Present were swatches from every race, creed, color, age, and political and socio-economic background.  Conspicuously absent were members of the mainstream media who seem determined to continue treading a poison ivy laden path towards irrelevance.

Yes, I know. Our current system IS unquestionably in need of reform and there are several excellent ideas out there for accomplishing this. But reform is not what this administration has in mind. While our transparency-reneging officials regroup for the next assault on our individual liberties, Americans need to ask themselves one, simple question: WHAT THE HELL IS THE RUSH? We are, after all, dealing with something that will eventually impact the lives of every single man, woman and child in America. And yet, Congress is being pressured to pass legislation – a kind of ‘gateway drug’ to socialized medicine – in the form of an unread bill roughly the size of Atlas Shrugged minus any of that distinguished novel’s wisdom.

But, where the agenda-driven are concerned, what’s reason got to do with it? As we careen towards socializing private health care, let’s all just ignore the fact that the fastest growing sector of nationalized health care systems (e.g. Canada, UK) is privatization. Why? Ask Canadians. In a recent poll, 59% of Canadians believed their health care system required “fundamental change,” a theme that is echoed throughout all nationalized health care countries. France, voted nombre un by the U.S.-bashing World Health Organization, offers a “universal plan” that is so wanting, 92% of French citizens purchase additional private insurance. The French pay about 13% out-of-pocket costs for health care each year (roughly what we spend) with most services requiring a 10-40% co-pay. So, basically, the French have a structure similar to ours, but lacking our level of care, our choices, timely access to a doctor and the latest technological advancements. But, of course, they’re superior because…well, they’re French.

And where did America rank on this infamous, widely debunked W.H.O. survey? Thirty-seventh; just below Costa Rica and above Slovenia. The last time I checked, I didn’t notice tens of thousands of people flying to Costa Rica for surgery. But, when severely biased organizations use such subjective concepts as “fairness” to rank a country’s health care, one shouldn’t be surprised. Oddly, the W.H.O. didn’t seem bothered by “fairness” for little things like – oh, let’s say – survival rates from cancer. In the U.S., roughly 66.3% of women diagnosed with cancer survive at least five years. And in far-superior Europe? 60.3% in Sweden, 49.8% in Italy, and 44.8% in Great Britain. What exactly the W.H.O. believes is “fair” about relegating cancer patients to sub-standard treatment and shorter life spans is unclear.

One of history’s oft-repeated patterns is that politicians who seek to obtain unlimited power concoct emotional frenzies that will appeal to people who are easily misled. In this case, the misled are those whose path to moral superiority is forged by ‘compassionately’ dispensing the federal largess (i.e., someone else’s money) to the latest victim class. It is then – through the manipulation of these misled folks – that the politicians’ ultimate goals can be achieved. We have all seen this tactic used by both sides of the aisle. We are seeing it being used right now to sell a big-ticket, big-gov health care “cure” that will eventually kill. Yes, kill. But more on that later.

Currently, the selective moral outrage of the left focuses largely on the so-called “47 million” Americans I mentioned earlier. Never mind the fact that “47″ represents a fluid number consisting largely of: (1) people who are between jobs and will regain their insurance once re-employed, (2) people who are already availing themselves of a variety of public options, and (3) people who earn over $50,000 per year and can well afford insurance but choose not to purchase it because they’d rather blow their dough on sushi dinners and a swanky new, fully loaded iPhone. In other words, this number, constantly trumpeted by the media to appeal to the emotion-over-reason crowd, is like saying “OMG! 100,000 people go to bed hungry each night in Hollywood!” and not bothering to mention that 99,999 of them are size one starlets starving themselves down to a size zero on purpose. The actual number of the “chronically” uninsured falls closer to 10 million. So, in the name of ‘compassion’ for 3.33% of our population, we must now turn the entire medical profession on its head, negatively impact those who are currently insured, eliminate individual choice, and turn all our life and death decisions over to a government appointed panel whose primary goal will be to limit care and cut costs.

