Take a moment to step out of your current life and into this imaginary life where the day you are born to the day you die, you are provided with care and indirect love by your fellow citizens of the country you are currently in. Imagine a life where if you or your wife has just been given birth to a child and you are given 6 months of paid time off to nurture and tend to your family needs. Imagine 2 months of paid time off a year to do whatever the hell you want to do?! Imagine a country “aimed at flattening the income distribution, eliminating poverty, ensuring social services such as retirement, medical care, and disability benefits to all, and putting more of the capital into the public trust.” That’s right! Ladies and gentleman, I present to you this lovely country called Norway.
Norway has adopted this “egalitarian values to ensure that the wage difference between the lowest paid worker and the CEO of most companies is much smaller than in comparable western economies and because of this the cost of living is about 30% higher in Norway than in the United States and 25% higher than the United Kingdom. The standard of living in Norway is among the highest in the world.” Prison cells in Norway have been compared to an average middle class American home. WHOA! What does the quality of a home look like outside of a prison cell?!
Now I ask you readers, why is it that the United States is just has highly developed as Norway, but lack so far behind in terms of standard and quality of life? After doing many comparison between the US and Norway, the differences lies within the way how we think and treat each other. In Norway, they have figured out a way to slam down the salaries of those CEOs bitches and made it possible to prevent any kind of social and financial inequality. Now wouldn’t that be great if we could blend the inequality between lowest paid worker and CEOs here in America? Norway citizens do not mind paying highly increased taxes to enjoy a better life for themselves and for their fellow citizens. Why can’t we adopt such thinking?
People! We have to change the way how we think and treat each other. If we don’t change this way of thinking nothing is going to ever be resolve. We have to put our individuality, greed, and religions aside and develop another way of thinking that binds us all together so that we can all agree on resolutions to progressively take care of our country and citizens as Norway has. This left versus right shit has got to stop. Now I’m not saying we must give up our freedom in order to move forward, but we can still retain our freedom and individuality and still be progressive. Freedom sure came with such an unusual price, didn't it? On a happier note, my grandma once said “Why must we fight? We all eat, sleep, poop, cry, laugh, smile, and bleed red regardless of our culture and race. We all want the same things, a happy and comfortable life.”
Friday, October 29, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Substantial commentary or Criticism #2
The person who is making this argument is Chelsea Rudman and her blog appeared in Media MATTERS for America. The targeted audiences are the public employees and the author does not have to try hard to attract and keep her audience because this topic affects just about every US Citizen that use public services. “John Derbyshire, National Review Online contributor, today rehashed his 2003 argument that nonmilitary government employees shouldn't be allowed to vote. Public employees have a ‘conflict of interest’ when voting.”
Her argument was made to defend public employees; they too should be allowed to vote regardless of the “conflict of interest.” Now I couldn’t find any background or history on this Chelsea Rudman, so her argument to allow public employees to vote could be bias if she also works in the public service industry, but that’s beside the point. Each and every citizen in America should and will have the right to vote, regardless of their profession.
She does state that “anyone who uses public services -- like the post office, roads, schools, libraries, police, firefighters -- probably has a "conflict of interest" when voting. So does anyone who pays taxes.” So not only would public employees would not be able to vote, but also “We, the People” would also be considered in this category. At the end of her blog, she commented stating “Basically, he's saying our country would be a better place if people who don't agree with him couldn't vote. Who's ‘throttling our liberties out of existence,’ again?” How ironic isn’t it?
I totally agree with Chelsea Rudman, that such statement should not have been said in the first place. If such practice was to be put into effect, it would basically mean history would repeat itself and only “White property owners could vote” once again and it would be even better if Blacks were back to properties.
Chelsea Rudman, NRO's Derbyshire: Public employees should not be allowed to vote, http://mediamatters.org/, October 13, 2010
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201010130035
Her argument was made to defend public employees; they too should be allowed to vote regardless of the “conflict of interest.” Now I couldn’t find any background or history on this Chelsea Rudman, so her argument to allow public employees to vote could be bias if she also works in the public service industry, but that’s beside the point. Each and every citizen in America should and will have the right to vote, regardless of their profession.
