Two days ago that might have seemed like an absurd question to most Americans despite the criticisms that Arizona has received, from its revoking the Martin Luther King Day holiday over a decade ago despite the threat of Arizona being denied the Super Bowl game to the Arizona immigration law in 2010, which several other states are trying to emulate and which inspired an Arizona member of the House of Representatives to call for a business boycott of his own state. I had thought that Arizona was unfairly being picked on, maybe because it seemed so inept at defending itself.
Until two days ago when she was shot in the head in an assassination attempt in a Tuscon shopping center I had never heard of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona's 8th congressional district, never seen her on C-Span, never heard her speak on one of the many political talk shows. Apparently the assassin picked on one of the quiet ones.
Arizona and Arizonans are no more or less evil than the rest of us Americans. I live in a border state: New York. One of the differences between these two border states is the countries that they border. Canada to the north is like the United States without the violence: advanced and prosperous. Mexico to the south is a third world country, which all but encourages its most disadvantaged citizens to cross the border into the United States to improve their quality of life even a little bit.
I have written in this blog about "immigration":
Immigration: the solution
Immigration: suppose you change country to company?
Maybe some Arizonans would be surprised to read how much they agree with some of my positions.
The crazy person who shot the Congresswoman and about twenty innocent bystanders could have done that anywhere in the United States. It seemed that most people worth quoting on the day of the shooting responded responsibly, although the usual partisan reactions have already started.
Regarding the harsh treatment that Arizona received because of the shooting a dear friend wrote to me: "if my mother were mentally unbalanced, she might have done the shooting herself. She lives in Arizona, she owns several guns and she hates Democrats, Liberals, the Sierra Club, Obama, and Mexicans". Her mother is a kind and gentle person and I cannot imagine that she would behave violently no matter how angry.
This Arizona phenomenon seems more a reflection of what we have become as Americans. We overvalue the constitution and its authors, implying qualities of sacred scripture and prophets. With that perspective almost anything can be justified. There is enormous pressure and frustration because our views do not seem to be respected much less embraced. Our rhetoric is not merely intense, it's mean and intended to be so.
Mean words are better than mean actions. Sticks and stones can break our bones but words can never hurt us. But we've resorted to sticks and stones too often, not nearly as often as in other parts of the world but far too often for the most affluent and most free place on the planet. That combination of affluence and freedom is what makes the United States the best place to live. That's why people, primarily from Mexico, driven by their own callous government violate U.S. laws to enter and remain here.
We will never resolve the "immigration" problem. We are at once too greedy for cheap labor and too compassionate toward the weak against the powerful to ever adopt a policy that would come close to satisfying American citizens on either side of the issue. We need to live with it as we do with a relative we can't stand but can't turn away.
We also need to get a grip on ourselves and our love of guns. Several congressman have reacted to the shooting of their colleague by announcing that they will carry the hand guns for which they have permits. Growing up in New York and watching cowboy TV shows and movies I loved guns even though I never had a real one. I wish I could find my toy hand guns, some of which were very realistic. As a kid I would practice the quick draw and twirling out of and into my holster. I can understand the special bond with their guns and gun culture of those who grew up in rural America and learned to shoot when they were young. They are not evil.
What is evil is our not resolving the inherent conflict between our gun heritage and our modern society, which allowed a nut to arm himself and commit an unspeakable act. We need to speak about that as calmly as we can. That's the least we can do. It won't prevent an assassination attempt but might restrict it to a knife attack on the intended target and save all those innocent bystanders.
Will things improve? No. I say that not because I am pessimistic or cynical but because I am realistic. We've become cowards, unable and unwilling to: "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" - JFK inaugural address, January 20, 1961. Since his assassination the sword has remained in the stone and it seems increasingly unlikely that anyone will have the stature and integrity to remove it.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Obamacare
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and Obama's plans for health care reform in general, is often nicknamed "Obamacare".[138] The term was usually used pejoratively, but some supporters of the act suggested after being passed that it be embraced and used positively, a la the term Reaganomics to refer to President Ronald Reagan's economic policies of the 1980s
http://speaker.gov/Bio/
John Boehner (bay-ner) serves as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Elected to represent the Eighth Congressional District of Ohio for an 11th term in November 2010, John is a proven leader in the drive for a smaller, less costly, and more accountable federal government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satiric_misspelling#.E2.80.9CK.E2.80.9D_replacing_.E2.80.9CC.E2.80.9D
In the 1960s and early 1970s in the United States, leftists, particularly the Yippies, sometimes used "Amerika" rather than "America" in referring to the United States.[1] It is still used as a political statement today.[2] It is likely that this was originally an allusion to the German spelling of America, and intended to be suggestive of Nazism, a hypothesis that the Oxford English Dictionary supports.
