There is a system of interlocking memes at work here

[phantom power]

Somebody suggested this could be its own thread. So I obliged. Because flattery will get you everywhere, that's why!

Meme 1) "Govt is the problem, never the solution." That one has been propagated by the GOP on overdrive at least since Reagan. Easy to see how this widespread meme preconditions everybody, probably including Congress, to be very skeptical of any proposal like Single Payer.

Meme 2) "If you don't have a job, it's because you fucked up somehow." This one probably goes all the way back to the Calvinist roots of the european colonists. Or even farther back to the Jungian scapegoat archetype. You can see how this plays in: it's OK to have all these people uninsured. Because clearly, they must have made some kind of bad decisions, and so they practically deserve to not have coverage.

Meme 3) "Your tax dollars will pay for people abusing a socialized insurance system."


These are all memes that are floating around in people's heads. And they precondition people to make it easy to believe vacuous statements like "bureaucrats will be in charge of your health insurance" or "the govt is going to euthanize your grandma" or "freeloading immigrants are going to get awesome medical care from your hard earned tax dollars"

If you've ever tried to argue with somebody on this, I bet you've seen how you just end up chasing these three memes around in a circle. You can't break it apart. It's become an interlocking system.

The Private Sector has lent all of its considerable money and power into helping propagate these memes for decades, since they obviously win every time a decision is made to go with a private-sector solution to a problem instead of a socialized one.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6216148&mesg_id=6216305

[madaboutharry]

1. The republicans also have this belief

that if you are having problems it is because you are not righteous enough and have not won the grace of God.

[phantom power]

2. Definitely. That is more or less the Calvinist incarnation of meme-2.

[elocs]

3. Republicans are YOYOs: You're On Your Own. That is their philosophy.

They are wild if somebody gets something they perceive is undeserved. They are also wild that somebody gets something which they cannot get. They hate all taxes unless they somehow go to benefit them personally. Republican: YOYO.

Those YOYOs who have a religious bent have the perverted belief that you get what you deserve in spite of the fact that the Bible says that the rain falls and the sun shines upon the just and the unjust. A nice way of saying "shit happens". They also have the belief that God helps those who help themselves which is simply flat out not in the Bible at all. If you can help yourself why would you need God's help?

The biggest laugh is on them: Jesus was flat out a Liberal and there's no way around that.

[DCKit]

4. Damned if I didn't delete the hateful email...

but the gist was:

"I see people who are drugging, eating and drinking themselves to death every day in the E.R. and they don't deserve health care on my dime."

Obviously, I wrote back "You make Jesus cry."