“It’s not my problem”

… The Grand Old Delusion

For years now I’ve been talking about the right wing rejection of reality. Here’s how my point on that applies to: the far right take on personal responsibility; the way in which they relegate all social programs as being wasteful acts pandering to the “lazy”; and basically the whole Tea Party mentality.

They actually start with some very valid points which they blindly proceed to warp into self-righteous overgeneralizations which completely lack any consideration of big picture realities.

Here’s the thing. We live in a capitalistic society. Yes. Those two words do go together. Capitalistic. Society. It’s okay to put them together. The idea that one is the evil antithesis of the other is partisan rhetoric, designed to produce divisive prejudice, mistrust, and hatred.

There is what you have been convinced… And then there what's real.
Just because people like Bill O’Reilly have convinced you that chocolate only exist to destroy your peanut butter, it doesn’t make it true. Simply because one does not choose to worship capitalism as a religion, does not mean that they wish to abolish capitalism in favor of some absolute form of “socialism” (or whatever the current buzz word is that conservative talk radio has demonized as the symbol of the liberal enemy).

Point being: that all of these extreme ABSOLUTES which get pounded into your head are nothing but divisive distractions from reality. Absolutes have very little place in reality - and no place in a society of people. This idea that we’re a bowl of jelly beans which must be divided into those which are absolutely capitalist and those which are absolutely socialistic is pure [to put it in technical terms] bullshit.

Here’s what’s real. We live in a capitalistic society. A society of people. We the people. Not we the bottom line. Capitalism is great. But it’s not perfect. And it’s really not sacrilegious to mention the fact that it’s not perfect. Don’t freak out. It’s okay. No system is perfect. Everything is a work in progress. Icebergs aren’t stationary. If you don’t make course corrections, you hit them and sink.

But it truly seems to me that all the galloping herds of Palinoids have arrived at a deep and absolute belief that capitalism is perfection - and that it is “Anti-American” to say otherwise. Like capitalism actually is our national religion. They genuinely seem to believe that the only adjustment which should ever be made to capitalism is to drive it to a more PURE form of capitalism. As if reaching the PUREST form of capitalism will transform our Country into some sort of nirvana.

Well… I know it’s an overdone cheap shot and completely cliché to compare your political opposition to anything Nazi… But the fact is that the last time a political movement got this deeply focused on things like: branding ABSOLUTE labels on various factions of society; DEMONIZING their opponents; and rallying there base around an idea PURIFYING their nation… It didn’t turn out to be such great idea.

And to draw a more contemporary comparison – all of these aspects of American right-wingers basically amount to a W.A.S.P. image of radical Islamic extremists. The American extreme right has gotten so lost in their obsession to identify us lefties as “the enemy” that they’ve failed to notice that their tactics have made them the Anglo Saxon versions of our Nation’s real enemy. And I’m not just talking about the tone of their rhetoric. It’s their actions as well. Have you noticed that every time a domestic terrorist gets caught in America, it just happens to be an anti government right wing extremist?

Anyhow, returning to the point of “Not my problem”. Typically, when you engage a right wing devotee on subjects like: public school funding; or domestic poverty; or you challenge them on their kneejerk tendency to broadly categorize all misfortunates as being “too damn lazy to help themselves”; and when you talk to them about social programs designed to help those whom are disadvantaged by prohibitive mental or physical limitations. …Eventually you’ll get to the part where they whip out the phrase: “Not my problem”.

And that is the grand old delusion of the grand old party.
When you've buried your head in the sand, you have not eliminated the problem. You have only blinded yourself to its effect, and exposed your wallet to its fingers.

If you don’t pay now to improve public schools, you will pay exponentially later, coping with the inevitable results of undereducated masses. i.e. More cops – More courts – More prisons – etc. And while you’re (indirectly, with your head in the sand) paying for the criminal result of a poorly educated society, you can enjoy the additional expense of its effect on public health. Have you noticed that diseases like AIDS and H1N1 just happen to be born in countries filled with poorly educated people and massive class separations? When the uninsured go to emergency rooms for free healthcare, do think that expense doesn’t get passed on to you?

So much truly efficient work has gone into demonizing the whole concept of taxation that it’s created a pandemic of delusion! A delusional belief that if you’ve eliminated the tax, you've eliminated the problem. An idealistic delusion implying that you can actually will away the expense by eliminating the social program.

It’s a mindless act of cutting off one’s nose to spite their face. If you refuse to spend two dollars cleaning your wound, just because the government told you to clean it, you’re going to spend two hundred dollars later coping with the infection.

The Golden Teapot calling the kettle “elitist”

The day after Ronald Reagan’s former economic advisor went on 60 Minutes and soberly articulated on the subject of this micro-tunnel vision anti tax movement being a completely unrealistic delusion, I looked it up on the web and immediately came across a Tea partier’s comment on it.

This guy was carrying on about how the top 5% should not be punished for their achievements. And that anyone who wants to tax that top 5% should instead work harder to become part of that top 5%. And anyone who fails to do so is just too lazy. He went on to say things like if we don’t tax the top 5% we will be rewarded by those wealthiest of wealthy “showering us with charity”. I had to laugh out loud at that point.

Anyhow, here’s the thing. First of all never mind this guy’s asinine assertion that the uberwealthy are going to magically feel compelled to “shower” us “lazy” 95% with “charity”. I’ll forgive that comment because I have compassion for the mentally handicapped. Let’s just focus on, or rather (for the tunnel vision afflicted) broaden our perception to the reality of all us “lazy” folk in that 95%.

