The definition of insanity

Sometimes it takes an outside observer to help you see the forest for the trees. And to provide a clue to the definition of insanity.

For many years, our own Jerome a Paris has written periodically about the French health care system.

When I first came to Daily Kos, an eon ago, it was Jerome a Paris who kept me coming back. In those days, Jerome was writing about his own very ill son. He described how he and his family received healthcare in France. At the time, only one word came to mind reading his harrowing accounts--humane.

This is a humane system, I thought. France is a humane nation.

Our broken heathcare system, is destroying American families.  The depravity of for-profit healthcare, is used as a point of reference by citizens of more enlightened nations as a jumping off point to scorn us.  The reality that healthcare in the United States is a privilege, not a right, is justifiably used to lambaste our country. This is understandable.  Our dirty little American secret, isn't so secret any longer.

We deserve it. After all, we are also the nation with a man named Bush, sitting in the White House. We have earned all the scorn we receive--and more.

But let's return for a moment to what defines us as Americans to many around the world.   Just hang your head in shame.

I recently spent a long evening with a group of Europeans. Their comments were reflexive. Truisms, ground into their psyches and their souls. Nothing I might say, could change their version of reality. And truly, there was nothing I could say, because, there is no defense against truth.

What appalls and scares people most about the United States? What defining American brutalities do they lump into one ugly toxic soup?  A lethal brew which they believe tells them everything they need to know about the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Our defining characteristics.

Capital punishment, the U.S. healthcare system and our illegal, unjustified and unprovoked invasion of a soverign nation.  That's right, for millions of Europeans it's all of a piece.  The piece is all about death and dying.

I was ridiculed, by this group of enlighted Europeans. They were puzzled and aghast.

"You Americans, openly discuss the most humane ways to execute people."  

We certainly do this, don't we? Lethal injection, electric chair, God knows. We Americans don't want to appear to be barbaric--but we are. We are a brutal nation.

They quickly returned to their morbid fascination with our healthcare system, "do you also discuss the inhumanity of your healthcare system?"

Then one young man chuckled, "I just don't want to ever get sick in America."

Huh? I thought we had the best of everything..

Most worrisome, Europeans don't fathom, why we accept this depraved state of affairs. Why are we not in the streets of every major American city?  Certainly our European counterparts would not be sitting idly at home.

It's kind of strange. They understand in exquisite breadth, bits and pieces about the deplorable state of affairs in the United States. Here's one telling detail they have internalized. Americans accept (at least for now), the surreal reality that our elected officials are entitled to heavily taxpayer-subsidized healthcare, which we don't have access to ourselves. Strange? How about obscene?

To them, allowing so-called public servants to have a basic right denied the American people is the definition of insanity.

Indeed it is.

We Americans are no longer the envy of the world.  We Our government is despised. But most tragically, we Americans are pitied. . . and mocked . . .and ridiculed. We allow all this shit.

Of course, we deserve all the scorn the world has to offer. We allowed a creature like Mr. Bush to sit in the Oval office for eight years. We allowed it, didn't we?

My interlocutors had a final question.

"So how does an uninsured person in the US get treatment for cancer without having to sell their house?"

I had no answer.