Santorum

Any-minute-now Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum had this to say the other day:

“Think about how they view you,” he told the crowd of Republicans. “They view you no different than the drug dealer views the little kid in the school yard. They want to get you hooked, they want to get you dependent. They want to get you relying upon them for your wellbeing. And once they’ve satisfied you, giving them that drug, that narcotic, then you’ll be reliant on them and, by the way, you’ll also be less than what God created you to be.”

The crowd thundered applause.

Think about how he views you. He views you (and by "you" I mean "teabaggRs") as so subject to manipulation by religious reference, and so ready to believe anything he peddles, so unfocused in their aggrievedness, that he can say such things and expect thunderous applause. How deluded he must be...

What he was talking about was health care. I'll repeat that: what he was talking about was health care. Having a doctor keeps you from being what god created you to be. Providing medical access, evidently, is an affront to god herself, who'd rather you suffer various diseases, followed by a painful slow death. Pustules and boils are pretty biblical, after all.

Well, it's a philosophy.

Thunderous applause.

When governments provide service to their citizens, it's no different from the crack dealer and his customers, says the man of the froth. (I gotta admit, I'm sort of hooked on interstate highways; and the idea of not being able to call 9-1-1 if my house catches fire makes me sweaty.) If we have a functioning government, the end of America is at hand. Which he also said.

The good thing about teabaggerism is that it has unmasked real intentions; now, it couldn't be clearer how different the two parties (what remains of them) are. On the one hand we have a party that considers cutting taxes on the wealthy -- even further than they've already been -- its most important mission, it's very raison d'etre, as they like to refer to it; and thinks nothing of paying for it by cutting services to all of us -- but most especially to those in need. Screw the needy. It's what Jesus would do. And he'd privatize schools so you wouldn't learn anything different from what he said two thousand years ago. Live downstream from the rich with no chance to climb the hill, and you'll be everything Rick's god intended you to be.

On the other hand is a party that, while entirely incapable of getting its message out, and so fractionated and fearful that it can't stand on its own hind legs to defend itself, actually believes that there is something to be said for having government. That some things it provides are worth paying for; that cutting taxes does NOT increase revenue, and that it's been shown time and again; that decisions of governance made on evidence are better than ones made on gut feelings and beliefs; that not all of god's children are white heterosexual Christian males.

Thunderous indifference.

Tonight's address by President Obama on budget matters would be the perfect time for him (given that he's missed many previously perfect times) clearly to describe the differences between the parties, the impact of Republican fiscal ideas on all aspects of our future, the kind of country in which we'll live if they get their way, versus the kind we'll have if Democrats get theirs. Or, rather, if both sides are willing to recognize the need to increase revenue for the sake of education, infrastructure, research, and health, and the need to cut spending by reducing our military budget, and by properly re-framing entitlements to aid those who need them most, rather than by doing exactly the opposite as currently planned by teabaggRs.

He'll need to put it as plain and graphic as it is, rather than continue his penchant for mollifying the crazy. He'll need to ask the public if they want to keep taxes where they are or if they want to have Medicare in the future. Schools. And roads. He'll have to ask if, as a nation, we want lower taxes, and to usher in, as Republicans do, the end of education, waiting for medical advances to come from China, the crumbling of our dams and bridges, the toxification of our bodies and lands, health care only for the very wealthy. He'll have to put it as starkly as that, because it is as stark as that.

He could do it. Whether he will or not (I doubt it), he most certainly should. Teabaggers notwithstanding, I suspect there are people in this country still able to ingest reality and process it. People who, contrasting such a message with listening to Ridiculous Rick and Pretendy Paul, are capable of realizing the danger of such extremism.

Or not.