Sausage Making and Fixing Obamacare

Sausage is one of the reasons I could never be a vegetarian.  I am not alone.  The names of sausages reflect the diversity of regions from which they come: Vienna, Frankfurt, Genoa, Bologna—the list goes on.  Include your favorite.

Fresh sausage (which must be thoroughly cooked before eating) is made from coarsely ground meat.  But the most often eaten sausages in the United States are cooked sausages, which you may, but do not have to, heat before eating.  These sausages are made of finely ground and “emulsified” meat.  Emulsified, of course, means liquified meat in a slurry of fat and up to 40% water.  This emulsified goop can then be extruded (pushed through a narrow tube out a small hole at the end) into a casing that molds the sausages into their elongated shapes.  The casing itself is traditionally the intestine of an animal—pig, cow, sheep, goat—it doesn’t matter.  Parts is parts.   

While all sausages are combined with various seasonings and spices depending on the preferences of the cook and his customers, cooked sausages may also contain non-meats (cereals or grains) and variety meats.  “Variety” meats!  Doesn’t that make them sound almost fashionable?  It does until you realize that variety meats may include hearts, tongues, livers, or tripe.  Okay, all of those are organs and I’m not too turned off yet.  But the word “variety” also includes blood or blood plasma, brains, lungs and—wait for it—udders (though they must be non-lactating udders).  Well thank God for that “non-lactating” disclaimer, I was starting to become a little nauseous!   And we haven’t even gotten to pork stomachs, gelatinous skins, ears, snouts or ox lips yet. 

Think of all of that in the emulsified, extruded, gut-encased links.  Now you start to understand why, while you might enjoy eating sausage, you would never, ever, want to see it being made. 

The same is most certainly true of legislation. 

Quite aside from the names I could assign to the roles of “tongue,” “lungs”, “pork stomach” and “ox lips” (no, I am not touching “non-lactating udder”) Otto von Bismarck said it best, you should never watch sausage or laws being made.  Laws—successful laws—laws that last past the next President or the next Congress, involve compromises.  Every side must give in a little and get a little.  Unfortunately, there are zealots on both sides that don’t want any give and take.  They would rather see the house burn down than let an untouchable use the hose. 

Right now the Republicans are crafting a health care bill in secret.  They are doing what the Democrats and others in their party have said needed to be done—but have not done.  They are trying to clean up the mess of Obamacare.  I would have liked to see a number of Democrats in on the discussion (actually, they will all have their say when it is brought to the floor for vote), but please tell me which group of five, six or seven Democrats would have entered into a good faith effort to cure the ills of Obamacare?  

By sequestering themselves, this small group of Senators are finally getting something we can read, judge and vote on.  A piece of legislation is being produced.  I don’t need to see the process, only the result.  Like the meat packer that makes my sausage, I expect that my law-makers will do a good job.  If they don’t I will stop buying their product.  That is what voting is all about. 

Grab a hot dog and keep the faith.