Collectively yours.

[alexandraerin]

Alright, I think that if anyone has been reading my work for any time at all, then they are sure to definitely know that pedantry is among a couple things I just won't put up with. But, I'm going to take a moment to address a somewhat pedantic point that I think is worth emphasizing:

The plural of "person" is "persons", not "people".

"People", you see, is a collective noun.

In day-to-day conversation, the distinction's hardly worth noting. But when the foundational legal document of our nation begins "We the People", I think it's important to reflect on what that means. Legal documents are one of the few places you will see "persons" being used on a regular basis, because it has a distinct meaning separate from "people".

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Not "We, a bunch of persons". "We the People".

They built an entire episode of Star Trek around this, folks. That's how important it is.

I believe in individual liberties. I believe in privacy and freedom from interference. I believe in the power of the market and the right of persons to individually and collectively utilize it. I believe that when this happens, there will be a general trend towards the betterment of all. The poorest segment of the population of the United States today are generally better off than the poorest segments of the population a century ago.

But I also believe that there are times when our individual strengths aren't enough, there are times when masses of persons following immediate and obvious self-interest conflicts with the common good, and that in those times, We the People must come together.

Imagine if we tried to run a country where each person was responsible for the safety of themselves, their families, their homes, and their possessions. I don't just mean a reasonable level of personal responsibility. I mean that there are no police, no fire departments, no armed forces... if your house is attacked, by robbers or murderers or religious zealots or people who want the land it occupies, you are on your own.

Could you live the life you now live if you were solely responsible for your own protection? Even if you think the answer is yes, do you think the society you live in and the benefits you enjoy from that society could exist under those conditions?

Sure, your answer might be that if the government just disappeared we could all just band together with our neighbors and establish patrols and watch groups and fire brigades and militias... you know, come together for the common defense and promote the general welfare and... hey, this is starting to sound familiar, isn't it?

We the People.

It's easy to get people to agree with the benefits of collectively facing some threats. When your neighbor's home is on fire, yours is in danger. When your neighbor's home is burgled, your home could be next. When your neighbor is threatened by tyranny, what's to stop that tyrant from doing the same to you?

So how about when your neighbor is sick with an infectious disease?

What about when your neighbor is bankrupted by paying for a surgery?

What about when your neighbor can't afford the surgery in the first place?

Sure, you might be thinking, "I can't catch a broken leg.", but if the economy falls, it's taking you with it, and each person taken out of work or rendered destitute is a blow to the economy.

This looks like a job for... We the People.

Using large corporations to insure us against the cost of health care services is a poor substitute for using our collective power as "We the People" to ensure that each of us the persons has access to health care.

I don't know how we can have domestic Tranquility, common defense, or general Welfare when we won't to come together as a People to ensure the health of our population.

Comments

[hnmic.livejournal.com]

AE you know I thoroughly enjoy reading what you write at all times, well most times anyway, but today I love reading you.

As the neighbor who is being bankrupted by medical bills (thanks for the reminder: I need to call my lawyer), I salute you.

[gamercow.livejournal.com]

I'm a commie, and I endorse this message. *stamp*

Seriously, though, I love dumbfounding the right-wing when they say that public health care is "communist", like there's something wrong with that. I usually say things along the lines of "Ok, let me get rid of all the "commie" government plans. No more police, no more fire department, no more DPW, no more public schools" etc. etc.

[cpip.livejournal.com]

That actually was the argument that ultimately persuaded me.

[caret-mox.livejournal.com]

No more of those damn commie libraries.

[sage-blackthorn.livejournal.com]

I remember reading somewhere that having a Fire Dept. actually seems to encourage people to have more accidental fires in the first place. I can't remember if it was Daniel Quinn or Derrick Jensen that pointed it out in one of their books. But I remember reading a story about a community that had a fire percentage of accidental fires every year. One year a major disaster of some sort hit and the roads to a certain neighborhood became blocked. The Fire Chief sent out an announcement that due to the blockage, no trucks would be able to get through to put the fires out. Amazingly, that community had fewer "accidental" fires while the Fire Dept. was unable to respond.

The theory was that people have become lazy, relying on the state to take care of them. Living in a disposable culture where it doesn't matter if all your possessions get burned up, your insurance will pay for all new possessions. People don't matter because material possessions have become more important than people. Well, I won't say that people don't matter in the modern world, but they are not valued as much as products and production seem to be.

