Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Rationality

There can be no more perfect example of the batshit insanity of conservatives than this:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/drudge-liberty-tax-update

Here we have noted conservative attention monger, Matt Drudge, voluntarily acting against his economic interest for the purpose of protesting a law that is designed to either help or not even touch the vast majority of Americans.  The purpose of the Affordable Care Act is to provide affordable care.  It is designed to help take millions of Americans who have no health insurance and bring them into either government or private insurance.

That's it.

It's not an assault on liberty.  It's not the end of America.  It's a plan to get people health insurance, just like Medicare and Medicaid were.

For this numbnuts to voluntarily pay a penalty to protest a law that's designed solely to make it easier for people to get health coverage - when he doesn't have to pay that penalty - is the height of idiocy.

A lot of economics rests on the idea that people will make rational decisions about their fiscal situation.  They may have incomplete information or make a poor choice, but it will rationally proceed from the information they have, the intellectual abilities they have and the education they have received.

Conservative opposition to ACA began with states voluntarily denying themselves hundreds of millions of dollars in federal subsidies to enroll their citizens in Medicaid.  At least there is some signs that some states are reconsidering.  Freaking Utah is looking into it.

So hopefully the massive conservative irrationality is abiding somewhat at the macro level and will instead seep down to idiots like Drudge who are free to squander their money and their health in moronic protests that only prove what colossal dipshits they are.

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