Category: Politics

The times, they are a changin’

Corporations and their ability to influence politics and create laws that hurt the majority of the people because of greed, as well as how the GOP is currently acting, has made me change my stance from being “economically conservative and socially liberal” to now simply being a social democrat.

In general, major corporations since their creation up until this point in time have done nothing but do everything in their power to gain money unethically. Workers have been abused to the point of deadly riots and the necessity of the creation of unions, they will release poison to consumers if they think it will only kill an “acceptable number” of humans, and they have sold off this country piece by piece for their shareholders’ pockets. If anything, corporations are hurting America, both the people and the country, at the moment.

Capitalism still has a role in my opinion, but it needs to only be for small businesses or businesses that produce non-integral products and services. While I haven’t figured out where that line exactly is, it is somewhere along the lines of France, Germany, or Switzerland’s way of doing things. I think this allows people with drive and skills to achieve a great place in life while still making sure all members of the country are taken care of. You can still found the next Google or Microsoft, you just can’t found the next insurance company that takes money from you for 3 years, and then when you need surgery they drop you for having an unreported case of acne.

While members of the government might have their own agendas, the government is held accountable by the public and is not on a mission to make money regardless of any other cost. Furthermore, in a place like America, there are checks and balances where no person can control whatever they want (beyond the President with the military, but it takes an act of Congress to truly go to war or appropriate funds to them anyway). I don’t understand why people are so afraid of ‘big government’ – the only time I have seen it get in the way is when corporations get involved with lobbying and make a mess of things with all sorts of exceptions so that they don’t take any hits.

I would rather sit in a country full of liberal hippies and be annoyed with how politically correct everyone is if it means I can get health care when I need it, or not have to read every day about how more and more companies are doing things that are downright atrocious. I’d rather live and be annoyed than dead and… well, dead.

Needless to say, any support I once gave Republicans is pretty much completely gone, and they as well as the companies they protect have themselves to thank.

Funniest thing I’ve read all day

(Found this on FARK.com’s comments in response to this WSJ story about ‘Obamacare’ which took a study by this insurance company seriously for some reason, and how a public option would force them to raise their rates by 3x as much… somehow. Another great comment was “In a related study, the Gambino family has found that RICO laws are really unfair to the independent business man.” Luckily, I think anyone actually reading the WSJ is smart enough to read and then not go “Oh my god, people, people, gather round, apparently this totally unbiased and fair survey in a paper run by a man with nothing to gain says that our insurance rates will go up by 3 times as much if this health care reform passes!”)

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy.

I then took a shower in the clean water provided by a municipal water utility.After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time, as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank.

On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the U.S. Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshal’s inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

And then I log on to the internet — which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration — and post on Freerepublic.com and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can’t do anything right.

My letter to John Boehner

Politico just recently had an article where John Boehner states he has not met a “regular American” who supports the public option. Pick which is worse, that he is so out of touch with what America wants that he hasn’t met a single normal person in favor of the public option and thus shouldn’t be trying to represent those people, or he is just lying. I would bet it is a mixture of both.

Luckily, in this fantastic age of the internet, sending a letter is as easy as going to his site here and writing to him. So, that is just what I did. The letter is below:

Hi Mr. Boehner,

I’d just like to say that I’m a real American who supports the public option. I’m an independent in Texas, originally from the North, who previously leaned right on economic issues, and left on social issues. It seems like the real fight for both parties is winning over the independents, and I can tell you that what you all are doing isn’t working.

I’m a contractor with asthma, and I have no health care insurance. To get the same coverage most people get at regular jobs for my wife and I would cost over $800 per month before I even tell them I have asthma and she has thyroid issues. That also comes with a deductible of $3000. Without insurance, the 3 medicines I need to manage my asthma cost over $400 per month. My wife’s medication currently is about $150 per month.

