Jason M. Wester's Open Salon Blog

Health Care and My Opposition to the "Individual Mandate"

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 18:03:55 -0400

Watch the so-called liberals bemoan President Obama's failure. The so-called "individual mandate" that requires citizens to purchase health insurance from private companies is, I hope, doomed. If I'm reading the tea leaves correctly, and if the United States is still a country dedicated to individual freedom, there is no doubt in my mind that the individual mandate is going to be condemned.

But lest you call me a closeted right-winger, let me remind you of what it means to be a liberal, one who is for, at his or her core, freedom, liberty, justice, and equality. We have a completely bankrupt system in this country. We have a system that is utterly devoid of any reasonable sense of human decency. As it is, we are forced, FORCED, to have private health insurance or be damned. That's the essense of it. Pay, until you are bankrupt, for a basic human need or be damned.

I'm there. I've paid. I've paid. I've paid. By God, I've paid.

Obama has attempted to put, just that, into law.

It is un-American, assuming America, as an entity dedicated to change and freedom still exists. I'm not so sure it does.

We can do better than this.

Obama betrayed us because he cravenly bowed to the private industry. Obama refused to fight for a single-payer system. A single-payer system is the only system that could ensure health-care equality in this country.

So, given these circumstances, I'm am forced to oppose the individual mandate, and I hope the Supreme Court stops this insanity. Further, I hope the shit hits the fan and that something good comes from this disaster. And make no mistake, this is a disaster. When the best we can do is fork over money, by force, to pay off private companies who care nothing but for profit, not people, you can be sure that this country has lost its way. It has forgotten what it is supposed to be. It is, for those of us who want more freedom, not less, an idicator of how far we've fallen.

So while all the so-called liberals bemoan, wail, about this failure, let me remind you of what you have forgotten: You are for equality. You are for freedom. You are for HUMANITY. Drop your party line. Remember what you stand for. You don't stand for a person. You have ideals, and they are JUST.

Let the shit hit the fan. If in the end we get an equitable system of health care, it will be worth it. Obama failed us here. Let's pull our heads out of our asses and acknowledge just that. We voted for change and we got corporate payoffs instead.

Why Conservatives Hate Women

Wed, 7 Mar 2012 13:03:55 -0500

Father knows best

Conservatives yearn for simpler times, times when women knew their place was in the home, in the kitchen slaving over a hot stove to have dinner on the table by the time her husband came home from work. The Ozzie and Harriet fetish lives in the minds of conservatives even if never was much of a reality in the first place.

The Nelson's only had the two boys, and, I think ideally, conservatives believe women should be bred like sows, so what gives? Like Eve who was cursed to feel pain during childbirth for her sampling of the forbidden fruit, conservatives believe sex, at least sex practiced by women, should have consequences. I wonder, what did Harriet do for birth control?

As soon as I wrote the above, I was overcome with the feeling that I'd committed a gross overstep. After all, Harriet's birth control method is none of my business. That bit of information belongs in the Nelson's bedroom, not in the public forum.

Why don't conservatives have the same sense of decency? Why don't the Rick Santorums of the world, when they talk about how people should and shouldn't have sex, feel deeply embarrassed? That's the central question, I think, in all of this so-called constroversy. Why do conservatives believe that they have the right to intrude in the very private affairs of women and their families?

It seems that conservatives have little sense of privacy on a wide range of so-called social issues, and much of that is biblically inspired due to the hijacking of conservatism by the religious right. To be a conservative in America in 2012 is synomymous with being an evangelical Christian who makes it his or her business to tell you how to live your life.

Do you have sex for fun, be it heterosexual sex, homosexual sex, or sex with yourself? You are a sinner, and legislation should be passed to punish you. You see God is obsessed, absolutely obsessed, with sex. So are His followers. Nothing, and I mean nothing, gets conservatives foaming at the mouth more than sex. And God forbid you have some fun while doing it.

