This morning I witnessed a spectacle that made me feel embarrassed to be an American. Sen. Arlen Specter (D) Pa. was hosting a town hall meeting to discuss health care reform. And instead of a civil discussion the scene was mayhem. Even people who were obviously among the recruited disruptors that nonetheless had been randomly selected to speak couldn’t get a word in because of the boos and anti reform slogan chanting. I have to commend Senator Specter for bravely standing his ground and repudiating the lies being thrown around about a reform bill. A reform bill that isn’t even finished for Pete’s sake. One of the most common themes coming from these disruptors was the idea that what President Obama and Congress are trying to do is somehow contrary to what our constitution intended as it was written by our Forefathers. I suppose it was among the talking points they were given.
But then I got thinking about what our constitution and our country looked like back when our constitution was first ratified. Do these folks really want to go back to that? First of all we’ll have to revoke the right to vote for anyone except white men who are at least 21 years of age and own property. For census purposes black people will only count as three fifths of a person. Oh yeah, we’ll have to re-establish legal slavery. And since the Bill of Rights was not part of the original document we won’t need those either because our “Forefathers” believed the Preamble was sufficient.
My premise may seem silly. But no more silly than the idea our Forefathers believed our constitution should be a static thing. Hell, the fifth amendment is about “amending” the document for crying out loud. That’s because our Forefathers were wise enough to know they could not predict the future. They knew it would be up to each generation to decide what this country stands for. That’s why the constitution was designed to be a living thing, able to change and evolve as we do.
The bottom line is that opponents of health care reform seem more opposed to change simply for the sake of opposing change. And that is NOT what America is about people. This nation is a great nation because of it’s ability to change. I heard one disruptor argue that because a majority of Americans are satisfied with their personal health insurance, reform is unnecessary. And that goes to the core of why Republicanism is so out of touch. “I’ve got mine, so to hell with everyone else?” What an compassionate and mature attitude that is indeed.
That is NOT what the America I love is about and I believe I’m not alone in that thinking. Contact your elected representatives and tell them you support the health care reform bill.
*************
Devin Barber, Politics Correspondent
Devin’s column, “Left Of The Right” published weekly or more to Gather Essentials: Politics is a Blue Collar Democrats take on current political news.
Devin was raised by proud Roosevelt Democrats. Being the son of parents counted among the throng of Americans displaced by the Great Depression has given Devin a deep rooted passion for causes dealing with the poor and the working class.
You can find all of Devin’s columns at LEFT OF THE RIGHT
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Comments: 238
Why take our rights away? Why force this crappy system on everbody?
If capitalism is the unequal distributoin of wealth then socialism is the unequal distribution of poverty.
What right do you think anyone is trying to take away from you?
And what makes you think that just because a person has no insurance coverage, they'd qualify for Medicaid? Most health insurance comes from a person's employer. If the company goes under, "outsources" your job, or stops providing a health insurance plan as part of the benefits package, where does that leave the worker? Unable to get affordable insurance, and with too much money to qualify for state aid, that's where. And even with employer-sponsored insurance, costs are still skyrocketing, both for health insurance and for health care.
But you go right ahead and keep your head in the sand. Keep repeating your contention that no one wants reform. When someone asks you what will happen to the uninsured, you can quote Ebenezer Scrooge: "Let them die, and decrease the surplus population".
Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases
-Thomas Jefferson
It is not the governments job to oversee/control health care.
The Constitution was written when there were less people in the country than now live in New York City. Nearly 50% could not read and in the South 40% were Slaves out-numbering the whites in that area. If you think this Nation has its foot on your “Liberties” try spending just one year as a Black man on your current income in your current job--with your current education you would commit suicide. Guaranteed! Get over yourself and realize that we live in times which have out grown the life and liberties of the 1700’s. We even have electricity, phones and automobiles, plains and, computers and have been to the moon. Jefferson could have used Health Care.
Being loud and immature makes you the majority ???
Sandy, Johnice you can give over another portion of your life to the government if you want but it is not a wise choice. Learn from history-
Most bad government has grown out of too much government
-Thomas Jefferson
Please take a minute to vote! Everyone is invited!
