At least I'm not talkin' religion

I'm feeling the urge to talk a little politics. I know, bad idea. The Health Care Bill. Or bills as it was. I don't have a real side on this because I don't really know what is in the bill. It's a foot tall of regular sheets of paper. The add on bill is around an inch tall. So I'm gonna say general things about the issue. I didn't care if it passed or not. The way I figure it if it passed, fine. Health care for everyone including the needy. If it hadn't have passed, that's OK too because obviously it had some more tweaking to go. I can't understand what everyone is so upset about, or so happy about, if we don't know about the actual bill. I have friends who say what they don't like about it. But I know they haven't read it. Each side of the argument describes the bill differently. So I'm not going to talk about nuts and bolts because it's folly. What I've learned from the sharpshooter media is that if you like the bill, you're allowing Congress to bankrupt our country and turn it into a socialist state. If you don't like the bill, your a greedy selfish person, who is against the greatest progress our country has made since winning the space race, and/or drowning the Soviet Union. Now a little of my two cents. I always get suspicious when someone tries to "hurry along" a deal. If it's a good deal fine, then why hurry? What possible reason after 50 years of trying would we have to "shove" this through? Ever had a used car salesman try to sell you a car? It has to be now preferably before you drive it. Ever had a Realtor say better put in your offer because there are other folks interested, so Hurry! When I feel that pressure I just back away. Shame on Obama. He promised to work the aisles. And if you don't want the bill to pass and you want public opinion on your side, don't make up stuff like "death squads". You should know that will backfire. It seemed odd to me that after the bill passed, then we heard a lot from both sides about those things in the bill that the two sides did both want. Seems like that list of things should have been the starting point for the whole debate. And the name calling and the threats regardless of who shouted at who cast a bad light on the entire legislature. Don't cross that line. You took an oath. Be civil. It's a debate. So debate. No ad hominem attacks. This is not Junior High. I'm registered as a Republican, but to me both parties are the same. But I got a survey from the local or state Republicans the other day. It was kind of an opinion poll. The questions were phrased so that no matter what I answered in the multiple choice the result would be that I followed the conservative party line. One of the questions asked me about "Traditional Values". I don't know what that means. What traditional values? Segregation? Women's place in the home? America must be the best country on the planet in all things no matter what? No gays allowed? I made a few write-in answers and sent the form in. I'm pro guns, but they didn't ask about the Second Amendment. I spent a career as an airline pilot, and most of the pilots were very conservative. Oddly, many were Democrats. It's because of the union we were all in. I'm kind of a liberal in some social ways, and an atheist. So when cockpit talk got a little heated I would always change the subject to the union. This we could agree on. And we voted as a bloc for whom ever helped our cause. Almost always the Democrats. I've always been an AFL-CIO man since I was eighteen and started paying my first dues and carried my first card, long before I was a professional pilot. I was in the IBFO. The International Brotherhood of Firemen and Oilers. I earned enough money to be a Republican. But I always backed the union. Even when they were wrong. On this health care thing, sorry to all my dear conservative friends, but I gotta close with this: Both parties tax and spend and do anything they can do to stay in power, get re-elected, get their pet projects in. Both parties need to be voted out. But they won't be because we will all just vote our pocketbooks. We let them buy our votes. If they're both going to tax and spend and they will: I'd rather have a trillion dollar health care system than a trillion dollar war. War has a price more than dollars.