Help an outsider understand the right wing thought process in the US vis a vi health care?!?

[Locut0s]

Here's the thing I don't get. It's not like the US holds the patent on right wing politics. Take a look at any number of other westernized democracies in Europe and elsewhere and despite what some may have you believe, you will still find a strong thriving right wing community. Italy, Austria and Australia come to mind off the top of my head. Here in Canada too. Yet nowhere will you find a westernized democracy accept the US where at least some form of universal health care isn't in place. Heck Australia has publicly funded education! And I can tell you Australia has lots of serious right wing xenophobic wing nuts. So why is the US so alone when it comes to social reforms? How has the right there managed to so successfully shoehorn what are ultimately issues of humanitarian right and wrong into the language of right and left? I can tell you the right wingers in other countries would like to learn those tricks! Last time I checked it didn't matter too much if you were rabidly liberal or rabidly conservative when your son, wife or father is dying of a preventable cause and everyone turns their back on you.

[ecstatic]

1. Right wing thought process?

Isn't that an oxymoron? :shrug:

[stranger81]

2. America has precious little of its social contract remaining, unfortunately.

Folks here simply feel no obligation to others -- not their friends, not their neighbors, oftentimes not even their own family members. Issues like our tragic health "care" system only strike them as important when they hit home directly, e.g., when they impact their own wallet or their own child or husband or wife. Not before. The US has become completely dog-eat-dog. No sense of obligation to anyone else at all.

[SammyWinstonJack]

11. And sometimes not even then.

Issues like our tragic health "care" system only strike them as important when they hit home directly,...

Look at all those who oppose health care reform while admitting that they were screwed over by their own health care insurance plans. They don't get it. Never will get it.

[stranger81]

15. Yep, we have lots of those people too.

You can't fix stupid.

[sinkingfeeling]

3. We have the ghost of St. Ronnie (Reagan) and the tenet of 'I've got mine, so screw you.'

[Locut0s]

14. *sigh* yes I'll agree this does seem to be at the heart of the matter. But why did this.....

particular philosophy have such a strong grip on the Americana psyche for so long. Is it really just the American mythos of individuality and self success or is there something more? I mean the 80s was decade of greed, of 'everyone for himself' not just in the US but globally.

[sinkingfeeling]

16. It seems to me that America lost something of its soul in VietNam. Since there people have been

taught that self greed is good (literally in churches); that they are extremely over-taxed by their good-for-nothing government; that 'empathy' is evil; that the poor is nothing more than a bunch of lazy welfare queens; and, of course, that America and its citizens are exceptional, far above all others.

I so long to leave and live in Europe. I'm hoping the tired US dollar can hold its own against the Euro, so I can afford it.

[eleny]

4. The corporations know how to divide our population based on fear tactics

We can be divided based on race, religion, education and regionalism. South vs north, white vs black, christian fundamentalists vs every other religion and the uneducated vs the educated.

[robinlynne]

5. My guess is the amount of money spent here by big business. If you watch Rachel

Maddow, you see that these right wing outbursts and bought and paid for and sponsored by lobbyists for the medical industry.

[Stephanie]

17. Exactly. Money spent on spreading disinformation & scaring the gullible

That's the whole deal. Protecting obscene profits by riling up the base into siding against their own self-interest because they've been fed of stream of lies.

[katsy]

6. xenophobia still unites the rw in australia

against someone "else".

IMO, and admittedly this is really just a guess, the rw in America just hates everyone else. Everybody outside their own myopic beliefs.

They hate their fellow Americans. They hate them enough to act on murdering them whether it's a murderer of abortion clinic doctors or the soft-slow murder through the denial of health care. Their hatred is as real as the nazi's hatred of all beings non-aryan. I do not buy into the argument that bringing "nazi" into the conversation negates the argument. I believe in the depth of my soul that if the governing of this country were left to them, the winger movement would be the 2nd incarnation of the nazis.

Hatred for all people outside themselves.

