What Price A Life?

There are times when you hear Republican pundits say something and you have to ask yourself, "Do they really know what just came out of their mouth?"

Today was one of those days.

Mike Huckabee in trying to explain why health insurance is a terrible idea equated people with pre-existing conditions to burnt out buildings or totaled cars.  Yeah, according to this former minister of the Gospel if you have a heart condition, tough. Diabetes, forget about it. Arthritis, you are condemned.  In Huckabee's eyes you have no right to ask for health insurance because you are damaged goods. Your life isn't worth protecting.

And it gets worse.  He goes on to say that if you have a life threatening illness like cancer and the cost of treatment would be expensive, then your life isn't worth saving as it would lower the stock-holders of the insurance companies dividends.

Since Rev. Huckabee has established that, at least in his religious conservative mind, there is a price on human life, I'd like to know who decides how much a human life is worth? The stock-holders of the insurance companies? The politicians? Political pundits, like himself - does he get to decide how much is too much? Who should live and who should die based on what's best for stock-holders?  Who sits on that death panel and makes that decision?

I wonder if during Rev. Huckabee's studies of the Gospel he might have gotten hold of a bad translation, as I see no comment from Jesus saying that the man with the withered hand could not be helped because he had a pre-existing condition. (Mark 3:3-5) He did not turn away from the man with leprosy because he had no money. (Matthew 8:3) He did not turn from the paralyzed man because his was a life threatening illness.(Luke 5:18-19)

It's a shame that Rev. Huckabee didn't pay attention to Matthew 25:41-46:

  41“Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;42for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink;43I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’44“Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’45“Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’46“These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Mike Huckabee suggested that health assistance is for the healthy, not the sick.  If he's paid attention to Mark 2:17, he would know that "it is not the healthy that need the doctor, but the sick."  But then again, Jesus wasn't trying to make a profit.  Huckabee apparently has forgotten all that he knew about how precious each person in this world is in favor of the income.  You'd think he would remember that selling out another for 30 coins of silver never really profited anyone.

Respect: Knowing When To Give, And When To Get

If I were going to list all the reasons that I had an issue with Ted Nugent being at the State of the Union address, it would take all day.  Most are pretty self-evident.  It's just poor manners to invite someone who has made threats against the life of the president.

But there was one thing that really got to me about Nugent last night.

It wasn't that he out and out lied about previous threats he has made against the president, the vice president and the secretary of state. Ted's never really understood that the comments he makes for attention can and will come back to haunt him.

No, it was that he didn't stand to acknowledge the troops.  ( I expected him not to stand for the president, the man was never taught that in polite society you show respect for the office even if you have no respect for the person in the office.) It was that he didn't even attempt to stand to show respect. The 102 year old woman did but not Ted.  And when he was confronted about it, he whined and claimed that his legs were shattered and that he was supposed to be having double knee replacement but came to the SOTU instead.  Problem with that excuse is there are videos of him after the SOTU getting around just fine - no cane, no walker, nolimping, nothing.

This man who was too big a coward to fight for his country when called and forced another to go in his place couldn't even rise out of his seat to show respect for members of our armed forces who placed their lives on the line.

Ted likes to shoot off his mouth and his firearms and act like he's a big guy but when the rubber meets the road, he's just sitting there like always in his own excrement.

I guess in a way he was right - he said that his legs were shattered - what he should have said was he doesn't have a leg to stand on and hasn't for a very long time.