They say talking about entitlements like Medicare and Social Security are the “third rail” in American politics. I would venture that the third rail in American culture is race. It’s an issue that is ever present with us throughout our history. Only at certain times does it rear its head. When this happens our ugly racial history yields an ugly skirmish, the firestorm dies down, and we go back to normal trying to ignore the cultural third rail.
We’ve seen a skirmish the past couple weeks. I liken it to a Cold War era limited engagement. But like all war engagements it is an escalation that ends in bloodshed. The NAACP passed a resolution that condemned Tea Party racism. This prompted Tea Party elements to defend their dignity as not racists. The NAACP showed some racial signs in Tea Party crowds. Andrew Breitbart posted a tape of a NAACP event that seemed to show racial intolerance getting a welcome reaction by the crowd. But like most engagements, the crossfire enveloped a non-target. Breitbart says he never was targeting Shirley Sherrod, he was pointing out the reaction of her story by the audience. Nevertheless, Sherrod became a target and a thin-skinned White House forced her to resign her job because of an edited tape they hadn’t even seen. The NAACP, in direct contradiction of their acronym, shoved Sherrod out too, even though they possessed the full tape that would have proved her innocent of racial bias.
Eventually the tape did come out, albeit not fast enough to save Sherrod’s job. The apologies came fast and furious from the White House, the Agriculture Department. The point of Breitbart’s video ignored, the finger pointing has commenced. And so goes another chapter in America’s racial Cold War.
Racism is one of the worst attributes that can be shown and espoused today. Just as hurtful is falsely being accused of being racist when you’re not. This issue comes to a head due to the NAACP’s proclamation that condemns supposed ‘Tea Party racism’.
First, let me speak for myself: I would like to think that I don’t have a racist bone in my body. I don’t know any racists. I don’t have any friends that are racists. If I saw a racist, I wouldn’t associate with them. I tend to think that a very large majority of my fellow Americans thinks like I do. When I judge a person, I use Dr. Martin Luther King’s way, I judge on the content of one’s character.
Next, let me explain the Tea Parties I’ve been to. I’ve attended numerous and spoken at one. I personally haven’t seen any racial signs when I’ve been to Tea Party rallies. I’m honored to know personally the organizers here in St. Louis, none of which harbor racial animus.
Beyond that, I must speak extremely broadly. The Tea Party movement is a broad and open movement. We don’t have ID cards, stamp entrances, or private/secret meetings. Like many other public demonstrations, people are free to come and go as they please. The likelihood of uninvited or unwanted guests exists here as it does everywhere in America. Legally, it’s difficult for Tea Parties to expel these people because more often than not, the event is on public land.
Furthermore, I would argue that it is unfair to judge any movement based on individual acts like single signs. So to be fair you can’t say that the Tea Party is racist because there’s a nut with a racist sign. Even if you find 100 examples of this around the country, it pales in comparison to the millions who are at Tea Parties for the right reasons. It would be slightly fairer to judge the organizers of Tea Parties and whom they themselves invite to speak. That’s fair to judge. If it’s sponsored by the official organization, then talk about it. I must also point out that the hierarchy of Tea Party groups is very fractured. There are local town groups, citywide groups, and national sponsors. Not every group thinks the same or endorses every one of each other’s actions.
To take an example, the Northern Iowa Tea Party placed a sign off a road that has a picture of Adolf Hitler, Vladmir Lenin, and President Barack Obama. This was in reference to the three variations of socialism. Personally, I wouldn’t characterize Obama in such a way. He is the most left wing President in history, but not quite socialist in my opinion. But on another level, I think plastering Hitler and Obama together is just not politically smart. It’s easy to marginalize you when you do that. Just as we rightfully dismissed the Bush-Hitler signs by the left. But in terms of criticizing the sign, I think it’s fair. The sign was put up by a Tea Party organization. I would condemn such a reference, as did some national sponsors.
