Here is a piece I wrote in February of '08, in case anyone was wondering why I despise Mr. Scandal-of-the-Moment so.
Ugh.
A few days ago I received a response to the email I sent to my jackassed representative about HR 888:
Thank you for contacting me to express your opposition to affirming our nation's Judeo-Christian heritage. I appreciate hearing from you.
No, seriously - don't dilly-dally around. Just piss me off in the very first sentence with your pathetic attempt at sarcasm. Bag of douche.
As you know, Representative Randy Forbes of Virginia introduced H.Res. 888 on December 18, 2007. I have cosponsored this resolution, which would affirm the significant role that religion and faith have played in the establishment of our country. H.Res. 888 has been referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for further review.
I know what it is, asshat. That's why I wrote you in the first place. And no, it's not about "affirming the significant role that religion and faith have played in the establishment of our country." It's about revising history to insert christian influence where it never before existed, and ignoring the dominance of classical liberalism in creating a representative democratic republic.
I know the tagline of my blog is "Politics and Pop Culture," but in light of recent events, I'm going to shoehorn "and Sports" in momentarily. My two favorite sports teams are Notre Dame in college football and Chelsea F.C. in England's top soccer division, the Barclay's Premier League. For the past couple of years I've been playing around with a theory that borrows the organizational elements of English "football" to solve a longstanding problem in American college football: crowning an undisputed champion.
Win-loss records presently matter in NCAA football, to be sure, but the methods used to basically settle ties when multiple teams are undefeated or have the same record are ultimately subjective. Statisticians have composed detailed formulas for rankings and strength of schedule, but no matter how precise and scientific they seem, they will always leave something to be desired. The best place to determine a champion is on the field of play, and I think I have come up with a system that will do exactly that.
The arrests of several militia members in Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio over the weekend and Monday remind me of an experience I had with a member of a similar group.
In November of 1998, I was working as a loan officer at a bank branch on the north side of Ann Arbor. The bank "offered" everything from unsecured personal loans to car loans to home equity loans. However, the only loans incentivized to loan officers were home equity loans, so we were encouraged to steer all customers to that type of product. Even if you had great credit, if you didn't own your home, we would likely find a way to deny you - typically insufficient net worth. When I asked my superiors why we always tried to get a home as collateral, they invariably responded with what was then considered gospel truth: A home will always, ALWAYS increase in value, 2.5% per year, guaranteed.*
I knew when I started that it wasn't an original subject, but reading back through my posts, I grew very bored. I'm getting a little bored of watching it as well - last night's taffy pull of a show was just ridiculous, starting with Siobhan getting 2 lengthy criticisms from each judge, and ending with a performance from Aaron Kelly that I just couldn't bring myself to consume. Though Lee DeWyze gave a shockingly great performance last night, there's no way he can improve upon it, so I'll just tap out here and boldly assume that Crystal Bowersox is going to win the whole damned thing.
Now, Dancing With the Stars....THERE'S a bloggable show...
In my more conservative days in college, I was routinely annoyed by the attitude of my more liberal classmates toward "corporations." They used the term as a monolithic catch-all of evil. Faceless, soulless "corporations" were encroaching on our freedoms, destroying the environment, and ruining our democracy.
"But not all corporations are 'evil,'" I would say. "Many provide jobs and charitable donations. In fact, I would guess that most of us owe some of our financial well-being, including the ability to afford college, to corporations."
Now as then, I still think that making a blanket statement about "corporations" is a bit wrong-headed. There are good corporations and bad corporations. I do, however, find an even larger fault with the corporate-worship of the right, and the Supreme Court ruling which basically granted personhood to corporations is just nuts.
For the past several years, I've heard the same type of blanket statements being made, only now they are coming from the right, and the word "corporations" has been replaced by "government." The government is doing this, the government is doing that, the government is encroaching on our freedoms, etc. The government is the catch-all for the evil in this country. President Bush seemed to harbor this mistrust, as he railed against the ineptitude of "big government," then showed us precisely how to make government even larger and even more inept. We need to remind the folks who hold this position that we are the government - all of us. It's a representative democratic republic. For all the wrong you think the government is doing, at the end of the day - or term, more accurately - you have the opportunity to change it.
I hate needless bureaucracy as much as the next person, but the truth is that, whether we do so willingly or unaware, we all implicitly endorse a complicated system of economic and social relationships. Unfortunately, maintaining that system takes people and paperwork. I would much rather deal with these "hassles" than have to constantly worry about feeding and protecting my family. Though our government sometimes functions badly, the answer is not to throw the whole thing away, but to calmly and rationally try to fix it.
Yes, I watch American Idol. And yes, I have opinions.
Elimination Recap:
Lacey Brown deserved to go, though there are worse contestants left. I actually think that if someone less boring was writing her songs, she may have a future as an independent artist.
The Judges:
Randy Jackson - He actually had a moment of clarity when he immediately recognized how boring Tim Urban's performance was.
Kara Dioguardi - There were moments when I didn't know what show she was watching. And get the damn out of Simon's face already. (Anybody have Paula's number?)
Simon Cowell - Reclaimed his spot as the voice of reason, particularly in his spot-on criticisms of Lee Dewyze and Casey James.
Ellen Degeneres - I still think that she has interesting things to say, but she dropped the ball big time on Casey James.
I've heard them all at this point. "So many people come from Canada to the US for health care." "My uncle hated going to the VA hospital." "This will 'hurt small business.'" "The 'doctors' don't want it." "We have the best healthcare system in the world."
Enough.
Show me some data, or shut the fuck up already.
Here are some of my anecdotes:
1. I pay more in health costs each year than what I effectively pay in taxes - about 16% of my income - and I'm a relatively healthy person.
2. I work for a small business that has seen its health insurance premiums increase by 50% with a slight decrease in benefits. (My employer would be exempt from the mandates of the current plan under discussion.)
3. An estimated 18,000 people die every year from lack of insurance within the country with the "best healthcare system in the world."
Oops - #3 isn't an anecdote, rather an analysis by the National Academy of Science's Institute of health. That's about six 9/11's every year, and nobody who's opposed to health insurance reform seems to want to acknowledge this. Frankly, even if the reform under discussion leads to some inconveniences for me, I will gladly take them if it saves even a third of the people who would have died from lack of insurance.
I'm sorry, but if you disagree with that last sentence, perhaps this whole "civilization" thing just isn't for you. I know that government isn't always the answer, but sometimes it is. (And this is nowhere near the 'government takeover' that the obstructionists are trying to conjure up!) Due to the complexity of health care issues, there will be bureaucrats involved no matter what. I'll take the ones who are, at some level, accountable to voters rather than shareholder wallets. We've let the private sector try to fix this for long enough. It's time for us to stop behaving like selfish assholes and do the right thing, and that's what this particular reform bill is; maybe not the perfect thing, but compared to the status quo, the right thing.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Michael B
