In the past week, a number of my friends on Facebook have published the following statement as their status:

No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, feel free to post this as your status for the rest of the day.

On its face value, I can’t think of a statement I could more eagerly agree with. Still, I resisted the urge to repeat this passage as my status for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I’m just not a very good follower and anyone who knows me well will tell you that. Secondly, and more importantly, I was hesitant to appear as though I was in support of the current push in the United States to nationalize our system of health care delivery under House Resolution 3200.

The proposed legislation, “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act” has people up in arms on both sides of political aisle. Nowhere in my recollection can I point to a time when senior citizens showed up (sometimes, in droves) to public forums to vocalize their displeasure over proposed legislation. Never, in my life, have I seen such utter vitriol from people on opposite sides of an issue.

It goes without saying that health care is something that Americans are taking very personally. And, rightly so.

I’m one of those unfortunate types who sits on the outside looking in. Since my world view doesn’t align easily with my political view, I don’t have a firm side to take in this argument. But, as with many matters, I can understand both sides rather well. The top-surface positions on this hotly-debated legislation, appear to go something like this (correct me if I’m wrong):

The American Left: It is disgraceful that health care is treated as a privilege and not a right. The true measure of our country’s security and prosperity is a population that is healthy, thriving and able to obtain needed care. We cannot discriminate against those unable to afford health care when it comes to matters of life-saving and life-prolonging care. There should be an affordable public option for those between employment.

Makes sense, yes?

The American Right: We haven’t the means to fund a proposal as lofty as this one. The plan includes provisions that could limit the medical and financial privacy of the individual. The plan places undue burden on smaller employers and reduces competition for qualified employees. The proposed legislation could usher in care-rationing on a broad scale.

Also makes pretty good sense. At least, to me.

The truth is, both sides have very compelling arguments. As someone who actually gives a damn about these things, I understand. If the citizens of the United States would simply take off their Liberal hats or Conservative coats for a moment and actually read the resolution, they might find themselves agreeing with the other side to some degree.

Since I stand on the outside of this mess, some might find my take a bit odd, but here it is anyway.

As a socially-liberal minded person (take that in the old school sense of community, tolerance, volunteerism), I think any country that espouses a Constitutionally-supported right to life must also support the right to fight for one’s own life. That means access to health care for one and all – irrespective of financial status, age, physical or neurological ability or orientation.

As someone who embraces a Libertarian view of government (that the federal government should be no larger than your average garden pea), I bristle at the idea of the federal government obtaining access to your private medical records, financial information and having power over treat or no-treat decisions. After all, these should remain personal decisions, made by you and not strangers in Washington.

I don’t claim to know anything about anything. But, what I would like to see happen, instead of HR 3200, falls along these lines.

- Tort reform
Find some sensible, fair and Constitutionally-correct way to cap medical malpractice payouts and reduce the number of frivolous suits against medical practitioners. The result (I reckon) would be the reduction of medical malpractice insurance premiums that physicians, other health care workers and facilities are made to pay. An immediate reduction in the cost of care delivery.

- Dismantle the near monopoly of HMOs
Through hefty lobbying, lots of money changing hands and not a small bit of corruption, HMOs (managed care providers) enjoy a market share that cannot be challenged by major medical insurers. To get rid of this, you’d likely have to fire half the people serving on Capitol Hill, but I think the house-cleaning is worth it. Your employer should have the absolute authority to offer you a cafeteria style benefits package. Not just managed care. Eliminate the stranglehold and you’ll reintroduce competition for premium dollars – thereby reducing premiums overall.

- Reserve lobbying to non-profits only
No one should ever have a problem with lobbying efforts from groups like PETA, ACLU, National Right to Life or any other non-profit group that represents a constituency in an ethical fashion – even if you don’t agree with their platform. But, when Kaiser Permanente, UHC, Pfizer and Baxter make up the most potent lobbying arms in this nation, you must know that something’s wrong. Eliminate the elbow-rubbing and pay-outs and let corporate factions go back to competing in a free market for business. No one in Washington should ever allow corporate interest to bump the queue when it comes to what is in the public interest.

- Realign some money
Pick a department of little to no use (the do-nothing Department of Energy springs to mind), abolish it and then use those federal dollars to ensure health care for the indigent.

- Community-based health care initiatives
I’m talking about federal or state dollars moved around to assist communities in establishing first-care facilities. There is no reason in the world anyone should go to an emergency room with an ear infection. Currently, such clinics are scarce. Get them opened and allow their physicians and nurse practitioners to actually spend time with patients and minister outside of the HMO guidebook and you’ll have a far healthier community – at a far lower cost.