On the whole, this Hitler comparison or racist displays are extremely rare on the individual nut level and from an organizational level. By no means should these small incidents be taken to indict an entire movement. If people still are fuzzy about what Tea Parties actually stand for, it’s fiscal conservatism and individual freedom at its core. Race doesn’t now nor ever did play a part. The rhetoric can get heated, but above it all, it’s fiscal issues that drive the movement.
The above points were intended to inform and sway open minded, level headed people who had questions about racism in the Tea Party. But to be honest, I know why members of the media and elements of the left are driving the racial narrative, fear. For the better part of four decades, the left has been using freedom of assembly quite well. They can mobilize on a street corner at a moment’s notice. Only in the last 18 months has the right waded into this zone. The threat is being treated with vicious hate and bitter division. And the easiest way to smear and divide is racially. I doubt that the left really cares about supposed racial rhetoric as much as discrediting a legitimate movement that has garnered majority support across the nation. It is the vilest of smears to be called racist when false. And I encourage people on the left who hurl it to be careful about the broadness of your brush (unless you intend to insult and smear patriotic Americans).
I would hope the truth prevails in the end. Instead of smearing, why don’t liberals defend the disastrous policies of the Obama Administration? I’d much rather be posting on it, rather than defending against ugly smears.
I’ve had an up close and personal look at America’s healthcare system over the past seven weeks. I thought it necessary to share this experience as a stress relief to myself and another testimonial on the state of healthcare in America.
My grandmother was as close to a 3rd parent as a non-parent could get. Not to say my parents weren’t there, they were. It just so happened that early in my life I grew very close to my grandmother. This bond went all the way through high school and after I got back from my first year of college, I was looking forward to spending some time with her.
She turned 86 in April. She wasn’t a typical 86 year-old. She was virulently independent due to her being a widow since the mid 1970’s. Every day she did 30 minutes on the treadmill, in almost perfect health. She could drive as well, going to church weekly, running errands. She’s never had a ticket or an accident her entire life.
I visited her on May 21st, ate lunch with her, and showed her pictures from my first year at college. I left around 2 pm. That was the last time I or anyone else would see her in her normal state. A half hour after I left, she was on her way to the grocery store when an SUV made a left hand turn right into her. The side impact whipped her neck so violently that it shattered her 6th vertebra. As she was wheeled into the hospital, she couldn’t move from her neck down.
She underwent two three hour-long surgeries in four days. We learned in the subsequent hours and days that some of the bone fragments that were obliterated in the accident were lodged in her spine, interrupting the nerve endings throughout her body. She would regain some movement, but not all. What she would and would not get back was unknown.
As the days past, her movement grew. She spent three weeks in the hospital’s trauma ICU. Even while laying in a bed, she started to move her left hand. We could judge her strength by her grip of other’s hands. Every week it would grow a little stronger. Her right hand, which is her dominant hand, was slow in returning. While she’s stronger with a grip, her arm hasn’t moved to date. Her legs are moving, but it’s still a toss up whether or not she will ever walk again.
She was moved to a hospital rehabilitation facility about four weeks ago, where the family got the impression that she would spend a good three months rehabbing her movement. If more was needed, she could move to a skilled nursing facility. The doctor said the first 3-6 months were key in her recovery.
After nearly a month, we were informed that her Medicare Advantage plan had been approving her stay week by week. The therapists say she’s making significant progress, but due to her age it will take her a longer time to rehabilitate completely. She’ll still gain what she can gain, just slower. The myth we had shattered was the one that the therapists and doctors were controlling her treatment. In actuality, the insurance company is. They approve the drugs, and control when she must leave the rehab hospital. That is where our problem arises. While her progress is steady, it’s too slow for the insurance to allow her to stay. We are anticipating her being denied this week or next, after only a month of rehab.
When this occurs, she’d have to be moved to a skilled nursing facility where the therapy is only a third as long per day. Plus even there, the insurance dictates week to week if she makes progress. We were told by one facility that the average stay might be 2-3 weeks. Weeks? She needs months.
