Comparing Waiting Lines at Disney and VA is Assinine

Can you believe the audacity of Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald? He compared waiting in long lines at Disney’s Magic Kingdom to waiting for healthcare service at a Veterans Administration healthcare facility. He in fact stated, “it was unfair to evaluate the VA based on the length of time a veteran registers and actually sees a doctor.” Is he kidding me? Does anyone in their right mind truly suppose that Disney, in reality, measures the number of hours it’s patrons wait in line? In essence, McDonald is saying, it isn't hurting the Disney paying public to wait in line, thus it does not hurt the VA patient in need of health care to wait in line.  Without question I think his choice of analogies was unpardonable. Is not the VA an organization that is there to provide health care for our nation’s veterans? To compare waiting for a doctor’s appointment, where your life may be in balance to a wait in line for a thrill ride or a hot dog at a theme park appalling.

Now I ask the reader, has anybody died waiting in line at Disney? Well, maybe a few over the years, but not many. There is plenty of evidence that many more than a few veterans have actually died waiting to be seen at a VA facility. Is this not health care we’re talking about? This is not entertainment. Do not our Veterans Administration management team know how important waiting time is? 

Some would argue that a veteran’s experience with the VA should matter more than the statistics. Let me tell you from a VA patient’s view, it’s hard to have an experience until you can get an appointment. You don’t have to be a brain surgeon or a VA bureaucrat to know timely appointments often catch medical problems early and lead to more effective treatment.

Ever try calling VA for a medical appointment? If nothing else, try it for entertainment. If a veteran calls the VA, they can dial ‘1’ for the pharmacy, dial ‘2’ for the clinic, but if you want to talk with a mental health specialist because it’s an emergency and you’re thinking of “doing yourself in”, you’ve got to hang up and dial a 10-digit number. And, they can’t fix that? Does this come as a surprise? If it does, the reader is in for a reality check. The ongoing complaints prove the problems have not been solved. It should come as no surprise, given the immense bureaucracy and the fact very few people lost their jobs over the initial VA scandals.

One of the VA solutions to long wait times was the infamous "Choice Card." Some appointed VA healthcare brainpan suggested it. Let me clue you in on VA’s treatment of veterans with "Choice Cards." Through personal experience, I have discovered the very same thing with respect to the bureaucratic red tape enforced by the VA, everything, to include the "Choice Card" involves lengthy wait times from approval to appointment.

In my biased opinion, the VA should be concentrating on the nuts and bolts of solving the problems that they have at the VA, not making excuses and comparing it to the Magic Kingdom. What happens in the world of  Disney is fantasy accompanied by sounds of joy and laughter. What transpires within the VA health system is reality, accompanied by cries of anguish at the needless, avoidable suffering and death of an American veteran.

Why Accommodate One Tenth of One Percent

Allow me to pose this question. Why should 99.9% of the population be forced to accommodate the preferences of one-tenth of 1 percent of the population? Do you ever ask yourself why in the world and who in the world decided to pick up an issue that affects one-tenth of 1 percent of the population and make it a dominating cultural issue and make it a concern that they use to illustrate how, in their minds, America reeks, America discriminates, America’s unfair, America is prejudice, America is biased? Because one-tenth of 1 percent of the population of men or women who think they’re the other want to use a bathroom of their choice one day? You ever ask why we have to stop everything we’re doing and turn this into the equivalent of the “Civil Rights Act of 1964?”

It appears to me, and probably others, that the whole issue is not about what happens in restrooms or showers, and it’s not about transgenders, either. Many of us perceive this as just yet another vehicle that extreme liberals are using to undermine and overthrow and transform the founding culture of the United States. Friends, it’s not civil rights. People are not going to paddle the life raft for one-tenth of 1 percent of the population here from a civil rights standpoint.

Then why is the issue of transgender bathroom usage being billed as a civil rights issue? It’s disguised as being a civil rights issue to grease the skids of passage. It’s disguised as a civil rights issue to intimidate people into silencing their opposition to it. I contend the trumped up issue is in all actuality, political fiction. What else would explain why all of a sudden a bunch of transgenders are feeling totally, utterly and singularly put upon – and unquestionably discriminated against – over bathroom usage? That my friend is feigned fiction. That’s the created drama. That is the narrative, if you will. That’s the soap opera script for the day, for the week, for the month. All people in North Carolina and other geographical areas are doing is reacting to it!

