What is the greater likelihood: that Al Qaida will target your home or that you will be refused medical care?
We have spent the almost eight years being told we should be afraid of Al Qaida coming to get us. Al Qaida has struck no American school, no American home. Refusal to cover basic medical procedures has struck millions. Bankruptcy caused by medical bills strikes more people, more families, everyday. The youngest victim of 9/11 was two, the oldest was 85. Lack of healthcare strikes Americans of every age.
There is no way to absolutely stop terrorism. If some faction, somewhere in the world, decides to strike us there is no way to stop them from driving a car into a gas station, damaging the piers of the bridge you travel most frequently, possibly spreading a silent, invisible disease. These people, filled with hate, can strike you or me.
But you can save me from not having healthcare. You can take preventative measures to protect yourself should you or your spouse lose their jobs and thus lose their health benefits or, at least as common, finding out that the insurance you have paid for year after year just flat refuses to cover a needed procedure or treatment. And it will not slow you down at the airport or keep you from travelling freely. How about we create universal health insurance through the group that has the lowest overhead for such service?
Is any percentage of your income more important than humanitarian care? Does your religion not tell you that you are, indeed, responsible for caring for others? Is your greed for 300 cable channels, a bigger car and another vacation so great that a child should die for it?
You pay for roads and education for others and these things will not prevent an untreated illness form mutating into something that kills a member of your family. Are you so secure in your income and absolute marketability that you are positive you will never need this care? IS your position in life permanent? If it is, feel blessed…and responsible for helping another.
If you are a Christian can you not spare a few more dollars, even a lot more of your paycheck, for others after someone else died for you? Did Christ not compel you to charity? (Matthew 25:31-46) If you are a Muslim does the Zakat not compel you to care for your brother and sister?
I hear a lot that the current proposal is being rushed, but universal healthcare has been near the forefront of political debate since Clinton took office in 1992. That is 17 years, far more time than we have debated our right to start any war. I hear people stating that they support reform but it must be done better than the current plans aims. Does this mean we cannot impose this plan to protect ourselves until you come up with a better one?
Think on it. Think on it without outside influence. Pretend you mother is watching. Know your God is watching.
Showing posts with label Terrorism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Terrorism. Show all posts
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Cowards, Cultists and the Close-minded.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away I was told that the beauty of America was that ANYONE could grow up to be President. We were encouraged, even in that more sheltered time, to explore ideas and situations, to find out all we could.
And now? Now I look around me, ear to the wind, and see a significant portion of America howling that their child should not be “exposed” to a speech by the President of the United States of America.
I understand not agreeing with the President. I understand not liking President Obama’s ideas, ideals, goals and methods. I understand not wanting one’s children to think like the sitting President. I understand, and would defend to the death, the ability and right of people to feel this way.
I do NOT understand anyone who is so insecure, as incomplete as a person, so singularly unevolved as a thinker that they would stand against their child hearing what the President has to say. I can think of very few people who could speak in such a way that a child should not hear them.
Assuming these children are in schools with history lessons they will be exposed to the words of Hitler, a mass murderer and racist and genocidal maniac. They will be exposed to the words of slave-owners, pagans, heathens, witch-burners, conquerors, the deluded and insane. Shall the schools have to ask parental permission to expose their children to history? How about to the genocides, rapists and murderers of the bible?
As we move through the twenty first century we wish to show the world who we are. As Americans we are constantly watched and judged. Are we attempting to show the world’s despots, terrorist and war-mongers that we are this cowardly? This country was built on the backs and in the minds of men and women who were raised exposed to the harshness of the wilderness, the ravages of war, the vagaries of disease and the realities of disparate ideas. Are we raising citizens or marshmallows? Are we going to continue to play the words of Osama Bin Laden on every TV screen and hide from the words of our own elected President?
If you wish for a barometer of any society’s trajectory I would point you towards the level of fear they have towards ideas. Ideas and words. Are we rearing the generation that will leave the nest only to recoil at the hideous discovery that there are people in the world, well meaning people, who disagree with mommy and daddy? Are we prepared for our children, on their own and moving as adults to collapse under the weight of disagreement the moment they leave the protective measure of their childhood homes?
For shame. For shame America for letting this situation ever arise. When did the failure come that allowed a fear of a simple idea or speech to be so dangerous as to crush their values?
And now? Now I look around me, ear to the wind, and see a significant portion of America howling that their child should not be “exposed” to a speech by the President of the United States of America.
I understand not agreeing with the President. I understand not liking President Obama’s ideas, ideals, goals and methods. I understand not wanting one’s children to think like the sitting President. I understand, and would defend to the death, the ability and right of people to feel this way.
I do NOT understand anyone who is so insecure, as incomplete as a person, so singularly unevolved as a thinker that they would stand against their child hearing what the President has to say. I can think of very few people who could speak in such a way that a child should not hear them.
Assuming these children are in schools with history lessons they will be exposed to the words of Hitler, a mass murderer and racist and genocidal maniac. They will be exposed to the words of slave-owners, pagans, heathens, witch-burners, conquerors, the deluded and insane. Shall the schools have to ask parental permission to expose their children to history? How about to the genocides, rapists and murderers of the bible?
As we move through the twenty first century we wish to show the world who we are. As Americans we are constantly watched and judged. Are we attempting to show the world’s despots, terrorist and war-mongers that we are this cowardly? This country was built on the backs and in the minds of men and women who were raised exposed to the harshness of the wilderness, the ravages of war, the vagaries of disease and the realities of disparate ideas. Are we raising citizens or marshmallows? Are we going to continue to play the words of Osama Bin Laden on every TV screen and hide from the words of our own elected President?
If you wish for a barometer of any society’s trajectory I would point you towards the level of fear they have towards ideas. Ideas and words. Are we rearing the generation that will leave the nest only to recoil at the hideous discovery that there are people in the world, well meaning people, who disagree with mommy and daddy? Are we prepared for our children, on their own and moving as adults to collapse under the weight of disagreement the moment they leave the protective measure of their childhood homes?
For shame. For shame America for letting this situation ever arise. When did the failure come that allowed a fear of a simple idea or speech to be so dangerous as to crush their values?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
