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Salon has an article about the 5 main right wing “myths"---known in my world as “blatant lies"---that are dominating the health care debate and making it hard to have a rational discussion. Some should be obvious even to low-information voters, such as the “the government’s out to get your Medicare” nonsense. Some lies are believed for more understandable reasons. I don’t expect your average voter to know that the government has a ban on federally funded abortions that will stand under any health care bill, because most people don’t have a real need to know one way or another. (Of course, they could always care, but that is a pipe dream.) But I want to talk about the lie that seems like it’s obviously false, which is that the government will mandate euthanasia for the elderly under this new plan.
Say what?, you might say. Hell, the government in all but a couple of states already has inhumane laws limiting the choice of how to die for people with terminal illnesses. We’re still pushing back against states that set artificial limits on how much morphine a dying person can have for fear that they’ll get addicted, presumably in the afterlife. We haven’t even set foot on the slippery slop towards mandatory euthanasia that anti-choicers tell us we’ll all be on if we allow the dying to have some pain relief and dignity.* But now we’re told that Obama’s going to take your guns and shoot grandma with them. Back in January, I was worried that a health care reform debate would get here, but my stupid liberal “don’t be a cynic” gene kicked in and I squelched those concerns. I should have been a cynic.
Why does this ridiculous lie have traction? Here’s part one million in the series of How To Think Like a Wingnut will explore the three mental blocks that allow huge numbers of wingnutty Americans to fall for this obvious bullshit.
Xenophobia/ignorance of the larger world. Right wing media is forever on about the horrors of living in “socialized” Western countries, where they educate the children put out fires police the streets pay for health care with YOUR TAX DOLLARS. At this point, they don’t even need to spell it out to communicate with the audiences---code words will do. A lot of Americans are absolutely convinced---in part, because they wouldn’t lower themselves to get a passport, unless they needed one to go on a cruise ship---that Europeans live in squalor. That is, white middle class Europeans. (As I’ll address in a second, non-white, poor people are expected by the Wingnutteria to live in squalor.) You see it all over the talk about the horrors of “socialized” medicine, where they trot out wait times for surgeries that are usually shorter than the ones you have here. I suspect that huge chunks of people who buy into this myth actually believe that you go to the doctor in Paris or London, and the waiting room is dark and dirty and maybe there’s some chickens running around with barefoot children chasing after them.
What does this have to do with euthanasia? Part of it is that the wingnuts in question think that once you go red (and that’s what they think is going on here), you lose your moral compass. And that, coupled with the squalor and general lack of resources, pushes the government to just off the old people. The birther poll was an enlightening examination of how out of touch a lot of Americans are; maybe someone should commission one on how many Americans believe that if you’re over 75 and you get sick in Europe, they just put a pillow over your face.
Racism/classism. To understand how wingnuts think about this and other issues, you must assume immediately that they see everything as a zero-sum game, and a battle for limited resources. This applies to health care. They assume is person X gets health care, then person Y must be deprived of health care. They can’t both have health care. (This is what they’re alluding to with “wait times”.) They assume that expanding health care access to poor and often non-white people would mean to take it from someone else, and they conclude that this means we have to kill old people. This also relates to their assumptions about “socialism”, which is that it’s an ideology that a) exists in any meaningful sense and b) is about elevating strong, young, healthy workers---regardless of race or ethnicity!---above everyone else.
That this is all more than a little ridiculous doesn’t appear to matter. You can crunch the numbers, show that sharing doesn’t actually result in these terrible losses they imagine, and it will all be for nothing. If you spend any time around some of our more conservative, brethren, you’ll find that their resentment over having to share anything with people with darker skin or lower incomes can be quite overwhelming. Impatience with lines at the grocery store or snarls in traffic grows exponentially if people in traffic or in line ahead of them aren’t white or otherwise seem to be anything but middle class, and so obviously the idea of sharing health care is exactly the sort of thing that will keep them up at night. If standing in line at the grocery store is so miserable, then health care must mean someone’s going to shoot them in the head.
Fear of death. The more avid fans of the “Obama’s gonna kill your grandmother!” scare tactic shades rather quickly into implying that, but for the machinations of evil liberals, you could live forever. Well, not exactly, but it comes close. The most mainstream version of the euthanasia smear is the one that Chris Matthews was humping on his show: that under this health care plan, a government representative would show up at your door every few years and for you to have a very unpleasant conversation about the ridiculous possibility that you---yes, you!---may die one day. Matthews is skeptical of the possibility of this so-called inevitable death, and apparently so are a lot of people.
This is why I couldn’t blame Obama for laughing at the idea that we have the resources to have these regular, mandatory “you’re gonna die!” conversations with people, because the fear of that is so obviously comically rooted in a narcissistic belief that discussion of the inevitability of your own personal mortality is beyond the pale. It’s not going to be mandatory, but it’s kind of funny that some people go into a full-on meltdown at the suggestion that it’s a good idea to have a living will, or to consider the circumstances of your own passing. You can’t really procrastinate your death away. But right wingers are banking on the childish hope many people have that you can.
*Actually, as someone who spends a lot of time researching the politics of choice, I’d argue that the slippery slope goes in the other direction, because this issue---whether it’s end of life care or your private sexual health decisions they’re trying to control---once you give up the freedom to make choice A, you find out you’ve often lost the freedom to make choice B. For instance, in the abortion ban era, women actually had fewer rights to have a baby right alongside fewer rights to not have a baby. Women of color were routinely sterilized against their will, and unmarried white women were routinely forced to give babies up for adoption. You had no more of a right to say yes than no. These things still go on, but in much smaller numbers, just as abortion restrictions are diminished but not gone. Consider that you not only have people denied the right to die in peace in our country, but you also have a lot of people who would survive their health calamities that are dying due to lack of insurance, and you see we have the same situation with end-of-life situations. We already have “euthanasia"---of the uninsured.
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Posted by
Amanda Marcotte on 10:03 AM •
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I sometimes wonder if 95% of the resistance to reforming our health care system is a fundamental inability to accept that there are things that exist in the USA which are not only NOT “the best in the world”, but far from it!
The euthanasia for elderly citizens thing is so patently ridiculous that it’s hard to believe that anyone takes it seriously, but when you have Nazis like Pat Buchanan penning op-ed pieces entitled “Time to go, Grampa”, it’s not hard to understand why there are genuinely paranoid older people out there who buy into the myth.
Never mind that people who have advance plans typically consume less heroic end-of-life healthcare resources ... and get treatment that reflects their values ... versus ad hoc decisions made by desperate relatives.
Naive Patriotism definitely makes up a large part of conservatism. After all, remember the 50s? Wasn’t everything fucking sweet back then? Eisenhower! Nixon! Mother fucking Eisenhower!
