Wherein I ask a simple question of my representative, Speaker of the House, John Boehner:

I get that the GOP hates the ACA. One cannot fail to grasp this fact because they’ve actually voted for its repeal 40 times, in spite of the knowledge the vote was a meaningless waste of money. But my question was: “why don’t you guys have a replacement for the ACA? Where’s your better, cheaper, stronger healthcare plan?” Because as it stands, it looks like you just want to hurt people. It looks like you want people to die because an insurance company refused to pay to treat a pre-existing condition. People are forced to change jobs more frequently these days and that often means signing up with a new health care provider….which puts pre-existing coverage in jeopardy. It looks like you want people to suffer because they didn’t make enough money to buy quality coverage. Now, if I am wrong, please tell me how stamping your feet and saying “NO” 40 times has made anything any better. Please.

I am no fan of the ACA….it didn’t need to be as complex and it seems like a government-funded joyride for the insurance companies at everyone else’s expense, and anytime the IRS, who already admits it doesn’t fully understand most of the tax code is brought in as an enforcement tool you will find me NOT a fan. But you House Majority guys have had nearly 8 years to bring something to the table, and you squandered it obsessing about gay marriage and abortion. Gay people are something like 2% of the population, and about 2% of women have ever considered an abortion, but 100% of people NEED HEALTHCARE…..but you guys just refuse to see it. You claim allowing abortion is immoral while turning your backs on those already here who are suffering horribly from a lack of healthcare. You claim gay marriage is immoral while ignoring those in your midst who have abused the “holy” state of matrimony….

What say you, Sir?

RACE TO THE DARK AGES!

What issues are Ohio GOP Legislators ardently discussing these days?

They want to keep any sex talk other than “don’t have sex” out of the classroom. You know, because that sort of thing works SO well with other teen issues such as alcohol and tobacco!

Seriously, parents should be in control of these kinds of discussions in the home, but what of those students who don’t get ANY instruction other than whatever they find online? Too bad?

I also want these types of legislators to explain to me why states that teach abstinence-only, or have no comprehensive sex-education requirement tend to have the highest teen pregnancy rates, as well as higher poverty and higher numbers on welfare. States that teach comprehensively, like New Hampshire, have a tendency toward lower rates in all three categories. It is correlation or causation? I don’t know, rather, the lawmakers should before they craft legislation.

But I suppose when some of these people say they want to take America back, they really mean back to when superstition and fear ruled human thought and action.

With the recent deaths of several children involved in “accidental” shootings,  I wondered, in the wake of the hysteria about 4 people killed in Benghazi that knew they were doing dangerous work,  how many children per year are killed by guns….

The answer is, in the under 5 year old category, between 75 and 100 depending on year surveyed. I don’t recall Fox leading with this for weeks on end. Are we to conclude these children are unwitting and innocent sacrifices on the altar of our Second Amendment freedoms?

We hear the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre stridently pointing out the rights of gun ownership, but I’m not sure what he means when he says he supports “responsible” gun ownership. Most people think they are responsible….the trained deputy who left his gun “for just a second” – long enough for a 4 year old to pick it up and shoot his wife dead – would probably call himself responsible, but until the adults in such situations face serious penalties for such actions, then kids will continue to be the victims of those who are supposed to protecting them. This little boy will grow up knowing he killed someone. What a horrible thing, brought to him by the easy availability of a gun provided by a “responsible” adult.

My position here is not anti-gun. It’s pro-accountability. How differently might adult gun owners behave if a prison term awaited them should their improperly secured firearm fall into the hands of a child and injury or death occurred? As it stands now, charges against the responsible adult seldom occur. But in a recent case, a 4 year old child was able to simply walk into his home, pick up a loaded .22 rifle, walk outside, and shoot his playmate in the head, killing the child. That shouldn’t be able to happen in the home of a responsible gun owner, and I’d like to know how the NRA plans to deal with that within their “more guns = more safety” push…

Now, if one concludes that the gun owners in these situations are not, in fact, responsible, then they need to at least be held accountable, and it is a little disconcerting that the NRA has, through friendly legislators, fought regulations that would hold gun owners accountable for failing to reasonably secure their firearms.

Securing guns is the responsibility of the owner, who should then be responsible for the consequences of failing to properly secure them.

