Slemp ponders loss of a word, loss of a nation

Now that deer and elk have prevented him from a garden, and he has time on his hands, Slemp has been, as Cratis Williams would say, “a’thinkin’.”

But he can’t seem to get it straight that Rand Paul’s hatred of Obamacare is the main thing keeping it from being replaced by McConnellcare, which will be called “Get Sick-Die Quick,”

Is Sen. Paul that slick, to hold his base by damning Obamacare which will let it go on, and so that all those non-voters who use it will not be mad at him? But he has mixed feelings about the whole notion that sick people have the right to be taken care of by somebody else. He thinks we should do all we can to promote our own evolution and thinking somebody else will take care of you is a good way to let the apes overcome us. Putting up old people in somebody’s house to die would not kill their children.

But then there is this side of Slemp. Slemp doesn’t need much health care, but does want somebody else to pay for it if he does, and wants the most expensive stuff medicine has to offer. And having signed up for a check years ago, he has claimed every pre-existing condition known to man.

But he thinks the people are aiming too low by demanding Medicare for all. To him, the real goal ought to be to demand that all that hoarded-up money that Trump’s base has be distributed about. That is called wealth redistribution and Slemp says we should be proud to say it.

If everybody had about the same ability to buy their own health care, we wouldn’t need public medicine. And no politician could say this, but America’s most prosperous times during Slemp’s life were when the income tax for the rich was the highest.

Slemp doesn’t mind when the rich take most of the money, but knows that nations fail when the rich try to translate that money into political power. Slemp would rather a president’s cabinet be picked at random from a shelter than to have a majority of billionaires.

Slemp may want to run for constable someday, and doesn’t know how to get hold of Russia. He cannot figure out why the Russians wanted Trump to win so badly. He hopes it was just that they thought he was incompetent, and not because he was “boughten,” as John Prine would say.

And another thing that bothers Slemp is the loss of a word. There was a time when he, an old Goldwaterite, used that word to describe himself. But for the life of him he cannot see how people who want to seize control of all public boards and bodies can call themselves “conservative.”

He doesn’t see how people who would let every mountain in his homeland be blasted down and creek filled up can call themselves conservatives. He cannot see how if you wear the title of conservative that you must promote the pollution of the Earth as much as you can.

Neither can Slemp come to appreciate that if you are a conservative you are supposed to let cops shoot anybody they want to.

This story was originally published July 14, 2017 at 8:41 PM with the headline "Slemp ponders loss of a word, loss of a nation."