The first thing I should say is that I understood that the rules of engagement in these discussions were that response was via the reader's comments in the NRO, not directly to my e-mail address. 

The second thing is that I never ever said that “anyone who is not for everything Obama wants are “Geriatric Republican diehards …….etc.”. I for one am not for “everything Obama wants” (For instance, I want us out of Afghanistan, pronto), and while I may be on the verge of becoming a geriatric, I am certainly not a Republican, and much, much, too long in the tooth to be emotionally distraught about politics.

The majority, silent and otherwise, cast their votes last November for change. They did so, I presume, with just as much consideration of the issues as those who went to the polls 4 years earlier and elected GWB. That is democracy. I also get the impression that the November '08 majority, just like the majority who voted for his predecessor 4 and 8 years earlier, were made up of “average” and “non-average” Americans (We are a rather diverse bunch in our great republic). However, I suspect that you consider that the people who voted for Obama are not “average” Americans like you, or that you think that they were somehow acting irrationally (temporary insanity?) in voting for someone whom you so evidently despise. And who are these political “elites” whom you believe are conspiring to do you down? Are they more or less elite than the class of 4 years ago?

You say that you have sat back too long and had change forced down your throat. Didn't you vote last November? You did, but for the losing side? Oh, I see? That's the problem with democracy, it sometimes produces a result you don't like. When you say you have “sat back for too long” – what have you in mind – a coup d'etat to restore your right not to have a government you don't like?

We now seem to have a small enraged and self-pitying minority who think that shadowy undefined “elites” and people who look different from them are engaged in a dark conspiracy to take “their” country away from them.  This small minority is incapable of accepting the decision of the American people, or even the legitimacy of its elected President. Very sad.

Our economy is certainly struggling (but improving – though the employment-curve is predictably lagging behind the recovery). This isn't our President's fault. The collapse of the financial sector is directly attributable to the deregulation “reforms” introduced by Ronald Regan, and cheered along at the time by the pundits in the National Review. The zillion dollar endless war of choice in Iraq didn't help much either. Healthcare reform will cost a drop in the ocean compared to either of these disasters. Better still, average Americans will no longer have to fear that the misfortune of ill-health will be accompanied by the second misfortune of financial catastrophy (A reality for an increasing number of middleclass working families).

I would be delighted to read your response in the reader's comments of the NRO. But not in my private e-mail.

I am obliged.

Fred Hayak, patron saint of Thatcherism, conceded that some things might be better done by government, and that medical provision might be one. Incidentally, defence is another. As Al Gore might say: an Inconvenient truth?

Heritage, and the more emotionally distraught far-right, seem to be arguing that “socialized” medicine (aka anything that takes power away from the insurance companies to ration our healthcare) is inherently a bad thing – so bad that there is no good or benign form of “socialized” medical care. In short, that “universal” provision, “socialized” medical provision, whatever, …. is irreemable and unreformable. Fair point if you guys were honest and consistent. But you're not. If you were, you would be calling for the abolition of medicare. Why aren't you? Perhaps its because if you were, what's left of the GoP would vanish down the plug-hole at the hands of the voting seniors of America who quite like their “socialized” medicare. The problem is that you and some of them think socialism is ok for yourselves – but God forbid – for the young working middle-classes and the (undeserving) poor. I presume that the latter, in particular, unlike yourselves, would be corrupted by “socialized” medicine.