Government Magic

This picture by Ken Lockwood speaks volumes about economic truthiness. "Free healthcare." If any epithet spewed by the teabaggers sums up their delusions better, I do not know what it is. This phrase was uttered to stop debate on so many occasions it has to rank with "why do you support the terrorists?" Or "why do you hate America?" on the list of horsehit political discourse.

Too bad it is too late to make a difference in health insurance reform this time around. We have a long, long way to go before American healthcare approaches the relative justice and equity acheived so many years ago by our more civilized neighbors. This is a remarkably effective slogan for the reality-based community. It activates our sense of shared purpose while appropriating self-interest at the same time. This picture could and should get a lot of milage, so I am doing my part to spread it around.

But it is not the main reason I posted it today. In order to fight a thing, one must understand that thing. Why did conservatives get so much traction with the b.s. phrase "free healthcare?" Because they have an acute case of believing in magic. While an embarrassing percentage of the American public believes in superstitious nonsense and a certain amount of magical thinking infects the conventional economic understanding in average Americans, it is epidemic on the radical right.

As I mentioned recently, people don't see the man behind the curtain. In such a highly specialized economy where division of labor has been taken to such extremes as to make Adam Smith gape, very few people have an understanding of the whole. Hence, magic. And the elite managers at the top take on aspects of being wizards, CEOS are often referred to as such in business media. The serfs are meant to rever them and far too many do. How does this relate to government? Glad you asked.

Despite the objections of "how are you going to pay for it?" that spews from the lips of republicans when they are out of power, they have operated government on an extreme deficit for so long now that government spending seems to be disconnected from revenue. When taxation is separated from public spending for over a generation, the public can be made to believe that they are separate and not two sides of the same ledger. Illusionists in service to right-wing propaganda spread confusion to serve this myth. Until we reach the conventional wisdom of today, taxation is punishment. Spending is all done to buy votes and lavish luxury on the undeserving. Voila, "free healthcare."