Tag Archives: Healthcare

Hey David Axelrod! Here’s some debate prep for the President.

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A Happy President Obama

Mr. President, you need to be clear tonight. When you want to tell the YouTube generation what time it is, you have to say it straight:

You’re a middle class guy with middle class values; you’re one of us. Your opponent was an entitled rich kid who grew up to look down on us. He just plain doesn’t like us.

You believe in helping people who can’t necessarily help themselves. Your opponent couldn’t care less about them. He thinks they’re freeloading scum.

You believe that America should be a place where everyone has access to the same high quality medical care regardless of their circumstances. Your opponent’s math goes like this: BANK ACCOUNT = MEDICAL BUDGET = LIFE SPAN.

You believe that women are equal to men and therefore have a natural right to control their own bodies; your opponent, well, who knows what he believes? But his running mate is in favor of forcing a woman to bear her rapist’s – even her father’s – child. Sort of like an American Taliban.

You are a student of history, a believer in science, and a fan of reality. No one knows what your opponent believes, since he denies ever saying anything.

You believe in the DREAM Act. Your opponent is a NIGHTMARE.

Say it all with the soundtrack from 8 Mile playing in your head.

47%? 30%? Let’s make it 100%!

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King George III and George Washington

According to Mitt Romney, 47% of Americans believe that the government should take care of them in some way. Paul Ryan, the numbers guy, says it’s 30%. They say it like it’s a bad thing. It’s not. The number should be closer to 100%.

Let me explain: We had a revolution quite some time ago which freed us from the tyranny of a kingdom and established a democracy. Whereas a king rules by right of inheritance, a president is elected through the will of the people. A king stands above all others; a president is first among equals.

A king typically inherits his right to rule through a line of ancestry that connects him to a figure recognized as important to the establishment of the country.  His power is legitimized by his biological connection to the birth of the people and of the culture, and his authority is conceived in paternal terms. The country is his; it belongs to him and he may do with its land, its people, and its army as he sees fit. He is, however, obliged to see to it that his lands are farmed, his people are fed, and his armies are supplied.

Did these responsibilities of government just fade away when we replaced a king with a president? Clearly we are still subsidizing our farmers and supplying our armies, so what happened to the other piece of it?

Remember this: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. . .”

Was this not what Jefferson was talking about? How can one be entitled to life but not medicine? Liberty but not food? A shot at happiness but not the benefit of shelter?  Don’t these things all go together? I believe that Jefferson thought his language was broad and inclusive: Let’s see, he reasoned; what three words can I use to represent all “unalienable Rights”? Oh, yes! I’ll say, “among these,” and cite the big ones! “Life,” for crying out loud! How much more inclusive can I be?

Conservatives deride an American sense of “entitlement” (oh, the irony!), where people think they deserve government assistance for which they should not have to work or pay. They think a lot of us are stupid, irresponsible, and lazy. The truth is, we are all raised to believe that life is meaningless without work – which includes raising children – and that we are useless without it. Most of us want to make an honest living. That, it’s patently obvious, is not always possible.

It has always been the job of the government to see to it that people’s basic needs are met. From chiefs to kings to parliaments, the primary charge is to keep the peace and provide the food – the latter being necessary for the former. As long as there has been government, that has been the case.

Democracy didn’t change that; capitalism did.

Let’s Undo the Time Warp Again

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Still from The Rocky Horror Picture Show

It’s hard to believe what’s going on in America.  It’s like the second half of the 20th century never happened.  Did I miss the episode where the plot got shifted to an alternate timeline? I hate it when they fuck with the timeline.

Seriously. I thought that legalized meant settled, as in no longer open for debate.  I thought I could count on an America where abortion would always be safe and women would remain in charge of their own bodies.  I thought that access to and use of birth control would never again be seen as anything other than sensible, especially in light of the now-legal alternative.

I thought that history equaled lessons learned, as in we’ll never make that mistake again.  I thought that after the Great Depression, I could grow old feeling safe in the knowledge that I won’t have to sell apples in the street if I live past seventy – or blood if I lose my job.  I thought that after the Civil Rights  and anti-war movements of the sixties and seventies, after the Children’s March and Kent State, police officers would never again attack peaceful American citizens exercising their legal right to assemble.

I thought that science and rationality had won the battle with magical thinking, as in we don’t believe in ridiculous crap anymore.  I thought that since antibiotics were an accepted thing, so was evolution, since they’re based on exactly the same principles.  I thought that since the melting of polar and alpine ice and the flooding of low-lying lands is patently obvious to anyone looking, let alone living there, people would accept the fact that the climate is changing.  I thought it was pretty clear that there isn’t a giant white man living in the sky somewhere, making all of this happen.

Clearly I was wrong. I encounter ignorance and arrogance on a daily basis, in the news and among my students. Ignorance of history and arrogance of belief.  I’d like to believe that the sequence of history shows a straight line moving from brutality and stupidity toward kindness and enlightenment, but I can’t.

It’s just a jump to the left. . . and then a step to the right.

Survival of the richest

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At the Republican debate the other night, the audience showed its blood lust.  When Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul if the government should  let the uninsured die, several people in the crowd yelled out “Yeah!”  While this was not Congressman Paul’s preference, the crowd pulsed audibly with libertarian zeal.  Yes America, you have neighbors who wouldn’t spend a buck or shed a tear if you – or your child – were about to die for lack of insurance. Their vision of America leads to a future where only the rich have lives while the rest of us get death sentences. Social Darwinism is alive and well, but you may not be so lucky.

Support at GOP debate for letting the uninsured die – latimes.com.