The phenomenon of being a teabagging hysteric who demands that people throw bricks through windows to get the government off our back while simultaneously living off of government welfare seems closely related to the phenomenon of seeing the most fervently anti-gay hysterics ending up in highway truck-stop bathrooms with male prostitutes.
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From the Washington Post interview with Mike Vanderboegh, the guy who rails at the government interference in his life while living off a government disability check and the free medical care that comes with it:
Former militiaman unapologetic for calls to vandalize offices over health care
Hmmm, advocating the overthrow of the lawful government by force of arms? Sounds like a pretty serious violation of federal law to me, you don’t even have to prove that someone specifically acted on the utterance.
Of course, the last time the Southern states thought that their armed population was superior to whatever the federal government could mobile against them, it turned out so well for them….
The Fall of Richmond
Correction to # 1: At the end of the article, he claims that his wife has private health insurance through her employer. So he may, or may not, be using government-paid health benefits (he may be a dependent upon his wife’s insurance, instead).
Southerners have always been delusional. To this day, they will argue that the Civil War was the ‘War of Northern Aggression’.
With that type of evaluative expertise, the end of the Civil War must have seemed like a great victory.
We all remember that famous rebel yell: “YEEEEEEEEEE HAWWWWWWWWWWW!!!! I’m a halfwit!!!”
@2 So the article was just WRONG when it said: “Vanderboegh said he once worked as a warehouse manager but now lives on government disability checks”.
Whether his WIFE has insurance or not has NOTHING to do with whether or not he’s getting disability checks from the government. You can claim injury and get disability even if you’re spouse has health insurance. They’re not directly related.
# 4: Perhaps we are splitting hairs over the wording of the article, it isn’t precisly written, or the reporter didn’t dig deep enough.
He’s receiving disability checks, although the source of those disability checks isn’t clear. He says his wife works, it doesn’t list her occupation or give a hint of her income level. He says she has private insurance through her employer, it doesn’t say how he pays for his medical care. Whether he lives off his disability checks or his wife’s employment, or both, isn’t clear.
I do wonder about what kind of disability checks he’s getting. If his wife works, her income would presumably disqualify him from receiving Social Security disability checks, unless she’s making next to nothing. The income/property allowance for those benefits is very low.
Lee, I think your point is good but the way you’ve expressed it is pretty hysterical itself, not to mention functionally ignorant and (to some at least) unnecessarily homophobic.
You’re probably not Republican, but have you ever tried to have sex in a “highway truck-stop bathroom”? If you meant a truck-stop, it would be obvious to everyone just outside the door what you’re doing, and if you meant a rest stop, well, anybody who can afford a male prostitute (assuming you could hire one to meet you there — wonder if they’d have a per-mile surcharge) can also afford a room.
If you’re going to try to make those kind of analogies you’ll have to do more research. I’d recommend the toilet down the hall from Pudge’s office.
Armed resistance, huh?
Hmmmmm . . . uneducated hillbilly’s with guns vs. highly skilled US law enforcement agents armed to the teeth.
I say the odds are n the hillbilly’s favor so I’m going to cheer them on!
Go for it dudes! Defend your freedom!!
And then there’s Ron Paul. Endlessly blabbing on with his anti-gubment this and that while reupping his juicy House of Rep salary, medical care and pension for close to 30 years. It’s gone generational now, as well: his son wants a piece of the same action.
By forcing me to pay taxes the government has forced me to buy roads, dams, fire trucks, bridges and stuff. DAMN YOU GOVERNMENT!
It doesn’t matter if he is also covered under his wife’s health insurance AND getting disability. The point is, disability is a government benefit. I would think it is something like workman’s compensation or SSI. If it is the latter, he’s eligible for Medicaid too.
He probably doesn’t recognize this as a government benefit because he sees it as his right. It’s only an entitlement to these people when it applies to someone else.
Unfortunately, he can’t be all that disabled if he can cock a rifle. So if he’s getting workman’s comp, time for the state of Alabama to look into his fraudulent claim
Hehehe… Just another right wing hypocrite.
My my, what a truly beneficient group of “caring”, morally superior, humanitarians. “These people”? Go back about what, forty or fifty years and tell me in what context that little gem would have been used? Is elitism/racism inherent in the liberal world view, or what?
