Critiquing a Colleague

I love the argument made by my colleague, U.S Government for Dummies, about the ‘big brother’ type actions of our nation. In his blog titled “Big Brother?” he does a really good job of making his audience aware of the large numbers of money, personnel, and stations being used in ever country but our own. He does a great job of articulation these numbers without making it seem like he is spouting out a series of meaningless statistics.  

I disagree with the idea that the U.S. is trying to be big brother in every country that it has bases and embassies in because I do believe that some of the bases and embassies are truly there for the protection of our people or to cooperate with those other countries. But I also do think that some of our bases are strictly there for the purpose of being ‘big brother’, which is really sad.

It seems as though the implicit point in this blog is that we should no longer have bases and embassies in foreign places but, I think that such actions would end up to be more detrimental than it’s worth. But yes, if we were to stop spending so much money and energy overseas and focus them more towards home we would most definitely be a better and more prosperous country.

Overall a wonderfully written piece. 

Affordable Care Act

Many people believe in this country believe that the Affordable Care Act is causing insurance companies to shut down, but the truth of the matter is that the Affordable Care Act is requiring companies to cover basic needs that they are choosing not to include. These needs include prenatal care. Many men are complaining because they don’t need prenatal care so why should they have to pay for such things in their premiums for their insurance. What many of these men don’t realize is that this prenatal care will allow for healthier children such as their own, if they so choose to have any. Many companies are now shutting down because they are unwilling or unable to cover these kinds of needs and therefore, this company is not one of the very effective companies, when they can’t even provide some of the basic needs for their constituents.

Also, the Affordable Care Act make it so that insurance companies cannot deny or kick people of their insurance because of any preexisting condition, such as smoking or cancer or anything that you had before enter a plan. Now instead insurance companies must cover preexisting conditions and cannot deny someone insurance due to them finding a medical condition before they have sought for insurance. Because of the Affordable Care Act people are now able to receive insurance that can help pay for health services for things like cancer, mental disorders, and other diseases.

The Affordable Care Act is a great thing for our country. It provides a great amount more help than harm and it allows for a healthier nation. 

A Comment on a Colleague's Blog

The Bemused Citizen wrote a beautiful piece on the decline of our government and the failure of those that brought us here. I completely agree that the people who we have in office have become blinded by their greed for power and money and this has brought our government to a state of “mockery and disdain”. The political parties controlling our government no longer have the views of the people in mind, but instead they busy themselves with winning petty arguments and gaining money and publicity for the nest term’s campaign. 

Though this piece of beautifully written and I agree with the main premise, I do disagree with the ending statement saying that “America will be great again.” Call me a pessimist but I believe that each person entering our government can’t help but to become sidetracked and lead astray by their personal wants and the pressure of their peers within the same party. I think America has a long way to go before we are anywhere close to being the nation that is “…a bastion of intelligence, a citadel of hop for world economy…”

Gay Marriage

     Denying individuals the right to same sex marriages is unconstitutional. The banning of same sex marriage denies the LGBTQ community of several of their rights such as not being discriminated against because of sex and the right to equal protection of our rights. Many people against same sex marriage argue that the constitution says that marriage is only between a man and woman. The constitution doesn't actually say anything specific on marriage but, the courts, who interpret the constitution, have defined marriage as being between those of opposite sex.

     Every American has the right of equal protection of rights and laws. This makes it unconstitutional to deny, by law, the act of marriage from one group of people but to allow it for another. This is a violation of the 14th amendment which explicitly states that all citizens are given equal protection of rights. Banning same sex marriage also violates the 5th amendment that states American citizens cannot be denied their rights without due process of law. There has been no due process of law for any LGBTQ couple denied the right to marry.

     Other people argue that if homosexuals are allowed to marry, then they will spread homosexuality. It has been scientifically proven that homosexuality is not any form of contagious disease and there is no correlation of rising numbers of homosexual kids and the number of same sex marriages. In fact most homosexuals probably have heterosexual parents.

