I'M BACK! New posts coming soon!

After 15 months, I'm finally going to hop back into the blogging saddle. An apt analogy, as this forum has most likely withered during the dearth of the past year with no fresh posts or comments. Perhaps I will now find myself a lone cowboy, riding by myself across the desert of this now dry blog. Yet ride I will, and hopefully encounter a few souls along the way who may enjoy an occasional read on this blog. If you do wander this way on occasion, please leave a comment or two letting me know that there is indeed some life in the desert of my posts. Do not feel, however, any obligation to read or comment on this blog. I compose these posts primarily to hone my research and writing skills, and now that I am several years removed from college, I do not want these abilities to wither as this blog has. Using this forum as a tool, I hope to continue to develop skills that will not only benefit myself, but hopefully others as well as I strive to conduct meaningful research concerning pertinent issues, and offer a commentary--sometimes objective, sometimes quite subjective--that sparks a flame of curiosity in one of you who read this blog. If this spark inspires you to seek out knowledge or aides in broadening your understanding of an issue, then I will have served a worthy purpose.

While I cannot promise complete objectivity (who can?), I do promise an open mind, my best efforts at unbiased research, and to never knowingly distort or ignore facts to serve my point of view. I welcome all your comments, and ask only for respect, civility, and your best efforts at truth as well. I know at times one of us may share facts later disproved, or repeat research that may, unbeknownst to us, be faulty. In such cases, humility is all we can offer and move on. Stubbornness is no friend to truth, and no catalyst for a respectful understanding of opposing viewpoints.

Now what posts will soon be here. I am currently working on an article entitled "The Deconstruction of the Myth of the Reagan Myth." During the past 4 months, I have sifted through several books and articles concerning the legacy of Ronald Reagan. A small but growing voice is giving rise to the idea of the "Myth of Ronald Reagan." There is truth to some of their claims, to be sure. On the other side, there are those to whom Reagan was an infallible God who graciously descended from his throne to grace us with his perfection (the eerie parallels to our current Messianic President already ooze through). I am seeking to balance the argument and point out flaws on both sides. Hopefully, a clearer understanding of our 40th President and his accomplishments will emerge. Another point this article will illustrate is the politics of history, and how current events shape people's understanding of the past and, in too many but always extreme cases, how present day selectivists will sift through historical fact and only acknowledge that which is pertinent to their particular partisan position.

Thank you, one and all....perhaps only one.....who have taken a few minutes of your time to visit this forum. I invite you to share comments or even suggestions for topics you wish to address. Please enhance the quality of this forum with your thoughts, feelings, and knowledge. It will not only aide in establishing a quality and inspiring dialogue, but help this forum expand beyond a mere parroting of ideas that float around in my head.

Why Martin Luther King Was a Republican

First, let me say thank you Dr. King for showing us how to be dedicated to a cause without violence, and for illustrating the power of peaceful persistence when your cause is just. Thank you for showing us that revolutions are possible without organizied conflict and a new birth of thinking and understanding doesn't always have to rise from a pool of blood.

With that said, I am going to reprint an article here written in 2006 by Frances Rice, chairman of the National Black Republican Association. She reminds us of many truths that simply don't mesh with the democrats version of history. They often forget that history is the event that precedes the interpretation, and regardless of how you twist the interpretation of an event to serve your agenda the facts surrounding the actual event do not change.

It should come as no surprise that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican. In that era, almost all black Americans were Republicans. Why? From its founding in 1854 as the anti-slavery party until today, the Republican Party has championed freedom and civil rights for blacks. And as one pundit so succinctly stated, the Democrat Party is as it always has been, the party of the four S's: slavery, secession, segregation and now socialism.

It was the Democrats who fought to keep blacks in slavery and passed the discriminatory Black Codes and Jim Crow laws. The Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan to lynch and terrorize blacks. The Democrats fought to prevent the passage of every civil rights law beginning with the civil rights laws of the 1860s, and continuing with the civil rights laws of the 1950s and 1960s.

