We all have heard the quote from Warren Buffett, “there is class warfare and my side is winning.” With the President’s recent speeches regarding the Bush Tax Cuts, word is coming out from the Right, yet again, that this is “Class Warfare.” And sadly, many on the left still get defensive with this accusation. Here’s my humble take on the matter.

“Psychological Projection: or projection bias is a psychological defense mechanism where a person subconsciously denies his or her own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world, usually to other people. Thus, projection involves imagining or projecting the belief that others originate those feelings.”

I cite this because even though I believe the whole right-wing talking point of blurting out “Class Warfare” from the left is a crafted response from Frank Luntz to place the left on the defensive. I also believe it is easily taken up by the lemmings on the right. As with Warren Buffett, I believe there is class warfare going on, but it has clearly been waged by the Right, the 1% and Corporations against the Middle-Class in an attempt to take what they have to fill their coffers and gain ultimate power in the political system. It’s greed on steroids and is harming the nation, and it is war. We on the left need to call it for what it is.

The battle scars of this war only exist with the middle and working class. Highest wealth disparity in this nation since the days of the Robber Barons, most of the nation’s wealth with the 1%. Social Safety net being shredded to pay for more tax cuts for the wealthy, poverty increasing, middle-class evaporating, while the richer continue to get richer from the money being redistributed from the middle and working class people upwards. There is no denying it. It started with Trickle Down and the Bush Tax Cuts was the major assault from which $4 trillion of the national debt is now attributed to. They started the war, but in order to feel better about themselves, or to make use of the propaganda machine, they blame the war on the victims. Time for the victims to fight back.

Like any conventional war, propaganda is free-flowing. Misinformation carefully crafted to convince those who hear it that the cause of the winners is justified. They now blame first responders, police, fire-fighters, emts and their pensions as the cause for the misery in the world. They blame teachers who have been paying out of their own pockets to teach the children in their charge for the misery in the world, they blame the elderly who have simply grown old and require assistance for the misery in the world, they blame unions who work not only to get living wages and good benefits for their rank and file, but for all workers, for the misery in the world. One thing people tend to overlook, the people telling you these stories aren’t suffering, aren’t miserable. They are living better in the recession than they did before the recession, but the well crafted propaganda message hits a core with those who do hurt, want to blame somebody and will listen to the loudest voices telling them who’s to blame and they will believe it. You can take this as hyperbole, but this is akin to the Nazi propaganda in Germany blaming all of their depression problems on the Jews, Gypsies, Communists, Homosexuals and using that hatred to solidify control of Germany.

Mitt Romney who personifies the stereotype of the out of touch, elitist rich snob is trying to convince people that everything he has done that has caused harm to the nation is actually the acts of President Obama. He has gone so far as to recently call the President the “Outsourcer In Chief.” This from the man who made more of his millions outsourcing jobs for Bain, as Governor outsourced government jobs to Indian call centers. To be using that much projection and propaganda, you must be at war with the people, at the very least at war with reality.

This is war, if the Right-Wing prevails, the Middle-Class will soon become the Mittle-Class, a group just above the working class, but even farther behind the upper class and only there to be used, abused and ignored while those in the upper class continue to enjoy their spoils of war.

Don’t be afraid to call it what it is and get the word out that the 1%, using the Right Wing and their Tea Party Brown Shirts started this war. The only way to combat it is to counter their propaganda with truth, be as loud if not louder to shut these liars down. Get registered, vote those solidly tied to the corporate holders of the nation’s wealth out of office and elect those who will legislatively repair the damage the GOP caused and bring back the level playing field and prosperity the country enjoyed after World War Two, under New Deal Legislation and a progressive tax code that resulted in more people getting out of poverty, growing the nation’s wealth, and government surpluses used to build things like the Interstate Highway System. Bring this back because 30 years since Trickle or Dribble down economics began, more people are now falling into poverty, and these are from the ranks of the middle class, not the upper class, those guys are still doing just fine, thank you.

Get active, get involved and don’t give in.