Seriously, I’m a bit tired of seeing everything compared to those evil Europeans. Can’t we sit down with the wingnuts and say, “Hey - look over there! Free market mecha Japan!” It’s got universal health care, and I can’t remember the last time anyone accused Japan of being full of commies.
I sometimes wonder if 95% of the resistance to reforming our health care system is a fundamental inability to accept that there are things that exist in the USA which are not only NOT “the best in the world”, but far from it!
That’s one of many things, but I think the biggest thing of all is, “I’ve got mine, I don’t give a shit about yours.”
From Think Progress, some observations on a recent townhall held by Rep. Gene Green (D-TX) in Houston:
At another point, a small business owner who supported health reform asks the audience how many people in this room “do not have health insurance of some kind.” Only one hand seemed to be raised. “I think the people who are objecting,” she noted, “are the people who have insurance.”
The reality is, you will not find a single opponent of healthcare reform who is either uninsured, or who has had to face serious consequences from being uninsured, or who has gotten screwed by their insurance company.
“Ive got mine, I don’t give a shit about yours.” That’s it, right there.
Zifnab, definitely. You can see it in that latest Collins/Douthat thing in the times, where Douthat somehow claims (with all apparent sincerity) that Washington was less corrupt “in the Coolidge Administration.” Apparently the fact that the guy started as Warren freakin’ Harding’s veep simply didn’t occur to him.
I think you meant “mecca” by the way, although given my questionable taste in literature with pictures I’m finding it all to easy to envision a free-market mecha.
I’m glad I’ve already had the conversation with my father about what end-of-life care he wants—fortunately, despite his lifelong Republicanism, he’s under no illusion that a man with failing kidneys who’s already had a small tumor removed from his lung is going to live forever. I think his exact words were, “Just pull the plug,” but I think we can do something along the lines of home hospice at least. (Not that the decision is imminent just yet.)
We’ve had several terminal illnesses in our family (including my mother’s early death from breast cancer) so we’re acutely aware of how important it is to know these things. Before I had my knee surgery, I made it clear to my father and brother that if something went horribly wrong, I would only want to be kept alive if I could still communicate, even if that meant I had to communicate through eyeblinks. If not, it was okay to let me go.
Still, I can only imagine how painful it must be for a family who has no idea what their family member would want to have to make a decision on the fly. Heck, it was bad enough trying to figure out when to end treatment for our sick cats—I can’t even imagine how exponentially more difficult it would be to make that decision for a person.
What I don’t get about the “socialism” stuff is this--
Don’t they realize that without a modern welfare state, the end result is violent class war and a REAL, non-strawman, Communist revolution? There is a BIG reason why Czarist Russia and China had one of those while France and Britain never did.
The reality is, you will not find a single opponent of healthcare reform who is either uninsured, or who has had to face serious consequences from being uninsured, or who has gotten screwed by their insurance company.
I wish that were true, but it’s not. Find the video of the protesters against Chris Dodd, one of whom is in danger of losing her house because of medical bills. Some people have bought into the ideology so deeply that they really would rather go without something themselves than take the risk that someone “unworthy” might get the same thing.
I think too many wingnuts have been watching their VHS copies of “Logan’s Run” and “Soylent Green.”
The reality is, you will not find a single opponent of healthcare reform who is either uninsured, or who has had to face serious consequences from being uninsured, or who has gotten screwed by their insurance company.
I wish that were true, but it’s not. Find the video of the protesters against Chris Dodd, one of whom is in danger of losing her house because of medical bills. Some people have bought into the ideology so deeply that they really would rather go without something themselves than take the risk that someone “unworthy” might get the same thing.
Fair enough, though I consider such people to be extreme exceptions to the rule. There are surely a few people out there like the woman in the Dodd video, but if I had to bet, they probably make up less than 0.01% of the total opposition to healthcare reform.
Every opponent I know personally either has insurance and has never experienced any problems with their insurance (mainly because they are healthy and the insurance hasn’t had to pay out any big claims for them), and those I know who don’t have insurance tend to be the young, libertarian types who have never had any health problems and have the naive belief that being 25 and healthy is a guarantee that they couldn’t possibly face any serious health crisis anytime soon.
I think you meant “mecca” by the way, although given my questionable taste in literature with pictures I’m finding it all to easy to envision a free-market mecha.
No, she meant mecha. As in “mecha-Streisand.”
I was going to say the same thing, Mnemosyne. I know people on Medicare/Medicaid or some who have gone without health insurance/health care who nonetheless oppose reform. Some of it is stupidity; someone at one of the townhalls shouted “I’ll be dead before I let government run my Medicare!” some of it is just buying into the idea that no matter how bad it is, government will make it worse. Or, for some, there’s just the belief that they are the singular exception and that everyone else who is uninsured/underinsured of their own doing, just as many of those who would criminalize abortion would nonetheless get one or get one for their daughter or girlfriend because they’re not like those dirty sluts.
Why are they so afraid to die? The Jesus they worship says they will have eternal life with him. Is their narcissistic patriotism so out of control that they think America is better than heaven?
So, basically, the same reasons that the Know-Nothings will buy any stupid lie proffered to them by the GOP, especially one that ultimately works against their own self-interests.
20% of the voter base, for goodness sake—I need a drink.
Given the Right’s uncontrollable tendency to project on others what they can’t say themselves, you can reasonably assume that what they really want is for their own grandmothers to stop dilly-dallying and climb up on that ice floe--and make with the inheritance already!
“Ive got mine, I don’t give a shit about yours.” That’s it, right there.
I would add ... “and I want desperately to believe that my good fortune is going to continue”.
There is a certain denial of changes of circumstance inherent in the diatribe ... as if, somehow, changing things to make them more equal will result in their becoming one of the damned, while not changing things will mean that they will never face recission while coping with catestrophic illness.
What I don’t get about the “socialism” stuff is this--
Don’t they realize that without a modern welfare state, the end result is violent class war and a REAL, non-strawman, Communist revolution? There is a BIG reason why Czarist Russia and China had one of those while France and Britain never did.
Which is why it absolutely cracks me up when the free-market douches rail against the New Deal programs of FDR. The fact is, Roosevelt knew damn-well that his country was hurting, badly, and that without massive state intervention to address the economic crisis of the Depression, a genuine communist revolution would have occurred, and we would have become the USSA by 1940.
Us proles are starting to get pissed at the gross inequities that were borne of Reaganomics. The chickens are coming home to roost. If they continue to push us around, it’s going to get really ugly at some point. I’m thinking that there will come a time in which CEOs of health insurance companies won’t just have to worry about their profit margins, but about their physical safety. Because you can only keep the “have nots” down for so long before really ugly shit starts to happen.