In short this way of life ENCOURAGES people to be thoughtless and careless, because subconsciously they know they don't HAVE to take care of things themselves. Only problem is things are breaking down and it's not working anymore. To many people and not enough resources to go around. The more I think about it, I think it was one of Derrick Jensen's books.

[mpilnick.livejournal.com]

Atlas Shrugged... and there weren't literal and figurative trainwrecks? Sounds pretty blasphemous.

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

People can always be more careful than they are.

But "care" is not an unlimited commodity*. Knowing that the fire department is temporarily unavailable, a community does its damnedest to make sure that they don't need a fire department.

Could they keep that up indefinitely?

What would the trade-off be? What things would they neglect to free up the attention they're paying to the fire?

If I know I'm not going to be somewhere that I can't get a drink of water for a while, I can plan for that. I can be careful to hydrate myself in advance. I can avoid things that will make me perspire. I can even do without water when I get thirsty. Could we extrapolate from this my ability to go without water indefinitely?

The culture you're describing where people honestly don't care if their houses burn down isn't a disposable one, it's a nihilistic one and an unrealistic one, one that couldn't exist outside a fictional story designed to "prove" the pet theories of an author who can't find proof in reality.

I'm not surprised the commenter above me immediately thought of Ayn Rand.

The people I know... even ones with insurance against fire loss... are emotionally attached to their stuff. Even a person who will buy the latest iPod because it's the latest gAdget can still be bereft if their current gAdget gets broken. All the data is backed up on their computer, but even if they've got some equipment replacement contract on it, it's still something that people get upset over.

*Moreover, "care" is not a cure-all or absolute aegis one can hide behind. The community with no fire department might have no "accidental fires", but what do they do about lightning strikes? Electrical fires that were beyond their power to predict or prevent? Fires that start beyond the scope of their "care" but threaten them anyway?

But let's talk about this in relation to healthcare. Let's imagine that there is no public entity that will take care of their medical bills, so people need to be careful not to get themselves sick or injured.

Oh, wait. We don't have to imagine that.

The whole point of this conversation is that we're living with the knowledge that nobody will take care of us if we get sick, and so the best a lot of folks can do is be very very careful and hope that's enough to keep them working/out of the hospital/alive.

How's it seem to be working, to you?

[sage-blackthorn.livejournal.com]

In relation to health care: I've been without health insurance since I was 21. I'll be turning 35 this month. I'm very careful not to break any bones. When I get sick, I treat myself using traditional herbal medicine and folk remedies, and by relying on my own immune system.

Strange result I've noticed in these last 14 years since I stopped going to doctors....I've been getting sick less and less every year. I've never broken a bone in my entire life. And I've had plenty of opportunities between hiking, camping, martial arts training. Never even had a cavity come to think of it. I've had what I would consider minor injuries: Pulled muscles, dislocated joints, blocked sinus cavity, cactus spine in my shoulder for 3 months that abcessed. Pulled the cactus spine out myself, and drained the abcess with a little help from my girlfriend.

For the last 14 years, this has been working pretty well for me. And I dare say I've become stronger for it in the long run. But this is my way, that I've found works for me. And I'm lucky to have access to people knowledgable about medicinal herbs and folk medicine as well as books on traditional and alternative medicine and healing practices. Massage and accupressure therapy, diet and nutrition, Yoga, Chi Gung, Tai Chi, Mind/Body Interaction....lots of useful knowledge available, much of it free for the learning and the asking.

But as I said, this is my way that works for me. Other people must find other ways that work for them. Because there is no one right way to do anything in this world.

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

Don't feel like you have to answer this, but I'd be curious about your family history and your personal history, regarding availability of things like regular doctor's visits and adequate nutrition and safe places to exercise growing up.

Actually, no, I'm not that curious. You are an anecdote, not a statistic.

But if you're that healthy as an adult, then odds are you had a healthy childhood, which means you had certain advantages that are far from universal.

This isn't to say that you should feel guilty or that families who have those advantages should give them up for being "unfair". Just that you need to be careful in assigning your experience weight in terms of a broader description. As advice goes, "don't get sick" is right up there with "don't be desperately poor"... and in fact, the two things could probably be strongly correlated.

