It is All Right to be Mad
April 12th, 2010 by Yank Elliott | No Comments | Filed in PoliticsThis opinion expresses the way I feel about the current state of affairs in the United States. In my view things are very bad and may be getting worse. For the first time in 75 years, I am afraid of what the Washington government might do to physically harm me and my family. There is no longer anyone I trust up there; according to recent polls, most Americans feel as I do. Col. Smart describes the situation accurately, and, yes, I’m mad as Hell! So should you be.
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The current attempt of the President and congressional leadership to portray critics of the recently passed “Healthcare reform bill” as racists, hate mongers and radical kooks prompted me to write the opinion piece below.
It is All Right to be Mad
Whether you think the new so called “health care reform” bill is a good thing or if you are like me and think the new legislation is bad for America, either way you should be mad and it is all right to mad.
Set aside for the moment the bill itself, the process that got it passed, and the fact that no matter whether the bill is good or bad, we can’t afford it, let ‘s look at what President Obama and the Democratic leadership in the congress with the help of the main stream media are trying to do to quell criticism of the legislation.
One thing you have to hand to the current administration and congressional leadership is that they understand that a large segment of the American population is gullible and prone to political correctness. They have launched a full scale campaign to label anyone who criticizes the legislation as a hate monger, racist, or a vicious right wing radical knowing full well that the politically correct crowd would rather die than to be labeled as any of these. They know what they are saying is not true, but the truth has not been a characteristic of these people or this administration. They think they can scare the image obsessed moderates and minorities who might question or criticize the legislation into withdrawing into their day to day lives and forget about what they have done. This is the last thing you should do. How many of these people have already forgotten 9/11?
On top of this, the President is on the trail making fun of critics because in less than 7 days after passage the negative aspects have not already kicked in. It is immature and disingenuous because he knows that except for some of the taxes many of the main provisions of the bill don’t become effective until after the next Presidential election. It is also an insult to any American with an average degree of intelligence.
The Democrats in congress are making a big deal out of supposed threats and poor conduct on the part of a hand full of critics as if this is the first time they have ever experienced such behavior. The behavior of “Tea Party” people has been exceptionally good compared to the behavior of Democratic activists during the Bush Administration. The “Obamacare” critics don’t even come close to the behavior of the “Bush Haters”. For the most part they are ordinary American citizens who are simply fed up with the government jamming policies they don’t like down our throats.
As an American, if this behavior doesn’t make you mad, then you are brain dead. If you are mad, you have every right to be mad and you shouldn’t let the political leadership in Washington make you feel guilty about being mad. It is a normal human instinct to be mad when you are being lied to and abused and made fun of by your government.
If you are not mad about the post passage behavior of the president and the Democratic leadership then you should be angry about the process that led to passage of the bill. Anyone with even a moderate knowledge of history knows that politics has always been a dirty game and that there have always been backroom deals made in the process that usually never see the light of day. In the case of the “healthcare reform bill” I have never seen so much arrogance and total disregard for the will of the American people as that displayed by the Democrats and the Obama Administration. They had absolutely no shame in their claims and no limit to how low they would stoop to get this legislation passed. The President himself stated publically that he didn’t care about the process as long as the bill passed. In other words “The end justifies the means”. Where have you heard that before?
They were not even honorable with their own party members. They bought the votes of some members by loading the bill with goodies for specific States or groups, but after the vote was taken to move the bill along their devious route, they then turned around and stripped many of those benefits from the bill. So the poor fools who were willing to sell their vote in the first place were stabbed in the back by their own party.
I will bet that even the people who would be considered well informed in the political process didn’t know that all the dirty sneaky procedures that were used to pass this bill existed. I certainly didn’t. I had never heard of deeming a bill passed. It was almost as if they were making up the rules as they went along and at times were doing things that could land the ordinary citizen in jail.
This legislation was supposed to be about healthcare. But what it is really about is control. Just in the last week a Democratic congressman even publically said so. He said that this bill will help us control the people.
It is all right to be mad. You should be mad, their process and conduct were revolting.
If all this doesn’t make you mad then what about the cost of this monstrosity? Anyone who really believes that this bill is going to reduce healthcare costs or reduce the Government deficit is an idiot. The cost of Medicare is over nine times what congress estimated when it was passed. Similar cost overruns are normal in just about all government programs. In the early days of computers there was a phrase used to evaluate computer output. That is “garbage in, garbage out”. If the data you input is garbage then the results you get from the computer is going to be garbage. This pretty much describes the congressional budget office (CBO) process. When the sponsors of a bill send a bunch of idiotic conditions which everyone knows will never happen to the CBO then whatever evaluation the CBO comes up with means absolutely nothing. To anyone with common sense the CBO process is a farce.
If you consider that in 2009, 43 cents of every dollar the federal government spent was borrowed, then it is insane for the government to launch any new spending program and particularly one with so much potential for runaway costs in the future. The congress and administration don’t seem to understand that our country is very close to, if not already, bankrupt. What is it that they don’t understand about “we don’t have any money?”
It is all right to be mad. Their total disregard for fiscal responsibility should make you furious.
I will not even attempt to address the bill itself. There are more than enough issues surrounding this legislation to make any intelligent person almost blow their stack. You should be mad, it is all right to be mad, and don’t let these people scare and label you as a racist, bigot, or radical kook.
It is all right to be mad.
Eric E. Smart, Atlanta, GA
Tags: 9/11, american, bankrupt, congress, control, democratic, government, healthcare, obama, obamacare, tea party, washington











