30 | September | 2013 | Existential Ennui

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Ya just knew it would come down to this. Although of course, there just might be a last-minute reprieve that postpones things another few days or weeks.

When you deal with unstable and basically ignorant people, there is little hope of getting through with logic or common sense.

And the TeaBirchers are certainly unstable and certainly ignorant. It’s hard to understand what they are for or against, unless it starts with the letter O, they are against all things O. Once you cross that line, any semblance to a recognizable landscape vanishes and you might as well try to remain upright walking through the fun house.

Many a pundit has concluded that the TeaBirchers are not people who want to govern but rather those who wish to destroy government in general. That’s partially true.

These pundits claim that the TeaBirchers were sent to Washington to say NO to everything that has to do with spending money. Reduce government to a size that can be drowned in a bathtub they cry, ala Norquist. Yet, if you ask them (the average idiot who wears the funny tri-corner hat at the rallies) if he or she is ready to dump social security or medicare, well, they are pretty much likely to carry these signs:

As I said, these folks are severely lacking in basic knowledge about that of what they speak.

Which always brings us to race, and well, yes, that is a huge part of what’s going on here, but not all.

The thing is most TeaBirchers aren’t against social security and Medicare. They like those things. They feel they should have those things for themselves. But they are very suspicious that nice upstanding, hardworking, bible-clutching, (read WHITE) folks like themselves are but a small number of the people who are getting this “earned benefit”.

It’s all those “other” people who don’t deserve these benefits that cause the trouble. Why, these little programs would be just fine (and hugely smaller) if only the “right” people got the benefits.

Now, of course that is not the way Calgary Ted or Randy actually see things. They are serious elitists, draped in the American flag, and passionately proclaiming that “real Americans” don’t want or need government handouts of any sort. Get old? Your family is responsible for that, and heck, the poor house is still a viable option for those who refuse to work until they drop dead. Work keeps you young! Be just poor? Company towns will make sure there is a roof over your head (of sorts) a few square feet of personal space and all the potatoes and fat back you can eat. Keeps you healthy enough to work on the killing floor of the slaughterhouse no?

Course Ted and Randy keep that “real” agenda on the QT, since the rabble may be dumb, but probably not that dumb.

There are, shockingly, no hordes poised at the gates threatening to storm the Bastille. But you wouldn’t know that to hear Ted or Michele, or any of the rest of the utterly crazy head spinners who grab every microphone within a ten yard radius to tell us that “all the American people know that Obamacare is a disaster, and 30 million people who have healthcare are losing it”, and the death panels are mere seconds from having their first hearing to DENY YOU your dialysis treatment.

You’d really think that there should be crowds picketing the White House no?

Did somebody forget that Obama beat the Romney “we hate Obamacare” machine by a record 51%, a higher margin than any posted since DD Eisenhower? Higher than even Ronnie “the now God” Reagan? Did somebody forget that the Democrats WON seats in the Senate and increased their number while Republicans LOST seats in the 2012 election? Did somebody forget that with having a near strangle hold on almost all of their gerrymandered seats in the House, they managed to lose a net 8 seats to Democrats and lost the popular vote by a 1.4 MILLION vote margin?

Does that suggest that people on average are pretty okay with the Affordable Healthcare Act?

Does the fact that out of the numbers who are “against” Obamacare, fully 30% are against it because it doesn’t go far enough, “i.e., single-payer system). And that those “against” it go down when you use the words Affordable healthcare Act instead of Obamacare?

Does the fact that by a strong majority people don’t think it’s appropriate to defund an existing law or threaten a government shutdown to do what you can’t do at the ballot box, matter?

Funny, when the GOP talking pointers tell me how much “all Americans” know Obamacare is a disaster, they never mention these points.

Funny, they also (with straight faces to a fault) tell me that the President and Harry Reid are unwilling to negotiate. I mean let’s get past the chutzpah of these folks who refuse on principle to compromise on ANYTHING, because it’s a dirty word. First get past that. Then riddle me this brain of a protozoan:

The AHA was passed by both houses of Congress by MAJORITIES, duly signed into law by the PRESIDENT, and found CONSTITUTIONAL by a Court that nobody considers liberal under the most strained definition.

The GOP cannot manage to either win the Presidency, nor the Senate, nor convince Democrats (some of which surely must care about the well-being of the American public before the well-being of their party) to pass in both houses a repeal nor convince the President that he should go along with them.

Failing that, they have said, okay, a minority of us within 1/2 of 1/3 of the government, are willing to burn the place down if we don’t get our way, having figured out no other means to get our way–LIKE VOTES BY THE PUBLIC ELECTING THEM TO CONTROL THE GOVERNMENT. It’s akin to a robber putting a gun to your head and saying, “your money or your life, and if you refuse to give me your money, well don’t blame me that you are dead.”

They think I’m so stupid that I will blame the hostage rather than the hostage taker.

I am not going to blame the hostage.

Nobody is going to blame the hostage.

Except fellow travelers of the hostage takers. And you had then at hello.

The question left is: JOHN BOEHNER DO YOU HAVE PAIR? EVEN A STRAP ON SET WILL DO AT THIS POINT. You can give ’em back if it’s too heavy a carry after this is over. ONCE AND FOR DAMN ALL.