During the civil rights era of the 1960s, Dr. King was fighting the Democrats who stood in the school house doors, turned skin-burning fire hoses on blacks and let loose vicious dogs. It was Republican President Dwight Eisenhower who pushed to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and sent troops to Arkansas to desegregate schools. President Eisenhower also appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren to the U.S. Supreme Court, which resulted in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision ending school segregation. Much is made of Democrat President Harry Truman's issuing an Executive Order in 1948 to desegregate the military. Not mentioned is the fact that it was Eisenhower who actually took action to effectively end segregation in the military.

Democrat President John F. Kennedy is lauded as a proponent of civil rights. However, Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil Rights Act while he was a senator, as did Democrat Sen. Al Gore Sr. And after he became President, Kennedy was opposed to the 1963 March on Washington by Dr. King that was organized by A. Phillip Randolph, who was a black Republican. President Kennedy, through his brother Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy, had Dr. King wiretapped and investigated by the FBI on suspicion of being a Communist in order to undermine Dr. King.

In March of 1968, while referring to Dr. King's leaving Memphis, Tenn., after riots broke out where a teenager was killed, Democrat Sen. Robert Byrd (W.Va.), a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, called Dr. King a "trouble-maker" who starts trouble, but runs like a coward after trouble is ignited. A few weeks later, Dr. King returned to Memphis and was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

Given the circumstances of that era, it is understandable why Dr. King was a Republican. It was the Republicans who fought to free blacks from slavery and amended the Constitution to grant blacks freedom (13th Amendment), citizenship (14th Amendment) and the right to vote (15th Amendment). Republicans passed the civil rights laws of the 1860s, including the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Reconstruction Act of 1867 that was designed to establish a new government system in the Democrat-controlled South, one that was fair to blacks. Republicans also started the NAACP and affirmative action with Republican President Richard Nixon's 1969 Philadelphia Plan (crafted by black Republican Art Fletcher) that set the nation's fist goals and timetables. Although affirmative action now has been turned by the Democrats into an unfair quota system, affirmative action was begun by Nixon to counter the harm caused to blacks when Democrat President Woodrow Wilson in 1912 kicked all of the blacks out of federal government jobs.

Few black Americans know that it was Republicans who founded the Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Unknown also is the fact that Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen from Illinois was key to the passage of civil rights legislation in 1957, 1960, 1964 and 1965. Not mentioned in recent media stories about extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is the fact that Dirksen wrote the language for the bill. Dirksen also crafted the language for the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which prohibited discrimination in housing. President Lyndon Johnson could not have achieved passage of civil rights legislation without the support of Republicans.

Critics of Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater, who ran for President against Johnson in 1964, ignore the fact that Goldwater wanted to force the Democrats in the South to stop passing discriminatory laws and thus end the need to continuously enact federal civil rights legislation.

Those who wrongly criticize Goldwater also ignore the fact that Johnson, in his 4,500 State of the Union Address delivered on Jan. 4, 1965, mentioned scores of topics for federal action, but only 35 words were devoted to civil rights. He did not mention one word about voting rights. Then in 1967, showing his anger with Dr. King's protest against the Vietnam War, Johnson referred to Dr. King as "that Nigger preacher."

Contrary to the false assertions by Democrats, the racist "Dixiecrats" did not all migrate to the Republican Party. "Dixiecrats" declared that they would rather vote for a "yellow dog" than vote for a Republican because the Republican Party was know as the party for blacks. Today, some of those "Dixiecrats" continue their political careers as Democrats, including Robert Byrd, who is well known for having been a "Keagle" in the Ku Klux Klan.

Another former "Dixiecrat" is former Democrat Sen. Ernest Hollings, who put up the Confederate flag over the state Capitol when he was the governor of South Carolina. There was no public outcry when Democrat Sen. Christopher Dodd praised Byrd as someone who would have been "a great senator for any moment," including the Civil War. Yet Democrats denounced then-Senate GOP leader Trent Lott for his remarks about Sen. Strom Thurmond (R.-S.C.). Thurmond was never in the Ku Klux Klan and defended blacks against lynching and the discriminatory poll taxes imposed on blacks by Democrats. If Byrd and Thurmond were alive during the Civil War, and Byrd had his way, Thurmond would have been lynched.