[ejpoeta]

7. You already have these systems in place, and the people in government know that

if they mess with it people will mutiny. I mean, it seems the government is actually afraid of the citizens in other countries... You all know how to take to the streets. Here, people don't pay much attention to anything unless it affects them personally, and they can't be bothered to get off the couch because their favorite show is on in 20 minutes. They would love to go out and show their support or to fight their representative against something, but they'd miss their tv programming. And there's a pizza that they ordered that is on the way. And they have to go to work tomorrow.... their job sucks, but... they have to pay the bills and they get decent health insurance, so.... they wouldn't want to lose that. Then, when election time rolls around again, they will just vote for the person with the correct letter next to their name, regardless of whether they did a good job or who they are.... assuming they can get the time to go vote... they are SOO busy.. .work.... yard work..... their tv shows.... they'll bitch about the politicians and how they keep getting voted in, while they either vote for them again or don't bother voting at all. The pols can do pretty much whatever they want here because, no one really pays any attention and they won't rememmber anyway. besides... if the pol can get enough contributions from the big money corporations, they'll win by outspending their opponent.

[OHdem10]

8. RWing Philosophy in US is ultra Conservative holding INDIVIDUALISM

highest of virtues. The Individual is responsible for himself
and his family. Many believe poor people are poor because
they are shiftless, lazy, drug addicted or alcoholic. Personal
Responsibility dictates that you pull yourself up by your
own bootstraps. One of the Revered TV News Personalities
(RIP) frequently commented--"No One Is Owed Anything."
You must understand that when they refer to Liberty, most
often this means financial liberty. Freedom to make and your
own money and do with it as you will. Taxes are a form
of coercion in their minds eye.

A second important belief is minimal government. Social
Security Medicare Medicaid Welfare --social safety net
have never been programs they support. They do not believe
these should be government programs.

Now with this philosophy I hope you have better understanding
of why the GOP are fight Health Care.

TO be fair, through the years they have pushed enough that
they will help a small number of poorest of poor so as not
to appear absolutely heartless.

[ljm2002]

9. What you are seeing...

...is corporate-financed social manipulation on a grand scale. They pay to twist facts and outright lie, using codewords they know will get the base riled up, and then just point them towards the nasty liberals (you know, the Democrats who won the last two elections soundly over the rightwingers) and say "They're the ones causing all this! They're to blame!! Give 'em hell!!!".

They do this to protect their industry, which is understandable. The people who are so easily manipulated are not so understandable.

[EC]

10. I think it's because the richer right wingers see opportunity in

store front med care. That's why they are trying to stop real reform. Many of them already have dialysis clinics etc. that look like retail stores. I also think most of the funeral parlors are owned by right wingers (at least the chain ones)

[gatorboy]

12. It's more about the color of Obama's skin than anything else.

[ipaint]

13. The "it's all about me" attitude has been cultivated seriously since reagan.

I have found the affluent middle class of both parties responsible.

The uninsured aren't a new problem it's just that the prohibitive cost that prevented access for the working class and working poor now is biting at the heels of the fairly comfortable middle class along with the abuses of the insurance corporations.
So now we have the well off right blaming the working class and poor for their high insurance costs and the well of left yelling for partial reform because they are beginning to suffer along with the working class.

Unfortunately it's not quite bad enough for those on the left with decent to good insurance to join the majority of the working class and poor to push for a universal system for everyone.

If the left as a whole won't stand up to defend the rights of the least of us, why would the right give a shit about them.

It comes from being brought up in a culture that does not value community or the democratic value in lifting all boats.

On the left people are still willing to settle for less leaving millions uninsured so they can see their bills go down and a couple of the more serious abuses inflicted by the insurance corporations outlawed. In exchange we get laws forcing people to pay private ins. corps. Who will that hurt- the working class and the working poor, the people who will slip through the cracks because they can't afford the after subsidy premium for the lowest rated policy.

When that is the best the middle class and above on the left can do in the last three tries for health care reform, the right wins.

[loyalkydem]

18. The right wing can think

BREAKING NEWS, the right wing can think.

OH if I could use those funny icons, I would now

[Locut0s]

19. Sadly many can yes. What they lack is not so much a brain but a heart.