That is not to say that the melding which occurred over the years of different cultures incorporated in American society has not had a beneficial effect because it has. We would not be what and who we are today without immigrants and the diversity in culture they brought with them. We could not have risen to the heights we have without the contributions and labor of those who came here hoping to live the American Dream or without the labor and culture brought by slaves and indentured servants.

However, thinking about it objectively, “the American Dream” is one developed primarily as a result of English-speaking, Christian, Western Europeans. They made it possible for all those immigrants to emigrate. They made it possible for all those immigrants to function freely, to vote and to achieve. Colonialism changed the world in a positive way. Yes, there are many instances where the indigenous population and culture were trampled along the way. But even with that, colonized countries grew, their economies prospered, their people gained a better standard of living than what they had when the colonists arrived, their children were educated, their lives grew longer, more of their babies lived, they were mostly able to speak and travel freely.

And then colonialists became “bad people”.

The children starving in Zimbabwe today are the children of those who voted for “change” expecting the government to take care of all their needs. The unemployed in Zimbabwe today are the children of those who voted for change. Those rioting in the streets today are the children of those who were dancing in the streets in anticipation of change. The owners of dusty unproductive farms piled high with broken, rusty once-high-tech farm equipment today are the children of those who once worked on productive farms which gave Zimbabwe the title of “breadbasket of Africa”. What wealth still exists there has been “re-distributed” to thieving politicians and their families – not the people who voted for change.

We are moving from a nation of self-reliant, self-starting, ambitious achievers to a nation of mooching “change-wanters” who don’t learn from history that big government never enriches anyone but the politicians and their henchmen. Be careful what you wish for….

I understand and agree with Jeff’s frustration with the way things are in our government.

However, I disagree that blowoutcongress.com is the answer.  I disagree because it is essentially the strategy which President Obama used to get elected and subsequently get us onto the superhighway to disaster.  It plays on the emotions of people who are dissatisfied with government by evoking the “anything is better than this” attitude.  Since the election of Barack Obama, Americans (including many Obama voters) have come to realize that “anything” is not necessarily better than “this.”  Certainly change was/is needed, but not just change for the sake of change.  Change for the better was and is still needed.

This strategy preys on the emotions of those who don’t really know what they want – they just want “different.”  That’s child-like and I think many people are now realizing that they should have looked more carefully before they leapt on the Obama bandwagon.  Jeff Bolton however is promoting the very same strategy and in so doing, preying on the same emotions as the people who voted the wrong way in the last election.  My own emotions want to agree – anyone would be better than Obama.  But following my emotions in this case would be stupid.  What would be more intelligent is to help to find someone truly better, more in line with the real desires of most Americans, to run for President in 2012.  The same things applies to my congresspeople.  Rather than just fire them and replace them with anyone who wants to run, I should communicate my wishes to them and to anyone who will listen to me in order to get the very best person to represent me.

Frankly, I’m pretty happy with my congressman.  I don’t want to replace him just to start anew.  That would be the Obama plan.  I didn’t like the idea of electing someone with absolutely no experience other than rabble-rousing.  Someone with dubious ties to dubious characters.  Someone whose mantra was hope and change.  Jeff’s plan demands change and hopes for the best.  That’s what got us Obama.

There are a couple other troubling things going on too.  Jeff has mentioned once or twice that he has been approached to run for congress.  And KLIF is heavily promoting an adjunct to Jeff’s morning show where he will have a panel of blacks on his show which he will moderate.  The premise is “what is it like to be black in Dallas.”  Separately, blowoutcongress.com, the black panel and the possible run for congress are not bothersome – together though they begin to look a bit like a self-serving campaign for political office.

If, in fact, the convergence of these initiatives is actually nothing more than the beginning of a run for political office, it’s bothersome in it’s sneakiness.

In case you’re wondering why I don’t just express my opinions directly to Jeff Bolton?  I have attempted to do so several times without success.  I’m not interested in being on hold for 20 minutes only to find he is “up against a commercial break” whereupon my call is ended.  And I have tried emailing several times and gotten nothing but an auto-generated reply for my trouble.

