Danny Westneat | Life or death for an uninsured freeloader? | Seattle Times Newspaper
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannywestneat/2016241026_danny18.html
Republican hopefuls seem reluctant to answer the central question in the health-care debate: Who should pay when someone with no insurance - who could have afforded it - shows up in the emergency room in need of costly lifesaving care?
Okay, my turn: What would you do if you were at a convention where the audience was asked, "Do you favor burning witches to death?" and they cheered their throats out over the idea?
Me, I'd run like a bastard. Sure, those are hypothetical witches they're talking about consigning to the stake. When it comes to mob sentiment, "hypothetical" has strong tendency to mean "that in-law I loathe/those neighbors from hell I hate/the IRS/anybody I really don't like or whose continued existence I deplore." If you don't think so, you've never been attacked by a bully-pack, nor were you an abused child -- targets of such abuse are always those who are seen as "different" and "not us" by those who target them, and who use that as an excuse to harass, torment, torture, mutilate, maim, and murder others, driven to do so by who knows what sort of psychology. If someone said, "Sure I'd abuse any child/torture any animal to death/murder any woman at all whom I wanted to if I got the chance," what would your reaction be? If your answers to these questions come down to "Cool, let's do it, may I never, ever meet you in broad daylight in the center of town under surveilance cameras, let alone down a dark alley with no witnesses!
"Hypothetical" means "those who will be at ground zero when I push this little red button and send missiles with 50-megaton thermonuclear warheads their way." It means "that guy over there on whose lawn I will burn a cross, and whom I will tar and feather and then lynch just because I feel like it." "Hypothetical" means "somebody I can get away with murdering." All that's missing is replacement of the anonymous pronouns with real names and faces and identities.
In short, take your "hypothetical," fold it until it's all corners, and tuck it in your ear. I'm sure from now on a number of readers of this blog with see me as just such a handy target on which to unload their bloodlust. And so what? It's become a mad world when people get used to entertaining such hypocrisies as "hypothetical doesn't mean it's wrong."
And how would you like "hypotheticlly" having your whole day ruined by being stomped on by Godzilla, then burned to a crisp by his fiery breath? Or being a "hypothetical" target for just anything I wanted to do to you at the moment?
And don't say "No" when you mean "Yes," dammit -- at least have the integrity and honesty to embrace and truthfully report your happy allegiance to lynch-mob violence. It's bad enough having it festering away in one's community. Not knowing just who harbors such violence in his breast, having no way to see danger coming and avoid it, is a nightmare.
Do not regard others as you would not have them regarding you. Consigning a man to his death because it can't be helped because there is no money for it and we've all been taxed to oblivion, which you do regret even if you can't do anything to help the poor bastard, is one thing. Roaring bestially with delight at the idea of making him die of medical neglect -- or being burned at the stake, whatever -- is another. You choose, dammit!
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P2vzEOA2j4)
(And for the record, I am conservative -- adjective -- but I'm not a conservative. I am conservative by nature, not because I run with any pack, or, rather, band of human beings, no matter what they call themselves. The liberals have gone crazy, yes. So have the conservatives -- not all, but most, because, like the liberals, they have obviously forgotten what it is to be truly civilized human beings rather than members of a mob crying for blood. Mobs don't think, don't care, and are very bad at perception. They'll go howling after just anybody when they get their blood up, accusing them of this, that, and the other thing, never bothering to find out if they really are what they are accused of, because they want blood. Yeah, well, so do vampires. The liberals are mostly the same exact way themselves. So any more, why not call yourself libcons or conlibs or some other meld of the two terms?)
Republican hopefuls seem reluctant to answer the central question in the health-care debate: Who should pay when someone with no insurance - who could have afforded it - shows up in the emergency room in need of costly lifesaving care?
Okay, my turn: What would you do if you were at a convention where the audience was asked, "Do you favor burning witches to death?" and they cheered their throats out over the idea?
Me, I'd run like a bastard. Sure, those are hypothetical witches they're talking about consigning to the stake. When it comes to mob sentiment, "hypothetical" has strong tendency to mean "that in-law I loathe/those neighbors from hell I hate/the IRS/anybody I really don't like or whose continued existence I deplore." If you don't think so, you've never been attacked by a bully-pack, nor were you an abused child -- targets of such abuse are always those who are seen as "different" and "not us" by those who target them, and who use that as an excuse to harass, torment, torture, mutilate, maim, and murder others, driven to do so by who knows what sort of psychology. If someone said, "Sure I'd abuse any child/torture any animal to death/murder any woman at all whom I wanted to if I got the chance," what would your reaction be? If your answers to these questions come down to "Cool, let's do it, may I never, ever meet you in broad daylight in the center of town under surveilance cameras, let alone down a dark alley with no witnesses!
"Hypothetical" means "those who will be at ground zero when I push this little red button and send missiles with 50-megaton thermonuclear warheads their way." It means "that guy over there on whose lawn I will burn a cross, and whom I will tar and feather and then lynch just because I feel like it." "Hypothetical" means "somebody I can get away with murdering." All that's missing is replacement of the anonymous pronouns with real names and faces and identities.
In short, take your "hypothetical," fold it until it's all corners, and tuck it in your ear. I'm sure from now on a number of readers of this blog with see me as just such a handy target on which to unload their bloodlust. And so what? It's become a mad world when people get used to entertaining such hypocrisies as "hypothetical doesn't mean it's wrong."
And how would you like "hypotheticlly" having your whole day ruined by being stomped on by Godzilla, then burned to a crisp by his fiery breath? Or being a "hypothetical" target for just anything I wanted to do to you at the moment?
And don't say "No" when you mean "Yes," dammit -- at least have the integrity and honesty to embrace and truthfully report your happy allegiance to lynch-mob violence. It's bad enough having it festering away in one's community. Not knowing just who harbors such violence in his breast, having no way to see danger coming and avoid it, is a nightmare.
Do not regard others as you would not have them regarding you. Consigning a man to his death because it can't be helped because there is no money for it and we've all been taxed to oblivion, which you do regret even if you can't do anything to help the poor bastard, is one thing. Roaring bestially with delight at the idea of making him die of medical neglect -- or being burned at the stake, whatever -- is another. You choose, dammit!
Click to view(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P2vzEOA2j4)
(And for the record, I am conservative -- adjective -- but I'm not a conservative. I am conservative by nature, not because I run with any pack, or, rather, band of human beings, no matter what they call themselves. The liberals have gone crazy, yes. So have the conservatives -- not all, but most, because, like the liberals, they have obviously forgotten what it is to be truly civilized human beings rather than members of a mob crying for blood. Mobs don't think, don't care, and are very bad at perception. They'll go howling after just anybody when they get their blood up, accusing them of this, that, and the other thing, never bothering to find out if they really are what they are accused of, because they want blood. Yeah, well, so do vampires. The liberals are mostly the same exact way themselves. So any more, why not call yourself libcons or conlibs or some other meld of the two terms?)