Human history is full of really bad ideas. We have had the idea that owning humans as slaves is a good thing. Time and time again, we have had the idea that genocide is a good thing. We have had the idea that exterminating entire species to starve our enemies is a good thing. A by product of that is that killing animals is a sport. I'm sure you can come up with some more and possibly even better ideas of really bad ideas that have been incorporated in world cultures -- How about burning heretics at the stake?
Of course, not everyone shared these ideas but they held sway enough to make them the law of the land in the lands where such things happened. Compared to these bad ideas of the past some of the ideas put forth by the Republicans in the US today don't look all that bad but they come close.
Obama pledges to create the largest system of regulations for financial systems to stop the corruption and fraud since the New Deal. The GOP says that it will put too much power in one place. They manage to totally ignore what has happened since their hero, Ronald Reagan, began the process of removing necessary regulations. They ignore the fact that following GOP ideas brought this nation to the edge of a new Great Depression. It brought us so close to one that we are still skating on thin ice when it comes to creating a recovery but it is beyond doubt that we'd already be sunk below the surface without the Democrat's intervention.
When the GOP states what they would have us do instead of what the current administration has done, they come up with the Herbert Hoover plan. Yes, they would have us do exactly what Herbert Hoover did after the stock market crash in 1929. We all know how well that turned out but it is still the GOP's best idea.
When it comes to health care reform, the GOP wants us to pay public funds to the private health insurers so that our uninsured citizens can have their claims denied along with our insured ones. 72% of medical bill induced bankruptcies in our nation come from among those who have health insurance but the GOP's best idea is to expand and support that system. And to do so, they want to tax health benefits provided by employers. That's just another way to put the tax burden on the middle class while sparing the rich. Somehow they also manage to ignore that under their leadership, the middle class is becoming a smaller and smaller percentage of the population, making their way into poverty.
The concept that the problem with our corporations is that we still have too many regulations and not enough free market is singular in its ability to ignore reality and experience. Anyone who believes that trickle down economics works manages the same but both philosophies figure prominently in GOP ideas.
When it comes to world diplomacy the GOP offers one option and one option only. They say, "We must be tougher". They conveniently forget what they remember so well when it comes to domestic spending -- that our resources are not infinite but limited. They hold life cheap -- especially of those we kill abroad but they aren't particularly concerned with saving the lives of those we send to fight either. They are willing to stint on planning, equipment, and post injury care of our troops. They'd rather fight than negotiate any day yet they don't want to win the fights as that cuts off the money flowing into their pockets and the pockets of their cronies, who repay them.
When it comes to the environment, as far as the GOP is concerned, nothing should ever get in the way of making money on the short term. Global warming to them is just a theory to be fought. Never mind that unchecked human pollution may lead at best to incredible suffering and economic loss and at worst, the destruction of the human species along with most of the other species now alive. According to the GOP, we must ignore the small window of opportunity we have left to avoid disaster so that business can make more money.
After eight years of almost total power, the GOP has brought the USA to the verge of economic ruin yet they complain loudly at any variation from the path they were following. The media treats their complaints as if they are more than the madness they have proven to be. They still have millions of people who follow them and think they are right. Experience means nothing to these people. If allowed, they will follow their prejudices, their meanness, their selfishness, and their greed, right to the literal end of the earth.
Many of these people belong in jails or mental hospitals -- not in power. Now the forces that corrupted them are trying to do the same to our newly elected Democrats. We as a people must stand firm for good ideas and for sanity and the protection of the irreplaceable.
I've studied the effects of untreated trauma and I blame much self imposed ignorance and state of denial on child and sexual abuse. Alice Miller, in her book, For Your Own Good makes a compelling argument for a connection between the acceptence of cruel NAZI philosophies in Germany and the punitive child rearing theory that was in vogue as the future fascists were growing up.
Other writers have shown how refusal to acknowledge personal inner pain from past trauma may cause a person to join in any socially acceptible manifestation of hatred.
I am quite convinced that along with the normal motives of greed and short sightedness, rampant cocaine use played a huge part in the gambling and carelessness that led to the downfall of the financial institutions.
I believe these things yet I still find it hard to understand how they can still be so righteous in their wrongness.