Oddly, these same ‘compassionate’ ones who get their undies in a bunch over “the 47″ appear unmoved by the tens of thousands of patients who flock to our shores from around the world each year because their socialized systems have failed to provide them with comparable medical care. Where’s the empathy for cancer-diagnosed Canadians who flee to America because they know their annual cancer death rate is 70% higher than ours? Or for people waiting months for “non-urgent” surgeries such as cardiac catheterization? And, as for the all-important “fairness” that socialized medicine supposedly brings, according to a comprehensive 2005 report on nationalized health care by the Cato Institute “…access to health care in a single-payer system is far from equitable; in fact, it often correlates with income – with rich and well-connected citizens jumping the queue for treatment….In particular, the elderly, racial minorities and those in rural areas are discriminated against.”If Ted Kennedy’s brain cancer takes a turn for the worse, does anyone honestly believe he’ll cue up at the back of the ever-growing Massachusetts’ health care lines?

Sadly, I’ve never sensed even a glint of awareness from the left that, should America be converted to a system of socialized medicine, an entirely new, and highly legitimate, aggrieved class will emerge within our borders. I am speaking of those with chronic, life-threatening illnesses.

If you don’t believe me, just ask my friend Amy.

Amy was born with Cystic Fibrosis (“CF”), which is “a life-threatening, genetic disease that causes mucus to build up and clog some of the organs in the body, particularly the lungs and pancreas. The thick mucus also causes bacteria to get stuck in the airways which causes inflammation and infections that lead to lung damage.” Amy just received her MBA from a top-tier university. She has suffered from this illness throughout her entire 27 years of life. She is a vibrant, funny, attractive, dynamic, disciplined, hard-working person. She also volunteers as a spokesperson for the CF Foundation to help educate younger patients about the importance of staying on track with their meds, and getting enough rest and exercise to maintain lung capacity.

I recently sat down and asked her what it was like growing up with CF.

Amy: “Growing up in L.A., it’s very easy to get caught up in materialism. CF has helped to keep me grounded and close to my family. My parents didn’t have college educations. They worked enormously hard to make sure there was enough money to pay my medical bills. They had insurance, but it wasn’t cheap. We didn’t go on the vacations that other families did or drive the fancy cars. When I got older I realized it was a very calculated decision. To work hard, save, and spend as little as possible to make sure I got the best medical care available.”

And the U.S. doeshave the best medical care available in the world. Which is why, when Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, needed heart surgery in 2007, he opted for an out-of-network hospital…in Cleveland, Ohio. In fact, the world-famous Cleveland Clinic receives thousand of patients from 80 countries each year who, like Silvio, don’t feel their homeland’s heart surgery practices are quite up to snuff. Nor, for that matter, are their diagnostic procedures. For example, the U.S. has 8.1 MRI machines per one million citizens, while countries like the U.K. only have 3.9 machines per million, hence the Brits wait months to discover what ails them. As any truly ‘compassionate’ person knows, early detection of a disease is critical for treating it. This is one of the reasons why survival rates from life-threatening illnesses are so much higher here than anywhere else.

Amy: “Average life expectancy in the U.S. today for a CF patient is about 37.  It’s also around that number in Canada, much of which can be attributed to our advancements here.  Our companies do the research, spend the billions, create the innovations, and then Canada gets them…for less!  As for CF life expectancy in other countries: Germany is 35, the U.K. is 31. And, in Ireland, it’s even lower.”

Can anyone possibly doubt that these reduced life expectancy numbers are directly related to the quality of care received? There’s no doubt in Amy’s mind.

Amy: “Most advancements for CF have taken place here in the U.S. And these advancements go on to help the rest of the world. Pulmozyme, the first CF-specific medication, was developed by Genentech in San Francisco. Many of the devices I have, they don’t have overseas. For example, I have a special vest that shakes me to help break up the mucus in my lungs so I can cough it up. When, as an undergrad doing an internship in Switzerland for three months, my vest broke, I went to a doctor. I was shocked to discover they didn’t have it over there. The doctor told me their “research” said that it wasn’t useful. Well, I not only have the clinical trials that say it is, I have the personal experience to prove it. Without this device, I’m dependant on someone else patting me on the back several times over the course of a day in a specific way. Which means there goes my independence. Without this vest, if I wake up in the middle of the night and I’m having trouble breathing, I have to wake someone else up. And what if I’m alone?”

