I’ve never…

So, health care reform is dead. Young people with shit paying jobs will soon be forced to buy insurance. The poor insurance industry, seeing increased numbers, will be given a huge amount of federal dollars to subsidize them in these hard times of more clients. Sen. Joe Lieberman, assbag, will get money from these companies making a sort of ironic “trickle down” effect.

But let’s laugh.

See? This cat gets it.

Baucus’ life is in shambles. Barkus’ life is in shambles. And insurance reps are actively making dumbass points all around us.

And I got to kick one in the balls for it.

Yesterday I met with an insurance rep (actually as part of a group of people). Right away the question was posed that, maybe, the rep’s life wasn’t going so hot in the current political climate.

But oh, oh no. His life is going fine, he says. And he doesn’t think (rightly so) a public option or single payer is coming down the pike. And, he was willing to give his specious, moronic reasoning.

First, he had to explain risk/cost to us. Essentially if you’re a person perfectly healthy for the last six months (this is an industry standard) you pay less. Healthy for longer? Even less. The healthiest amongst us pay very little compared to the sick. But, have something wrong beforehand, or gain a new fault – BAM! – cost goes up. To him, fair. To me? A brutally stupid system (I’ll explain later to naysayers…).

Anyway, he then began his attack of public health care.

“I’m a healthy person,” he said. “How many of you smoke?”

One person raised her hand.

“I don’t think it’s right that I should have to pay for her lung cancer.”

I was immediately pissed. “Okay,” I said. “I don’t have anything against Afghanistan. I don’t think it’s right that I have to pay to blow up that nation.”

Capt. Insurance stopped his argument after that because his reasoning is pure bullshit.

This assbag is actively derailing the most decent, humane thing our government has ever attempted. His sad-but-true-joke-contribution: "I've never been lower middle class. I don't think it's fair that I have to pay for the pleebs to get crusts."

We pay for lots of things we don’t use, or want.  For example my maternal grandparents sent their children to Catholic schools, and yet they had to pay taxes used for public schools.

As Penn Jillette once said on his TV show Bullshit!, “We belong to a club and to belong to that club we pay dues, called taxes.” To add to that: We elect club officers every two years to allocate these dues in worthwhile and meaningful ways — roads, schools, crony-istic bailouts — and often times not for things we use or want. For instance, I do not plan on going to Taiwan, but my taxes help pay someone to maintain good relations with Taiwan so that someone else can go there without being killed.

Here’s some cheap jokes:

“I’ve never crashed an airplane. I don’t think it’s fair that I have to pay for the FAA.”

“I’ve never been brutally murdered. I don’t think it’s right that I have to pay for a CSI unit.”

“I’ve never got e-coli from bad meat. I don’t think it’s fair that I have to pay for the FDA.”

“I’ve never breathed with gills. I don’t think it’s fair that I have to pay for FWP.”

“I’ve never nominated my girlfriend for a federal attorney job. I don’t think it’s fair I pay that Senator’s salary.”

“I’ve never drunkenly crashed a boat containing a federal official. I don’t think it’s right that I should pay for the court to provide a fair and equitable trial.”

Finally, heading a little old school….

“I’ve never had electrical power. I don’t think it’s fair that I should pay for the Rural Electricity Act.”

Why can our taxes do all of these good things, but not the very best? What is wrong with thinking we can have the best roads, the best schools, the best quality of life, and the best health care, all if we pay just a little bit?

Beats me.

It’s been a long week of #fail in Washington thanks to that assbag Joe Lieberman and I just wanted to bring everyone a laugh before we all get cancer and die in poverty.

In the spirit of the best, I’ll end with the best joke I could come up with. Okay, it’s not mine. It came from my wife: “My house has never burned down. I don’t think it’s right that I have to pay for the fire department.”

I wonder if Sen. Assbag agrees…

Killing is wrong

Saying that killing is wrong is an easy philosophical stance. It’s like saying you like Oreos. We pretty much all agree, save for a few sociopaths (Michelle Malkin). Most of us, however, make exception in this stance.

Murderers? Kill them. Rapists? Kill them.We want to see these people punished so deeply that they will never breath again.

So when you take the opinion that even the awful members of our society who rape, murder – or both – should not be put to death, you find yourself on the receiving end of some bad PR.

Ain’t that right Mikey D?

But people advocating the death penalty do have a point, which I think Mr. Bernard Shaw was attempting to touch on with his question (but utterly failed too because he’s a horse’s ass). We all want revenge when we’ve been wronged. That’s not the issue though. The issue behind the death penalty is simple: Is it ever okay to kill someone? If you answer no go here and enjoy this LOLcat. Go take a nap.

