Thursday, August 6, 2009

Fishy

Short post.

Did anyone else have a "WTF?!?!" moment when you heard the news release about the White House asking for people to send them an email about "fishy" healthcare info?

I did.

This is what we get from a government that is so inept that it can't run a Used Car sale...

5 comments:

  1. I have to put this up. I just sent a short email to that whitehouse link for "fishy" healthcare info. Nothing insulting, just a short missive about how that if you had to resort to asking people to snitch you were not doing a good job on explaining your position. I hadn't even signed my name as I had been trying to send it but it wouldn't send. I tested the send button and it finally did send.

    Well, I told my wife about doing this and she kinda freaked out. Nothing really nasty like tossing vases at me but a definate "Mike, don't ever do that again". While I had some doubts about sending, I was a bit taken back by this response, so I asked what the deal was.

    Family history update: I had a great-grandfather in law who criticized Stalin once.

    He ended up in Siberia.

    And he considered himself lucky for that.

    I am a soldier in the US Army and subject to the orders of the US Government in various forms, and I'll obey those orders. I am also a US citizen and I can express my opinion if I so choose (so long as its clear its MINE and not the Army's offical opinion).

    The fact that I was nervous about sending this email because it could come back at me if they decide to track it was annoying. After Tamara's story, it was damned maddening.

    I am a US citizen and I SHOULD NOT BE AFRAID OF THAT. My wife had some serious family experience in how these lists can work.

    Low class? Oh yeah. Damned insulting and a bit scary? Oh HELL yeah.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I wouldn't worry. Since you have people far more publicly making noise to the point that in days of old they would have bullseyes on their chest one well-commented email won't put you the "hit list". Because there is no such hit list. If there wasn't one during the last 8 years there isn't one now. The inability to post was more due to so many people hitting the website to voice their snitch and/or displeasure.

    The day you get that paranoid about your own government is the day you've lost and it will corrosively lead to a lack of trust in one institution after another.

    That being said I'm not at all belitting your wife's experience because if I had been in her shoes I would have reacted the same way. But I'll say that our experience in the US is very different. The one thing that makes our nation so great and because of it (even with all its flaws) I would never leave is the fact that I can spout off from time to time without repercussion except when I slander or libel. That 1st amendment is a wonderful thing and everyone respects it, no matter how much they may hate what they're hearing when some one uses it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. True enough. But still I don't like the fact that I even had those thoughts. Either I am getting paranoid (always a possibility) or the trends are beginning to get alarming. Of course it might be that I am a bit more linked into the system than the normal guy and so I am sensitive to that fact.

    ReplyDelete
  4. It's really sad that our President is making Hillary Clinton look like class. We've got to get rid of the gerrymandering and get rid of the junk in both parties -- all we're left with is the washouts and the thuggish types b/c the decent folks are districtly-incapable of achieving seniority.

    ReplyDelete
  5. That and they don't WANT to. Who wants to go into politics when this is what you have to deal with? Your opposition digs your dirt, you get no peace and you get called every name in the book and then some. What normal person would want to put up for it? People who do tend to be very driven which makes it scary because what are them after that drives them?

    ReplyDelete