re: #184 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds

Largely because we’re no longer talking hypotheticals, we’re talking a very real game plan on the part of the GOP. They have passed the Ryan Plan in the House, which spells out the end of Medicare as we know it. Done not in an effort to balance the budget or get the debt paid down, but to finance yet another giveaway to those who least need more money in their pockets.

That’s true, but I think you overestimate how many true believers will see the cause and effect between that fact and the suffering of themselves, their friends and neighbours. Basically, I think you underestimate how necessary hate-porn entertainment is on the hierarchy of needs - which is somewhere just above food and significantly below education, self-actualisation, and relationships outside the home.

Americans have already accepted the worst health care in the First World, and either don’t believe it, or blame it on big government interference in the free market. Americans already accept bankruptcy as a consequence of being sick, which exists nowhere else in the First World, and yet the cries to protect insurance and pharmaceutical companies are ever stronger. If Medicare were to end tomorrow, I think much less than a quarter of the cultists would leave the cult, probably less than ten percent. Some others might have reservations, particularly if they are personally affected, but in the end, they’ll look at the bill for thousands, or they’ll take their aged mother home after she was turned down for treatment, and then they’ll sit down in front of the TV, and Megyn Kelly and some radio host will be on mentioning the words ‘health care’ and talking about how wicked the Democrats have been in perverting the system. And then David Barton will come on their radio, telling them that God himself would not have supported Medicare, and that’ll really mean something, because it’s one thing if your friends and family hate Democrats. But man, God himself hates Democrats. They’re not just enemies, they’re sacrilegious.

In short, these people aren’t rational. They don’t believe in cause and effect. They are a cult. They believe - that’s what cults do. They already readily believe that all the evils of history are the fault of liberals. They will continue to readily believe anything, including that the pains they are personally suffering are the fault of liberals. They will believe, because belief is more important than almost anything else.

It used to be true that people were entitled to their opinions, but not their own facts. That’s no longer true. In a very real sense, opinions have become facts.