In fairness, you are acknowledging that what works for you wouldn't work for everybody, but with that acknowledgment, questions about relevancy arise. If you're honestly not suggesting that the need for health care is the fault of lazy people who don't take care of themselves, then what's the point of bringing it up?

"Since we're on the subject of health care, I'm really, really healthy."

I myself had more than adequate nutrition growing up (though I did benefit from government subsidies there) and I lived in a house with a big backyard in a safe neighborhood with a top-notch playground and athletic field about three houses away from it.

I also had a mitochondrial disorder that limited the amount of exercise I could get and my ability to benefit from it.

As an adult, I have some health problems that I could probably have prevented or avoided. Then I also have some health problems that are the result of an inherited mutation. And to be perfectly honest, those two facts are likely related... any problem I develop in my organs or muscles or brain is likely being exacerbated by my cellular malfunctions, as well as by my exercise difficulties.

And with all that, I'm still better off than a lot of people, healthwise. My parents could afford to take me to specialists when I was young. That didn't strike me as a particularly lucky thing at the time, mind you.

But anyway, my point is that if "personal responsibility" is going to enter into the healthcare discussion, then what we're really saying is this:

1. We believe in setting a higher minimum amount of wealth required to live in our society.
2. We believe in setting a higher minimum amount of genetic health required to live in our society.
3. We believe in setting a higher minimum amount of luck required to live in our society.

Because "personal responsibility" depends upon personal ability, and your ability to not get sick or hurt depends on those three factors.

An alternate approach to "personal responsibility", of course, would be "from each according to their ability, to each according their need." But that's crazy talk, of course.

The "we believe in setting" is important. There are minimum amounts of resources, genetic health, and luck required to live as a matter of course. Some things are just plain fatal. We'll never be able to change that.

But as a society, we can move the bar. I'm in favor of moving it down as low as we can, as a society. I feel better about living in a society that keeps the barriers to a fruitful and enjoyable--or even tolerable, or sustainable--life as low as possible.

I think it's better for society, too.

I don't have a very flattering opinion of people who think it's a good idea to make the barriers harder to surmount.

...

[sage-blackthorn.livejournal.com]

Actually the only point I was trying to make is that there are alternatives to traditional western medicine, and that a little knowledge can go a long way in keeping a person healthy. There are other ways of treating illnesses and injuries than running off to a hospital. I think alot of people set that bar you're talking about higher than they need to simply because they were never taught many of the basic skills needed to treat things themselves and have become dependant on doctors and hospitals for everything.

There is quite alot, healthcare wise, that people can do themselves if they take the time to study and practice. They don't have to rely on doctors and hospitals, which charge exorbitant sums of money, for everything. Western medicine has it's place, but it's not the only game in town. Almost 50% of the pharmaceuticals on the market today are derived from herbs and plant sources. 200 years ago, almost every home had an herb garden that people would use for treating common illnesses and injuries. Those remedies still work, and are accessable to everyone who's willing to water a few plants and do a little research at their local library.

The way I see it, that lowers the accessability bar to it's lowest point in that everyone potentially can do this if they choose to. In some cases, you don't even have to grow the plants yourself. Many of them are growing wild in parks and national forests, or planted as ornamentals on city streets (although plants growing along roadsides are not my favorite since they tend absorb car exhaust).

I agree that as a society the barriers to a fruitful and enjoyable life should be kept to a minimum. But I think that the responsebility for that rests with "We The People" doing everything we can, not with the Government. If we are constantly waiting someone else to improve out lives for us, it will never happen. We must make the choice to work for something better and then take action. My opinion for that in the realm of healthcare is that that begins with learning how to treat yourself for alot of the minor ailments and injuries, and only relying on a physician for a major problem that is beyond one's means to deal with. But each person has to decide where that dividing line is for themselves. If they find that they are going to a clinic or doctor for things that their friends are treating themselves, then maybe it's time they learned what their friends know.

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

No, you're making the point I said you were making, and the sad and fucked-up thing is that you don't need to. Less reliance on doctors is not an elemental opposite of everybody having access to doctors. You could advocate for both. I do. I don't go to the doctor very often and didn't when I had very good healthcare. I avoid what I consider to be frivolous medical attention and over medication as a matter of course.

