I’ve often noted that the Republican party plays a cynical game with their religious right base. They tell them about what they’d do to stop gay marriage, abortion, and the like and then when Republican majorities are elected the most they do is chip at the margins of these issues because they know how far out of the mainstream those absolutist positions are.

I’ve also said that the Democrats risk ruin if they were elected into power without enacting health care reform, because the base of the party has demanded it so strongly.

Done.

The chairman of the Democratic caucus in the House says his party has the 216 votes needed to pass President Barack Obama’s historic health care bill.

Speaking Sunday on ABC’s ‘This Week,’ Connecticut Rep. John Larson said, in his words, ‘We have the votes now — as we speak.’

One of the ideas that Glenn Beck cultists and Tea Party attendees have championed in the last year or so is the perfection of the founding fathers. It’s a convenient trope for people who are – after supporting eight years of Bush – suddenly very concerned at the supposed harm Obama and the Democrats are doing to the constitution.

Putting aside that fantasy (Obama and the Dems have hewed probably too close to the old way of doing things than anything, allowing GOP procedural roadblocks to work in concert with the whims of conservative Democrats to halt the legislative process), the fetishism of the founders ignores important history.

Were they brave and bold, standing up to the British Empire and declaring independence? Absolutely. And the form of government they championed turns out to be among the world’s best and most durable (I would say the best).

But America was flawed at the founding. These brave and brilliant men owned other human beings and kept the levers of power away from women and those who weren’t wealthy landowners. From its inception the reality of America has not lived up to the ideals laid out in its founding documents.

Our history has been a constant struggle of moving towards the realization of that goal. But we do a disservice to our history when we act as if the America the founders created was perfect at its conception. It ignores the struggles of those who improved upon the founder’s foundations, and the strides we’ve made – progressive strides – towards a better America.

The founders were great men. The likes of which the world had never seen. And we were lucky for them to intersect at that time and that place. But they were men, not gods, and imperfect.

remember the Nazis called themselves the National Socialist Party

Whenever somebody writes this, you should instantly stop reading what they wrote. Because whoever writes something like that has no clue. The Nazis weren’t socialists. They hated socialists. They hated anything to the left of, well, Nazism. When Hitler first assumed power he killed his political opponents – communists, leftists, and actual socialists. The “socialist” in the Nazi party was a name, and no more. It’s like saying that the “United Klans Of America” represents real America because “America” is in the name. It’s absurd. It’s the real world manifestation of Jonah Goldberg/Glenn Beck history mangling and people who use it are either being deceptive or (more likely) stupid enough to believe it.

No matter how you come to it, it’s wrong on about a million levels.