After Obama's victory back in November, I dropped out of politics for a while. Actually, for more like the entirety of the spring semester, because at the time, I just felt like I couldn't be bothered with the details of his plans. This summer, I've tried to put more time into politics; the recent "debate" over healthcare, however, shows me why I quit following politics in the first place.
It may come as a bit of a surprise, but I actually followed politics when I was younger. Around 8th-9th grade, about the time the U.S. was entering Iraq, I thought the pretenses leading up to the war seemed kinda fishy. Of course, I was reading newspapers at that time, and watching too much CNN at that time, but I wouldn't exactly say it feels good now to be vindicated. I realize, when I was younger, and unfortunately what a lot of older people do now, is tread politics like sports, in the sense that the party has become more important than the nation as a whole. Many people on both sides of the aisle would rather see the winning party commit mistakes that hurt the country, rather than try to acknowledge the good ideas that the other party presents. ITs this polarity in politics that is really just hurting America.
But what really, really, just fucking pisses me off are these town hall protesters. There are legitimate problems with some of the healthcare plans floating around the House and the Senate; but they don't talk about them. Instead, they're creating straw men; hell, labeling the Democrats as Nazis, and Obama as Hitler, is fucking outrageous. Yeah, because Hitler was an evil prick because he introduced healthcare in Germany, not because he killed 11 million people (end sarcasm). Having that same comparison once drawn to me in a debate on Facebook, about pressing the like button on my own status, of all reasons...it just annoys me to no end. Calling Obama a fascist, for wanting to reform healthcare, when these same people didn't raise a finger against Bush when he authorized unwarranted wiretapping, suspension of habeus corpus, a phony war....its the very height of ignorance.
They yell down any debate in the town halls. Hell, if they're so uniformed, why don't they use the Internet and find the details about the plan? I'd like to think of myself as a moderately tolerant person, but enough is enough. Being sore about losing an election to a black man (and yes, at the root of it, these people have misguided anger and rage that stems from that) shouldn't hold our country back from catching up to the rest of the modernized world. These people are scum. Vermin. Animals. Only in America are people stupid enough to fight against a cause that would actually benefit them, all at the behest of some right-wing nutjob on Fox News or radio.
God, democracy is tiring.
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i think the town hall problem is a bit more complex than that, personally. i wish i could criticize them or put into words my frustration, but i don't get the health care reform myself. it's a bit lengthy, methinks. so i'm gonna stay out of this one.
ReplyDeleteand i don't think they're doing it cuz he's black. these town hall fiascoes are often against congressmen and women who are trying to talk to their locales. few of them are protesting obama directly. the anger wouldn't be as sharp as it is if it were simple subconscious racism.