Well done, as usual, despite all of the surreal in-car interruptions.
The big disappointment in all of this for me is that one side was so thoroughly allowed to set the terms of this debate. The party in power wrote the bill and instead of writing their own, with their own ideas and policies, the party out of power just chose to fire rock salt at it and see it as a tactical issue for regaining power. There is no balance in this bill and while I'm happy to see it will give some more people more of a chance at decent care, I still see it as a crippling drain on resources that are already stretched, not just beyond their limits but beyond their factual existence. How much longer can we keep depending on the good will of China and our other foreign creditors, really?
As for the "Yes We Can" groupthink, as we started to discuss last night, I'm learning there are real neurological reasons why this happens. The brain uses a lot of energy just to process all of its autonomic tasks; imagination and information processing use up even more. To avoid completely draining away what the rest of the body needs, the brain uses shortcuts, shortcuts to process sensory data, decision making, and what's left over we get to use to fuel our imaginations. That's not much. And the older we get, the more efficient our brains become, which in the case of thinking for ourselves, is NOT a plus.
The more people become aware of this, the better things will get, I suspect and hope. But until then, don't get quite so frustrated (though if I'd had a stream full of "Yes We Can" tweeters I would have unfollowed as well). They feel like they're thinking. And until they know otherwise, they always will.
The big disappointment in all of this for me is that one side was so thoroughly allowed to set the terms of this debate. The party in power wrote the bill and instead of writing their own, with their own ideas and policies, the party out of power just chose to fire rock salt at it and see it as a tactical issue for regaining power. There is no balance in this bill and while I'm happy to see it will give some more people more of a chance at decent care, I still see it as a crippling drain on resources that are already stretched, not just beyond their limits but beyond their factual existence. How much longer can we keep depending on the good will of China and our other foreign creditors, really?
As for the "Yes We Can" groupthink, as we started to discuss last night, I'm learning there are real neurological reasons why this happens. The brain uses a lot of energy just to process all of its autonomic tasks; imagination and information processing use up even more. To avoid completely draining away what the rest of the body needs, the brain uses shortcuts, shortcuts to process sensory data, decision making, and what's left over we get to use to fuel our imaginations. That's not much. And the older we get, the more efficient our brains become, which in the case of thinking for ourselves, is NOT a plus.
The more people become aware of this, the better things will get, I suspect and hope. But until then, don't get quite so frustrated (though if I'd had a stream full of "Yes We Can" tweeters I would have unfollowed as well). They feel like they're thinking. And until they know otherwise, they always will.