If you’re like me and you think that killing is wrong unless someone is hurting you or a loved one, well good, stick around. Let’s talk because I think you’ll find this interesting. And if you’re someone who believes in capital punishment, I’ve got someone for you to meet.

Most of the time when people — especially liberals — use the “Hitler defense” I cringe. God, I think, are they really doing that? But when we’re talking about the death penalty, it’s relevant.

Karl Brandt, Nazi doctor and personal physician to Hitler, invented a three drug cocktail to make the death of children appear painless. Sound familiar?

Karl Brandt was Hitler’s doctor. He was the leader of the Action T-4 Euthanasia Program. He enjoyed his work, spending hours removing organs, measuring craniums, and dissecting brains (not to mention seeing how he could poison people). The people he worked with, however, found the work too disturbing. These were lower forms of life to the Nazi Supermen, everyone agreed on that. But…they were killing children as well as adults. Obviously the adults were evil…but the kids? Why were they having to suffer the bathhouses?

Brandt did not come up with the name, but he did invent what we now know as “lethal injection,” the “humane” death given by every state still executing people (even Nebraska where they still use the electric chair as well, sick bastards).

He used it to murder children as part of the Holocaust.

Lethal injection made the whole death scene nicer. The children of gypsies, Jews, and Poles, looked like they were asleep. So peaceful. They just lay there and….slowly….as if touched by an angel…they…just… stopped.

The coworkers felt better.

Lethal injection involves three drugs: Thiopental sodium, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride. The thiopental sodium puts the individual to sleep, briefly. The pancuronium paralyzes the diaphragm, stopping breathing. The potassium chloride stops the heart.

Death happens quickly. Most of the time. Unless we’re talking about executions in the state of Ohio, where recently the state attempted 18 times to execute a man by lethal injection, missing his veins each time. Now Ohio is going to use only one drug instead of three because they think it will work better. They’re not sure, of course, but they’re going to try it anyway. (Brandt’s philosophy of human experimentation lives on well, apparently.) Of course, even when they get the drugs in, sometimes the executors use too little of the Thiopental. When they do this the person on the table regains consciousness partway through their death and experience suffocation, and heart failure in full awareness. Onlookers do not see this because of the paralyzing effects the drugs have.

The folks die in agony. The people celebrate that such a cruel, inhumane monster is dead. It is illegal, by the way, to do something like that to a dog.

So, I ask you this: Is it really okay with you that the United States uses Nazi ideas to kill people?

But maybe this argument only annoys you. After all, American rocket science was led by former Nazis, and we got to the moon. You can look at me and ask, “Hey, some of those Nazi ideas weren’t evil, so, so what if this is connected to a Nazi?” Fine. Good comeback. One question remains though.

If killing an innocent person is wrong and the perp should be executed, and we execute an innocent person, shouldn’t we all be put to death? It’s called a paradox, and there are few as big as the one presented by the death penalty.

Meet Cameron Todd Willingham. Okay. You can’t meet him. He’s dead. Has been for a few years. But his name should stick with you because if you believe in the death penalty this is an innocent man you murdered.

Cameron Todd Willingham, an innocent man murdered by the state of Texas.

In 2005 the state of Texas executed Willingham for killing his three children in an arson fire set in 1991. But here’s the issue, he didn’t. Many insane things happened at Willingham’s trial. He had a skull tattoo which prosecutors linked to “sociopathic behavior.” And his Led Zeppelin poster was described as “cultish.”People who first gave reports to police saying how they needed to restrain him from re-entering the house, changed their opinion in court and painted Willingham as someone more like the Joker.

Prosecutors told Willingham that if he just pleaded guilty they’d let him live. All he had to do was admit murder, and he would simply rot in jail. He wouldn’t admit to it. He claimed innocence to his death.

In August 2009, five years after the state of Texas executed Willingham, a report on his trial was released. Dr. Craig Beyler, an ouside investigator hired by the Texas Forensic Science Commission found that the fire marshalls behind the case completely disregarded scientific evidence. He described the investigation as more like mysticism — meaning that the men wanted him to be guilty, so they let their minds invent his guilt.

Dr. Beyler concluded that there was no evidence linking Willingham to the crime, nor even evidence of a crime. It was a fire. A random fire that tragically killed several children. And their father too paid the ultimate price.

So now where are you on this? Ready to submit to your execution for killing someone innocent? No, you say? The death penalty is acting as a deterrent even though 1,135 people have been executed since a 1976 US Supreme Court decision okayed the death penalty again?

Well, maybe your right. Maybe ideas die with people. Maybe if we kill enough murderers and rapists there will be a day when we’re all safe. Yep. Pretty open and shut. Killing people kills ideas. Amen.