But I also have a genetic condition that will probably result in my brain or other organs failing at a younger age than yours, no matter what I do. "Western" or "Eastern" or "Northern" or "Southern" or "Upper" or "Outer" medicine be fucked, my body will fall apart on its own schedule. At that point my continued survival and quality of life is going to vary based on my access to medicine. The point that you're making is that I ought to be fucked relative to you, and you can please choke to death and die in the street because nobody looking at you can figure out how they benefit from giving you the Heimlich maneuver when you're too lazy to pull yourself up by the bootstraps.

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

Anyway, as far as that goes, you'd still be better off with health coverage, even if you never used it. I'd be better off if you had health coverage. We collectively would be better off if you had health coverage.

The same is true of me, of course.

(I'm going to be getting health coverage soon... I hope nobody thinks that this is about my not having insurance and wanting the world to give it to me. Back when I had health coverage, I was in favor of nationalizing health care. Now I'm in favor of private health care with public entities ensuring access.)

You've constructed a reality in your head that says you can control your own well-being. So far, actual reality seems to bear you out. Maybe it will continue to do so. Maybe it won't. You honestly don't know.

I had a friend who espoused similar attitudes as you're showing here. I'm going to tell you one iteration of it that's probably going to sound like a hyperbole, but it's honestly true: she refused to wear a seatbelt or lock the doors of her car while it was in motion.

Why? Because she was a careful driver, and those things only mattered if you got into an accident.

What if she was in an accident that someone else caused, I asked her.

She told me that if somebody caused her car to crash, she wanted to make sure she could get away from it before it blew up and each impediment that was in her way... a seatbelt that needed to be undone, a door that needed to be unlocked... were unacceptable obstacles standing between her and her ability to save her own life.

Now, in real life, car accidents only very rarely result in explosions. You are far more likely to die from being thrown clear of the vehicle (through the windshield, or out the door as the car rolls over... over you, most likely, since you just fell out the side of it) than you are to die because the car impacted something leaving you conscious and unharmed but then exploded in the time it takes to undo a seatbelt.

I pointed this out, but she wasn't interested in hearing it. In her mind, the only conceivable scenarios... or the only ones worth thinking of... were the ones where her well-being was in her own hands, whether by being a very careful driver or by quick action after an accident happened that was beyond her control.

What happened to her?

Well, she moved away.

She's still alive and well, and as far as I know, still an absolute fucking idiot.

She could very well live the rest of her life like this and die of old age at 107. The point of wearing seat belts and securing the doors of a car isn't that if you don't do it You Will Certainly Die. The point is that there are many, many things in life that are beyond your control, but the seatbelt and the car door locks are within your reach and they can save your life.

[sage-blackthorn.livejournal.com]

I agree that choosing not to wear seatbelts and secure the doors of one's vehicle doesn't strike me as particularly intelligent. But that was her choice, and she will have to deal with the consequences (should there be any. I remember years ago when all we had were lap belts in cars, and using them actually seemed to increase the incidents of whiplash during an accident. Plenty of people I knew growing up refused to wear them. But then the shoulder strap was introduced and people felt safer as the incidents of whiplash during car crashes went down.) Whether she is "still an absolute fucking idiot" or not, only time will tell.

One of the problems I have with government run, nationalized health care here in America is that I know people who are on it, and they do not recieve adequate care for their ailments. Most people don't know that health care on Indian Reservations IS government run, and according to my friends on the Rosebud and Pine Ridge Reservations, it's is severely lacking. There is a running joke on the Rez' "Don't get sick after August." Because by August all the funding has run out, and no one is being treated. According to the original treaties, the Federal Government of the United States of America is responsible for the health, safety and well being all Native Americans residing on designated Reservation Land in exchange for millions of acres of land that they gave up to the Federal Government.

So we have an example of how such health care currently works...or in this case the fact that it doesn't. It is severly lacking. If they can't get it right on the relatively small scale of the Reservations, I don't expect them to do any better on the larger scale of the entire nation. My girlfriend also likes to point out that Canada has a national health care system and it is the government and not the doctors or the individuals that decide which procedures are warranted and which aren't.

Now for those of us with no health insurance, having something to cover our basic needs would be a good thing....IF it is being properly run and it is available when it's needed. The current example of government run health care from the Reservations doesn't really inspire me with confidence that this will be the case.

