The Tea Party and Patriotism

Barbara wrote:

 "Fear of something is at the root of hate for others, and hate within will eventually destroy the hater" -- George Washington Carver, 1854.

A doctor in Florida put a sign on his office door which said "If you voted for Obama, seek urologic care elsewhere."

Hate-filled anti-Obama billboards are springing up all over the country.

The Republican strategy, as it has been for years, is tearing down a Democratic president and creating political chaos.

Tea Partyers disrupted Town Hall meetings, insulted and spit on Democratic Congressmen on their way to vote on Health-Care Reform, and The Partyers were cheered on by Republican lawmakers!

This kind of "patriotism" empowers anti-government zealots like Timothy McVeigh to blow up a building. That is not patriotism. It is domestic terrorism and irrational fear and hate-mongering; it just tarnishes the image of the United States and undermines national security. 

If we have to spend all our time and resources defending the government against the unpatriotic Tea Party, the Christian Militias, or  anti-American groups, we may see another 9/11. We were too busy then defending ourselves from within, from misinformed and hateful citizens.

MOUNT DORA — A doctor who considers the national health-care overhaul to be bad medicine for the country posted a sign on his office door telling patients who voted for President Barack Obama to seek care "elsewhere."

"I'm not turning anybody away — that would be unethical," Dr. Jack Cassell, 56, a Mount Dora urologist and a registered Republican opposed to the health plan, told the Orlando Sentinel on Thursday. "But if they read the sign and turn the other way, so be it."

Barbara, NC

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The Hippocratic Oath: Modern Version*
     
I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of over-treatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially I must treat with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.  
           
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*Written in 1964 by Louis Lasagna, Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University, and used in many medical schools today.

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Did Chief Justice Roberts LIE His Way
Onto The Supremes??

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It CAN Happen Here!

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross.” ---Sinclair Lewis, author of It Can’t Happen Here, 1935

For the first time since the Nixon era, Americans have reason to doubt the future---or even the presence---of democracy. We live in a society where government conspires with big business and big evangelism; where ideologues and religious zealots attack logic and the scientific method; and where the ruling party encourages xenophobic nationalism based on irrational, manufactured fear. The party in power seems to seek a perpetual state of war to hold on to power, and they are willing to lie, cheat, and steal to achieve their ends. The question must be asked: Are we headed toward the end of American democracy?

Nobel Prize-winning author Sinclair Lewis depicted authoritarianism American-style in his sardonically titled dystopian novel It Can’t Happen Here, published in 1935.

Now, best-selling political journalist Joe Conason argues that it can happen here-–and a select group of extremely powerful right-wing ideologues are driving us ever closer to the precipice. In this compelling, impassioned, yet rational and fact-based look at the state of the nation, Conason shows how and why America has been wrenched away from its founding principles and is being dragged toward authoritarianism.

Joe Conason is a national correspondent for The New York Observer, columnist for Salon.com and head of the Nation Institute Investigative Fund. In 2007 he wrote: “It Can Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush.”

It Can Happen Here is a must-read if you want to understand that America is undergoing a transition, who is responsible, and why.