This is a fascinating article that explains why the quote often attributed to PT Barnum about a sucker is born every minute is even more true in America today where the emotional rantings of Beck, Palin, Rush, et al work and intellectual debate of issues in full doesn’t. Read the whole article (this excerpt only touches the surface) to understand why we have become a nation of ‘sheeple’.
Why are so many American voters enraged by attempts to change a horribly inefficient [health care] system that leaves them with premiums they often cannot afford? Why are they manning the barricades to defend insurance companies that routinely deny claims and cancel policies?
It might be tempting to put the whole thing down to what the historian Richard Hofstadter back in the 1960s called “the paranoid style” of American politics, in which God, guns and race get mixed into a toxic stew of resentment at anything coming out of Washington. But that would be a mistake.
If people vote against their own interests, it is not because they do not understand what is in their interest or have not yet had it properly explained to them. They do it because they resent having their interests decided for them by politicians who think they know best. There is nothing voters hate more than having things explained to them as though they were idiots. As the saying goes, in politics, when you are explaining, you are losing. And that makes anything as complex or as messy as healthcare reform a very hard sell.
In his book The Political Brain, psychologist Drew Westen, an exasperated Democrat, tried to show why the Right often wins the argument even when the Left is confident that it has the facts on its side.
[…]
Right-wing politics has become a vehicle for channelling this popular anger against intellectual snobs. The result is that many of America’s poorest citizens have a deep emotional attachment to a party that serves the interests of its richest.Thomas Frank says that whatever disadvantaged Americans think they are voting for, they get something quite different.
18. Jägermeister “A Republican is born every minute.”
The corollary being a Democrat is aborted every minute?
RBG
Why are so many American voters enraged by attempts to change a horribly inefficient system that leaves them with premiums they often cannot afford?
My guess is that most Americans don’t care about their neighbors and are suspicious of undisclosed consequences. So why did Obama move to confirm these deeply rooted suspicions by not keeping his promise to have congressional debates on health care televised?
#2 Welcome back to the old Pedro, a reasoned argument. Dissing was not a good look.
In Canada, for (mostly) better or for worse, we already have universal health care. But we did have the remarkable defeat in a national referendum of the Charlottetown Accord which was supported by the three major political parties. All of them. It had been worked out in back rooms by power brokers. We voted against it for many different reasons. I voted against it because it proposed to give too much power to governments in general (and, no, I am not a radical). Were we sheeple, we would have voted about 85% for it, rather than 49.6%.
Blather on, folks. I defy anyone here to defend the Louisiana Purchase, or the Nebraska free ride, or the closed door debate, or the 2000 unread pages, or the half trillion dollar cut in Medicare, or forcing people to buy insurance, or the Union tax exemption bullshit.
The deal was shit, and the Democrats still were going to shove that shit down our throats.
#32–Friendly==nice list. I happen to know a little about the USPS==GREAT SERVICE. Any yes, it can stand as a model for many that you list, and many that are not yet on the list.
At 44 cents a letter, you get 1-2 maybe 3 days service anywhere in the USA. You might complain “It loses money!” Indeed, that is because Congress wants it that way. So lets say if it was paying its full load, even with business welfare provisions of bulk rate, and Congress ripoffs of franking privileges, the rate went up to (pick any number) 60 cents.
Compare that to Fed Ex==whats the rate now? $5.50? so yea–US Gov win that example hands down.
Agree or counter?
For all those insulting the other party, both democrats and republicans have screwed up this country. For all those who voted republican, please vote democrat next time and vice versa for those who voted democrat. Doing so will definitely fix the problem.
When was the last time a third party screwed things up? It is time to vote third party. Could America be worse off? I don’t think so.
#32 Not sure what your point is; you’re all over the place.
The brainpower of the left-wing amazes me.
Of course Wilson/FDR/LBJ/Carter all proved this is a better system and we should do this. Look a the success of:
The Federal Reserve
the SEC
The war on poverty
USPS
Amtrak
Food Stamps
Medicare
Farm Subsidies
The dept. of Energy
These all run at low cost, and are not going broke, and have low fraud & great results.
I’d agree with all of that, and the part about Cuba having great healthcare(for their gdp/per capita). I’d disagree that China needs to learn anything from us about capitalism, they’re closer than us. You’re at least 10 years behind on that comment.