My choice is to learn all I can about treating myself using what's available to me. Which is exactly what my friends on the Rez' have been doing for years since their government run health care system doesn't work. My belief is that if more people would do this, take care of themselves, their family, their friends and neighbors instead of relying on the medical industry and the government, they the nation as a whole would be better off. I think public funds would be better spent training students in school in first aid, CPR, and basic health care than in creating a nationalized healthcare system. I think people can do more for themselves than they have been led to believe by the AMA (which has a vested interest in getting people to pay doctors, who make up the membership of the American Medical Association, to treat them for as many problems as possible by increasing the people's confidence in the medical industry.)

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I wondered if my evolving opinion of you wasn't too harsh, and then I went back through my entries from just before my vacation and here I find you seriously making the argument that the way our government discharges its obligations to the original inhabitants of this continent are a benchmark for how much our government is capable of.

That's just special.

You're giving our government/society too much credit and not enough, at the same time. You're giving us too much credit by positing that the situation on the reservation is a matter of us honestly trying our best to meet our obligations and failing. You're not giving us enough credit by positing that we couldn't meet that obligation... and a similar obligation to each and every citizen of our nation... if we actually tried.

It's possible for France to do it. I'd like to know why it's not possible for us.

Sure, seatbelts increased incidences of whiplash. And you know what? Every time there's a technological advance in body armor available to soldiers, there's an increase in the amount of battlefield injuries. Whiplash is better than dying because you went flying through the windshield and injuries are better than fatalities.

But that was her choice, and she will have to deal with the consequences (should there be any

You live in a dreamworld just like she does, a dreamworld where you and only you are responsible for everything that happens to you and your actions have no consequences beyond you. There is no magical imp or angel making sure that the idiot who doesn't wear a seatbelt does not impact a responsible person wearing one. The person she hits because of her idiotic decision will have to deal with the consequences of said idiotic decision.

My belief is

You're advocating a world where there is a genetic health tax and a luck tax, where the bar for survivability is raised higher than it needs to be. Fuck you. Fuck you hard. You're naively advocating for evil.

[sage-blackthorn.livejournal.com]

"You're advocating a world where there is a genetic health tax and a luck tax, where the bar for suvivability is raised higher than it needs to be. Fuck you. Fuck you hard. You're naively advocating for evil."

I think this is another subject we will simply have to agree to disagree on. I do really hope that a public health care system that works well for the nation as a whole can be developed and implemented. I just don't think it's likely to happen within my lifetime. Not as divided as the nation is on so many issues. But if France can do it, perhaps there is hope.

[andy9306.livejournal.com]

Don't want to be rude, and I'm aware that the previous post especially was meant to reach the broadest audience possible, but you do have a politics blog.

It doesn't matter to me where the posts end up, I'll read them on either one, but you seemed to want the political stuff over in the other one.

Meh.

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

I honestly don't remember making a politics blog, but I checked and you're right. :P But I'm not interested in posting there. I don't want to be a political commentator as a matter of course. Maybe I saw myself doing so when I made that blog, but I don't now. This is my blog, so what I'm interested in blogging about will go here.

(Except for the mass of roleplaying game posts. I am interested enough in roleplaying games to support a separate blog on the subject.)

[pyrtolin.livejournal.com]

What really gets to me is just how many people who cry out that way and claim that they're promoting capitalism seem to be completely out of touch with how it's supposed to work.

http://healthcareforallcolorado.org/pdfs/Adam_Smith.pdf (http://healthcareforallcolorado.org/pdfs/Adam_Smith.pdf)

The direct quotes on the matter, from the root foundation of capitalism at that, fly completely against them. In fact, what they push for is more like the mercantile system that it was supposed to displace.

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

Excellent points.

[aniraangel.livejournal.com]

Can I just say, as an Aussie, that I do not understand America.

Honestly. WHO CARES IF IT'S CALLED COMMUNISM OR CAPITALISM OR WHATEVER? *headdesk* thisisnotthefifties.




Also, the freedom of speech thing is nice... but I like knowing that the government isn't inclined to let me die or drown in medical debt.

Once when I was 14 I asked my great Aunt (Aunty Duck) what she thought on communism and she smiled at me and said 'We all live in communities, Steph. Aren't we all communists a little?'

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

That's a great aunt who earned the title rather than resting on her laurels.

[aniraangel.livejournal.com]

She did. She's kind of all sorts of awesome, and she used to be the Matron at the Hospital (..Er. head Nurse? Do they have Matrons in the US?). I don't think she'd understand the American mindset towards health, either.