     Denying the LGBTQ community the right to marry doesn't help our nation in any way, it instead splits us into groups that hate each other.  If the right to marry was no longer denied then there might even be more peace in our country. Fewer children would kill themselves out of shame of being gay and fear of society's judgment. There would be less riots and marches in the streets. The marriage of one couple has no effect on another. Gay marriage is not unconstitutional and it should no longer be denied from the community because of someone else's fear and hatred.

Who is Responsible?

Jeffrey St. Clair, of the Counter Punch blog, blogged this weekend about our government: “The Empire of the Senseless.” http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/10/18/empire-of-the-senseless/. He described our government as one “that doesn't sense, that doesn't feel, that is immune to the conditions and desires of the governed.” St. Clair’s main argument is to convince America that our country is no longer ran by a government that’s ‘for the people, by the people,’ but instead is now  a government that seeks to only please itself and is “menacing” to the public.

St. Clair asks the people what it is that should be done about it while telling them that the problem is the left wing politicians and their denial to see what our presidents true agenda is, is the problem. His proof comes from the fact that most of our economic gains have gone to the top one percent of the people… the rich. He also tells his audience that Obama has brushed aside the affects the bad economy has had on the already impoverished Americans and has picked Jeffrey Zients to head the National Economic Council as a way to humiliate the political left.

I disagree with St. Clair’s argument. I don’t believe that the government is solely out to do what they want for themselves and I don’t believe that our president purposefully set out to hurt the American people and not care what his actions did to us.  Yes, our government isn't doing the best job it could be but I really think that they are doing what they think is best for its people; no matter how skewed their idea of best for us is.

Wars Worth Fighting

Gian Gentile of the Los Angeles Times newspaper wrote an editorial on America’s ‘nation-building’ wars http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-oe-gentile-army-colonel-gives-iraq-and-afghanis-20130813,0,3495602.story. He tells his audience, the American people, that such wars, like our current war in Iraq and Afghanistan, are failures of war based on  the British historian’s, B.H. Liddell Hart’s, definition that a war’s objective is to “produce a better state of peace”. Gentile has a surprising point of view seeing that he is an Army colonel who fought in Baghdad, but understandable based of his educational background of have a doctorate in history.

Gentile evidence is that even after all the ‘nation-building’ our armed forces have done in other nations, we don’t have a lot of success to show for it. This war has become “messy and unsatisfying” as it was well put by Lt. Col. John Nagl. Gentile also reminds his audience that we have fought satisfying war such as our Civil War and WWII and in comparison, this war is lacking. This thought process makes sense seeing that those other wars did end in “a better state of peace”. His final argument is that we shouldn't be committed to a war that can’t end in such a way.

I agree with Gentile that this is not a war that we need to be fighting. The ends of this war do not justify the means and we can’t keep trying to change a nation with a gun pointed at the heads of its citizens. 

Government, Our Military, and Racism

http://www.salon.com/2012/08/08/unintended_causation/

     The article linked above shows a very interesting and a very disappointing view of our military and our government. In this article, titled Unintended causation, written by Glenn Greenwald, it is brought to our attention that a large amount of the fuel of american racism comes from our military and our government's foreign policy and this can be contributed to the reasons why our own people are demonstrating acts of terrorism towards our own country. Greenwald talks about how our military and foreign policy teaches the american people to develop negative feelings towards people of other races and religions; and when our government is the one bombing and killing those others, who are we to condemn those who do these things in our own backyards but praise the same action when it's done over seas?
     I personally agree that a lot or our racism stems from what we learn from our government. When we send young men to 'fight for their country' by giving them a gun and pointing them in the direction of a group of people whose' vast majority is innocent and then tell that man that this group is evil, we should expect that these men will come home, pick that group out among our own country, call them evil, and respond to those people in the same way we teach them to respond to them in other countries. We should even expect for our young men to be more violent when they are home because it is their home that they believe these 'evil people' have infiltrated.
     I think that every american should read this article because it is a prime example of what our government is doing to our country.