As to brain power, you need to read more. The ideas that markets necessarily move to equilibrium(EMH) and bad behavior is policed by consumer demands alone are obviously false. That is the cornerstone of the last 50 years of Republican thought. Add the failure of Supply-side, the War on Drugs, abstinence only education, and the choking off of general productive capacity by military spending. Not good.
#34 The big difference between car and heatlh insurance is that the bar is pretty low if an insurance company decides not to fix your car. They give you depreciated value if repair costs are too high.
The Dems have never met an opportunity they couldn’t waste or an ineffective candidate they couldn’t run. Obama’s HC plan has some good stuff, but mostly is a hookup for insurance companies. He still appears to be incapable of doing anything but giving a good speech.
For all the talk of an angry and irrational Left, those in glass houses…
What a piece of shit….It illustrates perfectly the Progressive/Commie pattern of thought. No where in the article do they attribute the idea, novel as it might be that the people that are against this whorish Death Care bill because they accurately perceive their own interest and the fact that it doesn’t match the interest of the parties that are the same as Stalin/Mao/Idi Amin/Pol Pot and Hitler. All elitist totalitarian murders that wrapped their murderous acts in whatever philosophy was available. They used science, the public good and more efficient as the words to excuse the death of millions. Then once these crimes come to light the progressives give milly-mouthed excuses for their support of these polices. “I made mistakes”, “Maybe it went to fare”, BS – anyone that supports such political hierarchy is a murder. If you wear a Che Guevara, Mao or Stalin Demoncratic Red t=shirt you are as guilty of the death of million as though you are wearing a swastika and death tears.
There can be no Tolerance or Acceptance of tyrants. Only by keeping the rights of the individual supreme can a society remain free. When the rights of the collective rise above the individual, they are always expressed through the will of the few or the one. This is the road to slavery and there will be no America to free us. This is what the elitist that seek to chide us into accepting in their Death Bill.
Whatever……………………………….
Traaxx
#38
Blather on, folks. I defy anyone here to defend the Louisiana Purchase, or the Nebraska free ride, or the closed door debate
Um, what? This reminds me of a Black Adder sketch:
Reporter: Quite. Now; Ivor Biggun, no votes at all for the Standing-At-The-Back-Dressed-Stupidly-And-Looking-Stupid Party. Are you disappointed?
Ivor: Ah, no, not really, no… I always say, “If you can’t laugh, what *can* you do?” Ha-ha-ha-ha (squirts Hanna with flower).
Reporter: …take up politics, perhaps. Has your party got any policies?
Ivor: Oh yes, certainly! We’re for the compulsory serving of asparagus at breakfast, free corsets for the under-fives, and the abolition of slavery.
Reporter: Now, you see, many moderate people would respect your stand on asparagus, but what about this extremist nonsense about abolishing slavery?
Ivor: Oh, we just put that in for a joke! See you next year!
#41 — Health insurance companies (not all) already provide low value for their clients. Tests, surguries and other treatments may not be granted because the health insurance does not want to pay. As health insurance companies raise their rates and grant less treatments, is the client getting their moneys worth?
More and more employers are already having employees pay full premiums. This means for some employees going through the employer health insurance doesn’t really provide a benefit.
The biggest difference in health and vehicle insurance is that health insurance is done in groups where as vehicle insurance is not. Does purchasing health insurance in groups really save money?
May be it is time for some energized person to re-invent how health insurance is purchased.
I would love a good health care bill put together by reasonable and prudent people with the people’s best interest at heart. Something that addressed tort reform, did away with price fixing and monopolies by insurance companies, and allowed people to re import drugs from Canada. I think it would also be a good thing if various partisan groups were given a free ride at the expense of others.
I’ve seen no evidence that such a bill exists.
It might also be a good thing if some respect were paid to paying for it since 40% of the money being spent this year is borrowed money and that bleeping can’t last. Internal economic collapse due to a total meltdown of the monetary system is in my view a bad thing.
I know the liberal/progressives think the tooth fairy will provide but I’m not into that superstition. I also know that once taxes start to eat up to much of the GNP jobs and prosperity start to vanish.
My numbers say the US is on the way down as a leader of nations and economic power house.
The liberals say this _can’t_ happen but my question is Why Not? Do you think the God many of you don’t believe in is in the business of protecting idiots from the consequences of their folly? I’ve seen no evidence of such. It hasn’t worked in California.
