Things I saw om Twitter

As someone once said "oh, the things you see when you haven't got a gun!"


First up, Twenty-First Century Cotton Mathers and man who has never pooped without feeling guilty Vice President Mike Pence:

Before summer’s out, we'll repeal/replace Obamacare w/ system based on personal responsibility, free-market competition & state-based reform pic.twitter.com/JzCyxX9kJb

— Mike Pence (@mike_pence) June 24, 2017

"Personal responsibility." That's Republican talk for "if you're sick, it's your own damn fault. Shoulda been healthier!" Which is an argument you could, if you were fairly heartless, make about someone who has lung cancer from smoking, or cirrhosis of the liver from drinking too much, or an std because they don't like the way condoms feel or whatever. But most folks don't get to choose their illnesses. Many are born with them. I know a couple whose son was born with MS. I guess that was pretty irresponsible of him.



Second: The guy who replied to this perfectly reasonable, factual tweet:

It seems fitting that, with the #TrumpCare debate raging, I got this bill in the mail today from Ethan's most recent open heart surgery. pic.twitter.com/pyUE2UxbWW

— Ali (@aliranger29) June 24, 2017

with this bullshit:

Funny thing about that is no hospital would turn you away with or without insurance. They will do the procedures either way. So he good.

— Ryan (@ryanmcd92) June 24, 2017

Okay, first of all, the only part of a hospital that is required to treat you whether or not you can pay is the Emergency Room. Now I'm no expert, and maybe it differs from hospital to hospital, but I don't think you can get open-heart surgery in the E.R. unless you're currently dying of a heat attack, and even then they would probably just stabilize you and then you'd go into the regular hospital procedure? I don't know, maybe you could try getting shot in the heart?


Second, let's say she had no insurance and she did take her son to the ER and they did do open-heart surgery on him even though she had no insurance so, ya know, "he good." Let's say she did that. Then what? Then she gets charged the entire $200,000 fee, and I'm guessing it would be more if it happened in the ER, but let's stay with 200k. If she can't afford insurance, you think she has $200,000 in her bank account? You think she has $200,000 equity in her home? If she did have that kind of money, she would probably already have spent it on her son's previous surgery/ies. So it's bankruptcy court and a life of poverty for her! But yeah, our healthcare system is the greatest in the world!




Third: Republican who used to be considered the far right of the party until the party went so far off the rails that he is sometimes considered a "moderate," and winner of the greater DC-area Jeff Sessions look-alike contest, Utah's Orrin Hatch:

The brief time when we were *not* accusing those we disagree with of murder was nice while it lasted. https://t.co/qr1rzon1cg

— Senator Hatch Office (@senorrinhatch) June 23, 2017

Oh, and that was in response to this Tweet from Senator Bernie Sanders:

Let us be clear and this is not trying to be overly dramatic: Thousands of people will die if the Republican health care bill becomes law.

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) June 23, 2017

So, I'm not really sure that ol' Orrin understands what an accusation of murder is. If I say, "hey, don't put the barbecue so close to the house, you could start a fire and kill us all!" That's not an accusation of murder. It's advice. It's how-to-not-kill-a-bunch-of-people advice. Same as saying "hey, don't pass this horrible healthcare bill, it will result in the deaths of thousands of people" isn't an accusation. It's a statement of hope that you are a decent and intelligent enough person to avoid doing something which will cause many many deaths. Is that confidence misplaced? Obviously. But Bernie is an eternal optimist and hope springs eternal. The rest of us know that you're a cold, soulless, un-dead entity that feeds upon the misery of innocents. Which is why you fit in so well with the rest of the GOP ghouls.

Also, where was your phony umbrage when your entire party was howling about "death panels?"


 


 Last up: Author of much of our nation's collapse into third-world status and anthropomorphized rodent dropping Grover Norquist:

How Republicans are born...
Daughter, 8, has been savings up to buy her first Guitar.
Found it for $35. She had 35 exact.
Then...sales tax

— Grover Norquist (@GroverNorquist) June 25, 2017

Well, to be fair, he's right in a way. This is how Republicans are born. They are born when their parents are too stupid, too ignorant, or just too plain shitty to explain to them the connection between taxes and government services. Any sane, rational parent would tell his daughter something along the lines of  "yeah, I know, it's no fun paying taxes, but you know how we had to drive on some roads to get to the guitar store? Well, it's our taxes that payed to build those roads and to fix them when there are potholes or broken pavement or whatever. And you know how we got here without your $35 being stolen from you? That's because we pay a little bit of tax and that allows the city to hire policemen and put the bad guys in jails and hire people to guard the jails so the bad guys don't get out! So maybe it's not so bad that your $35 guitar is going to cost about $39 instead, right? What do you think, sweetie?"

But no, someone with the infantile mindset of a Grover Norquist either can't make that connection himself, or is willingly leaving his daughter ignorant of the basic facts if how societies work so that she too can grow up to be another angry, ill-informed teabagger who thinks it's just totally unfair that the government gets to take some of her money.

I am reminded of an episode of Parks & Rec in which Ron Swanson somehow gets the assignment of teaching a child about how government works for some homework project she had. He illustrates this by taking a bite of her sandwich and saying that he represents the government. "that's not fair, it's my sandwich," says the girl,and Swanson says something about how that's just how government is, they just take some of your stuff as if they were the mafia or something.
Never does it occur to him that without the government there would be no sandwich.
Without government, there is no road to get to the grocery store.
With no government, as you're walking to the store, there's no reason to think you won't be robbed, because there are no cops, no courts, no jails, so criminals just roam free.
In fact, the grocery store is probably out of business because it was getting robbed every day.
And if there is no government, there is no money, no legal tender, so you're having to barter at the store, hopefully the grocer will want some of the apples from your tree enough to trade them for bread, meat, cheese, etc.
Without the FDA and the CDC, you have no reason to think that you won't get salmonella from the mayo, or E. coli from the lunchmeat or listeria from the lettuce.
You get the idea.
Because you're not a 61-year-old Libertarrian man-baby who doesn't understand how life works.