On the day that Ana Puig is presenting on the “Correlations between the current Administration and Marxist Dictators of Latin America” at the Tea Party Convention happening right now at Opryland, this essay from Fabian Bedne (by way of BeninTN) – someone who actually did live under a totalitarian regime – is a must read.
Some people have been saying that we live in one. As somebody that spent many years of his life scared to death of living under one, I figure I’ll share some of my memories.
So what does it mean to live in a totalitarian country?
It is to be very afraid of the police, because we have seen them arresting and beating up people randomly, for no other reason than they can.
It is to see the military treating you like the enemy all the time; i.e. by wantonly pointing their guns at you for no reason.
It is because you know that every paper, radio station or TV station is now controlled by the regime and only prints propaganda.
It is to be afraid of the teachers in your school because they carry guns and work for the regime, and because the principal was replaced by a regime guy who is not interested in education.
Go read the rest, including BeninTN’s insightful commentary:
It’s not “Marxist” to recognize that monied special interests and corporate lobbyists are influencing too much of our policy-making and undermining progress in America. It’s not Marxist to recognize the simple fact that America spends 16% of its GDP on healthcare, while the next highest percentage for any industrialized nation is just over 11%. It’s not Marxist to recognize that this status quo is unacceptable and unsustainable. And one thing has become clear in this process – the supporters of the status quo stand to profit handsomely from the failure of comprehensive healthcare reform. With $2.4 trillion spent annually in healthcare in the U.S., and roughly a third of that being spent wastefully (assuming we could cut from 16% to around 10% of GDP and match the other industrialized nations in terms of GDP percentages), that means that we’ve got about $800 billion of excess spending. Someone is profiting from that $800 billion, and they don’t want to let it go.
Not to mention that we allowed the market to come up with solutions for many years and those solutions are simply not working for everyone – esp. those, as Dean mentions, who lost their homes, savings, and access to the American Dream because of the cost of health care.
But the public option wouldn’t take away any decision-making from the individual. Opponents of the public option would love for people to think it would take away individual choices, but it simply isn’t true. When you ask these opponents for specifics on how individual decision-making would be adversely affected, they can’t come up with a single example.
Non-specific calls for innovation and “market-based solutions” have no relevance to people who face bankruptcy because of a major illness.
The greatest myth going out there is that Republicans agree health reform is needed. They had their chance to reform the system, and they ignored it. They chose to persue a “market-based solution.” And it hasn’t come close to working.
P.S. I went to high school with someone named “Alan Self.” Did you go to a small HS in Nashville?
No one disputes health reform is needed. It is simply a matter of wanting control, decision-making, and liberty and freedom in the hands of the people, not Washington and the burueacrats. Let the people be free to innovate and produce and our market-based solutions will take care of these problems.