Monday, August 10, 2009

So Many Fools . . .

I've withheld comment on the ongoing health care debate deliberately. For a couple of reasons. First, this is an ongoing story, and it's changing every day. Every day I read another piece, hear something on the radio, or see something on the TV that nuances my feelings about this whole question. I'm not even sure "nuances" is the proper word, because it suggests that there are delicacies in the discussion that have to be weighed and considered carefully.

But I ask you, how much weighing and consideration must be given to what the opponents of health care reform are saying? Take, for example, what the Alaskan bimbo, the former governor of that state Sarah Palin, wrote on the subject:
"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."
So what are we to do with this idiocy? Take it seriously? Hardly. How can you? Palin is playing on the same theme that outraged bands of citizens have been screaming at various town hall meetings: that the health care reform will ration old people out of the system when they get near the end of their lives. Some even screech that euthanasia will be mandated under the reform. To spend much of my time refuting this would be to waste my time. As one commentator has it: "Can we really live in a country populated by so many fools, people who can so readily, proudly and belligerently be made into tools of their own destruction? Can the greatest political, economic, cultural and military power on the world's stage possibly be so incredibly backward at its core?"

Yes. I'm afraid we can. I have long argued, indeed, it's become one of my principal themes that the American people are too dumb to know how they're being screwed. They are so dumb that they readily hit the streets and do the dirty work for the people who are screwing them. I'm not at all sanguine about this health care thing. Stay tuned, brothers and sisters. The current state of things will either get worse or it will get better. Either way, I don't have much hope the American people at large will benefit.

I'm really proud of myself for not going really crazy about the magnitude of the outrageous behavior we're watching every night on the tube lately. So many fools. Way too many. Way, way too many.

12 comments:

PostMuse said...

People in this country are overwhelmingly stupid by choice. I don't think there is any other country in the world where having an education is consider "elitist."

I don't really know where to go on healthcare, but I'm sure it isn't "leave us alone" (as one incredible idiot said at a "town meeting" in PA). Something has to be done and it has to be done now. If we make mistakes, we will fix them. I don't believe that things can't be adjusted. It just takes follow-up (which is another thing all people seem to have trouble doing).

firerobin said...

It's astounding how misinformed the anti-health care people are. It has been shocking watching these "town hall" meetings.

Unknown said...

Thanks for reminding me that I'm elitist because I know how to find Chicago on a map and what the three branches of our government are. You are right, of course. If we don't fix health care system now, we're pretty well done. And of course, I agree things can be adjusted. But that only happens in an environment of political accommodation. We've seen the last of that in the U.S., I fear. Which means the Democrats are going to have to enforce party discipline. Blue dogs in this fight might as well be Republicans.

Unknown said...

firerobin--You will never go broke betting on the ignorance of the American people. The town hall meetings have indeed been scandalous.

Montag said...

They are not fools.
They are the Brownshirts who shout down and attack the opposition, driving them from the public forum.

Disruption is the same tactic used in the 1920s and 1930s, and it works just as well now as it did then, while we cower in our rational ivory towers.

Unknown said...

Oh, I don't for a second believe the orchestraters of these disgraceful displays are fools. Not for a second. But their lackeys and beasts of burden are almost certainly fools. What they do does not stand any kind of rational scrutiny, but they are completely clueless about this. Nor do they care. The scary analogy with the brown shirts has been in the forefront of my mind since the tea parties. We have not seen the last of these people. I think we're seeing the dawn of fascist Amerika, whose seeds have been germinating for decades.

Montag said...

Not germinating...the seeds sprouted in the early 20th century, and the plants have been dormant for a while...

...Day of the Triffids.

Unknown said...

What, pray tell, is a Triffid?

Montag said...

...blast! I knew you'd ask that!

Hmm. Extraterrestrial plant...alien life form...taking over the world...story written by that Day of the Triffids guy - forget his name. English fellow. John...Cheever? No. John Wyndham?
Could be John Wyndham.

Unknown said...

"Triffid" does not even Google. Now there is a rare event indeed.

Montag said...

No, way, man.
It does.
And I was right about John Wyndham - thank heaven.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=triffid&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g10

Unknown said...

I must have hit a wrong key or something. I now know what a "triffid" is . . . it's a very cool word.