Joe Wilson’s Outburst is a Distraction
September 10, 2009
“Smoke and mirrors” are the methods used by magicians, in order to keep the audience from recognizing their sleight of hand. It’s easier to convince people that your lovely assistant has vanished into thin air when they can’t see the trap door.
The big discussion this morning on r/Politics (and all over the morning network TV) is about a Republican congressman: Joe Wilson heckled Obama during his speech on health care. There is little to no discussion about the actual issues. Instead, this “Joe Wilson disrepsected the president” distraction becomes the topic du jour.
Once something is left to the political arena, the natural tendency is towards a reduction (and ultimately the removal) of any choices. Once the mechanism of politics has “chosen” one course of action in favor of all others, typically all other course of action are outlawed, taxed, or strangled with regulation. This will be as true of health care as it is for anything else.
In politics, it’s easier to cram controversial proposals down the public’s collective throats, when they’re distracted by bread, circuses, or nonsense. Former presidential candidate John McCain says they need to scrap the current health care proposal(s) and start over from a bi-partisan approach. But bi-partisan is just a fancier way of saying mono-partisan; it is the removal of the last semblance of choice from the political arena.
I propose a non-partisan approach: Keep your blood-stained hands out of my life, out of my pockets. Keep them off my health care, my insurance, my business.
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In response to your mono-partisan statement:
'Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where they is no river.' -Nikita Khrushchev