We are all to blame

Opinion

Discussion

February 6, 2010

Allen Edwards, Moultrie The Moultrie Observer Sat Feb 06, 2010, 10:50 PM EST

Dear editor:

I am writing in response to Robert Thomas‚ letter “The Difference” (Feb. 3). There is much in Mr. Thomas‚ argument with which I agree. Like Mr. Thomas I believe the expectations of the Obama administration are admirable and like Mr. Thomas, I question the common sense (and even the honesty) of a government that creates a budget knowing all the while it will be overspent.

I, too, question the feasibility of universal health care, particularly with how it will be funded.

And like Mr. Thomas I have noticed the sense of entitlement inherent in modern America. We have become a nation of the fat, the lazy, and the coddled, with two of the three adjectives applying to me as much as anyone.

I think what bothers me about Mr. Thomas’ letter is that it seems to target one demographic in particular when the “me-first” mentality attacks all indiscriminately, regardless of race, religion, or socioeconomic status. We all want what we feel is best for us, the rest of the country be damned.

Note for example the Republican tax cuts for the wealthy, American farm subsidies originally created by Democrats, and corporate tax breaks supported by both parties.

Note the repeal of the inheritance tax, the government bailout of Wall Street, and Cash for Clunkers. Note experimental cattle ranches and bridges to nowhere.

Then, note that all of these programs benefit people from across the economic spectrum, including many very different from the ones intimated in Mr. Thomas’ letter. Note that all are the policies of politicians from both sides of the aisle and that all have and will increase the national debt to a number impossible to comprehend without a master’s degree in mathematics from MIT.

Yes, Mr. Thomas, we are a nation of the entitled, but it doesn’t begin or end with universal healthcare or with the people whose smiles reveal gold teeth, who sport tattoos and Air Force Ones, and who “chat on a new cellular telephone equipped with a popular R&B; ringtone” while at the same time receiving Medicaid.

The need for universal healthcare is a symptom of a greater disease that has plagued not only the 20th century “I‚m looking at you, Depression-era Greatest Generation “ but all people in all places in all times. Rather, it points to a global society and all of the cultures in that society in a continuous state of fail, one too self-centered to recognize its own impending doom.

Republican or Democrat. white, black, Hispanic. rich, poor, or in between. We’re all to blame for America’s current state.

To blame it on one group is at best ignorant and at worst racist.

Now somebody fix our problems while I go take a nap.

Allen Edwards

Moultrie

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