on aca and nsa: i was always opposed to the individual mandate on fundamental 'what the gov could legitimately do' grounds. but on the other hand i took a strategy that i've taken to lately: well, if i were screaming, this isn't the first thing i'd scream about, because actually it sucks that people don't have access to healthcare. but reading the healthcare law through the nsa: we are dealing with a government that really has no respect for the autonomy, privacy, or liberty of anyone. so, for one thing, all info you provide to these exchanges is available to corporations, is available to the nsa, is available to homeland security, immigration, irs etc. the aca crystallizes as a very serious dimension of authoritarian control and insufferable, indefensible, and extremely threatening surveillance. the latter is what really has put paid to the american political tradition. obviously, the whole thing is cheneyesque, and if you think i didn't or don't blame the bush admin, you're wrong. but for the dems, it fits in really with a vision of state dominance of every aspect of human life: the economy, education, health, information, etc. it fits with the idea that individual rights is bourgeois ideology (which of course is a remark that has only ever been made by members of the bourgeoisie). they really believe that actual human beings have no rights their government is bound to respect, on the hilarious grounds - the obviously false and entirely disingenuous grounds - that after all the government is all of us working together: it is our collective identity, and there's no such thing as individual identity. that's why we're coercing and surveiling you in every possible aspect: because that's actually who you are even though you may be confused about that. the ridiculousness of that doctrine is matched only by its disastrous consequences: it is a premonition of genocide.
at any rate, you might think about a situation in which you are dependent for your most basic needs, for your life itself, on someone who is all the while abusing you. say you are gendergapy leftish woman. you could perhaps reflect on the fact that this is what you want, or at least what you vote for. otherwise i'll be blaming the victims, at least such victims as are enthusiastic endorsers of and collaborators in their own abuse. look, she wanted it all along: every blow was justified by her own desire. yes i monitored her every move; that's why i couldn't let her out of the basement: because i love her, really. and of course i was feeding her the whole time, so why is she whining now over there at the shelter? try not to be a people of whom that is actually true (as reflected in polling or voting, e.g.), is my advice to us.
