LJWorld.com

There was so much care and concern posted for Rush Limbaugh under the article announcing that he'd gone to a Hawaiian hospital to have chest pains investigated. It seemed obvious I should post how to listen, so folks who are so interested could tune him in for themselves.

*You can hear his program live at 11a.m. local time on 980AM KMBZ (KC-MO). His is a three-hour program. KMBZ also repeats Rush's program during the night, like at 1a.m.

*If you have a good receiver or are up north, KFEQ (St. Joseph) 680AM runs his program on a delay beginning at 2p.m.

*on the web www.rushlimbaugh.com is a very informative site on all things Limbaugh. You can sign up to hear his program via the web, or support an overseas service person's subscription to the web broadcast. "Stack of stuff" has lots of great reading.

I was so happy that in all those 120+ posts that nobody posted things falsely attributed to Rush, actual lies, and some of his statements taken out of context. Just as some treated Sarah Palin with such respect, and did not post a virulent lie about her son not really being her son...but I digress.

The tolerant, prejudice-free, ever forgiving, liberals who always welcome people who publicly admit their adictions and get rehabbed. They were so forgiving of Ted Kennedy whose addiction actually killed somebody, so I was glad such care was extended to Rush in all those comments. I am also glad that the tolerant liberals of Lawrence join me in celebrating Rush's clean bill of health; his heart is apparently okay.

So, today you can tune him in. For many who sound off about him, it'll be your first time too.

Mr. Obama says that it is more than health care. He says it is about what kind of country we want the U.S. to be.

Here, I agree. What kind of country do we want America to be? One of many reasons for the backlash against Obamacare has been the huge number of fundamental social questions being addressed with little or no national dialogue. Rushing through huge programs which change many basic American freedoms and many things we take for granted.

I hope to post a series of questions, to identify some of these very basic questions.

Here, I'm asking: Do we want to be the kind of country that makes health insurance coverage compulsory?*

In order to accomplish this, some of the bills currently in Washington actually empower the IRS to enforce compulsory participation. If you are forced to pay, your employer is forced to pay, or your employer is fined, it all works out about the same. Your employer pays you and has the added expense of employing you tacked on. That is money that cannot go into your paycheck.

Do we as a country choose to require everyone to have health insurance? During the Democrat party primary, Mr. Obama was the only major candidate who opposed such compulsory participation, and he criticized Hilary's compulsory plan. Now, his is just as offensive.

Furthermore, the plans currently in Washington will mandate all kinds of coverage, and control the types of policies the government would "approve." So, if you are a 22-year-old, your premiums will be far higher under these proposed plans than if you got your own coverage today. Higher because you would not have the freedom (according to CNN/Money) to choose a skimpy coverage, high deductable, low premium policy. Also, you would be mandated to take coverage that included, for example, knee replacement even though you're 22 and not at all likely to need it. That's one way these plans try to balance the books, charge the low-risk younger citizens more to provide for the elders and more sickly, such as the 60-year-old who actually does need a new knee.

Mr. Obama says that requiring all Americans to have health insurance is like the auto insurance requirement. Wrong. Women pay less for auto insurance because they're lower risk. All the current proposals seem to go the opposite way: pay more for lower risk.

So, the government compells you to have health insurance, and decides what should be in that policy. If you are prolife, you are forced to pay for coverage for abortions against your conscience. But aside from that small matter [lol] the reach of government is hugely multiplied. Do we choose this?

More questions to come.

   Fired for being conservative?

What I'm going to write here is based on sketchy information. My hope is that people with information closer to the situation will post here.

This past school year was the first year of teaching for a Lawrence High School teacher in Social Studies, something like history, American Institutions, Western Civ, etc. He came to Lawrence from Arkansas, after teaching there for more than a dozen years.

He and his supportive students learned that his contract will not be renewed. He will be dropped after one year. There is some indication that possibly he is losing his job because he is conservative, and has been open about it in class.

Students of his attended a School Board meeting in late May; they were expected to visit the board yesterday--monday night.

I first learned of this just this evening. I've not been able to get more information on the situation and I hope others with closer knowledge will add theirs here. According to some of his supportive students, they have talked to LJworld about covering this, without gaining any coverage.
Nobody should be fired for being conservative, nor for being liberal. Teachers certainly do have freedom of speech but must balance that with the need to present accurate and balanced presentations of material in class. No student's grade should depend on repeating the indoctrination of a teacher; rather that student should be encouraged to freely arrive at his or her opinions, and know why.