I’m really, really sorry that your childhood friend’s son has cancer. It’s really tough when a 5 year old gets horribly sick, and I feel for you and his family. No pitting here; I truly do feel badly. And that’s why I’m venting in the pit on a totally different message board because I feel like it would be the epitome of bad taste to post this on your Facebook page.
But for the love of GOD, don’t you see the fucking irony of you posting questions about how you can help out the family, and wondering if you should hold a spaghetti dinner or make a website that could let people donate via PayPal or have a PartyLite party (whatever the fuck that is ) or any other such fund raising ideas? I know the best way to help out the family - live in a fucking country that has a health care system that provides for 5-year-olds that get cancer. How 'bout you just shut the fuck up about how horrible “Obamacare” is going to be and perhaps engage the health care debate with something other than lameass quotes from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh?
Spaghetti dinners for 5-year-olds with cancer. That’s the country we live in.
Actually, when they’re spewing bullshit about health care, I think it’s entirely appropriate to post a comment to the effect of “Weren’t you organizing a spaghetti dinner to raise funds for a five-year-old with cancer awhile back? Do you really thing spaghetti dinners are a better solution to our health care problems than a government insurance program?”
Sometimes people have trouble seeing how their ideology directly contradicts their own interests until it’s pointed out to them by a third party.
It may be a little pointed for the typical FB comment, but they opened that can of worms by bloviating about politics in the first place.
I get so upset listening to my grandmother tell me about how socialized health care will kill off the elderly people in our nation and then go for her cancer treatments that are paid for by medicare. :smack:
The lady ma helped that died this year was worse. She was set against all Americans getting health care and all riled up from watching stuff on television. A few minutes later she was bitching how the Medicare paid for person had come at 10:00 for her in home bath appointment and wouldn’t come back after 18:00, and some other things that she didn’t like about another in home service Medicare paid for. The care person was supposed to come back in the evening, because she wanted to sleep all day and stay up all night. She’d go on about all those thousands in dollars services she received and they wouldn’t give her more though she should get anything she wanted without it costing her anything.
I don’t see the irony, although I understand why a liberal person might believe it so.
Just because you feel that government shouldn’t be involved in a particular issue doesn’t mean you don’t personally support that issue. It’s about the government’s role, not the particular issue.
Your friend doesn’t believe government should have a role in health care. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t want people to have access to health care. His willingness to help in whatever way he can is evidence of that.
And you’d be surprised how far spaghetti dinners, silent auctions, fund raisers, etc will go.
Or it could be that Athena’s friend is just not as selfish as you are. This is surprising to a certain set of people, but it’s entirely possible to believe that (a) some law or policy will benefit you personally, but (b) believe that that law or policty should not be enacted.
But the law isn’t benefiting them personally. It would be benefiting a five year old who has cancer. Presumably, this person wants that kid to be helped… they just don’t want the cost of it to come out of their taxes. Where’s the part where they’re not being selfish come in, exactly?
Benefit for an immediate family member isn’t that different from personal benefit. My only point is: the argument “This law would benefit a member of my immediate family (or myself, or a good friend of mine, or whatever), therefore it should be enacted” is wrong. So, I don’t see why black rabbit should be appealing to it.
As someone who’s working in fundraising and teaching a fundraising course, I’m honor-bound to call bullshit on this. I’ve consulted with a number of fundraisers around here, and IME a great silent auction might clear $5-10K. That’s a drop in the bucket for most cancer patients, some of whom are going to need $100-200K worth of care. And the spaghetti dinners, basket raffles, and other events usually raise less than that. The $5-10K is only if there are some seriously valuable items in the auction and there are people willing to put up serious money. If I had to use a word to describe how most families feel after a medical-patient fundraiser, that word would be “disappointed.” It is an enormous effort for very little money, usually.
Do the math: if a ticket to a spaghetti dinner costs $20, and $5 of that is overhead, how many tickets will you need to sell to raise the $100-200K that a cancer patient might need? Hope you brought enough spaghetti for everyone, is all I can say.
No fucking kidding. Why do people tiptoe around telling these people what idiots they are (perhaps more politely than that)? Why are they even on your friends list? Someone like that would last about 2 seconds on my friend’s list. Well, they wouldn’t be on my friend’s list in the first place, because I don’t know any people like that, but if someone suddenly went brain-damaged and started ranting like that, they’d be gone as fast as I could click the Remove button.
These assholes-on-Facebook threads boggle my mind.
Why? If I was forced to pay into a system for a large part of my working life, I’ll damn sure take what is owed to me down the road. I don’t see how that’s :smack: worthy, any more than Canadians who are opposed to UHC, or Americans who would like to be able to opt out of SS.
Hang on, I see what you’re saying. She’s specifically used “kill off the elderly” as a reason. I was responding as if she was just opposed to UHC in general.
When I compile *Vinyl Turnip’s Big Book of Selfish Acts *, “wanting every American to have access to affordable, life-sustaining health care” will not figure near the top of the list. Your edition may vary.
Is it just me, or do conservatives seem to have no clue that some of this crap is offensive (or at least controversial). I would never consider casually sending out treatises supporting gay marriage to a list of family member or old high school acquaintance. I’d know that it is something that many of them disagree with, and that my mail to a general audience won’t sway them. But I get all kinds of crap with the latest Fox trumped-up news hysteria du jour.
Seriously. If I were that kid, struggling to stay alive off the proceeds from some chump change fundraisers, I would not see anyone’s opposition to free medical care as a sign of selfishness. We aren’t talking about raising money to send the kid to Paris next summer, for Christ’s sake. This is his life.
I wonder if the Facebook friend would be willing to support healthcare reform if someone convinced him/her that under UHC the kid would have a better chance of surviving and living a normal life without the side effect of putting his family in the poorhouse.