We ain’t there… yet. But give us another few decades of the free-marketeers raping the public of everything we have, the chasm between rich and poor growing more exponential, and the middle class evaporating entirely, and we’ll get there. History has shown this to be true in every feudalist-type nation-state ever formed. If it ever comes to that, lots of very rich people will die.
The fact is, Roosevelt knew damn-well that his country was hurting, badly, and that without massive state intervention to address the economic crisis of the Depression, a genuine communist revolution would have occurred, and we would have become the USSA by 1940.
Or a Brown Revolution where the capitalists seek the protection of a racist/nationalist demagogue, only to be pushed aside and trampled under his foot when they don’t play ball.
Anybody who appreciates the wealth that capitalism creates, and wants to keep that wealth creation, will also want a welfare state to address the inequities of capitalism. Most smart capitalists (ex. Warren Buffet, George Soros) understand this simple point.
I think you meant “mecca” by the way, although given my questionable taste in literature with pictures I’m finding it all to easy to envision a free-market mecha.
Sorry. I started thinking about Japan, and clearly my mind wandered to giant robots.
There is a BIG reason why Czarist Russia and China had one of those while France and Britain never did.
Well, France did have its own bloody revolution, a bourgeois liberal one. And then there was the Paris Commune, which counter-revolutionaries drowned in blood with the army. So it’s not like France didn’t *try*, you know…
I think you meant “mecca” by the way, although given my questionable taste in literature with pictures I’m finding it all to easy to envision a free-market mecha.
If you were going to find a free-market mecha anyplace, it *would* be in Japan.
Eh, I remembered the Paris Commune as soon as a hit “submit”, but it never did take over the whole country.
I sometimes wonder if 95% of the resistance to reforming our health care system is a fundamental inability to accept that there are things that exist in the USA which are not only NOT “the best in the world”, but far from it!
You Yanks, or at least the wingnuttier ones, really need to get over yourselves.
Anyway, I’m moving to Sweden soon, which as we all know is Commie Central Command HQ
it never did take over the whole country.
However, the terror did.
Anyway, I’m moving to Sweden soon, which as we all know is Commie Central Command HQ
And you know what? It’s not like their corporations don’t do well. Haven’t the wingnuts ever heard of Ikea? Volvo? Husqvarna?
Us proles are starting to get pissed at the gross inequities that were borne of Reaganomics. The chickens are coming home to roost. If they continue to push us around, it’s going to get really ugly at some point.
Yeah, right.
They tell you socialism = Communism = the Russian tyranny, and it failed. They’ve practically wiped out the unions. Your “left-wing” party is a disorganised pro-corporate bunch of wide-boys, with a significant number of them simply Republicans flying false flags. This faux two-party system has a lock on power. They’ve conditioned your populace to accept the unlimited use of state police power, as long as they can label you “terrorists”. They feed your people pap in the form of reality TV shows and American Idol. They keep them distracted with visions of lotto wins and Paris Hilton’s groin.
You have no organisation, and they will not allow you to organise. You have no voice, and they will drown you out when you try to speak. You can rage, but you will rage alone, and if you make too much of a fuss, they will gun you down in the streets and the public will cheeer when they do so.
So suck it up, monkey-boy. You’re in America at the end of the American era, and you better enjoy the ride for as long as you are able. And if you can’t, die.
Fuck you, Jack, they got theirs.
Which is why it absolutely cracks me up when the free-market douches rail against the New Deal programs of FDR. The fact is, Roosevelt knew damn-well that his country was hurting, badly, and that without massive state intervention to address the economic crisis of the Depression, a genuine communist revolution would have occurred, and we would have become the USSA by 1940.
Either that, or the 4th Reich. Simple fact was that lots of out of work, unmarried, unemployed young people is a recipe for trouble - and Germany and Italy and Spain had already cooked up a large stew of it by the time the New Deal kicked in.
What’s interesting to me is that they’re taking a provision that’s pretty much the opposite of government euthanasia and acting as if it were like the decisions that private insurance companies and hospitals make all the time to deny life-extending care despite patients’ wishes. I think there’s a huge component of denial/projection here, because accusing the government of wanting to do bad things is a great way to take your mind off the fact the corporate providers already to those bad things, and you can do even less about their behavior than about the government’s.
I suspect that huge chunks of people who buy into this myth actually believe that you go to the doctor in Paris or London, and the waiting room is dark and dirty and maybe there’s some chickens running around with barefoot children chasing after them.
Is the image really “squalor,” do you think? I think that this whole bizarre resistance to health care reform is based on that Cold War depiction of communism/socialism/totalitarianism, where The Government forces efficiency, uniformity, and depersonalization. In the socialist world, they take care of you… take care of you FOR GOOD! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! Instead of poverty, think paternalism and coercion.
Haven’t the wingnuts ever heard of Ikea? Volvo? Husqvarna?
Also Saab, Ericsson, Scania, etc.
The 4th Reich is what they want.
Look, this gets back to the impossibility of compromise—the problem isn’t that they’re crazy. It’s that they hate us. Anything they can do to hurt us, no matter how much it hurts them, is okay. It’s why they’re convinced that we’re going to lock them away in camps; it’s pure projection.
PM--
If only we could convince them that single-payer health care would make “libs” and “socialists” really, really, really mad!
Well but euthanasia of the uninsured is fine...after all, if they were worthwhile human beings, they’d be insured. Obviously.
I know this is off topic but I’m feeling a strong need to express my love and graditude for the fine writing and intelligence displayed here (not to mention some pretty good snark). I’ve been fuming and swearing and cussing over this health care reform “discussion” all day. Y’all just renewed my faith in humanity and lowered my blood pressure considerably. Thank you.
Please… continue....
I’d have to cast my vote with the “I’ve got mine - fuck the rest of you” theory. A few years ago I got into an argument with a long-time friend’s new partner—businessman, Republican, rich—about healthcare. He pulled out the whole “do you want to wait for a month to see your doctor? thing. I then pointed out that at that very moment I was on Medicaid, as was my daughter. You could see the shock on his face that a “normal” person sitting in his elegantly appointed kitchen/den with wine and cheese could possibly be one of “them”. I told him that if that was the price to pay so that we could all get the chance for care, then Ok. I didn’t bother mentioning the fact that I was waiting for nine months to get my child into a pediatric neurologist anyway since I didn’t want to completely overwhelm the poor guy. He wasn’t just saying “fuck the rest of you”. He appeared to genuinely never consider that the “undeserving” was not a black and white issue that he could comfortably integrate with his selfish desire to keep all the cookies for himself.
If only we could convince them that single-payer health care would make “libs” and “socialists” really, really, really mad!
