The Crazed Future

As I watched the CBS Evening News, I was struck by the insanity (here and here). Angry people yelling that government is the problem. From what I can see, they are demanding:

• No "socialized medicine". Well, disband the CDC, the NIH, government subsidies to hospitals. So the next time AIDS or H1N1 breaks out, it can be a real surprise because unless a small army of billionaires decide to step in and fill the gap, then you can write that health infrastructure off.


• No "government ownership". So disband the US Postal Service. Disband all municipal services. Privatize the highways, the roads, and the local streets. Put up toll booths everywhere and make the users pay. Shut down all municipal lighting and sell it off to anybody who wants to buy it and figure out a way to sell that as a "service" to the local community.


• Close the schools and put the buildings up for bids to see if anybody wants to buy them and run a truly "private" education system.


• Close down the Federal Reserve. Americans have always been suspicious of a central bank. Let anybody who wants set up any kind of bank they want with any kind of assets (or lack of assets) they have. Let all these banks take over the issuing of currency. Why should "government" have a monopoly on the greenback? Let anybody print any kind of script they want and flog it as "the new currency".


• Disband the Pentagon. The CBS Evening News made it clear that there is a resurgence of armed "militias" all across America. They folks are itching to provide you with "security". The NRA backs them. Everybody should arm themselves to the teeth and join as many militias they can in the hopes that when the bad guys show up some "militia" will be willing to show pu and defend you. If it were me, I would be leery. The CBS Evening News made it pretty clear that these militias are right wing nuts outraged over having a democratically elected black man as president. They obviously think that presidents should be crowned by a popular militia. You know, only "right thinking" people should get a chance to have a say in who the militia installs to run the country.


• Turn out all the police, firemen, paramedics, judiciary, food inspectors, health inspectors, building inspectors, government registry staff, etc. Everybody knows that government is incompetent. Let anybody who wants to put on a uniform or make up their own official looking "stamp" take over these responsibilities. Obviously the individually "motivated" will do better than any hack who just does this as a "government job". Why not let the Mafia take over police work? I'm pretty sure they are eager to expand beyond the corrupt unions they run and get their hands of police work. No more shakedowns. The Mafia will simply tax the business owners "for their own protection"!


• Privatize elections. Why let incompetent government bureaucrats run elections? I'm pretty sure the Ku Klux Klan is more than willing to come out of the woodwork and run all the elections in the Deep South. I figure the Columbian Drug Cartels can manage the bigger urban centers. We can trust these people to make sure that every vote counts!

What I don't understand is that the American people don't see how ridiculous these right wing ideologues are. The Bush administration bankrupted the country, allowed Wall Street to destroy the banks and the economy, allowed FEMA to become a joke so that cities like New Orleans simply washed away, marched off citizens to fight unnecessary and illegal wars. That's what the right wing brought. But I watch these "tea parties" and now these "town hall meetings" and see the same idiots who brought on catastrophe being treated as it they were the loyal opposition trying to provide leadership to "restore" the country. Yep, the same guys who brought the US to its knees now have to audacity to step forward and proclaim they need to be "listened to" because they hold the keys to the future. Insane!