I have been subscribing to this group for a couple of years and
reading a lot of the totally non-metalworking related discourse that
occurs here, and I find that so much of it degenerates into name-
calling and personal attacks that it has absolutely no value. This is
clearly an indication of extremely unproductive polarization of the
populace when it comes to the political directions of the country.

The ability of new media and communications methods to almost
instantly spread both real information and complete hogwash is
unparalleled, and the unfortunate result of this capability, and its
availability to everyone, is the almost instant groundswell of "public
opinion" to be mobilized in response to hogwash, even in the face of
black and white facts. I have received chain emails previously, on a
number of topics of concern to the writers, that are so loaded with
mis-statements, omissions, and outright falsehoods that they are
worthless at best, and certainly damaging to any intelligent
propagation of useful information. The news media outlets, depending
on whether they have some political leaning, are full of breathless
"this-just-in" updates on the most outrageous statements of the last
five minutes from a Democrat or Republican officeholder, or an email
from a single individual that then gets national attention because of
some ridiculous extreme opinion that supports the bias of the media
outlet.

The current debate on health care reform, both here and in the
national stream of discussion, is a prime example of this. The root
cause of the "heat without light" pandemonium seems to be the
combination of the political right's Congressional caucus and their
desire to not communicate the actual facts of the proposed legislation
in their entirety, along with the general unwillingness of the people
listening to them (on both sides) to actually go do some independent
research, perform their own due diligence, and actually think for
themselves about what the actual words say and mean. "Stirring the
pot" for what appears to be short-term political gain, rather than
using that energy and expertise to craft usable long-term solutions,
is an unfortunate but all-too-common activity in this country. The
individuals who are on the other end of the stirring stick need to get
their brains out and use them, and instruct their representatives in
Congress to represent them and work the problem, rather than playing
to the extremists on both sides of the issue. Jingoism and demagoguery
help nothing.

I am not a big fan of the various parts of the various proposals being
put forth, but something must be done, and people need to apply
critical thinking to this issue. It will involve sacrifice, period,
and no amount of whining is going to make it go away. I am an investor/
part-owner/employee of a start-up company, with 12 employees, and I
have a $10K/month bill for employee health insurance. That is patently
ridiculous. Solutions need to be found for this problem. Obfuscation
and deliberate misrepresentation on these serious issues are a huge
impediment.