Wow, that is a fantastic idea! If only we could think of a way to implement it…
I wish that were true, but it’s not. Find the video of the protesters against Chris Dodd, one of whom is in danger of losing her house because of medical bills. Some people have bought into the ideology so deeply that they really would rather go without something themselves than take the risk that someone “unworthy” might get the same thing.
I think is more than that. They BLAME the browns and the other “unworthy” for their personal misery. In their zero sum game, if they aren’t getting what they deserve is because someone else is, someone illegitimate (born in Kenya ?) . Whenever they see a recession, they thing “I gotta get mine first!” besides the “I got mine, screw you!” so they oppose any help for “furriners, libruls, browns, blacks, etc...”
“Ive got mine, I don’t give a shit about yours.” That’s it, right there.
Yes, this is exactly it, and it’s not just health care; it’s everything. I once overheard my boss saying that he doesn’t like the idea of his tax money helping someone else. This is the same person who encourages employees to break certain regulations because it costs too much to do things the right way. His entire philosophy is that if something costs money but doesn’t benefit him personally, he doesn’t want to pay it. Of course, he doesn’t realize that it does it benefit him indirectly, since healthy people are good consumers and increase his own job security, but since when is long-term thinking a talent of conservatives?
All senior citizens report to carousel.
Of course, he doesn’t realize that it does it benefit him indirectly, since healthy people are good consumers and increase his own job security, but since when is long-term thinking a talent of conservatives?
I was reading an interview with the executive who runs Macy’s ... his attitude was that retail did not need direct Federal stimulus ... what they needed was for stimulus to work in other sectors so that people would have money to buy things again.
The guy understands where the money comes from.
Look, this gets back to the impossibility of compromise—the problem isn’t that they’re crazy. It’s that they hate us. Anything they can do to hurt us, no matter how much it hurts them, is okay.
They don’t even know who “us” is. They’ve got some nebulous idea that there are a bunch of tie-dyed hippies and Code Pink enthusiasts and William Ayers and Reverend Wright out there, and that “they” don’t like “us” where “they” are Bumfuck, Clusterton pop. 241 and “us” are the people who want them to pay more in tax money.
I almost can’t blame “them” because wherever “they” are - Alabama, backwater Texas, the non-rich part of Arizona, factory-less parts of the Midwest - you know the assholes that run the local government are going to give them the short end of the stick anyway. That, at least, is one reason the Blue Dogs are so up about funds for hospitals in low population districts. The part of their brains that hasn’t been bought off by lobbyists realizes that health care coverage doesn’t do you any good if you’re in a county without any doctors.
You’ve got people with so little who cling to their dried up farms and shitty jobs at cheap-ass factories getting sold a bill of goods they don’t know what to do with. Put them in a real city - Detroit or Chicago or NY or LA - and they’re the same blue collar folks primed for unionization. Put them in Podunk, Nowheresville and they just don’t know any better.
It’s an issue of ignorance, sometimes wilfull, sometimes subsidized by a few million in corporate bullshit. Once they get their health insurance, it’ll be like every other government program from SS to Medicare. They won’t want to let it go, even if they still have a burning hate for the tie-dyed hippies trying to get us another boost in the minimum wage.
Jesus fucking Christ on a flaming rubber cross but I wish the Phoenician were wrong. I fear he’s correct in every aspect though.
The 4th Reich is what they want.
Look, this gets back to the impossibility of compromise—the problem isn’t that they’re crazy. It’s that they hate us. Anything they can do to hurt us, no matter how much it hurts them, is okay. It’s why they’re convinced that we’re going to lock them away in camps; it’s pure projection.
There is a distinct connection between the Birthers whose racism demands that they cannot accept the legitimacy of Obama’s election, and the Teabaggers who are trying to kill healthcare reform by threatening to assassinate Democratic leaders trying to bring change to our broken system.
Let’s call them “BirthBaggers”.
I don’t typically plug blog posts from other sites here, but there’s a Rec’d diary over at DKos right now that sums this whole thing up perfectly.
It’s not about health care, public options, details of plans. That is not what motivates the opposition we see. It’s the end of a way of life in which mediocre whites have better jobs, better lives, better health care, because of their skin privilege. It’s the end of an idea, an idea that told some whites that they were better just because their skin was pinkish or “flesh-colored” as Crayola so racistly used to describe.
It is the death rattle of racism. The racists feel it. Their way of life is ending. White privilege is going away. It may take time and there still are many examples of institutionalized racism (differing medical outcomes, diseases, health, lead poisoning, environmental injustice, African Americans overrepresented in poverty, job discrimination, educational discrimination, ... etc.), but the direction is clear.
With the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States, their way of life is ending.
Here’s one of these inbred racist BirthBaggers at an Arkansas healthcare townhall:
“At this point in my life, I have never seen my America turned into what it has turned into, and I want my America back,” said one woman, on the verge of tears.
So let’s cut to the chase. Some of the folks showing up having hissy fits at these townhalls ARE genuinely angry, genuinely frightened people.
And the reason that they are angry and frightened is because they see a system that has always placed them in a position of privilege by virtue of their skin color is being threatened. The people suffering the most from the current healthcare system in America are the poorest among us. One’s economic station in life is almost universally tied to the quality of healthcare one can expect to receive. While there are plenty of poor white people at the bottom of the economic ladder, the number of black and brown citizens on that end of the economic spectrum is disproportionately HUGE. So it stands to reason that the proposals being offered would be of maximum benefit to the poorest among us, who are comprised of a massive number of black and brown people.
And these folks can’t bear the thought of any semblance of equality being created for non-white citizens among us. It’s why they hate public education, it’s why they hate welfare programs, it’s why they hate Medicaid, and it’s why they absolutely despise affirmative action. Because healthcare reform necessarily means that the system is doing something to try to address the racial inequities that still plague our society.
Fuck these Kloset Klansmen and the white supremacist attitudes they rode in on.
DTG:
I don’t think a lot of those people have actually been in a position of privilege—they’ve been like fans of a winning sports team. They get to pay for tickets to sit out in the lousy weather and pay inflated prices for lousy food, all so that they can see their team win. And now their team is losing, and the only thing they can imagine is that the other team is going to treat them even worse.
*facepalm*
Arkansas is one of the whitest, yet poorest states in the union!
DTG:
I don’t think a lot of those people have actually been in a position of privilege—they’ve been like fans of a winning sports team. They get to pay for tickets to sit out in the lousy weather and pay inflated prices for lousy food, all so that they can see their team win. And now their team is losing, and the only thing they can imagine is that the other team is going to treat them even worse.
They aren’t privileged in the same way that the truly privileged fatcats are, but there is an inherent set of privileges that automatically comes with being white. And I say that as a young, white, heterosexual male - a person in one of the most privileged classes of all.
Your analogy does fit to the extent that they are so blinded by their own racism that they can’t see that these healthcare proposals would likely be tremendously beneficial to them.
