Tag: politics

December 6, 2024 Life, Politics Post a Comment

We can eliminate health insurance if we want to

Hey, remember when structures on fire had to be insured by specific fire companies to actually be protected against just being allowed to burn uncontrollably?
We realized the enormous cost of that to society and eliminated that form of fire insurance entirely, and established municipal fire departments.1

I’m sure at the time there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth about the Free Market™ and how many people would lose their jobs and rending of garments about how unfair it was for investors in those corporations to lose their investments. But we got through that bullshit, and our society is better off.

Why does health insurance exist? Why does for-profit healthcare exist? Why don’t we just abolish it and establish a health service instead, like we did to fire insurance companies? What do you say, California?

  1. Mostly. There are still extremely rural places where this can happen, but it’s mostly because people insist on not living in a municipal or doing their part to support the services they use. ↩
June 23, 2023 Politics Post a Comment

Supreme Court Tax Fraud?

Did Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito commit tax fraud? I assume that in addition to knowingly not including the very valuable “gifts” from their “friends” in their financial disclosures, they also knowingly didn’t pay federal or state taxes on them.

Politicians, judges, and other high-level public servants should be audited annually and, if more than minor discrepancies are found, prosecuted. Being in a position of public trust brings with it a responsibility to be above-board and honest 24/7.

That’s why I also think any elected or appointed official should be considered under oath 24/7 from the time they sign their campaign paperwork or take the oath of their appointment until their term ends.

October 14, 2018 Politics 1 Comment

California Care

Instead of ballot propositions for bullshit like splitting up the state, California really needs a ballot proposition implementing universal healthcare and seizing the existing health care infrastructure for the people.

Treating health care as a for-profit business is a crime against humanity.

February 4, 2017 Politics Post a Comment

Ur-Fascism

Italian author Umberto Eco defined “Ur-Fascism” in an article in the New York Review of Books in June, 1995. It can be distilled into fourteen points.

It’s worth taking a look at these to see just what our society is dealing with when it comes to “alt-right” Neo-Nazis and the ideology they promote.

Thanks to forums poster Improbable Lobster for the succinct write-up that I reproduce here.

  1. The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”
  2. The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”
  3. The cult of action for action’s sake. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”
  4. Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
  5. Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”
  6. Appeal to social frustration. “One of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.”
  7. The obsession with a plot. “The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia.”
  8. The enemy is both strong and weak. “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”
  9. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”
  10. Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”
  11. Everybody is educated to become a hero. “In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
  12. Machismo and weaponry. “Machismo implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality.”
  13. Selective populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.”
  14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”

The very straightforward application of this to today’s political landscape in the United States and elsewhere should terrify everyone.