how otherwise rational people become propagandists for causes that don't benefit them. We stopped by our friend's house, and he had to share a video "I think my dog's a democrat." It's a music video of sorts with a country singer with a ball cap bearing the words "make country music great again" an obvious reference to the donald and the good old days when Buck Owens and other represented the "attitude" of country music. You can find it here to verify my quotation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5Z-jJ2Z4bU. The song itself goes something like this:
I think my dog's a democrat
And it breaks my heart to have to say
An ugly thing like that.
but there's a big ole pile of evidence
that all points toward the fact
that my dog might be a democrat.
Of course it's a song, and it's supposed to be humorous, but one hopes it progresses beyond the scatology. Here's the second verse,
I pay for all his health care
And I buy everything he eats
I provide him with a place to live
Just to keep him off the streets
But he just acts like he's entitled
Even tried to unionize the cat
Yeah I think my dog's a democrat.
OK, so here's something in the way of a "critique." To come out of the closet here as a "democrat" (or even worse, on specific issues, a democratic socialist) I do believe that health care should be a "universal," not a piecemeal entitlement. The difficulty, of course, is with the drawing of lines. Some get, others don't, and if you are the one who doesn't, yet feel that you're "paying" for those who do, then you feel some legitimate resentment. The song points to this resentment. If one, for example, want to reserve sponsored health care for those who are "impoverished," a line must be drawn differentiating the "impoverished" from the those who are not "impoverished." The moment one draws a line, however, it encourages all sorts of cheating -- as Lora has said about our own health care, we are being encouraged to "hide" income in order to "qualify" for Affordable Care Act benefits.
With a universal entitlement, like social security, it doesn't eliminate cheating, but it eliminates much of the necessary incentive for otherwise honest people to cheat. Universal health care would need to be "tax" funded, so yes, everyone's tax dollars will go into a common pool, and everyone will draw from it as "needed." How much would taxes go up? That I honestly can't say, but there is a bar against which it can be measured. While employed, I paid income tax, along with social security and medicare taxes of 6.4 and 1.4 percent of my taxable income respectively. I also paid, not to the government, but an employee's share of my health insurance plan as well as deductibles and co-pays. These numbers can be "totaled" giving a reasonable "out of pocket" expense for health care in the US today, and if the increased tax required to pay for universal health care is somewhere in the neighborhood of that number (or better below it!) then it's a bargain. While there will be plenty of room to argue the numbers, I'm sure, it nevertheless gives a place to begin.
So far as eating and "living" go, a similar argument. I'm pretty sure we don't want the streets clogged with starving homeless, so yes, government food and shelter programs that are available to anyone for the asking. Having said this, however, I suspect that those who can afford, will afford, something other than the soup kitchen and the local shelter, if aid is given in the form of "actual" food and "actual" shelter. Beyond that, subsidized housing for low income people, has been around for some time, and we're getting better at determining what does (and what does not) effectively lift people off the streets and out of poverty. We can get even better. Here again, however, I suspect that those who can afford, will afford, something other than subsidized housing. Nevertheless, the "demand" curve for food and housing services would be a "dashboard" indicator -- if the demand goes up significantly, a red dashboard light pops on indicating that something is going terribly wrong with the economy. An increasing number of people can no longer afford food and shelter and something must be done!
So, the comparison to a dog who receives everything in the way of a "handout" is clever enough, but not quite accurate. The song isn't intended to be a policy proposal, but an expression of "gentle" resentment (it is his dog after all). Unlike the republicans, the democrats are those who would take "more" of my money and give it to the dogs of society. One can argue endlessly about why the "dogs" are the "dogs," and I'm sure character plays some role, whether it is the character that is our native endowment as individuals, or the character that is pushed into our being by unrelenting circumstance, but the "dogs" receiving handouts, however, tend to be black and brown. Any legitimate resentment at the "handouts," particularly those undeserved "handouts," is quickly tinged with issues of race and ethnicity. It's inescapable.
So on with the song,
It chewed up the constitution
that I keep on display
Every time Benghazi's on TV
He looks the other way.
