A voice crying in the wilderness….
The health care system in America is a mess. The reason health insurance came into being by employers was not seeing a need and looking to fill it, a perceived moral duty, but just as a lure during WWII to entice a highly limited work force. Our present Insurance Industry is purely about the bottom line and will trade lives for profit, and does so daily.
Any decent person who would take a fair and impartial at what goes on in this country regarding the state of health care would be horrified at it and enraged at those who oppose ACA. The lies told about before and now by the Right about this Act has left an indelible stain of disgrace. The affluent unwilling even to throw crumbs from their table, giving a few hundred thousand children a stone when they needed an aspirin.
The ugliness being shown in the last few days after the Court ruling by the Right and Conservative Christians, the venemous statements and specious distortions, clearly demonstrartes where the divisiveness in this country stems. Calling a Supreme Court Justice a “coward,” a “traitor,” and “sick” for ruling on a point of law as his vast expertise dictated is scurrilous. The result of pouting over not hurting President Obama, who they had vowed from his inaugaration to make a one term preseident. Why?
The Church has marshalled the vast majority of its resources to fight against abortion and homosexuality, with a touch of hate at Islam. That literally hundreds of thousands of children suffer and die needlessly in this country from lack of proper care, fully conscious in their drawn-out illness and agony, is a fact overlooked by most Christians because of their partisan politics.

Also, let us not forget it was Right Wing policy that created this economic mess and near-ruin of America with the de-regulation of Wall Street and the Banking Industry and their then unchecked greed as policy.
The Right tried to blame an intiative to make buying a house by slightly reducing the prerequisites. Seeing the enormous profit in bundling mortgages, the banks on their own recklessly and drastically reduced those prerequisites and ship it off.
By these careless acts of pandering to the rich, a million or more hard-working people were made destitute and in need of assistance: doesn’t the country owe them that much?
The Right is steadily destroying America as we knew it for nothing more than profit, a new social darwinism that treats an unfair advantage of money and privilage in the same way gangs fed on the defenseless, proud of their unfair tactics.

Thank you for a wonderfully well written article. Yes, we can’t say we are followers of Jesus as long as we take on the attitude of “I’ve got mine; to heck with you!” Yet I see this attitude over and over with my Christian conservative friends and relatives.

I once had an argument with such a man (actually had this argument with several, but am thinking of one particular circumstance). He was, like every conservative I’ve ever talked to, totally against paying more taxes and felt that the rich pay enough. I pointed out to him that Jesus told us to pay our taxes. He agreed that this is true, that Jesus said to render unto Caesar what is Caesars. . .BUT, said he, Jesus didn’t say that any of those taxes were to be designated toward helping the poor and furthermore, he felt that private charities and churches could do enough and that those programs just weren’t necessary.

First I pointed out to him that people who have lost their jobs due to outsourcing and downsizing who are beginning to see their unemployment running out, desperate people with families that have been responsible tax payers themselves and are in this situation through no fault of their own, are going to need a bit more than some gently used clothes, a bag of beans, maybe some potatoes and a couple boxes of macaroni and cheese and that passing around that special offering plate in church is not going to get them very far, maybe a couple of days at the most. Then I told him that I agreed with him that Jesus didn’t get to tell Caesar what to do with the tax money he collected, but I do think that since the “least of them” were such a high priority to Jesus, I couldn’t help but think he would approve of that idea.

I even gave him this scenario–Suppose Caesar HAD sought Jesus’ advice on what to do with the tax money. Suppose he showed Jesus around his castle and said look at this place, gold and oppulence everywhere, all my wives are dressed in the finest silk and covered with jewels, even my servants wear the finest polished cotton, my chariot is pulled by the finest horses ever bred. Where do you think this latest tax collection can best be applied. Jesus takes Caesar on a walk around his kingdom starting with the Marketplace where the beggars and the blind sit in misery hoping for a moment’s kindness, mercy and generosity from some passer-by. Then go into some of the poorest homes with hungry families and often filled with the sick and the dying. And finally a walk passed the leper camps. Jesus, standing with his arm around Caesar’s shoulder, asks him if he sees anywhere that latest tax collection could be put to good use. Of course, the final say so still belongs to Caesar, and from what I’ve been seeing lately from the so-called Christian Right, he may well have gone back to his castle and sent his buyers in pursuit of more fine baubles to enhance his self-image of the very rich and powerful man he wants others to see.

After having this conversation, the next day I had a similar conversation with another self-described Christian conservative, and the first thing out of his mouth was, “I’m not giving into any charities. Those lazy freeloaders can just go to work like I have to.”

So much for Christian charity. So much for showing the heart and mercy of Christ. So much for Christ and his principals. Score 10 for Ayn Rand, the other rightwing idol!