32% Favor Single-Payer Health Care, 57% Oppose
On Health Care, 51% Fear Government More Than Insurance Companies
Their latest poll:
The poll results show only 42% of Americans support the healthcare reform plan spearheaded by President Obama and the Democratic Party. A record 53% of Americans are opposed to the plan. Since Rasmussen Reports have been polling on healthcare reform starting six weeks ago, the public approval rate has fallen eight points and the public disapproval rate has risen by nine percentage points.
2. Rasmussen isn't telling you for example that People on Medicare are saying they don't want Government Health Care.
& that these people don't want Medicare cancelled, but they Don't want Government Health Care.
That is like you Marilyn,
Running all over gather ranting about government health care when you are already a beneficiary.
Why did the President try to ram this through and pressure Congress to pass this without reading the bill? Was he afraid someone was going to read it?
Health insurance companies are rationing health care NOW!!!
Health insurance companies are making decisions to withold care for aged terminal patients NOW!!!
Why can't you on the Right see this, or are you just GD blind?
I'm not at all embarassed by the REAL objectors to Obamacare. The majority of Americans don't want Obamacare, Devin. And if it gets shoved down our throats, it will definitely be against the will of the people and against the constitution.
Show some respect you would need to stand on a ten foot ladder and even then you could not qualify as one who could look down your very long runny nose at our President.{^0^}
I guess you subscribe to the idea that if you repeat a lie long enough, it will become fact?
Thank goodness we aren't getting THAT plan!
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977770089
Or is it just that you don't like to hear reports you don't agree with? At least the "tingle up the leg" stations (whatever that means) ask Republicans/conservatives on and give them a chance to speak. Faux News hardly ever asks a so-called liberal to be a guest, and then only to shout them down, call them names, and ridicule them.
We don't have a clue what the original intent really was. We can interpret the language of the Constitution literally and still fail to carry out the original intent of the founding fathers. Get over it, folks, they were more different from us than we can imagine.
Scholars of everything historical have argued forever about what historical documents from every period mean. Doctoral theses and journal articles appear all the time that take conflicting positions and support them with plenty of facts and carefully developed arguments.
Thank you Holly! They will not accept that it is too true!
Not many other POTUS were as well versed in the Constitution as POTUS 44 and being a lawyer and a humanitarian is unique that is why so many love this man here and abroad. Misinformation leads to Ignorance and proliferates like a fungus or wild fire which thwarts the best of intentions and deeds
Potter was deeply involved in CIGNA and industrywide strategies for maintaining their profitable grip on U.S. health care. He told me: “The thing they fear most is a single-payer plan. They fear even the public insurance option being proposed; they’ll pull out all the stops they can to defeat that to try to scare people into thinking that embracing a public health insurance option would lead down the slippery slope toward socialism ... putting a government bureaucrat between you and your doctor. They’ve used those talking points for years, and they’ve always worked.”
While visiting family in Tennessee, Potter stopped at a “medical expedition” in Wise, Va. People drove hours for free care from temporary clinics set up in animal stalls at the local fairground. Potter told me that weeks later, flying on a CIGNA corporate jet with the CEO: “I realized that someone’s premiums were helping me to travel that way ... paying for my lunch on gold-trimmed china. I thought about those men and women I had seen in Wise County ... not having any idea [how] insurance executives lived.” He decided he couldn’t be an industry PR hack anymore.
Insurance executives and their Wall Street investors are addicted to massive profits and double-digit annual rate increases. To squeeze more profit, Potter says, if a person makes a major claim for coverage, the insurer will often scrutinize the person’s original application, looking for any error that would allow it to cancel the policy. Likewise, if a small company’s employees make too many claims, the insurer, Potter says, “very likely will jack up the rates so much that your employer has no alternative but to leave you and your co-workers without insurance.”
Potter warns, “One thing to remember is that the health insurance industry has been anticipating this debate on health care for many years ... they’ve been positioning themselves to get very close to influential members of Congress in both parties.” Montana Sen. Max Baucus chairs the Senate Finance Committee, key for health care reform. Potter went on, “[T]he insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry and others in health care have donated ... millions of dollars to his campaigns over the past few years. But aside from money, it’s relationships that count ... the insurance industry has hired scores and scores of lobbyists, many of whom have worked for members of Congress, and some who are former members of Congress.”"