She does state that “anyone who uses public services -- like the post office, roads, schools, libraries, police, firefighters -- probably has a "conflict of interest" when voting. So does anyone who pays taxes.” So not only would public employees would not be able to vote, but also “We, the People” would also be considered in this category. At the end of her blog, she commented stating “Basically, he's saying our country would be a better place if people who don't agree with him couldn't vote. Who's ‘throttling our liberties out of existence,’ again?” How ironic isn’t it?
I totally agree with Chelsea Rudman, that such statement should not have been said in the first place. If such practice was to be put into effect, it would basically mean history would repeat itself and only “White property owners could vote” once again and it would be even better if Blacks were back to properties.
Chelsea Rudman, NRO's Derbyshire: Public employees should not be allowed to vote, http://mediamatters.org/, October 13, 2010
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201010130035
Friday, October 1, 2010
Substantial commentary or Criticism #1
The person who is making this argument is Frank Micciche. His article appeared in The New York Times under the Health care topic in the Opinion section. He is also an adviser for public policy at a Washington law firm. The targeted audience is the public and small individual businesses and eventually the big corporations. I believe the author does not have to try hard to attract and keep his audience because this topic affects every US Citizen. His argument was made to help smooth differences between both parties so that we can "move forward to expand access to health insurance and reduce health care costs." The answer is to this solution was Health insurance exchanges. By having these exchanges in place, individuals and groups are able to purchase health insurance "from a network of insurers."
He presents his ideas and also provides examples to support his argument, one of which was the "50-year-old Federal Employee Health Benefits program, which provides a nationwide network of some 250 plans to more than eight million government employees, retirees and their dependents. Many states operate programs like this for their own employees and those on municipal payrolls." He also explains how this idea has been experimented in several other states and how successful it has worked with tweaks here and there.
He does state that this idea alone cannot be achieve without the help of the federal government. He presents ideas how the government can take an active role is making this concept possible. One of the idea was to "distribute grants to study and design the exchanges" in states where the idea has become successful and to help grow and understand how to spread the success in other potential states.
I agree that Frank's argument was successful because this idea could possibly change the way how we select our health care plans. Individuals and small business would be able to select plans based on their needs and by having multiple competition in the market of "Health Insurance Exchanges," this could possibly result in driving down premiums, which would eventually result in affordable health insurance for the general public for both rich and poor. If the potential upcoming candidates for Presidency could somehow adopt and apply this concept for the US in a way where both parties can be accommodated, his or her likelihood of becoming President could potentially be dramatically increased, especially with the way how our current health care system is structured and how many of our citizens are currently uninsured that want to to be insured.
Frank Micciche, A Fair Exchange, http://www.nytimes.com/, July 27, 2010
He presents his ideas and also provides examples to support his argument, one of which was the "50-year-old Federal Employee Health Benefits program, which provides a nationwide network of some 250 plans to more than eight million government employees, retirees and their dependents. Many states operate programs like this for their own employees and those on municipal payrolls." He also explains how this idea has been experimented in several other states and how successful it has worked with tweaks here and there.
He does state that this idea alone cannot be achieve without the help of the federal government. He presents ideas how the government can take an active role is making this concept possible. One of the idea was to "distribute grants to study and design the exchanges" in states where the idea has become successful and to help grow and understand how to spread the success in other potential states.
I agree that Frank's argument was successful because this idea could possibly change the way how we select our health care plans. Individuals and small business would be able to select plans based on their needs and by having multiple competition in the market of "Health Insurance Exchanges," this could possibly result in driving down premiums, which would eventually result in affordable health insurance for the general public for both rich and poor. If the potential upcoming candidates for Presidency could somehow adopt and apply this concept for the US in a way where both parties can be accommodated, his or her likelihood of becoming President could potentially be dramatically increased, especially with the way how our current health care system is structured and how many of our citizens are currently uninsured that want to to be insured.
Frank Micciche, A Fair Exchange, http://www.nytimes.com/, July 27, 2010
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