This Is What Being Chumps Feels Like (Apathy 2)

We are all being played for chumps.   Let me rephrase that.  Most of you are being played for chumps. Now, point at yourself and say, “Who, me?” Yes, you.  There is better than a 66% chance I am addressing a chump right now.  And you’re a chump because you suffer from the apathy I spoke of last week.  I exclude myself because I, and a few of my fellow citizens, actually are paying attention and refuse to be played.  If that makes me an elitist in your eyes, so be it.  It's hardly true, but I couldn’t possibly care less.  If you are one of the few who see what is happening or if you are the type of person who gets involved and writes their representatives, you are on my side of the equation, even if you disagree with this post. We just ended the most ridiculous week in politics since the passage of Obamacare.  Yes, even more embarrassing for the country than the last election. The Republican led legislature (happily) failed to get the Obamacare “Repeal and Replace” bill to a vote in the House.  But they tried their best, most knowing there would be no consequence to them either way – because you’re a chump.  They know you believe the myth that you have the good Reps and Senators. My Senator said so himself.  It’s all those other Congressmen that are ass hats, right? So you can just go about your business.  Nothing to see here.  Don’t check on what these phony “liberals” and “conservatives” are doing inside the Beltway.  You just keep your brackets straight and make sure you catch the next zombie show on TV. Let me break all that down for you.

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Also from Street Politics:

Right Hook! 11 Must-Reads for the Politically Mature

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Flimflam #1

Labeling.  What was before the House this week was not a “repeal” of anything.  This was a classic example of how government programs, no matter how temporary or worthless, tend to gain immortality. The Republicans created a bill that kept the class envy, bureaucracy, income redistribution, corruption and almost all the financial burden on the Makers intact.  The plan was to hype how they would dicker around the edges of the worst law in American history and claim to have “replaced” it with a wonderful new law. Of course, their proposal did no such thing.   They left all the backbone in place for the system to be completely restored by the first change in government. Why?  Because they want the same thing the Dems got from the bill when it passed to begin with.  With the cash subsidies, Republican can throttle it either way, giving the Takers more or less depending on what they needed in the way of votes.  “Look at what I’ve ‘given’ you,” they’ll exclaim next election.  “I increased your money from the government by XX%!  Am I not a generous, moderate Republican?”  OR  “Look at the money (2 or 3% of growth) I cut from that terrible subsidy! Am I not a great conservative?” The ACA and the AHCA give both Dems and the GOP several avenues through which to scam money from companies, and votes from the chumps.

Flimflam #2

Phony Strength.  Once again, for the fourth time since 2010, when Republicans claiming the mantle of “conservatism” were elected to office, they opened their argument with a 75%+ give away to the opposition. In the case of some (Trump is at the top of the list) this is just a display of their complete ignorance of how the free market works and what conservatives truly believe at their core.  For others it demonstrates clearly that those in control of the GOP in Congress are NOT conservative.  They are opportunists, as devoid of principles or interest in what is good for the country and the economy as Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi. These people don’t want affordable health insurance.  They don’t care about that.  They want control, pure and simple. By keeping things like the tax on “Cadillac plans”, the Republicans are fighting the Democrats by BEING Democrats. Idiotic! (The term "Cadillac Plan" is a Democrat canard for insurance plans that successful people are willing to pay for, putting more money into the overall insurance pool.  Keeping the tax in place plays on class envy and discourages participation in the plan.  This shrinks the amount of money in the associated insurance pool.  Way to go, geniuses!) I’ll do just one more example, but I can go on for hours.  You can even see other parts of a valid argument on the subject here.

Flimflam #3

Binary Choice:  This is the third time in the last 12 months we’ve seen this term thrown around.  The first was when the media hyped Trump and Clinton for a year, instructing you (the chumps) that you only had two choices.  Being drones of whatever the TV tells you, you believed that out of the original 21 candidates running for president, you could only choose from two, no matter what.  To make an intellectual decision on your own would spell the end of civilization as we know it. And you bought it! Then near the end of the general election, when both leading candidates had demonstrated how lacking they were in either scruples or basic intelligence, you were once again schooled by the talking heads that you only had two choices to pick from. Never mind the other candidates.  We, the media, are not covering them.  Therefore you have no choice but to listen to us.  And don’t you dare research these candidates on your own.  A vote for X will cause unworthy candidates Y or Z to lose and you don’t want that, do you? And you bought it again!  You ACTUALLY bought it again! I've made this point before and it is proven here in stark numbers. There is an old adage I picked up during my Navy days.  “Once learnt, twice burnt. Three times, a sucker.”  And this week was your third time.  "There is only a binary choice,"  they keep telling you.  There are no other choices out there.  Congress must vote to keep Obamacare or vote for keeping 75% of Obamacare plus the expense of rewriting and enforcing the new regulations. But the only reason there was only such a choice was because that is how the “leadership” arranged it and how the media sold it for them.  They could have actually created a real plan, starting from pure free-market principles and allowed real debate and amendments to occur before trying to cram the bill down everyone’s throat as Obamacare did. They could have explored the infinite number of choices which debate would have provided. They could have started from a position of strength instead of starting from a 75% Democrat position.  They would have had the GOP in both houses locked down in favor of the bill.  Then the destruction of our economy, if it occurred, would have been on the heads of Democrats.  They get that.  They're dishonest, not stupid. They could have forced the Democrats to try and defend Obamacare in the face of outrageously high costs to the Makers in our society.  And the Dems would have lost that argument. Trump would have gone along with this.  He wouldn’t have known good from bad anyway.  He’d have supported that looked like a campaign promise being kept without argument. But NO!  Only what Paul Ryan and a few other skeezy politicians say are the choices - are the choices. "It’s a binary choice". And from all appearances, it would appear you are going to happily eat this shit sandwich again!

Here's the Chumpiest Part

And they continue to get away with this because they are 100% certain that you are either ignorant of the way they are supposed to do their jobs, or you are totally disengaged and won’t even notice them scamming you yet again! Or both! Hell, one of the biggest complaints the GOP had about Obamacare was the centralization of power it created and the heavy hand of regulation over legislation involved (2700 pages of law and almost 30,000 pages of regulation by the executive branch). And what does Ryancare do?  It leaves two thirds of the law untouched, passing responsibility for making new healthcare “regulation” (read changing the law) to the dictates of the Executive Branch and HHS.  A few moments of critical thought will destroy even the arguments Ryan makes about it on his own web page. For the truly slow, HHS would have written those regulations in such a way as to protect their share of power.  Bureaucracies are inherently bound to protect themselves, not work for a greater good.  You would have seen a whole new, big-government side of Tom Price, I can assure you. So, would someone explain to me again why we elected Ryan speaker and how Trump is a conservative?  From where I am sitting, both notions are preposterous. Thankfully, we now have a clean slate from which to start and we can still purge the government from the health insurance business.  If we can succeed in doing that, we will see premiums drop into the basement.  Half the people who were moved onto Medicaid by Obamacare won’t need it.  In fact they’ll prefer a market driven policy to the garbage the federal government doles out. But that will only happen if you join me in calling on your reps to introduce new legislation.  The final lie is that this was our only chance.  What horseshit!  They can deal with Obamacare any time they wish to and as many times as it takes. C’mon!  Talk to your reps! A phone call.  An email.  You can do it.  Get back in the game! Matt Jordan is the author of Street Politics: It Ain't Your Daddy's GOP Anymore! 50% of all proceeds go to Jeff Kerr and his team at the Colonial Crossroads event to fight Multiple Sclerosis! Be sure to get your copy! Just click on the book!