Is it possible to appreciate what someone is doing while simultaneously despise them for why they're doing it? Take Joe Lieberman: he's against a taxpayer-subsidized public healthcare plan... and as a Libertarian, I can respect that. But he's against it because he's a total shill for the US Health Insurance Companies and thus I loathe him.
And really, I suspect that if you drilled down to it, I would probably loathe most, if not all of the members of the US Congress for being total shills to some organization. Which is, of course, why I enjoy watching Jon Stewart skewer members of Congress for their utter corruption.
At the same time, who is really to blame if not the people who elected them? Which is another way of saying that the American people get exactly who they deserve to govern them. I was reminded of this again the other morning when I was listening to a thoughtful piece on Afghanistan on NPR and then they switched over to something about Tiger Woods. Yes, Tiger Woods... ON NPR ... and no, they weren't talking about anything newsworthy.
And of course, let's not even mention Fox News, whose entire journalistic credibility could be balanced upon the tip of a needle, whilst still leaving room for a rather healthy angel conga line.
I guess my point is that I'm rather disgusted with the state of US news coverage these days and every time the healthcare reform bill comes back up, I want to stab myself in the ears. Because really, are we even talking about the issue of healthcare reform anymore or are we simply generating noise?
And while I'm at the subject of nonsense, is the Republican party helping by all but guaranteeing a filibuster? Of course not. I suppose it could be argued that they're giving moderate Democrats more traction ... but they're also giving liberal Democrats far more sway than if the party of "limited government" and "fiscal responsibility" (*cough* *cough* bull#$@&) would actually engage the issue of healthcare reform. But that party is far too scared that Fox News would accuse them of buddying up with the Democrats. And so we have an admittedly-broken healthcare system that will be "fixed" almost exclusively by more government because the Republicans refuse to be a part of the solution. And the American public will mouth-breathe their way through this and somehow, my broke self will end up paying for it.
Maybe Toad is right... maybe we SHOULD hate all of the involved parties.
Posted by Vengeful Cynic at December 15, 2009 10:53 PM | TrackBack