I took some weeks off from blogging on TMV to work on a variety of business and personal projects. I was also at an intellectual impasse after having written way too many posts during 2009. Over most of prior 2 years and the first quarter of 2010, I have preferred to just read the many excellent posts from the smart group of regular TMV contributors, writers and editors. Finally, I was following the latest healthcare twists and turns, and overall legislative developments. I really did not want to comment until most of the dust had settled.
I am pleased that the national health care and insurance reforms were finally passed even though I was one who predicted they might not. I would have preferred extending Medicare to everyone, but politically that was not possible in such a divided, polarized, angry, fearful, and uneducated country. I am also unsure that the current changes have gone far enough in reforming the way healthcare is delivered to Americans, and the reforms will not adequately control enough of the systemic costs. I also believe that each individual is also responsible for his or her own health, and each person must closely monitor the costs associated with every medical service and supply he or she obtains, for our collective national benefit.
The many new consumer protections and financial subsidies to get most Americans covered by non-revocable private health insurance are very laudable, fully constitutional, and long overdue. I am completely unafraid of and open to the unfolding of the new policies so that everyone within the next decade can objectively determine those that work best and those that do not. These 2010 Reforms are just a starting point for further reforms and improvements that will be necessary over the next two decades. I strongly believe that efforts at full-scale repeal and attempts at constitutional nullification will not succeed and are a complete waste of time.
Of course I am distressed, but not at all surprised, by the high level of continuous vitriol, bloviating, anger, ignorance, bigotry, outright lies and falsehoods, nihilism, hatred, political extremism, irrational fear, and complete stupidity coming from some Republicans and Conservatives, most “Tea-Partiers” and the Radio/TV/Media commentators of the “Right.”
This massive anger from many right-wingers reflects many other social, demographic, educational and economic changes over which they feel helpless and marginalized. It will probably not dissipate until long after the November Mid-term elections. If the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is any measure of the ability of some people to maintain perpetual anger, bigotry and stupidity over a long period of time, healthcare reform may be demonized for decades. However, long-term demographics will again place most of the healthcare opponents into the minority. In the short-term, many ignorant, angry whites in America will continue to vote in complete denial of facts, reality and their own best self-interests just to spite all the other residents of the U.S. Whether the country has the ability or time to overcome the damage done by these nihilists, will determine how long the American Empire lasts into this Century.
As Congress and the Administration turn to Wall Street financial reforms, more job stimulus efforts, environmental and energy legislation, immigration reform, and overall taxation and infrastructure proposals, the same imbeciles will be ranting, raging and screaming complete irrationality as they are mislead through many more massive lies and distortions perpetrated by many extremists from the far right and their Media spokesmen. I suspect that several generations of Americans having been subject to decades of mediocre public education, and the simple fact that half of all voters have IQs under 100, naturally permits such permanent moronic national debates on so many important issues.
There still is a chance that Republicans can recapture one or both Houses of Congress in 2010 or later during this decade. That we can look forward to complete gridlock through November 2012 and beyond, is not a comforting thought. In the past, divided government might have permitted the passage of a few bi-partisan forward-looking policies. However, in our current and future climate of extreme partisanship, the very wealthy having the financial and legal ability to effectively control Congress, and the perpetuation of rigidly conservative political and economic ideologies, any closely divided government will result in complete national paralysis and gridlock. We almost saw this occur in 2009 watching the Majority of Democrats fight among each other while the Minority Republicans used every non-constitutional procedural rule of each Legislative Body, to make basic governing and the possibility of dispassionately debating the great issues facing this country, all but impossible. When a nation permits a fearful, backwards-looking and ignorant minority to hold effective control and power through arcane and anti-majority governmental procedures, then everyone loses and elections are meaningless.
It is no viable excuse for Republicans to cite that Democrats did the same in the past. What Democrats did in the past while in the Minority pales compared to what the angry, nihilistic, totally partisan, and intellectually bankrupt Republicans have done since January 2009. Too many Americans and their elected officials are throwing temper tantrums or are still on the five stages of grief. There really is no talking to them – particularly to “Tea-Baggers” until they get over their angers, fears, and other demons. We also have to accept that distinct minorities of our countrymen will always be our nation’s economic, political, or intellectual “balls and chains.”
