Love Laugh & Organize

This post is not to talk about my views on this Health care debate. If you want to know where I stand on this whole issue, check out this video:





I know people have different views on this whole health care debate. What gets me is the people who link this issue with other social issues. I saw the VA townhall that Senator Mark Wanrer was holding on television today. People had stickers that read "Guns save Lives". People in the crowd demanded Warner to make sure that no funding from the health care bill go to helping or conducting adoptions, stop helping communist agendas pass through our United States Congress, and the most tangential of them all, the comments they made on President Obama.

I woman said, "In all my life, I have seen 11 people hold the oval office, and for the first time, I feel like the person holding that office currently is not a patriot. How can we have somebody who does not believe in American values shaping our Health Care system". When I first heard this, I was FURIOUS at the fact that this woman used the Health Care townhall as a way to channel her personal ignorance on our President. When she finished, the majority of the crowd cheered, which also bothered me.

The problem is not about speaking her mind about the President, it was about the implications in her statement and the reasoning of her judgment. When a white conservative woman is questioning our President's commitment to this country, I can not help but connected back to race and the way people feel about a person of color having the highest elected position in this country. Questioning his patriotism goes beyond question his nationality and commitment to this country. The most ludicrous argument that people use is saying that they want their country back. WTF?!? Your country back? Where did it go? Who took it away? Are you claiming Obama took your country away? If that is the case, is this country not his also? What will it take for you to get your country back?

Questioning his patriotism goes beyond this health care reform. During the campaign, people were throwing everything at him to attempt to smear him and make the mass population taint him as something other than a true American. People attempted to say that he was not born on American land, he was tied to terrorist, picture him as a Muslim terrorist, question his religion and ties to religious leaders, questioning his "blackness", smear him as an ultra liberal just because he was a person of color, and many more myths and lies that paraded around multiple news sources.

No other President in the United States has dealt with these accusations. One reason is because for the first time in American history, the leader of this country does not represent the privileged population in this country. Because of this, people feel it is free game to accuse him of malicious networks and ill intentions towards this country just so people can affirm their discomfort. The fact a small majority want him to fail and will do EVERYTHING they can to see it happen disturbs me. Are they trying to prove that he is not a capable leader? What does that mean for me as a person of color? Will people think I took their country away if I ever get to where Obama is? Will I fail before I ever get a chance?

People are using the Health Care debate to attack a human being. To link Obama to Hitler, communism, and any other historically outside force that has threatened the essence of this country is wrong. People are using Town Halls and media outlets to taint his image and exude a leader who will take this country into the shit hole.

To be completely honest, I also do not see Obama as a savior of the United States. His political views are very different than mine and I think he is too centralist and should use this politically opportunity to tackle issues that may not even be able to be brought to the table. But I do not question him as a human being just because we do not agree politically.

So my message to all the townhallers and noisemakers on this health care debate: Just because you feel you are morally right does NOT mean you are going to win. Making the loudest noise will not mean people will pay attention to you more. Bring some ideas to the table instead of tactics that will get us no where as a country. Don't like his policies? Vote someone into office who's policies you do like.....but be prepared for a fight.

How do I see health care playing out in the next couple of months? I do not know, but I would want the discussion to be around HEALTH CARE and not about Obama.



A true Patriot,
-DM