Question to ‘compassionate’ liberals: If you had Amy’s disease, which country would you rather live in? If you answered “Canada,” you’re probably one of the people out there who “knows someone who lives in Canada and loves their health care.” Well, if it’s so ab-fab north of the border then why do 7 out of 10 Canadian provinces send a portion of their breast and prostate cancer patients to the U.S. for treatment ? Due to the lack of capacity, Canadians spend $1 billion on health care here in the U.S. each year. And how does socialized medicine affect research and development?

Amy: “Here in the U.S. we have some medications in the pipeline that - if they’re allowed to come to fruition – may have the ability to halt my disease from damaging my lungs any further and significantly extend my life.Unless, of course, under a nationalized health care system, these meds end up being scrapped.”

Whoa. Did she just defend “Big Pharma” – the left’s favorite whipping boy, second only to Walmart? It is hypocritical in the extreme that Big Pharma-bashing libs expect to be compensated fairly for the services they provide – just ask any teacher if they think they deserve a raise. Why is it then that, when it comes to prescription drugs, fair compensation is somehow amoral? Hollywood looks for maximum profits on their investments, and does anyone criticize them for it? After all, the $100 million they invest in a movie could buy a lot of mosquito nets in Africa. But do we expect Hollywood to cap their ticket prices, hand out massive freebies and – when their films yield record profits – demand that they give those profits away? Of course not! Then why do so many Americans vilify drug companies for actually wanting to make a profit for the pension funds, municipalities and citizens who own their stock?

Amy: “If you’re investing, on average, one billion dollars to come up with a product, you need to make sure you’re going to get that money back. If companies don’t see a return on their investment they will either put their efforts elsewhere or cease innovating. One of the best examples of this has been in AIDS drugs. The country of Brazil went to Abbott laboratories. They had an AIDS drug, and Brazil said either sell this to us more cheaply or we will break your patent, reverse engineer your drug, and sell it ourselves.And, since this happened, the amount of dollars going into AIDS research has plummeted. Companies are afraid of governments that will bully them into lowering their prices so much that they won’t be able to get a return on their investment. If this keeps up, we’ll end up seeing more drugs like Viagra or Botox on the market because consumers are willing to pay cash for them. More companies may end up going down that line instead of focusing on drugs that can prolong human life. I think the pharmaceutical industry is bracing itself. They see what’s on the horizon.”

Perhaps, by now, you’re getting the feeling that Amy isn’t exactly a fan of Obamacare?

Amy: “I am violently opposed to government run health care. I would be very concerned under Obamacare for those with chronic illnesses as well as the general population as a whole.  The quality of care will decrease, period.  It really scares me – people’s lack of general understanding of what really happens from a broader economic view when the government gets involved.  We have many examples of the government controlling various aspects of our lives and how it hasn’t worked.  My friends in Europe and Canada – I don’t know if it’s because they don’t seek out the information, or because their governments withhold the info, so as not to make them upset – but they just don’t realize the difference in care. Socialized medicine will either lower a CF patient’s life expectancy, or, at the very least, keep it stagnant.  Stagnation would be a best-case scenario, if we didn’t actually end up taking steps backwards.”

And, as for the cost of “free” health care? Ever heard the old cliché that “nothin’s free?” Taxpayers will end up doling out billions and still end up with massive liabilities like the ones we already have for Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. Obamacare would impose a host of big, new stealth and direct taxes that will affect everyone regardless of income level. In essence, we’ll all be paying more and getting less…and less…and less. Which is one reason why insurance, though imperfect and in need of free-market reform, is still a “no-brainer” for Amy.

Amy: “My total out-of-pocket costs per year are about $12,000. I take 18 prescription meds per day. Plus I co-pay on all doctor and hospital visits. A lot of people would say that’s too expensive, but my attitude is: “I don’t HAVE to do my meds, I GET to do my meds.” There are so many around the world with CF that don’t have access to these treatments and don’t have the quality of life or life expectancy that I do. And, as for State Medicaid, the care just isn’t as good as mine. They can only see one doctor, so they can’t explore options or get a second opinion. They also have a much more limited prescription drug plan. I had rather live in a shack and walk everywhere and not have a car and eat Ramen every day than not have my health insurance.”