They are very useful idiots for the real evil people - the filthy rich fatcats in the insurance industry (and the politicians that are being bought by those fatcats) making a killing by commoditizing our healthcare.
But in their twisted worldview, anything which might possibly be beneficial for those lowly people of color must automatically be detrimental to them. The greedy free-market corporate pigs have been pitting poor uneducated xenophobic white people against people of color since this country was founded, and quite successfully. The election of Barack Obama did not mean an end to racism, but it was a huge loss to the power of racist persuasion. I knew many people who were just like the woman in that video who before the election couldn’t fathom the notion that a black man could actually get elected president. On November 3rd, 2008, they didn’t worry about it happening, because in their minds, their fellow white brethren would all come to their senses once in the ballot booth and vote for someone of their own kind.
They literally expected the Bradley Effect would save the day.
And then it didn’t. And ever since November 4th, 2008, these folks have been freaking the fuck out, because it is starting to dawn on them that perhaps the racism that they had counted on for their entire lives was really in trouble.
No, I certainly don’t expect to see racism eradicated in my lifetime, or ever, for that matter. But I do see its power being diminished more and more the older I get, particularly as American demographics change in a way that will make non-Hispanic white people less than 50% of the population in a few decades (they are already less than 50% of the population of California). And I see younger generations who don’t fully get why it is such a huge deal that we have a black president, and part of the reason it isn’t so shocking to them is because they’ve lived their whole lives in a post-desegregation world.
We aren’t post-racial, or anything close to it, and to ignore or try to downplay the pervasive influence of racism in our society today would be willfully ignorant.
But that said, racist institutional policy is being threatened by the call for national healthcare reform, and the hardcore racists feel themselves drowning, and so they are screaming from the top of their lungs.
[T]hey’ve been like fans of a winning sports team.
This. A lot of people in this part of the world (Alabama) consider it basically a team loyalty issue, and have little use for or understanding of policy beyond catchphrases—team slogans, if you will. Furthermore, as far a standard white Republican voter in the deep South goes, when practically everyone you know is a Republican or at least identifies with them (mostly white people like you even though the population of your state is somewhere close to thirty percent or more black), it can be uncomfortable to even consider backing another “team.”
It also explains a good bit of the cognitive dissonance they felt when they saw Obama win, and why they believe him to be somehow illegitimate: every (white) person they know voted for McCain, and so as far as they can see, McCain should have won. That their own social circle may not be statistically representative of the nation (or even state) as a whole or else may be methodologically flawed never once occurs to them. As far as what they saw themselves goes, McCain beat Obama in a blowout, and therefore, if this is not what the media says happened nationally, it is because they were cheated.
“Ive got mine, I don’t give a shit about yours.” That’s it, right there.
Some people have bought into the ideology so deeply that they really would rather go without something themselves than take the risk that someone “unworthy” might get the same thing.
I think it’s definitely a combination of these two, although they’ll never admit it.
I’ve been having these insane email back-and-forths with my (very rightwing) sister lately, and a number of other ideas have ocurred to me as well:
1. There’s an astounding level of paranoia (both my sister and mother have told me that they have seen, with their own eyes, Obama come on television and tell seniors that they will need to rethink their stance on euthanasia because otherwise it’s going to be too expensive to pay for health care). To them, all of the things currently wrong with the health care system (rationing, denial of care) are actually what will happen in the future if the government takes over. Also, the government is totally out to kill you.
2. They have no idea what it is they actually believe in. All of these things that are going to kill us when the government takes over are perfectly OK when a private insurance company does them (I’m assuming. I’ve never gotten my sister, or any right winger, to respond to or even acknowledge the abuses currently rampant in private health insurance, which I take to mean that they’re OK with it as long as it doesn;t happen to them).
3. Christianity and capitalism have perfectly merged into Free Market Jesus. According to my sister, it’s perfectly OK for a private insurance company to raise rates and deny care whenever they want because they’re private and the government doesn’t have any right to tell them what to do. Anything else is pure socialism. We must always obey the market. The market makes us free. God said the poor will always be among us, so (*shrug*) what are you gonna do?
4. The government is simultaneously profoundly incompetent and about to take over every aspect of our lives. Government health care will kill us all while also being too much competition for the poor private insurance companies who will be driven out of business.
5. Despite unquestioning allegiance to anything and everything Bush ever did, now they are simply pointing out that you can never trust any politician or anything the government does. Suddenly, they are very worried about government spending and the government’s ability to run anything effictively. Medicare, Medicaid, Amtrak and the Post Office are bankrupting our country.
6. Not giving the super wealthy extra tax breaks is burdensome taxation. Progressive taxation is a plot to redistribute wealth. People would pay for everything through charitible donations if we just didn’t tax them so much.
7. Poor people aren’t really poor. Everybody on welfare has a widescreen TV set and cable, and no desire to work.
8. This is all abortion’s fault.
Arkansas is one of the whitest, yet poorest states in the union!
Might not be your best choice. It’s got a pair of (admittedly Walmart bought and paid for) Democratic Senators. It’s also the home state of Bill Clinton. The white and the poor in Arkansas have always made it wobbly. I mean, Iowa is white and poor, and it went for Obama big in the primary.
You might have better luck with South Dakota - one of the wingnuttiest states in the union. White as milk. Poor as dirt. And red with crazy.
I once overheard my boss saying that he doesn’t like the idea of his tax money helping someone else.
This is typical. Your boss, who is a run-of-the-mill dumbass, will never comprehend that YOUR tax money helps HIM. All of these conservative morons refuse to understand that they also _get_ stuff.
“At this point in my life, I have never seen my America turned into what it has turned into, and I want my America back,” said one woman, on the verge of tears.
Glenn Beck talks like this too. What the ever-lovin’ fuck are they talking about? What has it turned into? Not affectively, tangibly. I have no idea what the fuck these people are on about. None. It would at least be a normal baseline level of stupidity for Jane Q. Moron to say that she’s WORRIED about what America MIGHT turn into. But she thinks it’s already happened! What happened? Show me! Explain. Use your words. Jesus Christ, it’s aggravating.
@ Egnu: What does your sister think “socialism” is? Is it “something for nothing,” or is it “thought police”? One of the things that gets me is the strange simultaneous worry that The Bad Kind of Government is both too helpful and too cruel.
You might have better luck with South Dakota - one of the wingnuttiest states in the union. White as milk. Poor as dirt. And red with crazy.
Actually, South Dakota was one of the states that Gallup listes as a “toss-up” in their latest Party ID research.
Perhaps Wyoming would be more fitting? They are about as red a red state as you will ever see.
[B]oth my sister and mother have told me that they have seen, with their own eyes, Obama come on television and tell seniors that they will need to rethink their stance on euthanasia because otherwise it’s going to be too expensive to pay for health care[.]