5% of about 310.6 million is always about 15.5 million. And 95% of 310.6 million is always about 295 million. You can’t argue with the math. No matter which people move into that top 5%, that 5% will always equal just 15.5 million compared to the 295 million of the rest of us.

This is a classic example of right wing hypocrisy. The right wing propaganda machine is constantly slapping the “Elitist” label on everyone left of center. While from the same pulpit, they proclaim that 95% of Americans are just too damn lazy for not working hard enough elevate themselves to that (elite) top 5%.

I get the basic argument. I believe in personal responsibility. While I observe the horror and sheer lunacy of the far right worshiping capitalism as a religion, I still don’t disagree with capitalism as a system of government. But you have to be realistic. Yes, a certain portion of truly lazy, no good bastards will always be out there, wrongfully taking advantage of social programs. But they only represent a small fraction of those benefiting from social programs. Proportionally, the no good bastards at the other end of the spectrum, those whom gained the most from events leading to the financial meltdown, took far more from all of us than any amount of fraudulent food stamps could ever add up to.

But my point is really about the unrealistic nature how extreme the right wing presents everything. All of these nonsensical absolutes:
If you’re not in favor of an absolutely pure form of capitalism, you must be a “socialist”
If you criticize the war effort you must be an “anti-American” flag burning “troop basher”

None of this type of rhetoric has any place in reality, because reality is a balance of all factors. No matter how deeply you bury your head in the sand, all factors still exist. No matter how far you lean off the starboard side of the ship, the port side never stops existing.

Like it or not, this facet of reality applies to the right wing approach to personal responsibility. Regarding the vast number of honest people who simply lack the mental or physical ability to just work out of their need for social services, I could very easily indulge in the tunnel vision attitude of “They’re not my problem”. But that’s not reality. If we were living in a Tea partier’s perfect world with zero taxes and zero social service, operating under an absolutely purified form of capitalism… Guess what? All of those “not my problem” people would still be out there. They would just be poorer, far more desperate, less educated, and spreading disease at an exponentially higher rate, while likely procreating in much greater numbers.

It’s the kind of extreme class division that results in societies that look like really bad parts of Africa, and countries like Mexico. Is that what we want to turn America into?

When in Rome

Well, I've got some mixed feelings about this Arizona thing.

First off, I’m a realist. So I understand that racial profiling is a necessary evil, to a point. It’s just idiotically idealistic to be completely against racial profiling.

But again to a point... Or a point at a time, in thoughtful increments. In the case of Arizona’s new law, what I mean is: Let’s try out B and C, before jumping directly to D or E. You know? Before leaping to a place on the verge of World War II style internment camps for brown people (State wide), how about picking some low hanging fruit to see how that works first: Like perhaps limit this type of law to within 20 miles of the boarder; or Home Depot parking lots. Something! I don’t know. But as a full state wide position to take, it just seems like an excessively broad stroke, at this point.

Another thought I have on the matter is: Hey, you’re choosing to live in a politically conservative state, so by that choice, you’d better be prepared to be subject to a politically conservative rule of law. Just like when I say to hard core righties: If you don’t want to be a member of a society, move your little inbred family to a deserted island and sit on yurr porch with yurr shotgun and take care’a yurrs.

Seriously! I believe this strongly - and the door swings both ways. If Tea Party conservatives are so passionately against the basic mechanics of what makes a society function, then they should get the fuck out of our society. And if people who typically fall subject to racial profiling want to avoid the burden or humiliation of such encounters, then they should think twice about living in a goat fucking hillbilly state like Arizona.

Video game violence protected by the 1st amendment

So um, just an observation here… Remember Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction”? …And all the public outrage and congressional hearings which ensued? I’m just wondering if some of the same people who were OUTRAGED!!! about their kids being subjected to Janet’s nipple are among those ushering the 1st amendment to the rescue of violence in video games.

Is this really our position as a society? Do we really believe that perpetually desensitizing our children to violence on a daily basis is less damaging to them than a glimpse of a bare breast?

Just checking.

I wonder…

I wonder if I were a republican, eager to jump on the latest anti-democrat bandwagon, would I so blindly and deeply be choking down these hooks lines and sinkers.

Would I have stock piled firearms prior to Obama’s election, because Rush convinced me that the democratic agenda was to abolish the 2nd amendment? Now that I mentioned it… What happened with that? It’s been over a year. …And Barack still hasn’t exhumed Charlton Heston’s grave to sort out that “cold dead hand” business.

Hmmm… I wonder how many other Rushstradamus predictions simply aren’t happening. If I blindly hated all things to the left of 16th century social standards, perhaps I would be too consumed with the latest anti-progress campaign to notice that the last one turned out to be baseless.

And now the healthcare thing. I’ve been hearing the hysteria on the news, which has become more than a little bit dramatic. Now as we all know, republicans never denied that it was politically important to them for Obama to fail at bringing about health care reform. So it was no surprise to anyone when they stuck to their usual political strategy and chose an element of the healthcare plan to demonize in news and radio campaigns. …Turned out to be the mandate piece.

So I wonder how convinced I would be. If I were a right wing devotee, would I believe that a health insurance mandate would bring about the end days??? …That these evil commie congressmen on the left are agents of Satan, here to destroy my life with health insurance? Would I become so passionate in this belief that I would feel compelled to threaten a politician’s children?

Okay. I’m done wondering about it…

Now that I’ve given it some thought, I’m entirely certain that I lack the ability to cram my head that far up my ass.