Grim News

I apologize in advance for the rambling nature of this post, but I’ve been taking in tonight’s events from a variety of sources.  CNN, BBC, Fox News, CNBC, even Al Jazeera.

There is a common theme in all of the coverage I’ve seen.  Reactions in Europe, the Middle East, Black America, White America, and Latin America all focus on one theme.  Hope.  There is something magical about believing in an idea.  The belief that you are truly witnessing the dawn of a new day.

Barack Obama captured the moment very well in his victory speech.  Even John McCain recognized the moment and delivered one of the warmest speeches of his campaign.  There were celebrations as far away as Kenya.  I saw blacks, whites, latinos, men, women, young and old all eagerly showing hope that today was a new day in this country.

Tomorrow morning, nothing will change.  The same issues that existed yesterday will exist tomorrow.  However, the first step to fixing it is believing that you can fix it.  Today, I saw a country believe in itself once again.

President Obama has a lot of work ahead of him if he is going to back up that belief and turn it into action.

Good luck and congratulations Mr. President-Elect.  May your hand remain steady on the helm, and may you be the leader we can all be proud of.

Don’t be this guy.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand his rage.  I know that just about every election is yet another example of the eternal struggle between “Turd Sandwich and Giant Douche“  Here is why it is important to vote anyway.

You do not change the country in 4 years.  It took us many years to become the nation we are today, good or bad.  There will never be a candidate who can make this country into the perfect place for you to call home.  There is no such thing as Utopia.  All you can do is pick the one who is closest to the direction you want to go, philosophically speaking.  Maybe you want a Socialist Workers Paradise or a fundamentalist Christian theocracy.  You’re not going to find a candidate who can take you there in 4 years.  Even if he promises everything you ever wanted in a government, there is a difference between striving for something and actually making it happen.

If John McCain wins tomorrow, we will not become “The Holy United States of Jesusland” on January 21st next year.  If Barack Obama wins tomorrow, we will not have free health care for all and the rich will not be taxed into the poor house by Valentine’s Day.  Governments, especially ours, are not designed to move quickly.  That’s a good thing.  In a nation where pandering to the mob can get just about anyone elected, it’s good to have some brakes on the machinery of state.

The gentleman in the above video is right, kinda.  Your vote will not cause the Earth to tremble, nor will it shake the halls of power and send politicians scurrying about like cockroaches when the kitchen light is turned on.  It is a voice.  One voice in a chorus of millions.  Some of you will vote for third party candidates in order to make a statement.  Some of you will vote because you believe strongly in your candidate.  Others will vote because they believe strongly against the other candidate.  What is important is that your voice is heard.  Even if it is drowned out by others.  Even if you are a lone voice crying in the wilderness.  Your voice will still be part of the bigger chorus.

Refusing to vote because you believe it doesn’t matter or because you believe that “all politicians are crooks”, is the civil equivalent of “taking your ball and going home”.  You’re still subject to the same laws as the rest of us.  You’re still paying the same taxes.  You’re still under the same obligations, but you’ve given up your one privilege.  Your petulance is causing you to behave like the spoiled brat at a restaurant who is upset because his favorite meal isn’t on the menu.

Do you realize that making your voice heard, even if it is for some crazy candidate like Cynthia McKinney, might encourage others of a similar stripe to speak up.  One day, maybe not in 4 years, maybe not in 20, but someday, a politician will notice that there is a large group of people who aren’t being represented in Washington.  They will notice that people like you vote, and that you will vote for a politician who advocates the policies you feel are so important.

Stop thinking in terms of 4 years and take a big picture view.  This country didn’t become what it was overnight.  It took people with a vision and an idea and the patience to make it happen.  Stop whining and start working.  One day your “crackpot” ideas might become part of the mainstream.