Absurdly, Obama claims that “if you like your current health care plan, you can keep it.” At face value that seems a pretty darned direct statement to me. But, in Obama-speak, it requires a White House spokesman to interpret its “subtleties.” In reality, millions of Americans like Amy will eventually be forced to abandon their plans and hop on the government health care bandwagon. Their way or the highway. Like Amy, I pay for my health insurance out-of-pocket and have done so for much of my adult life. Is it ‘compassionate’ to make me pay Medicaid and Medicare for others while not allowing me tax deductions to help pay my own medical expenses?

Amy: “If I could say anything to supporters of national health care, it would be: Do the research with your head instead of your heart. I know it feels good to think you’re morally superior by believing that the government should give everyone health insurance for “free.” But it’s not free. Not at all. It’s very, very costly in more ways than just tax dollars. It means stifling innovation, reducing everyone’s care, and, ultimately, hurting the very people you’re intending to help.”

If anyone would like to make a donation to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, go to: http://www.cff.org/GetInvolved/ManyWaysToGive/MakeADonation. Among other things, this wonderful charity’s unique business model incentivizes smaller biotech companies to develop innovative treatments for people with CF. Ninety cents out of every dollar goes directly towards helping people like Amy live better lives. 

Tanner, Michael D. “The Grass Is Not Always Greener: A Look at National Health Care Systems Around the World.” The Cato Institute. March 18, 2008. 20 Jul 2009<http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9272>

http://www.businessandmedia.org/printer/2007/20070718153509.aspx

Tanner, Michael D. “How Not to Reform Health Care.” The Cato Institute. June 9, 2009. 20 Jul 2009<http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10279>

http://my.clevelandclinic.org/news/2009/2009_us_news_rankings.aspx

<http://www.cfmicrobiology.org.uk/introduction/>Great Britain CF Life Expectancy

http://www.mayonews.ie/index.php?Itemid=52&id=927&option=com_content&task=view

http://www.thevest.com/research/outcomes.asp

http://www.cff.org/research/DrugDevelopmentPipeline/

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/83/i27/8327earlybusc.html

In school, we’re told we learn history in order to prevent ourselves from repeating the mistakes of the past.  If only that were true.  For those who study history and pay attention to its warning signs, this is a particularly painful period in the annals of western civilization on many fronts; a virtual smorgasbord of willful ignorance and denial. 

The warning signs are everywhere and have been reported in this blog and in major publications the world over.  But, to Homo sibi destruens, such signs are, once again, patently ignored.  Students of history’s flashing red warning lights debate: “Are we repeating all the worst follies of 1929, 1933, 1936 or a combination thereof?”  While we’re at it, I’d like to throw another date into the ring: 1782.

That was the year a new play by Pierre Beaumarchais really began to make ripples in pre-revolutionary France.  “Le Mariage de Figaro” was a clever comedy about the continuing exploits of The Barber of Seville’s main character, Figaro.  The inspiration for Mozart’s opera was, in fact, considered revolutionary, because its main character openly criticized the nobility. 

Pierre Beaumarchais

At a climactic moment in the play, Figaro laments:

What! Because you are a great man, you fancy yourself a great genius…. While the obscurity in which I have been cast demanded more abilities to gain a mere subsistence than are requisite to govern empires. And what, most noble Count, are your claims to distinction, to pompous titles, and immense wealth, of which you are so proud, and which, by accident, you possess? For which of your virtues? Your wisdom? Your generosity? Your justice?—The wisdom you have acquired consists in vile arts, to gratify vile passions; your generosity is lavished on your hireling instruments…and your justice is the inveterate persecution of those who have the will and the wit to resist your depredations…But this has ever been the practice of the little great; those they cannot degrade, they endeavor to crush.

             - Courtesy of The Online Library of Liberty

Pretty heady stuff for the 18th Century.  No wonder it was banned.  One would imagine that France’s nobility would shun a play that so blatantly attacked and ridiculed them.  Au contraire, mon ami!  Instead of identifying with the character of Count Almaviva, the nobleman Figaro was railing against, the French aristocracy, in a fit of cognitive disconnect worthy of a Hollywood liberal, identified with Figaro, the Count’s lowly servant.  Soon, Beaumarchais’ bon mots became all the rage among the very people they scorned and sought to undermine.  Despite King Lous XVI’s ban, Figaro quickly topped the must-read list of the French elite.  All those who desired a reputation as a wit, daring lover of the risqué and trend-setting raconteur simply had to have it read in their parlors by the author himself.

