Ever since the Koch brothers funded a sect of anti-government extremist libertarians, the word patriot has taken on a different meaning than someone who feels strong support for their country. Apparently to be a teabagger patriot, one has to lack the ability to learn and understand things logically, possess an inherently malicious spirit, and have deeply emotional dislike for American citizens and the United States government. During each of the Republican manufactured economic crises over the past two years, so-called patriots in the teabagger movement lusted to create a credit default, send the economy over the fiscal cliff, and now shut down the government. As the current GOP-created financial crisis looms, most Americans do not want congressional Republicans to shut down the federal government if they cannot kill the Affordable Care Act, but over half of Republican voters and Koch-patriots are clamoring for a government shutdown if Republicans fail to kill the ACA.
Last week a poll revealed that 66% of Republican voters want their heroes in Congress to shut down the government and damage the economy if President Obama fails to kill the Affordable Care Act. A new survey shows Republican voters have a substantial number of compatriots that are pressing their representatives to punish Americans by shutting down the government because they cannot abide Americans having access to basic healthcare insurance. The Pew poll showed that all Republicans hate the idea of 30-million Americans having access to affordable healthcare insurance, but 87% of teabaggers supported the House Republicans budget agreement that defunded the healthcare law, and 71% want Republicans to shut down the government to prove they are serious about keeping Americans sick.
The Republican and teabagger opposition to the Affordable Care Act leads one to wonder why they want to kick 3-million young people off their parents’ health insurance, prevent 71-million Americans from getting free regular check-ups and vaccinations, allow insurance companies to deny coverage for a pre-existing condition, or stop 24-million Americans from getting insurance through state exchanges or stop 13-million people from signing up for Medicaid? The only conclusion is that they are inherently mean-spirited, anti-government, and hate Americans for electing (twice) an African American man as President. They are also inherently stupid for advocating a government shutdown that will not stop implementation of the ACA, but it will impact several other areas of the economy and put federal employees out of a job that admittedly will give Republicans a great deal of satisfaction. However, it appears that nothing will give Republicans and their assorted cheerleaders any more satisfaction than tens-of-millions of sick Americans, and they have spent no small amount of time and money to deny them basic healthcare coverage.
Since the healthcare reform debates began in 2010, conservative groups have spent over $400 million to convince Americans they do not deserve, and should not get, health insurance coverage. Groups like the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity and Generation Opportunity, and Jim DeMint’s Heritage Foundation have made keeping Americans sick their primary focus over the past few weeks with fear-mongering speeches and multi-million dollar ad buys targeting young and old alike. In fact in one Koch-funded ad titled “The Exam,” a young woman visiting a gynecologist with her feet in stirrups for a free cancer screening is abandoned by her physician for a horrifying Uncle Sam figure waving a speculum implying that the Affordable Care Act is the government intruding into a woman’s private parts. The irony of women undergoing Republicans’ bible-forced transvaginal ultrasounds is another story.
The message the Koch brothers are sending Americans is they are better served without healthcare insurance and it is a belief shared by Republicans, libertarians, and teabaggers who must revel in the thought of millions of young and old Americans sick. What is curious, is why conservative groups are spending an inordinate amount of time and ten-of-millions of dollars to eliminate a health law that has no financial impact on them personally. It is true that conservatives deplore any government program that is successful and works for the people because it eliminates their decades-old argument that government is inherently bad and a failure, but there must be something more. Something like endemic inhumanity that celebrates millions of their fellow citizens inability to have access to even basic healthcare and enough malice to demand shutting down the government if they cannot deny millions of Americans a healthcare plan.
The question teabaggers, libertarians, and racially-motivated Republicans cannot answer is exactly how shutting down the government, or causing a credit default “protects the people from Obamacare” they still claim is the single most “existential threat to the United States” since Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. The president of the conservative belief tank Heritage Foundation, Jim DeMint, has spent no small amount of time touring the nation and telling conservative audiences that Obamacare, like the Veteran’s Health Administration, is un-American and must be stopped even if it means shutting down the government or defaulting on the nation’s debt. DeMint cannot say how the Affordable Care Act is un-American or destroying America any more than Republicans or the Kochs can, but apparently it is so hideous that Republican and teabag voters want their representatives to shut down the government if it remains in place.
The simple fact is the Republicans, Koch brothers, and teabaggers have no reason to oppose the Affordable Care Act other than it was implemented under an African American President’s Administration, or they truly hate the American people the health law is serving. The so-called teabagger patriots have no more feeling of strong support for this country than they do compassion for their fellow Americans, and with Republicans are demonstrating to the entire world precisely how to stifle democracy. The Affordable Care Act was passed according to the United States Constitution, ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court, and yet Republicans have voted over forty times to eliminate it and are ready to shutdown the government if they cannot realize their malice and evil intent for the American people.
With the government running out of money to operate in less than a week, and the nation hitting its debt ceiling two weeks later, Republicans and their teabagger compatriots want to inflict serious economic damage on the country just because they hate the idea of their fellow citizens having access to healthcare. It is beyond a shadow of a doubt the ultimate expression of evil and inhumanity as well as extreme hatred for this nation and its founding document. Teabaggers, like Republicans, are no more patriots than the Koch brothers are humanitarian altruists because for two-and-a-half years they have actively and with great malice attempted to subvert the government and now advocate shutting it down over a health law they have failed to defeat.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn't look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
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