Pill to Swallow

I had a nap on the couch just this evening and dreamed I was reading War and Peace. My day wasn’t very interesting; I’m almost flat broke and can’t afford anything until payday next week or perhaps a few days earlier, depending on my bank. Luckily Aesop has three more cans of food and there’s food in the freezer for me, and I can live without the Snapples every morning. But it’s so ridiculous it’s not even funny.

I know a little more about Kennedy since reading an article this afternoon. He’s sort of a Libertarian, as his friends tend to be people like Jesse Ventura and Rand Paul, etc. To me, the Libertarian Party is an offshoot of Republicans, so it’s even less socialist than either of the other two parties. I remember a quote from Ventura when he was Governor of Minnesota or wherever quite a few years ago: he called Christianity “a sham, and a crutch for the weak minded.” The man was just a former professional wrestler, some meathead with no business being a politician. The connection with Ayn Rand’s so-called philosophy of Objectivism kind of scares me. Even Liz Gauffreau said that Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is a tour de force of propaganda. And Neil Peart’s biggest weakness was subscribing to Ayn Rand early in his career. Even later on he claimed sympathy with the Libertarian Party.

The problem I see with Libertarians and Republicans is their unconcern for the people, especially those who can’t work due to illness or disability or their age and etc. The former people would just as soon let the others fall through the cracks and perish. It’s like when Ronald Reagan arbitrarily closed mental hospitals across the nation back in the eighties and suddenly we had a homeless problem. He rationalized it by saying, “Oh they’re just crazy; no one cares about them.” I remember my mother talking about that and thinking it was criminal of Reagan. My brother was less sympathetic. He had a job at Kellogg in Battle Creek and described what happened when the hospital was shut down and these loony people wandered around and stared at you as you ate your lunch in public restaurants.

Anyway it’s clear that I don’t share the views of Republicans or Libertarians since I became sick myself. Now I can listen to 2112 and shake my head at the lyrics as ruthless and merciless. It’s a totally different story and ballpark when tragedy hits you. Until then it’s easy not to have any compassion. But I see the world going in a direction that doesn’t take sympathy into account. It is something like satanism possessing peoples minds if I dare say so. I guess that’s why I dreamed I was reading Tolstoy.