An Open Letter to the Right Wing Pundits

To whom it may concern:

I've been paying close attention to you in the wake of President Obama's re-election and I'm a little confused. You say that the people voted for someone who would give them stuff, that the takers won this time. What exactly did you mean by "taker"? I'm rather curious because you seem to be talking out of both sides of your mouth. You say that there should be programs to help the very poor, yet you also decry those programs as being wasteful. You seem to denigrate the poor because they are poor, and I thought that, as good Catholics, you were supposed to help take care of the poor.

You say you want us to have the chance to succeed on our own, yet when we ask for a hand up you slap that hand away. You talk about success and money as if it means a person is better for having them, while complaining that people who have a microwave or refrigerator aren't really poor. How are people supposed to store food without something to put it in? Are you really so full of baloney that you actually believe that?

You say that people should own their own health insurance, but you don't want the insurance companies to be required to cover people with pre-existing conditions. You say the very poor should just go to the emergency room. Well many people die doing that and I don't recall you airing a single story on those people and what should be done to help them. You want to cut Medicaid, or send it back to the states in the form of block grants. What happens when the block grant runs out? Currently the federal government pays when that happens but under your ideas it wouldn't. How would the people left out pay for their health care?

I am not a taker. I am a man who is in the position to need help. I'm currently on food stamps, Medicaid and SSI because of my health problems, both physical and psychological. I didn't ask for these problems, and I sure didn't ask to be demonized by you because I need the help, nor did any of the other people who legitimately need help. Are there people who abuse they system? Yes, of course, but that doesn't mean the program itself is bad.

John Stewart, in a debate with Bill O'Reilly, asked why it was that if you're rich and take advantage of government programs you're a smart business man, but if you're poor you're somehow a taker? (This is me paraphrasing obviously but the point remains the same).

You complain about the minimum wage and want to see it abolished. Let the Free Market tm determine people's wages. Well we had a period like that and wages were a pittance. People had to work three or four jobs to make ends meet. Is that really the model you want to go back to? One where the worker is at the mercy of his employer and has no recourse or protection from them? I suppose it is, since you are the voice of the employer in many cases.

You complain that 48% of the people don't pay any federal income taxes. How much of that percentage are people who make all their money on stocks and dividends? Of course those are the job creators so they don't count I suppose.

You complain about women wanting their health insurance to cover birth control. I'm sorry but many of these same companies will pay for a man's Viagra, and if insurance will pay for that it should also cover birth control. If you want to not pay for it for religious reasons I'm fine with that, provided you stop taking government money. If you take the government's money you should have to abide by the same laws as everyone else and that means insurance companies paying for birth control.

I'm fairly certain that you'll ignore this and go on demonizing the poor, but know that there will always be people like me who are here calling you out for it.

That's all for now

May God bless you and may God be gracious to you

End of line

On Some Changes to My Views

We all grow and adapt throughout our lives. We start off believing in some things, and later on sometimes we change.

Change is never easy and sometimes it can be agonizing. We feel like we're betraying family or friends and the inner conflict we feel can be very hard to overcome.

While my belief in God and Christ are still large parts of my life, my political views have changed drastically in some regards.

I need to start off by saying that I'm pro-life. I have been since I was old enough to understand the issue. That being said I don't like the way that the pro-life community has approached the issue. I don't like that there are groups that bomb clinics. I don't like there are people that post the names and addresses of doctors in the hopes that they get killed by some nut.

I think that if the pro-life community had started opening clinics of their own, offering all services except for abortions, that there might have been fewer abortions over the years.

The other problem, as I see it, is that a large number of self professed pro-lifers only care that a baby is born. Many of them oppose any program to give prenatal care to the mothers and any program to give financial assistance to the poor families that need the help.

When I was younger I was a lot more stringent about the issue than I am now. I still think that abortion is wrong, though I totally understand getting one in the cases of rape or incest, but I just don't think that the fight can be won in the courts or in the legislature. The law is the law and I really don't think that its going to change anytime soon. I think that all the money fighting it in those arenas could be better spent opening free prenatal clinics or starting up charities to help poor families.