- Freedom for alternative therapies
I think people should have the choice to seek alternative therapies for their ails. Hoxsey therapy seems to be quite helpful for some forms of cancer treatment. Yet, it’s not permitted in the states. Still, the government will be rolling out some 175 million doses of a flu vaccine in October that has not even been through clinical trials. There’s a drop off there. Allow insurance to underwrite more therapies and they will.

Those are for starters, mind you. And, you might think me mad for suggesting them. Still, I don’t think the problem with health care is that we haven’t nationalized it yet. I think the problem is that we’ve allowed it to become big business between HMOs and Washington. This has served to reduce the quality of care, drive costing through the bloody roof and eliminate your choices.

Some members of your servant government have allowed themselves to be compromised and corrupted, in the name of corporate success. This doesn’t serve the public good and it’s certainly not what the founders envisioned as government responsibility.

I think a nationalized system of health care delivery should be viewed as the Hail Mary pass at fixing a broken system. The first play should probably be healing what ails the system itself.

No. No one should die because they cannot afford health care. And, no one should go broke because they get sick. On that, I am completely with you.

But are we treating the illness or just masking the symptoms?

George Carlin used to muse that the reason the mainstream media, talking heads and politicians kept the masses arguing amongst themselves over right versus left paradigms was so that they, the elite, could keep giggling off to the bank.

As with many other things Carlin waxed upon, he was probably right on this score.

It’s useful to the power elites, the uber-rich and the corrupt in and outside of Washington, DC for us to become distracted by petty differences.

Over the past 8 years, I’ve observed more side-choosing than at any other time in my life. When I was younger, I can remember Republicans and Democrats who voted issue or person and not straight party ticket. Those days appear to be gone and choosing a public servant based on their career or ethics seems to be an unspeakable sin. These days, everyone seems to be out for blood and the party-defense rhetoric is getting pretty damn creepy.

I have to wonder if some personalities on air take their cues directly from DC. Listen to ‘conservative’ talk radio (is there any other kind?) for an entire day and you’ll notice the exact same topics, catch-phrases, buzz-words and bitching carrying over from program to program and from host to host. It’s all just a bit tiresome and suspiciously ‘on point’.

People in what can only be referred to as the entertainment industry (Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Randi Rhodes) suck down a cool salary for getting you and I to hate one another — based only on our differences in political views. Not a very noble profession, is it? Well, we probably have only ourselves to blame. We are, after all, the consumers and so long as we keep tuning into this divisive hackery, the longer they will continue to produce content.

The fever pitch of the left-eat-right, right-eat-left idiocy is no longer reserved to uneducated and embittered radio hosts. It’s now found its way into our halls of government. I cannot point to a particular moment when it started, but I certainly know when it came to a blistering head. That is, during the Bush administration.

Some of the initiatives that President Bush threw his arms around were very thinly veiled reach-outs to a portion of our population, based on their world views and not anything Constitutionally based. I speak of the National Day of Prayer. I’m of the opinion that the faithful reach out in prayer whether or not they have a national day for it and the rest of us forego the process of our own free will. And, that’s as it ought to be.

But, it was a good mechanism for ‘rallying the base’ and getting people to henpeck one another over things that have nothing to do with public policy in the first place. It was a straw man.

Straw men like that, however, are effective in getting people to denigrate each other, close their minds to views from other walks of life and are, generally, destructive and a massive waste of time. Surely, the government has no Constitutionally based role in promoting or opposing any activity of a spiritual nature. It is, after all, a private matter.

With the election of Barack Obama has come a new twist on the entire right versus left war on human thinking. Now, we’re being conditioned and instructed that criticism of this country’s first non-Caucasian president is an empty act, prompted by racism or Republican sour grapes.

I got my first taste of this after attending a Tea Party tax protest this past April. Along with friends, I carried signs that read “No Answers? No Taxes!” and “End the Fed.” Nary a peep about the current president or his cabinet, mind you. I was protesting what I consider to be enslavement of good people under the Federal Income Tax system and the private banking cartel we call the Federal Reserve.

Yet, comedian Jeanine Garafolo soon appeared on cable news, declaring that Tea Party protestors were nothing more than racists, radicals, evangelicals and right-wingers – all sore as hell that a black man was in the White House.

Huh?

I had shed a tear when Obama was inaugurated. No, I didn’t vote for him. Yet, I knew that he could never have won without the cooperation of white voters. To me, it signaled that my country and finally, FINALLY grown up and shed its moronic value system of race classification. It meant, to me, that we had finally decided that a human being is a human being, irrespective of that person’s color or ethnicity.  To me, even though Obama was not my guy, it was a profound moment in our country’s history. But, Garafolo would have you believe me a racist and a radical. Why? She’s stirring shit.

