Peace, like charity, begins at home. ----- Franklin D. Roosevelt
]]>Why is it that we follow others? If we are truly a nation built on the individuality of people, why do some people rise while others fall? Why do some people allow themselves to be herded to blindly follow a leader that may or may not be the right person for the job? If history has taught us anything, it should be this – never trust your leaders.
Trust is not something that should be offered to leaders, especially political leaders. I do not care if the man or woman can perform miracles; you have to doubt your leaders at all times. Doubting your leader should be mandatory because it keeps you thinking, questioning and analyzing their movements and actions. Its doubt that allows you to see a “leader” for what they truly are – your equal that is capable of making mistakes and errors just like you. Doubt helps you to understand that leaders are not better than you because they are simply operating on authority you gave them and you can take away.
I understand that there are people that need to trust their leaders, but that need is flawed. Trust is something that should be earned and it simply cannot be done on a national level. The people of this country can’t sit back and claim to know the President; they don’t know him at all. They know the image and the brand. They know the shiny exterior that is packaged and presented to the world, not the real person. I don’t care if you have seen a President hug their children and kiss their wives – that is nothing more than a framed snippet presented to make the leader more likeable to the “common” people that are so willing to give away their own authority in the world.
Yes, many of you will read this and think I am talking about Obama followers, but others will look at this see Bush followers. It doesn’t matter. Apply it to whomever you want but you must understand that if you are willing to trust a leader without question, you are doomed. After all, the people of Germany trusted Hitler because he was a moving and powerful leader that rescued the nation from a crushing depression and restored national pride lost during World War I. Look what happened to that nation when trust was given rather than doubt.
]]>Health care reform. Socialized medicine. Free market medicine. Communists. Socialist. Capitalist. Greedy pigs. The Brooks Brothers Mob. Obamacare. Unamerican.
You have to love buzz words. If there is an issue, I guarantee that there are a few choice buzzwords attached to it, even if the words aren't even remotely relevant. The argument ends up being nothing more than a series of buzzwords thrown at each other through every communications channel available. Finally, the public decides which buzzword it likes the best (rather than an actual argument) and that is the winner.
The issue of the day? The future of biomedical sciences in the United States. Some call it health care reform, some call it the end of the line. It doesn't matter who is right or wrong on the issue because the realm of rational discourse and debate ended the day it was introduced.
The Obama administration, like every presidential administration before his, is looking for a defining piece of legislation that can give them enough momentum for reelection. They saw a need and used John Dingell's decades long attempts to produce health care reform as their platform. After all, how could the American public ever be callous enough to deny health care to everybody.
Apparently, the Obama administration was asleep in the 90's and missed the outrage over "Hillarycare". Maybe Obama should have talked to the person with actual experience in the arena of governmental health care reform....Hillary Clinton. Had he talked to her, she could have prepared him for the public outcry.
The people are angry Mr Obama. Yes, there are 45 million people uninsured in this country. However, you forgot the majority that are covered via private or governmental insurers - that's 355,000,0000 people. These people don't want to see the quality of health care diminish because there are more people that will almost certainly overwhelm our overtaxed medical system (next year we face a shortage of 40,000 internal medicine docs).
We see calls for nurses (another shortage) but where are the calls to increase the number of doctors? Where is the push to make the AMA allow more medical schools? Where is the push to have our state universities expand medical school classes? When a resource is scare, it costs more. Produce more docs and the costs will be less. Did the democrats miss Econ 101?
The people hear small business saying they will downsize to eliminate their employer provided healthcare requirement. The people see that it will be far cheaper for large companies to pay the fine and shift their employees to governmental programs. They see companies for what they truly are - organizations with a goal of turning as much profit as possible - NOT benevolent parent figures caring for their children.
The people also see how poorly our current governmental agencies run. Why would we want to hand over an industry that is one fifth of our GDP to the most corrupt, inefficient, incompetent organizations in America, ie the Federal Government? Hell, the Congress and the Administration know that the fed is incapable, how else can you explain their exemption from the plan?
Nancy Pelosi published an Op-Ed piece recently condemning protestors that shouted and chanted as "unamerican". Hmmm, she doesn't say that when Code Pink is shoulting down conservatives. She praises them. Perhaps if she stopped being a hypocrite and answered the questions with facts other than 2 or choice tidbits of the bill (elimination of pre-existing condition, "patient choice", etc), people wouldn't be so damned mad.
Before anyone comments that I must be a Republican or a Limbaugh suppporter....WRONG. I am a democrat. I voted for buth Clintons, Gore, Kerry and Obama. I support health care reform, but this bill does NOT cut it. It simply add another layer of beauracracy to an already broken system. If universal health care is the way to go, fine. Do universal health care but fix the supply problem and make it mandatory for ALL americans (to include congressmen and presidents). Also, tax all people EQUALLY - no one group should be responsible more than any other.
To fix healthcare, you have to rebuild it from teh ground up - not by adding another layer of shit to the pile.
]]>a friendly bird @thehenryford
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I have been a very bad blogger. With my son home for summer break, I find my time is more limited than ever. While I would love to blog every day, there are things in life that must take precedence and the boy is ALWAYS my number one. That being said, its time to catch up some thoughts on current events....
OK...I got some of the itch out. Anybody reading this knows the itch I am talking about. Its that drive to blog about the happenings around us but life prevents us from doing so....