The so-called “smart set” went mad for Beaumarchais’ little golden piece of “Parisiana,” and the mocking relish with which the writer recited it to their faces.  The fact that it decried everything they stood for was of little consequence.  By being in on the joke, by nodding and winking along with Beaumarchais, weren’t they proving that the author was, in fact, not talking about them?  He was speaking of other obscenely wealthy, privileged members of the nobility.

As the French royalty’s disconnect with reality grew, so concurrently did Figaro’s cult status.  By June of 1783, the demand for a production of the play half the nobility already knew by heart was so overwhelming, a performance was ordered for the Court.  However, King Louis lost his nerve at the last moment and had it cancelled.  The French courtiers, unable to endure any deprivation when it came to their enjoyment, reacted by mounting their own private production that was “secretly” played before over two hundred of high society’s crème de la crème.  They laughed and cheered and applauded the play whose very words – when finally performed for the public in 1784 – would, according to biographer Hilaire Belloc, “act like an acid, to the destruction of all their world.”

As we know, the French Revolution did not deliver on its promise of replacing a repressive society with “liberté, égalité, fraternité” as originally intended.  Instead, the vacuum of power it created escalated into the Reign of Terror, during which many of the very people who supported Figaro were murdered, and ultimately culminated in the rise of a dictator.  This historic pattern was also repeated during the Cuban Revolution.

Cuban Firing Squad

Today, free societies have unprecedented access to information.  Unlike the French nobility who could not even conceive of the terrible results a revolution would yield, we do know how Che Guevara’s brainchild played out in our world.  The Internet is filled with first-hand accounts of Cuban repression and brutality.  Most poignant, perhaps, for any artist enjoying the free exercise of their art in a country of unparalleled freedom, are the accounts of writers, poets, artists, and musicians who have been persecuted and imprisoned for the crime of merely expressing themselves.

The fact that any self-respecting artist would champion an oppressor of artists is disturbing to say the least.  In a breathtaking act of obstinate unawareness, America’s Che-lovers have recklessly endorsed a system of government, which – were it ever allowed to flourish on these shores – would necessarily result in their own destruction.  

The Reign of Terror

If you don’t believe me, just ask “Joe.”  I met Joe at a Hollywood party a few years ago, sitting silently, shaking his head amongst all the animated political discussions loudly commandeered by those whose primary sources consisted of MSNBC’s talking points or the latest Wahhabi mouthpiece planted here by our enemies.

Born in Cuba, Joe’s successful parents were big supporters of the Cuban Revolution.  Unfortunately, after Castro ousted Batista, he neglected to establish a democracy.  As Castro seized control of the country, he also decided to seize control of Joe’s family home along with all their assets.  After being tipped off by a friend that there was a price on their heads, Joe’s parents fled with him to America.

One wonders if it will take something equally catastrophic to awaken America’s elite Che-worshippers to the bitter fruits borne of their political preferences.  Safely ensconced in wealth and luxury on par with the pre-revolutionary French nobility, the red flags of history sadly pass them by.  Instead, they choose to remain blissfully unaware of how easily the bubbles of privilege can be burst.

Og, Bog, and Grog were out hunting mammoth one day somewhere in the mountains of Prehistoric Europe.  Grog’s job was to select the most succulent, Grade A Prime Mammuthus primigenius available in the Mesolithic grocer’s aisle and herd it towards his spear-bearing buddies who were hidden in the brush.  Grog made his choice and, using his trusty, flaming torch, chased the big woolly one brush-ward.  Unfortunately, in the midst of all the excitement, Grog forgot the cardinal rule of torch-bearing hunters everywhere: always stay at least ten stone lengths away from the back end of a mammoth after it’s eaten a fir tree for lunch.

