Political Irony

[This post was written by reader and regular commenter David Freeman]

Ron Paul’s anti-militaristic stance has led many naive, often young, progressives to think he is somehow different, more thoughtful than other wing-nuts.

His performance in the last two debates should clear up that confusion. He, along with the other candidates, said nothing when the crowd cheered the deplorable record of executions under Perry. Again, in the next debate, nothing was said about blood lust shouted from the despicable audience. No, Paul doubled down with his ruthless Randian vision of every man for himself so cruelly and falsely tempered by the ludicrous claim that churches and communities would step up to help the uninsured. Would Paul and his friends step up? How can we know? Well, it turns out Ron Paul was presented with the opportunity to test his thesis just 3 years ago, and he came up short. On June, 26, 2008 Kent Snyder, Paul’s campaign manager and the man who invented the money bombs that made Paul’s campaign possible, died penniless, uninsured with $400,000 in medical expenses. The charity campaign initiated to help Snyder’s family with this crushing debt only managed to raise less than $35,000. I guess Snyder wasn’t worth so much to Paul once he was dead. Details at http://gawker.com/5840024/ron-pauls-campaign-manager-died-of-pneumonia-penniless-and-uninsured

Further evidence of Ron Paul’s heartless ignorance is found in his statements on famine in Africa. See: http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/ron-paul-africa-has-famines-because-they-are

Perhaps Paul’s free market vision of liberty for the rich and freedom to suffer for everyone else will ease the worries of Claudia Rendon who lost her job when she took time off to donate a kidney to her son. She can be proud of her sacrifice to the libertarian god of the invisible hand so that business owners can be free switch workers at their own convenience. See http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/mother-donates-kidney-son-loses-job

Whether he is heartless or simply lost in an ideological dreamworld, Ron Paul does not deserve the respect he often receives from pundits and ingenuous youths.

Most of its provisions have not even gone into effect yet, but according to Forbes there is solid proof that Obama’s health insurance reform is already working.

One of the major goals of reform was to reduce the number of people without health care insurance, and in the first quarter of 2011 alone at least 600,000 people were added to the health insurance rolls.

In fact, the department of Health and Human Services had estimated that reform would add around 1.2 million new people with insurance during 2011, but experts are now saying that number will be exceeded. Not only that, but most of these newly insured people are young and relatively healthy, which means that bringing them into the insurance pool should lower insurance premiums for everyone. And because those with health insurance are more likely to get preventative care like regular checkups, they will be healthier and less likely to require emergency care. Even if they break their leg and do have to go to the emergency room, their insurance will help cover that cost, instead of leaving it for the rest of us to pick up.

It’s a win-win-win-win! Insurance companies win because the number of people covered has gone up. We win because premiums are lower. Hospitals win because fewer people will be using expensive emergency rooms for health care. And America wins because our people will be healthier and more productive.

© Matt Bors

UPDATE: From Paul Krugman:

Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?

Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. Te atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?

The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.

Ever get the feeling that you’re being had by all the “law and order” politicians who keep screaming that we have to get tough on criminals (cough, Rick Perry, Ric Scott, JD Alexander)? Even though the US incarcerates more people than any other country on earth.

Well, you are being had, and the con is simple. Prisons, which are increasingly run by private corporations, are big business. The more people we send to jail, the more money those corporations make (with your tax dollars), and the more money they donate to the law and order politicians. Simple.

To give you an idea of how bad this has gotten, a judge in Pennsylvania was recently convicted and sentenced to 28 years in prison for taking $1 million in bribes from the builder of juvenile detention centers in exchange for sending thousands of kids (as young as ten years old and guilty only of petty mischief) to the detention centers. As part of this “kids for cash” scandal, 4,000 juvenile convictions were tossed out by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

But you also have to wonder why we are privatizing our prisons at all. Politicians (who are often getting hefty campaign donations from the private prison companies) tell us that it saves money. Well, that’s a bald-faced lie as well.

In Florida, Sheriff Michael Page decided that the county should take over the local jail, which has been run by Corrections Corporation of America for 22 years. At the time the jail was “de-privatized” the county projected that it would save $200,000, but it turned out much better than they expected and saved the taxpayers more than a million dollars this year alone.

Corporations were designed to make money, and they are very good at that. But when you mix profit and public interest, the money they make can end up coming out of your pocket, and ruining the lives of even young children. It makes me sick.