You guys have a nice day and God bless.
Okay I goofed. It should have been if various partisan groups weren’t given a free ride at the expense of others.
#45 I would suggest you look at national health statistics published by the World Health Organization.
Here’s what it says. They have more doctors per unit of population. Generally similar or better health outcomes, and much lower percentage of GDP spent on the health system.
Consider Cuba in relation to other states of similar wealth and they look even better. That says nothing about how Cuba is run politically, although I don’t think we’re any great shakes in that department either. Cuba is not a good example of how to structure a society, but the US is a prime example of how not to structure a health system.
Well, let’s try this exercise again:
The problem is that the messenger has been compromised.
Think about this: in the Repub ‘rebuttal’ to Obama’s SoTU address, he said:
“But most Americans do not want to turn over the best medical care system in the world to the federal government.”
It goes unchallenged.
How many Americans know that we pay twice what the French pay and three times what the Japanese pay per person?
And yet, they have no uninsured, none bankrupted because of medical bills, and better medical results, by far, than ours.
I don’t think Americans are stupid. Far from it. But look at this single example of mass misinformation and ask yourself a simple question: is the press still doing it’s job?
Oh PLEEEEESE! I would EXPECT a snob to say exactly THAT!
All we (peasants) know is that when government gets involved, whatever they get involved in gets SCREWED UP! It’s a FACT even an idiot can see. So when anyone starts talking about the government taking control over ANYTHING the only move for the people is to move away from the party in control. It’s really pretty simple when you think about it.
So droll on you leftist hypocrite. Dream on you rightist pig. The USA is a lot sharper than you might think and the message these days is really quite simple – LISTEN and do what’s best for THE PEOPLE (A.K.A. “CITIZENS”) or GET OUT!
People voting only based their own immediate selfish interests at the expense of future opportunities for themselves and fellow citizes is exactly what we should NOT strive for.
For an example of this stupidity, look at how the unions have helped bankrupt US auto manufacturers by pushing for ‘their own interests’ , while non-union auto manufactures have some hope for the future without government intervention.
This is the typical liberal assumption that poor people who do not vote for liberals do not understand that they have to opportunity to get handouts by screwing their fellow Americans. The vast majority of poor people who vote for conservatives DO understand this point, they just care more about loftier concepts than temporary government handouts.
Bobbo, the Senate plan has a low cost because they separated out the doctor fix, and they don’t have benefits take effect until later years, while revenues come in from year one.
How is it voting against your own interests when Obama himself admits that you won’t be able to keep your current plan?
#55
So you cite the Washington Examiner and I cite the World Health Organization, then you criticize me for sourcing? Really?
From wikipedia’s WE page: The Washington Examiner is a free daily newspaper published in Springfield, Virginia, and distributed around Washington, D.C. and its suburbs. It is owned by Philip Anschutz, one of the world’s richest men, and has a right wing editorial slant.
Now, I’m more of an analyst than an ideologue. I try to look at organizations and see what they do well/poorly.
My view is that the GOP is operationally superior to the Dems. On the other hand most of the GOPs policies are well proven failures.
The GOPs true constituency is the top 1-2% of the population. The rest is all fluff.
I am respectful of Libertarian philosophical ideas, but in practice that is not the true thrust of the GOP. So many anti-Libertarian ideas are on the platform…
More in a thoughtful mode than attacking, but I don’t see the GOP serving any constituency other than huge wealth. Where do you fit into that?
The basic argument of the article, missing something vital. The US system of elected representatives, was designed (or intended) to provide better educated men to examine these issues, and see past or around all the emotional rhetoric, and vote in the common interest of all. However, it depended (heavily) on such representatives being honest, and uncorrupted, for the most part. It was the formation of the corporations, that spelled an end to that. In fact I believe that was their sole purpose for existing. To use their amassed money and power to get whatever they wanted, via the government. The Founding Father never foresaw merchants becoming as powerful as foreign nation states. Nor as rich as Kings. So it was assumed that such corrupting influences would never be the rule, only the exception. And also that informative media, wouldn’t be the plaything of such powerful entities, who would bias all views to their own. Americans tend to believe that some source, most be telling them the truth. When in fact, very likely NONE are, any longer. And this only serve to make our corrupted representatives’ job easier. By allowing them to vote the way the corporations want them to, on issues carefully crafted by their spin-masters.
