Daily Agitator
I am always amazed at the generosity of the American people……and they just cannot let a disaster go by without taking pity on the afflicted and trying to help when help seems to be in short supply……
When the bitch of a storm, Katrina, hit in my area….the American people to quick to come to the aid of the people of the Gulf Coast, with donations and volunteering and while the government was sitting around scratching their crotch, the American people we helping the Coastians get their lives back…..Americans are very compassionate and generous…..two qualities that have made this country great…..
The recent earthquake that destroyed Haiti, the American people once again showed their compassion and helped out whewre ever it was needed, most notably raising millions of dollars that would be spent in Haiti helping the people who have lost everything….they are very generous….once again…..
And when the health reform debate was raging they donated over a million dollars to fund a series of free health clinics across the US…..helping people that could not afford health insurance to find out about their personal health…..several people’s lives were saved because of this effort….once again the generosity of the American people knows no bounds….
And now I come to the meat of this agitation……the American people have done all that was asked of them and then some to help people in need around the world….and they have been unbelievably generous……but with all that said I would like to know why health reform is a dirty word?
We are talking about the lives of the American people and somehow the compassion was been lost on them….what did the uninsured people do to deserve this treatment by their countrymen? Why is the people that are not so close to their hearts deserve better treatment than the people next door?
Please someone, anyone explain this to me….None of my questions are rhetorical…..I am listening!
Okay, you want an explanation and I think I have one – not because I know thousands, or even hundreds, of Americans personally, but because I’m sure that many Americans feel as I do about his sort of thing. I apologise right now, because this will take a while – however…
The GOP is at least partly responsible because they have signally failed to explain this to their people and have in fact fanned the fires in order to try to make political capital out of the situation, when decent people would not have done this!
However, that said, these political megalamaniacs we have in power are only playing on what I see as the entirely justified fears of many ordinary Americans (and UK citizens too). I personally think that healthcare (at least up to a reasonable level), is a GOOD idea for ALL people to have and I think it should be government FUNDED, though not necessarily government run! That means that any citizen who wants and needs good, honest medical care can have it FREE at the point of delivery – if they want all singing, all dancing care with TV, champagne, caviar and hookers in every room, then they can still pay for it privately, if they can and wish to afford it. But everyone contributes to the state system according to what they can afford and they are entitled to equal treatment from it in return.
Nevertheless, except for very SHORT TERM and temporary assistance to tide people over and except for those who are disabled or otherwise UNABLE to work, then I believe that all other welfare is counterproductive and ultimately not only weakens the middle classes (who always pay most towards it), but morally and socially weakens the country as a whole too and furthermore creates and encourages huge infringements of civil liberties in society.
I am sure that welfare has made little or NO difference to the number of poor in the country, in fact I suspect it has probably made a bad situation worse by pushing many into an artificially created “poverty trap”. I also doubt that it has stopped even one person from starving to death who would otherwise have done so if welfare were not available.
On top of that, the way in which welfare is run (and probably HAS to be run – bureaucratically) has battered and removed many people’s sense of personal responsibility for both themselves and others and has in many ways thoroughly demoralised our countries.
I believe it is (and in this ONE area alone I believe they are mistaken), the public’s all too understandable readiness to erroneously (in my opinion) equate State funded healthcare with other welfare “hand-outs” and all the expensive and ineffectual bullshit that goes with it, that is responsible for the average citizen’s antipathy to that state funded healthcare.
There is a WORLD of difference between any individual freely giving money and practical assistance to someone, or group (or even some nation) that is clearly in need, and having government steal your money to supposedly distribute it to the people THEY deem as being needy and in a complicated and inefficient manner of THEIR choosing!
To put it in a nutshell, I suppose the simple version is that, given the CHOICE, most people are good and generous at heart. Given NO CHOICE, they get pissed by the wealthy assholes in power stitching them up yet again – by force!
Damn! An excellent comment…..so they would gladly give to help a complete stranger, more than helping a guy who lives in their town…I understand the concept of hating poor people who get help, but what about the man with Parkinson’s that was chastised by the Tea Partiers for supporting health care…they threw money at him and yelled that there was NO help here for free loaders….while natural disasters are horrible, so is the people who suffer from ailments and such in this country…..these are my points of confusion….well a couple of them…..
Take the free health clinic thing that MSNBC was pushing….in one week they raises over a million dollars for health health care clinics…..but ta couple pundits bitch about the cost of health care…..Americans were willing to help people in need on a limited basis…..but not in the long haul…….
Well, I didn’t quite mean a stranger rather than someone they know, although that CAN be the result – I was pointing out that disaster aid is TEMPORARY and VOLUNTARY, whereas welfare is FORCED and CONSTANT.
In my view healthcare is caught up with this (in my opinion) entirely valid distrust of government and general welfare.
I actually agree (sort of) with the people who said their should be NO support for freeloaders – but they need to be a whole lot more careful when defining “freeloaders”.
Anyway, you can’t judge a whole nation by a few assholes – unless they are running the country, of course.
That is true….but unfortunately, the assholes get most of the press…..and in doing so get to define the situation, in some cases…..
This is purely a personal take on this…..I would rather my money go to Americans who need it then send to others…..a bit racial, sometimes I feel like a prick, but it does not change the fact that Americans need help and that is why I send the assholes money every month…..
Sorry about that……I get a thorn in butt sometimes…..
But you’re right – charity begins at home. Pobably one of the worst and mostovious things that upsets normal people about this in the opinion of the “givers” is the is the dreadfully wasteful and and unfair way their “gifts” are distributed in a welfare system.
Let me ask you this simple question: given the CHOICE, how many of us would not say of a perhaps significant proportion of those receiving welfare, “They’re assholes. I’m not giving ANYTHING to them! But I WILL give more to another, more deserving, group!”?
In many ways it’s an example of ordinary people’s despair and anger at yet another failing of the blunt and rather stupid instrument that is bureaucracy.
An excellent question….and as it appears in the media…I would say that most would send it to Chile……I know appearances are deceiving but that is the way it looks at times….
Bureaucracy is the devil in this….I will agree…..but then we are back to the first problem….”BUREAUCRATS”!
It ALWAYS comes back to bureaucrats! 😈
I can’t add anything that Quin hadn’t said. 🙂
I know what you mean….he does have a way of stating his points, huh?