Replacing Repealed Health Care With...?

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irst of all, the Republicans are really serious about doing as much damage as they can get away with; and first on the list is getting rid of Health Care Reform.  This may well turn out to be a serious error in strategy.

How so?

As most good sales people know, if you want to motivate someone to buy something, first you put the product in front of them.  Let them get comfortable with it.  Then take it away.  Suddenly they will feel a big empty void  And voilá!  Another fine product sold.  In the same way, the debate over health care reform was long and bitter; and when it passed, there was a finality to it.  We were into a new and more civilized era.  So, if the Republicans actually do remove it  there just might be a big reaction across the nation that the newly arrived Republican Congress is not looking for.

So efforts to repeal may be a blessing in disguise.  Follow that with the cutting of Social Security and the Republican Party can kiss the White House goodbye in 2012.  

But Americans are starting to fight back.  It becomes apparent that the GOP is not merely the party of NO,  it is now the party of We Hate Americans But We Really Hate Seniors.  So Alan Grayson's summary of the Republican outlook regarding health care was dead on:

"Republicans to seniors:  Hurry up and die!"

And they send Sarah Palin out to scream "Death Panels!  Death Panels!"  to throw the Tea Baggers off the track; and maybe even convince a few morons that the Republican leadership's hearts are in the right place.  But now that the dust has settled, we see plainly that they never had hearts to begin with,  and their motives are projected onto the horizon in stark relief.  So, regarding health care, Republican Congressmen from Boner  to McConnell, to Simpson, Rush Limbaugh, et al, they want everything for themselves and nothing for you.  Well, at least that gives them get high marks for consistency.  

They are claiming that they have a mandate from the American people to repeal, but they're just whistling in the dark on that score.  The American people are so against the Republican repeal of the very imperfect health care bill, by a factor of at least 65%,  it is difficult to understand where they would get the nerve, or the stupidity to make such an error in strategy.  Here is what happened recently, at one Town Hall Meeting.

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But then too, today, Paul Krugman reminded everyone that the Health Care Insurance bill which finally got passed was the very bill which the Republicans themselves came up with back in the '90s. The madness which is inherent in the words and actions of the current batch of Congressional Republicans is not merely inconsistent and hypocritical, it is downright stupid and against the Common Good.  So what else is new?

Right Wing Hatred

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Of course the Republicans are going to deny any and all accusations that their violent rhetoric and imagery were responsible for the tragic shooting in Tucson last Saturday.  Wouldn't you?  Especially if you knew you were guilty as Hell.  But--- as has been pointed out with numbing frequency,--- the right has no honor.  George Orwell knew what conservatives were, way back in the day: pigs.  A pig doesn't willingly share and always wants more.  Conservatives are people without conscience.  Probably that is why they insist on giving themselves awards all the time.  Big, obscene looking, gold awards.  Which is most likely why Lauren Valle, the woman who tried to give a mock  award to Rand Paul, at one of his rallies, was beaten to the ground and held immobile by RP volunteers until Paul's campaign coordinator, Tim Profitt, arrived and first, stepped on her shoulder, and then on her head and face.

Please tell me when a liberal ever intentionally stepped on a conservative's face.

But then too, we forget that conservatives are authoritarians.  Authoritarians can't help themselves from hating anyone who does not kowtow to authority.  That is to say, anyone who disagrees with conservative ideas.  And their particular conservative ideas.  It is simply a feature of the personality structure of authoritarians.

Hatred is what conservatives eat for breakfast. Asking a conservative authoritarian to stop the hatred is tantamount to asking them to cut off their arms and legs.

Back to Rand Paul and his campaign coordinator, Tim Profitt.  Even though Profitt was banned from further contact with the Paul campaign, his statement to the media was memorable, if only for its stunning lack of remorse.  Profitt told the reporter that he felt the he deserved an apology from the woman whose face he crushed with his boot when she was being held down by other volunteers.  So obviously despicable was the act that one of the rally bystanders shouted out, "Hey, hey, none of that!  Stop that."

"I'm sorry that it came to that," Proffit said in his statement to the media. "And I apologize if it appeared overly forceful, but I was concerned about Rand's safety."  For a Tea-Bagger that is probably as apologetic as it gets.

She was taken to the hospital with a dislocated shoulder and a concussion.

But Profitt was not through.  As a Tea-Bagger he had still more atrocious behavior yet to reveal.

"I don't think of it as that big of a deal." Profitt said.  "I would like her to apologize to me to be honest with you."

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Tim Profitt, campaign coordinator and racist Tea-Partier Rand Paul

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Doesn't that just sound like the sort of thing you would expect a Rand Paul supporter to say?  And it took Rand Paul quite a long time to make any kind of a statement regarding the disgraceful event.  And when he finally did say something he said how difficult crowd control was.  He referred to the event as an "altercation."  An altercation is when two motorists shout out the window at each other in traffic.

Sounds like Profitt is one of the the worst of the baddies in a Hollywood action thriller. One of those comic book one-dimensional villains.  Only the unredeemably rotten-to-the-core conservatives twist reality so insanely that they insist that they are the ones who have been wronged.

Remember Clarence Thomas' "Uppity nigger" speech to Congress in which he portrayed himself as an unfairly accused victim of racism.  And the GOP turned a blind eye on the fact that that the evidence against Thomas as a sexual predator was overwhelming.  Bottom line:  It worked.

This is precisely the tactic of the GOP, Rush Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin, in denying responsibility for the Arizona shooting.♦