OT, but she is also an awesome poet/writer... maybe it's a mindset more common to the creative.

[stormcaller3801.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit hesitant to refer to this because I have not ever read it, but are you familiar with George Orwell's 1984? My understanding is that one of the most notable things in the book involves language and how it has been used to control people's reactions. Certain things are bad, certain things are good, you always, automatically stop when a police officer says "Halt!" because that's all you ever know.

Welcome to American politics. When I was in school it was taught to me very clearly- you had capitalism, which was best, and socialism, which was bad, and communism, which was even worse. I never quite got how we were both capitalist and democratic, but the USSR was only communist, but that wasn't important to the textbooks or the teachers. It was simply drilled into my head up til about the point the wall came down. The US was capitalist and best, the USSR was communist and worst, Europe was socialist and tragically misguided (and thus not as good as the US).

For some reason 'jingoism' never made it onto any vocabulary lists.

Communist and socialist and even liberal have all been transformed into words that cause a good portion of the American public to automatically think 'bad.' That's why the Republicans refer to the Democrats as liberals (and the RNC tried to relabel them the 'Democrat-Socialist Party'), but the Democrats use the term 'progressive.' If you're a liberal, you're far left. Out of the mainstream. Bad.

It's the same reason that 'facist' or 'totaltarian' or anything like that was ridiculous and unacceptable and offensive according to Republicans when applied to a Republican president, but held up as true and acceptable and free speech when applied to a Democrat president.

[aniraangel.livejournal.com]

I know what it is, but I wouldn't go so far to say I'm familiar with it. (Which I have no good reason for as I can get it free online from PG Australia since it's out of copyright here) I suppose what I meant I don't understand is how people can not ask why something is "bad". I've always asked... I was brought up to ask questions, I suppose.

I guess most people aren't.

I watch a lot of American TV (shows, news, a lot of it) and I'm still working out why being liberal is bad (it's actually a Party (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Party_of_Australia) in Australia.)and being a republican makes you an idiot... When the idea of communism came into my head when I was 14 and talking with a friend from Bulgaria the first though was '...but wasn't that supposed to be bad?'

I looked it up. Not quite the hellspawn it's supposed to be. I was, thus confused, but got disproving looks from my grandmother and that clever, thought out comment from my Great Aunt.

What it seems to add up to (imho) is people being too lazy to look things up and decide if they are what they're calling them, and if it really is that bad.... and I don't understand why something so important as government should be decided by people who are just throwing words around to scare people they know have been conditioned to dislike. People keep saying Obama is a socialist and I keep going '...and the problem with that is? please go be personally threatened elsewhere.'

Personally, I mostly envy the tech stuff in America. The rest of what happens makes me want to slam my head into brick walls mostly. I watched the whole inauguration of the President (real time) because I was concerned someone would be an idiot, turns out the idiot was a hat. All's good.



Also. Fox News scares me O_O

...if any of that made sense? I have a mixed up thought process ><;

[stormcaller3801.livejournal.com]

Liberal is bad because people tell you it's bad. And they're people you trust, because they have the same values you do. They can't be wrong because they keep saying it, and other people agree with them, and they can point out things that prove it. Proof by their own criteria, without any independent fact-checking. People who agree because they get more power that way. Values you know they have because they said so.

It's all a game of words, and it doesn't change. The words change, the implications change, but the game remains the same. The end result remains the same. Good and bad, right and wrong- there's some points we all agree on, but for many things all the evidence simply boils down to someone telling someone else, and being trusted on it. Even the burden of proof becomes part of the game- the study you use as proof doesn't stand up to scrutiny because of this problem. The study I use doesn't stand up to scrutiny because of that problem. The margin of error is too large, the sample size is too small, we shouldn't do anything until there's more testing.

The mid-20th century cemented American cynicism and paranoia. The rise of the Religious Right and the strategies to grab the South helped polarize things. The unions, populism, and the mantra of corporate greed pushed from the other side. We've been playing on fear, doubt, and hate for decades, if not centuries. We blame everything on the other guy. We condemn because we are told to by people we trust because we are told to.

It's not hard to see why there are countries who hate the US; we've done a brilliant job of not only learning to hate everyone else, but hate ourselves as well.

[stormcaller3801.livejournal.com]

Here's an excellent example of our political processes.