And just recently, the US Supreme Court proved they too came be just as much a tool of corporate interests. By changing the rules to benefit the most moneyed interests. Apparently the devaluation of the US currency has the politicos worried. So they’ve cleared the way for big corporations to buy their souls, at the highest price, without the century old limitations getting in the way. What’s next? Will the court decide it’s OK for corporations to deal in human slaves, as payment to political parties. Why not reverse all common decency and human rights, to benefit the rich?
When the US’s own Supreme Court, bows its head to Mammon. Then the end can’t be too far off.
The most important paragraph in the article, and the one conveniently ignored by all the anti-Obama critics on here is the following:
“Obama’s administration made a tremendous mistake by not immediately branding the economic collapse that we had just had as the Republicans’ Depression, caused by the Bush administration’s ideology of unregulated greed.
It relates to absolute fact and cannot be disputed. Obama has finally realized this and used it in the State of the Union address and at the Question Time event with the House Republicans the next day, an event that has conveniently been ignored by Dvorak Uncensored and interestingly was carried by Fox News until they pulled the plug when it became apparent that Obama was killing them with facts.
The evidence: The unregulated and previously illegal until the Bush administration banking industry practice of credit default swaps, which was essentially gambling on whether or not unqualified home loans for inflated $500,000 houses to people earning $4/hour would be paid off or not with no financial reserves required to be kept in case those loans were not paid off, which almost brought on a world-wide economic collapse.
The run-up in oil prices by unregulated speculators despite dropping demand and increasing supply at the time that did not support a run-up, that destroyed the auto industry and required the bailouts to protect millions of auto industry and related supplier jobs that would have thrown the country into an even worse depression.
If the Republicans have all these ideas on how to fix what even they themselves say is a broken health care system, then where were these ideas during the Bush administration? Why weren’t they brought up then? They had the Presidency and Congress, so why didn’t they even bring up the subject? Even once? “Unregulated greed” again, they just let the unregulated insurance companies with their internal hidden “death panels” deciding whether or not you were worth insuring or keeping on their insurance rolls once you got sick.
There should be no such thing as a health care CORPORATION. Or health insurance corporations. We’ve had huge banking corporations, muscle out our local town banks. And look what that got us. A thoroughly screwed up economy. The bigger the corporation, the less it has to care about serving the individual, to survive. And if it becomes “too big to fail”, the government will step in to save it, whenever it falters. The blight (or curse) of the “TRUSTS”, that was temporarily suppressed a century ago, was once more reasserted its corrupting influence in government and politics. Making sure, this time, that no stone is left unturned in both government and media, in biasing every view it’s way.
There is no REAL reform taking place in the US Congress. Only a “dinner bell” ringing for the health care lobbyists to come a callin. And ply the politicians with plenty of cash and favors (post term jobs). Congress terms these “money committees”, because they expect to be paid handsomely by the lobbyists of these big corporations, to obfuscate and confuse the issues they’re voting on.
Someone said that the latest US Supreme Court decision will expose the influence of big corporations, lobbying the government. But that’s assuming the new media, heavily controlled by these same corporations, will even bother reporting it. If anything, this decision shows they’re no longer worried too much about the occasional “exposure” they might get, by the media they own or control.
The Supreme Court decision merely gets the politicians off the hook, for accepting lobbyists dollars, over their voters’ interests. They can no longer be accused of violating their oath of office, since Corporations are now, JUST LIKE PEOPLE. Only with more wealth, than the Kings of old.
Welcome to the United Corporations of America.
If you think being anti-corporation, in America, is somehow an evil idea. Well, then maybe you should have a Police Dept. Corporation, a Fire Dept. Corporation, and a Water Works and Sewage Corporation. And then see just how quickly all of your municipal services GO TO HELL, when some for-profit corporations take over. Proper Health Care isn’t a luxury, like Auto Care, or Home Improvement (except for those who want dozens of cosmetic beauty operations). So what health care you get, how good it is, and how much it should cost you, shouldn’t be at the whim of some corporate board of tyrants.
We probably won’t get all the corporate interests out of America. But we could at least get them out of Health Care. Where does it say in the Constitution that any of these corporations are guaranteed a permanent existence? Corporations and businesses have failed all on their own (like Enron). So where does it say they must suffer a “natural” death? Rather than being dissolved in the public interest. The abolition of the business of slavery, should be a sufficient example of the contrary. So when is decent health care going to be treated as a human rights issue? How is it NOT a human rights issue?!