I have had numerous similar experiences with my mother, who is a dyed-in-the-wool teabagger/birther/wingnut. I love her dearly, but boy, she tests it sometimes. 
In particular, I remember I had an insanely long email argument with her a while back—actually, right around a year before the election when I was trying to convince her that Obama was a serious candidate—where she insisted that she herself had seen Obama parading around on stage gleefully with Louis Farrakhan the night he was elected to the U.S. Senate. She insisted this had happened, I insisted it had not, she said she knew what she saw, and that she would never support him for that reason. I asked her repeatedly to source the claim, find the footage of it which surely had to exist, and finally even told her she would “win” if she could even prove Obama had ever made a public appearance of any kind with Farrakhan.
They are simply willing to believe anything that reinforces their belief, will continue to do it even after it had been thoroughly disproven, and evidence and logic be damned.
What America has turned into is a country where you can’t shut everyone who talks about racism off the TV because one of them is the president. Where you have legislators openly talking about increasing taxes on the rich and not letting big companies break the law with impunity. Where the notion that the US is not all-powerful and above international law is being taken as highly likely if not a given. Where the notion that facts rather than ideology should govern policy-making is coming back into vogue.
No wonder people who listen to Glenn Beck think the apocalypse is coming.
Perhaps Wyoming would be more fitting?
No way I’d let them have Yellowstone. Utah, baby. Put them in Utah. The fact that the Southern Baptists would have a Civil War with the Mormons would make it that much better.
What does your sister think “socialism” is? Is it “something for nothing,” or is it “thought police”? One of the things that gets me is the strange simultaneous worry that The Bad Kind of Government is both too helpful and too cruel.
That’s just it. She has no idea what socialism is. As far as she’s concerned, socialism is anything the government does that is paid for through taxation. She’s incensed that her tax money pays for anything anybody else gets (of course, she doesn’t pay taxes, since she quit her job three or four years ago to stay home and have kids. Her husband pays taxes.)
The other weird thing is that her husband is a fireman, which, last I checked, is a government service (at least where we’re from). I’m sure that would work so much better if we privatized fire stations.
“At this point in my life, I have never seen my America turned into what it has turned into, and I want my America back,” said one woman, on the verge of tears.
Glenn Beck talks like this too. What the ever-lovin’ fuck are they talking about? What has it turned into? Not affectively, tangibly. I have no idea what the fuck these people are on about. None. It would at least be a normal baseline level of stupidity for Jane Q. Moron to say that she’s WORRIED about what America MIGHT turn into. But she thinks it’s already happened! What happened? Show me! Explain. Use your words. Jesus Christ, it’s aggravating.
What happened?
A guy whose skin color is different than the theirs and the 42 men who preceeded him in the White House became the leader of “their country”.
That’s what happened.
The fact that he’s a Democrat trying to effect some degree of a progressive agenda (note, I said “some") is bad enough.
The fact that he’s black and has the audacity to try to bring about any sort of change to “their country” makes them batshit bonkers.
They love Clarence Thomas because he is sufficiently self-hating. They liked Condi Rice because she played her part well, and bowed down reverentially before her lord and master Bush (or actually, Cheney) appropriately. They used to like Colin Powell until he started to question his own team’s tactics and had the nerve to endorse the uppity negro last November.
That’s what this comes down. Glenn Beck isn’t just some far-right ideologue with conservative principles. The man is a absolute racist who succeeds in hiding his racism only to the extent that he doesn’t appear on television in his full Grand Wizard regalia.
ooh, reading this is like previews for my get-together with inlaws tomorrow night! There will, fortunately, be a small cute child there to distract everyone, so maybe we won’t get to this topic. I can come prepped with evidence and logic, but I’m likely to end up blowing my top if they start in with the birthbagging (thanks to whoever coined that in a recent thread). As Amanda put it, I recently had a relative euthanised by uninsurance (via cancer), and it sure does hurt to realize how many people just don’t give a shit.
3. Christianity and capitalism have perfectly merged into Free Market Jesus. According to my sister, it’s perfectly OK for a private insurance company to raise rates and deny care whenever they want because they’re private and the government doesn’t have any right to tell them what to do. Anything else is pure socialism. We must always obey the market. The market makes us free. God said the poor will always be among us, so (*shrug*) what are you gonna do?
Thomas Frank, _One Market Under God_. Read it.
Um, her neighbors’ tax money pays her husband’s salary. Shouldn’t her neighbors be cursing the socialist bastards next door? (I’m assuming that she and her husband “deserve” it, and that some group of unspecified slackers and layabouts don’t.)
The fact that he’s black and has the audacity to try to bring about any sort of change to “their country” makes them batshit bonkers.
But, DTG, the weird thing is that it’s virtually impossible to see that any change has actually happened. On a typical day in Obama’s America, what are they looking past, seeing it’s different, and getting all worked up about? It’s not like there are giant murals and monuments all over the place, or robin’s-egg-blue-helmeted cadres marching up and down the streets. There aren’t rifle-and-Bible bonfires or new history books teaching towheaded children that they’re White Devils. It’s pretty much the same boring place it always was.
Um, her neighbors’ tax money pays her husband’s salary. Shouldn’t her neighbors be cursing the socialist bastards next door? (I’m assuming that she and her husband “deserve” it, and that some group of unspecified slackers and layabouts don’t.)
That’s exactly it. They think they deserve it and therefor it isn’t a government handout.
I mentioned that she quit her job to stay at home and raise kids. And yet one of her emails bemoaning how bankrupt and corrupt medicare/unemployment/etc. is, complained about friends of hers who took unemployment while the wife had a baby and the husband (a freelance photographer) was between jobs. In her mind, they (like everyone else on any form of welfare) were scamming the government because they both had college degrees and could have gotten jobs at the drop of a hat.
Thomas Frank, _One Market Under God_. Read it.
I’ll look for that, thank you. This has been the most baffling part of her belief system for me.
The fact that he’s black and has the audacity to try to bring about any sort of change to “their country” makes them batshit bonkers.
But, DTG, the weird thing is that it’s virtually impossible to see that any change has actually happened. On a typical day in Obama’s America, what are they looking past, seeing it’s different, and getting all worked up about? It’s not like there are giant murals and monuments all over the place, or robin’s-egg-blue-helmeted cadres marching up and down the streets. There aren’t rifle-and-Bible bonfires or new history books teaching towheaded children that they’re White Devils. It’s pretty much the same boring place it always was.
That’s all fine and well, but you are assigning a human trait to these folks that they do not seem to possess…
Rationality.
These are not rational actors we’re dealing with here. They are completely paranoid, illogical, emotionally crippled beings who place more credence into their own delusional perception of reality than they do into actual reality.