[sephiraraynes.livejournal.com]

"Honestly. WHO CARES IF IT'S CALLED COMMUNISM OR CAPITALISM OR WHATEVER? *headdesk* thisisnotthefifties."

http://theangryblackwoman.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/gopdiversity.jpg

http://theangryblackwoman.com/2009/08/27/let-them-have-their-great-white-hope/(Got this pic from here)

That's a lot of older white dudes. Now, AngryBlackWoman was pointing out their WASPness. Which is all well and good, it definitely needed to be addressed. (Oh boy did it need to be addressed.)

But I'd like to point out their age, as well. I'm not a very good judge of age by any means, granted. And I could easily be wrong about this. But just for the sake of argument:

Maybe they actually are stuck in the fifties. They're stuck in the McCarthy era. They're stuck in the Red Scare. And this wouldn't be the first time the US as a whole and sections of the population in particular were stuck in Cold War, anti-Communism, ultra-capitalist thinking. You're probably thinking I'm talking about Bush neo-conservative folks. But really, we did this stuff in the Gulf War. (Yes that was Bush Sr. and no, I don't know a lot about Bush Sr. era dudes. Just humor me, m'kay?) And of course we continued to do it with Afghanistan and Iraq.

So maybe, for these people, it still is the fifties. And maybe someday they'll finally realize its not the fifties anymore, and its not Us vs. Them anymore, and not Baseball, Democracy, and Warm Apple Pie anymore. And I think a lot of them have. Its why they're the fringe, and why they shout so loudly to be heard. They think they're the only sane people in a sea of insanity. Don't you see, they cry. What you propose isn't 'bad policy' its downright evil. These are evil things. But the amount of truly good and truly evil things could dance on the head of a pin.

I'm a little afraid we'll have to wait for them to die before these ideas will go away. And even then, there will still be a few of their disciples that learned at their feet, but perhaps by then be so extremist as to only be known from their gif and bright-color laden free hosted webpages.

P.S. Your aunt is awesome.

[aniraangel.livejournal.com]

...that is a lot of old white blokes. Did they have a gift shop where they got those matching cowboy hats?


I suppose I had failed to consider the amount of time freezing (Piper in Charmed, if you will) people are willing to do in their minds. Apparently, a lot. Those folks certainly do look like they're old enough to have at least been raised in the 50's. My Aunt was alive in the 50's and either America was particularly crazy and Australia reasonably sane... or she's just realised people are people and need to be taken care of, I don't know.

I do know she remarked something about her mother not approving of communism, because Aunty Duck said she told her the same thing she told me, more or less.

Leads me to think that it's not just in the raising... or that there might be hope that more people will wake up and smell the lack of 50's. :D

The problem with calling things evil is that you start making monsters out of tiny, stupid things which means people start thinking there is a lot of stuff hiding in the shadows, and IT'S OUT TO GET YOU, MAN. (or is that 70's paranoia? >D) Which leads to the shouting and sometimes not so virtual pissing contests when it comes to arguing about what's evil and what's good.


...that is more than a little frightening, really. But there is a downside to free speech and such. It means you have to cope with the loons who are in the wrong decade.

She is :D

...should not comment at 5 am. please forgive any extra insanity. Think of it like sprinkles.

[stormcaller3801.livejournal.com]

It's also a matter of location. In as much as I'm hesitant to draw any hard lines, the truth of the matter is that when you start examining where votes come from, where the most tolerance is for people who are different, there's a definite trend. It's easy to hate people who are far away, whom you've never met. But when you get into metropolitan centers, particularly as you get around places that draw people from all over, such as public universities, you get into areas that favor liberal views.

It was said that when the Iranian election fraud came about, an American-Iranian war was out of the question. Why? Because it drove home the fact that Tehran is not that different. The people are not that different. The problems are not that different. There's always the willfully ignorant set, but it changed from 'that country,' which was a nebulous idea incarnated in its leadership, to 'the people of Iran,' who looked normal, had normal problems, worked and played and traveled and, in videos, bled on streets that could have been anywhere in the US.

I think that's part of it, and part of the problem. I think it's a real trend, and it's part of why people have an unspecified dread about ideas like homeschooling. It's why liberal thinking seems to be concentrated in academia, whereas conservative thinking tends to come more from rural areas and small towns and groups where everyone is in tightly bonded, insular groups.

When you're used to things being different all around you, different doesn't seem so bad. It seems worth trying, at least.