HENDERSON’S LETTER IGNORES OBAMA’S FISCAL DISASTER

As usual, Smith County Democratic Party Chair David Henderson’s recent letter regarding a future apocalypse is full of condescension and superiority. To criticize the “paranoid right” for predicting financial calamity is the height of hypocrisy when Democrats have primarily relied on scare tactics to win elections for decades.

Any mention of cutting back on entitlement programs by Republicans is met with swift attacks from Democrats that old people will die and children will starve. And those who don’t blindly support every green energy investment that comes along somehow want to live in a world of polluted water and air.

What is ironic in Mr. Henderson’s letter is he begins by saying that Republican predictions of financial apocalypse have failed to come true, but when he concludes, he can’t help but fall back on the old Democratic playbook by throwing out some scare tactics of his own.

Considering how well our economy has done under five years of President Obama, I know it’s silly to even point out any potential negative consequences.

The sooner our country becomes like Detroit, maybe Mr. Henderson will finally be happy and we won’t have to endure his contemptuous letters anymore.

Stewart Fillmore

Tyler

 

APOCALYPSE

Smith County Democratic Committee Chairman Henderson raved in a recent letter about the apocalypse — which the gigantic right-wing food cache and Louie Gohmert’s shutting down the U.S. government single-handedly brings about, supposedly.

That may be a bit over the top. Maybe Mr. Henderson could send Louie the names and addresses of the six people who signed up for Obamacare on Oct. 1. I’m sure Louie will be more than pleased to send each of the six a free can of Spam from his gigantic right-wing food cache.

Cliff Rockwell

Noonday

 

UNIVERSAL COVERAGE

I was fortunate that my advertising career allowed me to live in London, England, twice — once in the early ‘70s and again in the late ‘70s. During one of those times, it was thought that I had spinal meningitis and as a result, I got to experience, up close and personal, the National Health System in England.

Because of the nature of my malady, I was given a “quarantined” room which consisted of two walls on either side of my bed which was housed in a larger ward of 12 beds. You see, unlike in America, in the NHS, private or semi-private rooms do not exist — “free” does not allow for such luxuries.

Nor does “free” allow for such luxuries as patient approval of procedures. One either accepts the prescribed procedure or leaves — which I found out with a prescribed “lumbar puncture,” when I was rolled to my side and heard the shuffling feet of a herd of young interns enter my “room” to watch a very dangerous procedure which we in the states call a spinal tap. In London, all hospitals are teaching hospitals and all patients are there to help young doctors learn.

No procedure releases needed — for anything.

As Jack Nicholson’s character said in “A Few Good Men,” “you can’t handle the truth!” Americans think they want free health care.

But when they find out what “free” truly means — hospital wards of 12, three-month wait times for doctor appointments, denial of surgical procedures and more — I don’t think they will be able to handle the truth of free health care.

By the way, when I lived in London, I also lived in a high-dollar apartment — it didn’t have a dishwasher.

Europeans are used to living with less so they don’t notice or mind having less.

As Americans, we are taught from birth to expect more because, at the risk of offending Vladimir Putin, America truly is an exceptional place.

Donna Hill

Tyler