I will conclude this post with a story that was shared by one of the progressive left's favorite sons, Rush Limbaugh (just kidding). Limbaugh states: “You know, some time back in the early nineties we got a call from a guy who claimed to be a male lesbian, and we just cracked up. We thought that was the funniest thing, a male lesbian. He started explaining to us what that was. We are so far beyond that now. A male lesbian seems halfway normal.”

Need I say more about our culture, our leadership and our nation’s current path to perdition? These are my thoughts, feel free to share yours. I’m always open to all points of view. Remember, we can all agree to disagree with one another and do so in a civil manner.

In What Political Direction did Jesus Lean

A survey conducted by the Barna Group, of which I am a subscriber, found 24 percent of respondents believe Jesus’ teachings align more closely with socialism than capitalism. Only 14 percent believe Jesus was a capitalist. Asked which of the presidential candidates’ views were closest to the teachings of Jesus, 21 percent said Bernie Sanders, and 9 percent said Hillary Clinton.

If all you know about Jesus is what you’ve heard, I can understand why you might think he was a socialist. After all, He healed the sick and fed the hungry and commanded His followers to do likewise, right? Is that not what socialists do? Actually, no. Historically socialists ration government-run health care services and starve their people. Jesus wasn’t a socialist, but, interestingly, he was betrayed by one. It is a figment of one’s imagination to think Jesus was a proponent of “the Great Society” or “the War on Poverty.” He exhorted individuals to heal the sick, feed the hungry and help the poor. But he never suggested in any way, shape or form that this was the proper role of government. This was the role of the church – the duty of the individual believer. Jesus said: “ The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me."

Jesus had some other interesting comments that suggest He was far from a socialist. Take, for instance, the parable of the talents as told in Matthew 25:14-30. I encourage you read the before mentioned scripture passage. It begins, “For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his ability; and straightway took his journey….”

This message is counterintuitive for the socialist mindset. Additionally, it’s not surprising it is universally neglected by those proponents of “liberation theology.” God could have provided everyone equal shares, but He sovereignly chose not to do so. All He asked is that his servants make the most of the gifts they were given. He rewarded those who had more and produced more, and punished severely those who started with less and produced less.

Now I ask you, is this not a nightmare for socialists and liberals alike who try to use the Bible to justify their humanist utopian dreams?

Free to Identify as Anything I Want

For those who do not know me, I’m Samuel Alano and I’m a straight, white male. I’m 6 feet 2, 195 lbs., have grey hair and brown eyes. At least, that’s how I actually am. But thanks to a ridiculous group of accommodating division-loving progressive leftists, I am now free to claim to be, or “identify” in the current socially acceptable choice of words, as anything I want. Is it not our fortune to know President Obama has enough free time to worry about such things as people’s right to use whichever bathroom or shower facility they desire? And I mistakenly thought he’d be bogged down with the fight against ISIS or his failing economy. No, not on his time table. 

Since directing the Justice Department, which also finds itself unburdened by bothersome job-related onuses such as investigating Fast and Furious, the IRS bird dogging and harassing Americans because of their political beliefs, or the timely conclusion of looking into a former Secretary of State treating classified material like junk mail, is finally addressing the civil rights issue of our time. 

Since the administration has decreed public schools can’t deny anyone’s “right” to use any facility – bathroom, shower.– merely because of biological fact, so as not to risk losing federal funding, physical education class is going to be a lot of fun when hormone-fulminating males realize they’re one meaningless, un-disprovable, non-binding pronouncement away from showering with female counterparts. This is the realm Barack Obama and the Democratic Party is constructing for us – the denial of basic biology. Someone more cynical than I might point out the disconnect between those who have metamorphosed “climate change” into a religious conviction through the deification of science now denying undeniable scientific facts. Facts are as they are. Females of our species have two “X” chromosomes and males have an “X” and a “Y.” This fact is not in dispute. What it means in terms of which bathroom to use is obvious to anyone with a brain to think.

I really don’t care how someone chooses to live their life – if they want to be a productive member of society or a worthless panhandler, then go for it. Just don’t ask me to subsidize or support your choices, and I’ll extend the same courtesy to you. Then again, that is no longer permissible in Obama’s world. 

The problem isn’t transgendered people using either bathroom; they’ve been around a long time and rarely have been noticed (unless they’ve always been holding it). If you’re a man who lives as a woman and uses the women’s bathroom, you’ve probably never been stopped. There’s no one outside public restrooms with an X-ray machine, clipboard and frisking you before you enter, and most people don’t pay attention to others going in and out of bathrooms. That’s not the issue. The issue is the people who do pay attention to who goes in and out of bathrooms.

