WEALTH CARE BILL PASSES

Never mind health care, when we can pass wealth care, which is exactly what has managed to come out of the Senate. Now, not only do we not have a public option, but all Americans are required to buy health insurance and only from private companies. The expansion of medicare only makes things even MORE fabulous for the insurance companies, since they will be passing along their oldest, and more expensive, patients onto the government. Since there is nothing substantial in the bill to curb costs, there is no incentive for insurance companies to lower costs, which in turn will end up costing EVERYONE more money than EVER before, and the deficit will plummet way beyond anything anyone ever anticipated. The insurance companies and republicans will then justify their stance by saying, “See? This is what happened when you tried to reform health care!” But this is NOT what ANYONE voted for nor is this in any way fiscally or morally responsible. This is our current health care system squared.  This country has gone off the deep end. We are the laughing stock of the world. We are no great power. No great innovators, No great humanitarians. We are a joke.  President Obama receives his Nobel Peace Prize just days after announcing efforts to expand the war in Afghanistan. We send millions in medical aid to foreign countries every year, but cannot take care of our own citizens here. We give center stage to people like Sarah Palin, Beck and religious nutjob politicians and actually engage them on a national level, as if they have any validitidy or rationality. I will feel no pity whatsoever when this country self-destructs- only relief at the chance we might be able to start over…

Anti Gay Marriage Fools

The anti-gay marriage arguments can be generally broken down into a handful of categories, but religion seems to be the most vocal and persistent, and the problems with this debate would easily be resolved if there was a true separation of church and state, but until that happens, the self-righteous religious people are going to continue to back up their hypocritical claims with nothing more than the bible as evidence which has absolutely no place in government or legislation. This is a civil rights issue and that it has not been rectified just goes to show what a strong hold the religious continue to have on our society. It is infuriating to me. The Constitution would better read “freedom FROM religion” but that is a whole separate argument..­.

Religion:

If marriage was only a religious distinction, there would be no legal rights, status, or benefits awarded to married couples. It would simply be something recognized by the church- like baptism or communion, and people of any religion in this country can get married so to justify banning gay marriage to “protect the religious sanctimony of the commitment” does not make sense. Why are people so threatened by gay people getting married? Are their own marriages that fragile? I would guess so. Furthermore, marriage in this country doesn’t hold much water in terms of “morals.” The divorce rate is over 50%, people get married 3, 4 or more times- how “sacred” can it really be?

Lifestyle:

Some argue that allowing gay marriage is promoting a “lifestyle” that is unacceptable and wrong. What lifestyle? What does that mean? Gay couples’ lifestyles differ from straight couples’ lifestyles how exactly? I don’t understand what they are even trying to say. There are plenty of straight couples who swing or who have open marriages, but they are not forbidden to marry. I would argue that if you are using a “lifestyle” argument against gay marriage, that should also be applicable to straight couples. And then who becomes the decider on what lifestyles are “appropriate” and which ones are not? It’s ridiculous.

Free-for-all:

Then there are those who use the idiotic argument that if gays are allowed to marry, why not allow people to marry children or horses or multiple people? (sigh) You cannot equate two consenting adults with any of these other pairings. It is ridiculous to do so. Two consenting legal adults- no matter what their religion, race, “lifestyle”, age difference, AND sex should be allowed to marry.

Personally, I would never marry- gay or straight- I don’t understand it at all, but I would never be so arrogant and self-righteous to think I have the authority to tell others what they can or cannot do in terms of marriage- especially as it does not affect me in any way whatsoever. People really need to get over themselves and stop inserting their own religious beliefs into politics- it weakens their argument and proves them to be incapable of embracing intelligent discourse. After all, no one can debate religion.

Hard lesson in reality: Obama is not so great

(My response to the following on Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-brenner/health-care-reform-the-en_b_382596.html )

I admit, I got caught up in the hype. I believed, hoped. And I voted. He’s a great speaker- I’ll give him that. I expected Obama to come in blazing- even Bush didn’t seem to have a problem getting his agenda passed.

I never anticipated the resistance from other Democrats! His lack of leadership on health care has infuriated me. Why he didn’t meet with all the Dems and pointedly say, “Look, here is what we’re going to do with health care. You are going to back it up and vote for it and we are going to pass it and if you have a problem, you suck it up because you were elected to represent the people and the people want health care reform. If you give me a problem, I will make your life very difficult, but if we do this, you will reap the benefits.”

There should not have been this lengthy, drawn-out time for “debate” and town halls and letting the Republicans lie and mislead and sour positive reform. The fact that even if this pathetic excuse for a health care bill passes, it is so watered down and worthless, it can only make things worse, further demonstrates what can happen when you allow the very industry you’re trying to reform, have center stage.

I am changing to Independent and I don’t even know what that fully means, but I do know I cannot align myself with a party of failures any longer.