If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan
I saw this earlier today.Some "Conservative" essentially arguing that improving public health costs too much and is too hard, so why even try to do it because the virus will just keep mutating anyway.
Well, with that sort of logic, why do anything at all?
Everything is difficult at some time or another, almost anything can cost too much, in the judgment of one person or another. There has to be some sort of baseline effort and prioritization of just what the fuck we're doing here.
Of course, the Elephant in the room with people like this is that it doesn't cost too much for them, In fact, they might benefit from it. But these fucking people invariably don't want anything that might cost corporations or rich people money. Because sure, you might be some old fat hairy redneck who works at Tractor Supply, but goddamn it if you believe in all this shit hard enough you just might be a CEO someday.
Horse Shit.
But if you poke it with a stick long enough you'll eventually get to them having an objection to public health because Black people or old people or whatever might live longer, or women might have abortions, or whatever it is that they don't like.
TL:DR is that the people for whom everything is TL:DR seem to think they should somehow have power of review over every single line item government action or expense and they have an expectation of instant gratification...they want what they want, so fuck you. Otherwise, why spend money on anything? The "Fuck You" is the point here.
Another thing is that these idiots don't want to take responsibility for anything, least of all other people.
It's the same old selfish bullshit, the same old rationales that Republicans and rich people have been using to try and tell America that we can't have anything at all to varying degrees for a hundred years.
And yet...screw the "Small intellectual elite" Reagan spoke about. These fucking people seem like they'd be perfectly well content to let Donald Trump and a small crew of FOX News personalities make all their decisions for them! This isn't conservatism. This is monarchism that's too dumb to know what monarchism is.
And then these people who are angry all the time and wonder why nothing works wonder why they're angry all the time and nothing works.
It's because the last thing you fuckers really want to do is take responsibility for self-government and the society you live in and educate yourselves, speak to the people around you and develop consensus and thus have a real say in how things are run.
They think some loose idea of self-improvement is the answer to everything. But the problem with that is individual effort isn't how you run a country or a society. Sure, you can go around trying to solicit big money from individual rich people for some $80 million dollar project...or you could, via legislation...ask 80 million (or more!) people to contribute $1. Which is easier? Individual effort, or collective effort? Which $80 million would come with more conditions on its use? The one rich guy you owe who's going to expect and demand big things from you for that money? Or the 80 million people who aren't even going to miss that dollar?
And it works the same way with public health. Yeah, sure, you can expect one guy to save your bacon all you want...but probably there isn't anybody who can do that with a changing global pandemic. It seems like it's easier to simply ask and reasonably expect (and enforce via legislation) that as many people as possible get vaccinated.
The right wing loves the idea of the Superman...but then does everything possible to prevent one from arising and anoints the biggest bullshit artist they can find with the title instead. What they don't realize is a billion Clark Kents (that is, average people) can get a lot more shit done than one Superman.
But that might cost some rich person money, because the effort and will of such large groups of people is expressed through governance, policy and taxation. So Republicans don't want to do that.
You'll notice none of these anti-government, self-improvement chucklefucks has any actual ideas for how the entire human race should combat a virus.
And there's a reason for that, because the truth is they don't even give a fuck about anybody other than themselves. I suppose self-improvement is easy when you have millions or billions of dollars or can at least bullshit your way into an endless line of credit by making yourself the face of obnoxious wealthy people for 40 years.
Actual self-improvement takes education, hard work and knowledge, and more often than not, collective effort by a group working toward the same goals be it an Alcoholics Anonymous group, a church, a military unit, a small company or a Yoga class.. But of course that's not what these people are talking about. Their idea of "Man's relation to Man" (to use Reagan's term) is that it shouldn't really exist. A lot of these people bought way too much into Ayn Rand and her selfish worldview.
They want the power without the effort, and fundamentally, deep down they think societal degradation and the virus and their own mythology about themselves will get it for them. They're still thinking they can bury civilization under a big enough pile of bodies.
"Going Galt" has been replaced by some right-wing version of the Imperial Japanese Banzai charge.
They want the Killing Fields, but with a gym, a mall and some stores. It doesn't matter to them that it's mostly their own people dying at this point. They think some kind of atavistic, non-state fascism where everybody dies is, fundamentally, the answer to the problems of life. They see endless conflict not as a tragedy, but as a thing that gives meaning to their otherwise empty lives.
And who dies because of it means less than nothing to them.
Don't be these fucking people.
If you want a better world, you have to give a shit, about yourself and other people.
And if you want a better government? Maybe start by governing yourself and your own impulses.
Is that so hard? Having self-control, being sovereign over your self and your own desires was a bedrock principle of the conservatism I was raised with. That's how you get to the "sovereign people" that Reagan was talking about in the pull quote.
But Republicans aren't the party of Nixon or Reagan anymore. They're the party of Trump.
And all they know is they're angry, but even that's somebody else's fault. Far from mastering their emotions, they are ruled by them. These people are arsonists of souls, but they can't even be bothered to know according to their own claimed philosophies what having a soul is!
If you wonder why nothing works, Republicans, start there.
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