W.W.J.D.

I may be stirring the pot here, but this is a question I feel needs to be asked: What would Jesus do?

The GOP and the right have traditionally been the more religious of the two major parties (see: abortion).

Now, I have no problem with religion. I’m kind of religious myself. I’m not the first one through the doors on Sunday morning or anything, but I have a relationship with my God that I’m comfortable with.

I do, however, have a problem when it comes to mixing politics and religion. They’re like oil and water – they just don’t go together, and one of them will always float to the top.

That being said, why is the GOP working so hard to make sure that people in the US can’t be healthy?

It’s All Fun and Games Until Someone Shuts Down a Government

When they’re making public speeches, politicians love to talk about how upset they are about the government shutdown. Both sides go on and on about how awful it is that the American people are suffering. And they really love to talk about how the other side doesn’t care.

But every time we peek behind the public relations curtain… Every time politicians talk anonymously, or when they don’t think we can hear them…

Well, in those situations, we get a glimpse of the truth:

Most democrats and republicans only care about winning the political game they’re playing.

How The Rest Of The World Views The Shutdown

Furloughed federal employee

I realize that sometimes people can be too close to an issue to see exactly how it looks to everyone else, so I thought it’d be interesting to see what the rest of the world thinks about the US Gov’t shutting down as a way of holding their breath till they turn blue protesting the ACA.

Spiegel Online, a German-based site, has some info on how our current debacle is perceived from outside our borders:

“What Washington currently offers up is a spectacle, but one in which the spectators feel more like crying,” writes the conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

“It’s circumstances like these,” writes Schmitz, “that explain why a brigade of Republicans conduct themselves like a bunch of Berlusconis — as enemies of the state from within who want to cripple the country because that’s the desire of their conservative voters at home.”

When it came to the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party, the German press was not pulling any punches. “There are fundamentalists within the world’s largest democracy: The hardline wing of the Republican Party are once more crippling the United States,” writes Nuremberg’s Nachrichten. The Tea Party movement, it concludes, “does not engage in democracy, but in dogmatism.”

“Here are fundamentalists at work who hold up their country to ridicule to advance their pure doctrine,” wrote a commentator in Collogne’sStadt-Anzeiger. “What a tragedy!“

“What has already been apparent in America for a few years now is the self-destruction of one of the world’s oldest democracies. And the great tragedy here is that this work of destruction isn’t being wrought by enemies of democracy, greedy lobbyists or sinister major party donors. America’s democracy is bring broken by the very people who are supposed to be carry and preserve it: the voters, the parties and the politicians.”

“At the moment, Washington is fighting over the budget and nobody knows if the county will still be solvent in three weeks,” the paper concludes. “What is clear, though, is that America is already politically bankrupt.“

If you’d like to read the full article, you can do so right here: Spiegel Online.

Republicans Think Americans Will Eventually Embrace Obamacare

Now, before you start screaming at me because of the title, we need to acknowledge an uncomfortable truth about politics:

The primary goal of political parties is to gain control of the government.

Democrats want it and Republicans want it.

They want control of the House of Representatives, they want control of the Senate, they want control of the Presidency, and they want control of the Supreme Court.

Republicans want to be the majority in the legislative branch (Congress), the executive branch (the Presidency), and the judicial branch (the Supreme Court).

Democrats want to be the majority in the legislative branch (Congress), the executive branch (the Presidency), and the judicial branch (the Supreme Court).

99% of the actions they take are actions that they believe will help them win the next election.

You know it and I know it.

Okay. Now that that’s out of the way…

Why We – Specifically, I – Need The ACA

A few years ago, my wife and I fell into an opportunity that we couldn’t pass up. We got a chance at the dream that many Americans have: We got the chance to start our own business. Now, it’s not a huge business. It’s definitely a small business. We rarely have more than three employees – and that’s including my wife and myself – at any given time.

When we first started this business, we thought we’d found the end of the rainbow. We live pretty far back in the sticks, so a drive to any “real” job would take at least 45 minutes one way. And it’s not 45 highway minutes – this is 45 mountain minutes (which means that if you get behind a coal truck, you’re going to be late).

We didn’t get rich then, and we’re still not rich. You’d be hard pressed to even say we’re comfortable. We still live paycheck to paycheck like most people. We don’t eat in fancy restaurants or have steak for dinner every night. We don’t have fancy cars. Hell, my truck is old enough to buy alcohol legally. But we were okay. We could pay the bills enough to keep the lights on and the water running.

We had both been out of work for a while, so we didn’t have any insurance. Her last job hadn’t offered it at all, and while mine had, who can afford COBRA? Certainly not us, and it had been more than 18 months anyway, so that wasn’t an option. We started looking into it, got some quotes.

In early January a girl happened to come by the house. She was working for such-and-such insurance company. I don’t remember the name, and it really isn’t important. She showed us a good policy for health and life insurance that would take care of both my wife and I if one or the other happened to fall ill and, God forbid, pass away.

We loved it. It was exactly what we were looking for. And even more so, it was within our budget. We would finally be able to go to the doctor when one of us got a sinus infection or some other kind of ailment. Our insurance would start on February 1st, and we’d be covered.

On January 28th, I had my first heart attack.

Jobs Harmed by Obamacare

I know that the crap going on with Syria right now is pretty important, and believe me – I’ll get to that. But first, I’ve got to say something about this whole “Obamacare is evil” thing.

I’m not too big on the Facebook. I don’t know a lot about it, or even how to really use it. But when I saw someone post this picture:

This is bullshit

I just had to say something.