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090714_health-insurance_whistle_blower_knows_where_the_bodies_are_buried/
”The Constitution is the guide which I never will abandon.” – George Washington
“If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws-the first growing out of the last… A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle the sustaining energy of a free government.” –Alexander Hamilton
“The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exist, ’till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole People is sacredly obligatory upon all.” –George Washington
“If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but and indefinite one subject to particular exceptions.”-James Madison
“It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please.” –Thomas Jefferson
“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes though a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”-John Adams
“It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it [the Constitution] a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution.” –James Madison
“The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be not virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.” –Benjamin Rush
“Religion is the only solid Base of morals and Morals are the only possible Support of free governments.” –Gouverneur Morris
“The republican principle demands that the deliberates sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they intrust the management of their affairs; but it does not require an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of passion or to every transient impulse which the people may receive from the arts of men, who flatter their prejudices, to betray their interests.” –Alexander Hamilton
“In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” –Thomas Jefferson
“It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for happily, the Government of the United States, which give to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.” –George Washington
The problems we have today are really no different than what civilizations of the past encountered. Changing the Constitution is not going to magically eliminate our problems. The Constitution, although not completely perfect, is not fatally flawed. Man is flawed. Societies flourish when moral people abide by just laws.
Then mix in the Bible for extra measure and you exponentially pronounce your inability to contribute to a logical discussion of current events. Sad!
I suggest that we need more reasoning and fewer quotes.
(are you saved?)
I HAVE...and you are lying, AGAIN! I born with government controlled Health Care, I lived under government controlled Health Care until I was 18 years old. It was called United States Air Force Medical Care and it was the best! At age 18 I lived with government controlled Health Care for the next 4 years of my life! It was called United States Navy Health Care. I have lived the rest of my life with government controlled Health Care. It is called the Veterans Administration Health Care and it is just fine! While living in England for two years I lived with the British National Health Care Service, and IT was great!
Medicare? Didn't help my parents any.
You can be impressed with government controlled health care all you want. I'm not.
And neither are people in other countries. Try reading up on that.
Someone offers her proof of the quality of government Health Care, both here in the US and abroad (someone who has actually been abroad) and she comes up AGAIN with lies, distortions, and misleading blather in her attempt to counter the very person who has actually EXPERIENCED these forms of Health Care!
How many foreign countries have YOU been to, Marilyn...as opposed to reading about them and watching right wing propaganda "documentaries" about them?!
She is in factearning illegal income from this website and others.
She is on Social Secuity Disability/Medicare.
I believe she is now also receiving some payments from conservative organizations.
Her Right ring rhetoric is just too programmed with the Heritage/Heartland/Cato etc. conservative think tank talking points.
Nixon, Rgan, Bush 1, cut Veterans care.
Bush 2 only improved the care after it was shown on national tv just how bad it was.
I know people now, including Vietnam Vets who are very happy with their care.
Having well educated parents who are dedicated to priming their children to reason logically pre-school is a benefit to the future of the Nation. I am grateful to live in a strong academic community.
We should realize that the Consitution was not perfect. If it had been perfect, we would not have had so many "patches" (amendments).
She obviously is to be able to be here 24/7.
It's people like this that keep our country in the state of disrepair it is in today.
Look at this and tell me we dont need to fix MANY things about our healthcare system.
http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html
If you can look at that and tell me its not shamefull that one of the wealthiest countries in the world has such a bad health care system than you need to open your eyes.
Of course, Devin, you have hit the nail on the head with the above. These people have the idea that returning to a "magical time" when things were better will be good for everyone. For those who idiotically hang on to the false nostalgia of the past, I can only feel pity for them. But, these "dissenters" are really dissenting because they are against President Obama and the Democratic Party. The health care policies of today are not giving them anything more than what the rest of us are getting. Health care has to change. Most of our health care dollars go straight into the profits of the health care insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies. So, what is behind all of this is the sinister agenda to maintain the status quo. There are precious profits to protect. What's wrong with all of that is that health care is not a product like an automobile. People's lives are affected by health care policy. President Obama has the right idea. Politically, it is a hot potato. But, for most Americans it is a necessity. Let them shout and scream all that they want. In the end, their type of stinginess has been passed down from generation to generation ever since The Depression and the efforts of FDR to change our social pact. We are at a similar crossroads, today. There will always be those who whine and complain. The Democratic Party is offering us relief from a profit-driven system that has hurt many individuals and public entities for at least twenty-five years.
