The Trunk

Memo to David Simon: More Shows, Fewer Interviews!

VM: Why does reform seem so impossible?

DS: We live in an oligarchy. The mother’s milk of American politics is money, and the reason they can’t reform financing, the reason that we can’t have public funding of elections rather than private donations, the reason that K Street is K Street in Washington, is to make sure that no popular sentiment survives. You’re witnessing it now with health care, with the marginalization of any effort to rationally incorporate all Americans under a national banner that says, “We’re in this together.”

VM: But then the critics of a system like that immediately cry socialism.

DS: And of course it’s socialism. These ignorant motherfuckers. What do they think group insurance is, other than socialism? Just the idea of buying group insurance! If socialism is a taint that you cannot abide by, then, goddamn it, you shouldn’t be in any group insurance policy. You should just go out and pay the fucking doctors because when you get 100,000 people together as part of anything, from a union to the AARP, and you say, “Because we have this group actuarially, more of us are going to be healthier than not and therefore we’ll be able to carry forward the idea of group insurance and everybody will have an affordable plan…” That’s fuckin’ socialism. That’s nothing but socialism.

VM: It is, literally.

DS: So the whole idea of group insurance, which of course everyone believes in, like that fellow on YouTube, “Don’t let the government take away my Medicare…” You look at that and you think there’s only one thing that can make people this stupid, and that’s money. When you pay people to change their votes on the basis of money, the wrong shit gets voted for. That’s American democracy at this point. And you get to the Senate and you’re looking at 100 votes, which don’t represent anything in terms of popular representation. When 40 percent of the population controls 60 percent of the votes in the higher house of a bicameral legislature, it’s an oligarchy.

It’s amazing that the man who created the smartest and greatest show in television history can be so stupid in interviews. Socialism is the state ownership of industry. Socialism is coercive. By contrast, when people buy group insurance, they aren’t forced to do so under threat of jail or gun. (Not unless health care reform passes, that is).

Here’s a little primer for David Simon. If he can understand the first three, he should be able to understand the fourth:

I don’t smoke. It does not follow that I would ban smoking.
I don’t drink. It does not follow that I would ban alcohol.
I own a Prius. It does not follow that I would force everyone to drive hybrids.
I buy a group insurance policy. It does not follow that I would force everyone to buy these policies.

Source: azspot