If you like, you can read the entire editorial-length drivel in the The Washington Times, which suggests that if we allow our medical records to be digitized, the US will turn into Hitler's Germany, but it was the excellent commentary by Gavin at Sadly, No! that caught my attention.
What we learn today from the Washington Times is that medical records must not be digitized as the Obama plan proposes, but can only exist in paper form because YOU KNOW WHO LIKED EFFICIENCY HITLER THAT’S WHO. And certainly, such naïve, Godwin-unaware amuse-gueules of instaHitler are in the category of always-funny. I personally like to laugh at things that are funny, and would imagine that other people feel the same.
But it’s also the case that these tantrums represent something different to the wingnut mind than to the clinically normal one. To the wingnut mind, or according to the wingnut assessment of what would shock and upset liberals (a nearly identical consideration), the notion of the totalitarian dictator naturally refers to Barack Obama, and to a chain of previous images of Obama-as-cult-leader, Obama-as-false-prophet, Obama-as-Manchurian-Candidate, as usurper, as dictator, as “chosen one,” as false Christ. “Imagine,” the editorial is saying, “If Obama could access our medical records. What would stop him from euthanizing the weak, the so-called ‘unfit,’ or the ‘politically incorrect?’”
It’s not that wingnuts literally believe such things (or care what happens to the weak). They don’t really believe anything in the ordinary sense of the term, but rather make instrumental, conditional use of certain kinds of beliefs, much in the way that other kinds of people make use of thrill sports or porn.
Read it all. It's worth taking the time.
H/T to Michael F. at First Draft for the picture for the ages and the link to Gavin.
I should rename my blog "Stealing From First Draft".
Actually, they do care about the weak. They seriously believe that people would be better off if the government did as little as possible. I believe that too--but I also believe there are things that the government must do, or won't be done. Health care is one of them. The conservative view is based on the idea that health is just like food and shelter and clothing and anything else--an economic good, and that the best system operates by treating medical services like it's nothing more than a coat or a pair of shoes. They refuse to recognize the difference that comes from the fact that, in general, not being able to buy a coat or a pair of shoes is not going to kill you.
ReplyDeleteThey believe the fact that our system produces technologically advanced procedures and equipment is proof that government should stay out of health care. It doesn't hit them that if people can't affort to pay for those procedures, it does not really matter whether they're technologically available. They seem incapable of understanding that health care is not an standard economic good. I do, which is why I don't agree with them on this particular point even if I generally think the conservative view is correct. (For instance on the stimulus--which will mainly stimulate the savings accounts of politically connected contractors. I'd rather see everyone's taxes chopped by ten percent, across the board--including payroll taxes. IOW, I agree with some of Obama's idea, but not all of it, or even most of it.)
But I have seen enough of the wingnuts to know that many of them really do believe that Obama wants to be a socialist dictator because in their minds he has no moral scruples. (Of course, they have no evidence for this, but that does not keep them from believing.)
Well, you're right about health care, Kishnevi. The greatest technology in the world doesn't do you a bit of good if you can't pay for it.
ReplyDeleteI see no evidence that the wingnuts care about the weak.
But I have seen enough of the wingnuts to know that many of them really do believe that Obama wants to be a socialist dictator because in their minds he has no moral scruples.
I won't play into that craziness.
He's not vegetarian is he?
ReplyDeleteI've been getting the same stuff. It appears that there's some trick to unsubscribing. If I figure it out, I'll let you know. But, it's not the unsubscribe button, that I know
ReplyDelete