Thanks, Devin, for raising this issue and calling these dissenters out for their idiocy.
The reality is those that object do so from strange place that does not even attempt to understand
I am tired of all the Health Hysteria Hipsters that heckle without critically thinking anything through.
http://www.pakfuse.com/pf/video-junction/1867-canadas-socialized-healthcare-exposed-what-truly.html
(BTW, they are wanting to change back to a private system, now that they have experienced this govt-induced catastrophy)
How much misinformation can be spread before people shut up and wait for the bill to be put forth so we can read it and see what's really in it? And how can anyone think that something like the death threats that cancelled the Town Hall meetings today is the American way?
One thing I think is clear in our constitution is that it is the job of the government to respond to the needs of the people, and we need to find out how they plan to do that before we fight over it. As a person impoverished by health care costs, I hope a fair and equitable reform package can finally be passed. If not, more and more Americans will be like me, unable to meet the bills while working at what was, until recently, a wonderful job with excellent benefits. As pay is cut and benefits cost more and more, even those who aren't suffering unemployment are in a major mess.
From the body of Devin's article.........
"But then I got thinking about what our constitution and our country looked like back when our constitution was first ratified. Do these folks really want to go back to that? First of all we’ll have to revoke the right to vote for anyone except white men who are at least 21 years of age and own property. For census purposes black people will only count as three fifths of a person. Oh yeah, we’ll have to re-establish legal slavery. And since the Bill of Rights was not part of the original document we won’t need those either because our “Forefathers” believed the Preamble was sufficient."
Even the most retarded moron would know that this isn't what the protesters want. You have taken something and twisted it into something that it isn't......and you really didn't even do a very good job of it.
So I must ask those of you who are opposed to health care reform....do you wish that you could own slaves? Do you wish that black people were not allowed to vote? Do you wish that women wern't allowed to vote?
This entire article is nothing but a joke intended as pro Obamacare propaganda.
:O)
And your entire head is up Obama's anus so far that it would take the jaws of life to pull it out if the President were to make a sudden stop.
I'm sorry I can't supply the video, using my backup computer with ME, but several people at a town hall meeting yesterday made basically the same statement that ''I want my America back, the way our forefathers intended it to be''. You can find the vid, on the Daily Show's site, I believe it was last night. I dare you to watch it and report back.
Nice try, but again... no cigar. My point was that the disruptors are talking out of their collective butts. Of course they don't want to go back to the things I described because that would be rediculous. But no more rediculous than assuming the Forefathers believed the constitution would suit America over 200 years in the future.
I dunno, I think what a lot of the protesters want is to return to a Golden Age that never was.
You can not change the closed mind to reason, they know what they know and no one can tell them differently. I see the same ones with the same mistaken ideas writing over and over the same tired wrong what they call facts. To them the facts say one thing and only one thing and no one can change that. Not even when they are shown the true facts will that change anything for them as the truth is not the truth if it does not back up what they are saying there fore it is a lie.
Sigh, my Mother was right you can drown a horse before you can make him drink if he does not want to drink.
:O\
Yeah...we can see that you decided to join the rest of your retarded friends!
Just the reply I expected from you.
:O)
I think Timothy just made my point. Don't you think...
:O)
"Just look at how ignorant and misinformed the comments coming from the opposition right here on this thread are. Many of them are so over the top I feel no need to even respond. Kind of like arguing with a 3 year old. Just makes you look stupid too."
This is how I feel and am going to bed. Just rest your nerves James like you said these people can't be talked to.
Obviously so since I'm dealing with school children.
By the way Joseph...what grade are you and your butt buddy James in?
:O)
So are you going to put me in the back of a patrol car? Considering the lack of intellect in your comments, I seriously doubt that you have the mental capacity required to open the door.
:O)