Neo-conservatives in good ol’ Tennessee voted down a proposal to build a county fire department because it would have cost taxpayers a few dollars more each year. So firefighters watched a house burn to the ground with its owner’s four pets still inside. The owner didn’t a pay a $75 fee for service and so was not entitled to have his home and pets saved. This is Tea Party USA in action. No government, no taxes, no services, no civic duty, no morality.
Reactions from the Mad Hatters were expressed with their usual contempt for another’s misery: "Good, he deserved it."
I would not believe this degree of sociopathy and abject selfishness if I did not live in Panama City, where the gestalt is the same. I fear a sense of inner pain with every tragic tale told to me concerning the lack of human empathy in interpersonal relationships as well as society as a whole. It makes sense as every civilization is the sum of its parts.
I question what happened to "Don’t do any harm to others you wouldn’t want done to you." Since the beginning of time on earth, every oral and written religion and philosophy have contained this all-important "golden rule." So when has cruelty become an accepted norm? Why has it reached epidemic proportions?
I believe it’s an outgrowth of allowing the government these past 30 years to feed a monster — the corporations, with an insatiable greed that’s now feeding on us. We need to put the blame and anger where it belongs.
The Tea Party people, funded by and the voice of this monster, would have us purge the powerless and victimize the victims. They seem to enjoy the suffering of others with the same relish reminiscent of public executions.
This misguided hatred will surely cause a descent into another dark age where the individual is truly expendable and all human rights are non-existent.
