Wurf While: Congressman Judy Biggert Why Aren’t You Proud To Be An American?
Wurf While seems over reaching just a bit here asking: Congressman Judy Biggert Why Aren’t You Proud To Be An American?
The merits of expanding SCHIP to the middle classes just doesn't seem the decisive issue. Certainly not decisive enough to differentiate the American from the UnAmerican. (Right Wing NutHouse covers SCHIP expansion nicely here by the way. He expressed my thoughts on the policy.)
I'd argue the progressive stand is to be more concerned about the 1 in 3 or 1 in 4 kids (estimates vary) already eligible for Medicaid who fall through the cracks. Outreach to poor kids seems more important than expansion to wealthier families. But I won't call you UnAmerican for disagreeing with me about it either.
Why Cook County built Stroger hospital vs more community clinics another decision that ought to give progressives pause as to who public expenditures for health care really benefit.
Anyway, since her Americanism questioned, I'd suggest Biggert answer with Illinois's Harold Ickes's What is an American?
Ickes generates some of the most hits on my blog. Here's his words; as true now as they were in May 1941,
What constitutes an American? Not color nor race nor religion. Not the pedigree of his family nor the place of his birth. Not the coincidence of his citizenship. Not his social status nor his bank account. Not his trade nor his profession. An American is one who loves justice and believes in the dignity of man. An American is one who will fight for his freedom and that of his neighbor. An American is one who will sacrifice property, ease and security in order that he and his children may retain the rights of free men. An American is one in whose heart is engraved the immortal second sentence of the Declaration of Independence.
Americans have always known how to fight for their rights and their way of life. Americans are not afraid to fight. They fight joyously in a just cause.
8 comments:
Why Cook County built Stroger instead of community clinics? Community clinics do not have level 1 trauma centers, cannot care for seriously injured patients, cannot provide intensive cancer treatments, cannot afford quality medical testing equipment, cannot support entire laboratories to do testing. Don't be silly, community clinics cannot take the place of a modern hospital. Poor people deserve the benefits of modern systems of medical care delivery, too.
Poor people deserve the benefits of modern systems of medical care delivery, too.
It would have been better to contract with U of I for that instead. There's too much inpatient capacity in the Medical District and the investment should have been in primary care out in the neigborhoods.
Hi Bill,
Here's my response.
Take care.
Thanks WW,
You write,
In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all - regardless of station, race, or creed.
Those economic truths from FDR's Four Freedoms speech but you've stripped out FDR's vision of God's guidenance,
... its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere.
Tony Blair accepts FDR's Four Freedoms but he realizes Markets and Ownership, not Government Programs the best way to achieve them now.
Here's Blair in his faithworks speech from 2005,
But money is not enough, however necessary. The only politics that works today is one based on partnership with the people. The days when Government could "do it for people" are over. They can do it with people or not at all.
Government can't raise your family. Government alone can't get you a job. Government on its own can't, from Whitehall, run the NHS properly, look after the sick and elderly, educate the children in the classroom, mind them when you are at work. Parliament by itself can't police the streets, give the alienated youngster a place to go or a place to play.
We can help do these things. Government can enable it, fund it, help or hinder those taking on the task. But increasingly, the ultimate difference has to be made by the creativity, ability, and dedication of those on the ground working in partnership with central and local government. I see examples of this partnership all about us: from work with disaffected teenagers and ex-offenders to the extraordinary dedication of the hospice movement and the churches who directly manage and inspire so many of our schools nationwide.
Agreeing to your Second Bill of Rights certainly not a test of Americanism. It may be a test of ones Progressivism, but I'm not convinced SCHIP expansion gets anything accomplished under those second set of rights either.
I think it more coy politics than substance, which you've wrapped up in an Americanism test too boot!
I think progressives need to be a little more open to Blair's politics and realize Markets, Ownership, and Partnership a better model for Gov today.
HRC is opening up the door a bit with her 401k and Baby Bonds.
Illinois Democrats rode hard on Bush but I think they had best reconsider that because the best way to achieve FDR's Four Freedoms and the Progressives Second set of inalienable rights (with or without mentioning the Creator's guideance) is going to be Market Driven, and ownership society approaches.
Ickes might have been the Biggest Fabulist in Cook County up to till the time that Leo Burnett really got rolling.
How can one of the great confiscators of assets in the history of the United States talk about how one can "sacrifice property". Sacrifice my a$$, Ickes was literally robbing his political opponents of their assets so that the state could pass along hires to political cronies, getting us such brilliant concoctions as the CTA as a result.
More anti-Ickes diatribe here
http://stbarbara.blogspot.com/2007/04/house-for-sale-not-confiscation.html
Ickes nailed what being an Amercian was in this speech JB.
It's better than deciding Americanism based on ones stand on SCIP expansion.
Hey Bill,
Ickes statements are fine (much like Obama's statements that make the press), it is his actions that were abhorrent.
Sure Ickes talks great pleasantries, but he was a political animal who would say anything to get more power (much like his son and his cronies, the Clintons)
JBP
Post a Comment