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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPaul "Judge Smails" Ryan wants to "save" Medicaid/Medicare
How many are familiar with "Judge Smails" -- the pretentious, conservative blowhard who is masterfully played by actor Ted Night in the movie Caddyshack?
There's a scene where Judge Smails lectures Danny about the ways of the world, "I've sent boys younger than you to the gas chamber. I didn't want to do it, but I felt that I owed it to them."
OMFG.
Does that not perfectly sum up the Ryan attitude about Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid? Neoconservatives insist that they owe it to the American people to drastically cut health benefits for seniors. They are concerned, you see. They only want to "save" these programs--we must understand.
And just like the misguided, outrageous Judge Smails--Ryan believes that causing untold suffering and death is just a footnote--a mere consequence for the privilege of experiencing his brilliant and superior policies.
Just like Judge Smails--it's because they "owe it to us" and because they care. Like a Hallmark card from hell.
Here's the clip from Caddyshack:
sadbear
(4,340 posts)CoffeeCat
(24,411 posts)...don't interrupt them while they decimate the entire country. They've got important work to do!
Bu bye grandma and grandpa...we love you so much!
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,869 posts)And it's easy to become one if you never get your wealthy, entitled ass out of D.C. Ryan grew up well-to-do (but used Social Security survivor benefits to help pay for college), and except for a little time working in his family's business and as a fitness trainer (!), he has spent his entire adult life in Washington, either working as a congressional aide or being a member of congress. In other words, suckin' off the gummint teat, as the teabaggers love to say.
As a permanent, full-time congressional animal, he has spent his career analyzing and designing budgets that would never affect his own life. And, as a devotee of Ayn Rand, the sociopathic, serial-killer-worshipping creator of tedious, tendentious novels, he applied her amoral philosophy of "objectivism" to his budget designs - again, with no thought as to what these budgets would actually do to people. Because Ayn Rand said you shouldn't give a rat's patoot about other people.
So Ryan has bent his government service to the ideology of objectivism, not knowing or caring whether it actually works - not unlike some Stalinist/Maoist regimes that insisted collectivism was great and was leading to the glorious revolution and salvation of the proletariat when it was actually causing people to starve.
Ryan is one of those people who will never let facts get in the way of ideology. That's why the teabaggers like him. Obama and the Dems' line lately has been, "We tried doing it that way and it didn't work," which is true. The Ryan/GOP response is, "We just haven't done it enough! If we do it some more it eventually will work! Really!"
Be very afraid of ideologues.
CoffeeCat
(24,411 posts)These people, like Ryan, who want to cut the safety net (during a recession nonetheless) are simply sociopaths. They enjoy watching others suffer. And if you aren't a millionaire and if you don't have a million+ saved for retirement--then you are a loser who deserves the suffering that is coming.
Only themselves and the privileged few with whom they surround themselves deserve to have access to healthcare and to live comfortably. Everyone else deserves misery and death. It's natural selection, via economics.
What makes these people so lethal, is that their goals are in sync with the greed mongers in corporate America who are also sociopaths. They want to maximize their profits, they want to run their businesses without regulation and they don't want to pay taxes. They'll destroy the environment and cause human suffering--as long as they are enriching themselves.
So, we've go the politicians who are sociopaths--who view government programs as weakness. And we've got the corporate vampires who will destroy people and the planet to maximize profits. Both camps are working together to weaken the 99 percent and empower themselves.
Ryan and Romney are part of this nefarious effort--and Ryan is the little darling of the Koch Brothers. I worry, because with these evil, socipathic forces joined--they'll stop at nothing to win this election. I can imagine the cheating they've got planned.
It's all very frightening. What's even more frightening is that 25 percent of the country buys into this garbage, and does not see that they are being bamboozled for their votes. Very soon, it will become apparent that these people detest their supporters and are not interested in religion, "family values", or smaller government. They never have been. These devices are used to cull votes.
We've got a little more than two months to work to defeat this sickness.