‘I’m Scared!’ Of Affordable Healthcare? No Way.

I think you’re right about this, because it’s the only interpretation that makes any sense. Why would anyone want other people to be deprived of health care?I have encountered some pretty cold-hearted wingnuts who firmly believe that anyone who is without health insurance somehow deserves his or her plight. But this screaming about “wanting America back” goes way beyond any policy debate. It’s racial. It has to be.

Racism was my first thought but I suspect she is mourning the loss of conservatism and the religious right’s control of her America.Sorry lady, it’s now EVERYBODY’S America.

Peggy Noonan had an epic fail of an op-ed in the WSJ today about how these people are “terrified” of the health care reform bill.Insofar as they might actually BE “terrified” by the legislation, they aren’t scared by what’s in it. They’re scared of the caricature the GOP keeps drawing for them.But even that doesn’t explain this kind of hysteria. These folks have imbibed a toxic mix of crazy fringe nonsense on top of their conservative upbringing, and a negro in the White House is their final straw.

You nailed it. They know this is going to be a minority majority country very soon, and they fear being treated exactly as they’ve treated minorities for two hundred years. It’s an irrational fear, of course, but that feeling of a lack of control over your life and circumstances pushes you into the realm of the completely irrational. With the likes of Limbaugh, Beck, Buchanan and others reinforcing that feeling, that the blame lies with the “Other” that is sucking this country dry in spite of “all we’ve done for them,” they can’t step back for even a moment and see the reality of the situation. Even if the public option improves their situation, the fact that it improves the situation of someone they’ve determined to be undeserving of it benefits will fuel further anger at the president and his policies.

I saw this last night and was, also, impressed by how far beyond a debate about the merits of the proposed legislation this woman’s reactions were. All of the comments here echo feelings that I’ve had about it since, and the only other thing I might add is that a reformed health care system might make services and/or medications available to her that could bring her brain chemistry into more of a functional balance.**(I suppose that last bit might be bordering on heresy for some, but, as a father of an Asperger’s child, I have seen first hand what the right combination of meds can do. On the other hand, Fox News would have a field day with my sentiment…)

Yep! That’s it exactly!They’re just angry as hell! Period! It has nothing to do with health care reform.A tantrum by any other name is still a tantrum!

This lady bears a striking resemblance to crazy McCain town hall lady.Also, all of this calling the Obama admin (and Dems in general) Nazis, and blaming them for every problem and basicallys aying that they’re dragging the country into a deep dark hole of the apocalyspse…isn’t that kind of the MO of the Nazis toward the Jews? And I actually don’t mean to call Rush, et. al Nazis, btu I have yet to hear anyone in the Obama admin say “this entire group of people is to blame for all your problems”…

Yes, it’s racial and personal for them. But they also do not want to spend money helping other people’s health. I know some of these people and they state that they deserve their Medicare, but younger and non-white people don’t deserve to have retirees’ tax money spent on healthcare. These retirees think that younger people need to earn their own. Problem is, the world changed, and there now aren’t any lucrative, benefit-rich jobs.

It’s about race, for sure, and you will never get them to admit it. Never. But it’s also the people they look to – generally people in power are the more stable contingent of the people they represent. Rachel Maddow and Barbara Boxer are more stable than me and my ilk. Glenn Beck and Jim Inhofe are more stable than their constituents.So, the wingnuts are afraid that a black family (or worse, Muslim!) is not only going to move next door, but that the neighbor’s son might voodoo their daughter and become her baby daddy. But that’s not all.Thanks to nothing more than the shinola they’re fed from their role models, they’re also worried about even less realistic possiblities, like America becoming socialist (!!), old people being sent the Soylent Green route, and their goddamned precious guns being taken away.The liberals are just afraid of the wingnuts’ fear. That pretty much boils it down to basics. Since the wingnut fear reflex is KILL IT, IT’S NOT ONE OF US no matter what the case (e.g. Iraq, George Tiller, Matthew Shepard).And right now I’m fucking afraid, because these reactions aren’t amusing anymore. We’re setting up to have a serious confrontation, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the Civil Rights riots in the 60s. Never mind the Middle East, we’re setting up to have a holy war right the fuck here.And they’re the ones with the guns.