#60, Well, then maybe you should have a Police Dept. Corporation, a Fire Dept. Corporation, and a Water Works and Sewage Corporation. And then see just how quickly all of your municipal services GO TO HELL, when some for-profit corporations take over.
You are missing the big picture here. These are all local entities, or at worst, state entities. They are not national organizations.
What works at the local level has never, not once, ever worked at the national level without cause more grief and suffering.
Besides, it’s not in the Constitution.
I will decide for myself what my self-interests are when I vote, thank you very much. That is why everyone has the opportunity to vote. Does the author think things would be better if we all sent our proxies to some organization, such as ACORN, who can determine our self interests for us?
GLennE you should consider looking up some facts about the Supreme Court case. They didn’t overturn a hundred years of precedent. The government didn’t even consider those to be the relevant cases as precedent for this case, and didn’t defend along those lines.
Or perhaps you can just go on acting like Alec Baldwin in Team America,”THe big corporations..they are corporatey”
Cities are corporations. If you are proposing banning cities, you have my interest. It’s much harder to be an anonymous, useless welfare slug in a town than in a city.
I got the pedal to the floor and my life is running faster. The sheep have poor foot coordination. Recall the Audi. The pedals confused the sheep. The toughest part to replace is the nut behind the wheel. Toyota thinks they have a fix. Nobody seems 100% sure. “Nov 2, 2009 … Toyota says stuck accelerator problem entirely due to floor-mat jams”. Now it’s something else or maybe the computer. The Audi was a mystery and I believe they discovered the sheep were mashing the wrong pedal. Keep flirtin’ with disaster guys. I’m going down this lonesome road, feel like I’m carrying a heavy load. You can’t tell what will go wrong next. Security problems are human problems, not technical problems. It looks like a rare problem. Throw it into neutral. The sheep would need to think fast.
Thus there is a paradox, and we must grasp both ends of the situation.
# 15 Eyelid Stuck In The Bench Vise – Again…:
Wow, thanks for telling me about myself. Gee, I didn’t know all that stuff about how I think in lies and want to harm all individuals, and how foolish of me to think about trying to help out the poor and downtrodden. Now I see the error of my ways! I must instead dedicate myself to further enriching the elite, whose grand-daddies, the robber barons, enslaved thousands and robbed tens of thousands more!
Now turn off your computers, everyone, and get to work! Mrs. Mellon needs another foot rub & Mr. Scaife needs his #7 yacht polished!
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# 21 Greg Allen:
Readers of Asimov’s Foundation series will recognize what I mean when I say Reagan was like The Mule.
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# 23 dusanmal:
“Typical liberal misconception that majority of people are stupid.”
Well, don’t forget: fully _half_ of them are below average…
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Then # 43 Traaxx burst in and stated anyone who ever voted for a “Progressive/Commie” is as guilty of the murders of millions as “Stalin/Mao/Idi Amin/Pol Pot and Hitler.”
Wow. First, let me just yell “GODWIN!!!” Then let me just stand in awe of the extreme bitterness and add a [Citation Needed], and mention that he forgot to drag in ACORN and SEIU.
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# 47 deowll:
“… My numbers say the US is on the way down as a leader of nations and economic power house.
The liberals say this _can’t_ happen[…]”
I disagree with your assertion. As a confirmed liberal myself I have seen it already starting to happen. In fact, I have known liberals who thought it was a good idea. Those are the ones I consider too far left…
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# 54 MikeN:
“…Obama himself admits that you won’t be able to keep your current plan…” [Citation Needed]
#55 pedro:
“…And you actually believe the WHO?[…]”
Them collidge boiz think ther SO smart…
#67, and how foolish of me to think about trying to help out the poor and downtrodden. Now I see the error of my ways!
No one is telling you that you can’t do that.
What we are telling you is you don’t have the right to tell us to do that.
You honestly can’t see the difference?
#69, That’s your fear talking. Just because I don’t want to be TOLD to be charitable, doesn’t mean I am not charitable.
I give to charities all the time. I donate, on average, a full day each week to charities.
Is that not enough for you? How much of my time do you think I should donate?