The 30-year odyssey of the South switching to the Republican Party began in the 1970s with President Richard Nixon's "Southern Strategy," which was an effort on the part of Nixon to get Christians in the South to stop voting for Democrats who did not share their values and were still discriminating against their fellow Christians who happened to be black. Georgia did not switch until 2002, and some Southern states, including Louisiana, are still controlled by Democrats.

Today, Democrats, in pursuit of their socialist agenda, are fighting to keep blacks poor, angry and voting for Democrats. Examples of how egregiously Democrats act to keep blacks in poverty are numerous.

After wrongly convincing black Americans that a minimum wage increase was a good thing, the Democrats on August 3 kept their promise and killed the minimum wage bill passed by House Republicans on July 29. The blockage of the minimum wage bill was the second time in as many years that Democrats stuck a legislative finger in the eye of black Americans. Senate Democrats on April 1, 2004, blocked passage of a bill to renew the 1996 welfare reform law that was pushed by Republicans and vetoed twice by President Clinton before he finally signed it. Since the welfare reform law expired in September 2002, Congress had passed six extensions, and the latest expired on June 30, 2004. Opposed by the Democrats are school choice opportunity scholarships that would help black children get out of failing schools and Social Security reform, even though blacks on average lose $10,000 in the current system because of a shorter life expectancy than whites (72.2 years for blacks vs. 77.5 years for whites).

Democrats have been running our inner-cities for the past 30 to 40 years, and blacks are still complaining about the same problems. More than $7 trillion dollars have been spent on poverty programs since Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty with little, if any, impact on poverty. Diabolically, every election cycle, Democrats blame Republicans for the deplorable conditions in the inner-cities, then incite blacks to cast a protest vote against Republicans.

In order to break the Democrats' stranglehold on the black vote and free black Americans from the Democrat Party's economic plantation, we must shed the light of truth on the Democrats. We must demonstrate that the Democrat Party policies of socialism and dependency on government handouts offer the pathway to poverty, while Republican Party principles of hard work, personal responsibility, getting a good education and ownership of homes and small businesses offer the pathway to prosperity.

---

Ms. Rice is chairman of the National Black Republican Association (NBRA) and may be contacted at www.NBRA.info.

A Few Words For Thought....(and some popular quotes put to the truth meter)

"A wise and frugal Government, shall leave [men] otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government." - Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address. Straight up his own words.

"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." She did indeed speak to this sentiment in the following: Margaret Thatcher, in a TV interview for Thames TV This Week on Feb. 5, 1976, Prime Minister Thatcher said, "...and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They [socialists] always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them."- Margaret Thatcher

"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." - Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto. Marx did use this phrase often, but it originated by another communist, Louis Blanc, in 1840 who phrased it this way to reflect sentiments expressed in French communist Morelly's 1755 work Code of Nature.

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." Many have seen this quote, which isn't entirely accurate. The exact wording is nowhere to be found in Jefferson's works, although the following statement reflects the same sentiment and the previous words may be a rewording of the following: "To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, ‘the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, & the fruits acquired by it.'"- Thomas Jefferson

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." His exact wording is "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"- Benjamin Franklin

"A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have." - Gerald Ford, Aug. 12, 1974, to joint session of Congress (often attributed to Thomas Jefferson, quite often)

"Our aim is to increase our national wealth so all will have more, not just redistribute what we already have, which is just a sharing of scarcity. We can begin to reward hard work and risk-taking, by forcing this government to live within its means. We can leave our children with an unrepayable massive debt and a shattered economy, or we can leave them liberty in a land where every individual has the opportunity to be whatever God intended us to be." - Ronald Reagan, Address to the nation on the economy, February 5, 1981

"The federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government. . . [My intention is] to make government work--work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it. . . It is no coincidence that our present troubles parallel and are proportionate to the intervention and intrusion in our lives that result from unnecessary and excessive growth of government." - Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address

2 Legitimate, Bi-partisan Thoughts

I say bi-partisan for these thoughts because my liberal friends actually agree with me on them. PLUS the reasoning behind them is bi-partisan, even if the reaction arises to blow them off rises from partisan emotions. They are:

1. Obama's initial Fort Hood remarks after the tragedy.
2. Obama's reluctance to trust General McChrystal in Afghanistan.

