Overload

As I was out doing errands today to buy stuff for my volunteer gig at Lacoochee Elementary School, I was listening to the Diane Reim show on NPR and a caller on the line asked a sort of 'the emperor doesn't have any clothes on' question: why are the republicans in congress so against the ACA?

Seems like everyone dodges this question. Why, indeed, would we not want to have affordable health care for everyone?? Yes, this law will have many glitches as it moves into our lives just as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid have done. Along the way there have been many tweaks to these programs. We forget.

So, there is the philosophy of conservatives that less federal intrusion is better- a tenable stance. But what is happening here and now, tonight, is the dregs of folks who want to thwart Obama in anything. Why is this? I believe it is about race and a fear of elitism.. It is also about the perceived need to pander to the tea party base. I believe it is also about deep ignorance. (These tea party folks do not "believe in global climate change' or the science of Darwinism. They are creationists. They are afraid of gays. They are afraid of women's' rights to control  contraception. They are afraid of tree huggers.)

These folks are profoundly entitled.  "I've got mine" could be their motto. Probably, most of the House Republicans, all white, mostly men, have never walked in the shoes of so many Americans, the poor, the undocumented, the people of color. They have never had to do without medical care because they did not have two nickels to click together. They have never had to wait for hours in an emergency room with a sick kid. They have never had to forgo orthodontia or glasses for their child because they could not afford it.

The tea party folks are mean spirited.