Courage in eye of the beholder

3/30/2010

Marilou Johanek’s March 25 op-ed column, “Kaptur showed courage on health-reform measure,” and Kathleen Parker’s op-ed column the same day, “Pretense on the health care masqueraded as virtue,” provided contrast.

Ms. Johanek went to painful lengths to describe Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur’s courage in finding a way to allow the health-care bill to pass by assisting in crafting a presidential order that is supposed to prohibit federal funding for abortion.

Miss Kaptur took a stand against federal abortion funding, then voted for a bill that promotes federal abortion funding that is now law — a law she must uphold under her oath of office. The law is not changed by presidential order.

This vote does not seem consistent with her quote in Ms. Johanek’s column about standing for “conscience and commitment without considering the consequences.”

Ms. Parker pointed out in her column that the executive order is useless. The legislative branch makes the laws, and the President cannot change them with an executive order.

The President and Miss Kaptur know this. Ms. Parker is right that “the health-care bill passed because of a mutually understood deception — a pretense masquerading as virtue.”

This is one of the obscene number of backroom backflips that went into a law that will negatively impact American well-being.

A much less expensive and socialistic means of providing health care should be where we are heading.

Tom Irmen

Holland

Stupak’s vote was no surprise

I am not shocked at Michigan Congressman Bart Stupak’s vote for the health-care bill. Against the will of the people, common sense, decency, and morality, with the help of so-called moderate Democrats we now have imminent tax increases to pay for abortion as the law of the land.

Did Mr. Stupak believe that the most radically pro-death politician in our history would do anything to limit abortion?

One of President Obama’s few official acts as a U.S. senator was to vote twice against a law that would have provided medical attention to babies who accidentally survived abortion.

Abortion is not health care. Executive orders do not usurp laws enacted by Congress. They can be changed or rescinded at any time by current or future presidents.

It was a cheap trick to fool voters and give “blue dog” Democrats an easy out.

Democrats care more about retaining power than human life. Remember in November: Don’t vote for anyone with a D after his or her name.

Aggie Langschied

Lambertville

Stupak showed no strength

The Republicans should have taken a lesson from the Democrats when it comes to passing a bill they are passionate about. I do not like the fact that the Stupak-Pitts abortion amendment was excluded from the health-care bill. I know Congressman Stupak dropped the ball. Transfer of funds to any abortion provider will circumvent the executive order.

Mr. Stupak should have made the President keep the amendment in if he wanted his vote, but he blinked.

However, I credit the Democrats for getting the bill passed. Why didn’t Republicans and pro-life Democrats get a life-begins-at-conception act passed during President Bush’s tenure? Where was the passion then? When it comes to pro-life legislation in Congress, all we ever get is lip service.

Steve Cherry

Oregon

Reform opponents have little to say

Conservative opponents of the heath-care bill have maintained that their voice is not being heard. If you want to be taken seriously in a debate, it helps to have something meaningful to contribute. For the most part, conservative opposition has been uninformed, misleading, often composed of deliberate lies, and even blatantly racist.

Repeating talking points or screaming about dreamed-up fears of the end of freedom as we know it do not add to the debate. Nor do hurling racial slurs and spitting on congressmen.

Instead of offering real alternatives, conservatives stuck to their usual tactics of spreading fear and misinformation. It worked in 2003 to get us to go to war in Iraq, and they were hoping it would work again.

The problem isn’t that Congress hasn’t been listening. It’s that the opposition hasn’t said much worth listening to.

Dan Lumbrezer

Swanton

Arguments prove valuable to voters

I commend you for printing the op-ed columns of Paul Krugman (“Opposition to health reform: blatant fear-mongering”) and George F. Will (“Obama won the battle, but not a victory”) on March 23, the day that President Obama signed the health-care reform bill.

These columnists, whose views on the health-care bill are starkly opposed, represent some of the best commentary available to moderates like myself. Both have meritorious arguments.

Your March 23 front-page news story, “Policy experts say trade-offs critical to safety network,” is also informative.

As voting citizens, we appreciate every bit of information and astute analysis we can get to assess a bill as complex as the health care reform bill.

Jane Schuessler

Sylvania

Obama order is not worth much

President Obama’s executive order on health care is not more worthless than the paper it’s written on. It has one worthy use: as a substitute for toilet paper.

Mike Drabik

Bronson Avenue

Today’s GOP is new, and worse

This is not the Republican Party that I grew up with. My Republican parents were kind, industrious, hard-working, loving, and tolerant members of a middle-class community.

Today the Republicans are led by Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin, who spit hate. Even Sen. John McCain is not the same.

We talk about Christian principles and morality, but until we can practice them, we have no hope of communicating our problems. I can no longer support what this group has become, and I am a tea drinker.

Sarah Huffman

Pemberville

Mr. President, meet Constitution

To Congress and the President: Hi, I’m the Constitution. I don’t believe we’ve ever met.

Donald S. Finkler

Holland

Ours is mostly a classless society

Originally the United States was mentioned as perhaps becoming the world’s first classless society.

We seem to be succeeding. Recent events indicate many of us have no class at all.

Ned Braunschweiger

Maumee

U.S. priorities are out of place

China drills for oil off the southwest coast of Cuba, Russia drills for oil in the Gulf of Mexico, Iran will soon become a nuclear power, our secretary of state is concerned about 1,600 apartments in Israel, and our President pushes green energy jobs with solar and, wind power and pixie dust. God help us.

Robert Koszycki

South Detroit Avenue