About point one. On a day of great national tragedy, when Americans are able to look to their President without the partisan spectacles they often have, they seek to hear words of reassurance and comfort. Sure, you can usually predict what those words will be, but you want to hear them nonetheless. So, when Obama's moment comes and network television is interrupted to bring us the breaking address of comfort and mourning, Obama begins to address the nation about....huh? Wait, wasn't there a tragedy? He starts speaking in a broken and uneloquent manner about the treatment of Native Americans? Not to mention an impromptu, casual, and even light-hearted shout out to an audience member. And then after OVER two minutes, he segues into his address on the tragedy mid-sentence while talking about something else! The massacre at Fort Hood didn't even warrant it's own introductory sentence. Can you imagine if FDR had given a shout out to a Senator before uttering that December 7 was a date that would live in infamy? What if Reagan had thrown in a few remarks about our freeway infrastructure before proceeding to address the nation about the Challenger tragedy? Or President Bush grabbing the blowhorn at Ground Zero and hitting up Social Security for a few good comments before declaring that the whole world would hear our resolve. Not only that, but despite the fact that we already knew that the shooter, a Muslim, was shouting "Allah Akbar" while shooting, Obama had the tenacity to tell us to "refrain from judgment," somehow implying that this wasn't an act of terrorism. Okay, well, anybody remember his remarks of July 22 in regard to the arrest of the black professor? Obama had no problem rushing to a judgment later proved completely inaccurate and wrong when he said that the police officers acted "stupidly" when they "had evidence indicating the individual was the home owner." Obama didn't have that evidence, he rushed to judgment, and when his blatant brashness was discovered he was given a "get out of jail free" card by the media who refused to call him on it.

Point two. Bailouts and health care are apparently crisis legislation that have to be rushed to votes so fast that nobody even has time to read them, literally. Votes are demanded not days, but mere hours after the bills are written. I guess Obama forgot his campaign promise of "transparency" in allowing the people 5 days to examine any bill our supposed representatives will be passing. So we know he's prone to quick action and decision in critical situations. Or is he? I guess our troops in Afghanistan aren't critical enough. He's acting as if he's making the decision to start the war--a decision that would rightly demand much thoughtful deliberation over some time. He is not, however, starting this war. It began 8 years ago and our troops have been fighting it actively ever since. This should be a simple decision--your combat commander is telling you what he needs to protect the troops already in harms way as well as what he needs to complete the objectives of the war. Yet what does Obama do? Sit on it. Not only that, but his indecision came during, literally, the bloodiest month of the entire 8 year conflict. More American troops died than any other month while Obama couldn't decide whether to do what their commander knew needed to be done for their protection. Out of 96 combat months in Afghanistan, October was the bloodiest for American troops. And yet he still hasn't reached a decision! Is he vacillating on whether the cause is still worth sending more troops? Have the ones who have already given the ultimate sacrifice done so in vain? If the cause isn't worth more sacrifice, it shouldn't have been worth any to begin with. Obama sends a clear message that health care demands more urgent action than our troops. How do the troops in the field feel--knowing their combat commander, General McChrystal, went to the commander-in-chief to ask for reinforcements that still haven't come? How do they feel on the front lines waiting for relief, looking over their shoulders hoping for support that isn't coming, week after week? Does Obama really think General McChrystal is so incompetent that Obama can't trust him when he asks for more troops? No, Obama needs to consult with his own war council, completely void of any actual representative from the entire operation going on in Afghanistan. Obama needs his Washington bureaucracy to determine the legitimacy of what the man actually in the field of combat is telling everyone.

I guess the people who thought you didn't need any experience as a leader to be President are quickly learning the futility of their naive thinking.

