Health Care Bill Passed. Fallout?

[IGTN]

With the press for the public option and single payer there were, in fact, people pressing to nationalize the insurance industry.

Also, utilities are, usually, kinda heavily regulated to make up for having a monopoly on a necessity.

[Maxus]

Here's a different side of the fallout:

Several Democratic members of Congress have received highly colorful death threats and some offices have had windows broken.

More worrying, one pair of teabaggers put the address of one Congressman's brother online (thinking it was the address of the congressman himself), and invited people to 'go say thank you'.

The brother found this out when he and his wife woke up in the middle of the night, smelling gas. Turns out the gas line had been cut. When the guy who put the address up was told about his mistake he said, "Oh, well, collateral damage."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/

[Username17]

Can anyone living in the US right now tell me why the fuckity fucking hell Stupak is getting death threats from mouth breathing tea baggers? He personally got weird anti-abortion provisions put into effect and signed by the president in exchange for his votes. What the fuck do they want?

-Username17

[Maxus]

Can anyone living in the US right now tell me why the fuckity fucking hell Stupak is getting death threats from mouth breathing tea baggers? He personally got weird anti-abortion provisions put into effect and signed by the president in exchange for his votes. What the fuck do they want?

-Username17

Well, here's the thing:

Stupak and his crew agreed to vote for it if it did not in any way extend or alter abortion laws to make abortions more common. Obama signed an executive order affirming this, just to put a big yellow highlighter on the already existing language.

Abortion laws have not changed in any manner. But Stupak was sort of...covering his ass. Since his biggest hot-button issue is not being affected meaningfully here, there is no reason for him to go against the rest of it.

Except this is the right-wing. They are convinced Gawd A'mighty has bestowed upon them the ability to see into someone's motivations and to know what really happened or why someone's doing something.

[RobbyPants]

Threats and violence from the dark. You think people would want to distance themselves from that party...

Except this is the right-wing. They are convinced Gawd A'mighty has bestowed upon them the ability to see into someone's motivations and to know what really happened or why someone's doing something.

And to fucking try to murder some guy and his wife because they didn't get their way.

[Maxus]

Threats and violence from the dark. You think people would want to distance themselves from that party...

Except this is the right-wing. They are convinced Gawd A'mighty has bestowed upon them the ability to see into someone's motivations and to know what really happened or why someone's doing something.

And to fucking try to murder some guy and his wife because they didn't get their way.

Yeah.

The news last night had a lot of that, telling the connies in Congress that they need to tone it down and tell their side to chill out. There are nutcases out there who will think God's Chosen One, Glenn Beck (or whoever) has finally given him the sign and have been practicing their bomb-making.

I did see an article comparing this widespread unrest to what spawned Timothy McVeigh.

There are nutcases out there, (edit: and I can't finish a thought it seems.)

So you'd think the connies could be alarmed at Democratic colleagues getting death threats and homes vandalize and their families threatened and respond with some "STOP"

But no, they're sort of wringing their hands and going, "Oh dearie me we should debate this, *hahasnort*"

[RobbyPants]

And you can be certain that they wouldn't want any of these crimes tried as terrorism.

[Maxus]

And you can be certain that they wouldn't want any of these crimes tried as terrorism.

...

Robby, that's BRILLIANT.

Really, this is amazing...I ought to e-mail a couple of congressman and suggest that...

'Domestic terrorism'.

[violence in the media]

They had a caller into NPR today saying that she was thankful that good conservatives like herself are believers in the 2nd amendment because they'll be the militias the constitution talked about when the time comes.

I have never felt a stronger need to be armed.

[Cielingcat]

I don't think you need to worry about being armed. There won't be a civil war (though they really want one), and weapons won't protect you from the terrorist attacks and assassinations they're already trying to commit.

[RobbyPants]

It just blows me away that they can't understand the concept of a democratic process. It involves give and take. It involves not getting your way all the time.

I was pissed off for a lot of the eight years prior to last, but guess what? I didn't plan anything radical or support it. It's part and parcel to a democracy. Some times people you don't like are in power.

