19 Feb 2005 Blogpowerment

Notice (thanks to Wizbang for the pointer) that when the former leader of Britain’ Conservative party, Iain Duncan Smith, wrote an op-ed about the influence blogs could have on Britain, the first example of blog empowerment (“blogpowerment”?) he thought of had to do with Britain’s socialized medicine system.

Namely, that “patients who have waited and waited for [National Health Service] care” will find a voice through blogs.

Michael Barone, Iain Duncan Smith and others have written that blogs make conservatives more mainstream and leftists more radical. They thereby conclude that blogs, on balance, help the right.

I submit that the advantage goes deeper — to the nuts and bolts of policy debate. Blogs filled with the grievances of the victims of socialized medicine will be the best answer to those who might be swayed by Ted Kennedy and others to seek to impose that sort of system on us.

I propose that, as a 40th birthday gift to the American people, we expand Medicare over the next decade to cover every citizen from birth to the end of life.–Ted Kennedy, January 12, 2005

Beware of Kennedys bearing gifts.