]]>Yippee!
Ahhh…electric cars. Clean. Safe. Eco-friendly. These babies don’t produce the noxious gasses that their gasoline driven brethren create. Global warming will abate as the CO2 levels drop with the ever decreasing population of gasoline-driven automobiles. The consumer will not be beholden to the gas company and their ever-fluctuating prices. National security will improve as we reduce the dependence our nation has on foreign oil imports. It will simply make the Earth a better place. Right? As Detroit and Japan push forward on the release of new electric plug-in vehicles, we need to reexamine our condemnation of the auto industry as the chief party responsible for global warming. Plug-in vehicles sound great to most Americans because we simply plug them in and “POOF” – no more combustion engine pollution. The problem with electric cars is the myth that they are the solution to our problems. Americans and the rest of the world face a bigger problem than our vehicles and that is our energy industry. Beyond the obvious stranglehold that oil producing nations have over the world we have big problems. Oil is the BIGGEST energy producer on the planet (not to mention a primary source for plastics). In the US, nearly 40% of ALL energy produced in the country is created by oil and most of that energy produced is done by vehicles. So what happens when we take all of the power producing vehicles offline and put the burden on our aging power grid? What happens we have to nearly double the capacity of our aging grid? We have to build more power plants. New power plants will probably result in new coal plants and an increase in the ever-growing demand for coal. Currently, 51% of our electricity comes from coal and that isn’t likely to change anytime soon. People seem to be on a “clean coal” kick to include top Democrats like Obama. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as “clean coal”. No matter how much you scrub the gasses or trap them in underground storage facilities, there is still a host of environmental issues involved like the destruction of mountains, rivers and streams through mountaintop removal mining techniques. Sadly, renewable energy sources are expensive to install (although the prices are dropping) and the profits are minimal compared to those the energy industry is used to seeing. That means they aren’t truly motivated to implement the cleaner energy sources. Also, the large scale national grids that are plagued by transmission losses and health risks make the sale of energy more profitable; this eliminates their interest in more sustainable, secure and eco-friendly microgrids. We have attacked our environmental problems in reverse. Rather than addressing the need to double the capacity of electric power production FIRST, we have pushed for the production of vehicles that will drain an already overtaxed system. This will most assuredly result in haphazard regulations and lenient rules that will allow the power industry to expand its production capabilities with cheap, dirty energy.
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We have ALL seen it before. A group protests the ruling political party's policies and the participants are deemed dangerous to the Country, the President and even themselves. The most recent victims of the anti-protest rhetoric are the participants of T.E.A. Party demonstrations. From Nancy Pelosi to CNN - participants were mocked, demeaned, belittled, and even declared dangerous. The evil "neo-con" word was thrown around too - even though some of the protestors were liberal democrats. I won't even go into the amount of times that people attempted to race bait participants. During the Bush years, anti-war and liberal protestors were declared dangerous and unamerican. The Right declared these protestors to be commies, radicals, unamerican, unpatriotic and even terrorists!
Why can't Americans see that, no matter what side of the political fence you are on - protesting is a staple of a democracy, a republic and the USA? These protestors are involved in their country and its governance that supercedes most Americans. Their participation surpasses that of ANY elected official (to include St Bush and St Obama) because they are doing it for something more than wealth, money, power or fame.
I don't care what the person is protesting, they are doing so because they want to make the nation better. They are doing it out of a love for their country. They are protesting because they want to make a difference. Unlike politicians and talking heads - they generally don't seek fame and glory. They aren't paid. They aren't rich. They are there on their dime.
So, maybe we can all sit back and respect that thes people are true Americans that are actively involved in the way that it runs rather than calling them names.
]]>Face it folks, in churches, synagogues and temples across the country, gay people are marrying each other in same sex marriages. Whether you live in a state that has passed a law banning it or laws that allow it - gay people are marrying each other. The question of whether or not they can be married is irrelevant because it is happening whether you like it or not. The real issue is whether or not the federal and state governments will equally recognize all marriages of two, consenting adults or continue to show prejudiced, preferential favoritism to a select group of religious groups.
Iowa and Vermont are the two latest states to allow gay marriage and for that I applaud them! They understand that the right of two consenting adult - heterosexual or homosexual - should be recognized equally. They understand that the recognition of same sex marriages at a legal level offers same sex couples more that 1500 rights and privileges offered to man-woman couples. So while some states push to reinstate prejudicial laws and treatment of homosexuals, some states fight for equality.
California now looks to its Supreme Court to decide if their recent voter-approved ban on gay marriage is constitutional. Their recent ballot measure cost 170 million dollars of money that could have been put to good use actually HELPING families rather than trying to hurt them.
California Supreme Court Associate Justice Joyce Kennard seems to support the new law because she doesn't want to override the will of the people. "What I am picking up from the oral arguments is that this court should willy-nilly disregard the will of the people." Clearly Justice Kennard fails to realize the the USA and all of its states are NOT democracies - they are Republics. As republics, mob rule does not apply. The courts have the right to override prejudicial and unfair laws - even if 90% of the populace votes for them.
Thank god Justice Kennard wasn't around when they decided Brown vs Board of Education. After all, the mob (aka the majority) supported and voted on the laws that segregated black people from white people. In Kennard's world, voters approved those laws, so they should have been allowed to stand.
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