The Me-First, Screw-Everyone-Else Crowd

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090806_the_me-first_screw-everyone-else_crowd/

The Me-First, Screw-Everyone-Else Crowd

Posted on Aug 7, 2009

By David Sirota

I know I should be mortified by the lobbyist-organized mobs of angry Brooks Brothers mannequins who are now making headlines by shutting down congressional town hall meetings. I know I should be despondent during this, the Khaki Pants Offensive in the Great American Health Care and Tax War. And yet, I’m euphorically repeating one word over and over again with a big grin on my face.

Finally.

Finally, there’s no pretense. Finally, the Me-First, Screw-Everyone-Else Crowd’s ugliest traits are there for all to behold.

The group’s core gripe is summarized in a letter I received that denounces a proposed surtax on the wealthy and corporations to pay for universal health care:

“Until recently, my family was in the top 3 percent of wage earners,” the affluent businessperson fumed in response to my July column on taxes. “We are in the group that pays close to 60 percent of this nation’s taxes ... Think for a second how you would feel if you built a business and contributed more than your share to this country only to be treated like a pariah.”

snip//

What you’ve discovered is that the Me-First, Screw-Everyone-Else Crowd isn’t interested in fairness, empiricism or morality.

With 22,000 of their fellow countrymen dying annually for lack of health insurance and with Warren Buffett paying a lower effective tax rate than his secretary, the Me-First, Screw-Everyone-Else Crowd is merely using the argot of fairness, empiricism and morality to hide its real motive: selfish greed.

No argument, however rational, is going to cure these narcissists of that grotesque disease.

"I've got mine, sucks to be you" syndrome. Yes, it's a major problem that must be tackled before our species can mature and evolve any further.

to jammer on about what you want. You shouldn't get what you want; you should want what you get.

Part of this is that it isn't being headed up by Dubya or one of his minions. Cause then it would be a lot more palatable. It's being introduced by a black President and Democrat who will receive the credit when it, as they strongly suspect, makes a lot of people's lives better. In their world, it's just not right that a black man can be that successful. They'd even rather it be Hillary as president. But looking at the way they treat Nancy Pelosi, they'd be very hard on a woman President too.

This was also audio for a commercial that ran on TV much of last year.
Don't hear it so much now the economy turned south.

it's amazing.

I just tell them I can't buy health insurance and it gives some of them pause, but not enough.

How can people be so selfish, especially when the majority of them have kids or grandkids? I just don't get it. I have Tricare but I want every last American covered.

Does not compute.

Especially when it has been proven time & again that single payer health care will actually cost less than what the gov't is paying now to insure fewer people. I refuse to believe that they are unaware of this. I'm increasingly of the mind that it is more than the me first, screw you mentality at play here. I think these people need to be surrounded by the less fortunate just to feel good about themselves and their accomplishments. And I'm not talking about the rich here. I'm talking about the guy down my street who is incredulous that we just bought a new car. He has 5 cars & a healthy medical practice, yet he spent over an hour in his car ranting about the cash for clunkers program and quizzing my child about how much we paid for our new car and why we would ever trade in our other (more prestigious) car. The other element, of course, is the race issue.

My beau, for example, a ponytail-bearing liberal thought that individuals could just sign up for health insurance and get the same rate as all other folks.

Silly boy. But there was no reason for him to know that. He's always had employer-provided health insurance and didn't realize why the unemployed or self-employed went without. At least he's receptive to facts.

The Libertarian philosophy and creed in five slightly censored words: "I've got mine, f*** you." It should be inscribed on Ayn Rand's tombstone.

this philosophy. They didn't even prepare a viable reform plan and some have said our health care system is currently the best in the world.

The Libertarians have always done crazy talk. They were considered "useful eccentrics" to the mainstream Republicans; the crazier they got, the further the Repub's could nudge their stuff to the right. Now they have nothing to lose, so they can all come out as full-blown crazies.

Personal query: have you ever known any really poor Libertarians? (This is not just for you, but for anyone reading this.) I think they're all at least middle class and financially secure. And probably martially secure as well, with lots of guns and ammo and canned water in storage.

I say this because my own sister is that kind of nut. She once asked me to find a copy of the Anarchist's Cookbook for a formula for homemade nerve gas. She wanted to plant nerve gas bombs in her lawn, so that when the "N-words" came pouring out of downtown Saint Louis to rape and kill all the good white people, she'd be able to stop them at her lawn. She also had a rifle hidden in her son's room, and instructed him to use it when the "dark barbarians" tried to charge the house.

Oh, she hates the "N-word" in the White House too, and so does her Shriner husband. Funny, too, that you never really see any poor Shriners either.

Anyway, it would seem to me that to be poor and Libertarian would require such a mental disconnect that such a person would often forget how to breathe.

“Until recently, my family was in the top 3 percent of wage earners,” the affluent businessperson fumed in response to my July column on taxes. “We are in the group that pays close to 60 percent of this nation’s taxes ... Think for a second how you would feel if you built a business and contributed more than your share to this country only to be treated like a pariah.”