Dear Fox pundits:

I want to help explain something to you all: First, grab a pay stub. See those amounts for Medicare and FICA? Those are deductions that are taken from you. It’s YOUR money. You should expect to get that back in your retirement. You are “entitled” to it. That does not, in spite of your own protests to the contrary, make you a socialist.

Do you pay insurance premiums? Then you are entitled to coverage. Receiving coverage you already paid for does not make you a freeloader, even though insurance socializes the risk among a number of people.

Do you have a driver’s license? Then you are entitled to drive. Driving on roads does not make you a socialist, even though the roads were built by socializing the burden of building the roads.

Do your children ride a bus to school? Did you have to pay extra for this, or were the costs socialized by school tax levies? It’s your money, remember? So riding the bus does not mean your children are freeloading socialists.

Civilizations are, to a large extent, built on the socialization of certain elements. Unless you want to maintain your own police, fire, defense, roads and bridges etc, you benefit from a form of socialization. You’ve paid with your tax dollars for the above services…..you are ENTITLED to them.

Now, does that help you understand?

That said, how is a corporation that avoids paying taxes on large profits, but still makes use of the public infrastructure for their profits, but aren’t contributing to its maintenance NOT considered freeloaders? How about the ones that pay such low wages that employees are referred to federal and state programs funded by taxpayers in order to make ends meet? How is that not considered outright theft?

Food for thought!

This letter from a 95 year old veteran popped up in my Facebook feed today. I have linked to Snopes for the sake of confirming the veracity of the letter. The version I saw today was hosted by a site that clearly doesn’t care for President Obama, and wants to pin all our troubles on him.

It got me thinking….so even though the author passed away more than a year ago, here is my response to this venerable man:

I understand you are angry, and being a sailor, you are accustomed to the chain of command, as on a ship, but it isn’t quite that simple in the administration of a country.

But first, I want to address this:

You took the President to task for stating that we are not a Christian nation, and that America is arrogant. Regardless of your personal feelings, he is essentially correct.

We have never, ever been a “Christian Nation”. There is no reference whatsoever in the Constitution or Bill of Rights, nor Declaration of Independence to the Christian God. The original Pledge of Allegiance did not contain the words “one nation under God”….the phrase was added in the 1950’s. So while you have been free to worship as you choose, this country has no “official religion” like the country from which our Founding Fathers sought their independence. In fact, they spoke numerous times about the need to maintain a secular government run by people of good conscience of all faiths.

And America has become arrogant. We expect the rest of the world to be our wage slaves, working in conditions we would personally never tolerate so we can have homes full of cheap, disposable, unrepairable things. We are the largest arms dealer in the world, having cornered over 3/4 of the world market to the tune of nearly $100 billion a year. Rather than use some of that to pay down our debt, we pay ludicrous amounts to the manufacturers. The CEO of Lockheed is paid $60,000 per day. Many of our corporations have become so powerful and greedy that they have lost their humanity. Our banks are so powerful that they can make mistakes that cripple an economy for years, yet no one is held accountable. Those are the unrepentant faces of arrogance.

Lastly, please understand that the President makes no law. Our laws are the product of our Legislative Branch, and one need not spend all day watching C-Span to see that this branch has, with notably few exceptions, descended into a bunch of self-interested, childish boors that have utterly failed to work together for the betterment of the people they were sworn to represent.

This is where your anger should be directed. The President can do only so much since he’s only 1/3 of the power. The career politicians of the Congress and Senate have been corrupted by the indefatigable interests of corporate gain at the cost of the people. This is the REAL problem. A ship at sea has but one captain, and all the people under their command are accountable to him or her. Their orders are followed, quickly and without question or consequences ensue. This country is not a ship, and the President does not function as a captain. The problems we experience today are not the product of one man, but rather the 535 members of the House and Senate, many of whom  have spent decades at the bountiful troughs of the corporate and special interest lobbyists and have grown fat from it.

With respect,

Doug Hamilton

Ronald Reagan.

The NRA.

The GOP.

What do these three entities have in common? Given the near-sainthood status posthumously afforded Reagan as possessing the core values of a true American leader, and the NRA’s strident pitch for guns to be more visible in society, coupled with the GOP’s clear attitude that only it knows anything about how to run a country, surprisingly little.

