Skip to main content

The Party of Death

The Party of Death is about to strike again.

There is a political party in this country that likes to call itself "pro-life." They adopt this label despite favoring war over diplomacy. Despite supporting capital punishment. Despite opposing sensible gun regulations that even most gun owners support. Despite their distaste for providing meals for poor schoolchildren.

Now they are about to take away access to healthcare from tens of millions of Americans. For what possible reason? Because they can. Because they prize the obliteration of a Democratic president's legacy more than the health and well being of the citizens of this country. Because they prioritize tax breaks for those who need them the least over all else.

Make no mistake: with the proposed cuts to Medicaid and the return of exclusions for pre-existing conditions, thousands -- perhaps tens of thousands -- will die needlessly. And the party that continues to delude itself that it is somehow "pro-life" will further solidify its reputation as the Party of Death.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Values? What Values?

A political columnist wrote that liberals should stop asking how poor whites in Middle America could keep voting against their own economic interests because it's the wrong question. "People don't vote with their wallets," he observed. "They vote for their values." And those values presumably have something to do with more guns, fewer immigrants, and no gays marrying each other. I'm not so sure that people never vote with their wallets. One sure way to pick up votes is to promise to lower taxes. But if you promise that, you'd better deliver. Just ask George HW Bush, who won after promising no new taxes, then lost re-election when he reneged on that promise. Then there is the question of the evangelicals. Where did they stash their "Christian values" when they came out overwhelmingly in support of the pussy-grabbing, twice-divorced Donald Trump? It's been suggested that they were just being practical -- that they saw a chance to fill...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why neither atheism nor science are "alternative religions": Reflections on NECSS 2017

I am, first and foremost, a skeptic. My lack of belief in deities or the supernatural is a product of my demand for evidence: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." But too often I've heard believers in a god or the immaterial assert that "atheism is just another religion," or that "skeptics have turned science into their religion." They're likely to try to attempt to wrap up discussions on the subject with, "You believe what you want, and I'll believe what I want." A few days ago, I departed New York City's Garment District after having attended an annual four-day conference known as NECSS -- the North East Conference on Science and Skepticism. Produced by the New York City Skeptics (of which I am a member), it brings together some of the finest minds in science and rationality, and attracts freethinkers and skeptics from all over the globe. At this year's conference, I had the pleasure of spending time with...
Post a Comment
Read more

How could they have let it happen?

85 years after the rise of Nazism in Germany, it's tempting to look back and wonder, "How could so many ordinary Germans -- good people -- look at what was happening and not be alarmed? How could they just shrug and do nothing?" The fact is that, like the proverbial frog in a steadily warming pot of water, people can accommodate to nearly any worsening situation and come to think of it as "normal." Look at the United States today: "Oh, another mass shooting? What can you do?  There are just too many mentally ill people. Besides, it's just the price we pay for freedom." The fact that the rates of mental illness are the same in other countries that are just as free as we are, yet mass shootings are exceedingly rare in those places, never gets discussed by those in power. Or what about our attitudes towards the current administration? "Yeah, I know Trump mocked the disabled and made lewd comments about women, but that's because he's n...
Post a Comment
Read more