation has Nancy Pelosi taken the bill to the house this week to get it passed. She hopes.

It’s your job, my American friends, to see that it doesn’t. To make sure that her hopes are dashed. Gird your loins now and take heart from the fact that, as Paul says, for both sides this is now or never.

Pelosi’s peremptory action shows that, no matter how much of a brave face she puts on it, you--her opponents--are winning. So keep the pressure on.  Write to your congressman. Tell your friends to write to their congressman.  And don’t just write: phone, fax, and e-mail too--and more than once.

What to tell them? Take Paul’s advice:

    If you need intellectual ammunition for them, one of my personal favorites is from the AFCM website:
    "Fifty Fallacies About Health Care" by Richard Ralston
    http://afcm.org/fallacies.html
    Jared Rhoads' Lucidicus Project also has a good set of OpEds:
    http://lucidicus.org/editorials/archive.php
    And of course, FIRM has its archive of articles/OpEds:
    http://westandfirm.org/articles.html
    “. . . This is the endgame, folks. Most political observers regard the health care bill as a 50-50 ‘toss-up’ or ‘too close to call.’ It really could go either way. What happens this week will set the course of this great country (for good or for ill) for decades to come.
    “Your voice could be the critical difference in swaying the right one or two minds. If you value your lives and your freedom, the time to speak up is *now*!”

Do it.

UPDATE 1:  From the New Clarion: We Deem Thee… LAW!

    The Democrats are intent on passing their health care reform even if it kills them. There is currently some question as to whether or not Nancy Pelosi has the votes to pass the Senate bill in the House. But the Dems have figured out a postmodern solution to this problem: pass the bill without a vote… Not reading a bill is old news. Now the House can pass a bill without even voting on it! 
“This postmodern logic fits with Nancy Pelosi’s reasoning on why we need this bill:

But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.’”

UPDATE 2: Oops.  Amit was posting Paul Hsieh’s call to arms. Corrected now.

UPDATE 3: Talking with a friend about the motivation for what looks like a doomed Dems’ bayonet charge, rushing blindly ahead with virtually no prospect of success, we both drew the comparison with the tunnel crash in Atlas. Anyone else see it that way?