5 Votes....Only 5 Votes....

Out of 435 votes, only 5 made a difference. Five votes were the difference in the House passing the Health Care Reform bill. My heart sank when I saw the news. The past few weeks have been hard for me individually, but this really worsened things. This bill, if it makes it through the Senate, will not be merely forgotten in the coming years as so many bills are. It won't be passed and then lack repercussions down the road. This bill will forever change the very visible face of America. It will directly affect this country and influence the lives of EVERY citizen. Unfortunately, that is just what the Democrats in the government intend. They want to, as President Obama has repeatedly said, "fundamentally change America." Really? Does our country suck so much that we need to fundamentally change it? Fundamentally?! I'm sorry, but unless that change is taking us closer to the Founder's vision then it's taking us farther from it, and I didn't hear ANYONE in all the debates invoke ANY return to ANY principle espoused by the actual creators of this country. What is FUNDAMENTALLY wrong with this country? I genuinely fear for the future of this country. Not a timid fear, not a "gee, I HOPE this doesn't happen, but if it does, oh well" kind of fear. What makes it even worse, even more deceptive, is the fact that they couch all of these revolutionary ideas in warm and fuzzy statements. "Health care for everyone" and blah blah. I'm sorry Machiavelli, but the ends do NOT justify the means when it means mortgaging away your future not to mention the backbone of our great nation that supposedly allows us to live a life free from government interference. I wish for once that more people read this blog, because I honestly want to hear from people who support this bill. How can you support this bill? Why do the means justify the ends? How is it going to work here when it hasn't worked in any other country with socialized healthcare? Obviously it's worked to a degree in other countries, I'm not stupid, but statistically, our healthcare system is ALREADY working better than every other country! Why make it worse?! I know there are issues to be dealt with in the insurance field. There are problems, big ones that need to be addressed. But that does NOT give Congress a blanket pass to fundamentally change the entire system. Fundamental change in one aspect of an industry does not warrant its complete transformation and eventual destruction couched in the pleasant terms of governemnt "assistance" and other such euphemisms. Phrases such as "tax surchage" should not be something anyone wants to hear when talking about a bill that is labeled as over a trillion dollar bill! Let's just "tax surchage" our way to an extra trillion dollars. Does anyone know how much a trillion actually is?! A million seconds is 12 days. A billion seconds is 31 years. A trillion seconds is 31,688 years. (BTW, what happened to those liberals who only recently were complaining about Bush's war spending and the spend happy Republican congress? Obama has already surpassed them in spending in less than a single year!)

I'm done. I'm furious, but more than that, I'm remorseful and discouraged. To think that the dirtiest city in our country is the heart of our country. There is more chicanery, deception, lies, and pure evil in Washington D.C. than any other city in the nation. The city of the people yet the power of the lobbyists. The city of democracy yet the principles of socialism. What goes on in that city is a farce, and one that WE pay for, not only literally with our pocketbooks, but emotionally as well as we suffer the consequences of a ballooning federal government that embroils our lives in yet more red tape, beuracracy, CW3940AB forms to fill out, and less money to earn in our livelihood. The destruction of agency veiled in the cloak of "the greater good" is not right. Government never has been, never will be, and right now is the farghest thing humanly possible from actually being the solution to our problems. Right now this government is the biggest problem this country has ever faced.

I have to end on a positive note. I'm not doing a good job of emulating the optimism that all of my political heroes embraced so well. Although the days of Reagan feel like they were much longer ago than they actually were due to the drastic 180 this country has made and the distance it has fallen from his "city on a hill" vision, that vision is still real. I still believe it. America's best days ARE still ahead of us, not behind us. The federal government may continue to invade the lives of its citizens and strip them of the sovereignty it once granted, but the ideals our Founders envisioned are eternal principles that no politican and no government can ever destroy, even if in the guise of honoring the very republican principles it espouses to ensure.