Ladies and Gentlemen:
America was founded by men (mostly wealthy merchants and planters.) who protested their taxes being raised to pay for a war which defended them from the French. Being a dissident as part of being an American and the right to dissent is written into our constitution. While it is frequently not fair that those who dissent are often labeled as "rabble rousers" and more often than not "un-american" we should realize that our republic would not exist if everyone who disagreed with George III had simply kept quiet.
The irony attached to your party would have to be that many of you openly questioned the patriotism of your fellow Americans who protested the war in Iraq or President George W. Bush. Many of your older members considered the entire civil rights movement a Communist plot and were quite adament in stating your opposition to it.
As a young Marine I would have died for your right to disagree with me and as a fellow citizen I would still agree that you've the right to disagree with me and I with you. Ladies and gents you've fought the good fight, but now is the time to lay down your arms and come to terms with the fact that this battle is over. The court challenges will be to no avail but those of us who opposed you expect a battery of them and shall endure them all the way you endured our endless challenges of the election of 2000.
When the dust clears and the anger, bitterness and disappointment subside as ours did in 2000 you'll realize that in the great tradition of American politics you were an integral player and are part of a dance that shall exist as long as our democracy endures.
Despite his surname Barack Hussein Obama is not a practicing Muslim. He is not intent on destroying our great nation and he is not the "anti-christ" which the book of Revelation spoke of. He is merely another American whose political ideology is juxtaposed to your own and earnestly if we all shared the same ideology our republic would have become stagnant and ceased to exist long ago.
All things considered. Those of you who protested health insurance providers being able to charge you ridiculous premiums, raise your premiums & deductables or cancel your policy on a whim without reprocussions that was your right as Americans. Just as it was your right to protest any attempt at policing a self regulating industry who essentailly could tell Americans to go off and die simply because they were too great a health risk to warrant coverage, it is my right to teach you a mantra I found myself reciting in 2000 and again in 2004.
"MycandidatelosttheelectionI'mgoingtohavetogetoverit....mycandidatelosttheelectionI'mgoingtohave togetoverit." Say it until you're calm and the next 3 to 7 years may pass a bit more quickly.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Obama-care!? The Sky is Falling!
Teddy Roosevelt once invisioned a nation where all Americans would have access to affordable healthcare. It did not come to pass and the creation of the FDA didn't make him any friends in the meat packing industry.
Roosevelt's nephew Franklin was elected president during the great depression and suggested healthcare for all Americans, but it was lost in the shuffle of the various new deal programs he proposed, many of which were called "unconstituional" by his opponents.
Harry Truman proposed healthcare, but with the tail end of the second world war, the beginnings of the cold war and various other issues put it on the back burner. Joseph McCarthy was quick to brand anyone and anything he didn't like as communist so the idea of the government getting involved in any aspect of American life was as unpopular as those on McCarthy's blacklist.
John Kennedy talked about universal health care when he was a candidate but didn't introduce any legislation to back it up. After Kennedy's assasination, Lyndon Johnson proposed health care and was shot down but introduced medicare..
Richard Milhaus Nixon was the LONE Republican voice who spoke up for universal healthcare and was shot down by his own party. It was not until Bill Clinton that healthcare came back to the forefront where it was slowly beaten down by a strong Republican party.
After a century an American President has done what many thought impossible. Gathered enough men and women in congress who were willing to put their political careers on the line and pass a piece of legislation that would give greater access to healthcare to American men and women.
Rather or not one agrees with the new healthcare laws, we have to sit back for a minute and think about how monumental a piece of legislation this is. Is it "socialized medicine" No. It places caps on rate hikes that insurance companies can give the insured. It tells insurance companies that they can no longer cancel your policy because you simply made a claim. Insurance exist to pay your bills in the event that you get sick...the fact that they were free to cancel your policy when you chose to use them never made any sense. No Americans will be forced to give up the health coverage they already enjoy if they have it. The new healthcare law also gives tax credits to small businesses to insure their employees and enables peopel to keep thier children on their insurance until 26.