This ought not surprise anyone. It’s a perfectly predictable side effect of the jingoistic historical revisionism that is programmed into American schools, media, advertising…the whole zeitgeist is a mishmash of John Wayne winning WWII after defeating the savages to bring civilization and freedom to the founding of all that is eternally right and good, with negrahs cast in helpful, loyal and musical supporting roles.Someone rewrote the script. These folks are like Kathy Bates in Misery, and if they have to hobble democracy to save Misery, so be it. The fantasy in which their world makes sense is patently, overwhelmingly apparently NOT the case. Reality is intruding on their world view, and they prefer the way it’s “supposed” to be. Their WORLD is crumbling.They are trying to do their best to couch their arguments in terms of issues – cognitive dissonance prevents them from saying, “I don’t hate black people, but they need to keep to their place.”But the twists and flips required to make the argument – the utter stubbornness of perspective in the face of evidence – reveals the truth.And it’s not mere racism, although that’s certainly a chunk of it (as Lou Dobbs, Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, Jeff Sessions and that Tancredo idiot consistently demonstrate), but crossed with a strange desire to be Joan Collins on Dynasty while winning Who’s Got Talent. America was supposed to deliver the television American dream. And it has not. It cannot. And they’re looking for someone to blame.They are disillusioned – reality doesn’t look like the script. So they WHARGARBL about health care, the sadder among them about birth certificates.Trapped in a Mighty Boosh skit and convinced it’s supposed to be an episode of Leave It To Beaver.The only thing more clearly displayed than their ignorance is their passion.They cannot be reasoned with…they are afraid.Have you ever tried to speak sensibly with someone in the grip of panic?For some people, this panic is pervasive. EVERYTHING is changing. Black president, Hispanic SC Justice, Turr’sts…fear and loathing and everything is CHANGING GODDAMN IT!They cling to certainty; to that which they knew and was better than this constant barrage of distortion and lies which stokes the fear that many of them cannot even name. They just contort themselves into “This is not America…not MY Amercia!”Nevertheless, that their reasoning is ridiculous doesn’t matter. That their facts are wrong does not matter. They are panicking. They cannot be reasoned with.I wonder if they will get tired. Rage is exhausting. I wonder if fighting back, stoking them up, REALLY giving them someone to shout at isn’t playing into their strength.RETARD STRENGTH! Y’know?I wonder if just repeating, over and over, the calm facts of the matter – putting them to sleep with truthy lullabies – might not be a better approach. Perhaps this is one of those situations where shouting SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP at a crying infant is not likely to yield results.But, and I say this after serious consideration, this shit is becoming more and more like the last episode of M*A*S*H.In order to save everyone on that bus, that Korean woman had to smother her own baby.SHUT UP!Sorry for lengthy post. I’m having a typhoon.

Yeah lady, I’m scared too!! I helped elect a brilliant empathetic (yeah I know those are dirty words to you on the fringe right) to get us out of the 8 year gulag that MY AMERICA had become.Now I wonder if it’s going to make any difference where healthcare reform is concerned which is the most important issue to me right now being not well, having no insurance and too young to take advantage of YOUR Medicare or Social Security.Selfish “I’ve got mine, fuck everyone else” pricks!!

What can I say?I have probably seen her at my local WalMart with her white-haired mama there.I’m sure I’ve seen he mama who is worried about her Medicare, but not if the people who actually PAY for her medicare have access to health care.sigh there.They are from Bauxite, AR (from what I read on the local blog’s reporting) which is white, white, white and if there are any darkies they are the good kind who know their place. It is deep, deep evangelical Christian area.BUT I bet if someone did a survey of the area they would find a high level of folks on one kind of gov’t assistance or another.These people do not live in the reality the rest of us do, or even the America the rest of us do, they just do not and now they are lost. Rove promised them a 20 or 30 year run in the White House and now they have woken up to a negro in the White House and they seem to not know how it happened.How could Sarah and John lose?They were God’s chosen people.Satan must have been in control of the election.God would never have allowed a negro in the White House and he would never approve of health care reform.

I forgot to mention that this is a religious war for these folks…

The repukes and their corporate fiends went out and found all the crazies, like the birthers, and siked them up with all their propaganda and lies making them believe it. They were born and bred racist.By the way, Scary Sarah has been accused of attempted bribery for trying to get an ethics complaint dismissed. TheImmoralMinority has it.

Of course some of these people are genuinely scared. The GOP shamelessly lies about this healthcare reform bill and other legislation using extreme rhetoric, hyperbole and exaggeration, to say the least. You can blame Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh, DeMint, Grassley, and the like for stoking the fires of fear among people who take many of them very seriously. They are exploiting these people’s native ignorance and loyalty to get them scared to death, therefore on their side. I think it’s one of the most disgusting political power plays I’ve seen in my lifetime. Just one more reason I hate the GOP with a fucking passion.

The people need to sit down and have a “The Secret” marathon.