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One Of The Reasons I've Been Interested In The Us Health Care Is That Here Is Something You Can Do, That Could Lift One Of The Largest Burdens Of Worry From The Shoulders Of Tens Of Millions Of People For Whom The Rest Of The Economy Isn't Working. A Lot Of The Things That Are In Obamacare That Republicans Don't Like Were Deliberately Put There To Force Republicans To Negotiate. Republicans Wouldn't Negotiate, So We Got Obamacare With All Of The Fur On It. Once It's There, Of Course, It's Very Hard To Take Health Care Benefits Away From People, As The Republicans Discovered.

-David Frum

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One Of The Reasons

David Frum

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One Of The Reasons I've Been Interested In The Us Health Care Is That Here Is Something You Can Do, That Could Lift One Of The Largest Burdens Of Worry From The Shoulders Of Tens Of Millions Of People For Whom The Rest Of The Economy Isn't Working. A Lot Of The Things That Are In Obamacare That Republicans Don't Like Were Deliberately Put There To Force Republicans To Negotiate. Republicans Wouldn't Negotiate, So We Got Obamacare With All Of The Fur On It. Once It's There, Of Course, It's Very Hard To Take Health Care Benefits Away From People, As The Republicans Discovered.

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Crown Prince Rupprecht, The Heir To The Throne Of Bavaria Who Commanded The Army Group Facing The British At The Somme, Was The Senior Direct Lineal Heir Of James Stuart, The Old Pretender Of 1715. Had There Been Any Jacobites Left In Britain In 1916, They Would Have Had To Regard This South German Prince As Their Rightful King.

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I Am Not A Person Of The Left. But One Of The Things, The Central Idea Of Democracy Is That You Have A Bigger Investment In The System As A Whole Than You Do In Any Particular Outcome.

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Venezuela Has Gone From Being A Democratic Country 15 Years Ago To Being Totally Not A Democracy Today. Usually That De-democratization Doesn't Take The Form Of A Heavy Handed Police State.

The System Has Evolved To Protect Parties From People Like Donald Trump. It Really Is True That People Without Well-established Public Records, Without Proven Capability In Public Service, Without Tested Beliefs And At Least Apparently Under The Influence Of A Foreign Power, Such People Are Screened Out By Major Parties.

Donald Trump Is Behaving In An Extremely Provocative Way Toward China, Having First Cancelled The Tpp And Alienated America's Friends In The Region. Same Thing That He's Authorizing Much Riskier Gambits Against Isis, Having Alienated Many Of America's Allies And Friends In The Region.

More Irishmen Died Fighting For Britain In World War I Than Died Fighting Against Her In All Of Ireland's Bids For Independence Combined.

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Trump Is Not Just Unlike A Republican, He's Unlike A Presidential Candidate. The Whole Elaborate Presidential Process Is Designed To Screen Out People Like Donald Trump. And That Process Broke Down In Ways Quite Unlike Anything In The Recent Experience Of The United States.

Yet When The Hour Of Decision Arrives, It Turns Out That Many Conservatives Care As Little As Ever About Administrative Skill And Executive Accomplishment. Our Party And Our Movement Overwhelmingly Respond To Symbolic Cues. Sarah Palin Is Exciting And Appealing. But What Kind Of Executive Is She? None Of Us Have Even The Remotest Idea.

The Big Winners Under The American Fiscal System Are The Rich, Who Pay Some Of The Lowest Taxes Anywhere In The World; The Old, Who Are The Main Beneficiaries Of The American Social Service State; Farmers, Rural People. These Are Republican Constituencies.

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We're Not Free Because Other People Are Nice, Maybe Other People Aren't Nice That Day. We're Free Because We Expect The Institutions Of Government To Work Impersonally. That We Expect People In Government To Understand They Don't Work For The President Or The Prime Minister, They Work For The Government. And The Government Is Always There.

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Upward Mobility

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Asking Questions

A Generation Ago, Or Two, When There Were Three Channels, Plus Pbs, And When You Needed - When You Needed 15 Million People To Make A Living, The Media Could Focus On The Broad Country. And Most People Had No Choice About Getting Political Information. It Was There At 6:30 Whether You Wanted It Or Not.

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So Little Of What Makes A Democracy Work Is Written Down. So Much Of It Is Just The Things You Don't Do. There Are A Lot Of Things That A Prime Minister Or A President Can Do And They Don't Do Them Because It Never Occurs To Them To Do Them.

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