I do not want to write about healthcare reform. Up until today I have resisted, I mean what is left to say? You’re either vehemently opposed or wholeheartedly for it. Then again, maybe you’re against it because you’re worried about the implications to your life or business and not actually against universal healthcare. You could also be for reform, but not in love with the bill as it is written. There are so many shades of gray here and far from the overwhelming majority critics seem to keep asserting exists, more realistic polls have the nays winning over the yeas by more like 2-5 percentage points. That shows me that there are more similarities among us than differences. So why all the hostility?
Are we really facing the end of America as we know it? Does mandating health insurance violate the Constitution? Should your tax implications be more important than your ethical obligation to actual care about other people? Hell, I don’t know, I’m not a wizard here to pluck answers from some cosmic pool of knowledge. What I do know is this: I’m unemployed, we’re not exactly surfing a tide of financial affluence and yet I believe it is still my obligation to help others that may not be able to help themselves. I know that not having health insurance does not mean people do not work or are deadbeats. I know that there are almost as many solutions to healthcare as there are nations and none are perfect.
I think we all want the same thing. We want to live our lives as happily as possible, secure in the knowledge that we will be rewarded for our hard work and that we are not saddled with the welfare of those who do nothing to help themselves. I think most of us believe in charitable works, but how far are we willing to go? It would seem that most people only give when they have extra and in that case we’re not exactly being all that charitable are we? The arguments against socialism are a veiled attempt to disguise our own greed, in my opinion. Think about it, what is so wrong with Socialism? Socialism seeks to even out the distribution of wealth and power that resides with the elite few and make a more level playing field for the rest of us, ensuring that we get a share of the rewards and not just all the work.
It would seem that the working and middle classes are so concerned with hanging onto the tiny bit of the brass ring they’ve earned that they refuse to loosen up for fear that they’ll end up in the gutter. It is not fair as it stands, but for real and meaningful change to happen we are all going to have to take some risks and maybe pay a little more for the greater good. I give money to every homeless person I see not because I believe that spare change is going to change their life, but because I can’t live with myself if I don’t. I know plenty of working poor, my Mother was the working poor and she never accepted a single food stamp or welfare check, but she could have.
In any case, I think the violent outbursts and crisis mode so many objectors have adopted is a little over the top. No one is asking you to single handedly fund healthcare. The government is not going to seize your investments or sell your children to pay for a trailer Mom’s kids to get insurance. There are plenty of things wrong with the bill that just passed, but the intentions are going in the right direction. We funded a trillion dollar war against a phantom enemy and yet providing healthcare is the thing people are getting crazed about? You are free to disagree, that’s another guarantee this country allows you, but the doomsday predictions, threats and outright contempt being shown is completely out of line. Let’s all try to get a little perspective and remember the goal is to help our fellow man so we all live a good and happy life. And if it helps, even Albert Enstein believed socialism was the prudent course. Last time I checked he was smarter than most of us, yes, even Reagan.
I agree with you up to here and as usual it very well written.
ReplyDelete"what is so wrong with Socialism? etc."
where is the distribution of wealth and power in the communist and socialist experiments that have been tried? its distributed to an elite! not an elite based upon ability, but an ideological elite. its just a form of nepotism.
the ussr had some of the best farm land in the world in the ukraine but being farmed by people without the freedom to better themselves was ruined by inept and lackadaisical farming habits. in those hugh fields, the crops next to the road where they were most likely to be inspected were sown thick and beautiful. however in the middle of the fields where no one inspected the crops they would be loose and haphazard. in the 20's and 30's, the production of those fields was so far below what they should've been that the ussr had a famine. the grain that was produced was taken by the party and distibuted in moscow and other polities where there was no food production to speak of, leaving the farmers of the ukraine with nothing. tens of millions starved to death. a similiar thing happened in china in the 60's after the revolution and over 60 million starved. there is definately something wrong with socialism.
"It would seem that the working and middle classes are so concerned with hanging onto the tiny bit of the brass ring they’ve earned that they refuse to loosen up for fear that they’ll end up in the gutter."
which state do you think might be the biggest contributor to charities in the USA? Massachusetts? California? Illinois? its little ol' Mississippi with the lowest per capita income in the US.
"In any case, I think the violent outbursts and crisis mode so many objectors have adopted is a little over the top. No one is asking you to single handedly fund healthcare. The government is not going to seize your investments or sell your children to pay for a trailer Mom’s kids to get insurance."
the constitution saves for us the right to be on the field, not a right to win or even to play well. life is not a level playing field, that's why everyone understands and loves the under dog.
"There are plenty of things wrong with the bill that just passed, but the intentions are going in the right direction."
ReplyDeleteif i for instance, didn't have insurance in a year, i would be fined almost $100. after 4 years the fine will be almost $700, gradually rising the whole time. indentured servitude ended even before slavery, but isn't it my body? why isn't the pro-choice lobby all over this?
"You are free to disagree, that’s another guarantee this country allows you,..."
yes we are free to disagree, but how long before we don't feel free to voice our opposition when the penalties endanger the welfare of our families? this health care bill, if we let it, will be the camels nose under the tent. pretty soon, there will be no room for anyone in the tent but the camel.
"... but the doomsday predictions, threats and outright contempt being shown is completely out of line. Let’s all try to get a little perspective and remember the goal is to help our fellow man so we all live a good and happy life."
the contempt is from all directions because of the lack of any of the promised bi-partisan efforts. don't you think its rather contemptuous of the self-righteous progressives to parade around "saving people from themselves" as if they know a f'n thing about real life? politicians with few exceptions were born with a silver spoon in their mouths and a stock portfolio waiting on them to turn 21.
"And if it helps, even Albert Einstein believed socialism was the prudent course. Last time I checked he was smarter than most of us, yes, even Reagan."
if the whole world were full of "Einsteins", not necessarily genius' but of one type and mind, then socialism would not just be viable but beneficial. no state has a singular zeitgeist , thus socialism isn't beneficial.
"Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists." - G.K. Chesterton- The Uses of Diversity, 1921
BJ