Over Grog’s ashes, Og ponders the lesson of his friend’s untimely incineration and thinks: “I’m gonna recommend the Chief hold a hunter’s refresher course and change it to twenty stone lengths.”  Meanwhile, Bog, though he has access to the same information, processes it differently.  He ends up dismissing the whole episode as a fluke and decides that, even if the conditions were similar, the same result could never happen to him.  As Og is busy absorbing the cause and effect of Grog’s sudden demise, Bog thinks: “Let’s see, I had half a bison for breakfast, eighteen crow eggs, hand full of pine cones, pig fat smoothie with a scoop of roe deer hoof powder…which means, if I jog back to the cave reallyreally fast I can eat that entire pit of flame-broiled grubs.”

While Og clearly observed and assimilated the dangers of getting on the wrong side of a mammoth, Bog apparently chose to ignore the historic event.  Og burned a groove in his brain and made damned sure his children burned the same groove in theirs, passing his factual knowledge down for posterity.  Bog, on the other hand, kept revising the story and, several oral drafts around the campfire later, actually managed to convince himself that the whole debacle wasn’t Grog’s fault, it wasn’t the mammoth’s fault, it wasn’t even the fir tree’s fault.  Rather, it was all somehow Og’s fault. 

The story of Og and Bog would have no place in hypothetical history were it not for the fact that, apparently, Og went on to father Homo sapiens (“knowing human”) while Bog went on to father an entire subspecies known as Homo sibi destruens (“man destroying himself”).  Though they appear physically identical and share a majority of cognitive abilities, Homo sibi destruens (“HSD”) is decidedly different from Homo sapiens in one critical area: they are unable to absorb the lessons of history.

Standouts of this subspecies can easily be spotted governing countries, running the 111th Congress, starring in films, chairing U.N. committees, controlling the White House and keeping the flames of socialism and communism flickering the world over.  During particularly critical times in history, HSD often emerges en masse to make sure we all end up ignoring the lessons of the past so we can collectively suffer maximum damage in the present and future.

To HSD, communism is not a failed philosophy.  It’s just never been done right.  European socialism –- a floundering system of government Americans have never actually endured –- is somehow superior to the pseudo-capitalist system we are rapidly losing.  The government, though they have mangled our public schools for decades, frittered away our Social Security, worsened our financial crisis and grossly mismanaged everything from Fannie and Freddie to the U.S. Postal Service, is now somehow best qualified to handle our banking, mortgages and healthcare.  Should HSD cross paths with anyone who has actually suffered under communism or experienced the stagnation, lack of choice, and rationing of repressive socialism, they simply dismiss their warnings.

Hope & Change circa 1940's China

I recently asked “Ron,” a Rhodes Scholar friend from Taiwan, what he thought of a college student I knew who kept a poster of Mao Zedong on his wall.  Ron is married to a woman whose highly-educated father, during the so-called “cultural revolution,” was arrested, tortured and ordered to publicly burn his books.  Ron’s wife, a skilled physician, was nearly forced to marry a pig farmer before a patient who was a high-ranking party official interceded.  Ron thought carefully about how to define a young man who admired a mass murderer of millions.  After a moment, Ron pronounced in his heavy Taiwanese accent: “muddy thinker.”

If the current trends in Washington and Hollywood are any indication, HSD’s muddy thinkers are all the rage.

Several years ago, I came across perhaps the best visual fix on muddy thinking I’ve ever encountered.  I was visiting a friend who lived in an isolated, mountain region.  Record rainfall that year had caused a series of mudslides throughout the area.  Driving up the narrow, one lane road to her house, I rounded a hairpin curve and encountered an amazing site.  Pulling over, I got out of my car and stood gaping on the side of the road.  There, before me, were two houses I had passed many times over the years.  One house, however, had apparently slid down the side of the hill and was now lying in ruins at the bottom of a gully.  The other, identical home, located a few yards away from its decimated twin and looking decidedly wobbly, was still inhabited.  And there, in that home, in clear view through a dining room window, were the descendants of Bog.  Gathered around the dinner table, a family of Homo sibi destruens were eating, chatting, and watching MSNBC as if nothing unusual had happened.  I had to fight the urge not to bang on their front door and scream: “Are you crazy?  GET OUT!”

Propaganda Poster circa 2009

Shortly after, the house of Bog’s muddy thinking descendants did, in fact, join its clone in demolished repose at the base of the ravine.  I wonder how long it took the family to finally accept reality and acknowledge their dwelling’s fate.  I wonder how long it will take Bog’s descendants in America to acknowledge what they are doing to this country?