Kill the man, kill the ideas? (Photo from Wikipedia Commons)

Wait… oh man. How did I forget that. Jesus!  No. I mean it. Jesus Christ of Nazareth, executed by Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate by means of crucifixion. Not to mention the hundreds of persecuted Christians who continued to proselytize despite death threats.

Yup. Kill the man, kill the ideas.

I’m not advocating for freeing murderers and rapists. I’ve already said on this blog that three Sexually Violent Predators in my neighborhood should go back to jail and rot. I believe that in my heart. I do not want these people on our streets. I say lock them up forever. Small cells. Cafeteria food. No TV. I do not give a shit. But don’t kill them. Killing does nothing except perpetuate death. Let men and women who commit these crimes sit and think for 60 years about what a dumb move that was. Let them never have their own shirts, linens, or privacy.

But do not by any means put the blood on my hands. Your revenge is not worth it to me, and mine should not be to you. We need to get over this idea that stretches back probably even before Moses. An eye for an eye blinds the world not literally, but in our hearts. We like to believe that the monsters around us are not human, but they are. The BTK killer was a Boy Scout leader. Ted Bundy was a Young Republican. John Wayne Gacy was his town’s Man of the Year once. When we say it is okay to kill them, we say it is okay to kill.

And for me, unless that person is right here, right now harming me, I can’t do it.

Why release people we think are “high risk”?

Montana is now including maps of where registered offenders live. So thanks to the good folks of Google and the Montana DOJ I found three high level sexual offenders living within blocks of my home (One, Two, Three). Previously I’ve searched for offenders living on Toole Ave, but found none and felt a calm relief.

This new mapping system has kicked that feeling right in the gut.

The three men living near my home are what the state deems Level 3 Sexually Violent Predators who have a “High risk of a repeat sexual offense.” Which makes sense since they call these men PREDATORS (and not the alien kind). But “predator” is also a term for prowling animals waiting for unsuspecting prey to linger for too long, and then–POUNCE!–claws, grabbing, ripping, fear, and death. These are people the state believes are looking to re-offend.

This Governor hunting Predator alien gave me the creeps as a kid, and creeps me out now. But he's fake, and not half as scary as the three high risk sexual predators living in my hood. (Photo from abebooks.com)

Having made myself sufficiently worried about my wife’s security (No misogyny intended, just that most sex crimes are men on women) I allowed for the thought “buy a gun?” to cross my mind. Nearly vomiting at that NRA moment, I forced myself to think logically. But I failed because I couldn’t answer what I presumed as a simple question: Why are we releasing people we think will commit sex crimes?

Sex crimes are not like robbery, vandalism, or even murder. You can buy a new TV. You can get a new windshield. And as sad as it is to ponder, you may never stop missing the person, but you would and could overcome the grief of having a love one murdered. And for the murder victim, sadly there is nothing left for them, no trauma that lingers.

But the victim of a sex crime is never quite healed. I know this is true because I have worked with victims (at Montana State Hospital), dated them, and have had them as friends. It is years later when these people are done feeling scared and hurt by what was done to them. Hopefully. Though for many the trauma never goes away, and comes up at seemingly random points in their lives. One moment a person is fine, the next they’re crying. They call it PTSD. The same thing some ‘Nam vets go through when cars backfire.

Sex crimes take away a level of a person’s innocence and humanity that never gets replaced fully, ever again. (Don’t just take my word for it, here is a great study about Child and Adult sexual abuse. And to be sort of fair, here is an utterly stupid, dickheaded look as well.)

When I worked at MSH a doctor there told me that sex offenders are never “cured.” He said all the therapy in the world could not change the person’s psyche. I am hard-wired to be attracted to women. Some guys are hard-wired to be attracted to other guys. Other people are wired to be attracted to the little girl on the jungle gym. What this doctor taught offenders was not to stop thinking of the girl at the jungle gym, but to not grab her and run off. In essence, offenders are taught to look, but not touch.

That may seem completely twisted to you, but the doctor I’m referencing (whose name I’m withholding for many reasons) was pretty good at what he did. His patients usually left MSH as Level-1 offenders, those who are the least likely to commit their crimes again.

From here I’m going to make a logical leap. I think the sexually violent predators in my neighborhood need some therapy. Lots, actually. And that’s really the best I can come up with. Then there’s another side. At my worst I find myself thinking that that anyone who commits a sex crime — the guy who can’t take a “no,” the high school kid who feels the underside of a passed out girl, or the stranger who lures a child into a nightmare — should not ever be free. Again.

So I don’t know, really, what I think. I just know that there are some scary individuals in my neighborhood and that I’ll feel less safe tonight when I go to bed, than I did the previous. Thanks DOJ web site.