Any of these things sound like bad ideas thusfar? Not to me, but many in GOP see it as Socialized medicine. Far from it. This legislation will not create a slew of "government" hospitals. It will however prove beneicial to insurance companies as it will give them millions of new customers. The new healthcare bill is simply insurance industry legislation and the industry simply didn't wish to be regulated.
Martin Luther King once said that "Men with power do not wish to relinquish it easily." A Belgian Nobel Lauriat once said "There are invariably 10,000 men in the path of change." To that end change is inevidible. Should we therefore embrace change? No, change isn't always a good thing, but we should always be open to and experience it before we decide how much we do or don't care for it.
For the most part however many Americans will not notice any sweeping changes in healthcare unless they find themselves hospitalized. We as a republic shall neither implode nor collapse. The sky will not fall upon our heads and tanks emblazoned with the hammer an siclkle shall not roll with our streets escorting troops who will then hand each citizen a set of olive drab Mao Tse Tung style fatigues.
America is not perfect as much as we would hope for it to be, but we as a nation get closer to it every day. Will there be abuses in the system? There are abuses in the CURRENT system and in EVERY system, to suggest otherwise would be laughable. Will America be better off because of the legislation that President Obama signs into law today? The passage of time is the best measure.
Roosevelt's nephew Franklin was elected president during the great depression and suggested healthcare for all Americans, but it was lost in the shuffle of the various new deal programs he proposed, many of which were called "unconstituional" by his opponents.
Harry Truman proposed healthcare, but with the tail end of the second world war, the beginnings of the cold war and various other issues put it on the back burner. Joseph McCarthy was quick to brand anyone and anything he didn't like as communist so the idea of the government getting involved in any aspect of American life was as unpopular as those on McCarthy's blacklist.
John Kennedy talked about universal health care when he was a candidate but didn't introduce any legislation to back it up. After Kennedy's assasination, Lyndon Johnson proposed health care and was shot down but introduced medicare..
Richard Milhaus Nixon was the LONE Republican voice who spoke up for universal healthcare and was shot down by his own party. It was not until Bill Clinton that healthcare came back to the forefront where it was slowly beaten down by a strong Republican party.
After a century an American President has done what many thought impossible. Gathered enough men and women in congress who were willing to put their political careers on the line and pass a piece of legislation that would give greater access to healthcare to American men and women.
Rather or not one agrees with the new healthcare laws, we have to sit back for a minute and think about how monumental a piece of legislation this is. Is it "socialized medicine" No. It places caps on rate hikes that insurance companies can give the insured. It tells insurance companies that they can no longer cancel your policy because you simply made a claim. Insurance exist to pay your bills in the event that you get sick...the fact that they were free to cancel your policy when you chose to use them never made any sense. No Americans will be forced to give up the health coverage they already enjoy if they have it. The new healthcare law also gives tax credits to small businesses to insure their employees and enables peopel to keep thier children on their insurance until 26.
Any of these things sound like bad ideas thusfar? Not to me, but many in GOP see it as Socialized medicine. Far from it. This legislation will not create a slew of "government" hospitals. It will however prove beneicial to insurance companies as it will give them millions of new customers. The new healthcare bill is simply insurance industry legislation and the industry simply didn't wish to be regulated.
Martin Luther King once said that "Men with power do not wish to relinquish it easily." A Belgian Nobel Lauriat once said "There are invariably 10,000 men in the path of change." To that end change is inevidible. Should we therefore embrace change? No, change isn't always a good thing, but we should always be open to and experience it before we decide how much we do or don't care for it.
For the most part however many Americans will not notice any sweeping changes in healthcare unless they find themselves hospitalized. We as a republic shall neither implode nor collapse. The sky will not fall upon our heads and tanks emblazoned with the hammer an siclkle shall not roll with our streets escorting troops who will then hand each citizen a set of olive drab Mao Tse Tung style fatigues.
America is not perfect as much as we would hope for it to be, but we as a nation get closer to it every day. Will there be abuses in the system? There are abuses in the CURRENT system and in EVERY system, to suggest otherwise would be laughable. Will America be better off because of the legislation that President Obama signs into law today? The passage of time is the best measure.
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