How's this for "Progress?"

Walking out of a Hollywood coffee house just after the so-called “Stimulus” was passed, I followed two prime HSD specimens down the street.  As they entered their fully loaded Prius complete with scary, propagandic, Obama bumper sticker circa Leninist Russia, I overhead one, young rail-thin blonde talking with another.  Instead of pondering how more than doubling our nation’s debt, nationalizing private industry and an unprecedented expansion of government will hobble their bright, shiny futures, I heard:  “Let’s see, I had a non-fat, soy latte for breakfast, Acai Berry smoothie with a scoop of protein powder for lunch, hand full of unsalted almonds, which means, if I work reallyreally hard in Pilates…”

Let me explain.  I am the product of political “diversity.”  My father – a retired professor and classics scholar who speaks six languages – was raised “a Kennedy Democrat.”  Involved in east coast politics, he actually met Jack and Bobby on several occasions and briefly toyed with the idea of moving to Washington to work in JFK’s administration (as per an invitation, mind you).  Bluntly acknowledging that today’s Democrats have more in common with Karl Marx than JFK, he is currently disgusted with the whole lot of them.  My mother, also a retired professor, is a direct descendant of a family who came to America in the 1660’s.  A legacy Republican, her ancestors fought in every American war and her 18th Century, childhood home was used to house escaped slaves.  Not surprisingly, I was raised to seek out at as many facts as I could lay my hands on before opening my mouth at the dinner table.  Improperly rationalizing an opinion could lead to a deadly, thirty-minute lecture featuring etiological references in both Greek and Latin.  More importantly, I was raised to be polite. “Polite: showing good manners towards others, as in courteous behavior and speech. Civil, refined, cultured.” 

Beginning in 2001, I began to encounter a strange phenomenon.  Filmmakers who, during the Clinton years, cruised around in Range Rovers unconcerned about their carbon footprints and who were oblivious to overseas death tolls from botched American policies, were suddenly outraged…about everything!  Overnight, we had changed from a “progressive” country to a fascist regime.  Instantly, my Palm Pilot roster transformed itself from a list of professional colleagues into a who’s who hotbed of political activists. 

My first mistake was to question this.  How, I casually queried a film director friend one evening in a chat room, had this country turned upside down in a single day?  His response was a multi-page diatribe wherein Bush was simultaneously compared to Hitler, Stalin and Alfred E. Newman.  From the moment the term “dangling chad” demolition-derbied its way into the American lexicon, politics would never be the same.  Despite multiple recounts, lawsuits, investigations, congressional hearings, a Supreme Court ruling, and a never-ending stream of journalists determined to obtain a Pulitzer by proving the election was “stolen,” the conclusion was: it wasn’t.  Yet “stolen” it would remain forevermore to every liberal between here and West Quoddy Head, Maine. 

I next committed the classic blunder of countering the fallacies of my liberal associates with logic.  Why, for example, the sudden panic over arsenic levels in tap water?  Was it not the same tap water they had been using quite satisfactorily during the Clinton years?  Why the histrionics over wiretapping?  Could they tell me which president wasn’t a prolific wiretapper – warrantless or otherwise – since the technology was invented?  Why was our earth – a tough, 4.5 billion year old, battle-scarred bitch who had survived more cataclysms than we’ll ever know and who will be fully capable of reinventing herself well beyond our extinction – suddenly a “delicate, fragile” pie crust planet pushed to the brink of destruction by a mere century of fossil fuel emissions?  How could a generation raised under the cloud of pending ice age doom so unquestioningly embrace the opposite theory within the blink of an eye?  My Palm Pilot began to drop contacts faster than my neighbor shed post-gastric bypass surgery pounds. Who were these people I had associated with for years without so much as an angry outburst or a harsh word? 

I then tried countering the rising tide of cyber panic with humor.  Did my writer, director and actor friends know, for example, that the largest, land roving dinosaur measured about 2/3 the length of a football field, traveled in herds that consumed entire forests for lunch and eliminated several tons of excrement each?  Talk about greenhouse gases!  My associates were not amused. 