I'm always a bit surprised that such affection is lavished on the constitution. While I've seen many pictures of Jesus on display (and, yes, I have a Buddha on display) I've yet to see a copy of the constitution on display in anyone's home. Just saying. I see no evidence that he's actually read it, or any positive evidence that Obama and the democrats have violated the constitution. Violations of the constitution are questions for the supreme court, which, by the way, was weighted in favor of the right until recently. Republicans haven't been shy in attempting to litigate features of the AFA, and so far haven't been successful in striking down the law through that channel even though, we MUST remember, that until very recently, the supreme court was weighted in the republican's favor. Just saying.
So far as Benghazi is concerned, I'm not sure what he's referring to. Benghzai is a city in Libya, and it is also the place where a terrorist attack took place against the US ambassador, Christopher Stevens. There was considerable confusion surrounding the attack, one admits, and fox news aided in creating the confusion. Whether or not it could have been "prevented" if the state department had not denied requests for increased security is questionable. If intelligence and law enforcement had been better during the administration of George Bush, could 9/11 have been prevented? One should ask such questions, in part because hindsight is always better than foresight, and given the hindsight of the attacks on the embassy, increased security measures were taken just as they were taken after 9/11. While appropriate responses are debatable, to suggest, as the song suggests, that "democrats" tacitly approved of the terrorist attack in Benghazi is simply absurd, just as it is absurd to think that Bush and the CIA had a hand in the 9/11 attacks.
I know he's a liberal
Even if he won't admit it.
He pooped on my living room rug
And tried to tell me
George Bush did it.
More scatology. Really? Again with the potty jokes? I won't blame George Bush for the 9/11 attacks, or the fact that he used them as a pretext for yet another foreign war (along with the pretext of weapons of mass destruction that didn't, in fact, exist). I will, however, blame the republicans and their president George Bush for the "pile of poop" economy that Obama inherited. I think the evidence is over-whelming that the banking industry took advantage of the relaxed regulatory regime advocated for and put in place by the republicans to bilk the American people of billions of dollars and push us into recession. If there was a steaming pile on the living room rug, well, I do think we can thank the republicans and their presidents, beginning with the Reagan administration and ending with the succession of the Bushes. It's perhaps an irony of history that fiscally conservative , business friendly republicans were in office at the onset of the Great Depression (the succession of Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover) and a democrat (Roosevelt) was in office when we emerged from it. It's perhaps fitting that a republican (Bush) was in office at the onset of the Great Recession and a democrat (Obama) as we emerged from it.
He aint got no papers
And what really gets my goat
If he could find a ride to town
I know they'd let him vote.
OK, again clever, but voter fraud is not a party specific issue. Democrats do want "the dogs" to vote, if by "the dogs" we mean the dispossessed minorities. Republicans want white middle aged males who harbor resentment of "the dogs" to vote. Each is a part of the "constituency" of that party. If we want to talk about "real," not imagined, voter fraud, let's talk about gerrymandering. Let's talk about voter registration policies actually designed to prevent "the dogs" vote. On second thought, let's not. I think you take my point.
Sure we've had some good time,
He's been fun to have around,
But if he ever barks about my right to bear arms
I'm gonna have to him put down.
Let's think, just for a nano-second, about the "moral" implications of this verse -- just a nano-second. Whether the singer intends it or not, he has created an allegory where "dog owners" are republicans, and "dogs" are democrats. He is saying, in effect, that "barking" about the "right to bear arms" justifies killing the dog. Really? I'm sure he would back-peddle if someone took this as a "serious" threat, as something other than just joking, but then again why not take it as a serious threat? This sorta goes along with the trump inspired violence against those who don't share a particular world view and want to "bark" about it at his rallies -- a trump inspired attitude signaled by the motto on the singer's ball cap. Even if the singer doesn't take it seriously, someone, some crazy, inevitably WILL take it seriously and it's likely he'll have a gun, have several, and use them against what? democrats? Really?
OK, now I'm pissed. I feel like crapping on the singer's living room rug. Our neighbor is worried about another depression. With the ascendency of fundamentalist religion inherently incapable of compromising, with the growing inequality, with the increasing tendency to stake positions on attitudes and ignore verifiable evidence, with the growing bellicosity of the rhetoric and violence, I am more worried about a sort of civil war, a crumbling of the secular social pact that has made America strong. It won't be as neat as the last civil war. There will be no "North" and "South," per se, but more the sorts of internecine fighting one sees throughout the middle east and central Europe.
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