Without sinking too far into the void...

Without sinking too far into the Void (the Void being that dark, scary place that is made up of a mix of public opinion, paranoia, and the too-infrequent spark of rational thought), I have been trying to understand the reasons against health care reform and I just... don't.. understand.

I think what confuses me the most is the fear. What are people afraid of, really? Why is there not the same terror over things that actually might kill them, en masse... things like water shortages, food shortages, and a horde of other catastrophic results of the changing climate?

I'm all for dissent, but where was the dissent and outrage when we were about to embark on a war which some of us, even back then, said was ill-conceived? Sure, there were protests, but not this level of outrage and, might I suggest, media support for the opposition. Liberal media bias indeed.

Speaking of terror and fear.. why does it not exist over the future terrorists and America-haters that were created in Iraq, Afghanistan.. and other places surely to come?

No.. the thing we are afraid of most is...

heath care reform and a public option?

Seriously?

I just don't understand it.

The word "socialism" is tossed around with scorn and horror, whilst people happily drive along on their state-funded roads and send their kids to state-funded schools with state-mandated curricula, while their parents and grandparents enjoy the benefits of Social Security and Medicare, while their country is defended by soldiers who, along with their spouses, have their health care provided by taxes... for life.

Help me to understand the cognitive disconnect, please. I would like to know, I really would. I just can't stomach anymore Fux News style spin on this issue.

To illustrate the fear, aside from the obvious "death panels," silliness started by Palin, Bishop Harry Jackson suggests that in a universal health care scenario, he would not have survived his bout with cancer.

What?

It sounds as though he is suggesting that people in countries with government-run health care (England and Canada come to mind) are doomed to die of cancer should they be so unfortunate to become ill with it. Conversely, one could infer that he suggests that no one in this country, with our current health care system, has ever died of cancer.

But we all know, or should at least, that neither is true.

So, please.. I beg you tell me... what are people so afraid of???

New to This Here Blogger.com

Doesn't everyone do these things? These blogs that don't really say much other than, "Hi. I'm new here. Just trying it all out!"

Well.. hi. I'm new here. Just trying it all out!

I come from the Land of Myspace, which is intended to be a teenage social tool rather than a mid-thirty something's blog space. I love myspace , don't misunderstand me. It's a wonderful way for incurable lazies like myself to keep in touch with multiple people all at once. Back when news had to travel by way of paper and stamps, I lost contact with so many people. Not so with myspace. Now, with the simple push of a bulletin button, ten different people from around the world (social butterfly I am not) know instantly what fabulously exciting things I've been up to, like what color underwear I have on, what I ate for breakfast, or the identity of my current crush.

I love it.

But this place... ahhh! A place just for blogging! Where has it been all my life?

As you can see from the picture of me (/points to the top of the page), I am seemingly confused. Aren't most of us? (Except for those who voted for Bush the second time around, who are actually and truly confused. Kidding kidding! Sort of... ) Most of us do not fit into neat little boxes of liberal, conservative, hippie, redneck, pro-this, pro-that, etc. Most of us are a mix of various viewpoints.

The media, and those who control the media, do not wish us to know this. At least, that is the impression that I get. They appear to do everything in their power to prevent us from knowing this: there is a mix of viewpoints which resides within most people, giving the majority of us a common ground from which we can prosper together, even across political, age, gender, and religious divides.

Sure the country is "divided". How could it not be when we are inundated with red states and blue states. Democrat and Republican. Believer and non-believer. But, that is just on the surface. If we could look deeper, we could see we are not so shallow as that.

There are nuts and fanatics, of course. People who attack doctors who perform abortions and women who use abortions like the latest birth control method. Those who use religion as a sign of superiority and a method for social control, and those who "don't believe in god" because they are in rebellion against their parents, society, conformity, or who use atheism as a sign of superiority. There are those who think the solution to the crisis in the middle east is to blow the entire region off the face of the earth, and those who think that soldiers are rapers, pillagers and baby-killers. There are the patrionuts who chant that the US of A is the end-all and be-all of civilization, and the down-with-the-USAtards who can't see any good in this country no matter how hard they try (they don't try very hard).

But most of us, I know, are much more moderate than that. We may disagree on topics of great importance (as well as those of trifling silliness), but compromise is within our grasp.. if we would only try. I really hope we do, and soon. I fear the consequences for us, and the world, should we fail to do so.


(It seems I had more to say than just hi. When I say I have just a little to say, don't believe me; it's almost never the truth.)

:)