“There are two paths to choose. One is a path I’ve warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.”—Jimmy Carter, Crisis of Confidence speech July 15, 1979.
Thirty years later, it is clear that is the path we took. It is the path that has led to “a Congress twisted and pulled in every direction by hundreds of well-financed and powerful special interests. You see every extreme position defended to the last vote, almost to the last breath by one unyielding group or another. You often see a balanced and a fair approach that demands sacrifice, a little sacrifice from everyone, abandoned like an orphan without support and without friends.”
Congress is currently sitting on Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court and is attempting to create some form of universal health insurance.
In both cases, the political parties are putting themselves ahead of what is best for the American people.
Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (R-AL) is concerned that Judge Sotomayor will be mean to lawyers arguing before her.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) wanted to know what would happen if Judge Sotomayor shot him.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) is very concerned that a wise
Latina could be smarter than he is and wants Judge Sotomayor to assure him that nothing like that could ever happen.
What a bunch.
Healthcare is a question of special interests pure and simple.
No one has the courage to tell the insurance company and AMA lobbyists that their clients have sent the quality of
U.S. health care back to the Stone Age.
Thirty-four countries including
Cuba have a better record on infant mortality than we do. In the 1950s, before employers provided health insurance we were in 12
th place in this category.
We pay far more for medical treatment than they do in Europe,
Japan,
Australia, and
New Zealand, but people in those countries all live longer than we do. Nobody has gotten up and told the medical and insurance industries that universal health insurance is an issue precisely because they have done such a lousy job, and get the hell out of the debate.
You have proved that you have nothing to offer.
These are the problems that Jimmy Carter saw 30 years ago and was mocked for mentioning.
There is one problem that not even he saw.
Recently, Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, began to attempt a rapprochement with
China.
The Australians have come to the conclusion that they can no longer depend on
U.S. sea power.
President Carter may not have seen that coming, but he did see the cause.
As in health care, we are paying more than anyone else in the word for defense and we are getting far less for our money.
We are paying for weapons systems the military doesn’t want because it keeps powerful congressmen in their jobs.
Thank you for your courage, Mr. President, I wish we had listened to you 30 years ago.
Tom Gordon
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