So says Michael Freedman in Newsweek. The American Right has always been made up of a mixture of white supremacists, bible-bashers and the elegant elite who wish the Statue of Liberty had gone down with the twin towers. After all, that woman with the flame is flaming French! Rednecks, good 'ole bubbas, mixing it with the genteel folk. All grist to Rush Limbaugh's mill. I'm not the sort of conservative he cares for. He's not the sort I care for!
He's upping the ante with his so-called europhobia nonsense. On his radio show, Limbaugh compared all the ways Obama is like Adolf Hitler. "Obama is asking citizens to rat each other out like Hitler did," he said. "Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, also ruled by dictate," he said. And so on. What a bollock-brained prat Limbaugh is. The real problem is that there are so many morons listening each day to his infantile rubbish.
Freedman has a good take on these nutters. Mostly they are enraged by Obama's health care program. I'd say this to the redneck roosters. If 40 million plus people went down with a disease that no hospital would treat because they had no insurance you'd have riot on your hands. Desperate people take desperate measures. In the crooked minds of the American Right the poor go hang but the rich get to steal and destroy banks with impunity. No wonder shrinks do so well. The next customer on the couch must be Rush Limbaugh!
MPs in trouble
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This Parliament has seen a surge of cases against MPs. There are now 18 MPs
sitting as Independents because their parties no longer support them. 8
were Co...
12 hours ago
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2 comments:
While Rush Limbaugh is probably as red necked as you can get - there are some serious concerncs about the introduction of "Obamacare", which you being in the UK should relate to.
Eugene Volokh has pointed out : "People who become users of a valuable government service become a constituency for political decisions that preserve and expand this service."
I would have thought that the British would be more aware of this problem than any other nation. Or do you really believe that your NHS is truly the envy of the world. If so, let me disabuse you of that thought.
I am well aware that the NHS is not all it is cracked up to be. All British politicians are bending over backwards to say how wonderful it all is. I have first hand experience of it. As with most British institutions it is good in parts. If you get a good bit, you'll probably praise it to the rooftops. I take a realistic approach, I think. It is staffed in the main by well-meaning, mostly caring people who can get a tad pissed off with a day's work. Some of the patients leave you wondering about your fellow human beings.
On one stay I had my first evening meal sitting up in bed with my trousers round my knees, soaking wet from urine, with a newly fitted catheter. You see, time is not always of the essence. Before I got my meal, I was severely reprimanded for being past the five o'clock scoffing time. 6.30 was when the puddings had stiffened. I had asked for my meal at nearly 7!
In an NHS hospital you are more likely to contract a new disease than ever get one on the outside. Added to that, you get all kinds of nocturnal happenings. One of my co-patients used the washbasin by my bed as a urinal at 2.30 in the morning. Now I never asked for such added attractions during my stay. It just happened. Also, visiting time is a joy, especially when grumpy relatives ask you to join in to discuss their loved ones problems!
It's been a rollercoaster, the NHS. Most people take it all far too casually. They think they aren't paying for it. They are, through their noses with taxes. The number of missed appointments is costing £650 million a year. Mostly young men, it appears.
However, with all my gripes I wouldn't want to go back to paying the doctor out of cash. What we need is a properly funded NHS. Not a slush-funded NHS as at present.
Obama is right to stand up and say that 46 million do not have any health insurance. The doctors in the US are mainly driven by money. Unnecessary surgery so that $10,000 can be pocketed instead of $1,000. The US system is great for the fully-funded when they are not sick. It is not much fun for the rest. I have lived in the US and I know some of the issues that worry people. If you think otherwise, delusion is the complaint that needs urgent treatment.
Both countries need a health care system that is properly funded, encourages choice and diversity, and removes the stigma of "the state" hanging over it.
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