Health Care Heretics
‘Outrageous’ is too tame a sentiment to express feelings generated by outbreaks of violence and hate precipitated by passage as something so benign as health care legislation.
You would think war was declared on a sovereign nation with no real proof that they were preparing to harm us. Oh yes, we did that, didn’t we? But I don’t recall anti-war liberals throwing bricks through politicians’ storefronts or threatening other acts of violence to express anger at those who supported the Bush motion.
We held protest marches and vigils though the media did little to cover the events, fearful of Bush administration retribution for not toeing the party line and being marginalized at White House press briefings—few though they were.
But to equate cutting gas lines to a family home; throwing bricks through democratic representatives’ office windows; spewing racist and/or homophobic slurs at members of Congress, et al., to a Republican Congresswoman receiving a heated voicemail accusing the party of being racist and wishing her a medical condition that thousands of Americans might suffer slipping in a bathtub, is ridiculous.
Perhaps the language used by her constituent was a bit strong but certainly accusing Republicans of being racist is not so far from the mark that it warrants serious debate.
And if such expletives are so disturbing to the Ohio Congresswoman, who no doubt hears such language on a regular basis in the halls of Congress, given the previous and current Vice Presidents use of the F word, though with distinctly different inferences—Cheney in anger, Biden congratulatory—she has perhaps had little use for the F word in her own personal life where no doubt it was once used to describe an act that perhaps last occurred on her wedding night.
(Rep. Schmidt, please feel free to correct me if my speculation is astray. It would certainly dispel a lot of the caricatures about Republican wives not getting at home what their husbands so liberally give their mistresses—and occasional boyfriends.)
It is fair to remind Rep. Schmidt that she represents one of the most economically stressed states in the nation and the provisions of the health care legislation is a very welcome thing for the majority of her constituents. With her patrician grooming she unabashedly mouths her party's baseless arguments. Do you really believe this woman is in touch with the citizens of hardscrabble Cincinnati?
I’m sure the frustrated gentleman that called was expressing what many of his friends and neighbors had surmised of Republican motives for attempting to kill a health care bill while fighting to maintain Bush-era tax cuts, blatant attempts to slip in new ones and diluting bank restrictions meant to protect consumers.
The rich benefit from tax cuts, while doling out medical insurance to poor people, predominantly minorities, is not the role of government. Government in capitalism is there to keep the fat cats fat and everybody else dependent on their largess. Something called trickle-down economics.
The attacks upon the resilient President and the forward-thinking Congressmen and women who had the courage to make health care a priority should be lauded, not the focus of violence and threats of revenge.
But given the Republican platitudes in light of the attacks—'bonehead' Boehmer with veiled pieties that continue to send the same message, as recently elected NYS Rep Perriello pointed out in a NYT (3-26-10) interview, or wanna-be-something Sarah Palin using crosshairs on a map marking democratic districts vulnerable to reelection or using such charged language as “RELOAD” in her message--what else are we to believe?
The same kind of idiot brain trusts that brought us the civil war are once again attempting to divide the country violently.
The criminals who committed these acts need to be hunted, apprehended and prosecuted to fullest extent of law. This is the only way to nip such craziness in the bud. These are dangerous times when so many lose cannons are given public forum.
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