When I was involved in the effort to protect the life of Terri Schiavo, I was interviewed by a presenter from NPR’s program, Fresh Air and part of that interview went a little somethin’ like this:

Presenter: “Your detractors say that you are right-wing, evangelical Christians who are attempting to impose your will on others. How do you respond to that accusation?”

Me: “I’m actually agnostic and a member of the Green Party.”

Presenter: “So, you’re calling such labels unfair?”

Me: “No. I’m calling them lies.”

The point is that pigeon-holing people is a recipe for fail. There are things that I take a conservative world view on. There are other things that I take a liberal world view on. It’s called thinking.

In June of 2007, then-candidate Barack Obama said of the unending detention of certain persons believed to be terrorists: “We’re not only going to close Gitmo, we’re going to restore Habeas Corpus. We’re going to lead not just by our words, but by our deeds.”

Yesterday, it was reported that he and his administration are considering an Executive Order to allow such suspects to be detained – indefinitely.

Go to any online forum, such as Fark, and see what his supporters are saying. They vigorously defend this move and claim that their president is doing what he has no other choice but to do. These are the same individuals who bemoaned president Bush for doing (stay with me, here ) the exact same thing.

So, the left-right paradigm has been quite effectively sold to the American consumer. We eat it up every day, without questioning a thing, without asking ourselves if what we’re seeing is actually reality or just another dose of DC bullshit — intended to keep us growling at each other. We just don’t get it, do we?

If you really thirst for something different, if you really desire change, if you truly want a new day, you have no other choice but to reject the left-right paradigm. Look at the person. Look to the third parties. Look inside yourself and stop defending a party over your life, your future or your children.

You know what you’re being fed is nothing but a pile of shit. Why do you keep consuming it?

Ron Paul, you cheeky thing! Giving the corrupt, private banking cartel a bunch of grief for destroying our monetary system and trying to hold their feet to the fire with HR 1207?

Looks like you might just get your wish, kid.

Steve Watson of infowars.net had this to report on the number of co-sponsors to Ron Paul’s HR 1207, a bill that would force auditing of the Federal Reserve:

At time of writing, a bill that would see the Federal Reserve bank audited for the first time in 59 years has 207 cosponsers in the House and is gaining traction with every single day.

According to Ron Paul’s Campaign For Liberty, the latest to become cosponsors are, Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) and Rep. Chris Lee (R-NY), both House Financial Services Committee members, as well as Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), Minority Leader of the House.

This means just 11 more cosponsors are needed for a majority to be reached in the House.

The text of this delicious bill is here.

UPDATE: Ron Paul on the Alex Jones radio program reports that the actual number is 209.  Right on, Doctor.

A US soldier describes, in great detail, his experiences in Abu Garib prison. He admits to the repeated rape of a 15-year old girl who later hanged herself. To him, it’s just not that big of a deal.

We all know this war and occupation is unConstitutional and illegal. We all know it’s gone on far too long. But, it’s time we started having an honest public dialogue about what war does to human beings.

This young man probably had a chance to be a relatively normal person before his experiences in Iraq. Now, he’s nothing more than an animal — completely lacking in human compassion, dignity or decency.

But, that’s what happens.

So, what’s the time frame, kids? 16 months? 24 months? 10 years? Not good enough. This truly needs to end immediately. The shame of it is growing too big to bear.

I’m going to do something I never do on this blog. Open comments. I want you to do your best to justify this mess to me. Explain to me why we need to stay in Iraq. Explain to me how this kind of brutal and criminal behavior could ever be tolerated by a Constitutional Republic or a polite society.

What you’re about to see is rather depressing and the language is not safe for work.

My question would be, where were all these empty suits over the past 8 years when the Bush administration expanded the powers of the federal executive body to the point of utter burden on the average citizen?

Look, kids. The United States Patriot Act, the Military Commssions Act and the suspension of Habeas Corpus are all still in effect. Hell. Even just today, our Homeland Security Director endorsed a report that claimed that so-called right-wing radicals are a threat to our nation’s security.

I guess we now are endorsing the concept of thought crimes?

Well, since that was perfectly acceptable for those in authority to do during the Vietnam War era against peace-loving people of good conscience, I reckon it’s seen as an acceptable practice now. That is, in the eyes of those starting all these fucking problems in the first place.

There are a whole lot of Johnny-Come-Latelys to the liberty movement, but I suppose that’s better than nothing at all. And, to me, it doesn’t matter if you lean to the left or lean to the right. It doesn’t even matter if you have no opinion at all.