Abortion, and all of the rhetoric it inspires on the right, is not about life. Pro-life is, and always has been, a misnomer. It is about sex and the need for women to suffer for having it. It is about control. There has to be consequences. That a woman can, as of this writing, have an abortion and therefore shirk those consequences is galling to conservatives. A woman, if she behaves like a "slut" or a "protitute", must pay the price for her sin. So, when the Rick Santorums of the world decide to insert themselves into your bedroom, it is because they believe they have the god-given mandate to be there.

I live in the State of Mississippi, where last fall the so-called personhood amendment that would have granted human rights to embryos failed by a 60-40 margin, which shocked me. Everywhere I drove I saw personhood support signs in people's front yards. But, quite behind the scenes, a groundswell of outrage took hold and women realized that they did not want the government telling them what they could and could not do in the privacy of their own homes.

It shows that things have changed, that women are sick and tired of their bodies being used for political battlegrounds. Even in Mississppi, that most backward of states, women want their birth control and they want the Santorums of the world to butt out.

That in 2012 we are still talking about such things in the United States shows just how regressive the conservative movement has remade the GOP, and the GOP must pay the price for its choice of bedfellows. I find the discourse about the sexual practices of women so off-putting, so unbelievably embarrassing and inappropriate. Why don't conservatives feel that way, too?

What Did Jenner Whisper to Rick?: My Theory

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 14:11:01 -0500

Update:

I'm disappointed. Clearly, Jenner whispered that everyone has the virus, which explains the blood test, Rick going out of his way to plug fat man in the head after he'd done the job well enough with a chest-shot, and then Shane's casual observation about the bites.

I've read the comics, too, but this series has pleasantly deviated from the comics so much that I'd hoped the everyone-has-the-virus would have been dropped. I don't like that bit of zombie lore because, again, it doesn't really make sense if Zombie bites cause infection. What, the bite accelerates infection? Come on.

I wish the secret had been more profound.

Original Post:

I admit that this post is a bit out of character for me, but I do, in fact, watch some television, and I do, in fact, love all things to do with zombies, and for all its flaws that have emerged in the meandering first half of the second season, for my money, The Walking Dead is still the best zombie stuff out there.

For those who don't watch the show, it is your typical end-of-the-world zombie apocalypse scenario, taken out of Pennsylvania (where Romero's films are set) and plunked down in Atlanta. Rick, the show's primary protagonist, wakes up in a hospital to find the entire world has gone to hell. Once reunited with his family and a small band of people trying to stay one step ahead of the zombie hoard, the search begins for a safe haven.

In the last two episodes of season 1, that safe haven was believed to be the CDC in Atlanta, where the gang meets Dr. Jenner, the last remaining scientist occupying the CDC compound. Offering the gang food and hot showers and shelter for only a day or so, the CDC's self-destruct mechanism comes online, and everyone must get out or be burned to a crisp. Jenner decides to opt-out, believing that death is preferable to the world as it has become, but before Rick and the gang escape, he pulls Rick close and whispers in his ear.

Now that season two has reached its mid-season hiatus until its Feburary return without the secret being revealed, I thought I'd share some of the popular theories I've seen circulating, debunk those, and at the end of this piece present my own theory.

1. Jenner told Rick his wife Lorrie is pregnant. This one has been proven false in show already since she revealed it to Rick, and he was not suprised. This one was the most widely accepted theory before that revelation, putting many back at square one.

2. Jenner told Rick that everone is infected with the zombie virus. This one could be possible. It could be possible because, as per my understanding, that people come back as zombies after natural death in the comics version. Further, it would explain why Jenner did the blood tests on the gang when they first entered the CDC. He was looking for a person who was "clean" of the virus. When he remarks that he didn't find anything, he is saying that he didn't find anyone who didn't have the virus.

I don't think that's it, and here's why: We have not been shown, at least to this point, someone suffering natural death come back as a zombie. In fact, the show has gone out of its way to show that a zombie bite is required to aquire the virus. If it happens at natural death, why would it lay dormant until natural death while the bite turns people to zombies in a matter of hours? Why wouldn't it just turn everyone to zombies as soon as they acquired the virus? It just raises more questions than it answers.

