Friday, October 06, 2017

Are we becoming the land that is not so free and the home of the afraid?

On September 11 as I was preparing to work on a post about the 16th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, I was interrupted by a knock on the door that as Turner Report readers will recall quickly ended up with me on the floor, the victim of a sucker punch from someone who was displeased with my reporting.

In addition to a messed-up face, I had a severely swollen knee area and made a subsequent visit to the Freeman emergency room.

A couple of weeks later, I received a statement from Freeman noting that the cost of that visit was nearly $1,400, not counting bills from doctors and radiologists.

Later that day, as I checked out the report on my insurance company's website, I discovered it had already received the bills from the doctors and radiologists, bringing the total bill to approximately $2,000 ... and every cent of it was covered by my insurance.

I had a hard time believing it and a short time later I shared my good fortune with my Facebook friends, thanking Obamacare at the end of my status report.

Many people were pleased that I was not going to be saddled with debt over an unprovoked attack, but other people had an entirely different reaction.

Those people made it clear that my Obamacare was stealing money from their pockets. They were having to pay for my health care. They related stories about having to pay incredibly high co-pays and deductibles, while I (and anyone else who had insurance under the Affordable Care Act) was a freeloader who deserved to go broke rather than to have my situation eased because of a government handout.

What in the world is wrong with these people?

Their first inclination is not to wonder what can be done to fix the system so they don't have to pay such high co-pays and deductibles, but to hope for an end to a program that has made it so people do not have to go into bankruptcy because they have a major disease. I shared my good news about insurance covering the cost of the emergency room visit because I did not expect that to happen and I thought people would be genuinely happy for me.

Not if it involved Obamacare. (I should mention that my insurance does not cover all costs. While it covered a large portion of the $200,000+ cost of my triple bypass surgery in April 2016, I am still working to take care of those bills.)

Many people have been conditioned to think that anything that is a good thing for society should be eliminated because it is taking something from their pockets.

The Affordable Care Act, flawed though it certainly is, has given millions of people affordable insurance for the first time, but instead of fixing those flaws, we have to get rid of it entirely. People who don't make as much money or who have pre-existing conditions do not have to live in fear or die early. But that makes no difference to those who think that something good for other people is being done just to hurt them.

An example of this mindset could be seen after John McCain announced his opposition to the most recent effort to repeal Obamacare. The comments on the KZRG Facebook page featured calls for McCain's death and expressions of sheer hatred and vindictiveness because he said he would vote against a bill that would have eliminated health insurance for millions of Americans.

Now that is the American spirit!

It is not just health care. Think of all of the convenient bogeymen that have been set up as villains.

How about those people who are on welfare or receive food stamps? You have people, many of them receiving millions of dollars a year to keep the people angry on radio, TV and in books, pushing the idea that the poor are stealing your money. They select the most egregious examples of people who are cheating the system and use them represent all of the people who receive assistance.

Most people who are forced to live on welfare or who receive food stamps would prefer to be in better situations where they would not have to rely on the government to exist from day to day. Instead of working on programs that would provide them with the opportunity to lift themselves into a better existence, lawmakers throw as many obstacles in their way as they can- drug test them, cut the number of weeks they can receive unemployment benefits, provide more ways to deprive them of those benefits- because people who cannot find work or people who do not make enough money are stealing from you.

Now that is the American spirit!

And Good Lord, don't ever mention anything about devising any type of sensible gun regulations. It is not an effort to save lives- it is depicted as an effort to come into our homes and take away our guns. How we will defend ourselves when it becomes time to overthrow the oppressive government?

After each mass killing, we hear the same refrains. It is too soon to talk about gun regulations. Let's have a moment of silence for the dead and maybe we can discuss it before the next time it happens.

People are ridiculed because they do not know the exact model and make or functions of a particular weapon.

It's not guns that kill people, it's people who kill people.

People kill people with knives and baseball bats. Are you going to outlaw them?

The same thing every time. And let me make this clear, if they ever create a bat that can kill 59 people in less than 10 minutes I will fight for Louisville Slugger control.

We cannot legislate common sense regulations about guns because somebody is taking away something that belongs to us- the right to own the biggest and deadliest weapons our Founding Fathers wanted us to have.

Now that's the American Spirit!

Division in America is a full-time job with people making millions of dollars from promoting it.

It is not just health care or guns, how about all of those African Americans and Hispanic people who are trying to vote illegally? If you believe these people who foment division, we have millions who are risking imprisonment or deportation to cast one vote in one election. It doesn't stand up to logic, but then fear never does.

