Fun With E Mails

Ahhh...the chain e-mail. Such a great way to get a lot of people harumphing in agreement and indignation! Behold the following, which is usually accompanied by a photo of a hungry homeless white child- you know, an AMERICAN child.

In America - The Homeless go without eating.
In America - The Elderly go without needed medicines.
In America - The Mentally ill go without treatment.
In America - Our Troops go without proper equipment.
In America - Our Veterans go without benefits they were promised.
Yet we donate billions to other countries before helping our own first.

Of course, the problem with this is what happens when you fill out the outrageous soundbites with facts.

In America- The homeless go without eating because time and again we vote against helping them; calling those who are homeless 'unmotivated' and 'just needing some gumption' and 'if we feed them they become dependent- we don't want to ENABLE them, do we?'

In America- The Elderly go without needed medicines because we have the most profit-motivated and unregulated pharmaceutical and insurance industries in the world

In America- The mentally ill go without treatment because St. Ronnie cut them all loose and "taking care of those folks would be nice, Sugar- but how will we PAY for it?" Also, see above re: enabling and motivation. If we just give the mentally ill a good kick in the drawers and a cheerful "Get over it!" they'll be FINE

In America- Our troops go without proper equipment because there is no fiscal oversight of the bloated military industrial complex that lines the pockets of Halliburton and Raytheon. Send one of Cheney's grandkids over yonder to the sandbox as a regular enlisted grunt and see how fast the troops get equipment

In America- Our Veterans go without benefits they were promised because we KEEP GOING TO WAR and make more and more broken men and women


Maybe, just maybe, 'Rose-colored Glasses Lefties' want fiscal responsibility even more than the Right- we want the money we have put where it's needed most and not GIVEN to those who already make more apiece than the average small town in America.

You can call that Socialism and rail against it. But the entire text in that 'patriotic' chain email reeks of socialism- garnering support for GOVERNMENT to help our own people.

Because in a perfect Conservative World, all those people mentioned? Should just get off their asses and fix their own lives instead of waiting for the NANNY STATE to take care of them.

Or is it only a Nanny State when it cares for people we don't think deserve it?