__________________________________________
Former back bench flame thrower and later smart aleck speaker Newt Gingrich (1995-1999) popularized the use of democrat instead of Democratic as in the democrat congressman. It was obviously intended as an insult and display of disdain, similar to the misspelling of Amerika. The Democratic polititians either were too dense to realize this or, more likely, too wimpy to do anything about it. Personally, I would have retaliated with the grammatically less sound pejorative republic congressman but that's just me.
Following suit, the much less smart Boehner is the leading user of the term Obamacare, I think unwisely. Next week, his second as speaker, Boehner will lead a pointless exercise in the House to repeal Obamacare. The Senate will not vote for it and the President would veto it even if both houses of congress passed it.
So why do it? Boehner wants to undermine the President and force the "democrat" members of the House to take a stand on it, something which they inexplicably refused to do before they were all elected in November 2010.
Boehner and the other republic members of the House are making a huge mistake. Most Americans are just beginning to feel the impact of the Obamacare legislation and it will be either a non-issue or an improvement. What else could it be? For those of us on planet earth in the good old USA how could anything be much worse than the private health insurance bureaucracy, which has been in effect in recent years?
___________________________
http://matinale.blogspot.com/2010/03/personal-experience-with-health-care.html
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
A personal experience with health care insurance.
___________________________
Republic politicians bamboozled American voters once again into voting against their best interests. Democratic politicians were too wimpy and ineffectual to counter this. Shame on them both.
In next week's debate Democratic members of the House may feel unburdened by election pressures and actually attack the increasingly silly positions of their republic colleagues.
Republic politicians are foolishly forcing people to closely associate the President with the improvements in health insurance and care that are likely to occur before he faces re-election in November 2012 and before any real negative impact occurs.
Perhaps even more stupid is the term itself: Obamacare. Parse it. Obama care. Obama cares. When an American voter feels good about medical care in the next two years with whom will that individual personally associate that? Obama, who cares. About them.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and Obama's plans for health care reform in general, is often nicknamed "Obamacare".[138] The term was usually used pejoratively, but some supporters of the act suggested after being passed that it be embraced and used positively, a la the term Reaganomics to refer to President Ronald Reagan's economic policies of the 1980s
http://speaker.gov/Bio/
John Boehner (bay-ner) serves as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Elected to represent the Eighth Congressional District of Ohio for an 11th term in November 2010, John is a proven leader in the drive for a smaller, less costly, and more accountable federal government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satiric_misspelling#.E2.80.9CK.E2.80.9D_replacing_.E2.80.9CC.E2.80.9D
In the 1960s and early 1970s in the United States, leftists, particularly the Yippies, sometimes used "Amerika" rather than "America" in referring to the United States.[1] It is still used as a political statement today.[2] It is likely that this was originally an allusion to the German spelling of America, and intended to be suggestive of Nazism, a hypothesis that the Oxford English Dictionary supports.
__________________________________________
Former back bench flame thrower and later smart aleck speaker Newt Gingrich (1995-1999) popularized the use of democrat instead of Democratic as in the democrat congressman. It was obviously intended as an insult and display of disdain, similar to the misspelling of Amerika. The Democratic polititians either were too dense to realize this or, more likely, too wimpy to do anything about it. Personally, I would have retaliated with the grammatically less sound pejorative republic congressman but that's just me.
Following suit, the much less smart Boehner is the leading user of the term Obamacare, I think unwisely. Next week, his second as speaker, Boehner will lead a pointless exercise in the House to repeal Obamacare. The Senate will not vote for it and the President would veto it even if both houses of congress passed it.
So why do it? Boehner wants to undermine the President and force the "democrat" members of the House to take a stand on it, something which they inexplicably refused to do before they were all elected in November 2010.
Boehner and the other republic members of the House are making a huge mistake. Most Americans are just beginning to feel the impact of the Obamacare legislation and it will be either a non-issue or an improvement. What else could it be? For those of us on planet earth in the good old USA how could anything be much worse than the private health insurance bureaucracy, which has been in effect in recent years?
___________________________
http://matinale.blogspot.com/2010/03/personal-experience-with-health-care.html
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
A personal experience with health care insurance.
___________________________
Republic politicians bamboozled American voters once again into voting against their best interests. Democratic politicians were too wimpy and ineffectual to counter this. Shame on them both.
In next week's debate Democratic members of the House may feel unburdened by election pressures and actually attack the increasingly silly positions of their republic colleagues.
Republic politicians are foolishly forcing people to closely associate the President with the improvements in health insurance and care that are likely to occur before he faces re-election in November 2012 and before any real negative impact occurs.
Perhaps even more stupid is the term itself: Obamacare. Parse it. Obama care. Obama cares. When an American voter feels good about medical care in the next two years with whom will that individual personally associate that? Obama, who cares. About them.
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