America, I Love You. Americans, On the Other Hand...

Righteous rant!!!


Evan Handler
Actor, author, screenwriter, and journalist
Posted: September 14, 2009 03:55 PM
America, I Love You. Americans, On the Other Hand...


I have found the last week to be one of the most politically dispiriting of my adulthood. After President Obama's address to the nation on health care, I posted an opinion piece on Huffington Post which garnered well over 600 comments, as well as dozens of emails sent directly my way. The piece was in support of strong health care reform legislation, including a "public option," and used my own history of overcoming acute myeloid leukemia, as well as my wife's Italian family's health care experiences in that country, as reference points. Most responses were of the "Thank you for saying what I've felt" variety, and it's always gratifying to be told I've said something important, or made someone else feel heard.

The strong minority current won't surprise anyone who's followed the health care debate, or most any political discussion, over the past couple of years. A vocal minority has let me know, over and over again, that they don't want the government taking any more of their money; that they want to be able to decide how to spend and invest their own money; that they don't want to have to pay for anything for anyone else; and -- the big time, firecracker, most-consistent comment of all -- they don't want any Americans to have government-subsidized health care insurance if one single, goddamn, fucking, disgusting illegal immigrant might be able to get their hands on it, too.

Okay. I get it. And here's my response to both groups.

First, to those opposed to any European-styled government subsidized health insurance option: I found every one of your arguments to be small-minded, selfish, fear-driven, ill-informed, self-serving, and -- most crucially -- detrimental to the long-term interests of the United States of America. As I indicated in my last piece, the oft-stated logic of "government out of my life" is a fantasy existence you've never experienced, and that you'd whimper in fear over were you ever subjected to it for an instant. Make a list of the industries you're aware of: medical, chemical, automobile, steel, housing, whatever. Each and every one of them would crush you with glee without government regulations if it added to their profits by one one-millionth of a percentage point. They'd sell the juice they squeezed out of you as a refreshment drink, if they could get away with it. As corrupt and inefficient as your government is (and it clearly is), it's the only thing keeping you alive moment to moment. Reform it, by all means. Keep it honest. Throw out the bums who aren't protecting you adequately enough. But, end its involvement in your life? Scale it back? You're kidding yourself. That's a joke. Take one look back at history (please, just one look!), and see how workers, and children, and consumers are now protected where they were once injured and exploited. That's called "progress," and we're hoping to add a little more.

To those who insisted, "I don't use public transportation, my local taxes pay for my town's sidewalks, I don't use this, I don't use that," yours are idiotic arguments. The concrete under your feet, the steel used in elevators, the earthquake and flood resistant building codes, the dams that don't break and drown you, the cars that (hopefully) don't fall apart as you're driving them, the airplanes that don't (usually) land on your head -- every single thing that keeps you safe every day of your life is provided to you by a government standard or regulation. Argue with me about it all day long; go ahead and take offense at my use of the word "idiotic." None of it changes the fact that you wouldn't survive a week if you were really in it on your own, and that your resistance to recognizing it is a much bigger problem than 11 million people who entered this country illegally. You, in your refusal to acknowledge your interdependence with everyone else, are a bigger problem than they are.

As to those immigrants, and the rage I've seen inspired by them, just give me a break. You're all immigrants. Every one of you. Every one of your pink, overstuffed, jiggly "American" asses is stuffed full of tortillas, or pancetta, or paella, or schnitzel, or knockwurst, or moussaka, or Dublin Coddle, or whatever the fuck your ancestors ate before they crawled their way over here. And, when they got here, someone hated them just as much as you're hating whoever's newest here now, and fought against their having anything you now enjoy.

more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/evan-handler/america-i-love-you-americ_b_286226.html

composed of the crazy r/w.

the country as they make any institution or organization. Essentially, one can't love a country without loving the inhabitants therein, be they right, left or indifferent. Just sayin.

{ignorant) Americans. So sorry, but there it is.

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Au revoir......or is that too foreign for you?

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an intelligent discussion going on out there about our differences, I'd listen. But the r/w crazies we are seeing, and the people who responded to the man who wrote this piece, are not in a conciliatory mood and are foaming at the mouth.

They listen to Beck, Limbaugh, and parrot what they say with no independent input. I bet the majority don't know what they're talking about.

Why should anyone support that?

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are the party of inclusion, totally unlike the rethugs. Did we push them away by electing a black president? If so, that's just too bad. And you know a lot of those crazies are just simple-minded bigots.

I don't hate the typical average American regardless of their political persuasion. I totally dislike and distrust the ignorant ones who don't have an independent thought in their head and the racists. Those two characteristics make up the majority of the crazies, and there's no compromising with them.

???

all rethugs. That is what the vocal minority is.

Though very few of us on DU (if any) has experienced truly independent self sufficient way of living (Free from governement), it is certainly not fantasy. There are many such people around, from surviving native tribes to many kinds of "neoprimitive" (hunter-)gatherers and gardeners, and rapidly growing number of people learning the various skills and attitudes that self-sufficient and sustainable ways (free of "civilized" governement) of living require.

The self-claimed "anti-gov" loudmouths this article refers to are of course anything but anti-gov. They are mostly imperial horders and militarists who want governement to "protect" haves from the have-nots - in essence, to enable them to loot and hoard more unnecessities by destroying our common Planet that gives them feeling of being a big man.