“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.