Look at our recent past.  Reaganomics was once dismissed as “Voodoo” by a man who later became Reagan’s Vice President.  The notion that a black man might someday be the Democratic nominee for Preisdent was unthinkable 50 years ago.  Back then, some members of the Democratic party were even members of the KKK (One of whom, Senator Robert Byrd, still serves in Congress today!).  Politicians like Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich might be seen as “fringe” today, but by voting and keeping their names out there in the public eye, someday they might have a chance to kick in the door for someone else.

That will never happen if the voters who feel most strongly about these issues give up and sulk at home on election day.

The man in this video speaks of “walking away”, of “refusing to play their game”.  To him, I would say “Where are you going to move?  Is there some country out there that is doing things better than we are?  Is there anywhere else in the world where you would even have a chance of making things different?”  This is no game, and you can’t quit just because you’re losing. There are millions around the world who would die (and HAVE died) for the opportunity to make their voices heard to those who would govern them.  Think very carefully before throwing your voice away.

Vote.

One of the favorite arguments of so-called libertarians is that tax money is their money that government takes under threat of force.  Government, they argue, forces tax payers to surrender the fruits of their labor so that they can “give” money to the “underachievers” in society, and that by doing so, exert some sort of tyranny on behalf of the lower classes in society.

Some argue that government inefficiency is so endemic that the private sector can do things better in nearly every case.  Extreme Libertarian views would have every road be a toll road, every police force paid for by private citizens, and every social safety net run by a charity or other private organization.  Failure is met with the response “Tough Shit”, and to the victors go all spoils.

I’m going to tell you a different story.

I have a friend named Jay.  Jay’s son, Tyler, was born just 2 days before 9/11.  Just after Ty’s 3rd birthday, he started showing some symptoms of illness.  At first, they appeared to be allergies.  Then he started having headaches and nausea.  The next diagnosis was Bell’s Palsy.   After Jay pushed the doctors to give Tyler a CAT scan, they found a tumor on Tyler’s brain stem in June of 2005.  After surgery and more than a year’s worth of chemotherapy, Tyler was symptom free.

In order to pay the expenses associated with his medical care, Jay and his wife went deep into debt.  Insurance didn’t cover everything, and even his friends started a PayPal donation fund to help make ends meet.

When the symptoms returned later in 2007, Ty had to endure more chemotherapy and radiation treatments.   Now it wasn’t just Jay and his wife being stretched past their financial limits.  Their extended family and friends were pitching in even more money.  The community around Jay and his family went to the mat for Jay and his brave little boy.

It wasn’t enough.  Tyler Hibinger passed away last night.  He was 7 years old.

Having adequate insurance would not have saved Tyler’s life, but the crushing financial burden of this unspeakable ordeal isn’t going away just because Tyler lost his struggle.  There is no damn reason that this country and it’s people can’t get together and provide a safety net for families like Jay’s.  There is no damn reason that “We the People” can’t chip in together and provide coverage for families who need it.

“Tough Shit” is not good enough.

If my taxes have to go up a few percentage points per year in order to make sure that no more families have to face a financial burden like this in order to save their child’s life, then I’ll fuckin’ pay it and be glad I could help.  If others want to look at this and say that government is taking their money at the point of a gun, then let’s tell them “Tough Shit” and see how they like it!

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Our Union is pretty fucking far from perfect when citizens can, in good conscience, tell a family like Jay’s “Tough Shit”.  We’re doing a pretty lousy job of promoting the general welfare when we tell millions of our fellow citizens “If you get sick, you’re on your own.”.  There are no Blessings of Liberty to a family who will be in debt for a significant part of the rest of their lives because they had to take care of a sick child.

There will come a day, and I don’t think it’s that far off, when folks look up and see no perfect Union, no Justice, no general Welfare, and precious few Blessings of Liberty.  The step after that will pretty much kill the notion of domestic Tranquility.

If we are the nation that we all say that we are, it is time to step up, pitch in, make sure your friends and neighbors aren’t left to the tender mercies of Social Darwinism and come up with a solution.  Insurance companies aren’t going to do it.  Doctors and hospitals aren’t going to do it.  We have to do it as one nation, under God (or Allah, Buddha, Vishnu, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Insert the deity of your choice here), indivisible, with liberty and justice for all, not just those who can afford it.

