The Nossiter Net
The net that shall enmesh them all
Edited, Written, and Published by Josh Nossiter
The net that shall enmesh them all
Edited, Written, and Published by Josh Nossiter
Why the GOP Hates Our Troops
Wednesday, August 12th, 2009
Wednesday, August 12th, 2009
| The Nossiter Net is cast to snare some of the riper rascalities of the day. Comments? Send a letter to the editor. |
The Republicans like to wear the Stars and Stripes as
outerwear (maybe underwear too but mercifully we're
spared from knowing), chant "USA, USA" at the least
provocation, and routinely call into question the
patriotism of anyone who disagrees with them. But just
how patriotic is the GOP? Examining the party's health
care reform argument, to the extent that it is an
argument, we can only conclude that the Republicans
are not patriotic at all.
Central to anti-reform logic is the premise that anything
run by the federal government is bad, so a federal
health insurance program is automatically a terrible idea.
It must inevitably be corrupt, wasteful, incompetent
and, at least according to GOP sages like Sara Palin,
lethal to old people and the differently abled.
Furthermore a government health insurance program
would put the good guy private health insurance
industry out of business. Never mind that her so-called
"death panels" are figments of Palin's fevered
imagination. And that private insurers are not good guys
at all. Also, as Obama pointed out the other day, the US
Postal Service isn't exactly bankrupting Fedex and UPS
– if anything, the reverse is true.
But these actual facts are peripheral to the central GOP
contention about the evil of anything the federal
government touches. Social Security and Medicare,
although highly popular and successful programs, are
evil according to Republicans. Their efforts to "reform"
them are always half or even quarter-hearted however,
because for the GOP reform really means eradication.
Which, if successful, would lose them one of their few
remaining constituencies, aging white people, who to a
person approve of Social Security and Medicare. To
date GOP efforts to convince these constituents that
Medicare and Social Security are not in fact
government programs at all have been only partly
successful.
The point is that if it's a federal government program,
the Republicans just hate it. The United States Army,
Navy, Marines, and Air Force are all government
programs. According to their own logic, such as it is,
the GOP therefore hates our troops. If that's patriotism,
then the Earth was created in six days and is five
thousand or so years old. Which, oddly enough, is
something many Republicans apparently believe.
©Joshua C. Nossiter, 2009
* * * * *
A NOTE TO READERS ***Update***
Another three week plus hiatus, from April 30th until May 23rd, again
due to Yahoo Geocities dismal service.
There was nothing new at The Nossiter Net between March 3rd and
April 26th, 2007, nearly eight weeks. The reason: tech sabotage.
Yahoo Geocities, the host for this site, denied access for the entire
period. At one point, they even managed to lose all the files. In many
discussions with Yahoo staff, no clear explanation was forthcoming.
No one seemed able to fix the problem. Ruling out the possibility of
Dubbya’s revenge, I finally wrote to Mr. Terry Semel, Chairman and
CEO of Yahoo! Inc and described the ordeal the page had undergone
since the beginning of March. A week later, a helpful Yahooo engineer
named Jason called. He had my letter before him. Though he couldn’t
do the repairs on on the spot, he promised a fix by the next day. That
was April 26th, nearly two months after shutting me down in the first
place.
The Nossiter Net apologizes, which is more than I can say for Yahoo
Geocities.
outerwear (maybe underwear too but mercifully we're
spared from knowing), chant "USA, USA" at the least
provocation, and routinely call into question the
patriotism of anyone who disagrees with them. But just
how patriotic is the GOP? Examining the party's health
care reform argument, to the extent that it is an
argument, we can only conclude that the Republicans
are not patriotic at all.
Central to anti-reform logic is the premise that anything
run by the federal government is bad, so a federal
health insurance program is automatically a terrible idea.
It must inevitably be corrupt, wasteful, incompetent
and, at least according to GOP sages like Sara Palin,
lethal to old people and the differently abled.
Furthermore a government health insurance program
would put the good guy private health insurance
industry out of business. Never mind that her so-called
"death panels" are figments of Palin's fevered
imagination. And that private insurers are not good guys
at all. Also, as Obama pointed out the other day, the US
Postal Service isn't exactly bankrupting Fedex and UPS
– if anything, the reverse is true.
But these actual facts are peripheral to the central GOP
contention about the evil of anything the federal
government touches. Social Security and Medicare,
although highly popular and successful programs, are
evil according to Republicans. Their efforts to "reform"
them are always half or even quarter-hearted however,
because for the GOP reform really means eradication.
Which, if successful, would lose them one of their few
remaining constituencies, aging white people, who to a
person approve of Social Security and Medicare. To
date GOP efforts to convince these constituents that
Medicare and Social Security are not in fact
government programs at all have been only partly
successful.
The point is that if it's a federal government program,
the Republicans just hate it. The United States Army,
Navy, Marines, and Air Force are all government
programs. According to their own logic, such as it is,
the GOP therefore hates our troops. If that's patriotism,
then the Earth was created in six days and is five
thousand or so years old. Which, oddly enough, is
something many Republicans apparently believe.
©Joshua C. Nossiter, 2009
* * * * *
A NOTE TO READERS ***Update***
Another three week plus hiatus, from April 30th until May 23rd, again
due to Yahoo Geocities dismal service.
There was nothing new at The Nossiter Net between March 3rd and
April 26th, 2007, nearly eight weeks. The reason: tech sabotage.
Yahoo Geocities, the host for this site, denied access for the entire
period. At one point, they even managed to lose all the files. In many
discussions with Yahoo staff, no clear explanation was forthcoming.
No one seemed able to fix the problem. Ruling out the possibility of
Dubbya’s revenge, I finally wrote to Mr. Terry Semel, Chairman and
CEO of Yahoo! Inc and described the ordeal the page had undergone
since the beginning of March. A week later, a helpful Yahooo engineer
named Jason called. He had my letter before him. Though he couldn’t
do the repairs on on the spot, he promised a fix by the next day. That
was April 26th, nearly two months after shutting me down in the first
place.
The Nossiter Net apologizes, which is more than I can say for Yahoo
Geocities.
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