What is of the utmost interest to me is that we live up to the promise we continue to bleat to anyone who will listen. That is that the United States is founded on a deep-seated desire for liberty and justice. That we obey the canons of our building blocks: The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. That we respect the rule of law and that we allow each other to live their lives in their own pursuits, unenslaved by an allegedly servant government.

Listen to Rick Perry. For a cowboy, he’s making a bit of sense.

Luke Rudkowski is your every-day, garden variety scapegoat.

The 22-year old is a slender and clean-cut figure who typically wears a business jacket and tie in public and keeps his hair short and his face clean-shaven. He is certainly not the visual you’d expect of a thug, a violent person or a criminal.

Yet, on March 28, 2009, Rudkowski – along with two of his fellow activists – was detained in a hotel lobby in Manhattan by security workers for New York City’s Mayor, Michael Bloomberg. The three were then arrested, held for several hours and charged with criminal trespass. This was even though Rudkowski asked security to allow him to leave the premises and was, instead, detained. Rudkowski was even told that he would be charged with ‘impersonating a member of the press’, even though he carried credentials on his person.

Rudkowski and his compatriots, Anthony Verias and Manny Valencia, were not harassing patrons of the Hilton Hotel in Manhattan. Likewise, they were not destroying property, publically intoxicated, disturbing the peace or exposing themselves to passersby in the hotel lobby. They were there only to attempt to secure an interview with Mayor Bloomberg.

And yet, this simple act, guaranteed as a right under the First Amendment to the Constitution, got them tossed into the clink like three surly crack dealers.

You see, Rudkowski, Verias and Valencia are all volunteer members of a non-profit organization called WeAreChange. As such, Rudkowski has become a philanthropist of sorts, conducting fund-raising activities to help offset the medical expenses incurred by first responders who have suffered profound medical complications after the events of September 11, 2001.

Though great sums of money were raised some years ago to benefit police, firefighters, emergency healthcare providers and the like, not much has made it into their hands. It is with that in mind that Rudkowski has worked tirelessly to find them respite and justice. As a part of that effort, he oftentimes questions those in government who he feels owe the responders a clear and concise explanation. Because of that, Rudkowski has become a surface nuisance.

WeAreChange is also part of the 9/11 truth movement – a ground-swelling of individuals, scientists, architects, pilots and pathologists who believe that the United States government’s official account of the events of September 11, 2001 are either bogus, flawed or intentionally false. He and his mates have been chronicled in the Alex Jones film, Truth Rising, and are active in handing out collateral materials that support their organization’s call for an independent investigation.

You may or may not agree with Mr. Rudkowski. It doesn’t matter.

These people embody the very spirit of rebellion and patriotism. And.. they’re doing it for complete strangers.

Rudkowski, Verias and Valencia have – effectively – taken one for the team. While a court date has been scheduled and WeAreChange are hurriedly working to find legal defense funding for the three, the time for questioning those who serve the citizenry is certainly here and now. These three men were not arrested for illegal actions. They were made an example of, harassed and improperly detained.

Say what you like about the 9/11 truth movement. Disagree all you wish. But, these young people have reached out to the rest of us, work for the good of those involved on that horrific day and have been made targets of the authorities… all because they challenge what they see.

Rudkowski and his mates could face stiff time and fines if found guilty. Within hours of their incarcerations, the online communities and social networks were ablaze with outrage over the arrests. Oddly enough, the media fell utterly silent.

This is a tremendous and vicious hindrance on the rights of the individual to free press, free speech and liberty in general. And – whether you like where Rudkowski is coming from or not – you should be offended.

I suspect you will hear a bunch more about these three young men and the tribulations they go through now that they have been targeted as criminals for invoking their rights. I also suspect the three video tapes that were confiscated from them by the NYPD will disappear like virginity on prom night.

But, stay tuned. If we know anything from this country’s history or our own personal challenges, we do know this: you can’t keep a good man down.

If you’d like to read the text of the bill, have a go.

If you want to tell your representative to get on board, you can do it here.

Having said that, I’ve known Beck privately and would have to admit that he has a very decent side. Pity he moved over to the biggest propaganda machine on cable network news.

And.. having said all that, here is Beck with the lovely and talented Congressman from Texas, Ron Paul, chatting about the MIAC report, the trouble with money and bumper stickers.

Say, if you’d like to pick up your own Gadsden Graphic in flag form, you can check them out here.

Ain’t I a stinker?

