Congressional Democrats want universal health care.  They state that the only way to save money (rising health care costs), ensure the future of our nation, blah blah blah is to require every citizen to have insurance.

 

Sure.  Fine.  Whatever.

 

BUT they'll only assist (at this juncture) citizens who make below 16 grand.  Otherwise, I have to carry it myself or be penalized.  Either way I lose.

 

I'm a nurse (funny thing, that) and I take home 500 dollars a week after taxes.  Without health care deductions.

 

My rent is 1000 dollars a month, it was raised after this crummy economy.  That's two paychecks.  Leaving me with 1000 dollars.

 

Cable/internet is 150 a month.  I have a school age child, it's nearly required these days to have a computer and the internet for his assignments.

 

My car has a ten dollar tank.  I go through a tank a week.  The price of gas today (it will change, I know) was 2.719 a gallon.  So 27 dollars a week for gas.  Multiple that by 4 and you get 108.76 a month.

 

Last week I spent roughly 150 on groceries, I get them every two weeks, so that's three hundred dollars.  So far we're at  1,558.76 on a 2000 a month income.  My son is on medication.  He has health insurance at least through his father, but I'm responsible for co pays, and they amount to 102.54 a month.  So we're at 1708.76.  He has doctor appointments weekly, also with a co pay of 20 dollars each.

 

At the end of the month, I have just over two hundred dollars "free".  Except there's school clothes, new clothes, shoes, possibly a movie every now and again.  Mom can I have five bucks?  Mom I need money for school.  Hey, let's go see Grandma out of town, it's her birthday.  And I like to try to put some away for that "rainy day".  Or get ahead on some of my bills. 

 

And you want me to pay for health insurance?  It would cost me approximately 50 dollars pretax.  But wait, they want to tax that too.....

Universal health care? On paper it looks noble.

 

Opening our borders to anyone that wants to cross?  On paper it looks noble, like we're ready to share the bounty of our land.

 

Guarding against terrorism?  Of course!  But when you use it for a political tool...

 

According to Janet Napolitano, I am a right wing extremist.  As are most of you reading this blog.  (Do our meetings have an open bar?)

 

I never considered myself extreme.  Conservative on most points, sure, but extremist?  When I think of extremism, I think Neo Nazis, KKK, Black Panthers, the people that blow up abortion clinics with the employees still inside....that sort of thing.

 

Not someone who likes to have a lively political discussion with her liberal and centrist friends. 

 

But apparently I am a right wing extremist.  I oppose restrictions on firearms, oppose lax immigration, oppose the policies of President Obama regarding immigration, citizenship and the expansion of social programs, oppose continuation of free trade agreements,have paranoia of foreign regimes, fear Communist regimes, oppose one world government, bemoan the decline of U.S. stature in the world, and am upset with the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs to China and India.

 

So, wow, I never knew that.  Do we have meetings?  Rubber chicken dinner fundraisers?  I'll have to find out.

 

The big problem I have with Obama is his incessant push to get us on a Socialist track.  I have this fear because I am descended from two people that fled a socialist government in terror.  The USSR under Stalin was no joke.  But it began peacefully enough, didn't it?  Like Nazism in Germany.  Hitler of course only wanted to help his country.  Of course.

 

My grandparents came to this country to escape an oppressive government.  They came to a country where you could voice doubts about your government.  Where you could question the decisions of your leaders, and vote them out of office if they didn't do what you wanted/needed them to do.  They came for the democratic dream, and they got it.  They spoke no English when they came, shuttling themselves across the Canadian border to settle in New York.  So, yes, I guess my grandparents are illegal immigrants.  Or were.  Within a year, my grandfather was fluent in English and was working.  Within five years they were naturalized citizens.  They were productive for their new country and were rewarded for it with a pension and Social Security.

 

They were also rewarded with the ability to speak their minds without the fear of someone over hearing them.  Without the fear of their door being busted down in the middle of the night and my grandfather dragged off to Siberia.  Without the fear that they must always support the state, even as they waited in breadlines.  Even as the government told them where to live, what to have as a job.

 

A country where police couldn't storm down the door for no real reason. A country where if Grandpa wanted a gun, he could have one.  A country where if my grandmother wanted to scream from the roof that she hated President Truman, she could.  A country where they were allowed to practice their religion peacefully.  Where they could meet with other Russian immigrants without being considered suspect.

 

Of course, today, if they were Hispanic or Muslim, they'd be Obama's best friends and allowed to do what they want, right?

 

While the rest of us, whose families emigrated here generations ago, who worked hard to build the foundation of this country, who look around and wonder what happened to this great nation....sometimes wonder if the Bill of Rights protects us at all.