When I started this blog, I promised myself that I would stay away from politics. It is supposed to be a light-hearted blog with a few instances of seriousness from everyday life. I come to the blog world to escape from the other world, and I believe a lot of other readers to that as well. Except for a few attempts at humor at the expense of government officials, I have kept that promise to myself.
However, the Supreme Court’s decision on health care has led a lot of Internet people to provide their thoughts and opinions concerning the law and the state of politics in the United States. I have read a quite a bit; agreed with some; and, disagreed with others. Finally, I decided to break the promise I made to myself and espouse my opinions on the subject at hand.
To prevent myself from going on a tangent, I will simply number my thoughts.
1. A lot of people bemoan the divisiveness of politics these days and wonder where we lost our civility. I am not sure we ever had it. Vice-president Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Senator Charles Sumner was almost beaten to death in the Senate chamber. Oh, and there was the time where the country thought it was a good idea to split and fight a war against itself. Compared to that, I think the screams of talking heads are relatively mild.
2. I theorize that today’s divisiveness began when Hillary Clinton got on television and stated that her husband’s affair with an intern was a “vast right-wing conspiracy”. I agree that he should have never been impeached, but no Republican forced him to unzip his pants for Monica Lewinski.
With that as a backdrop, George W. Bush won the 2000 election, and those on the left could not get over it. He stole it, and it was a travesty of America’s election system. Well, he wasn’t the first person elected to the presidency without winning the popular vote. On top of that, Al Gore lost the election more than Bush won it. Everyone focuses on Florida but forgets that Gore could not win his “home” state. He forgot where he came from, but those of us in Tennessee did not forget. If he had not taken Tennesseans for granted, then Florida would not have mattered. Besides, if I was running for president and my brother was the governor of a state, then I would expect to win that state, too.
3. This brings me to the hatred of our presidents. I know a lot of people who hate- HATE I say – George W. Bush. I also know people who hate -HATE I say- Barack Obama. Depending on who you talk to, each of them is, at most, the Devil himself or, at least, the worst president in history. Here is a fact, all – I say ALL – presidents do good things AND bad things. Nobody is perfect, and nobody can make everyone happy.
I don’t believe a president can be judged accurately until a generation has passed since their time in office. There is simply too much emotion involved for an unbiased -wait, that’s impossible in history too – a close to unbiased appraisal. In the old days, people hated Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and probably even George Washington.
Personally, I believe a person who is willing to take on the stress of that job deserves more than our vitriol. It doesn’t matter if we think they are a dumb frat boy who can’t speak English or a foreign-born Muslim who is a communist.
4. I do not like the health care law for several reasons. First, I believe it places more burden on small businesses during economic times when we should be lifting burdens to help them succeed. We need jobs before anything, and they create jobs.
Second, I believe that the federal government should stay out of our day-to-day lives as much as possible. This country was built on independence, not dependence. This means that they should stay out of our pockets with big taxes and realize that it is our money and not theirs. In fact, a flat 10% tax should work fine. It also means that they should stay out of the bedrooms of consenting adults and out of the decisions of pregnant women.
Telling us that we have to buy something is, in my opinion, interfering with our personal decisions. People say that it is good because everyone needs health insurance, but the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Telling us we have to buy a product is a slippery slope. What happens next? Will we have to buy an electric car from GM? Will a prohibition be placed on unhealthy activities such as smoking, drinking alcohol and eating fast food? You may think this is crazy, but we had prohibition once before. And, it was a disaster.
Simply, I do not like the health care law because the government should not be able to tell us what to do. It sets bad precedent.
I guess that’s all I have to say. I thought about going through all of the presidents and writing about the things they did while in office. That would take forever though. One day during a meeting, I got bored and listed the presidents. I then marked my opinion of them by putting a + by the ones I thought did a good job and a – by the ones I thought did a bad job. Maybe, I will put that list on the blog one day.
SBI: A Thinning Crowd 