What It Takes to Be a Republican

In a thread on MN-Pol, much debate is taking place on the best 3rd district candidate. As is the case many times, ideological cherry picking is taking over. Andy tries to reel them in

First, you have to care that 50 million people are without health care. You have to care that US infant mortality rates exceed those of any other industrialized countries and that those mortality rates are climbing. You have to care that the health care system in this country contains more waste than any other system.

And then he defines a Republican:

If you don't care about those things, you must convince yourself that we have the finest medical system in the world, mostly for one reason: the payment will stay in private hands despite the fact that 30% of every health care dollar spent goes to insurance and medical provider administration and private profits instead of to health care provision. You must believe that this top-heavy system that deprives some 15%-20% of its citizens of adequate preventive care and that the costs of that go through the ceiling because the uninsured use the emergency care system as their regular primary provider.

You must believe that, no matter how bad it really is, that no other country provides the quality of care the US does, despite statistics that prove otherwise like the highest rates of hospital and surgical errors and deaths in the world.

Finally, you must believe that your democratic government is not yours but someone elses out to pick your pocket not with wars that cost you 50 times what adequate health care would save every day, but with money spent on those people you consider leeches on society.

The right that I know does not care. If you don't care, you're unmoved by such statistics as all of these and more. You would rather spend more and more and more on making war in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and in the streets of New York City than in keeping everyone healthy and productive for far less.

You would have to care, and many too many rightwingers do not to their everlasting stupidity.

Andy Driscoll
St. Paul
Truth To Tell

He could have left the name call jab at the end, off. But the greater point is how much nonsense the Right has to buy into to defend their ideology. The greatest difference I see between the Right and Left, is Dems are committed to making decisions today, that will best help us tomorrow. The Right is only worried about the now and hope tomorrow will take care of itself.

Flash