And if it all really is that bad, then they'll likely get voted out of office. It's a fairly self-correcting system. If you upset the status quo too much, people either get used to it, or they vote the other party into power next term and it gets changed back.

...and they call us unamerican.

[K]

Threats and violence from the dark. You think people would want to distance themselves from that party...

Yeh, but that's fascism. It's a political movement of rural yahoos trying to bring a return to "traditional values" from a past that never actually existed and that eventually ends in Brownshirts pulling people out of their houses and institutional racism. It's not a coincidence that Teabaggers draw on the same target audience and use the same tactics that brought the Nazi Party to power, and that they also hate foreigners and intellectuals.

Fundamentally, fascism is a position that can only silence their reasonable opposition by resorting to bloody murder in the dark. Their arguments are not based in logic or reason, so they can't fight opposition with evidence or on the strength of their arguments.

American conservatives think they can harness the fervent energy of fascism that can bring a minority into power without the ugly downsides of racism, murder, and bigotry.

They are wrong. History is pretty clear on this point.

The thing I find most ironic is that fascists are terrible at creating wealth, so the main focus of conservative thought is actually being undermined by their own tactics.

Sadly, in the same way that conservatives are not funny, they don't understand irony either.

[RobbyPants]

The thing I find most ironic is that fascists are terrible at creating wealth, so the main focus of conservative thought is actually being undermined by their own tactics.

Why is this? Do you mean that historically they've had problems creating wealth, or is there some fundamental reason why they're bad at it?

[Cielingcat]

I believe he means both of those, yes. I'll let him explain though, since he knows his arguments better than I do.

[Maj]

What the fuck do they want?

As far as I can tell, they actually want the fall of the United States and the fault to lie squarely on the shoulders of the President. The country will then break up into hundreds of little countries distinguished by religion, and they will go around slaughtering the atheists and gay people with their stockpiled guns.

Their extraordinary investments in gold will make them wealthy beyond human imagining, but it will be worthless since you can't eat it. So they will shove their precious metals into socks and use that in melee. Once all the godless heathens are dead, the individual groups will attack each other, not being able to stand the differences between them.

They will not quit until God is dead.

[K]

The thing I find most ironic is that fascists are terrible at creating wealth, so the main focus of conservative thought is actually being undermined by their own tactics.

Why is this? Do you mean that historically they've had problems creating wealth, or is there some fundamental reason why they're bad at it?

The correct answer to both is: yes.

Fascism is essentially about concentrating wealth and power into the hands of a few by any means necessary. Its a movement designed to bring a small minority into power.

Now fear and murder are the only tools that work in accomplishing those goals. The problem is that fear and murder are bad at creating wealth for a number of reasons.

First, business people are extremely risk averse (the traditional kind of "conservative", and not the political kind of "conservative"). This means that no competent business person is going to want to start or maintain a business in a political climate where the government might loot your coffers just because you are the enemy of the week, or there might be a riot in your business district, or your nation might go to war. Google is pulling out of China because they don't want to be the machinery for a police state, and they are not the only ones (Godaddy, for example). This is also the reason that healthcare passing caused the stock market to rise (stability and firm leadership are good for business, so people invest more).

Second, fascist doctrine only lets certain people have wealth. Unfortunately, the people who are good about creating wealth are often not the correct race/party/sex/whatever. This means that the very people who your economy needs are not able to do what they do best.

Third, fascists are all about concentrating power. They don't want people who are not in their pocket to have wealth or power, and so they make sure that contracts get funneled to their buddies which may or may not be competent at completing those contracts (usually not). So you usually get both shoddy service AND you drive out competent business people.

Now, being bad at creating wealth is why most fascists go to war periodically. Not only do they need to keep people from being distracted from the poor economic growth and shift blame, but they need to keep looting more coffers to keep their machinery running.

Basically, the tools that fascism uses (fear campaigns, rural traditionalists, religion, thug squads and assassinations, xenophobia) are the exact opposite things you need to run a capitalist economy (liberal people willing to work with other markets and skilled labor, true competition, efficient regulation, decentralized wealth structure with reasonable "optioning in" costs).