In a nation the size of America, there are quite a few sick people out there who don’t simply subscribe to the “live and let live” philosophy. In times past, if a pervert gets off on being in the ladies room while women do their business he’d be arrested, right? What the Justice Department is doing is offering each and every one of them a free pass now. Since being transgendered is undefined, all these perverts can simply claim they’re transgender, and suddenly every father of a girl of school age is an extremist or bigot.  In short, the Obama administration is offering cover to any freak or social deviant with a bathroom fetish. And it’s using our tax dollars to enforce it.

There is an upside. If the federal government is going to impose this nebulous standard on schools under the Civil Rights Act, it won’t be able to deny the same rights to prisoners. So if you’re a man facing any sort of federal prison term, declare yourself trans and…well, you can do the math. In fact, why stop there? If the federal government is going to negate the fact of biology when it comes to public restroom usage, it can’t use it anywhere. If gender can be ignored, why can’t other biological facts be ignored? Did not Rachel Dolezal "identify" as being black? Did not Elizabeth Warren "identify" as being Native American? Fact, neither were what they said they were. Rather than being eschewed for their proven mendacities, both came out smelling like a rose.

Perhaps we should all claim to “identify” as whatever will best help us at any given moment. Clog the system. If government is going to demand gender is whatever you want it to be at any given time, lets play ball. Applying for college? Claim every ethnicity and gender, go after every dime of scholarship available to everyone. All you have to do is “identify” as such. Who are they to judge? Thanks to this asinine ruling, we’re all free to ignore what we are and declare ourselves whatever we want to be, whenever it suits our needs. It’s stupid, it’s crazy, but apparently it’s our civil right.

Something Frightening is Happening

Something frightening is happening in America today – more and more the traditional foundations are being destroyed. People without moorings are being swept away by a new wave. On College campuses Christian groups are considered “religious,” whereas Muslim groups are considered cultural. This new wave, based on New Age or secular values, seeks demassification – the breaking into smaller groups – of the culture, its values and its Judeo-Christian morality. It seeks to substitute new belief systems and multi-ethnic/distinct national, linguistic, socio-cultural groups for the existing, traditional “one nation, under God, indivisible …” concept.

Traditional concepts such as male and female, married couples, father and mother have come under constant attack and perhaps will become the periphery. Gendercide may soon become part of the modern-day lexicon. Some spokespersons contend that “parental preference” is the reason for the aborting of more than 160 million female fetuses worldwide since the late 1970s. According to some reports, gendercide is the leading cause of death of females in the U.S.

According to some, gender liberation may very well become the new phrase in the next wave in elementary school education. From what I have been able to gather, “gender liberation" means that male/female distinctions must be eliminated in order to ‘liberate’ children from unnecessary stereotypes.” This is not about equal rights but “eliminating the natural distinctions between male and female.” The order of the day will be “anything goes” and “diversity” – at all costs.

There will be a great hue and cry for the demassification of society. No longer will there be the current concept of a morality of the majority, but there must be equal minority groups and court-enforced diversity. Left-leaning futurists from their glass towers will speak with rhetorical eloquence about the need for direct democracy, more diversity and greater representation for all minority groups, including enforced sexual orientations. This will come at the expense of national tranquility and is all based upon some hopeful, utopian, humanistic misconception that relies on the innate goodness of mankind.

Restoring Individual Responsibility is The Key

Decency was once a watchword, but decency does not communicate morality without impartial standards. This new wave seeks, and is resulting in, a giant, unresponsive, socialist-leaning bureaucracy that would replace individual responsibility with the state. The state would thus become the master and, consequently, assume the responsibility for implementing, directing and ultimately controlling collective behavior. (Remember, one of the candidates running for president is a self-confessed socialist.)

Restoring individual responsibility and requiring citizens to be involved in issues that affect them can offset the need for large bureaucracies. For example, laws that would affect long-standing public conduct (civic, social and moral standards) would require informed public participation, an expression of concern by individuals authentically caring about their fellow citizens, not merely by judicial decree or government mandate.

The founding documents of America presupposed such action. Individuals are created as living beings of worth, personal value and significance, in the image and likeness of a righteous and loving God. The founders assumed and anticipated the citizenry and their public servants would treat one another accordingly. The time is long overdue to return to the dignity and loftiness of our calling as children of God in His great gift to us – our American republic.