You're afraid

On Monday morning, I hadn't heard about the "Baby Killer" shout in the House of Representatives while Bart Stupak was speaking. I had tried to avoid watching Sunday's final floor debate on the bill. I was confident in its passage by that point and didn't want to get riled up, and I wanted to finish up the weekend with my kids, not distracted. My wife turned on the television briefly, and there was Eric Cantor ranting, and I made her turn it off.

So the next morning when one of my colleagues came by and was commenting on how crazy and ignorant the Republican representatives were, I commented that I thought it was mostly calculated crazy, rather than just plain stupidity. Now, I don't necessarily believe that. Or, to be more honest, I actually do believe they are stupid, but are even more motivated by malice and hatred. Maybe that's shrill, but whatever. The evidence unfolds before us in waves these days.

He couldn't understand my hesitance to call them nuts. Really, I was just trying to be balanced and even handed, and not assume the worst. But watching some of the crazy from Sunday, and watching the post-passage crazy, the threats against elected representatives who voted for reform, the calculated support for such violence by the GOP representatives, and on and on, well, it's hard to be balanced when there's a herd of elephants standing on on side.



Take John Boehner's lunatic rant from Sunday.

See, this was the kind of thing made me believe it's all a performance. Boehner is completely full of it here, and his words are completely disconnected from reality, but it seems to me he's just trying to stoke the flames (which is evil, but not lunatic or ignorant, since he really has to know exactly what he's doing and the impact of what he's doing), to play on the stupidity of what unfortunately comprises a huge chunk of America. I came to my conclusion that this is all a big, nasty, dangerous performance - but a performance - simply because Boehner (of the "treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia" breed of hypocrites) is an asshole and has a history of being completely full of shit, and I already know that, so assuming Boehner's dishonesty is the logical inference.

Remarkably, these clowns cannot even figure out what side they're coming from. They're so concerned about possible Medicare reductions? Riiiight. Message consistency means nothing. Toss as much against the wall and see what sticks. And they rightfully have so little respect for their audience that they have no concern about the cognitive dissonance inherent in the anti-government right betting on an argument that the Democrats are trying to dismantle a government program, all in order to prevent the Democrats from passing a governmental regulatory overhaul.

It's uberfunny and telling that Boehner's co-crazies were confused about the right answer to "Have you read this bill?" Uh...no...? Um...yes...? Um ... ok, hell no we haven't! Better to proclaim your ignorance - rather than be able to actually explain what the bill actually, you know, does - because our theme of the moment is them Dems forced this on us.

The Senate only passed the bill last fucking year, tools; but nobody was able to read it! None of this is about honestly believing in anything; it's about personal and political destruction, it's about power, and it's about manipulation.

Barney Frank is absolutely right. This health care battle is a proxy for all that the right-wing populists hate, which is a long and sorry list. So of course they hurl racist and homophobic insults in their "health care" town hall meetings and in the halls of congressional office buildings; of course they make abortion an issue; of course this is like D-Day. How dare you commie socialist Nazi corporatist free-love hippie anti-Christian tree-hugging terrorist-loving baby-killing sodomites try to take away our America!

These are small minded people who think that America belongs to them and that any change is a threat to them, that see America as a zero sum game where anything that helps someone else is necessarily taking things away from them. So, expanding access to health insurance must be harmful to everyone who currently has access (partially explaining the GOP's dishonest invocation of Medicare).

Similarly, same-sex marriage is a threat to "traditional" marriage (though I'm struggling to understand the apparent fact that it's ok to have secret illicit gay sex outside of your marriage, as long as you're married to someone and publicly proclaim you homophobia), because traditional marriage cannot survive if gays can have a sanctioned, monogamous relationship. Or something. Acknowledging a human role in climate change undermines the idea that a higher being controls our lives. The list goes on and on. Take your pick.

You're either with us or you're against us. The fight and the anger is about keeping what's mine, and you damn well better keep your un-American hands off of it. It's about fear of the other. It's why McCain called Barack Obama "That One."

It's about cowardice and hate and ignorance. And evil.

It's the Party of Palin, and jackasses like Boehner and Cantor and Palin are only too happy to play along.