Letters to the Editor
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Today's Republicans: America's brownshirts
It's time to recognize what we are dealing with. The Rush Limbaughs, Michelle Malkins, Free Republic members, and other rightwing extremists who are viciously attacking the Frost family are EXACTLY the kind of people who would have eagerly joined the Nazi party in Germany if given half a chance. They are hatermongers and paranoids and sociopaths.
Paul Krugman of the New York Times wrote recently that today's Republican party attracts a certain personality type. That is correct. The Republican party has become the party of hate. Every country has this kind of political party, but they are usually marginal. Unfortunately, that is not the case in the United States.
Today's GOP is the enemy of freedom. They are un-American to their core.
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Definately more complicated....
The original story was posted by a "freeper" with the anonymous name "icwhatudo", who gathered information "from the internet" to post online (without consulting the family). Michelle Malkin followed up, but again felt the need to investigate 'suscipicions" but felt no need to actually ask the family what's going on.
A new York Times article is up, which delves into the issue quite nicely, and actually interviews the family. (Even Michelle Malkin believes it is "fairer & more balanced than I believed it would be".
When you get the whole picture, it becomes more complicated. The family has some assets, but not a good income or access to a medial plan. Buying their own with children on trauma is very, very expensive.
Should they be forced to sell their assets, Or should the goverment provide assistance? It's a much more complicated question than either democrats or republicans want to answer.
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This is a Third World Nation in the Making
Our government exists for the rich and the services it still delivers to regular folks are vestigial.
Democrats let Republicans gut government programs for the poor and help Republicans deliver services to the rich (mostly through tax policy deregulation). Then when Democrats are in power they don't bring back the lost policies -- instead they propose privatized schemes to help the drowning poor that used to be pushed by the GOP (e.g. Clinton's healthcare and retirement plans that force poor people to hand government checks over to large corporations that will surely end up providing bottom-of-the-barrel healthcare and investment services).
We don't have a democracy. Our government exists for others. We get to vote for ever-fewer crumbs or a quick death.
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Should families live in tin shacks before being helped?
Alchemisto wrote: "Should they be forced to sell their assets, Or should the goverment provide assistance? It's a much more complicated question than either democrats or republicans want to answer."
I seriously doubt that either Democracts or Republicans do not want to answer that question. Regardless, is that what our "great" nation should be reduced to? People giving up all their assets, living a bare minimum existence, in order to have health insurance?
I will accept such a scenario only if every single Congressman and Senator and the President are forced to sell all over their assets and live in tin shacks before being given taxpayer-funded health insurance.
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Been There
A few years ago, I was jobless and without any sort of health insurance. My annual income was less than $10,000 per year. My doctor suggested that I apply for indigent status at the hospital where she worked so that I could continue to get treatment. It was humiliating, but I followed her advice.
Because I was a part owner in the house I shared with three other people, I didn't qualify.
No one looks at the bigger picture. I had spent all my savings. I literally had nothing besides the equity in that house, which I couldn't pull out because I was one of several owners.
How much worse is it that children, who have no say in family finances at all, cannot find coverage.
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To my fellow posters:
Get a grip. We have already become a third world country, not unlike other third world countries that have regimes that bleed their own populations for money and power. Rove's plan for an ongoing GOP reign was enacted before our very eyes. The strategy, using among other things, fearmongering, and a complete distain for the poor, has taken root in large part due the acceptance of the very lemmings the strategy targeted. The American electorate placed the easily obtained hand gun to their own forehead and willinging pulled the trigger, not once, but twice. We have become the "Congo" of the industrized world. Giuliani and Huckabee are the latest overt symptoms of this nauseating digression. People like them shouldn't garner one vote much less 51% of those voting, one positive headline much less whole "free liberal press" trumpeted campaigns based on the horse puck they sling. Apparently America deserves this kind of "leadership". At very least they have made that clear through their voting patterns a number of times.
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GOP Philosophy, to the T
"The poor have too much money, and the rich don't have enough."
- J. K. Galbraith
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As if we needed another instance of Republican moral bankruptcy!
Attacking innocent, injured children is utterly and completely loathsome.
Conservatives are now acting like villains from a Charles Dickens novel. The only surprise is how unsurprising it has become. They lack any shred of decency or compassion and blindly attack anyone who threatens their tribe's view of the world.
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But...
snow isn't using the child system. There's no quid pro quo here.
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Dovetails
"Should they be forced to sell their assets, Or should the goverment provide assistance? It's a much more complicated question than either democrats or republicans want to answer."
This quote dovetails nicely with another recent headlines:
"Homelessness catches families even amid affluence"
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-12-21-homelessness-cover_x.htm
"Number of Homeless Families Rises"
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-homeless-families,0,1582615.story
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Paying for Universal Health Care
The Smoke Screen of funding for this program feels like a manipulation of the people to avoid the real issue. Instead of proposing a plan that fairly funds this program, a tobacco tax is proposed that will obviously be challenged by many, whether smokers or not. Once again, the attention of the people is diverted from the real problem: we need to cover all our people simply because it is humanitarian. There are many other reasons to provide adequate health care that are pragmatic and make good business sense, but the most relevant is that it is what family members would do for each other, assuming a functional family. We are here as humans to learn to treat each other with Love and Compassion. This is a great place to start. So, let's stop slamming each other with arguments about how to fund this program and simply ask the question: is Universal Health Care for the highest good of all concerned? This SCHIP plan may not be the ideal and final solution, but it is a start and opens the discussion to ways to make it better.
peace,
st john