12 February 2016
«Editor», «Title»
«Company»
«address»
«city», «state» «zip»
Greetings «Editor»,
I am Richard Skidmore, Professor at Los Angeles Pierce College and am offering to you
for print on the Opinion/Editorial pages of your print newspaper and on your web-press
my ViewPoint below these introductory remarks.
I have been teaching at Pierce College since February 1975, and have written viewpoints
that have been carried in numerous papers throughout the country, though predominantly
in California.
I am offering my ViewPoint for print without charge to your paper and/or newsgroup. I
request that after you read it and deem it of interest for your readers that it be printed in
its entirety as a column titled ViewPoint, with my picture (a GIF), which you may
download from my website at Pierce College. My URL is
http://faculty.piercecollege.edu/Rskidmore/
Also please use this information either at the head of the column information or at the end
of the column:
Skidmore is a professor at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, Ca. He may be contacted at
rskidmor49@excite.com.
Readers’, who contact me, regardless of opinion, will be requested to respond to your
Letters to the Editor.
If you wish to contact me directly you may do so via my college email at
skidmord@piercecollege.edu.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Richard D. Skidmore, Prof.
Los Angeles Pierce College
Office (818) 710 2529 – Woodland Hills California
Home (661) 940 8135 – Lancaster California
PS. As this is summer I am on hiatus until our fall term begins.
Word Count: 713
The American Healthcare Debate
RD Skidmore, Prof.
Nancy Pelosi (D), California, and Steny Hoyer (D), Maryland, write in defense of
their Nationalized Healthcare plan that “… it is now evident that an ugly
campaign is underway not merely to misrepresent the health insurance reform
legislation, but to disrupt public meetings and prevent members of Congress and
constituents from conducting a civil dialogue.”
This is a good line that totally misses any target of accuracy.
The “ugliness” they write about is actually the visible frustration on the part of the
constituents because they recognize that their representative repeatedly fails to
respond to the questions being asked, and then become threatened. The
representative has his mind made up and really wants a ‘dog and pony’ show
where the constituency agrees with him. Thomas Sowell wrote on this as the
arrogance of the elite…that they know better what is good for the constituent
than the constituent does; that individual liberty is to be forfeited to the elite.
Pelosi and Hoyer agree that it is appropriate for their troops to rush the speaker’s
podium at Columbia University as Jim Gilchrist of the Minuteman Project began
his introductory remarks as an invited guest, forcing him from the arena.
It is in the spirit of true American ideals when thugs were video-logged
intimidating voters and that Attorney General Eric Holder refused to prosecute
them for harassing voters outside a voting place and is totally appropriate.
Speaker Pelosi is correct to bring out the wrongness of ‘hanging in effigy one
Democratic member of Congress’. This should only be reserved for say a
President Bush or any other member they disagree with, but never one of their
own.
These disruptions we witness occur because many of the constituents are
reading the House Bill (H.R. 3200), which their representatives have not, and
they do not like what they are reading. The representatives are concerned that
finally they have been discovered for their ignorance and disinformation that they
parroted to their constituents.
Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and Mr. Obama may say one thing, but when you can
read that the bill says something different all integrity is lost.
As Nancy Pelosi feigns her shock at seeing Swastikas on placards and fails to
describe fully that the sign holder does have that emblem in a red circle with a
line through it; does she refuse to recognize that there is a real fear for our
nation, a path being charted today that is the same path Hitler established with
his National Socialization in Germany?
Is this the change the American people voted for? Regardless of your party
affiliation patriotic Americans want nothing to do with a Nationalized America,
and it is being expressed with the Nationalization of healthcare debate.
There are those, who are ‘hard core’ and will never read the legislation for
themselves, preferring to believe and parrot the party line they are instructed with
and paid to represent – after all you do not bite the hand that feeds you?
When it comes to ‘facts being heard’ there is an approach Pelosi and Hoyer
prefer. It works like this: “you are to believe what I say not the bills we have
written even though the bills we have written is what you will follow and not what I
have said.”
Maybe they do not recognize that the patriot’s have measured their words and
read what has been written and found them wanting because their words do not
mirror what is written.
Their approach is to have all Americans come to the public trough and drink their
kool-aide, and when you do not, when you challenge and question and require
that your representatives be accountable then you are un-patriotic.
In order for those un-patriotic Americans to support nationalized healthcare they
are being asked to accept three arguments that are fundamentally absurd:
First, that the same government that pioneered $400 hammers and $600 toilet
seats is somehow going to control healthcare costs;
Second, that the same government that runs FEMA is going to make our health
care system more efficient and responsive;
Third, that this same government which runs the IRS is going to make our
healthcare more compassionate and understanding.
Town Halls are a good old American tradition even if the representative does not
like what he hears.
Thanks for reading.
Skidmore is a professor at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, Ca. He
may be contacted at rskidmor49@excite.com.