And possibly a lot longer than that.  Glenn Greenwald does his usual thrashing of the Washington DC political media (aka The Villagers / Beltway Media), but provides possibly the greatest single paragraph summary of the way of thinking that is so dominant in the beltway. 

As HTML Mencken insightfully noted in what is one of the best blog posts ever written, our political mores demand vehement repudiation of petty acts of incivility (not all, but most) while tolerating and even approving of extremely consequential acts of indecency as long as they're advocated with superficial civility.  Those who use curse words to oppose torture, wars and lawbreaking are evil and unSerious (The Angry Left); those who politely and soberly advocate morally repugnant, indecent policies are respected and Serious.  As long as one adheres to Beltway decorum, one can advocate the most amoral and even murderous policies without any repercussions whatsoever; it is only disruptive and impolite behavior that generates intense upset.  Beltway culture hates "incivility" (public use of bad words) but embraces full-scale substantive indecency (torture, lawbreaking, unjustified wars, ownership of government by corporations, etc.).

I missed the original Sadly, No post, as it was posted well before I discovered that blog, and I appreciate the way Glenn takes what was ostensibly just a satirical look at the beltway media of the time and finds the deeper truth, exposing in a way that, I hope, everybody can learn from. 

Thanks, Glenn.

I'm trying to understand the "rationing" argument for health care reform.  This is the argument that there simply is not enough doctors/nurses/hospitals/etc. such that if we let any more people get health care, that all care will have to be rationed.  There's absolutely no evidence for this, of course, but that's never stopped the tinfoil hat crowd before.

So here's my question.  Isn't not giving health care to the 40 some odd million uninsured in and of itself a form of rationing?  Basically, if you are against health care reform because of this fear, you are saying that you are good enough for health care, but the currently uninsured are not and care is being rationed in your favor. 

Why is America so damn selfish?