On a warm day, a number of months ago, I pulled up to a red light and idled, waiting for the magical green ball to tell me it was cool to proceed through the intersection. Being one who minds her surroundings in traffic, I glanced over to the car next to me. It was a beaten up convertible with an attractive young man behind the wheel. He was playing Warren Zevon on his stereo – not loud, mind you – but, loud enough for me to hear it. When the light changed to green and my fellow traveler pulled ahead of me in traffic, I noticed a Ron Paul bumper sticker on the back of his car. I privately mused that there went an inherently cool person and – very likely – a thinker.

The state of Missouri, however, now considers people like that young man domestic terrorists.

In a recently exposed and much bemoaned report from the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) – titled The Modern Militia Movement – Missouri state police have been advised to keep a keen eye out for what that state considers to be dangerous individuals.

Who are these dangerous, seedy and unseemly types? While the average person would likely consider crack dealers, gangsters, booze-runners, casino owners, thieves, rapists, thugs, Mafiosos, roughnecks and bankers to be dangerous, seedy and unseemly, the MIAC believes those who seek to protect their rights and the rights of their neighbors are the real criminals.

You know. People with Ron Paul bumper stickers.

I shit you not. Reading through the MIAC report is truly reading through an endorsement of something akin to thought policing. The report calls out people who supported third-party candidates like Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin and Bob Barr as being part of the modern-day militia group think.

This libelous report also alerts state police that people who disbelieve the official government account of the events of September 11, 2001 are, likewise, enemies of the state. Even though that ‘official’ account has been blown to bits by independent film-makers, architects, pilots and the very fire-fighters who nearly faced certain death to pull the innocents out of the worst tragedy in recent American history.

I may not know much, but I do know this: firemen don’t lie.

The MIAC report claims that people who own guns and invoke their Second Amendment right to do just that are potential threats. Sadly, there is nary a word about police officers who kick the snot out of teenagers in holding cells or shoot prone suspects in the back. To death.

“Except in dreams, you’re never really free…”

The MIAC report espouses that people who choose to school at home are also part of the problem. As someone whose child did the 12-year stint in the public school system, I can tell you that I wish I had the luxury of time to teach him everything the worthless Department of Education left out. When he turned 18-years of age and was eager to register as a voter, he had no clue which party did what and how. He told me he had no such thing as Civics in school.

“The gypsy wasn’t lying…”

Hey, the schools are too busy indoctrinating children into abstaining from intercourse – based on the government’s perception of morals – to teach them things they can actually use in life.

Never mind that abstinence is a moral concept and morals should come from Mum and Dad and not the Department of Education. They actually take time away from learning life skills, government, hygiene, literature, the arts, history and calculus to teach your kid to keep it in his trousers. Isn’t that your job?

Who, precisely, is the terrorist here?

The MIAC report also warns against certain types of films. In particular, Aaron Russo’s From Freedom to Fascism and the film Zeitgeist are called out as potentially anti-government joints.

So?

When did it become anti-American to be anti-Government? Weren’t our own founders just a bit anti-government? Do these people not understand the very reason this country exists is because a group of people got sick and tired of being oppressed? From there, they made a boatload of mistakes, but they worked to fashion a lifestyle for all citizenry that delivered the opportunity to succeed or fail, the ability to defend body and soul, the means to protect family and property and the right to redress of grievance against those who represent and work for us.

“Don’t the trees look like crucified thieves…”

It doesn’t help matters that Missouri’s governor, Jay Nixon, stands behind this smear report against decent human beings who like to think for themselves. It’s empowering everything the so-called paranoids are espousing. You’re either with us or you’re one of ‘them’.

Those who demand liberty from our servant government are being likened to those who would bomb gynecological clinics in this report and that’s simply not the case.

This libelous piece of rubbish must be challenged. Why, in the name of anything decent, would anyone not feel the government who represents us has begun to own us; has run amuck; is incompetent and untrustworthy?

How dare you call me a suspect? You, you bleedingly corrupt, carpet-bagging, lying, greedy, control-hungry bastards are not only the suspects. You are the criminals.

You know you what you think, don’t you? And that makes you — the honest man or honest woman — a domestic terrorist.

“Don’t you feel like desperados under the eaves…”

If you regard two illegal and unConstitutional wars as stuff; or no-bidding contracts – awarded to known players within the military industrial complex (of which Cheney and his spouse have both been board members of) as stuff; or even the enormous cost of treating American citizens like criminals – through illegal wiretapping programs – as stuff, Old Dick might have a point.

If you disregard those treasonous positions, you’re likely to think Dick is just another criminal – deserving of indictment, prosecution and a good, old-fashion hanging.

And, if you understand fiscal policy and how much these illegal wars have cost the American people, you’re not too likely to dismiss our current critical mass as ’stuff’, like the notorious penguin does in the following interview.

Watch it and judge for yourself: