My grandfather fought against the assault on our freedoms in the form of the Kaiser’s army in WW I. At one point he became gravely ill (the “Spanish flu” perhaps) and was not allowed to march forward with his unit. They were all killed.
My father fought in WW II against the Nazi’s, who were one of the greatest threats against our freedoms to ever exist. He won a couple of medals, finished off his work in the European Theater, and the war ended as he was on his way to Japan, having volunteered for the invasion against the Japanese Imperialists, who were the other great threat against our freedoms of the day.
I was too young to be drafted or to enlist to fight in what would have been “my war” in Viet Nam, but I did fight anyway. I took up not arms but words and signs and the occasional other item to fight against the repression of a crook in office (who was later thrown out) and an unjust war that was chewing up our resources and our young people in a way that was a novel kind of threat against our freedoms.
And today, I’m being asked to fight against yet another assault on our freedoms:
And in their spare time, contrary to the very vocal wishes of the American public, they passed legislation that will do great harm to the finest health care system in the world. The Health Care Bill is the greatest assault on our freedom in my lifetime. IT MUST BE REPEALED!
Those words of wisdom were spoken by Wisconsin’s candidate for the US Senate, Republican Ron Johnson.
And, dagnabit, I think he may be right!
Think of all the ways in which our health care system, in America, varies. Variation is good. It is the gasoline that runs the steam roller known as the free market. The poor get poor health care. There is a certain symmetry in that. Their efforts to rise above their fellow poor people at all costs will be the steam in the locomotive known as the free market. Minnesota has a high quality accessible state health care system. In Louisiana, you might as well take poison if you are sick. Again, a symmetry. Minnesota is at one end of the Mississippi, and Louisiana is at the other. This variation drives competition, generates the individual human needs that ultimately serve as the coal in the power plant known as the free market.
Obamacare reduces those kinds of variation. Obama care is a threat to our freedom!
Health Care Reforms are the same as putting people in jail. Only they will be waiting rooms at clinics where people will be able to go and get treated for illnesses even if they were pre-existing conditions they were born with. This entirely removes the “free market” of Darwinian selection from the equation. How can the rest of us be free of our neighbor’s birth defects if they can just walk in and get treated? The existing health care system, generated by market forces over the years, had come very close to solving this problem. But now, that solution has to be put aside. So much for freedom!
I want to know how to join this war against health! Where do I sign up! What kind of uniform do I get to wear! What kind of weapons to I get to use! Who do I shoot first?
I want to follow in my grandfather’s and father’s footsteps, but better. Because they only fought The Kaiser, the Nazi’s and the Imperial Japanese. I get to fight health care reform! How cool is that!
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All you need now is a rousing rendition of “Tomorrow belongs to me” as sung by lawyers and lobbyists for the private health industry….
Is that the new battlehymn of the republican?
As a person who can not get health insurance at a cost i can hope to pay, I see this as a start to universal coverage and I hope we move forward. I doubt that I will live long enough to see it happen.
I’m a military brat. my dad fought in WWII, Korea, and ‘Nam.
During my entire childhood I got single-payer, taxpayer-financed health care, including eye-care and dental care and all the rest. We called it the military health system, but if you want to get technicial, it actually fit the textbook definition of socialized medicine. If I got sick, my mom made an appt. We went in, got treated. I needed braces and orthodontal work. No prob, make the appt.
I guess I’m a living testamant that single-payer, universal health care will turn you into a godless communist, ruin your life, and allow tehrists to rule the world. I can’t believe I narrowly esacped those death-panels the US Army had waiting to for people like me amd my mom to get sick.
Now can I get a brane from one of them Morans? Not to mention those cool t-shirts!
The Kaiser’s army was really a threat to freedom? That’s a different view of WWI than my books have given me…
My name is Ron Johnson
I live in Wisconsin
I talk out of my ass way up there
The people I meet
When I walk down the street
Say, “What is your name?” and I say,
My name is Ron Johnson
I live in Wisconsin
(repeat ad infinitum)
@feralboy12 –
This is the song that never ends, yes it goes on and on my friends.
Some people started singing it not knowing what it was, and they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends..
@yogi-one: My dad served in the USAF medical corps and when he quit and dabbled in the civilian system he couldn’t stand it. In the military you did whatever you could to treat your patients and almost everyone put in ridiculous hours of work every week. In private (and public) hospitals the patients will lie dying until someone works out who’s going to pay for their treatment – on top of that, there are many so-called doctors who spend more time on the golf course than in the sick rooms. (To be fair, the military have some crappy hospitals like that too, and not all civilian hospitals are that bad.)
The Kaiser’s army was really a threat to freedom? That’s a different view of WWI than my books have given me…
I suppose not.
Unless one was Beltian, French, etc.
But yes, I too can read Wikipedia as you can (history books indeed!) and there we find “The contemporary British reference to the First World War as “the Kaiser’s War” in the same way that the Second was “Hitler’s War” is not wholly accurate in its suggestion that Wilhelm was deliberately responsible for unleashing the conflict. ”
To which I say, to quote a general from a later war; NUTS! If you are going to be a despot in charge of a country, and that country tries to take over the world and all that shit, you are a threat to freedom.
And, just so we are clear, the American Civil War was fought to end slavery and the holocaust really did happen.
And no, I’m not going to reveal the location of the secret country Beltia. Never!
My family has fought in every war this country fought, outside of Iraq. I too was a military brat who grew up on ‘socialized’ military medicine. As a career nurse, I am appalled at some of the things I treat, that came about because of the lack of medical coverage. Lack of socialized medicine in our country is a penny wise, pound folish solution.
I used to be proud of being educated in Wisconsin because it was such a sensible state politically – not no more! (Feingold excepted, of course).
As an unemployed person (thank you Wall Street meltdown) who’s about to lose COBRA, which was expensive enough, and trying to find private health insurance I can afford, all I can say it that asshole ought to give up his very expensive govenment-sponsored policy and join the rest of us underinsured (I live in MA, so at least I have access to the next best thing to Obamacare now).
FYI: Beltians live in Beltium. Not Beltia.