To them, the simple fact that a black guy is president and some things “might” change is proof enough for them to say that this isn’t “their country” anymore and to shed literal tears over it.
@ Egnu: The deserving/undeserving divide is fundamental. It maps neatly to hardworking/lazy and, alas, to white/nonwhite and Christian/non-Christian. She’d rather see herself get nothing than see the wrong kind of person get something. See also the Joe The Plumber weirdness about “redistribution.”
They are completely paranoid, illogical, emotionally crippled beings who place more credence into their own delusional perception of reality than they do into actual reality.
Agreed, but what a strange thought process. It’s like giving up on baseball because the Yankees have already lost the 2009 World Series. “I hate Obama now because eventually he will have had to have done many terrible things.”
One more point on top of it all… there is a ton of projecting going on here from these batshit crazy people crying in townhalls.
They see that a black man is the president, they see that he wants to enact a policy which will likely be very beneficial to black people and brown people (and the vast majority of white people, too, but they ar too blinded by their own racism to see that), and it scares the shit out of them because more than anything, they fear retribution for the way they and their ancestors have crapped all over POC for generations.
You can see it in some of the signs they carry into these townhalls… “Obamacare = White Slavery”. Yeah, someone actually had a sign that said precisely that.
And when Glenn Beck contends that Obama’ proposals are a sneaky way of imposing slavery reparations on white America, it feeds their paranoia even more.
They don’t see national healthcare reform as a positive means to fix a broken system that is destroying millions of American lives every year (including a shitload of white lives), they see it as a tool of oppression to be imposed on “hardworking white people” as punishment for slavery.
Oh noes, make it easier and cheaper for me to see a doctor! What exquisite new tortures are these!
The deserving/undeserving divide is fundamental. It maps neatly to hardworking/lazy and, alas, to white/nonwhite and Christian/non-Christian. She’d rather see herself get nothing than see the wrong kind of person get something. See also the Joe The Plumber weirdness about “redistribution.”
One of the strangest/most disturbing/most comical things I’ve ever experienced was listening to my father and a former business partner rant about how all the Mexicans were coming over to take our jobs. My father is Canadian, and despite having lived here for fifty years, has never taken the test to become an American citizen. His partner is from Italy, with an accent so thick you need a translator. Both are hard core Republicans despite not being able to vote. Both presumably got jobs that might otherwise have gone to “real” Americans. The “other” is always malleable. It’s always someone else getting something they don’t deserve.
You can see it in some of the signs they carry into these townhalls… “Obamacare = White Slavery”. Yeah, someone actually had a sign that said precisely that.
I hope there are more signs like that. I could pass for a Republican if I put on the right clothes and made some adjustments, so I might put on some glasses and get a really short haircut, go to one of these town halls and stand outside with a big sign that says GET GOVERNMENT OF GRAMMY’S BACK! ABOLISH MEDICARE NOW!
Given how far the rhetoric has already gone, I’m wondering when the Republican Brownshirts are going to take that last step and claim that It’s All The Joo’s Fault!
I mean, that hate is always there, sometimes boiling, sometimes just simmering. All we need is for our modern day Father Coughlins like Beck, or Buchanan, or Limbaugh to kick the chocks out and let it roll…
Mike, “illegals” and “Islamofascists” have taken the place of Teh Jew. You just can’t use Jews as a bogeyman anymore after 1945 and not be shut out of mainstream public life forever. Unless you do it very, very covertly like talking a lot about George Soros.
Unless you do it very, very covertly like talking a lot about George Soros.
...and David Axelrod, and Rahm Emmanuel…
That’s all fine and well, but you are assigning a human trait to these folks that they do not seem to possess…
Rationality.
These are not rational actors we’re dealing with here. They are completely paranoid, illogical, emotionally crippled beings who place more credence into their own delusional perception of reality than they do into actual reality.
Precisely right, DTG. For example, my mother, who converted from catholicism to mormonism at age 26 (don’t ask me to explain; I can’t), is thoroughly convinced that dinosuar bones are not remnants of extinct species which lived on planet Earth, but were sucked into the earth’s crust, whole, intact, and retrievable, from SPACE where they had been floating since their own planet had been destroyed. God destroyed their planet and put them into our terra when he created the Earth specifically to test her faith, since they would logically carbon-date at hundreds of millions of years old, and Earth is only 6,000 years old.
Don’t forget, too, that the whacked out religious among these lunatics tend to believe in “prosperity gospel,” which preaches that if you’re righteous, God will bless you with good health and lots of money. Ergo, anyone who gets sick or loses their job is necessarily being punished for sinning, and deserves what they get. This contributes to that insular mindset of, “It can’t happen to me; I’m a good person and God loves ME!” Why should ‘Murkin tax dollars go to a handout to a sinner? Why should government regulate enterprise? OBVIOUSLY, those who are righteous will be rewarded with a successful business and lots of money. God regulates the market.
You can’t attempt rationality with people who believe shit like that. You just can’t. It is a useless, futile exercise.
Perhaps I am terribly naive… or just haven’t been exposed to how some people really think. I live in an area which is pretty close to having a Hispanic majority, yet there are very few people of other races, just us white folks and some Native Americans. So I see a lot of the crap thrown about about brown people gettin’ welfare and poppin’ out kids and gangbangin’ but I’ve never seen this palpable fear that people are describing about Obama. People truly believe that this is “no longer their America” because a black man is in office? In the 21st century people truly think that having someone non-white as President will usher in an era of fascism? I’ve viewed the teabaggers with a bit of amusement, but is the racial undercurrent truly as bad as it is being made out?
If so, I’m genuinely frightened. I hate to seem ignorant, but I guess perhaps I just wanted to believe the vocal bigots didn’t really believe what they were saying.
“Obamacare = White Slavery”
Obamacare is like forced prostitution? Huh?
(Yes, I realize the poster-maker was operating out of a place of total ignorance that “white slavery” does have an actual definition, but we really should be resisting their attempts to redefine words to mean whatever they want them to mean.)
Given how far the rhetoric has already gone, I’m wondering when the Republican Brownshirts are going to take that last step and claim that It’s All The Joo’s Fault!
Haven’t you heard the rumblings about how scary it is that Obama’s closest advisor on health care is Rahm Emanuel’s brother? Trust me, the crazies understand what that’s code for.
PerhPeople truly believe that this is “no longer their America” because a black man is in office? In the 21st century people truly think that having someone non-white as President will usher in an era of fascism? I’ve viewed the teabaggers with a bit of amusement, but is the racial undercurrent truly as bad as it is being made out?
