Rant and Rave and a can of worms.

I blog all the time.  In my head that is.  I compose, I edit, I title, but I don’t always publish—that is saved for the days when I can jolt myself out of my stupor on the couch and actually see fit to type what I have been writing in my head all day long, every day.  A minor victory.   Most of the time I am revising replies to something I have read in the editorial page which I love to read.  For example, I have been following all this brouhaha concerning the presidential address to school children on Tuesday and I keep thinking to myself, “Really.”  Come on people, I respect your right to disagree with the president or whatever, but is there really nothing more serious to be complaining about?  I wonder if Teddy Roosevelt’s “fireside chats” stirred this much controversy?   But this is the United States and it is what it is and they have the right to ignorantly believe that their children will be converted to “liberal” thinking.  If that is the case I would like to know what I am doing wrong,  because my six year old has a knack for missing the big picture, honing in on the minor details that I hope would be missed, and questioning every single aspect of everything.  Sounds like someone easily brainwashed, right?

I can’t help but wonder if these same parents who are threatening to pull their children from school are also the same people who blithely wander through life not worrying about how to pay for their next doctor’s appointment or whether or not their 21 year old kid brother is going to make it out of Afghanistan unharmed or alive.  Which leads me to my next point…I am by no stretch of the imagination an expert as to the details of what is being proposed for health care reform.  Come to think of it there are so many proposals, details and outright rumors that I don’t see how anyone can claim to be an expert on what is going on with this issue.  But the one thing that I keep hearing is “socialized medicine,” and the venom that accompanies this term is frightening.

I guess I am the victim of socialized medicine since my health care is provided by the military.  I am good with that with the small exception that my  husband is now half-way around the world for a year in order for us to enjoy this socialized medicine.  But hey, the last time I checked the United States still has a volunteer force and anyone else who is concerned about health care is welcome to join the military as well.  Furthermore, I didn’t make it my mission in life to study the British NHS, but my British friends never really had any complaints about their health care system and the option to go private was always there.  Sure, only the privileged can afford private medicine, but that is always the case with money.  And isn’t that the antithesis of “socialized medicine?”

Besides, now that we are all complaining about something why don’t we complain about the GEORGIA man who complained about a crying two year old and then slapped her.  This one is near and dear to me since I was personally attacked by an equally grumpy looking old man for my two year old’s tantrum in a store—(See very first blog for details of my own irate man story).  Like many other parents across America, I have to agree with this one…that man would not be standing if it had been my child he laid a hand on.  In fact I was wondering what my mug shot would look like, because no matter what they never seem flattering.

And now that I have ranted and raved and opened a can of worms with my politics or lack thereof I can blissfully sleep and dream of ignorance.

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