In 2010 we do not have a great economy, low unemployment, and minor international economic and military challenges as existed when Republicans in Congress over-reached during the 1990’s in shutting down the Government and trying to impeach President Clinton over a partisan triviality. At this juncture of severe national economic distress and international strife, when we must actually simultaneously address many of the huge challenges that were ignored or created by Republicans in the past, they prefer to play petty politics with the future of the country for short-term electoral gain. Then their surreptitious support for those who would cause physical harm to those who disagree with them only adds to their complete ethical hypocrisy.
Over the past several years, I have lost much respect for many of my countrymen who profess to be Republicans, Conservatives, or Tea-Baggers. They have collectively fallen so far into the “deep end” of the right side of the swimming pool, that they no longer make any logical or intellectual sense. Their rigid and extreme ideologies now question if not outright challenge many prior policies of the Reagan, Bush, Nixon and Eisenhower Administrations. Thus anyone, who might be an independent, moderate, liberal and definitely not of their extreme worldview, is falsely labeled as an un-American socialist, Nazi, communist or something even worse. They do not even understand the true meanings of these words. Their baseless insults cannot be dismissed through normal laughter or ridicule because too many dangerously view themselves with delusional seriousness.
The healthcare legislation passed by The Democratic Congress and signed into Law by President Obama more resembles the earlier proposals by President Nixon during the early 1970’s and it includes many ideas from Republicans during the 1990’s. Instead, today’s conservatives and Republicans have completely come unhinged from their ideological past and current reality by claiming the modest reforms constitute some massive socialistic governmental takeover of healthcare. Some critics can scream all sorts of falsehoods and spew endless anger and vitriol, but a slight majority of Americans and this writer will not be fooled. Over time, your arguments will hold less merit and your viewpoints will be left to the discredited ideologies found in the dustbin of history. Finally, please stop using the over-reaching and exaggerated phrase “The American People” as if it were a unified monolith that only agrees with your extreme positions.
I’m actually supportive of the new site changes announced by TMV to suspend reader comments for all posts. Even though I enjoyed reading the many thoughtful comments from regular and guest bloggers of TMV who would post on each other’s articles, or who tore apart each other intellectually with separate comparative posts as Jazz Shaw did to me on a few occasions. However some reader comments have gone too far. And I will note from my several years of reading TMV, the personal anger and savagery from the Right Wing has far exceeded and outnumbered anything from the far Left during the past year. I think that bloggers cannot adequately monitor or edit the comments on their posts. A few extremists unfortunately have made too much work for the fine TMV editorial staff and ruined it for the majority of readers.
I don’t mind strong opinions if they are couched in some good humor and a realization that we’re all human and prone to error. What I dislike is the complete arrogance of some commentators that hold such rigid viewpoints despite being wholly discredited by reality and the facts of the past few years. Since the worldview of too many on the Right has shifted so far off the scale of rationality, any objectively “moderate” or slightly “liberal” discussions and ideas are immediately demonized as not being “moderate” enough. I don’t think the political spectrum is a straight line but rather a circle where the extremes meet in complete anarchy.
There are a number of conservative bloggers on TMV with whom I have sparred but they always are full of ideas worthy of consideration and debate. I encourage TMV readers to submit articles to the TMV editorial staff so they can fully participate in this site’s many worthwhile political, economic, social, environmental, and technological discussions. I even hold some surprisingly “conservative” viewpoints on a variety of topics, and I am a fiscal hawk with respect to most public and private endeavors. I demand good governmentally-provided public services for our tax dollars – and will complain when they are not delivered. But I am not going to nihilistically claim that all government is bad and thus should be eliminated by perpetually cutting taxes.
For those readers who still want to offer their ideas, comments, suggestions and critiques directly to me, you can always directly e-mail me at [email protected] with “TMV Commentary” on the Subject Line. I do not blog or post outside of TMV but I will probably limit my responses to comments that are prescient, funny, unique and intellectually provocative. I admit that I have been inspired and impressed by a few reader comments in the past that spurred me to new perspectives and additional TMV posts. If you’re civil and friendly, and regardless of your viewpoints, we can always get together face-to-face over a coffee, beer, or something more substantial involving big juicy slabs of meat.
Submitted by Marc Pascal, happily ranting from warm and sunny Phoenix, AZ, which has set a record this year for annual rainfall to date. Of course any global warming will cause more oceanic evaporation and later precipitation around the world in the form of snow, rain, or whatever, depending upon the overall temperatures and global air flows. Remember, climate is not weather.