To Opt In or Opt Out? That is the Question.

What is the difference? Either way citizens get the health insurance they need to pay for the health care they need. And just what is so socialistic about the citizens getting something directly from the taxes they pay. After all, huge corporations and even regular-sized businesses and (farmers/food producers) get support from the government all the time. Even after using all the tax loopholes that deprive this country of the needed taxes that they would ordinarily owe. (No wonder the country is in debt!)

Oh, wait. I know. If a state has to opt out, then the state legislatures and governors have to overtly show the citizens they represent that health care for the regular people of their state is not something that they care about--even if the majority of the citizens are in need and are asking for it.

If the state has to opt in, then the minority, who happen to have decent health care insurance, can ignore the matter and hope it goes away and that the citizens of their states will not ask why they got left out. Maybe there will not be a grass-roots movement to demand an opt in.

But wait, there's more...

Watch. These same politicians will be the first to respond to the inevitable grass-roots demand for decent options to their health care choices insurance with the mantra: "Vote for me and I will see that this state opts in."

It is just semantics. It is just politics.

I think there should be an executive order to drop the health care insurance policies of Congress that is funded by taxpayers and change it to a set of private heath care insurance programs. Privatize it for everyone, not just the needy citizenry. It is feudal elitism for the Congress to get privileges paid for by taxpayers that the same Congress refuses to grant to the same taxpayers. Why do we fund these obstructionists? Our blood, sweat, and tears are shed so they can collect from the special interest groups and ignore the needs of the people. Are we tired of this yet?

Wake up, Republicans. Get with the program, Democrats.

And another thing: Why is there such an uproar over the possibility of coverage for abortion from the same people that send our sons and daughters to a war to be maimed, killed and traumatized. Are we exhausted yet?

Growth of the English Language

image is Line of Fire &(c)2009 V. Coskrey

American English is constantly growing in the number of words in everyday usage. Today while watching Book tv on C-SPAN2 I heard David Finkel use a word in a sentence that broadened the definition of the word. He said it so matter-of-factly that I could tell that this definition must now be in common use since the original show was David Finkel's talk on the Good Soldiers given 9/16/09.
He said, "...where the Shiite had pretty well cleansed the Sunni..."

Have the dictionaries been updated as yet? If not, I offer these suggested definitions to be included in next year's editions:

to cleanse

-to destroy an identifiable subset of the human race.

cleansing

-the destruction of a population or culture by a competing population or culture.

Of course we all know this word from watch spy and special agent and rogue assassin movies:

cleaner

-one who destroys all evidence and witnesses of an incident

I once said the Holocaust was not a unique incident in history. Ethnic Cleansing practices of today are the equivalent of the Holocaust. There are incidences throughout history, too, even America's. I'll bet we could make a list of dozens of such incidences if we begin with the dawn of man and continue until today. Any takers?

I suppose we must be very careful not to make familiarity with a human practice and frequency of a human practice equate with acceptance of a human practice. Considering the horror of the Holocaust as a unique event forced us to partition its effects as something we hoped would never happen again and to punish the perpetrators. Now we must face the fact that such horrors continue, albeit under a different name--a name that insulates us from the continuing horror and thereby makes us more complacent.

Maybe the United Nations should create stiffer penalties against such hate crimes. Certainly America should.