I have had several conversations with my mother in which she fervently states that “this isn’t America anymore”, and “You just watch. We’re living in the End Times.” Of course, I’ve been hearing this “end times” crap since I was a kid in the 70’s. She was pretty sure Clinton was the antichrist, too, but I guess he gives up easily. To her, every Democratic president in my lifetime (admittedly, not many) was a harbinger of the end of the world. Religious fundamentalism and apocalyptic belief has a lot to do with what we’re seeing.
Well, if they’re going back to Jew baiting, how long until they start hating Biden because he’s a dirty Irish Catholic?
Can we not call what lack of insurance/bad insurance does euthanasia? Because it’s not quick, peaceful, and painless, like when we put our pets to sleep. Dying of untreated cancer is far, far worse.
I’m sure that would work so much better if we privatized fire stations.
Been there, done that. You ever see “Gangs of New York” and the scene where a fire breaks out and someone covers a hydrant with a barrel, then two different fire companies show up and proceed to beat the shit out of each other instead of fighting the fire?
That really happened. Over and over again. Individual fire departments had specialists called runners whose job, when there was a fire call, was to race to the scene with (usually) a barrel to hide the nearest hydrant until their guys showed up. There was sabotage of the other side’s equipment, fake alarms to get them going in the wrong direction and, of course, massive brawls, all so the private fire companies could claim the insurance payments or fees. The reason city fire departments in North America (and practically all volunteer departments, who represent 75% of firefighters) are not run on the free enterprise, privatization model is because history demonstrated it was a fucking stupid idea.
Ben, strangely enough, public health attracts a lot of Mormons - most of whom don’t mince words about the need for a better health care system!
Hasn’t anyone in the anti-healthcare faction realized that this is the opportunity of a lifetime to stick it to the rich people, by making the rich foot the bill for Joe Working-Class’s health care? For all the working class folks in the entire country?
When they do realize that, won’t they suddenly start charging down the warpath in the direction that helps everybody? Let’s plant that idea in the right soil and see what happens.
‘free-market mecha’ ...makes me think more of some bad sci-fi where they kill people horribly and accidentally ‘cause they’re made by the lowest bidder…
Hasn’t anyone in the anti-healthcare faction realized that this is the opportunity of a lifetime to stick it to the rich people, by making the rich foot the bill for Joe Working-Class’s health care? For all the working class folks in the entire country?
Problem is, they’ve bought into the propaganda that rich people are our natural superiors, so for rich people to have to, say, pay taxes like the rest of us poor slobs is horrible and unfair. They think that it makes perfect sense for them to go into foreclosure to pay medical bills that a rich person could pay out of pocket because the rich person is better than they are, so they deserve to lose everything for getting sick.
Seriously. This is the mindset.
this is the opportunity of a lifetime to stick it to the rich people, by making the rich foot the bill for Joe Working-Class’s health care
I don’t need yer pity! </birthbagger>
They may not like the rich very much, but they like the idea of helping people who are poorer and/or darker-skinned than they are VERY MUCH less. It really is a pathology. It’s like thinking food only tastes good if you picture someone else starving as you eat it.
‘free-market mecha’ ...makes me think more of some bad sci-fi where they kill people horribly and accidentally ‘cause they’re made by the lowest bidder…
Hey! That’s unfair! Granted, no money exchanged hands when most of us were conceived, but that doesn’t mean we were “made by the lowest bidder”. And what does that have to do with us being killed by mecha, accidentally or otherwise?
Mnemosyne, FlipYrWhig, I am so glad I live in Canada and don’t have to deal with any of this—I only have to watch the craziness. If entire groups of Americans have started believing in mere cash granting aristocracy, without also believing that they can get some of that for themselves...well, they are so very screwed. At least traditional aristocracies claimed to have blue blood.
Heinlein has got to be weeping in his grave, because these people have lost one of the ideas that made America America...the idea that anybody who’s smart and willing to work at it can have a better situation in life, and that how much money you’re born with says nothing about your soul or destiny.
It seems to me that people who worship the 100% pure free-market capitalism don’t really understand how it works. Sure, “illegals” may take jobs, but they also create jobs-by being consumers. It’s not CEOs who create jobs; it’s the public by creating a demand for a certain product or service. Since so many wingnuts think that all Hispanic immigrants are “illegals”, let’s consider the effect of legal immigrants too. Every single immigrant who “takes away” a job is getting paid. They’ll spend that money on rent or a mortgage, utilities, food, clothing, and recreation. That means more “deserving” people will have job opportunities in all of these industries.
The same concept applies to “socialized” health care. Healthy people don’t have to quit their jobs. That means they have more money to spend on other things, creating more job opportunities. Any time the government gives money or services to citizens, the money gets circulated back around. That’s how capitalism works. Unless the recipient stores their cash in their mattress, the money will go somewhere and provide a job for someone else. Even if people save it all in the bank, which is probably the least ideal thing to do in our current situation, that still creates the need for bank tellers and other bank employees.
From a Libertarian point of view, we each own our bodies and work, and we can sell them (meaning sell our labor to our employers) on a competitive market. That means if someone is willing to do the same job for less, they should get that job. No Libertarian should be against immigration, illegal or otherwise, or even outsourcing. They shouldn’t want to pay taxes so the government can keep competition away to make it easier for them.
It’s really interesting that people who worship a “pure” free market seem to understand it the least. Is it because when people learn more about it, they realize that it works even better with a little “socialism” thrown in?
It’s really interesting that people who worship a “pure” free market seem to understand it the least. Is it because when people learn more about it, they realize that it works even better with a little “socialism” thrown in?
Libertarian health care…
“We love muscles. Muscles are good. Muscles make you strong. We need muscles.
That’s why we want to throw away that useless skeleton and replace it with more muscle...”
I thought libertarian health care involved saving up to have your brain implanted into a robot body.
If entire groups of Americans have started believing in mere cash granting aristocracy, without also believing that they can get some of that for themselves...well, they are so very screwed.
Yes. Yes, we are. These people will pay lip service to the idea that “anyone” can be rich, but when they don’t become rich by doing what the [infomercial/pastor at their megachurch/brother-in-law] tells them to do, they’re convinced that it’s their own personal failure, not that the “system” being presented is fundamentally flawed. Among other reasons, this is why they’re convinced that affirmative action is just lazy people trying to get away with something. After all, they’ve worked hard their whole lives and never got a break and they’re still mired in debt, so clearly the problem is that some people got a break, not that the system is set up so that most people will fail.
What’s interesting is that a small study at Dana-Farber found that terminal cancer patients who had these consultations were happier, had a better quality of life, as did their families, and they lived just as long. It also cost a lot less.
The study is in the October 6, 2008 issue of the JAMA, bit it’s also talked about in this article.
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I sometimes wonder if 95% of the resistance to reforming our health care system is a fundamental inability to accept that there are things that exist in the USA which are not only NOT “the best in the world”, but far from it!