Let’s take a moment and touch upon only two of today’s hot-button topics: gun control and immigration. In the mind of many, were Reagan still on the scene, surely he would act decisively and in step with the GOP, whose members talk a lot about decisive action against illegal immigration! Surely he, as a GOP member, and as someone of whom the NRA was exceptionally fond, would champion the rights of gun owners!

The facts, however, tell a much different story. Reagan was the first US President to grant amnesty-with the near full support of the GOP (!) to several million illegals in 1986. That’s right. It wasn’t some left-wing radical liberal activist President, it was Reagan and the GOP.

On the gun front, even I was surprised to find that in 1983, Reagan, as Governor of California, signed into law the Mulford Act which made it illegal for citizens to carry loaded firearms. Even more surprising? The NRA fully supported it. This came at a time when police protection was not something that minorities could count on, and one of the first groups to protest this law was, in fact, the Black Panthers, who feared the law would remove their ability to defend themselves from the authorities (government). It is thought by some, that the law was aimed specifically at that group, but it effected all gun owners.

Reagan also supported the assault weapons ban of 1994.  But to even put forth the idea now, Obama is vilified by Fox News, the GOP and the NRA.

We hear gun advocates claim they will “start shooting people” if Obama moves forward with any gun control action. We hear that guns are essential to safety. We hear that the NRA wants armed teachers……

But to me……

We have a culture problem, not a gun problem. It is impossible to turn on a TV at prime time and not witness depictions of gun use/abuse. I personally find graphic depictions of murder to be far more deserving of the label “obscene” than the appearance of a naked human body. Remember when Janet Jackson’s partially covered nipple appeared on TV for a few seconds and the moral outrage that followed? I’d much rather see that outrage directed at depictions of guns being used against humans. Reservoir Dogs, with its long lurid scenes of a man writhing in a pool of his own blood, and a cop tortured, having his ear sliced off,  threatened with being set aflame after being doused with gasoline, and then shot three times at point-blank range complete with blood spatters, would get an NC-17 in my world, but a loving, respectfully portrayed act of cunnilingus would not. No human has ever lost their life from a little bit of well-considered and conscientiously practiced sexual attention….in fact we all crave it. It’s built right in to our DNA.

Food for thought…..

IF EVERYONE WAS ARMED, WE’D BE SAFER!

“Authorities in Georgia are searching for suspects in the shooting death of a gun enthusiast and weapons expert who managed a popular YouTube channel showcasing high-powered guns and explosives. 

Keith Ratliff, 32, who helped operate FPSRussia firearms channel on YouTube, was found dead inside his Carnesville, Ga., office on Jan. 3 from a single gunshot wound to the head.”

I have stated many times that if someone really wants to kill you, and you don’t know they are coming for you, it doesn’t matter how well armed you are. They will succeed.

His own statement made after the Aurora shooting points to the “savior complex” exhibited by more than a few gun owners:

“I went to the movies with my pistol in my pocket the whole time I was praying that somebody would try to pull a Batman!”

The gun lobby and its proponents can lobby themselves blue on the idea that regulating guns won’t solve gun crime, and they’d be mostly right. But it’s also abundantly clear that more guns don’t prevent killing. If they did, this man would still be alive. If fact, he didn’t even get a single shot off in self defense.

Food for thought….!

I am posting a Fox News link, lest I be accused of using a source with a liberal bias.

I had a little devious fun with a right leaning friend today who is a Reagan worshiper of sorts. He was complaining about illegal immigrants, so I asked if he knew which US President first granted amnesty to illegals. He said he didn’t know, but it that it had to have been a Democrat because “no conservative President would ever allow such a thing!” Should have seen the look on his face when I said it was Reagan. “Bullshit!” “You’re just messing with me!”  “Nope”, I said. “Reagan signed the Simpson-Mazzoli Act of 1986 into law which granted amnesty to millions of illegals.” He looked as though he might need to be resuscitated.

But I hear this a lot from Republican friends. “oh, if only Reagan was around”……

What they seem to fail to apprehend is that Reagan was first and foremost a pragmatist. And thanks in no small part to the efforts of the Tea Party, the GOP doesn’t “do” pragmatism anymore.