Watching the Ed Show when I got home from work, trying feverishly to try to get some of my tweets posted, as @Diggaduh and @MarvsWife would attest, it’s been getting harder and harder to get on air these days, though they both were posted and I struck out, but I digress. During his big panel, he had as his Conservative Representative Ron Christy. Ron is an interesting guy and he intrigued me by explaining essentially that the messaging from the Obama campaign regarding Mitt Romney’s offshore accounts, mingling with the ultra rich, being out of touch with average Americans isn’t of interest to the “common American.” Well I’m glad he cleared that up, I was interested and having a right-wing pundit on television telling this common guy that he’s wrong in what interests him is refreshing. It’s difficult to have to think for yourself, to care about yourself and your family, to have self interests regarding the character of a man trying to become your President. Don’t know how the left is able to do this all the time, it’s so much easier on the Right side of the aisle. There you don’t have to think, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter, Ron Christy can do your thinking for you so you don’t have to. Whatever they say about you is your reality. Don’t concern yourself that they don’t know you, they never experienced what you’ve experienced, their moral compass points in a different direction than yours, they are your voice, all you need do is listen and follow. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, you know how it goes.

Snark aside, I take pride in the fact that I do think for myself and only myself. I don’t claim to speak for anyone on any side of the aisle and it would be presumptuous of me to think I know what appeals to others. That’s for you to decide. I think the one thing the Obama campaign has finally begun to figure out is that rather than telling supporters what they should be interested in, they’re starting to ask them what they are interested in and are working to accommodate that. The right-wing continues to frame the debate to a group who have no problem being told what and how they should think. I think that’s the real intellectual divide in this country. I have no statistics to back this up, it’s purely anecdotal, but generally, one side is prone more to critical thinking of the world around them and what will make things better for themselves and others while the other side is too comfortable being told what the answers are so they don’t have to think and respond accordingly.

And for the only time in my short blogging career, I’ll quote Dennis Miller, “That’s what I think, I could be wrong.”

Good night all

PS Thanks to @NicoleSandler, covering today for Randi Rhodes quoting a tweet of mine to her and reading my bio from twitter. It was unexpected and kind of her to give this little idiot a shout out.

Don’t know if any of you have heard this before, but it would appear that the Tea Party really has a problem with taxes. In fact they base their whole existence on what they believed was the reason for the Boston Tea Party and the Patriotic Demonstration against English taxation by throwing barrels of tea into Boston Harbor. Problem is that according to someone who was there and wrote about it, the issue was against a corporate tax cut for the East India Company that harmed local business as Thom Hartmann brilliantly educates us on. Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UiLZk2TE8k

But that’s okay, it doesn’t matter because it is a common misconception of most Americans what the original Tea Party was about, but there’s no harm in knowing the truth, unless your very existence depends on a lie. But no matter, the Tea Party vehemently demand that all taxes be reduced, if not eliminated because they are too high. In fact, GOP Chairman Reince Priebus has gone so far recently as to say his fear of an Obama re-election is that he would have to pay his taxes. Forget that under the current president, current Federal and FICA taxes are at their lowest rates in over 60 years. The only taxes that have gone up have been some state and local taxes to continue to fund services once subsidized by the Federal government by funds now cut off by a Tea Party Republican House in Congress.

So the Tea Party doesn’t want to pay taxes, they are opposed to them, they are too high, yet all of the Tea Party membership enjoy government services provided by Federal, State, County and Municipal taxation. Services like:

Clean water standards, monitoring of pharmaceuticals, safe food supply, clean air standards, interstate highway system, roads, sidewalks, public transportation, police, fire fighters, emts, social security, Medicare, Medicaid, United States Military, Veteran services, functioning court system, jails, prisons, public schools, community colleges, state universities, power grid, public airwaves, parks, etc, etc.

Now many in the Tea Party would say, in fact do say, that most of these services can and should be privatized. Well what would be the unintended consequences of that? Government operation of these service do not incorporate a profit margin that private industries demand for their shareholders.

A good example is Medicare which only has 3% of its budget geared towards administering of services, compared to private insurance which prior to a 20% limit imposed by the Affordable Care Act, had 35% to 40% administration costs, i.e. Bonuses to the CEOs, Board and profits to the shareholders. Another example has been a recent phenomena where Fire Stations have privatized and fires breaking out at homes that haven’t paid the dues have been left to burn.

So, government with the taxes imposed still provide many services that Tea Party folks would sorely miss if they were gone, or could find themselves unable to afford if they were privatized. By working to not pay their fair share of taxes for government to provide these services, Tea Party folks are quite simply dining and dashing.

