Republican Trope: There is a Fracture. I need to fix it.

Have you ever had a friend, wife, husband, antagonist with whom you have arguments and you know you will never make any progress because that person will never actually deviate from his obsession with his one purpose in life?

Listening to NPR radio interviewing whichever Republican Congressman or Senator, that's the sensation I get. 

"What should we do about getting some government action on this economy?"
"We should cut spending."
"Can we raise revenues?"
"As a last resort we can raise revenues by cutting 'loopholes.'"
"Which loopholes?"
"We can talk about those later. We are just talking big picture now. We need to cut spending."
"But, specifically: Are you talking about eliminating interest on mortgage payments, or the health insurance premiums paid by employers, or local property taxes, or expenses for private airplanes for CEO's?"
"We need to cut government spending."
"Can we raise taxes on the billionaires?"
"We need to cut government spending."
"Can we allow the tax cuts for the billionaires to expire?"
"We need to cut government spending."
"But where?"
"We can talk about that later. We are talking big picture."
"Can we shrink the government to the size where we can drown it in our bathtub?"
"We need to cut government spending. We can talk about the details later."
"Do you even care if we have a functioning government?"
"We need to cut government spending."

There is a cartoon which went viral in the medical community:  An orthopedic surgeon  confronts the anesthesiologist he needs to give anesthesia to a patient in the operating room. The anesthesiologist needs some basic questions answered: How old is the patient?  Does the patient have any medical conditions which might make giving the patient anesthesia more risky or which might entail reducing the doses of the drugs, which might affect all the details of delivering medicine to put the patient to sleep? The orthopod  keeps repeating:  "There is a fracture. I need to fix it."  It turns out the patient has, in fact, had a few medical conditions which might well affect the course the anesthesiologist might take: The patient is in the emergency room, has had a heart attack and in fact has had a cardiac arrest and is actually in asystole, which means the patient's heart has stopped beating, and in fact, the patient is dead. 

"Wait, a minute," the anesthesiologist finally screams, "You want me to give anesthesia to a dead patient?"
"There is a fracture. I need to fix it," the orthopod repeats.
"I need to punch you in the head," says the anesthesiologist. "But then I'd probably break my hand, on your thick head."
"I will need to fix that fracture,too," the orthopod replies.

This is the Republican approach. One answer, keep repeating.

It's worth a look. Go to Youtube and put in " Orthopedics vs anesthesia. There is a Fracture. I need to fix it." This link may work.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0S5EN7-RtI

What do you do when your partner will not dance?