Pardon the dizzying image, but that is exactly the way my brain feels when I watch Nikki Haley spout garbage about the horrors of Canadian style health care and publicly funded higher education.

I’ll leave the sophisticated arguments about how she’s conflating a socialist dictatorship to social democracies to others smarter than me, only adding that it’s preposterous to compare Venezuela to Canada, Sweden, Norway, or Germany. And I’ll spare you the old chestnut about the many socialist programs and amenities we have here in the US and enjoy every day, other than to say perhaps our public schools might do a better job of civics education moving forward to prevent future political disasters like people voting for Donald Trump.

But I would like to say, just for the record, that I don’t know what I’d do if I wasn’t hauling around an unpayable student loan that just keeps growing and growing no matter how long I pay. It’s become like a friend to me, a little reminder every day that I’ll always be in debt to the US government, til the day I die. Why, I’ll bet I’d miss the thrill of waking up at 3:00 AM to panicked thoughts that I’m going to spend my old age having my meager Social(ist) Security benefits garnished for loan payments, forcing me to purchase a cheaper brand of cat food as I squat down for dinner in my cardboard chateau under the interstate.

And I don’t know what I’d do if I could just walk into a doctor’s office or urgent care center and have them look at my leg for little or no cost. Nope, the ongoing muscle and nerve pain is invigorating, like a swift kick in the shins or a boot in the ass. I’m grateful for it, and I know I’d miss it if a doctor was able to treat it at no personal expense to me.

Whatever would I fucking do if there was free healthcare and free education? Whatever would I fucking do?

I mean, other than have a healthier life with less personal debt?

[UPDATE. Here’s a vision of Nikki Haley’s free market utopia: “Income sharing agreements could mean interest rates for students above 18%”.]

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