To get back to the Thom Hartmann link at the top of this rant, one reason I included it was to point out the irony involving the Tea Party and their fight against unfair taxation memorialized by the myth of the Boston Tea Party. The irony is that the Tea Party may have begun as a grassroots movement begun under Bush, to complain about his spending, but has been with the infusion of Corporate Dollars from David and George Koch and other billionaires, melded into a political force. The rank and file Tea Party folks have little idea they are actually working for the very type of Corporation that the true Boston Tea Party folks were actually protesting about.

Exercise true personal responsibility, pay your bills for services rendered, pay your taxes.

The subject of this rant has been well covered and documented by Fortune’s Katherine Eban. She’s done an outstanding job explaining this political farce in clear, unbiased and restrained tones. Now for an angrier snarkier attack from my point of view. Brace yourself, this involves some reading, thinking, reflection and patience so the Right Wing may want to stay away as this is beyond them.

First the groundwork, please review Katherine’s story as published in Fortune magazine:

http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/27/fast-and-furious-truth/

And one followup:

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/03/fast-and-furious-follow-up-the-atf-and-gun-stores/

and finally an interesting letter from Voth’s attorney to Rep Darrell Issa that somehow gets very little play on both Mainstream Media and even the “interwebs”:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/86130067/Voth-Lawyer-Letter

Okay, done your reading and research. Now my take on the matter:

Darrell Issa from day one has wanted to embarrass and ruin the presidency of Barack Obama. It’s no secret. From the day the GOP took control of the House he advised that the President’s administration was the most corrupt in history and as Chairman of the Oversight Committee, he was going to hold weekly investigations to prove the corruption, like Ken Starr on steroids, he would find something. The only thing he’s been able to get any kind of nibble was the Fast and Furious debacle. But it was compelling because it could be used to illicit the support of what I think is the most dangerous domestic terrorist organization in this country, The National Rifle Association. Issa himself went on air to say that the whole “gun walking” plan came from Obama and Holder themselves to create a call to outlaw and repeal second amendment rights. Forget the fact that what rogue agents of the ATF were doing was outside the knowledge of Attorney General Holder and President Obama (or that Obama has actually expanded gun rights in this nation) and that no arrests of the straw purchasers could be made because Arizona and Federal law permitted these purchases. In fact, these purchases were legal because the NRA fights tooth and nail to make sure everyone has the right to buy a gun from the gun manufacturers they represent. It’s not about gun rights, it’s about profits.

I’ve often tweeted that it’s interesting that whenever anyone calls for stricter gun laws to keep the guns out of the hands of convicted criminals and the insane the loudest voice in opposition to these laws is the NRA. Is is because they are made up of criminals and insane? Well, that is entirely possible. I work law enforcement and I’ve arrested prohibited possessors (convicted felons for whom it is illegal to possess firearms) and I’ve found it interesting that many of them are card-carrying members of the NRA. But honestly, it’s a matter of profits. The NRA over the years have become a lobbying group for the gun manufacturers. To make a profit, you have to sell more guns and who has the greatest need for guns besides hunters and Law Enforcement? Well those who want to use them for other purposes and have to use them right away.

In fact, NRA membership is a small fraction of lawful, responsible gun owners. Their call to stop all gun laws because then “only the criminals will have guns” is laughable. By not having such laws, you make it easier for criminals and the insane to have guns. So you end up with more guns in the hands of those predisposed to use them in not such a nice or defensive way.

So, as Katherine Eban points out, ATF agents observed the sale of guns to straw purchasers, but because prosecutors could not allow them to arrest these purchasers due to the lax gun laws, the guns ended up being walked over to the drug lords in Mexico. Border Agent Terry was killed in a gun battle where one of these guns were found. Honestly, he would most likely still would have been killed whether one of these guns were there or not, that is a fact. Fast and Furious had little to do with that death, but it make great politics for gun nuts in the nation to blame it on.

An lets not forget that the investigation is continuing. Issa was demanding of Holder grand jury and wiretap transcripts of this ongoing investigation. Forget that it is illegal for Holder to release these documents, but it makes for great politics on Issa’s part. Hell, he was able to get Holder one way or the other. Since he didn’t release them, he held him in contempt of Congress. Had he released them, he would have broken the law and the prosecution of those responsible would have been compromised. Dirty politics clear and simple from a man convicted of being in possession of a concealed weapon and placed on six months probation, Darrell Issa. Who writes this stuff?

The NRA is just as responsible for Agent Terry’s death as the whole Fast and Furious operation was because were it not for NRA sponsored lax gun laws and lax gun law enforcement, the guns would have never made it across the border. That being said, other guns would have most likely been used and Agent Terry would still be dead. But I’m using right-wing partisan logic in this matter. They want to blame Holder, then they have to also blame the NRA.

