In Other News

So, anybody read the paper or watched the news lately?  Because if you haven't, you've been missing out on "Armageddon" and "Waterloo" NOT occurring.  What did happen was the President saw the center piece of his political agenda get passed, and people scared to death by the Republican Party started acting crazy. 

A few 'for instances':
1) Rep. Barney Frank being called a faggot,
2) multiple African American Representatives, including one who sturggled through the Civil Rights movement, being called niggers,
3) bricks thrown through offices of Representatives, &
4) Representatives and their families threatened with violence and death, including the posting of actual addresses (though not all of them accurate) and a protest planned at one Representative's house (his actual home state residence, where his wife and kids live).

Yes, America, this is the country we live in.  The President signed a piece of legislation that covers 30 million more Americans, providing health insurance to people like me who would have difficulty getting it otherwise, and people are acting crazy.  "Death Panels" and "pulling the plug on Grandma" are coming home to roost.

I actually didn't want to spend this post on the passing of the bill, momentous as it is, because so many people are talking about it already.  But, when such violent acts occurr and it seems no one on the Right is actually, sincerely, trying to stop it, I get angry. 

People were called unAmerican when they opposed the Iraq War, but you didn't see us throw bricks through windows or threaten death to House members.  And yet the Right has the nerve to compare Tea Party protesters swarming the Captiol steps, spitting on a Representative and yelling out hateful epithets, to the war protests on the Left.  How naive can you be?

Here is the biggest difference between the Left's protests then and the Right's protests now: Americans died in Iraq because of Bush Administration lies & people were tortured and died due to their deceits, while people would die every day due to Obama Administration inaction on healthcare.  And yet, the Right implicitly condones the actions of its outlayers.  It all just makes me sick. 

After what I've seen of the Republican party this past 15 months, I don't understand how anyone can morally live with themselves and be on the Right.  The Left has worked to stimulate the economy, tried to allow gays to openly serve in the military, signed S-CHIP into law, passed a Fair Pay Act, and genuinely worked to make this country better.  The Right has opposed them at every turn.  The party of No thinks the efforts the Left put forth are too over-reaching, believes the actions go too far, sees the problems of this country as too big to fix with just legislation.  Republicans, if you didn't think you could do the job, why did you bother getting elected?  Government is for the big boys, not the babies.  Go ahead and keep crying in the corner.  Let the adults do the real work of running the country.

I was proud of my President Sunday; I was proud of the Congress and especially Nancy Pelosi for getting the bill passed.  No, I was not happy about the Executive Order, nor was I pleased there wasn't a Public Option or a Medicare Buy-In (my preferred choice, considering I'm currently paying through COBRA about the same amount it would cost me).  But, and this is a huge but, our lives are so much better today than they were last week.  When I have a child(ren?), I will be able to tell them about how, in the past, Mommy was without insurance and she had to pay $1700 to fix one tooth.  Or how Daddy owed a hospital $10,000 because he had an appendicitis.  And I will be able to say how happy I am my child(ren?) will never have to face those difficulities.