Published: October 18, 2009 09:20 pm      

Is government involvement the problem, or is something else?

I’m normally not the paranoid type but I have a genuine concern, almost fear, about the divisive political direction our society is headed in. It feels to me that we are sitting on a powder keg waiting for the explosion.

I see the rallying at Tea Parties and the name calling of the President as a socialist, fascist, tyrant, and more demeaning negative terms we won’t mention. They say the TEA Parties are designed to protest the uncontrolled spending the White House has proposed with health care reform and the government getting too involved in our lives.

I would hope that to be true but I am having a problem believing that. Why? Because I didn’t see these types of protest when the former president and the Republicans controlled House and Senate, who received a financial surplus from the Clinton administration, recklessly drove our economy to the brink of disaster.

I didn’t see protest taking place when the Patriot Act was signed; when our president and vice president decided it was acceptable and legal to perform wiretapping on the American public whenever they wanted, with no oversight, for reason of national security.

Talk about the government in your business. I didn’t see protest when the government got involved with whether life-support should be pulled on an American citizen.

I guess we were asleep at the wheel for eight years because now we fear government is too involved? Not by performing wiretaps, invading countries without accurate proof of wrong-doing, corruption of appointees to the Department of Justice, or water boarding prisoners (which by the way, the ends do not justify the means), it’s torture and is against the law.

We now want to protest a presidency for actually trying to help the American people he serves by securing a healthy financial future for our country. I have seen no input or ideas from those opposing reform, just we don’t want it. We would rather have the country crumbled to its knees with its constituents paying 41 percent (actual 10 year projection) of its income to insurance companies to provide inadequate healthcare.

The government is not getting between you and your doctor. But your insurance company is! It tells the doctors what they can do and can’t do. It tells you, the person who has been paying those premiums for years, what it will pay or not pay, which is subject to change at their discretion.

There is no question that something has to happen with health care. All sides agree that our current system is inadequate and will drive this country to financial ruin.

But instead of taking the bold step to right the ship, some would have us sail into certain destruction because now they feel government is too involved. Is that truly the reason?

Jerome Younger

Largo