On the one hand there is a sizable portion of Americans whose nature it is to believe that they personally, as well as their government, have a definite responsibility to help create opportunities for others and to care for them when they are caught up in difficult times. That's where the great social programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, college tuition aid, unemployment benefits and others came into being. People in this category think not only of themselves but sympathize and empathize with their fellow Americans in their time of need.
Then we have those in the second category whose nature is the exact opposite of the first group. They believe that everyone should stand on his or her own and that no one is owed anything by the government or anyone else. They are adamantly opposed to all those social programs mentioned above and they and many of their sociopathic political operatives in Congress are determined that one way or the other they will eventual destroy every one of them. These are the people that have their minds set solely on themselves and have no concern for their fellow Americans.
Let's think about an issue that clearly illustrates the great divide and disagreement between these two categories of Americans, those who have the capacity to care for others in need versus those who want no part of it. The issue of which I speak is one of the most critical that America faces; it's health care and the continuing monumental battle between the forces who want to create a system of universal health care for all Americans and those who, if given the chance, will destroy any possibility of that happening.
Just consider how health care has become such a controversial and debatable issue. It seems that something like half of Americans are for some form of universal care and the other half are adamantly against it. Why exactly is that? Shouldn't we all want to be certain that all our fellow Americans get the same medical benefits, that they all get preventative testing, and follow up treatments where needed so that, if tests are initiated early enough, catastrophic illnesses might often be prevented?
You would think so but that is not the case in America today. Those who could care less about others are in total disagreement with this position. Their attitude is: "Let those who don't have medical insurance fend for themselves; if they get sick all they have to do is to go to the nearest emergency room." "That's their problem, let them deal with it."
Then there's the arrogant, selfish attitude of far too many Americans that say, "I worked hard to get where I am today, so let everybody else do it the same way." It is so easy to criticize and belittle others and make generalizations about them when you don't know what they are going through in their lives, when you have not "walked in their shoes." That seems to be the thinking of Mitt Romney when he said that 47% of Americans were government freeloaders who see themselves as victims and, therefore, can't be persuaded to take personal responsibility for their lives. And this putdown and insult to his fellow Americans is coming from a guy who "was born on third base and mistakenly thinks that he hit a triple."
How about the increasing divide between Republicans and the women of America? Many polls show that women favor the Democratic agenda over that of the GOP by as much as 2 to 1. Why is that? Well it might be because a large portion of Republicans, by nature, are control freaks and the fact is that women are simply not going to have their bodies or their decisions controlled by a bunch of Stone Age chauvinists. The days of attempting to control American women and "keep them in their place" are long gone but these guys who live on the extremely radical and conservative side of America can't seem to get that through their thick heads. That's a fight that they will lose and lose badly.
It seems that as conditions in America become more dire and challenging, and people should be banding together, it's just not happening; divisions in America are not lessening, they are escalating. President Abraham Lincoln really nailed it when he said, "A nation divided will not stand." Those words of warning applied to those times of monumental national distress and they certainly apply to the America in which we currently live.
Michael Payne
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