When you think about it, I think everyone would agree that reform is called for.  But what reform?  Follow models which have been shown not to work?  Well that doesn’t sound too bright to me.

One of the problems lies in the definition of “healthcare reform”.  There is no specific definition – everyone defines it to mean the reform they want.  Consequently there will never be agreement or satisfaction.  So lets just take a few specific measures to make some specific changes, see how that works and come back to it again if we can improve it even more.

Here are my thoughts on some areas of healthcare which could use some reform.

Tort reform. Lets put an end to ridiculous awards.  The fact is, every time there is an enormous “punitive damages” award it moves money out of your pocket (through increased medical malpractice insurance premiums passed on to you in the form of increased cost of service) and into the pockets of trial lawyers and “victims”.  That does nothing to keep medical costs down.  Mistakes happen in life.  From time to time a surgeon will leave a sponge in you after closing you up.  So what.  Your life probably wasn’t in danger.  But through TV ads you think you can hit the lottery.  That’s not right.  Lower the cost of treatment by lowering the cost of medical malpractice insurance by limitation of ridiculous awards to something representative of actual damage.

Emergency care. Stop treating anything except genuine emergencies in emergency rooms.  A runny nose is not an emergency and using the most expensive facility along with the most highly trained emergency healthcare personnel to treat non-emergencies is wasteful.  Stupid too.  People with genuine emergencies are writhing around on the floor waiting for a room which is occupied by someone with a hangnail to vacate it. Provide vouchers to those who qualify for care at a local physician or doc-in-the-box – there are plenty of them around.  Provide “non-emergency care vouchers” to anyone who qualifies for indigent care.  The details could easily be worked out to include showing a food stamp card or an unemployment check stub or some other government-issued item to prove indigence.

Illegal Immigration reform. Put a stop to illegal aliens coming here and running up the cost of medicine for the legal residents who have to pay for it.  When an illegal alien shows up for treatment, treat them, arrest them, ship them back on the next flight, sell whatever they have to pay for the treatment, deduct taxes from whats left and send them the balance.  Require that anyone wiring  money out of the country be required to prove they are here legally.

Care without payment. If someone states they cannot afford treatment, check to see that they really can’t.  Check property records, car registration, employment, etc. and make a determination as to whether they can’t pay or just don’t want to pay. Whether we like it or not, we should recognize that we have enabled a segment of society that is defined by moochiness.  If they can’t pay, as a caring society we should pay for them.  On the other hand, if its some mooch who doesn’t want to sell their Cadillac to pay for their own healthcare that’s another story.

The exorbitant price of prescription drugs. This is usually justified by the drug companies claiming that research drives up the price.  That could be true.  I’ve got two suggestions.

• Establish a national drug research laboratory and begin developing patent-free drugs for production by any qualified manufacturer – in or out of the United States.  Put our brain power to work for us.  Make a deal with qualified science graduates to pay off their student loans after a period of time with the national lab.  Look at how well NASA and the CDC work for us.  it can be done.  The long-term benefits and spin-offs from the research at NASA are astounding and undeniable.  If it worked like NASA has, we’d probably end up curing cancer and every other ailment thanks to the research and testing done by the national lab.
• Establish an “export tax” on drugs exported from the US to other countries.  If drug manufacturers want to sell drugs which cost $100 in the US for $10 to Canada tax them $90 and bring parity.  Of course we could have exceptions for those countries who can’t afford drugs needed for national epidemics.   Why should we be burdened with the cost of research so other countries can benefit?  Let them pay their share of the research costs.  Of course this would result in drug companies charging them the same as they do us which would lead to more competition among the drug companies and result in fair pricing.  Overall, it would bring the cost of drugs down in the US and raise the price of drugs in other countries.  Maybe their socialized healthcare systems wouldn’t look so good to those in the US who think socialized medicine is the way to go  if Americans weren’t subsidizing the cost of their medications…