5 Votes....Only 5 Votes....

Out of 435 votes, only 5 made a difference. Five votes were the difference in the House passing the Health Care Reform bill. My heart sank when I saw the news. The past few weeks have been hard for me individually, but this really worsened things. This bill, if it makes it through the Senate, will not be merely forgotten in the coming years as so many bills are. It won't be passed and then lack repercussions down the road. This bill will forever change the very visible face of America. It will directly affect this country and influence the lives of EVERY citizen. Unfortunately, that is just what the Democrats in the government intend. They want to, as President Obama has repeatedly said, "fundamentally change America." Really? Does our country suck so much that we need to fundamentally change it? Fundamentally?! I'm sorry, but unless that change is taking us closer to the Founder's vision then it's taking us farther from it, and I didn't hear ANYONE in all the debates invoke ANY return to ANY principle espoused by the actual creators of this country. What is FUNDAMENTALLY wrong with this country? I genuinely fear for the future of this country. Not a timid fear, not a "gee, I HOPE this doesn't happen, but if it does, oh well" kind of fear. What makes it even worse, even more deceptive, is the fact that they couch all of these revolutionary ideas in warm and fuzzy statements. "Health care for everyone" and blah blah. I'm sorry Machiavelli, but the ends do NOT justify the means when it means mortgaging away your future not to mention the backbone of our great nation that supposedly allows us to live a life free from government interference. I wish for once that more people read this blog, because I honestly want to hear from people who support this bill. How can you support this bill? Why do the means justify the ends? How is it going to work here when it hasn't worked in any other country with socialized healthcare? Obviously it's worked to a degree in other countries, I'm not stupid, but statistically, our healthcare system is ALREADY working better than every other country! Why make it worse?! I know there are issues to be dealt with in the insurance field. There are problems, big ones that need to be addressed. But that does NOT give Congress a blanket pass to fundamentally change the entire system. Fundamental change in one aspect of an industry does not warrant its complete transformation and eventual destruction couched in the pleasant terms of governemnt "assistance" and other such euphemisms. Phrases such as "tax surchage" should not be something anyone wants to hear when talking about a bill that is labeled as over a trillion dollar bill! Let's just "tax surchage" our way to an extra trillion dollars. Does anyone know how much a trillion actually is?! A million seconds is 12 days. A billion seconds is 31 years. A trillion seconds is 31,688 years. (BTW, what happened to those liberals who only recently were complaining about Bush's war spending and the spend happy Republican congress? Obama has already surpassed them in spending in less than a single year!)

I'm done. I'm furious, but more than that, I'm remorseful and discouraged. To think that the dirtiest city in our country is the heart of our country. There is more chicanery, deception, lies, and pure evil in Washington D.C. than any other city in the nation. The city of the people yet the power of the lobbyists. The city of democracy yet the principles of socialism. What goes on in that city is a farce, and one that WE pay for, not only literally with our pocketbooks, but emotionally as well as we suffer the consequences of a ballooning federal government that embroils our lives in yet more red tape, beuracracy, CW3940AB forms to fill out, and less money to earn in our livelihood. The destruction of agency veiled in the cloak of "the greater good" is not right. Government never has been, never will be, and right now is the farghest thing humanly possible from actually being the solution to our problems. Right now this government is the biggest problem this country has ever faced.

I have to end on a positive note. I'm not doing a good job of emulating the optimism that all of my political heroes embraced so well. Although the days of Reagan feel like they were much longer ago than they actually were due to the drastic 180 this country has made and the distance it has fallen from his "city on a hill" vision, that vision is still real. I still believe it. America's best days ARE still ahead of us, not behind us. The federal government may continue to invade the lives of its citizens and strip them of the sovereignty it once granted, but the ideals our Founders envisioned are eternal principles that no politican and no government can ever destroy, even if in the guise of honoring the very republican principles it espouses to ensure.

Cash For Clunkers...How about some Wisdom For Washington?