China's vast growth has come by dropping fascist tools and adopting capitalist ones, but it'll dead-end when they are done converting from a rural economy to a modern one, and then we'll see fascism either choke the life out of them or they will drop fascism.

[Crissa]

The cutting of the propane line I find especially scary, as that's how my house is heated...

-Crissa

[violence in the media]

I don't think you need to worry about being armed. There won't be a civil war (though they really want one), and weapons won't protect you from the terrorist attacks and assassinations they're already trying to commit.

The feeling was relative. I generally have no concern about being armed. Besides, this particular woman's fantasy didn't seem to involve bombing federal buildings so much as "defending her turf" a la the white people in New Orleans during Katrina.

[RobbyPants]

@K

I agree it's ironic and counter-intuitive, although I don't think the conservatives are hurting themselves that much by relying on votes from fascists. While fascism might not promote creating wealth, the conservatives aren't trying to put them in power. They just want fascist votes so they can get in power.

I think the biggest negative impact is the association. If the fascists get too much coverage, it can scare the moderates away to the left. I guess it's some crazy balance game to gain the most votes possible between the two groups.

[Ganbare Gincun]

I don't think you need to worry about being armed. There won't be a civil war (though they really want one), and weapons won't protect you from the terrorist attacks and assassinations they're already trying to commit.

Their terrorist acts will increase in number and severity until one of them snaps and finally pulls off Oklahoma City 2: Electric Boogaloo. And then when they realize that this shit is "for reals" and that the American people generally don't think very highly of terrorists, they'll slink back into the backwards rural townships from whence they came. There won't be an actual civil war because Teabaggers are cowards.

[K]

@K

I agree it's ironic and counter-intuitive, although I don't think the conservatives are hurting themselves that much by relying on votes from fascists. While fascism might not promote creating wealth, the conservatives aren't trying to put them in power. They just want fascist votes so they can get in power.

I agree that this is what they think they are doing.

The truth is that there is a Tea Party politician in power: Scott Brown. He took Kennedy's seat and in a few short years could be a presidential candidate, following the "a little experience is all that matters" route forged by Obama.

I mean, Dems got lucky with the last election in that the Republican candidates were an angry old man and a barely-functional moron. If they keep giving the Teabaggers legitimacy and the movement grows, they may be forced to run a Teabagger in the next election due to their own lack of a suitable candidate (or by some stabby stabby in the dark). Scott Brown looks perfect for the role.

And with them willing to kill and use fear campaigns, they could win in a variety of unsavory ways and we could see an actual fascist movement in power.

Dabbling with fascism never goes as planned.

[Neeeek]

Several Democratic members of Congress have received highly colorful death threats and some offices have had windows broken.

Unless you know of a different one than I do, the window was actually a Republican's office (the minority whip) and didn't involve shooting at the building. The bullet was fired into the air and went through the window on the way back down. I'm no ballistics expert, but that'd be the most impressive shot I'd ever heard of if it were done on purpose. And I've seen someone shoot a playing card set edgewise in half at 15 yards.

When the guy who put the address up was told about his mistake he said, "Oh, well, collateral damage."

He says collateral damage, I say slam dunk case for invasion of privacy.

[Koumei]

There were cases of Democrat windows broken with bricks. No fancy shooting there.

[Ganbare Gincun]

Unless you know of a different one than I do, the window was actually a Republican's office (the minority whip) and didn't involve shooting at the building.

The overwhelming majority of intimidation attempts in the wake of the passage of HCR have been directed towards Democrats. Of course, this is nothing new for the Teabaggers - law enforcement has had to deal with this before, after all. But the dogwhistles are getting worse, and they will no doubt continue to escalate until the movement reaches its climax. But what do you expect from a political party where 24% of their members think that Obama is the Antichrist?

[Ganbare Gincun]

As far as I can tell, the bill appears to just be a gigantic, mandatory transfer of funds from people to the insurance companies.

Making it punishable by fine for people to not buy your product is a dream come true for most businesses, and I'd imagine it'd be a great gift for the lobbyists. Somebody is going to be making an awful lot of money from this bill, and I doubt that most of the "profit" is going to be going to the public.

Would you prefer the alternative?