I’m all for responsible gun ownership. I believe honest, caring and responsible people can wait a period of time before getting a gun. I believe these guns should be licensed and monitored just like automobiles. There is no harm in that. Nobody is out to take them away from you. If you feel that way, then I suggest you are paranoid and as such, you shouldn’t be anywhere near a gun. Let’s be more reasonable in keeping guns away from unlawful and unstable people in the country, it can be done with little inconvenience to others, the only people who would suffer would be those who sell the instruments of death and destruction. So they’ll have to reduce CEO bonuses a bit, who the fuck cares if it saves lives.

Keep in mind these rants are merely my observations and attempts to apply logic to issues that I’m concerned with. I welcome any researched, peer review studies that shows my opinions to be off base at any time for due consideration. That being said:

The essential outcome of the Citizen’s United Ruling as most people on both sides of the aisle agree with is that Corporations share the same rights as sentient born human beings and that use of money equals speech in the political process. The Supreme Court has ruled it to be constitutional. Forget that the case they were ruling on had little or nothing to do with this question of corporate rights, Justice Roberts himself changed the nature of the case in order to make this ruling. So the ruling was made and it is now the law of the land. Unlike those on the right who complain that the 5-4 decision on the Affordable Care Act isn’t Constitutional and the 5 of the 9 got it wrong, we on the left accept the ruling of Citizen’s United and are working to amend the Constitution to resolve the issue. The right would appear to want to change the law and/or impeach Justice Roberts. Interesting take on how the two sides interpret things they don’t like. To continue.

Those on the right who support the ruling say that not only does this give power to the corporations, it gives power to the unions, citing that they can use their financial backing of its membership to sway elections just as much as corporations. Well, there is a problem with that analysis. It assumes that Corporations are equal to unions in terms of financial backing and the voices each institution represents from their membership (for unions the workers and for corporations the CEO and board of directors) for having a voice in the political process.

I was raised with the belief, emphasised in civics classes (which sadly most schools don’t appear to have anymore) that the basis of this nation was that the political process boiled down to one man, one vote. No matter the financial class, racial background (14th amendment and 24th amendment) sex (19th amendment) of the individual, as long as they were 18 or older (26th amendment) their votes were equal. So with Citizen’s United, even corporations enjoy the same equality as people in the public, but like Orwell points out in Animal Farm, all animals are created equal, just some animals are more equal than others.”

The facts between corporation and unions is one, their representation and how that representation affects the decision to contribute to a campaign. Corporations do not represent the workers of the companies (with a few noted exceptions) they represent the CEO and board of directors who represent the stockholders. Their sole purpose is to ensure the profitability of the corporation to pay back the investments of the stockholders. Not truly an altruistic point of view, but acceptable in a capitalist society. The wealth of these corporations are immense. It’s been estimated that thanks to the Bush tax cuts, corporations in the United States are sitting on nearly $3 trillion dollars. Now compare that to unions.

Unions represent the workers within their ranks. Leadership of the union hinges on elections of the rank and file as you would expect in a democracy. If rank and file are not happy that their leadership is providing for them what they need to live thrive and survive, they are replaced. In terms of financial assets, considering unions now only represent 11.8% of the workforce. These workers don’t always make the huge “union wages” those on the right like to cite (urban myth). Combined, a small fraction of the $3 trillion corporations have to deal with. No equality here.

And let’s get beyond the whole concept of Corporations/Unions are equal to individual voters who are not part of the union or have any say to the board of directors of corporations about how that money should be spent. I have only one vote and a small amount of money to contribute to campaigns of my choosing. How do I compare to untold millions, possibly billions that a handful of people can put up using money as “free speech” to sway public opinion in to the self interests of the corporations and not the self interests of the people who live and work, going paycheck to paycheck to provide housing, food, healthcare, education for their children, etc, etc, etc.

Citizen’s United is constitutional, The Supreme Court has ruled it that way and as shown with the Montana Case won’t even reconsider. Amending the Constitution is the only remedy to say that only sentient, flesh and blood human beings are people and that money cannot be used to give some people more rights than others. In a true democracy, all people are created equal and under no circumstances are some people more equal than others.

Hope you enjoyed this.