A culture of victimhood has been created in which anything that is different is sinister and is here to take away what we hold dear and anything that is done to offer a helping hand is giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

If that truly is the American Spirit, then it is the time for the American Spirit to be redefined. When people spend every waking hour thinking that efforts to help those who are less fortunate, those who are different, those who have been a dealt a bad blow by fate, are somehow designed to take something that belongs to only us, then we are changing the very fabric of this nation.

How soon before we become America- the land that used to be free and the home of the afraid?

10 comments:

Unknown said...

This is very well written and I wholeheartedly agree with you.

U.S. Army Vet said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
U.S. Army Vet said...

I was never a real Obama fan but I am very pleased to say that I now have health insurance and for a reasonable price. Yes it has a high deductible but I have the security that I have insurance and it works with the doctors and hospitals to lower the cost I gave to pay god services. Gun control....Ahhh a very touchy subject..... I respect all peope that don’t agree with me but I don’t think that putting tighter gun control laws on law abiding citizens is going to help to cut down on the senseless mass murders that have taken placed. Tougher laws are not going to keep the weapons out of the hands of the monsters that decide it is time to take away the lives of innocent people. Could it possibly be that these individuals that kill so many in mass murders are mentally ill ? Maybe some more tax dollars should be used to help provide free mental health services?

Anonymous said...

Turner please!!!

I've never seen a bigger more importunate whiner than Turner. Nothing but bitching and moaning about how the people of SW Missouri are gun-loving racists who don't believe in single-payer or welfare or immigration of millions of illegal aliens, everything in the grab-bag of liberal-dumb.

Now the pore critter has been shoved to the margins of its free blog, barricaded up and waiting to die as another Boomer on the ass-heap of History.

Things certainly have changed the past sixty years . . . and not for the better.

You really need to go crawl off to Liberal-land in the Clinton Archipelago and leave us benighted Southwest Missourians in our traditional misery while you croak off amongst your own kind.

Here in SW Missouri we get to shoot back and that is a good thing.

Anonymous said...

I agree; this is very well written.

I am very glad that your insurance took care of your medical needs after you were attacked. I don't think that you are stealing from me.
I do not think that the government should be in charge of insurance (or bailing out companies).

I do not think that it is asking too much for someone receiving welfare money to submit to a drug test (many employers now require that) or be required to look for work. I do not think that any of us want to see people who are going through tough times not receive assistance. What many do object to is people who spend their entire lives not working (or attempting to work) and living on welfare and refusing (yes, they do refuse) to try and get work.

So many times we have "knee jerk" reactions. People abuse a system, we put up obstacles. Someone shoots someone, we need to get rid of guns. People OD, we take a drug away. There is a difference between learning from something and making adjustments and going to extremes.

Randy, when you bemoan how it seems that so many people don't want to help others, that is a matter of the heart. We can not regulate hearts and we certainly can't regulate or predict mental illness, not to mention just plain evil.

I hope like you that hearts will change and we will remember how to take care of, protect and assist each other instead of constantly hurting each other.

Harvey Hutchinson said...

Well said Anonymous 9:35 pm.

Army Vet with Obamacare;how does the Unaffordable insurance compare to VA benefits in costs?( and if you’re going to bring up wait times, choosing doctor, etc. President Trumpbis fixing that)

Harvey Hutchinson 303-522-6622 voice&text

U.S. Army Vet said...

Harvey, yes in my case, since I do not qualify for V.A. Benefits, it is more affordable for me because I qualify for subsidized premiums. It still has a very high deductible but it sure beats not having any insurance. As far as the wait times for Vets to get the medical care, it has been a huge problem for a mighty long time and should not be solely blamed on President Trump. People are all too eager to blame things on President Trump, put on your big kid pants and deal with it, Trump is our President and he has a full plate of poor government management to deal with

Anonymous said...

America as a country has too many stupid Citizens to exist much longer. We are rapidly reaching the point where all the hate is going to turn into a civil war. I am not entirely convinced that would be a bad thing. At least there would be fewer idiots around to fight with each other.

Anonymous said...

Now THAT is very well articulated and represents what most of the population thinks. At least that is what I hear when I talk to people about these topics....and I have these discussions often.

Harvey Hutchinson said...

Randy, where do you put President Trump in your litany of oppressed constituencies that are victims of our national devisiveness.

Harvey Hutchinson 303-522-6622 voice & text 24/7