Isn't it great to have our government pass a program that benefits foreign nations more than our own? I didn't like this program from the beginning, but after reading about some hard core statistics and research that is coming out about it I am really hating it even more. What's up with our government? The only reason people like this program is because they're able to have the tax paying public help subsidize their new car. Who wouldn't like money that comes out of someone else's pocket instead of their own? Anyways, after reading how this program has been of a benefit to foreign automakers, I had a thought quite quickly that seemed pretty obvious to me but, well, you know how Washington is, the obvious is usually wrong because it's not confusing and clouded enough with political rhetoric to hide the majority of truth that politicians don't usually want the public to know about. Anyways, how hard would it have been to put a clause in this bill that specified AMERICAN automakers?! Didn't anyone up on the Hill in DC actually think about that? Specifying that the auto rebate could only be applied to cars made right here in the good 'ol US of A? Heaven forbid we actually do that, because it would require cutting out part of the world market and our new government is more concerned with what the world thinks about us as than they are about simply doing what is most right for the people they supposedly represent. Geez! What great leadership.

Follow the link to a brief article with the stats and some interpretation of them about the Cash For Clunkers program. The article is entitled

'Clunkers' Program Benefits Foreign Automakers More, Data Shows

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/22/clunkers-program-benefits-foreign-automakers-data-shows/?test=latestnews

Good News For Anti-Socialists

A new poll suggests public approval of the way President Barack Obama is handling health care reform is slipping.

The Washington Post-ABC News survey says since April, Obama's approval rating on the issue has declined from 57 percent to 49 percent, with disapproval rising from 29 percent to 44 percent.

The president's overall approval rating stands at 59 percent positive and 37 percent negative. It's the first time Obama's approval rating has fallen below 60 percent in Post-ABC polling since he took office.

Blatant Liberal Double-Standard

Reporting from Washington — President Obama suggested at a town hall event Wednesday night that one way to shave medical costs is to stop expensive and ultimately futile procedures performed on people who are about to die and don't stand to gain from the extra care.

In a nationally televised event at the White House, Obama said families need better information so they don't unthinkingly approve "additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care."

He added: "Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller."

There's an interesting contradiction here. According to the pro-choice perspective, it's outrageous for the state to interfere in a woman's decision to terminate a pregnancy. But it's pragmatic and reasonable for the state to consider terminating a person, if some money can be saved.

Republican Legacy

Some mighty fine company. Nixon's an odd choice, but I personally don't think he was as horrible a President as people tend to think he was. Just a little too paranoid.

Obama's Popularity Plunging

Just fyi, the latest Rasmussen polls that came out show that more Americans disapprove of Obama's job performance than those who approve of the job he's done. 31% of Americans strongly approve of Obama's job performance while 33% strongly disapprove of it. It seems now that reality is setting in and people are finally emerging from the media enduced euphoria that swept them off their feet in proclaiming that the American messiah was come (I guess that idea was debunked when, after 40 days, Obama hadn't ascended to heaven).

Some more info from the poll:

"When we talk about healthcare reform and the proposal the president is talking about, the country is fairly evenly divided. But those who have strong opinions tend to oppose the plan more than support it.

"On the cap-and-trade legislation [to reduce carbon emissions], 42 percent believe it's going to hurt the economy. Only 19 percent believe it's going to help.

"The takeover of General Motors is strongly opposed.

"Right now those things are weighing the president down. What's going to tell over the next year is how the economy performs. If a year from today, GM is doing great and throwing off profits and getting the taxpayers their money back, people will say we were wrong, the president was right, and it's great for him. But if GM is back asking for more bailouts, the president's numbers will be substantially weaker than they are today . . .

"If the economy responds negatively over the next year, it is going to hurt the Democrats in 2010."

Rasmussen also found:

The country is evenly split between those who approve of the way Obama has responded to the disputed elections in Iran and the repression of demonstrations that followed, and those who disapprove and believe he has not been aggressive enough. More Americans strongly oppose Obama's healthcare plan than strongly support it. About 30 percent of Americans favor a single-payer healthcare system, but a majority will oppose it. "Americans like the idea of healthcare reform in theory, in the abstract," Rasmussen said. "Only 35 percent think this system is in good or excellent shape. But people like the coverage they get by themselves. Among the insured, 70 percent say their own coverage is good or excellent. Among all Americans, only 8 percent say their coverage is poor."