Bullshit, Fear, Anger, and Hate keep the status quo

Can we pause for a second from all the divisive diversions and hateful rhetoric and listen to what is going on in the present.  The good of America is being held hostage to a power struggle between people that are much more invested in keeping their power than in moving America forward. Both parties have adopted a “my way or the highway” approach that can only lead to more extreme positions.  Fear is the motivator of both parties.  Arguments are framed in the horrible things the opposition is trying to accomplish, without regard to truth. The media is much more concerned with promoting controversy than reporting the details of the truth.  From fear it is very easy to ramp up anger, and then hat..  Fear and anger tend to rule out reason, and the lack of reason is our largest current problem.  Bad people have been doing good things and good people have been doing bad things for a long time.  Calling people names just ramps up the anger and hate and doesn’t move us forward.  The following ten issues have become so imbued with fear that we have lost track of some basic truths about them.

1.Health care:  Ignoring the ethics of making money from peoples suffering, the only way that ‘for profit’ health providers can increase profits is by: having more sick people, more treatable conditions,  raising prices, prolonging treatments and ignoring cures.  We already have universal coverage  for Emergency Room admissions,  the most expensive kind. There is a huge parasitic industry concerned only with money in healthcare consisting of benefit managers and insurance companies.  Both Federal and State governments provide substantial funding for reinsurance, subsidizing the insurance companies.

2,Global warming:  The conservatives are all aghast about the job losses, while the liberals celebrate all the job opportunities. Seems to me there’s room for discussion.

3.Social Security:  Liberals are afraid of cutting benefits, conservatives are afraid of raising taxes.  Politicians are afraid period.  The sooner it’s fixed the easier the fix is, why can’t we bargain?

4. Regulations:   Big money is for getting rid of them, Democrats don’t want to lose all the money their lawyers get from lawsuits. Can’t we eliminate some paperwork by putting the perpetrators in jail instead of giving them bonus’s while penalizing the shareholders with large fines?

5.Immigration:  We need immigrants for our economy to run.  We have several ways to take advantage of those wishing to live with us, without demonizing them.  Dreamers need to be dealt with, migrant labor needs to be made easier and better. Take out the fear and much can be done.

6.Government shut down:  This is what ISIS and Russia have been hoping for.  We have instituted slave labor by asking people to work for free.  Every day of the shut down brings us closer to becoming a third world nation!

7.Abortion:  The granddaddy of all hate issues.  Is making it illegal going to keep it from happening?  More women will be in ER’s due to botched procedures.  I don’t understand why the pro lifers have to punish the “evil doers”.  Is their faith so little that they don’t think justice will come in the afterlife?

8.Public debate:  First rule of debating reads: If you can’t win with logic go with insults.  The first insult tells you the loser of the debate.

9.Gun control:  The fear is taking all the guns away.  I want to know how that could happen?  Who goes door to door?  How do they know they’ve got them all?  It can’t happen.  Why can’t we talk about keeping them out of dangerous people’s hands?

10.Socialism, Capitalism, and Communism are all failed 19^th century ideas that really have no bearing anymore.  Every advanced country has some state ownership, some private ownership, a safety net for the poor, and incentives for the exceptional.  It’s just a matter of degree.

We live in an age where we are forced to be willfully ignorant about many things just to live an ordinary life.  We must realize when commenting on issues just how ignorant we are of them, and refrain ourselves as appropriate. As FDR said: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”.