I finally got so annoyed at my rightish-wing friends' right-wing Chicken Little THE SKY IS FALLING OUR FREEDOM IS GONE I DON'T WANNA PAY FOR THIS nonsense that I posted this to my Facebook. I kind of hope it goes viral. Please to come below the fleur-de-Kos.
For those who oppose Obamacare because it means you have to pay for something you don't want, which in this case is being insured and making sure that 30 million more American citizens are also insured, I have something to say to you.
Let's talk about those wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which I never agreed to. Let's talk about government-sponsored homophobia like the current defense of DOMA by Boehner and his cronies, using our tax money. Let's talk capital punishment, which costs states far more than lifetime incarceration and is frankly a barbaric practice. Let's talk abstinence-pushing and religion-pushing in public schools while teachers' salaries are cut and class sizes get bigger. Let's talk about the salaries of politicians who are actively trying to limit my civil rights. Then there's big oil and big agriculture subsidies, airport security theatre, the practice of paying police officers while they are under suspension for brutality, deadly negligence, framing people, et cetera.
I don't want to pay for any of those things, and yet my taxes go for them anyway, as much as yours do. And I have just as little say about it. And I don't whine about it or act like Chicken Little and scream that the world is ending or that our freedom is being taken away. You know why? Because we are not just a collection of individuals. We are a society.
In other words, welcome to America. So part of your taxes have to pay for something you don't want? What a shame. Guess what? So do mine. So does everyone's. When I get to pick and choose what my taxes do and don't go to, when I can decide that every penny of my tax dollars should go entirely to the homeless and the helpless and their needs because that's where I want them to go, then you can whine about a bill that gives people in need more help when they're sick, poor, or dying, or helps them cover their 10-year-old who has leukemia, their 23-year-old daughter who has a heart condition, their 24-year-old son who has a chronic genetic condition or their 54-year-old father who has early-onset Alzheimer's - all of whom would be uninsurable without Obamacare.
So lose your selfish, childish attitude. We took a step towards civilization today. Taxes are what pay for it. You're part of a society. Grow up and act like it.