As we all know, politicians and pundits are screaming about ISIS and Ebola, saying that the US has a sacred obligation to do “whatever it takes” to save American lives. That includes committing ground forces to yet another war, building a triple fence around all our borders, surveillance everywhere, travel bans, you name it. All options are on the table no matter the cost.
But the real truth is that neither ISIS nor Ebola are actually a major threat to Americans.
The hypocrisy is that while the total American death toll from ISIS and Ebola combined is less than ten, we refuse to spend any money to solve problems that really are killing us. For example, expanding Medicaid would save around 10,000 lives a year, and yet the same politicians and pundits oppose that because it would cost too much money. They also oppose any laws that promote gun safety, even though 32,000 Americans die from guns annually. Heck, every year 600,000 Americans die from heart disease and yet they oppose programs to fight obesity.
Jon Stewart concludes:
For some reason, in this country we’re only afraid of bad things entering our country, crossing our sacred borders, when our shelves are already so stocked with bad shit. It’s like people are saying “When I die I wanna know my preventable death has a label on it that says ‘Made in America’.”
UPDATE: Speaking about epidemics of deadly diseases, how about the outbreaks of Measles and other diseases, caused by idiots who refuse to vaccinate their children because of philosophical, religious, or personal beliefs:
4 Comments
Put all conservatives on mandatory Palincare and the country will be full of liberals within one year. Conservatives will have all died off waiting for the conservative bureaucrats to begin looking at their paperwork to determine what they need. You know, just like what happened in Alaska under Palin.
In the senior forum I’m on, there are several who refuse to get shingles shots or flu shots, because they don’t want to put foreign stuff in their bodies. Good for them. They deserve to get what they get.
Those deigned to be “sound of mind” (whatever that means today) who engage in objectively ill-advised or medically unsound activities are encouraged to apply for entry into the annual Darwin Awards Competition (http://www.darwinawards.com/). The super lucky winner is usually not there to receive the trophy but, rest assured, will go down in science comedy history!
But seriously, folks. It never ceases to amaze me how scientifically uniformed and irrational the general American public continues to be. And the basics really aren’t all that hard! It’s enough to make you think there’s a conspiracy.
Something has gone drastically wrong with our public education system and, of course, our leaders have let us down. I think these are the real wild cards in our country’s future.
Ralph, it’s not just our education. There are plenty of educated people who refuse and that includes no small number of liberal Hollywood types as well.
IK – Time will tell about the Ebola outbreak, but I agree with you that it not likely to be even a minor issue here if we consider only the number of infected. It is a horrible disease and we should do everything we can to help the West African nations affected.
On the ISIS threat -I’d have to disagree. In terms of funding and recruitment they make Al Qaida look like the JV squad (borrowing a phrase from Obama). These extremists are a real and legitimate threat. There are undoubtedly cells in many states here already. We are way behind in identifying their networks and they will not stop with Syria and Iraq. Airpower will do little to slow them down, we (or some other country) will have to put major boots on the ground to eliminate them.