"Life, Liberty, Happiness: Health, Food, Shelter." Will Pitts' best ever?

[trof]

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

That, right there, is the national hood ornament, the first thing you see, the first thing you learn when you study up on the country, and the thing you remember forever after the first time you hear it. I have plenty of issues with the nationalist concept of "American Exceptionalism," but those words, as a founding national ethos, are pretty damned special.

Which is why, even in the age of the Affordable Care Act - a piece of legislation that is helpful to many to some degree or another, but is also the greatest boon to the insurance industry in the history of the concept of insurance - I consider the very idea that health care in the United States is a multi-billion-dollar for-profit industry to be among the most repugnant phenomenons going."

It gets better.
Much better.

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/28601-life-liberty-happiness-health-food-shelter

[onecaliberal]

1. Excellent.

[Cryptoad]

2. Does that include WiFi?

[Skittles]

3. William is awesome and so is his mum Raven

yes INDEED

[DeSwiss]

4. K&R!

[840high]

5. kick

[antigop]

6. K&R. nt

[F4lconF16]

7. K&R

It's far past the time when this should have happened. It strikes me as simply ludicrous that we can find the money to buy a trillion dollar fighter plane that doesn't work, but we can't feed, shellter, educate, or attend to the medical needs of our citizens.

Imagine what it would be like.

Just for a second.



Food.

Shelter.

Education.

Medicine.



We could have it all.

Let's do this.

[RiverLover]

8. Thank you Will! Excellent OpEd~

So let's start here: if we shave a few scant percentage points off the "defense" budget annually, every single person in the United States can get health care if they are sick, food if they are hungry, and shelter if they are on the street. It won't cost anyone any more than they're already paying right this very moment to be in a permanent state of war.

According to the founding DNA of the nation - "Life, Liberty, the pursuit of Happiness" - it is not only a moral imperative, but a matter of national obligation. We can do this. Our problem is not a lack of funds. Our problem is our gruesomely misplaced priorities.

[Pooka Fey]

9. K&R