Andrew Sullivan gets schooled by a reader that we’ve always had our strain of evil ignorance that wallows in itself for the joy of being ignorant.
He apparently took the lesson to heart.
Southern Beale is angry and sanctified.
I invite you to read this whole post. I would like to point out two things. One, Whites Creek Steve is awesome and I got to meet him once!!!! Two, the TVA really thought that sending people on extended leave so they wouldn’t be around to talk to 60 Minutes was a good plan?
Tiny Cat Pants 
Wow. To all of it.
There’s so much inconsistency to that “schooling”, I don’t know where to begin. If I’m against “universal healthcare”, it means I “await with baited breath the race war, the nuclear holocaust, the cultural jihad, the second coming”?
The argument is to lump together every bad person in American history, then point to your opponent and say, “You’re just like them!”
Lame
As far as Andrew Sullivan getting schooled – it was great except that they mentioned “the anti-fluoride …nuts”. Obviously that reader hasn’t done any research on the aluminum and fertilizer waste product that is called fluoride and pumped into our drinking water. It IS poison!
I am totally against being drugged by my city water and am already hypothyroid and fluoride will make it worse, but that doesn’t mean that I am any of the other antis that the writer mentioned. I don’t lynch, I am for universal health care, I love interacting with people of all nationalities and hearing foreign languages, etc. Don’t lump me in witth the birther nuts.
But there is a faction all over this country that will follow mostly Republican leaders blindly without ever questioning the fact that they’re shooting themselves in the foot.
How could someone be against everyone having health care? I’m trying to figure how that could be regarded as anything but bad.
Ah, Mr. Sam Holloway, I’m guessing some folks value some sort of Ulltimate Extreme Freedom over a truly “kinder, gentler” public sphere. As Maggie Thatcher coldly intoned, “Society? There is no society.” Ain’t no room for taking care of your fellow man (even if said fellow man happens to be a child). I guess there are the Economically Anointed and then there are The Undeserving. No such thing as bad luck, never mind colossally bad luck, or starting out so far behind the curve….well, you get the picture.
I get the picture, Almost. The big problem I have with the whole situation isn’t the concept of universal health care, but the likelihood of the current executive and legislative branches to even be willing to work toward universal health care. We can’t ignore that neither major political party has a majority (or even a respectable plurality) willing to look out for our interests. What was the point in electing Democratic majorities in both houses if they’re going to be doing the bidding for the money men, anyway?
Like Sullivan’s letter-writer and Southern Beale, I’m disgusted at the people who reflexively oppose the very concept of universal health care because of fear, bigotry, spite, selfishness, or some misguided, misanthropic political philosophy that rides herd on all the above. So many of these people seem willing to put on the brown shirts and try to shout down any semblance of reform. But what have the self-imagined progressives done to help the situation? All that time and energy was devoted to putting a pro-corporate smooth talker in the White House, and where has that gotten us? Why are the insurance companies still an intractable part of any national health care equation?
Well as a self-imagined (? heh) progressive, I admit I voted for Obama, in the old I’m-being-a-realist, lesser-of-two-evils approach (Palin really, really scared me). I tepidly supported him in the primaries as the one I thought had a chance of winning. What I am seeing now has shown me the folly of my ways. I saw a comment somewhere that for me summed up (in geeky fashion) Obama: He’s a Boromir in Faramir’s clothing.
I’m not sure what to do. I’ve sent angry, impotent e-mails: To the White House (see above), to Max Baucus (congratulating him on his membership in the New Oligarchy and on his right-out-in-the-open influence peddling) to my freshman Congress critter (keep up the good work, but I wish single-payer was on the table), to my Senator (“If you think we’re moving too fast on healthcare, I’d like you to give up your coverage until such time as everyone in this country is covered, to show your sincerity of purpose on this issue. Oh, and Max Baucus should be in jail!”). Signed some petitions. I read Glenn Greenwald and mutter darkly to myself afterwards…
I knew Obama wasn’t going to be my dream president, but I mostly thought along the lines that he’d want to get things done a certain way but would be Thwarted By the Machine (I know, I know, there was the little matter of his FISA vote), and that his pragmatism and emphasis on bipartisanship would lead him to concede too much, from a starting point already considerably to my right. I did not understand him to be as pro-corporate as he is…that really has surprised me. I ask forgiveness and shall endeavor to (electorally) sin no more, and in the meantime I scramble to pay the vig on what I owe, while bowing down to our corporate overlords.
P. S. Sarah Palin really, really scared me.