I watch too much television, I guess, because every other commercial is trying to get me to take a pill to lose weight, grow thicker hair, have wild monkey sex for days, or sleep so soundly that when I wake up fat, bald, and sexually unsatisfied, it won’t matter because I’m refreshed.
If I could invent a pill it would be directed at people with power so they could look one year into the future and see the results of their actions before they actually make those decisions. For instance, if the people who make the decisions to infringe on our human rights could see the impact of taking away or worsening our health care, defunding programs originally established to provide support for those who need it most, or repealing laws to protect those who don’t have a strong voice in the government but are trying to gain recognition for their existence, would they still make those decisions?
Would they vote to repeal the closest thing we have to ‘healthcare for all’ if they saw the frozen bodies of an elderly couple living in an unheated storage unit because the price of their medications prohibited them from maintaining a warm place to live and three meals a day versus suffering in pain and sickness because they didn’t have adequate prescription coverage and the pharmaceutical companies go unchecked when they hike the price of medicine to feed their profits? Show me a pharma CEO who lives in a home smaller than fifteen-thousand, square feet and I’ll show you the best hologram since the one of Michael Jackson on an awards show several years back.
Would they maybe think twice about defunding non-profit agencies for women’s healthcare when they see a young woman of twenty-seven dying in a hospital bed because she didn’t have insurance to go to a doctor to find out the lump under her arm wasn’t just an infected hair follicle. Her body had been invaded by cancer in her breast that was left unchecked and had spread to her lymph nodes?
Would they make alternative decisions so a transgendered girl is protected from harassment of a verbal and physical nature when she is walking home from the bus stop or a transgendered boy wouldn’t be arrested when he is seen coming out of the men’s restroom at the mall?
Some would say I’m just another ‘bleeding heart’ liberal, but if having compassion for those who just need a hand up to help them to a more level playing field qualifies me as having a bleeding heart? I’ll buy that t-shirt and wear it with pride. I keep looking for the news alert I missed wherein empathy became a dirty word. If you’ve seen that story on the news, fake or otherwise, please advise.
To my friends in other countries where the citizens well-being is valued more than corporate net profits, I salute you. It might not be perfect, but then again, you’re not keeping people seeking refuge from tyranny out because of the color of their skin or the higher power they worship.
Cheers,
Sam
(Now, off the soapbox!)