Btw Lee the same dichotomy you decry could as easily be applied to left-wingers claiming the moral highground, while at the same time denigrating anyone not in absolute lockstep with the liberal viewpoint.
# 8: A friend of my son, in his 20’s, was living on his own and working at Staples. He started feeling unwell, but waited until the end of his shift before driving himself to the hospital. The doctor examined him, then pushed a piece of paper in front of him, and told him it was an authorization for emergency medical treatment, and he should sign it immediately. He asked for an explanation, and the doctor said: “You don’t have time for me to explain it to you.” Seeing the look on his doctor’s face, he signed it, just before he blacked out.
Turned out he had a virus which attacked his heart. He was in a coma for the better part of two months and on a heart-lung machine for much of that time, his heart had ceased functioning completely. He was eventually fitted with a portable heart-lung machine, and temporarily discharged as he waited for an available heart for transplant. He couldn’t go anywhere without being in the company of someone trained on how to work the portable heart machine, so he mostly stayed home. His mother relocated here from California so she could care for him.
He eventually got his heart transplant, but due to the extensive drugs he takes to suppress his immune system, he can’t really go out of the house much, and certainly has to avoid groups of people – if he gets a cold, he could die.
He’s on SSI (Social Security Disability). He’s prohibited from having any earned income at all, which is very frustrating for him. Even if he could find a job working on a computer from home, he couldn’t take it. It’s not the SSI check which he’s afraid of losing (it’s pretty minimal, anyway). It’s the health care benefits which go along with it. Since he lost his job at Staples (he couldn’t very well work there anymore), he has no health insurance, and can’t get any with his condition. He’s completely reliant on government health care. He also can’t have more than a small amount of money in the bank, a car worth more than a few hundred dollars, etc.
So I’m wondering how this guy gets disability payments for diabetes and hypertension, with a wife who’s bringing home a paycheck. It’s obvioiusly not a worker compensation claim.
@10
Btw Lee the same dichotomy you decry could as easily be applied to left-wingers claiming the moral highground, while at the same time denigrating anyone not in absolute lockstep with the liberal viewpoint.
What? Was this comment supposed to make sense? Can you give me an example of what “liberal” you think represents this “dichotomy” so that I can have a little more material to make fun of you with?
@12
First of all Lee, don’t end a sentence with a preposition.
Now what didn’t you understand? Dichotomy? I guess I’d have to tell you to check out a good dictionary, my friend… Perhaps if you were a bit more specific about your confusion I’d be better able to address your concerns with my post. I mean you mentioned a dichotomy that disturbs you and I countered with how easily it could be applied elsewhere. Are you claiming you didn’t understand? Or that my comparison was invalid?
Vanderboegh = hypocritcal douchebag. Or a stereotypical Southerner. Either way, what a tard.
@13
First of all Lee, don’t end a sentence with a preposition.
Thanks for the grammar lesson.
Now what didn’t you understand?
I don’t understand how your supposed contradiction is the same thing described in this post. I could potentially see a hypocrisy, but until you give me a concrete example of someone having done it, it’s a completely hypothetical one.
Perhaps if you were a bit more specific about your confusion I’d be better able to address your concerns with my post.
Ok, dummy, you wrote:
I asked you to give me an actual example of this. Do you have one?
I mean you mentioned a dichotomy that disturbs you and I countered with how easily it could be applied elsewhere.
No, you didn’t. You provided a hypothetical caricature that I’ve frankly never seen before. That’s why I asked for an example.
Are you claiming you didn’t understand? Or that my comparison was invalid?
I’m saying that without a real-life example for the caricature you describe, you’re just engaging in a particularly lame attempt to claim that the kind of self-loathing political psychoses that appear on the right today also appear on the left. I’m calling bullshit on that – and waiting for you to give me an example.
@13,
This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.
Sorry.
I just couldn’t resist.
I am not familiar with this man’s situation, but every private insurance policy for disability that I have come across and that’s more than a few, requires you to sign up for SSI if you are going on long term disability. I recall reading an article in the N.Y. Times some months ago about how these companies are shifting their responsibilities to Social Security. The end point is this guy may have done the right thing but in the end had little choice.
@16
and waiting for you to give me an example
And still waiting…