After that is over, we must make a decision. My Grandmother has never wanted to be a burden on her family, but she’s expressed a longing to go back to her own home of 20 years, not a nursing home for the remainder of her life. In this situation, the mentality of the patient is key and we’re afraid that her mentality to fight and regain her movement will wane if she is stuck in a nursing home indefinitely. If there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, she may give up on living.
I hate to use this term, but the insurance company is acting like a death panel. She is gaining ground, but not fast enough. It’s not like she isn’t improving, she’s being denied the opportunity to improve. A faceless insurance company staffer will determine the course of my grandmother’s natural life, even if that goes against her wishes, our wishes, or a doctor’s medical opinion. To the insurer, she’s not cost effective enough to warrant treatment.
Now don’t get me wrong, I would never want to replace the insurance company with a faceless government bureaucrat making these decisions either. I want an end to faceless bureaucrats deciding anything. The truth is that if my family lived in Canada or Great Britain my grandmother might not have survived. The rationing panel would have deemed her too old and “not cost effective”. I don’t want death panels, be they public or private. There’s got to be a way to allow the patient, family, and doctor to make medical decisions without a heartless third party rationing care.
My point is this, do not let anyone tell you the status quo in American healthcare is expectable. Don’t let anyone try to replace this system with a system that makes the government a third party. We need healthcare reform that puts my grandmother and her doctor in charge of her rehab and her care for the remainder of her life. In essence we need healthcare freedom.
During this ordeal, I’ve seen the best and worst of America’s healthcare system. The two surgeries that were performed are a testament to modern medicine and saved my grandmother’s life. However, the recovery of her movement revealed who really is in charge of medical decisions, and it’s not the doctor or patient. Healthcare reform is needed, and it must bend the system toward freedom. That is what we needed, but it’s not what President Obama signed in March.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness… it is the birthright of every American… defended by the bravest among us, to protect the most innocent among us… to ensure for them and future generations the freedom granted by God and fulfilled by humanity… it is fitting then that we honor such a unique nation… founded in freedom… living on for over two centuries… for the 234th time we wish a happy birthday to the greatest nation the world has ever known… the land of the free and the home of the brave.
It’s the question all the Washington elites are asking, why are they so angry? Well, here’s why…
All across America we are seeing failure.
The economy is drowning, and big business and Wall Street are the only ones receiving a life jacket. While the tried and tested backbone of our economy, small businesses and workers are being ignored and demagogued from Washington.
The Gulf is drowning in oil due to a failure of a big corporation, and the same government tasked with fixing the problem is too busy getting marred in bureaucratic paperwork and environmental standards. We see more photo ops than tankers in the gulf.
We are addicted to oil from a dangerous part of the world and yet the Department of Energy, whose sole reason for existence is to wean us off of oil, has failed for almost four decades to do so.
The most basic act of budgeting is ignored. It was at least something when Congress ignored the budget, now they don't even bother writing one! Meanwhile, the deficit grows larger, the debt grows out of control, while my future and my kid's future is being recklessly spent away. It seems preserving any amount of fiscal prudence for my generation has been lost. The next generation, be damned!
We see a national security apparatus so laden with agencies and turf wars that terrorists are able to penetrate are our defenses and kill Americans if not for their own incompetence.
Our southern border is not secure and Washington is unwilling to lift a finger, yet they’re quick to file a lawsuit against a state that actually is tackling the problem they ignore.
Big bureaucracies across the board are failing us, whether in corporate America or in government. Yet Washington’s answer to a failed bureaucracy is to appoint another to oversee the failing one.
Common sense would dictate that when a crisis hits, you handle the crisis. Instead, we see more time paid to public relations and how much political capital can be garnered. They’re not letting said crisis go to waste instead of simply fixing the problem.
We don’t see government as the enemy. It has its place. But we see that when government delves into things it shouldn’t, it ignores the things it is already been tasked with doing. We now see that large and cumbersome bureaucracies fail, where smaller, more agile operations succeed. We know that when the American people have more of their own money to spend, prosperity will follow.
We know these things are true. We know these things work. Why are we angry? Now you know.
