We all have seen it on our T.V.s, hundreds of angry people lining up to do everything they can to disrupt congressmen trying to explain or debate the new health care plan. They say they are exercising their freedom of speech and right to protest, and no one should be able to make them stop. In a way they are right, we all have the fundamental right to protest. But, you see, “they” can stop you. When you exercising your right intrudes upon other peoples rights, the law has an obligation to come in and stop you. What these people are doing is un-American, because instead of stimulating a healthy debate, they are causing near mob riots.
Another thing you hear the pundits from the right saying is how this administration is trying to stamp out the American way of life, trying to kill the America you grew up in. They say that if this continues, we will all be living under a Communist regime, and have no civil liberties. Listening to the Limbaughs, Hannitys, Levins, and Ingrahams you would think the current administration and congress pulled a coup d’etat over night and now are in power. The thing is, though, 53% of us voted this administration into office. This tells me that the majority of the country wants something done about the way things work in this country. No, this is not the same America we all grew up in, it is a different America.
This is a changing country, one with a constitution that allows change when the times call for it. 143 years ago, when this country was founded, things were different. We didn’t know hardly anything of most the cultures of the world, practically none of the science we know now, and did not have such a wide understanding of what a human being was. Our four fathers did, however, know they didn’t know everything and made it to where we could change our laws. Otherwise, this would not be much of a democracy.
You know there was too a time , a while back, when thousands pf people flooded the streets “protesting” that government was trying to take away their American way of life, crushing the America they grew up in. Yet, the administration pushed on with its goal, never forgetting those who voted them in. Every time they would gain some ground on their bill, all they would get was heavy push back from the opposition including riots, lynchings, and assassinations. Yet , eventually, President Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights act of 1964.
Millions of people were against this piece of legislation, but that did not make them right. And I don’t think that there is a SANE AND DECENT person alive in this country would say that passing this piece of legislation was a wrong move made by the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Yet, at the time millions were against it. 27 senators voted against it, and 130 congressmen voted against it. There were riots, families threatened, children killed, and good men assassinated. The easy thing to do would be to just leave it for somebody else to do another day. But, these men could not live with themselves if they did that. They fought for this, for a decade they fought for this. Many of these men lost their reputation, but they would rather lose that than their self-decency.
And the same is going on now. Health care was one of the platforms the people in power ran on, and Americans voted them into office on it. They did not take over the government, and thy didn’t just all of a sudden change their way of thinking. They are doing what the majority elected them to do. Yes, there are a lot of people that disagree, the people who didn’t vote for them. That is why we have to work together, not just complain. Maybe if the senators, governors, and congressmen would take a stand on what know is right, and not what the radio hosts think is right, we could get something done.
Right now there are millions of people against letting everyone having health coverage, mainly because they are AFRAID of losing their coverage and way of life. I would be too if the people I am suppose to trust keep using scare tactic to get me to vote for them. Fear politics have got to stop. Just because people are trying to adjust the law to the times does not make those people Communists and Nazis. We must come together and COMPROMISE to get anything done. You can’t go on national TV saying the things you say about people and expect the same people to work with you the next day. But if we change this and try work together,maybe in 20 or 30 years we will wonder how could anyone be against letting everyone see a doctor when they are sick.
