Monday, April 22, 2019

Alleviating Anyone's Suffering Is a Slap in the Face to Everyone Who Has Ever Suffered



Pretty sure that it's not the central tenet of Buddhism, but it is Phillip Klein's outstandingly stupid Hot Take on Elizabeth Warren's plan to Jubilee outstanding student debt:
Elizabeth Warren's plan to cancel student loan debt would be a slap in the face to all those who struggled to pay off their loans
Now let's see how this works if you change...
Franklin Roosevelt's plan to create a Social Security system would be a slap in the face to all those senior citizens who nobly died in poverty.
 ...a few...
Lyndon Johnson's plan to enact Medicare to provide health insurance to people age 65 and older, regardless of income or medical history would be a slap in the face to all those senior citizens who nobly died of medically preventable causes.
...of the words...
Teaching evolution in the public schools would be a slap in the face to every God-fearing Biblical literalist.
...around.

I could go on all day like this -- from anesthesia to zoology -- but the two points I wanted to underscore would not be made any clearer thereby.

First, Phillip Klein is indeed an idiot.

Second, Phillip Klein does indeed get paid real American money to write drivel like this.

In fact, now that I think about it, in his own, bumblefuckish way, Phillip Klein has managed to brilliantly encapsulated the very essence of Conservatism:
All progress is bad ... because I say so.  



Behold, a Tip Jar!

5 comments:

Jim Crittenden said...

Survivor's guilt. It should inform grace, but instead it is used to block change via guilt and shame. Examples: I'm sure my grandma in heaven would be ecstatic if I just let my next coronary take me like it did her, instead of shamefully submitting to emergency care. Every time my car stalls another stagecoach gets its wings. How could any laborer expect to receive a living wage when (with the exception of a 30-year apostasy in the mid 1900s) nobody ever did before? Think precedent; think bumblefuckery. Pass the antifreeze.

mcfrank said...

I trip via the not-so-wayback machine allows to recall that this was one of the foundational outrages of the TEA party: How dare you lower someone else's mortgage when I paid mine off by the sweat of my brow!

I just started my last round of chemo today and I'm too tired and sore to look up the asshat* that ranted about this on one of the finance channels. But maybe that's a good thing. Maybe we should use our own version of strategic forgetory: remember the evil deeds that unfortunately still live on and erase the evil creators themselves from history. In the manner of ancient Egypt, we can do redacted too!

*As someone with anorectal cancer and I've developed too much respect for the anal sphincter to use asshole as a pejorative term .

mcfrank said...

OK. I wasn't that out of it last night to be semi-incoherent. Have I mentioned how aggressively wrong the spell check is on my Fire HD 10? (In the very first sentence "A" becomes "I"!?)

I think I also need one of the "kids these days" to teach me how to type with my thumbs. It's a continuing source of frustration for someone who can touch type almost as fast as I can think to hunt and peck at a virtual keyboard -- hence some of the missing words. My mind has moved on before my forefinger even gets there!

Robt said...

You know,

* What freedoms untied from the rule of England. harming all those people left under English Rule, in England..

* When then Governor Reagan became angry with war protesters on Calif college campuses and not paying through the nose to be there as a student. He never should have changed the law to force what we see as today's stifling price tags on attaining higher education.

Using Slavery in this scenario is really ugly.

Then there is the invention and future engulfing of the Automobile and how that so infringed on suffrage those who had to rely on horses for travel.

This type of argument is concerning to those who normally consider taking in ideas to consider a path forward on any issue. Becomes invalid. To a degree.

It is how the town idiot becomes the mayor.

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