Collectivist Totalitarians, Right and Left

People on the extreme left and the extreme right, find diversity of opinion unbearable. Both groups are totalitarians and want to completely shut the other side up. They assume the exact same motive of any one who disagrees with them. They can’t imagine an EXCHANGE of ideas or learning anything new. They can’t imagine anyone else being right or themselves being wrong. None of their ideas are held provisionally pending new information.(I suspect that’s because their ideas are not based on information.) They certainly can’t imagine a marketplace of ideas where their views are on the exact same footing as everyone else’s.

Yes, I think government has an important role to play in people’s lives and I believe in a strong social safety net. But I also I believe in free market capitalism. I believe in private ownership of property. I believe in liberty, even for people I think are fools. I believe that extreme, lunatic right wingers get to say what they want and speak their mind. They even get to vote for whoever they think will represent them. I believe in their rights even when the right wingers are shocked that anyone to their left has all the same rights they do and work hard to strip them of their liberty.

It’s all about the money?

What’s really appalling about the Ryan plan is not just that it wants seniors to buy health insurance on the private market but it also abolishes the ACA (obamacare). That means all attempts to bring down health care inflation will be ended. The cost of health care will keep shooting out of sight.

The individual mandate will be gone and – best of all for those elderly people trying to buy insurance – all the laws against excluding people for pre-existing conditions will also be gone. Private insurance companies will not touch seniors and will refuse to cover them because their care is very expensive. Which makes the government vouchers worthless. Isn’t that great? The founding fathers would be so proud.

The Ryan plan neatly exposes the moral depravity of the tea baggies and the depths to which modern conservatives have sunk.

Those Liberal Republicans and Those Conservative Democrats

At one time whether you were Republican or Democrat was based generally on where you lived. Republicans were northerners and more industrialist and Democrats were southerners and more populist. Not always, but generally. Both parties had conservatives and liberals in them. During the civil rights era of the 1960s the Democrats led the fight for civil rights, especially the Democratic president. When the civil rights legislation passed, it pissed off all the conservatives in the Democratic party and they fled to the Republicans. So the south, which used to be the stronghold of Democrats was lost and became a Republican stronghold.

What I find very funny is that modern Republicans like to talk about how they are the party of Lincoln. Which means they now embrace the liberal principles they fled the Democratic party to escape. In 40 years they will swear that they were the ones at the forefront of promoting gay marriage!

The Obama Kool Aid

I’m a hard-bitten cynic who thinks all politians are self-selected jive artists and snake oil salesmen.

But this video made me cry:

Do you know what he’s saying here? Learning and education are important. Maybe after he spends 8 years in office “intellectual” will no longer be a grave insult.