Catching Up, Clearing Up, Manning Up

Professor J,

Thanks for keeping everyone updated during my absence. Your clarity is helpful in catching up when one has been away and cut off from the news (A blissfully ignorant state, I'll admit). I'll also admit that recovering from vacation brain is hard.

In your January 10th posting the four expansions you proposed to add to the Norris Amendment to the Constitution seemed simple and doable enough. While #3 would certainly be a fight, numbers 1,2,4 really seemed as if they could be done fairly quickly and easily.

Can you expound on why you said that Medicare wasn't a well thought out program? 

Your comments about medical spending on the elderly are practical and I agree with them. We spend astronomical amounts of money on those near the end of life while not providing resources for those in the productive years of life. This kind of talk (as you allude to) makes people nervous as if we are valuing life based on how productive it is, or advocating the Palinesque "death squads." A far better solution would be to encourage people to take more personal responsibility for their own health, and spend an increased portion of public funds to that end. Just as in so many other areas of our society as well as personal lives, we need balance.  We are unable to speak the truth about what we value. We value war over health. Politics over solutions. Profit over nearly everything else. But we don't say these things of course. They are too true and brutal for us to acknowledge.

On a side note: for everyone who's tired of sorting out information, championing common sense, and  being the adult in a room full of paste eating toddlers, I say, don't give up. (This is where I like to add the movie quote from the idealistic character. In this case it's from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington):

Jefferson Smith: [His voice very hoarse] Just get up off the ground, that's all I ask. Get up there with that lady that's up on top of this Capitol dome, that lady that stands for liberty. Take a look at this country through her eyes if you really want to see something. And you won't just see scenery; you'll see the whole parade of what Man's carved out for himself, after centuries of fighting. Fighting for something better than just jungle law, fighting so's he can stand on his own two feet, free and decent, like he was created, no matter what his race, color, or creed. That's what you'd see. There's no place out there for graft, or greed, or lies, or compromise with human liberties. And, uh, if that's what the grownups have done with this world that was given to them, then we'd better get those boys' camps started fast and see what the kids can do. And it's not too late, because this country is bigger than the Taylors, or you, or me, or anything else. Great principles don't get lost once they come to light. They're right here; you just have to see them again!