Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch wrote an excellent piece in the Washington Post yesterday that explains the appeal of Ron Paul and also predicts, I think accurately, that the party that takes up the banner of civil liberties and anti-imperialism will be successful. I was about 60% of the way through the article when I thought to myself, ‘this is an excellent article…it hits all the right points…ridicules the correct people…and doesn’t resort to any of the usual stupidness that I always see in mainstream analytical pieces’. And just as I had that internal conversation with myself, I read:
But if war were the only answer for his improbable run, why Ron Paul instead of the perennial peacenik Dennis Kucinich, the Democratic congressman from Ohio whose apparent belief in UFOs is only slightly less kooky than his belief in the efficacy of socialized health care?
I had to read it twice to make sure I had it right. Gillespie and Welsh were arguing that a belief in UFO’s is slightly less kooky than a belief in socialized health care. And I don’t want to dismiss the first part. Dennis Kucinich once saw something in the sky that he couldn’t identify. He saw an unidentifiable object that appeared to be flying. He saw something we term a ‘UFO’. I’ve seen plenty of stuff in the sky that I couldn’t identify…especially at night. I never thought the stuff had aliens inside. Kucinich never said that what he saw had aliens inside. He’s not a kook because he saw a UFO.
But let’s say that Kucinich actually thinks that a space ship can, or would, traverse the ten or more light years of space between the nearest star that has planets, and Earth…buzz the stratosphere…and then turn around and go home without so much as refueling. He’d be a kook.
But would he be kookier than the majority of Canadians, Brits, and Scandinavians that adore their socialized medicine?
This one passage of the piece ruins an otherwise excellent article that I may discuss at a later time. The really kooky thing is that anyone could live in this country and defend our medical system. It’s totally inefficient, ungodly expensive, and a complete moral embarrassment.
