Two Heaping’s of Crazy

Here are two new items that made me say “There is a tsunami of crazy headin’ our way!”

 Yet Another Reason to Move Out of California, Mom and Dad

In a decision that could dramatically reshape California's criminal justice system, a panel of federal judges on Tuesday ordered Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state legislators to find ways to cut the prison population by 40,000, or about one-quarter of all inmates.

I thought today is Aug. 4th, but it surely must be April 1st. What have these judges been smoking? Or drinking? Or ingesting? Are they just trying to make California into what New York was like in “Escape From New York” staring Kurt Russell. If you’re too young to remember that movie, all the criminals & crazies were all living on Manhattan island, free to terrorize each other. I’m seriously thinking about investing in barbed wire manufacturing because Cali is going to need a bunch of it if they let 40,000 criminals out.

And from the White House blog

Facts Are Stubborn Things  (Click on link to see entire blog entry)

Opponents of health insurance reform may find the truth a little inconvenient, but as our second president famously said, "facts are stubborn things."

Scary chain emails and videos are starting to percolate on the internet, breathlessly claiming, for example, to "uncover" the truth about the President’s health insurance reform positions.

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care.  These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation.  Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

What exactly is the White House going to do with the reported items? I really cannot fully explain the creepy feeling I got when I read this. Even if the W.H. has harmless intentions, do they not have the sense to see that this request is unprecedented? Are we going to go back to the McCarthy era when people were reporting fellow citizens as “Communist sympathizers”?

 

We need to remember our not-so-distant American history. During WWII we intered (nice word for imprisoned) Americans of Japanese decent ‘just in case” they might be spies. The McCarthy lead Committee on Un-American Activities in the ‘50’s resulted in American citizen’s losing their jobs, being “black listed” just because they were accused of being sympathetic to Communism, not because they were convicted of any crime.

Below is the comment I sent to the White House regarding this matter.

I was extremely concerned today when I read the following on the White House blog under the title "Facts Are Stubborn Things" - "There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care.... If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."

I want an explanation of exactly the White House plans to do with the "fishy" items that are sent to them. Do you not realize how this can be interpreted? Germans were urged to report those that were deemed inferior by Hitler. The Soviet Union has a long history of urging citizens to report on each other.

I'm not saying that is what the intent of the above request is but it adds to an overall impression that the White House has an us vs them mentality, "us" being the Democrats and "them" being whoever may disagree with the agenda being put forth by this administration.

There must be open discussion and debate about items that are being put forth by the administration. Asking people to "turn in" e-mails, etc. that are "fishy" is a ridiculous thing to do. If you want to correct what you feel are errors then do that. Don't ask citizens to forward other citizens e-mails, etc. to the White House. That is just, well, creepy.

I take the opportunity to send my comments and opinions to the White House and to my representatives on a regular basis, as I have mentioned here before.  And as I say a lot here, please do the same. Speak now while we still can.

Comments

[Jack]

I reported my 85-year old Republican mother to flag@whitehouse.gov and asked them to "straighten her out". She said she was against euthanasia for the elderly in lieu of costly medical treatment.

[Julana]

It is disturbing.
Our country is leaving us behind.