By Barbara Thiede
In 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany. By the time of his death in 1945, Europe lay in ruins, the Holocaust had claimed 12 million victims, and the world had suffered its deadliest conflict. More than four hundred thousand U.S. servicemen lay dead.
In 2013, a full 80 years later, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was, indeed, constitutional.
But in this last year, this single act has wreaked more havoc on the United States than the National Socialists ever did, let alone the Cold War and terrorism.
This is the world according to N.C. Sen. Bob Rucho (R-Mecklenburg), who tweeted that "Justice Robert's pen & Obamacare has done more damage to the USA then the swords of the Nazis, Soviets & terrorists combined."
Note that Mr. Rucho says "has don" and not "will do," indicating that all this damage was done in 2013. Factoring in U.S. casualties from Vietnam and Korea, both Cold War conflicts, and fighting terrorism in Afghanistan, we should expect Obamacare to cause 500,000 yearly deaths, and another 900,000 wounded.
Astute readers may note that we have included the Pacific theater, whereas the Nazis were primarily involved in Europe. However, Japan might not have attacked the U.S. if it had not been encouraged by its alliance with Nazi Germany.
By extension, we should see similar secondary consequences from the Affordable Care Act, such as a Japanese invasion.
Equating Nazism's horrors or Stalin's purges or terrorist atrocities with any sort of health care legislation is, frankly, ludicrous.
Even so, Rucho neither apologized nor made excuses for his words. Instead, after hearing much in the way of protest, he wrote: "Those that tweeted, put your thinking caps back on: ‘The PEN is mightier than the SWORD.' Edward Bulwar-Lytton, 1839. But surely you knew that."
This is a fair point. Consider: If Hitler had invaded France with tank-mounted machine fountain pens, and had dropped highlighter-pen bombs on London from dive-briefcases, World War II might have had a very different outcome. Highlighter bombs would certainly give new meaning to the phrase "the yellow peril."
Here's my point: Rucho's tweets prove that the debate on Obamacare has moved past the point of real concern: How do we, as a society, treat our citizens? In what ways is our government responsible for the care of Americans?
The job of our representatives is to care for the welfare of the citizenry. Keeping that charge in mind, our representatives must face real facts:
In 2012, North Carolina ranked 34th among the 50 states and the District of Columbia in caring for the well-being of children.
Less than a year and a half ago, The Charlotte Observer noted that "the number of children living in high-poverty neighborhoods nearly tripled over the past decade, increasing from 76,000 in 2000 to 212,000 (in 2012)."
The federal government has just issued poverty rates for 2012: Almost one-fifth of North Carolinians live in poverty. The nonprofit No Kid Hungry reports that one in four children in the state goes hungry.
Food banks and crisis assistance organizations are giving less food to individuals and their families. Why? They have been forced to spread everything as thinly as possible, thanks to cuts our state legislators have made in unemployment benefits and delays in delivering food stamps.
Health care is one of a number of pressing issues that deserves reasoned and intelligent attention from our representatives. What is actually happening?
Absurdity piled on absurdity. Ridiculous, obscene comparisons that show utter contempt for the sufferings of real human beings, past and present.
Read more here:
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/1 ... rylink=cpy