"Screweth thou, every man for himself, lest ye be socialist"

Last week they cheered the execution record of Rick Perry; this week it was poor sick uninsured people.

When debate moderator Wolf Blitzer brought up a hypothetical young, uninsured American in a coma, he asked, “Are you saying society should just let him die?” and the tea party crowd cheered, some shouting, “Yes!”

So much for that compassionate conservative shit. Ron Paul's got a better idea, though.

“The churches took care of ‘em. We never turned anybody away from the hospitals,” he said, suggesting that society seems to have given up on people assuming responsibility for themselves: “Our neighbors, friends, churches would do it.”

But if your neighbors are Tea Partiers, you better just die quickly.

Update: Geoff Berg of Partisan Gridlock expands ...

This all probably came as quite a surprise to Michael Schiavo. You might recall that multiple courts found that his wife, Terri, (who had been in a vegetative state in a hospital in Florida for several years) should be allowed to die a natural death in accordance with her wishes.

In response, the Republican Congress passed and President Bush signed a law written just for her. Tom Delay hailed it as a legislative achievement honoring the sanctity of life. People who’d read the Constitution observed that it was “demonstrably at odds with our founding fathers’ blueprint for the governance of a free people.”

Barack Obama believes society has an obligation to provide health care to Blitzer’s hypothetical sick thirty year old. That, of course, makes him a crusading big government socialist Kenyan America-hater, obviously.

The freedom-loving Constitutional scholars who yelled “Yeah!” at the prospect of allowing uninsured sick people to wither into dust clearly disagree with the president. Tea party bigshot Senator Jim DeMint agrees with the pro-death to the uninsured delegation. He says “health care is a privilege. I wouldn’t call it a right.”

So to sum up: Republicans believe health care is a privilege. Choose not to buy insurance and you can die (or ask your HMO if it’d be interested in trading medical services for live poultry). On the other hand, if you’re desperately ill, have insurance and are being cared for in a hospital, there’s a good chance a conservative member of the Senate will challenge your diagnosis because of something he sees on tv, then pass a law so that your wishes can’t be carried out.