Tag: Healthcare reform

Political Agenda with Danian Michael

If you have flown before, this analogy will resonate. At the beginning of every flight as the plane is taxiing away from the gate, the flight attendants jump into action and regiment a set of procedures that we all could probably recite right now.  First they tell us to, "Return your seat back and tray tables to their upright position." Then they tell us what to do if there is a crash landing on water (they never tell us what to do if it crashes into a mountain; however, I wonder why).  At some later time in the presentation we are told what to do if we are to lose cabin pressure; pull the oxygen mask towards you and place it over your nose.  If you have kids or if there is a young child next to you (which gets to the point of my analogy), first place the oxygen mask over the child's nose then tend to your own needs. Am I right about that? Those of you who are frequent flyers are saying right now, "Actually Danian, you are wrong about that; first the adult puts the oxygen mask on and then attends to the child." If you noticed my dyslexia in reversing who gets the oxygen mask first in the adult-child scenario; my hats off to you, because you may be the only person actually paying attention (we all should be) in the whole flying community.

Political Agenda with Danian Michael

I don't know if you are familiar with the television series, "Star Trek: The Next Generation," but one of its episodes provides an interesting illustration. In it, the crew encounters a hostile and advanced alien race called the Borg.  One of their amazing abilities is to adapt to the weapons used against them.  When they attack our heroes on the Starship Enterprise, the crew is able to kill just two of the Borg. They were not able to kill three, because by then the Borg had adapted to their weapons.  What they did was both amazing and easily anticipated: the Enterprise crew stopped firing! Since their weapons no longer had any effect, why should they continue to fire?

Let's leave that analogy for a moment and consider another one (I will reveal what that particular story of the Enterprise crew and their encounter with the Borg is analogous to shortly).  It's eight in the afternoon and you are about to have dinner with your family. All of a sudden the phone rings and intrudes on your privacy; the caller identification is displaying, "Caller Unknown," and immediately you think to yourself, "don't they know people have Caller ID and that their telemarketing won't work?" But the world of telemarketing plays the averages; if one person out of every twenty they call commit to using their services then those nineteen busy signals, answering machines, and rejections were worth it for them. It is a fact that telemarketing works, and that is why it continues. Presidential candidates don't spend millions on phone banks and directory listings for fun. I myself worked the phone banks for President Bush when he was running for re-election in 2004 and I was able to make a difference... Bush won.

Political Agenda with Danian Michael

One of the first things I learned as a debater (as a Christian debater) is to always represent your opponent's viewpoint accurately. With that said, researching and coming up with a truthful representation of the President's proposal for healthcare reform is one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do. Coming to an understanding of the bottom-line for the President's plan was more frustrating than getting my cat to play fetch while preparing my itemized tax returns. Understanding the details of how the system works today was equally breathtaking. The whole of the healthcare industry, both existing and now proposed, is riddled with double talk and subterfuge. One gets the impression like the super heroes of Bikini Bottom, that evil is a foot.[1]