Soon, I became aware that a new, highly contagious, physiological neurosis was rapidly infecting even my most emotionally stable, liberal friends.  In the midst of a pleasant gathering, they would suddenly become seized by a bizarre form of political Tourette’s syndrome.  This disease quickly spread to every social gathering I attended.  The age-old “No Religion, No Politics” rule of hospitality was roughly heave-ho’d out the door, revealing myself to be surrounded by some of the most ill-bred people on the face of the earth.  Typical conversation starters included rancid, kindergarten style jokes about “Dubya,” hateful, bigoted stereotyping of all Christians and conservatives, and comparing America to Nazi Germany. 

At first, I thought it was merely a passing phase.  I even made a game out of Guess-When-The-First-Outburst-Will-Occur.  Times generally averaged between thirty seconds to five minutes from the moment I walked in the door.  Sometimes, after listening silently to a twenty-minute, group-think diatribe, I would reach my limit.  Offering a few pointed questions (that, invariably, no one at the table could answer) I was instantly perceived as rude.  In Hollywood, it’s okay to be the focus of relentless insults at someone’s dinner table, but it’s NOT okay to make the insulters even slightly uncomfortable about it.  Even the calmest of counterpoints produced a reaction similar to the release of a silent-but-deadly fart in a Smart Car.  I found myself capable of emptying entire rooms in a matter of minutes.  My Palm Pilot began to show signs of needing life support. 

Then Bush was re-elected. 

My 2004 “meet and greets” – a painful ritual endured by screenwriters trolling for work and studio executives who have no intention of giving it to them – were scheduled immediately after Kerry’s defeat.  I knew a paradigm shift was happening the minute I walked into my first meeting and the executive was crying.  “My God,” I said.  “Are you all right?”  “I’m sorry,” she sniveled, “it’s just so awful!  I mean, what do you think about all this?”  It took me a moment to realize that she was not referring to her company’s refusal to option my script.  My mind immediately sprang into “spin” mode.  This was a new and different animal.  Potential employers were now putting me on the spot regarding my political beliefs.  Wasn’t there a post-Blacklist rule out there somewhere that proclaimed this type of behavior a definite no-no?  Quickly, I realized there was no “correct” way for me to respond.  “I think I’d prefer not to talk about politics. But I’d love to talk with you about my work,” I offered.  I could immediately sense by the expression on her face that I’d said the wrong thing.  That my response, instead of being perceived as benign, was somehow heard as: “I think I’d like you to smell the crushed cat turd embedded in the bottom of my shoe.” 

From there, things really went downhill with ‘Bush Derangement Syndrome’ rearing its ugly head at meetings, in pitch sessions, in conversations with producers, even in pre-production.  While reviewing a location with a D.P. one day, I asked: “What do you think about this gate?”   “I think Bush is a f—ing a–hole!” was his reply. 

Quaint concepts like professionalism, basic courtesy and respect for diversity of opinion were officially things of the past.  Though war wasn’t the answer, moving through life as a roving combat unit of perpetual anger and hostility apparently was.  I found myself shrinking away from the few social gatherings I was still invited to.  I stressed about meetings, constantly strategizing over ways to effectively communicate with people whose personal politics were tantamount to religious fanaticism.  

Finally, in 2008, Hollywood got its way.  

As we “change” into a society that blindly embraces the most egregious policies of failed European socialism, I can only “hope” that enough of us will see reason before it’s too late.  And yet, as we ignore all the warnings of our founding fathers and grow government beyond anything they could have imagined; as we place our bipartisan spending spree on speed; as we knowingly quadruple our grandchildren’s debt; as we roll back our security to pre 9/11 mentality, paving the way for an even-more devastating attack, I have once again begun to dip my toe into the Hollywood social pool. 

At a series of post-election dinner parties, I notice that barely a passing word was uttered about politics.  The beatific smiles and jovial attitudes of my liberal associates told me it was once more safe to go back into the water.  With a far-left hand firmly steering the American wheel, La-La Land can once more revert itself back to ye goode olde days of Clintonian apathy.  Though I am anything but apathetic about America’s future, I am also keenly aware of how not to behave towards what few remaining liberal friends and colleagues I still have over the next four years.  I promise to disagree without being rude, crude, obnoxious, arrogant, intolerant, childish, warlike and, most of all, without putting potential colleagues on the spot during a meeting and/or interview. 

That, I learned from Hollywood.