Fighting for Wife-Beating, Slavery, and The Good Commodity

Tomorrow is Veterans' Day in these great United States.  A day to honor those who fought so bravely to preserve the freedoms and liberties that we can enjoy.  Whether we disagree or agree with a war effort, these men and women, from every age, deserve our honor for their selfless acts of heroism.

Unfortunately, all of our veterans will not be celebrated tomorrow.  Over one-hundred-thousand of our nation's former military men and women will be waking up and going to sleep on the streets of our cities tomorrow, many just trying to survive.  I want to commend Sen. Bob Menendez for calling this atrocity to our nation's attention recently, as our military veterans, while they served our country above and beyond, are ridiculously under-served by their country.

That brings me to the topic of health care, but not so much in the direct sense.  Recently there has been a lot of talk (specifically endorsed by Glenn Beck) concerning the "9/12 project", led by group of right-wing radicals whose ultimate goal is (to paraphrase) to make America America again and strike down injustices, perceived or real, in their government.

I take serious issue with most of the tenants of this group.  No, I don't have problems with their "12 core values" in name alone but rather their blatantly false historical interpretations of the constitution and our early leaders.

First things first:  These people are actual hard-line constitutionalists.  Even conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has said that only a moron would be a true constitutionalist.  Scalia is an "originalist" simply meaning that he believes that when considering legislation we should give more weight to what the founders would have thought of something, and less concern to its application in modern social theory.  Some say antiquated, but VERY few people in this country are ignorant enough to be true constitutionalists.

Secondly, on their website, Thomas Jefferson is quotes many times in reference to preaching theology.  If these people cared about history or the constitution, they would know that speech patterns and common vocabulary was much different at the time and that the use of religious terms in writing was much more common than today.  In fact Mr. Jefferson was not much of a Christian, and some believe may have been atheist, same as Mr. Lincoln.  President Washington, at best, was modest Christian.  Many of the quotes from these men on their website are also grossly out of context.

Third:  Perhaps what amazes me the most is that these are the people that are adamantly rallying against the ideas of Karl Marx.  Have any of these people red The Communist Manifesto?  Probably not.  I assume this not only because they pretend to be opened minded while actually quite bigoted against people with differing beliefs, but also because many of their ideas about reaching a Utopian society seem strangely Marxist.  They believe we can create a perfect system filled with complete fairness and equality by standing up against corruption.  That's great, really!  But every society (EVER) has had continous corruptive practices by officials and other important people.  Marx believed that we could end this too, by making people responsible through membership.  These people think people just should be, and apparently used to be.  The irony is that these people always seem to equate Marx with economics not society, whereas he more so predicted that Capital systems were doomed to fail and that people would turn to communist systems to sustain, and then would grow as a community.  In theory, its hard to argue against socialism; a system where everyone is cared for and no one starves or lives on the street.  The problem is that, as any good political theorist will tell you, theory in political science never plays out how one would expect it.  Marx was a theorist, as was Tocqueville.  The fact though remains that this health care bill is not Marxist.  Marxism had nothing to do with efficiency or accessibility, but rather with provision.  These same people who passed this bill in the house do not want government run farming, price-setting, or perfect competition, they just want to create a country where having cancer doesn't make you ineligible for cancer treatment and having your husband run out on you and your four kids doesn't mean those kids and you cannot stay healthy.  This is regenerative.

What's the bigger problem here though?  Where do these 9/12 people come in?  The call of this group is that we must return America to its once great self.  When people where honest and did not have to lock their doors and people were nicer and prices were fairer and trust was rampant, not fear.  Sounds nice, huh?  Too bad it never existed.

"What?  How dare he!" say you now.  Well, let me refresh:

For the first 75+ years this nation existed, we enslaved 1/3rd of our population.  Slave-holders, beat, raped, and literally worked their slaves to death.

For more than a century, the government ruthlessly killed most of our native population, driving them to undesirable lands and leaving their population so small that they barely have the clout to ask for rights.        

Until 1954, segregation was perfectly legal.  Many southern governments supported the Ku Klux Klan.  Blacks, Jews, and Catholics were beaten and killed in the name of protecting their way of life.

Until the 1960s, no municipality or state had rape as a crime, and men could freely beat their wifes with worry of legal reprise.  Until the 1980s, few police departments would help a battered wife or rape victim.

Until 1979, homosexuality was considered a mental disease by the APA.  Until this decade, losing a job or being fired for being gay was common.  The military still imposes strict anti-gay rules.

Until 1884, children could be worked  more than a double-shift (16+ hours) with the parents receiving the money.

Teen birth rates have DROPPED every decade for the past century.

Until the 1960s, it was considered socially acceptable in many groups for men to sleep with prostitutes.  This changed in the 60s and 70s when sex became socially acceptable (although it wasn't any more prevalent).

Until 1964, a person could be fired or not hired because of skin color or religious belief, despite qualifications.

Until 1920, women couldn't vote.

Until 1891, anyone with any influence over you could force you to vote any way they wanted you to.

Until 1954, it was legal to prohibit people from using a bathroom, staying in a hotel, drinking from a fountain, or even walking in a park based on the color of their skin.

I love this country for how far its come, but I can't for the life of me figure out when these days of yesteryear were, and what sort of thing that public health care provisions would do to affect this.