On twitter, I often post in my 140 character straight-jacket that I see the term Christian Conservative as an Oxymoron. To be fair, I’m sure those on the right who place that in their bios along with references to “tea party” “NRA” “Birtherism” etc truly believe that they are Christians. However, I do have questions and would like some clarification.

When saying they are Christian Conservatives, are they also implying that Jesus Christ was himself a Conservative? If so, a fiscal or social Conservative? I debated this once on a Twitter Time Line with a man who called himself a Christian Conservative and I asked him to quote, chapter and verse, exactly what Christ said or did that fell under the tenets of conservatism. He couldn’t but instead cited that Jesus wasn’t political which I found amusing. From my reading of the Bible it would seem to me that he was clearly a political figure. At least those in Judea who were in power at the time thought so, saw him as a threat to public order, both religious and secular and had him crucified, but I digress.

By acknowledging that Jesus wasn’t a political figure, he did acknowledge that by his standards, Jesus wasn’t conservative. If he thought so, I would believe he would cite something in the Bible to back that up. As @JohnFugelsang, who Stephanie Miller calls the Ecclesiastic Mook would point out, Jesus never said anything about homosexuality, was against the death penalty, offered free healthcare, commanded of his followers to sell everything and follow him, told them to feed the starving, clothe the naked, etc. All of which would appear to indicate a liberal bent on Jesus’ part. Of course, those on the right would add that Jesus demanded that of the people, not government. A fair point. But in today’s world, not exactly practical. God bless those who personally go out of their way to help those in distress within their reach, but there are literally millions just in this country where that isn’t feasible and were it not for a structured social safety net managed by the government, these people would be suffering all the more. And this net is paid for via taxes paid in by those who do have the ability to pay in. In this case, I do see taxes to aid fellow humans as a moral issue demonstrated by and demanded of Christ, using government to implement. I don’t see where Jesus would argue against this, in fact did he not say, “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.”?

The moral issues the right-wing bring up, all come from the Old Testament, not the new. Though Jesus was a practicing Jew (something the Right appears to have problems with too) he proposed in his teaching a new sect of the Hebrew Faith that centered more on seeing to the humanity as a way to honor God. Keep in mind that Christianity began as a Jewish Sect. It wasn’t until the Council of Nicaea when the Romans adopted it as a new State religion, full of many of the pagan believes enjoyed by the people of the time, did it become a faith of its own, separate from the Hebrews.

So to wrap up, if you want to call yourself a Christian Conservative, be prepared to cite chapter, verse and context to show how Jesus lived and preached to tenets of today’s social conservative beliefs. If you can’t accept that most if not all of his teachings fall under the liberal context and as a result, to slam liberals you have to acknowledge that you slam Jesus. Jesus was far more forgiving of Gentiles than today’s Gentiles have been of people like him. A little tolerance of those who don’t follow within your stated sense of morality is very Christ like, ie Christian. Just saying.

Andy Warhol spoke of everyone getting their 15 minutes of fame, but in the case of Ted Nugent, not only is that time up, I think he owes us time back. This idiot who’s so pro gun and hunting while at the same time quite literally crapped his pants to avoid service in Vietnam tries to portray himself as a tough guy. Ted, forest animals don’t shoot back so stalking them and shooting at them at a distance is no test of courage.

Now this idiot who in his prime probably couldn’t be given the trip to Hollywood on American Idol is now saying that perhaps it would have been better if the South won the Civil War.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/07/06/ted-nugent-thinks-we-might-be-better-off-if-the-south-had-won-the-civil-war/

Better for who Ted? First of all, a loose confederation of states would not have become the world economic and military power the United States is. And of course the issue of allowing people to hold other people in slavery because of economic reasons should be sickening to anyone of moral character and intelligence. Oh excuse me, I forgot who this rant was about.

Ted, you’re a drunken idiot even when you are sober. Loud, violent and no talent. Give us our 15 minutes back or take one of your weapons and stand a post in Afghanistan.

Let’s see, Mitt Romney was born into wealth so he really can’t take credit for that. But wait a minute, he made himself richer by his association with Bain Capital. Bain would use leverage buyouts to take over companies. Would borrow money against the company placing them in bankruptcy and resulting in the companies failing, employees losing their jobs, benefits and pensions. Okay, he really can’t use Bain, at least not go into the details.