R.I.P. Tyler.  Uncle Grimmy loves you.

I hate telephone advertising.  While I realize that this is a controversial choice, I am prepared to defend my position against the hordes of angry defenders of the right to interrupt my dinner while peddling your bullshit product/service/charity/political candidate.

That said, a couple of things have happened recently that have made me rethink my opinion.

For starters, about 40 call center employees in Indiana walked off the job rather than read a prepared script bashing Barack Obama for things like:

• Electing Barack Obama will put your children in danger
• Barack Obama is soft on crime
• Coddling criminals and putting them on the streets early

Willie Horton, there is a call for you on the white (fear) courtesy phone!

Of course, the only reason they were asked to read this script was because it illegal to robo-call in the state of Indiana.  If you’d like to hear the ad as it ran in other states, here you go.

If you don’t feel like listening…

Hello, I’m calling for John McCain and the RNC, because Democrats are dangerously weak on crime. Barack Obama has voted against tougher penalties for street gangs, drug-related crimes, and protecting children from danger. Barack Obama and his liberal allies have a disturbing history of coddling criminals. so we can’t trust their judgment to keep our families safe. This call was paid for by the Republican National Committee and McCain-Palin 2008 at 866 558-5591. Thank you, bye

Hey Senator McCain, if minimum wage phone monkeys can see through your bullshit, how well do you think this is going to play with the rest of the country?  Maybe you could outsource the calls to India since they neither know, nor care, about you or the American public.

Think about this for a minute, telemarketing is one of the slimiest professions known to man, even prostitution is more honest about what it is than a telemarketer who calls during dinner asking to speak to Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so about something “REALLY important”.  If these guys are saying “No thanks, I have standards.” to your message, then maybe you should re-think the message.

Maybe if you were more like this guy, you could have Sarah Palin do something useful for your campaign.

These are just things that popped up in my head over the weekend.  I may expand on some of these topics later, but right now I’m dealing with a fussy 6 week old girl and I’m heading to the office shortly.

• Since when do Liberals have a monopoly on “Big Government”?  The last Liberal President ran a budget surplus.  The current Conservative President is running record deficits.  Liberals might be guilty of “tax and spend” on occasion, but that is preferable to “tax cut and spend”.  When the time comes, and we have to pay off this debt, it’s going to be ugly.

• Candidates who deliberately misstate issues in order to score easy points with voters are one of the biggest problems we have in Government.  Jim Martin, the Democratic candidate for US Senate here in Georgia, is calling the Fair Tax “a 23% national sales tax” without mentioning that it completely eliminates Income Tax, Estate Tax, Capital Gains Tax, and half a dozen other taxes.  I voted Democrat in more than a few races this year, but this one ad was enough for me to vote for Saxby Chambliss, who sponsored the Fair Tax in the Senate.

• Thanks to Barack Obama, I am now forced to root for the Phillies to win the World Series in 5 games.  He’s gonna get killed in the polls if he winds up pushing back the start of game 6 just so he can blanket the airwaves with a 30 minute speech.  Does he really think that voters in Pennsylvania and Florida (two states that are very much “in play” this year) are going to want to hear him talk instead of watching their teams in the Fall Classic?  I don’t care how important the election is to you, you have to understand the audience, and the audience just wants to watch the damn game.  Would it really have killed Obama to schedule his speech half an hour earlier or, even better, on the day before? (travel day for both teams)

• Thank you, Penn State, for making sure that Ohio State will not be in the BCS Championship Game for the third year running.  If only you could do something about USC.

• Please, mighty gods of college football, do something about Alabama and Georgia.  Maybe let Auburn bring back a half dozen NFL alumni for a game or two?

• Wrath of the Lich King drops on November 13.  Don’t expect me to be social, coherent, or even willing to leave the house that weekend.  I’ll still be writing, but it will be for that other blog. (You know… the one I get paid to write?)