Quite honestly, I don’t believe the Republicans are making any real effort to give any kind of reform whatsoever. I think the GOP is accepting that “healthcare reform is needed” only because so many Americans are complaining, but that you all would happily sweep it under the rug if it wasn’t such a big issue so that giant corporations could continue to run us bankrupt.

It must be nice for you to have healthcare paid for by the “regular Americans” like me with my tax money for you and all your family. It must be so easy to not have to actually be part of a struggling family, or for that matter even see a struggling family who can’t live a normal, healthy life because they can barely afford medicine they need. Often I have to resort to over-the-counter medication which is actually detrimental to my health in the long run just for short-term relief when I have an asthma attack because of the costs. I have considered going out of the country for both medicine and treatment, so money that could be spent in our economy would also be gone because it simply costs too much. I don’t mind paying more for better service, but what is the worst part of it all is that we don’t even have the best health care system out of developed countries.

Republicans love to instill McCarthyist fears and throw around “socialism” as if that suddenly must end all debate. It is like socialism is just so evil that anything that could remotely be considered “socialist” is off the table, and that is just sad because it does a disservice to the American people who have been brainwashed to believe that. Socialism as a whole is bad in my opinion, but there are many capitalist countries who understand that capitalism is not the answer for all aspects of a country. This is why our government runs the military and handles our infrastructure, and also why it should run (or have a big hand in running) health care. Simply put, you cannot argue the statistics from other countries such as Canada and the UK as far as cost, effectiveness, and how much their public enjoys the government-run system.

I’m pro-capitalism as much as the most die-hard conservative and I believe in making your own way. However, I also believe having good health should be a human right in a country as advanced as we are. It is despicable that companies make money off letting people die so that they don’t have to pay for the medical procedures necessary. This is what 3rd world countries with corrupt leaders would do. We’re better than that. I’m sure you don’t really care, again, because you never have to see any of these individual cases, and it is hard to see it when the medical industry spends millions of those dollars that they saved letting people die to lobby to you.

I also believe the government has a role in moderating capitalism and the companies within it’s country. We have seen time and again over the course of history that companies, and more specifically the people who run them, will get away with anything they can to make money. How can I trust the Republicans to do anything when all they do is empower companies to run the American public broke? To save dollars on manufacturing, our country was completely de-industrialized (wrongly), and all the jobs were shipped to China. Now you have eroded potential jobs for the blue collar worker upon which this country is built. We are sending more and more money to China (who then bailed us out with the money we paid them with, ironically enough) to build products that break quicker and quicker, and we have to replace these items more and more because the quality of product is not there. Of course, most people are blinded by the cheap prices at Wal-mart to care, but now the company and China are getting paid more and more while money is not being reinvested back into the country, which is the entire point of Reaganomics and trickle down theory. So for all the GOP members touting the greatness of Ronald Reagan, you all sure as hell are betraying his ideas and destroying middle America in the process.

I think the biggest issue I have though is the lying. I can accept that both sides need to be extreme to balance each other out, this is why we have a two party system. Yet, if your ideas aren’t good enough to match the other side’s, then lying about what the other side is actually saying just makes you even worse than what you believe they are. Those of us with brains knew that there were not going to be any “death panels” yet that is all you heard, not just from conservative media heads, but it all started with Sarah Palin herself, the GOP’s VP nomination. Is that how you want to better serve Americans, by lying to them? To stoop so low as to say that you can’t find a single “real American” who wants the public option, when the majority of the country wants one? That is being dishonest, sir, and where does your treachery end if you will flat out lie to the public? If I were in Ohio, why would I vote for someone who not only lies to me, but does so knowing that their agenda hurts me in the long run?

If that is how you represent “regular Americans,” then I hope you are voted out soon enough. Though, perhaps soon the Republicans will recognize that their job is to protect the interest of the people, and that means all the people, not just the wealthy ones, and I can start voting for them again. Until then, not only will I vote against Republicans who share your values every chance I get, I will continue to use my voice to support the Democrats.

Thank you,
<name withheld to protect the innocent… namely, me>