There is his involvement in the Olympics. It was in trouble and Mitt was brought in to fix it and he actually did by going to the feds and taking out millions in grants to shore up the mismanagement and corruption the Olympics were experiencing. Okay, he can’t go into detail with the Olympics because it was the tax payers who actually saved the day and he’s all for letting things go bankrupt without tax payers interference. So he really can’t use the Olympics.

There is his term as Governor of Massachusetts and his crowning achievement as governor, universal healthcare that was used as the model for the Affordable Care Act known today as Obamacare. Oops, guess he really can’t use that either.

Well the man is worth over a quarter billion dollars and has his money in off shore accounts. He’s created thousands of jobs, the only issue those jobs are in China and India. Even sent Massachusetts state jobs over to a call center in India. He can’t use Staples because that was another division of Bain. Damn, what can Mitt use?

To be continued

Okay, a point I wanted to make clear last week when he was asked about the 30 million people who could lose healthcare if the Affordable Care Act was repealed, Mitch McConnell said, “That’s not the issue.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/01/mitch-mcconnell-uninsured-obamacare_n_1641033.html

Well Mitch, when asked a question, the person asking the question has an issue they want addressed, in this case the issue was from Chris Wallace about explaining what would happen to the 30 million who would be left without healthcare if ACA was repealed. That was his issue, it’s the issue of the 30 million Americans effected, it’s my issue and if you should realize that since the question was asked of you, it is now your issue. To simply reply, “that’s not the issue” is a lame, lazy ploy to avoid answering a question you know you have no answer for. It’s a dodge and worse, it’s presumptuous. How dare you tell us what the issue is! If you don’t have an answer, or your answer is embarrassing, then say that. As Abraham Lincoln once said “better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. Sir, you proved to us you are a fool.

I touched on this earlier this morning. For years, the right has gotten away with casting evil labels to certain words or beliefs. It’s been very effective for them because all they have to do is like a child calling someone “fatso” on the playground, they don’t have to define any particular act in detail, they just use the word leaving many to either shy away from the word or work to defend it, totally avoiding the issue at hand.

So, the right have successfully labeled anything “Liberal” or “Socialist” as bad. They’ve done this over the years even though little specific negative connotations can actually be ascribed to those terms. Even though this country consists of a multitude of political, moral, economic and social views, the right defines those outside their narrative under a one or two-word label. Liberal, Socialist, but they never define the specific act or believe they concern themselves with and how it specifically harms the well-being of the nation. This country from its founding has been, and continues to use a combination of capitalism and socialism in building the economy and seeing to the welfare of the people. It’s a fact. Many on the right deny that this is a “socialist” country or that those on the left are striving for socialism. They often conflate socialism with fascism which is interesting considering socialism is geared to have government see to the needs of the people while fascism is by definition corporations taking control of government for their own needs minus those of the people, but I digress.

We have several socialist institutions in this country that although the right won’t see as socialist, they would fight having them eliminated. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, The Military, Police Departments, Fire Departments, EMTs, The Power Grid, The Interstate Highway System, Veteran Service, The NFL, are all examples of socialism in this country. Many of them meld with Capitalism to not only garner profit and growth, but serve a social function. With the exception of the NFL, they all see to the needs of all the people, supported by tax dollars provided by the people and governed by the needs of the people. privatize them, make them purely capitalistic, then the profit margin would leave these service unavailable to those on the lower rungs of society.

So back to the original point, the push for the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare has been vilified because it’s been called “socialist” despite the fact we already have medicare, Medicaid and veteran services that are just as “socialistic” as ACA, even less so since private insurance companies still are the primary source of delivery of service. But by that label, it’s been vilified. When asked what specifically people have against it other than socialism, the response is often, we don’t need a nanny state. But this comes from people who want their Social Security and Medicare. Even worse, they complain of the individual mandate while at the same time saying that people should be responsible for paying their own way. ACA in its present form came from the Heritage Foundation, Bob Dole, and pushed by Mitt Romney. It’s as Republican as any social program can be, yet because a Democratic Congress and Democratic President passed it, it’s suddenly labeled as Socialism and evil. People can do their own speculation as to why.

To sum up, I see no problems or sin in any particular act being labeled as Socialism, Liberal, Progressive, or even Capitalistic. I’m more concern about the act or program itself and what service it provides to the community. Rather label the act for what it does than what someone with an iron clad political agenda/ideology labels it as without citing why it’s specifically bad to the people and what do they have that they can show will work better to address a need.

That’s my first long rant. Let me know what you think and whether I should continue with this way of getting things off my chest. Thanks