I didn't use to think that single payer was the way to go in the health care debate. (This is something I went more in-depth in another entry). Right now I'm on Medicaid and taking oncology medicine for a gastro-intestinal stromal tumor. I've seen what people have to go through when trying to get Medicaid and my stance changed from being against it to being for it. There's just too many people who need help to rely totally on charity. If every church in the country pooled their money, after taking out their operating costs, there still wouldn't be enough money to help all the people that need health care.

On marriage I've gone from thinking that gay marriage was wrong to believing that government should just get out of the business of recognizing marriages. If marriage is a religious institution then it should be kept that way and the government should only recognize civil unions.

Most of what I think now has changed significantly from when I was younger. The core of my beliefs, namely belief in God and Jesus Christ, hasn't changed, but sometimes I feel like I'm betraying my family for thinking the way that I do. I've talked about it with my family and they don't see the changes in my beliefs as a betrayal. In fact they understand why I think the way I do now.

Sometimes though I get depressed and feel bad about it though. I guess that's why I write about things like this. Just trying to work things out in my head.

That's all for now

May God bless you and may God be merciful unto you all the days of your life.

End of line

Republicans and the 47%

here's been a lot of talk lately about Mitt Romney and his comments on the so called 47% of the country that supposedly are never going to vote for him. An excellent open letter was written by The Bucking Jenny ( http://thebuckingjenny.blogspot.com/ ), go read it, its a well written piece and needs more people sharing it so the word gets out.

This is my take on what he said.

I have to say starting out that I don't know Mitt Romney. I don't know what his life was like, other than it was one of privilege. He never wanted for money a day in his life. Even when he was living on his own with his wife Ann he got by, not by getting a job and working his way through college, but by selling off stocks given to him by his father.

Now I don't have a problem with that in theory. In practice it means that Mitt Romney doesn't really know what its like to struggle, to be of poor health or to have to make ends meet on a budget. It means that he never had to feed himself and his family on food stamps, and while that's not really a bad thing it also means that he's never given a thought as to what the people who do rely on those things go through on a daily basis.

He laments that 47% of the country pays no income tax, a lamentation that is reflected by other Republicans and conservative pundits like Sean Hannity. What Romney, and the punditry don't tell you is that a large portion of that number are people living on Social Security. Another percentage are people making less than $20,000 a year. 

We've had a Republican run for President, namely Rick Perry of Texas, campaign on getting rid of the G.I. Bill on the grounds that it was welfare.

We have Republicans running for office saying that Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are unconstitutional. 

We have Republicans running for office who want to cut funding for food stamps, and Meals on Wheels.

We have Republicans running for office who want to take Medicaid and give it to the states in block grants. To which I ask, what happens when the money runs out? Given to the states in this fashion will require that the states decide on a case by case basis what gets paid for and what doesn't. Hmmmm, that sounds a lot like a "death panel" doesn't it?

The Republicans want to take Medicare and turn it into a voucher program, while at the same time not requiring insurance companies to cover people. I'm sorry but those two positions are mutually exclusive. What happens if a senior has a pre-existing condition? If the insurance companies are not required to cover everyone then all those seniors suddenly have no means of paying for their health care.

Alan Grayson once got in trouble with the right by saying that the Republican health care plan was for the sick to die quickly. Based on the preponderance of the evidence he would seem to be right.

Hannity often screams that the "ebil liberals"  slander conservatives by saying that Republicans want dirty air and water and want kids with autism and seniors to fend for themselves. Actually this is also true. The Republicans want to get rid of EPA, they don't want insurance companies to be required to cover those with pre-existing conditions, they want fewer protections for workers and they want to limit what a person can sue for if injured by a corporation.

On many issues I consider myself to be a social conservative, maybe a social moderate if what some of my online friends tell me. However that being said I cannot vote for a Republican as long as they pay greater homage to Ayn Rand than they do the people of the United States. We the people elect them and they answer to all of us. 

I think that its long past time that we remind them of that.

That's all for now.

May God bless you and may God keep you. May He make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. Amen and Amen

End of line