SPEAKOUT

Setting the facts straight

WOULD THE people who disagree with what I said about the American medical industry get their facts straight? What I have been advocating is an American system patterned after the Canadian system where all the taxpayers pay for the medical system. You got that now? All of the taxpayers. That would replace the usual employer-run insurance system in the U.S. The Canadian system gets over a three-year longer life span than we do. They only spend about two-thirds as much of their gross domestic product percentage-wise for health care. The medical industry in this country is just too costly for what they do poorly. The other night I was watching TV, and Bill O'Reilly had an author who just had written a book about the American medical industry and advocated making the medical industry a public utility with a government controlling bloated prices for services. We are paying too much for poor workmanship. Got it, you rebel rednecks? In our country, M.D. means medical disaster. The news today estimates 98,000 deaths per year for medical-industry mistakes.

From unions to canals

I WANT to comment about these disturbances in Seattle. The unions are rioting. Of course, Seattle's a very liberal city, and they're all griping now because of this World Trade Organization, about jobs being lost and going against what the unions want. Well, they're the ones who supported Clinton. Lots of these unions supported Clinton. Clinton is for this WTO, and there are jobs, our shoe factory, that are being shipped out. All these companies are going to other countries. What did they think when Clinton put the shaft to everybody else? That they wouldn't get the shaft put to them? Clinton is interested in what helps the Clintons. He shafted the working man in this country. When we got higher taxes, they didn't say anything about it. The biggest tax raise in history came right after Clinton got elected. They saved him from impeachment, and now he's thanking the unions too by putting this in this WTO. We'll be out-voted by Castro and the Red Chinese and the Russians. They've got more. We've only got one vote. We're the ones who have the most to lose. They don't have anything to lose. They have everything to gain. Look what the Chinese did with a few hundred thousand dollars worth of campaign contributions. They got the right to look into the Pentagon and all our military secrets. They even got the Panama Canal.

Take care of old barn

SOMETHING NEEDS to be done about the dilapidated barn at the intersection of Cape Rock Drive and Lexington. The windows are broken out. The gutters are falling down. The weeds are high. And it's been abandoned for over 10 years. Despite my calling the building inspector and nuisance-abatement department, nothing gets done. The Missourian should send a photographer out there and generate some publicity about this deplorable situation that's been allowed to go on year after year.

Couldn't care less

HAVE YOU ever noticed that every slime organization is supporting the Democratic Party: the groups with sexual demands and perverted lifestyles, the groups who couldn't care less about unborn children, the protesters who care more about a hoot owl than a human life, the union heads who care mostly for larger memberships, dues and growth and no moral values, the civil liberties and rights organizations which want more handouts and no responsibility and less law, the Hollywood crowd with its brand of morals omitting decency? They all talk the same line: starving children, sick, elderly, and the homeless, environment. They couldn't care less. If they really cared, they would promote decency, honesty and God's values.

Coalition of trash

I WAS asked by a friend what is happening to our Democratic Party as we knew it when morality mattered. I said it's simple. They've been taken over by the liberal Democrats. If you're in the military, you get about the same respect as a Christian from the liberals. If you're a rock star or homosexual or a perverted president, you're praised without regard for character. They support and promote abortions and a welfare state, and many want to legalize drugs, same-sex marriages, anything goes. It's become a coalition of trash. I didn't leave the Democratic Party. My party left me.

What wage increase?

I WOULD like to comment on the front-page article about how personal income rose just in time for holiday shopping. I want to say congratulations to the people who have a job where they get a raise. Where I work, longtime employees have not received a raise in five or six years or longer. I personally have to work two jobs. Employees are hoping President Clinton passes a law to raise the minimum wage, because that will be the only raise they will get. I would also like to comment on the Christmas parade. It was beautiful again this year. The danger that I see to children watching the parade is before the parade starts when the motorcycle police race up and down the street. The police this year did not go as fast as in past years, but it's still too fast for safety.