A Question About Labels

I moved to suburban Atlanta three years ago (Cobb Co.) where about 80% of the population is very conservative, very protestant and very in-your-face about it. Anyone to the left of Fred Thompson is regularly called a "commie" or a "socialist". I realize that modern public education does not spend time defining these terms for students, but are Americans really that ignorant? If wanting universal healthcare is "communist", then every single developed nation except the United States must be a communist country. If wanting an effective safety net for people on economic hard times is socialist, how does the "red-meat conservative Evangelical" square the Sermon on the Mount with his political stance?

In a true, functioning democracy, the people usually get the government they deserve. God help us.

I can't speak for anyone in Georgia (or, for that matter, anyone but myself), but as someone who fits most of the categories you're describing (Christian? Evangelical? Check...ordained Southern Baptist minister, to be exact. Conservative? Check, though not the frothing sort you seem to be running into), I'll give this one a shot.

I have real problems with most universal health care proposals out there. I don't think that everyone proposing the idea is socialist or communist, I simply don't care for the government's track record when it comes to much of anything, particularly health care. I worked as a cost-report analyst for a nursing home chain for seven and a half years. I was part of a very small team that did all of the federal and state reports for 39 nursing facilities in four states, which means I got a really good look at the federal program (Medicare) as well as the state programs for Missouri, Arkansas, Arizona, and Illinois. The system is terribly inefficient, delivers a lot less care than is really needed by the residents, and winds up costing a ton of money to do it. I simply don't want to see an even bigger application of that same model to the entire health care industry. Speaking as a taxpayer, I also have to wonder how these universal health care plans will be paid for. I can't afford much more in taxes, and don't talk about 'corporate taxes'...those just get lumped into "Cost of Doing Business" by the accounting department, and tacked onto the prices I pay. Now, if a universal plan could be drawn up that was efficient, physician-driven, and came with a detailed plan to finance it, I'd be willing to consider it...but I'm more likely to see the Easter Bunny.

As for the "effective safety net" and the Sermon on the Mount, I have no problems with a safety net...but I have huge problems with a hammock. I grew up in a family where my father had a full time job and was a member of the national guard, my mother a full time job, I had a full time and two part-time jobs, and my grandmother had a housecleaning job. On my way to and from work, I would pass a neighborhood that was Section 8 housing. There, I would see kids my own age, healthy, doing *nothing*. I would see up-scale cars and SUVs in the driveways, team-logo jackets, and expensive shoes being owned by the same people who told me on a regular basis that the government needed to do more for the poor. I know that areas like that aren't the rule, but they do drive home the point that our 'safety net' is out of control. It's no longer just a 'safety net' for the needy, it's become a lifestyle choice. I don't think that's what Jesus had in mind, and until we can get a handle on abuses of the system, it (like government health care) doesn't need to be expanded.

reply to post by Office 4256


Try living in Los Angeles, California. This has got to be one of the most heavily taxed and most expensive places in the country. Yet all I see is huge traffic jams, high gas prices, broken streets, high crime, jammed emergency rooms, corrupt politicians, regulations galore, inept public schools, poor wildlife management, and a government bloated by the housing bubble.

I think the guys in Georgia have a very legitimate complaint about socialist style governments.