I had intended to write more frequent blog entries here, but my silence has been deliberate and self imposed. After the attempt on congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords life, the murder of six and the wounding of many in Tuscon on January 8th, everyone, left, right, or in the middle, who could uses a word processor, typewriter (any of those still around?), or a quill dipped in ink had something to write about those events. I choose to let the dust settle before commenting. I did so, as I wanted to think about and weigh all the events which had transpired, as well as what had been said in the wake of those events.
Almost immediately after the shootings, many on the left said the gunman was driven my harsh gun related rhetoric from the right. The right countered by saying that they were only exercising their free speech rights and that nothing they said was ever a trigger for an individual's actions. I thought about this a bit before realizing that both the left and right were wrong.
The gunman that caused all the carnage in Tucson, is a demented, nut case, who was driven by inner forces far worse than the words of the right. He slipped through life without ever receiving the mental health treatment he needed, and passed the background check required of all (OK, all except at gun shows) gun purchasers. More than the words from the right, our mental health system, and the inadequate information in our firearms background check procedure are more to blame.
So, while the right may be off the hook for this one, that by no means is the end of the story. Their public uttering of "reload", "in our cross hairs", "2nd amendment solutions" and other words of hate and thinly veiled calls for violence have been, and will no doubt will be in the future, just the catalyst to push some wild eyed, un-informed zealots over the edge to commit violent acts. All the right's denials to the contrary, their repeated words of hate do have an effect on violent acts in our nation.
As do you all, I wish only the best for congresswoman Giffords in her fight to recover.
Speaking of congress, the house is now controlled by the Republicans, but I'm guessing you already knew that. I have already discussed with you their plan to undo the advantages of the new health care laws. Now, they have set their sights on Social Security. Their main tactic is telling us that Social Security is broke, when in fact, it is not. Social security has enough funds and resources to pay out every dollar that will be owed for the next twenty eight years. It is far from broke. Sometime in that twenty eight year period, changes will have to be made so that Social Security may continue long into this decade.. An obvious fix is to raise the ceiling on the amount of a person's income on which social security tax can be collected, but I will leave that to the Democrats and Republican's to duke it out over.
The Republicans hate the Social Security system, and would like to phase it out entirely. They don't like the government giving seniors a helping hand, a helping hand I might point out, which these same seniors have been paying into all of their working life. Instead of Social Security, they want people to invest in the stock market for their retirement. This logic is great for wall street, but turns into silly putty when you consider that (1) many people would not do so, and (2) the market is subject to many external forces, which means it has great highs and lows, which means if you happen to retire at the wrong time, too bad for you.
Consider this. Social Security has worked, as planned, for seventy five years. Before Social Security, five out of ten seniors lived at or below the poverty level. Since Social Security, that number is one in ten. Those are simple figures to understand. If you are a senior, the Republicans want to phase out your social security, if you are not a senior, they want to phase it out before you get to retirement age. I wonder how some older Tea Party members will feel when they realize the very political party they helped put in control of the house of representatives wants to weaken or destroy a major source of income they will enjoy in their older years. Maybe they should have paid more attention the first time around, but then the Tea Party was never big on listening to the facts.
More later..............
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