3. The gang is immune to the virus. This one is related to the previous theory, but it was completely disproved with the infection of Sophia at the end of the mid-season climax.

MY THEORY: The government created and unleashed the virus. This theory fits for several reasons. First of all, it explains how the virus decimated humanity so quickly and effectively. It also explains how such a virus came to exist in the first place, and a scientist at the CDC would absolutely have that information. He would know that the virus came from the CDC, and he would know how it came to infect the general population. Jenner, knowing the nature of the virus, would then have good reason for his hopelessness and desire to commit suicide. In other words, Jenner knew that the situation was absolutely hopeless.

If you have a theory, I'd love to hear it.

Mississippi Decides Fertilized Eggs aren't Persons

Wed, 9 Nov 2011 11:11:58 -0500

As a native Mississippian, I seldom have good reason to be proud. After all, you name the statistic, and Mississippi is either ranked first or fiftieth. For example, Mississippi is first in teen pregnancy, fiftieth in states rates of infant mortality. Conservatism and fundamentalism often seems to have a stranglehold on the politics here, and Mississippi's national reputation for racism and ignorance and backwardness is, well, by and large deserved.

Yet, something almost miraculous happened yesterday. The voters of Mississippi by a margin of 58 to 42 %, proclaimed that a zygote should not be recognized as a legal person. Apparently, there are more reasonable people in Mississippi than I previously thought.

It is nice to, for once, feel proud of my home state.

The Twisted Logic of Circumcision Defenders

Tue, 4 Oct 2011 11:10:45 -0400

One thing that continually amuses me is the twisted non-logic that people trot out in defense of the so-called religious right to circumsize infants. A very good example of this may be found in Jonathan Wolfman's piece about how a circumcision ban would infringe upon the religious rights of Muslim and Jews.

I've addressed that nonsense in an earlier post. But let's just put it to the good ole American sniff test. My rights end where yours begin. That's a pretty simple concept that circumcision defenders just cannot seem to grasp. My religious rights also end where yours begin. I cannot force you to go to church, etc. Now, if we apply that logic to circumcision we get: Your religious rights end where your child's rights begin. A child has a right to his or her own body. That is not a controversial statement. It is just basic, human decency. If your religion calls for you to tatoo a child, your religious rights just ended. No one has the right to tatoo and infant without his or her consent, for religious reasons or otherwise. On those grounds, banning circumcision is a no-brainer. Your relious rights end where your helpless infant son's begin. He has an inalienable right to his own body.

There's nothing particularly difficult to understand about the above. We get that in high school civics class. Only through twisted non-logic can one arrive at the position that mutilating a helpless infant is okay. And that's the kind of non-logic that only religions can provide.

Wolfman goes on, in the comments section, to make some nebulous claim about the uses of law. He actually disagrees that just laws should protect the most helpless among us. That, too, is a good example of twisted non-logical thinking. I wonder if he disagrees that the elderly should be protected by law from being exploited. I wonder if he disagrees that a good use of law is to protect women from domestic abuse. Child abuse?

What reasonable person could disagree that good laws protect the most helpless? That is a no-brainer.

In other words, what one can see in Wolfman's comments is that to defend circumcision one has to do some reptilitan wiggling. He or she is forced, if their arguments are extended logically, to be FOR infant tatooing, FOR practically any practice that would infringe on religious freedom. If my religion calls for the slicing off of a portion of an ear, just a little off the top, or a nose, just a little off the end, Wolfman must, by logical necessity, be for it if it still allows for hearing or smelling.

Most telling: when confronted with logic, he swiftly shut down the debate and then deleted my comments. When one must defend such an untenable position, no other tactic is available. That, unfortunately, is a typical human failing: when confronted with logic that doesn't jive with their arguments, rather than revising their arguments, they dig in deeper, or they just shut down the debate.

But make no mistake about it: A law protecting a helpless boy would be a just law. Your religious rights end where that little boy's rights begin.