Friday, May 2, 2014

Respect your elders - we vote

One of the things that annoys me the most about living in the most crimson county in a red state is the presumption by the inmates that you couldn't possibly be anything else but one of them.  The lack of inhibition allowing them to launch into some vicious right-wing verbal assault, packed like a fat kid's lunchbox with unhealthy swill gives me no end of grief, but of course there are times when it backfires on them.

Republican Governor Rick Scott had one of those precious moments the other day, naturally assuming that a group of retired folks in nearby Boca Raton would, like a juke box, play his song when he pushed the right buttons. Wrong. The expression on his face tells it all.

Scott, who is filling my TV screen every evening with scurrilous lies and sleazy half truths about his Democratic opponent, blaming him for the recession, but worse, blaming him for not hating Obama and everything he's done enough -- Scott who oversaw what was at the time the largest medicare fraud in history, expected the doddering old folks to respond Republican-style to his questions about just how much they hated Medicare and The Affordable Care Act.

What he found was a satisfied group with few complaints, says the Sun Sentinel.  Some actually praised "Obamacare."  One woman, some years younger than I responded that if young people don't have insurance the rest of us will have to pay their bills and if there really were cuts necessary under the ACA to provide equal care for others, as Scott claims it would, ( he lies) then people like her weren't going to fight to keep every last benefit because "it isn't the United States of senior citizens."

Another older fellow said if there really were cuts to Medicare, he hadn't seen them and that's of course because the cuts aren't to the beneficiaries but to service providers.  Perhaps people with some time to read noticed that the "cuts" were actually Medicare cost-savings passed by a Republican Congress.


Other people confirmed that they had seen no cuts, that they were satisfied.  Others affirmed that contrary to Scott's claims no doctors were quitting.  We get used to the image of everybody over 65 as feeble, barely rational and uninformed.  That's as wrong as Scott's (did I mention that he ripped off Medicare for billions?) similar presumption that they aren't only drooling morons but Republican stooges.  Is that redundant?

Did Scott's condescension and presumptions irritate his audience as much as his corruption and apparent dishonesty?  Who knows?  Stealing so much money from Medicare that he can become a governor through paid TV lies about Medicare, makes me glad I wasn't there at the Volen Center in Boca Raton to comment.  I'm old enough, of course, but sorry to bust the stereotype, I'm more likely found in other venues like gun ranges, waterfront dives and Biker bars where we've seen too damned many liars and con men like Rick Scott and remember him all too well to be fooled again.

9 comments:

  1. Good for the seniors of Boca Raton (although I am bit surprised). Why am I surprised? Because the voters of FLORID-DUH elected this turkey four years ago, have a bad reputation for botched elections, and an even worse history of allowing themselves to be suckered by crooks, felons, war criminals, and sociopaths. This is what happens in the Dumbbell State where oranges refuse to concentrate.

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  2. What was the name of that early Dylan song - Times they are -- uh , something. . . I forget.

    Maybe some of them remember the Republican bullshit about Social Security and how prophetic that wasn't and I'll bet most are quite aware of Scott's having weaseled out of going to jail for stealing maybe -- a billion times more than would send most people to jail and how he stole from Medicare and then tried to end it -- but I am always amused when one of us confounds the damned "senior" stereotype and makes a fool of some smug, arrogant bastard. Did I mention that he stole billions from us?

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  3. What did you say, Captain? There must be an orange stuck in my ear and I can't concentrate. Something about stealing billions, you said?

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  4. What did the baby chick say when it saw an orange in his mother hen's nest? "LOOK AT THE ORANGE MAMA LAID!"

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  5. Timeworn GOP strategy going on there. If facts and records fail, just buy reelection.

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  6. There's just nothing like reading a post that confirms that getting older does not mean that your brain rots. We still have the ability to think rationally.

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  7. "LOOK AT THE ORANGE MAMA LAID!".....ohohoh....that was so bad....but it did 'squeeze' a chuckle outa me.

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  8. Out here in Reagan Country it is also common for republicans and tea partiers to assume that you are with them. They usually throw out a couple of feeler questions to test your mettle and then generally leave you alone. Every now and then one of them gets caught off guard. One of our close family friends was remarking how her boyfriend in Arizona was in and out of the emergency room in half and hour! If it was you or me, we would be stuck there half the night. I asked, "Not much traffic out in the rural areas, eh?" She sagaciously replied, "Well, those Mexicans use the goddam ER for their primary care!" (Rush Limbaugh talking point #99) Mrs. Junior not quite as wisely asked, "Well, surely there are a lot of Mexicans [sic] in Arizona?" "Well, I think they keep the Mexicans in line pretty well in Arizona. You know, thanks to the republicans and Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and all."

    I never really though of Sheriff Arpaio as a folk hero before. I guess it all depends on your perspective. Maybe the Mexican-Americans really are afraid to go to the ER in Arizona.

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    1. Yes, thanks to the Republicans and sheriff Arpaio -- thanks indeed. And we raise holy hell over some dying old man who spouts some racist idiocy in private and in his own home. For him there are consequences, for them a paycheck and respect.

      God Damn the Republicans and Sheriff Arpaio.

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