Ebola Is Only the Latest Terror Helping Conservative Find Their Pro-Big Government Roots (again)
October 6, 2014

 
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Whenever someone whines “both Parties are the saaaaaaame!”, I tell them (after telling them they’re an idiot) that “the difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans think government is a force of evil that can’t do anything right while Democrats see government as a Public Service that exists solely for the Public Good. You either believe one or the other. There is no middle ground.” So pardon me if I chuckle when Fox “news” Sunday opened yesterday morning with the predictable hysteria over “what is THE GOVERNMENT doing to keep us safe from the E-bola virus?” Funny how they spend nearly every week attacking the government and inviting on Conservative miscreants every week on how we need to CUT [the size of] government, defund various government agencies, and advance the idea that “the private sector can do it better/faster/cheaper.” But the moment something new terrifies them, they want to know where the government is to rescue them. In the run-up to the 2012 campaign, Libertarian darling Ron Paul believed “there are only two legitimate functions of government: police & national security.” Everything else should be turned over to the private sector. Most Republicans aren’t THAT far out in Crazy Land (yet), but Texas gov Rick “Oops” Perry did reach national prominence by failing to name the third government agency he’d cut (to which Ron Paul said the correct number was actually “five” not “three”). Now, it is highly unlikely Perry’s third unnamed agency was The CDC (Centers for Disease Control), but ideologically speaking, it could have. ANY government agency is a target for privatization among the GOP-faithful. Dig around on Conservative blogs and you’re sure to find more than a few threads on the “incompetency” or “dubious power” of the CDC… exemplifying government as a whole (too big, too powerful, too expensive and incompetent.) But we don’t have to imagine what medicine would be like in a Libertarian America because we’ve been living it for the past 237 years.

The fight against Ebola is one giant example of why a National Healthcare System is vastly superior to our privatized healthcare system.

Try to imagine if we had to rely on Private Industry to fight Ebola? Simple question: Is there more profit to be had in “curing” Ebola, or (secretly) helping it spread and then treating (but not curing) it as a chronic illness?

The most promising treatment for Ebola appears to be an experimental drug known as “ZMapp” (pronounced “zee-map”), developed by “Mapp Pharmaceuticals” thanks to millions in “government funding”. Why? Because there’s almost no profit to be made in providing a cure to an obscure disease found almost exclusively in central Africa. Producing more “ZMapp” in bulk will take spending lots of money for little-to-no financial gain… unless there’s a pandemic and you can sell the cure for $10,000 a dose… ensuring that only the Mega-Rich survive while we… The Rabble… that’s you & me…are left to fend for ourselves.

And the great irony is that when Republicans are scared… and they live their lives in constant fear… be it a black kid in a hoodie that convinces them they need to carry semi-automatic weapons into Kroger’s, unaccompanied immigrant children flooding over our Southern border, or the latest Middle-Eastern threat that demands a full-scale invasion to resolve… Republicans are quick to over-react and demand massive government intervention that usually involves spending lots & lots of money.

The perfect example: look at the GOP response to 9/11: Create the largest gov bureaucracy in history (DHS) and start invading unrelated Middle-Eastern nations on just the suspicion they might be planning to harm us. When Republicans are terrified (and that’s All. The. Time.) no government program is too big and no amount of money to deal with the problem is too small.

In the 1980’s, Reagan exploded our National Debt fighting the Cold War to spend the Soviet Union into oblivion. Among his most expensive boondoggles… “Star Wars”. Not the movie, but the government program of possibly putting satellites in orbit capable of shooting down inbound Soviet missiles… a threat that was about as likely as 1980’s me charging into the Kremlin with a knife clutched between my teeth and orders to rescue the last Romanoff from the secret prison beneath Red Square.

Two weeks ago, it was a terror-struck Lindsey Graham prepared to go to any expense to re-invade Iraq and invade Syria to defeat ISIS. This week, ISIS beheads its fourth hostage and it doesn’t even make the lead story of the evening news. Terror today, passé tomorrow. What will the next costly “save us, Mr. Government!” moment be for the GOP, and when do people start pointing out the obvious hypocrisy?
 

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October 6, 2014 · Admin Mugsy · One Comment - Add
Posted in: Election, General, Healthcare, Right-Wing Hypocrisy, Right-Wing Insanity

One Response

  1. Grant in Texas - October 6, 2014

    It didn’t take long for the extreme right wingnuts to blame President Obama for the Ebola virus coming to our shores via a Liberian visitor.  This brought to mind that it took years for Reagan and Bush 41 to even acknowledge a real health crisis with HIV-AIDS that did kill thousands of Americans.

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