A Few Reasoned Thoughts From An Outraged Retard
August 19, 2009
An internet friend today linked to a Talking Points Memo post featuring emails from people in Australia with their reaction to seeing American media coverage of the health care debate. “Everyone is puzzled by our retarded outrage,” my friend wrote.
The lunatic fringe has indeed been given the opportunity to show up in force at town hall meetings, those Clinton-era mutations of the New England tradition that are curiously unsuited to accomplishing anything of substance outside of their native environment. Fringers have taken that opportunity, like they always do, to jump and yell mind-bogglingly bizarre things – and, most importantly, to be caught on camera doing all those things so television can show them to us. We’re all rightfully shocked by the flat-out retarded things these people come up with. But the problem I see again and again is that these crazy folks are being made out in the media to be the *core* opposition to the Democratic government.
The same leftist punditocracy who blanched at Bush-era accusations of not supporting the troops or loving America’s enemies for opposing policies with which they disagreed are now all too willing to play the role of propagandists for a cause they believe in, leveling blanket accusations of racism or stupidity or just plain craziness at anyone who mistrusts either the government’s intentions or abilities on this issue. Painting all opponents of the Democratic health care reform plan with the crazy/stupid brush is the same sort of rhetorical tactic the Bush/Cheney administration and its cheerleaders used for eight years, with the only difference being that it relies on belittling others’ sanity and intelligence and political correctness instead of belittling their patriotism. Check out this post at Reason for a recent round-up of such rhetoric, which includes links to six previous round-ups of rhetoric.
I’m not a fan of the Democratic-controlled government’s proposal for a lot of reasons. My opposition is based partially on practical concerns (e.g. how on earth is a dead-broke government going to pay for this plan?) and partially based on principle (e.g. government reform is inherently less efficient and responsive than market reform). Because of that – or as some people seem to think these days, despite that – you won’t find me waving a gun at a town hall meeting or screaming “Heil Hitler” and sticking my tongue out at fellow town hall attendees or otherwise acting like a buffoon because I lie awake at night, drenched in sweat, intensely afraid that George Soros and his socialist minions will soon convene my death panel, ready to condemn me so they can take my wife away to their communal love farm and have their filthy, European ways with her.
Instead I’m doing a lot of reading and head-shaking – and basically staying silent on the sidelines. You see, my peer group is almost universally in favor of the government’s current idea of reform. We are all relatively young and middle- to lower-middle-class. We all also happen to think that the current system is a pretty shitty affair. But where they see a benevolent government that cares about them trying to step in and solve their problems, I see a small cadre of powerful people trying to quickly force their wishes on a population that clearly has some reservations about going along with the plan.
But I can’t really get that across to anyone who supports the government right now. The moment they find out that I’m not on their side, I get lumped in with screaming “birthers” and Sarah Palin and the entire right wing of the GOP that is so completely opposed to most of the things that are important to me. The current tenor of American political discourse doesn’t allow me to be a reasonable person who agrees with my friends on plenty of things but happens to disagree on this particular issue. Instead of being the principled opposition, instead of being a person who reads and analyzes and considers, instead of being a citizen who’s concerned about the future of his country, I’ll always be an outraged retard.
The post A Few Reasoned Thoughts From An Outraged Retard by Jason Kirk, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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August 19th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Heh, I was definitely not classifying your outrage as “retarded.”
I do agree that these people are being given too much attention by the media, and some people probably think that everyone opposed to health care reform are like this.
Personally, I don’t think that at all. However, I do think that the people showing up to protest at town hall meetings are not too different from the Hitler lady, and *these* are the people to which Congress is responding, not those of intellectual libertarians concerned about costs. Outraged retards are effectively running the show.
August 19th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
Well said. I feel the same way on every point. Thank you for putting my thoughts into words.
August 19th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Jim,
Yeah, I know you don’t feel that way. The main reason I used your phrasing is because it’s what got me thinking about how people like me (the reasoned opposition) are essentially being lumped together with the birthers by the mainstream media in the first place.
So far as Congress goes, there’s something of a systemic problem at hand in that anyone who isn’t a) frothing at the mouth or b) handing out lobbying dollars can’t get the attention of decision makers. I think that as you say, some of the people showing up to protest are more like the Hitler lady. But I also think plenty of the protestors are actually just people showing up to exercise their First Amendment rights by saying, “Hey, I’m not a big fan of you shoving this ‘reform’ down my throat without giving me any say in the matter and I’ve decided to get vocal about it.” The protest movement is simply too large for me to believe that it’s purely the result of crazies and “Astroturf” organizations; there has to be some genuine democratic concern in the mix, don’t you think?
August 20th, 2009 at 1:30 am
“The protest movement is simply too large for me to believe that it’s purely the result of crazies and “Astroturf” organizations; there has to be some genuine democratic concern in the mix, don’t you think?”
Exactly. However, I believe it to be mostly genuine, rather than “some”. People finally seem to be realizing that their teevee’s have been lying to them (it isn’t real? Gov’t doesn’t love me and have my best interests in mind? Hoocoodanode?), that there’s some serious tyrannical shit comin’ down the pike, and that above all, they’ve been robbed fucking blind with the smooth baton pass from Bush to Obama, and that these ‘most powerful people’ really are just front men.
At long last, people are starting to get mad as hell, and refusing to take it anymore. We need more of it.
August 20th, 2009 at 6:33 am
Well, let me make it clear that I don’t think that these town hall protesters are being at all undemocratic. Their opposition – even though I think it’s not founded in reason, or even purely about health care – is entirely democratic.
August 20th, 2009 at 7:51 am
The reason I think the town hall protesters are being “undemocratic”, Jim, is because they’re disrupting the talks. I would have no issue if they protested outside and expressed their opinions in the meeting. But, disrupting the meeting and not allowing anyone to speak does nothing but gum up the process and prevent the issue from being resolved.
August 20th, 2009 at 9:42 am
re: Pokerwolf
The full videos I’ve seen (as opposed to the sound bites played on the news) tend to show a politician ignoring, mocking or refusing to answer a question, then getting booed and yelled at. I’m sure some meetings have gotten out of hand, but I’d place most of the blame on our “Representatives” from what I’ve seen. YMMV
I would like to know if anyone has even thought about how to prevent the government from becoming an effective monopoly in health care, as it will be nearly impossible for a private company which must worry about profit and lawsuits to compete.
Nick
August 20th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
One small point…the TV talking heads are only going to show the craziest of the crazy…there were some very valid points brought up in angry but restrained voices. I agree with Head, that the anger is necessary. Both political parties are just fighting for votes and not actually doing anything; well, other than consolidating power and entrenching their individual careers. It was not meant to be like this.