I peruse a lot of different news sites (rather than watch TV, I prefer to read my news … I guess that is a holdover from being a print journalist for so many years. Anyway, even the web news sources have me shaking my head these days. It is bizarre, no matter what the slant of the purveyor.
1. I regularly visit the Huffington Post, and get amazed at some of the things that the limousine liberal (I am sorry, the progressives) set gets jacked up about. One of the more recent is a headline that some evil billionaire is going to launch an “vicious” ad campaign against President Obama.
First, since when is this any different that say the slams against Mitt Romney or George W. Bush? I mean, give me a break.
Second, obviously these people have not studied much American history … if you think politics is dirty now, you really need to go back and look at want passed for political dialogue in the late 17oos and all through the 1800s in this country. You will be surprised at what was said about various political figures and candidates.
So, some rich guy (that you don’t agree with) is going to spend a bunch of his wealth to tear down a political opponent. You have a problem with that? You need to have a reality check. Stop and think about what the “freedom of speech” really means and it means having to put up with idiots you don’t agree with having the freedom to spend their own money (regardless of how they came by it) to say things that you don’t like. Sorry, that is the price of liberty and having a freedom to speak our minds.
2. There is some veteran of Iraq (he is like a 27-year-old student now) who is going to take his medals from serving in the so-called “Global War on Terrorism” and try to give them back to President Obama at the NATO summit in Chicago later this month to protest, as I gathered from the story, the war in Iraq and the continuing war in Afghanistan. What a hoot. I am sorry, he has got every right to do it, but so what … as far as I am concerned (unlike MSNBC) it really is a non-story. First, we pulled out of Iraq, remember? What happens there, now, is their problem, not ours, nor is it the US’s responsibility if they can’t get their act straight. Sorry, that dog won’t hunt. Second, we will skedaddle from Afghanistan soon enough, just wait and see. (Don’t know the definition of skedaddle, look it up, particularly as it was used in the American Civil War – oops, I am sorry, the War of Northern Aggression – contexts)
3. It is really getting hard to condemn that Hispanic guy down in Florida who shot a young Afro-American that got everybody is such a tizzy. According to the medical reports being leaked, the Hispanic guy had injuries consistent with getting the fecal material beat out of you, and the Afro kid had scrapes and bruises on his knuckles consistent with some who was knocking the crap out of someone … in addition to the bullet hole in him. Granted, I think both young men some pretty lousy decisions that fateful night, but if I had a broken nose and had my head slammed against the ground at least twice, hard enough to break the skin and start me bleeding, and the guy who did it looked like he was coming back to give me more, I am not sure I wouldn’t use Mister Colt’s equalizer. And that is regardless if I had been wondering what the heck the person was doing in my neighborhood late at night. I am not sure I would have been as obvious about following him, but hey … I am a devout coward at heart.
4. I see where the progressives are up in arms that the Republicans don’t have a plan ready to replace Obamacare if it gets struck down or repealed. Like, they have to replace it? Since when.
Ok, health care financing is a mess in the US, but then it is just about everywhere else. We choose to ration health care (a limited resource no matter where you go) by limiting access to those who either have sense enough to figure out how to get insurance (which is not the be-all panacea that some think it is, but that is another story). In Canada, they ration health care in their own way. It is called time. You have a health problem … be prepared to stand and wait until the limited number of health facilities and personnel have time to see you.
Now, I am sorry, but unlike other nations, like our European friends, providing health care is not some right that is required of government. Sorry, that dog doesn’t hunt either. Somebody has to pay for it and that is a fact. In Canada, they used taxes, like a 15 percent (I think it is 15 percent) national/provincial sales tax on just about everything. That is in addition to its progressive income tax structure. The point is, whether you put it on the individual to provide for his and his own (or her as the case may be) or you take from the individual to ensure everyone and his cousin has at least some access to health care, health care is/was/will be a limited resource and will have to be rationed. It just matters how a society decides to do it … is it an individual responsibility or a collective responsibility?
5. I have been following an old high school acquaintance of Facebook these days (by the way, the Facebook IPO is a ripoff, but don’t let anybody know I said that … it produces zip), and one of his latest rants is on Israel. Now, granted he admits he is a progressive (heck he was way back in high school, but that is yet another story), but he thinks the Israelis are far to harsh on the Palestinians and that the Palestinians should be given a contiguous state with East Jerusalem as its capitol. Ironically, the Palestinians have been offered just that or pretty doggone close to it several times and have walked away from the table and rejected it. The most recent time being in 2000 and the first time was in 1947. Of course one could make the same argument that the Jews, who really have just as much a claim to the ancient land of Palestine as the Muslim Arabs, also deserve to have a contiguous state with its capitol in Jerusalem. Of course, it all could have been solved way back in 1947, if Jordan (essentially East Palestine) had just annexed the West Bank and the half of Jerusalem it held, and if Egypt had just annexed the Gaza Strip, instead of administering the area as a giant concentration camp, but that is water under the bridge now.
6. I would go on about the great unease I am feeling about rest of 2012 (and it has nothing to do with the Mayan calendar or any doomsday prophesies) but I think I am going to let that thought continue to percolate in the old noggin a little longer. Just say that I do fear that there may “interesting times” ahead of us, and not necessarily peaceful ones.
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