A very strong case can be made that we live in an extremely toxic culture here in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Our culture is so insanely poisoned that the regular slaughter of school children and their teachers by insane “gunmen” is considered, by a powerful, immovable minority, the non-negotiable price for American freedom, somehow.   Our toxic culture is the only one in the world that allows the regular mass murder of our children.  Number one cause of death for children one to eighteen years old — gunshot.

How toxic is our culture? A candidate for the American presidency can tell this colossal, hateful lie, pulled directly out of his own floridly insane imagination, (in a manner that even Hitler might have hesitated to voice in public) gain millions of likes and as many votes, become president again:

He’s angry about a fact that he just made up, young American girls being raped, sodomized and murdered by these illegals…. the dark brown, scary, violent, pet eating ones who are poisoning the blood of our country like the vermin enemy within (folks like me and Mike Pence)…

Just to be clear, this imagined rampage of rapes of young girls by dark-skinned “illegals” (listen to the evocative way the mad fuck pronounces that word), in the mind of this asshole’s diehard fans, means that, blessedly, (for the ones who wear crosses), even more rapists’ children must be born, because that is how Jesus wants it. Fetuses are clearly infinitely more sacred and precious than kindergarten children.

The public’s reaction to the cold blooded murder of a wealthy health insurance CEO has been, largely, to treat the man who killed him as an avenging folk hero. When I told a friend someone had quipped that there are 50,000,000 Americans with a motive to shoot him, his response was “only 50,000,000?” Another friend questioned whether the gunshots were actually the cause of death, isn’t it likely the dead man had many comorbidities?

What did this CEO do to inspire someone to kill him?  He simply did his job, vastly increasing the profitability of his health insurance company by using AI to deny 99% of all claims.   He noted that far less than 1% of those denied health care by his insurance company ever appealed the denial of claims by his bots.  A fucking genius innovator, this guy.  His company, the largest health insurance giant in the world, took in $260,000,000,000 (with a B) last year [1].  They were doing great, more profitable than ever, and the CEO was raking in piles of money for himself.

Did he deserve to be murdered?   Arguably, nobody does.  The public reaction seems to underscore the feeling that in an age when well-connected psychopaths are constantly rewarded, their crimes excused, where no accountability for powerful white men shitting on the world seems to exist, some will argue that this is exactly the kind of exception to the rule that we need right now. 

These CEOs will now all be accompanied at all times by armed guards, ready to maim anyone who might threaten the boss.  Nobody wins this kind of war.  In fact, American fascists are spoiling for exactly this kind of war.  Newly minted acting Minister of Treason General Michael “Q-Anon” Flynn will be empowered with the discretion to create death squads to counter the violent enemy within, particularly in anarchist jurisdictions, where these enemies proliferate like insects.

The point about the brutality of the American health insurance system remains, though.  The United States is the only wealthy country where health care is not a right, where buying health insurance is the best anyone can do when it comes to paying for our own health care.  Who put these parasitic middle men into the loop?

Why are there so many Medicare Advantage and Medigap plans?  Because the gold standard of American health care (health insurance, actually) only covers 80% of covered procedures, while dental, vision and other crucial elements of health care are excluded entirely.  Who benefits from this system?  A company that had revenues of $260,000,000,000 (with a B) last year.   That’s a shit ton of incentive to keep things just the way they are.

No matter who has to fucking die or be killed.

Nothing ever happened to any of the murderously incompetent idiots who willfully allowed twice as many Americans to die of Covid-19 than died anywhere else. The angry moron who oversaw that shitshow of televised carnival barker-led carnage is back in charge again, with loyalty oaths to ensure nobody ever contradicts him again. What a country! Pay your health insurance premiums or die, don’t tread on me!

[1] Forbes