Dangerous and Out of Control

Without a doubt the health care reform bill is the hottest topic out there.  Where you stand on it will either leap-frog you to political stardom or bury you in the legendary elephant graveyard,  although with the number of political resurrections I have seen in my lifetime, there doesn't seem to be any such thing as actual political death.  However, if you are on the unpopular side you can definitely get voted out of office for a while and no political divo (or diva, for that matter) wants that no matter how temporary a situation it may be.

What I want to make very clear to our badly behaved citizenry is that this country, our America, our Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, was founded on dissenting opinion, the absolute right of our citizens to believe DIFFERENTLY from one another and to act on those divergent beliefs as long as those actions to do not injure or violate the rights of others.  People have given up their lives for that principle.  The American Civil Liberties Union exists for the sole and sacred purpose of defending and thereby assuring those rights.  Let none of us shame the memories of those who died to guarantee us the right to disagree.

The other thing I feel compelled to mention is that we were all raised in polite society.  You don't throw a brick through somebody's window to make a point and you don't publicly attempt to insult and humiliate others because they disagree with you.  You have a home in a world where you can differ in your opinions, but let us be civilized, polite and humane beings about those differences.  What happened to the art of persuasion?  the formal argument of debate?  overwhelming the opposition with facts?  Grow up, people!  Only small children and utter bullies use such tactics.  Mature people use reason and rational discussion.  Let us prove that we deserve the magnificent concept of America.

Health Care Reform

Everybody else has weighed-in about it.  I guess it is time I did, too.  I have not read the bill.  Let me admit it up front.  I hear the same thing you do and expect there is a lot of truth-stretching and down-right lying on both sides of the aisle.  The only way to really know what it says is to read it, but even then, stuff in these bills is frequently open to interpretation.  I would like to see a panel......multi-political, multi-ethnic, multi-gender, multi socio-economic......go through this bill line by line to see what it  ACTUALLY says and put the politicos on the hot-seat for interpretive purposes.

Life and experience have taught me that if you wait until you are fully prepared to do anything, you will never really do anything.  In that regard, perhaps it was better to do something, no matter how imperfect, with a plan to revise and correct, than to do nothing.  The Chinese say that even a journey of a thousand miles begins with a first step.  So we took the first step, now we can work on correcting the navigation so we can get where we really want to go.

Comprehension and Interpretation

Of the many wonderful skills I have acquired in my lifetime, there are two that I deem the most important.  The first is reading quickly with strong comprehension, which I acquired in a special summer program at school.  The second is objective and truthful reporting which I learned from my dad.  I have other skills to be sure, but these two are the ones that impact the ability to transfer information accurately.  It is bad enough to misrepresent something because you truly fail to understand it, but to do it deliberately, to put a "spin" on it and use the media to disseminate it as fact and truth, is a brand of criminality that I am only just being able to recognize and abhor.  It is one thing to edit a movie or a novel.....FICTION.....to create an atmosphere and present a specified point of view, but you don't get to edit LIFE.  If you want to express an opinion then clearly define it as OPINION coming out of the gate.  DO NOT....let me repeat.....DO NOT....represent your opinion as fact.  As in sins of commission and ommission, misrepresenting facts, leaving out information.... is exactly the SAME AS LYING.   Using it as a tool to play on the fears of the public is cruelly manipulative.  Before I go, let me advise you that this is all MY OPINION and is how I truly feel about the subtle and not-so-subtle distortion of truth to accomplish a goal.  Do the ends EVER justify the means?  I don't know the answer to that.  You would have to operate under the supposition that someone else can make better decisions for you than you can make for yourself.

They started the countdown on health care reform............

People.....all people.....behave differently when it come to money.  Yesterday, there were some folks who are probably normally well-behaved, polite, responsible individuals, who melted down and turned into individuals their mothers would never recognize.  Their actions were socially unacceptable, uncivilized.....even barbaric.  I can say that even though I have never seen any of  them and don't know their names, backgrounds or views.  I would also be willing to bet most of them were what middle-America refers to as God-fearing, family people.......the ones you see everyday in the grocery, the mall, in a church, mosque or temple.  Their children go to school with your kids.  They are people you buy from, sell to, visit with, and your relationships with them vary from friends to strangers.

No rational, responsible, compassionate person wants to see others suffer from illnes, ignorance or depravation......no one.  The fact is that the level of gullibility found in the average American is staggering.  They epitomize the concept that if you say something confidently long enough and loud enough, people will begin to believe it.  High-profile individuals with access to any public forum suddenly become crowned with voices of authority, touted as tellers of fact and truth.  As such, they rally the masses with a call to battle based on speculation and opinion.  Are you willing to bet your life and the lives of those you love on information that is no better than unsubstantiated rumor and unverifiiable fact?  I am not.

I will always tell you what I think....

I am of the opinion that everyone has the potential for being "a great thinker".  I feel strongly about the things that touch my life in some way and have little or no feeling about things that don't.  That doesn't mean I don't have compassion, sympathy and even empathy for the unfortunate people of Haiti and Peru and everywhere else disaster strikes.  It doesn't mean I don't want health care, education and good, decent lives for everybody.  I just don't care whether members of Congress ever get a raise.  I don't care that Nancy Pelosi was actually correct about Saint Joseph.  I care very much that we allow genocide.....and starvation......and preventable diseases to continue when we have the ability to end them.  The point is that I feel that my opinion is important.  I also feel that YOUR opinion is important.  I will tell you what I think about almost anything without any provocation at all, but I will NEVER tell you what YOU should think.  You have to do that work on your own.