MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

A short time back, NBC News posted an article profiling some of the diehard anti-Obamacare Americans. It was a portrait in hypocrisy, or perhaps something more than that -- irreconciable imbecility.

Take Greg Collett:

“I don’t think that the government should be involved in health care or health insurance,” says Greg Collett, a 41-year-old software developer in Caldwell, Idaho, who would rather pay the fine for now -- $95 the first year -- than signup....

Collett counts himself among the 29 percent of people who said in an NBCNews/Kaiser poll they are angry about the health reform law. “The issue for me is that it is not the proper role of government,” he said.

Collett, who is married and has 10 children, says the kids are covered by Medicaid, the joint state-federal health insurance plan for people with low income and children who are not covered.

Okay, if you're already dumbfounded, Collett steps into an even deeper quagmire of hypocritical stupidity:

Collett, whose children are home-schooled, likens taking Medicaid to sending children to public school. He also does not approve of government-funded public schools. “The government is taking your money. They are spending it on things they shouldn’t be,” he says. “Trying to get whatever you can back -- I have nothing against that. You have to at some point try and get your tax dollars back.”

Remember that democracy includes both people who can think and people who are caught up in the creationist stage of the dinosaurs.

Then there's the NBC account of a man who would not give his last name to the reporter:

Mark, a 51-year-old contractor in Colorado, recently worked through the pain of a broken rib because he lacks health insurance. He’ll be signing up [for the Affordable Care Act], even though his truck carries a bumper sticker that spells out Obama’s name as “One big-ass mistake, America."

Too bad the Affordable Care Act doesn't include free national psychiatric intervention for supporters of the Tea Party.

Of course, this cognitive dissonance extends to other areas of government support, including those white rural poor who are on food stamps but vote for congressional reps who are trying to drastically cut the food stamp budget. BuzzFlash at Truthout reported on this "shooting yourself in the stomach" vote in a commentary, "The Only Difference Between a Skinhead Racist and GOP Member Cutting Food Stamps Is Three Inches of Hair."

Then, of course, you have the vast majority of House Republican members who are still accepting their paychecks -- and, yes, keeping the House fitness open as "an essential service" -- that BuzzFlash discussed in, "GOP Tin Foil Hat Caucus Reps Get Paychecks for Putting Millions Out of Work."

Jim Hightower followed up on that hypocrisy and cites one GOP congressman's "reasoning" for cashing his taxpayer funded paycheck while shutting down the government:

While more than a million regular government workers are going without a paycheck, the congress critters who forced the furlough continue to collect their $174,000 in annual pay. Some lawmakers are donating their checks to charity, but four out of five are happily pocketing theirs. "Dang straight," barked Rep. Lee Terry. "I've got a nice house and a kid in college," the Nebraska Republican said. "Giving our paycheck away when you still worked and earned it? That's just not going to fly," Terry told his constituents.

It's a bit scary for the future of the nation that these selfish scammers are mugging democracy. It's a combination of opportunism, bigotry and delusion, not to mention the "austerity" cry fueled by the Koch brothers and their billionaire colleagues.

But putting the political and psychological analysis aside, it's really summed up in one word: hypocrisy.

(Photo: PropagandaTimes)