GOP Tax Bill: Why We Drive on the Right Side

Summary - Do you know why North Americans drive on the right-hand side of the road? And do you want to know how that affects your healthcare?

 

Next week, the GOP will vote on a secret health care bill that is so damaging and will affect so many people, they will have to do the vote quickly. They have to act fast to avoid hearings or any other form of oversight or public input. They need something that can get jammed into law before anyone gets a chance to raise a fuss. Most importantly, they need to ensure all those takers out there – the veterans, the elderly, the disabled and sick, the working class, and all those millions of horrible whining children, are collectively peeled off the tender backside of wealthy white America like the ticks that they are. After all that’s what government for the people means, right?

A cadre of mostly elderly white men, most of whom have lived off the public dollar for all of their careers, and who already enjoy the protections of a generous government healthcare plan, will sneak their bill in under the wire. It promises to cut $200 billion more than the $830 billion cut through Trumpcare.

That they have to do so with such subterfuge makes an obvious statement. This is not a bill that will benefit the 99%. This is something that says, “nothing in life is free, my friend, well, for you at least.” That they are willing to do so in such a manner speaks to the fact that corruption and greed is rampant among the entire GOP-led government. There is no dismay. No one standing up and saying, “this is not right.” The smug, impish smiles of those spearheading the plan, especially Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, reveal complacent malice. Their eyes say, “Hey, voters, guess what we’ve been up to while you were distracted by the Comey hearings, the Europe trip, the golf weekends, and Melania/Ivanka. We hope you are enjoying this puppet show while we adults do our back-room thing.

It’s easy to imagine that Mr. Trump’s plaintive comments about needing a less “mean” health care plan was merely his own most recent act of self-preservation and self-promotion. It was Trump throwing a life-ring to Trump, distancing himself from the evil he knows is coming. He wants to be loved. Having his name on this bill will not win him any extra love. It just edges him a little closer to the bus that Mr. McConnell and his team will push him under when the time is right.

There will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the days following the bill’s passage. Many talking heads on TV will question its impact, and an army of pro-Trump bots and Twitter eggs will blast out the brilliance of the plan and of its Dear Leader.

But behind all that, there is the sheer panic that might ensue if or when ordinary Americans realize that it will be they themselves and not just their poorer, darker skinned neighbors on the other side of the tracks who will directly suffer. The bill slashes treatments and support in all directions. Medication, therapy, actual saving of lives – obviously not something a prosperous America needs.

What is most fascinating about this, other than the sheer amount of real death involved, is the way the Trump presidency, with its blue-suited GOP generals, have succeeded in rolling America back to the way things were just at the time of the Mayflower and the exodus of those yearning to breathe free in the New World.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, England and France, were oligarchies and kleptocracies. The wealthy, well-connected and corrupt circled the Royal houses, especially the court of Versailles and the House of Hanover. To pay for their extravagant lifestyles, average citizens were taxed literally to death. Wars were started in order to generate revenue, and then further taxes were needed to pay for the wars. Average people were cast out into the street to make their own way through a life best described as nasty, brutish, and short.

The current administration is doing everything it can to bring America back to that era. It was not a time of prosperity and growth, and it was the reason why so many Europeans left to find a better life in the New World as the first wave of undocumented immigrants. That includes the Ryans, the McConnells, and eventually the Drumpfs (later rebranded as Trump).

So, what does this all have to do with driving on the right-hand side of the road? In seventeenth century Europe, travel by horse was done on the left side of the road, so that a rider’s sword arm (most people are right-handed) would be closest to anyone travelling towards them. Therefore, it became common for everyone to travel on the left-hand side of a two-lane road. But there was a problem. The carriages and horsemen belonging to those Royal houses saw no need to slow down for poor travelers and their burdens, so they simply ran right over them from behind.

To avoid getting killed in this way, average people resorted to travelling on the right-hand side of the road, to let the Royals pass, and also so they could see who was coming at them. That is why, to this day, most European countries use the right-hand side of the road, a tradition that passed to the newly formed countries of North America.

One can debate these types of stories forever, but it must be remembered that people left Europe to escape the very type of callous governmental ignorance that is now becoming enshrined on the Hill. Those who remained, or who found royal domination following them across the sea, were pushed to the point of revolution. And history does tend to repeat itself.

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