Obama to Iran: Wanna Hang?

When Lentulus was to be executed for attempting to overthrow the Roman Republic, Caesar debated Senators Cicero and Cato on the merits of capital punishment. During their Illinois Senate race, Stephen Douglas and an unknown Abraham Lincoln held seven debates on slavery and whether equal rights should be extended to the black populace. Moments of national urgency have routinely manifested moments of great debate, but no crisis could break October seventh's traditional recitation of talking points. Debates resolve problems in the status quo. Both Senators John McCain and Barack Obama managed to push their responses from unpredictable questions to cue card answers resolving nothing.  

          "Now, Senator Obama, without precondition, wants to sit down and negotiate with [Iran]—without preconditions. That's what he stated," commented Sen. McCain. Though primarily to portray Sen. Obama as soft on terror, Sen. McCains argument ultimately advocates force over talk.

          This argument has become indicative of both campaigns. Talking and not talking are mutually exclusive policies, but despite his obvious disagreement, Sen. Obama didn’t do anything. Tuesday's presidential debate was less a debate than a press conference—neither candidate resolving an issue, but instead using the time for publicity. 

When did speech become something to be afraid of? When did talk become a vice? When did real discussion become something to avoid? When did it become acceptable for Sen. Obama to tolerate Sen. McCain's unreason?

There are times when small threats achieve great things, but there are still others when they don't. These aren't military invitations, but opportunities. When Iran threatens Israel, Russia invades Georgia, we have the opportunity to say, "No, you can't do that."

Say that. Instead of telling people, who's right, who's wrong, make it obvious.
 
Say, "If you think not talking long enough will make people like you again, I've got news for you. It doesn't, and I know this because while we give them the silent treatment, Iran has built 4,000 nuclear centrifuges and my wife still wins our arguments. You can keep thinking that. That's fine, but remember, when the Soviets wanted to arm Cuba, it was talk that saved our lives."

          Day by day our economy sputters, starting only to stop again. Banks are closing. The middle class is disappearing. Inflation is rising. The dollar is falling.  We are hemorrhaging money and only given talking points as tourniquets. *O tempora. O mores.* Moments of national urgency merit moments of great debate and we've gotten neither greatness nor debate. We need resolution. If today we abide by cue cards in crisis, what will we be left with tomorrow but cue cards and crisis?

Healthcare Reform

Crisis has finally provoked government intervention into the financial industry. The phenomenon of crisis, like in the Great Depression, has traditionally been the rallying call for governmental social reform.

 

By raising profits for investors, free market healthcare routinely raises costs for already struggling families. Traditional methods of nationalizing health care like protests, letters, and bills, rely on the misguided assumption that government is concerned with other people who don't have golden toilets and flying cars. The current economic predicament illustrates that government attention is earned by crisis in the economic supports of the American structure. 

 

To accomplish their goals, health care advocates' methods must change. Rather than relying on reason and persuasion, they must create an unignorable crisis that rattles the foundations of society.  I recall films such as *28 Weeks Later* and *Night of the Living Dead,* in which a virus threatens to tear society limb from limb until the government intervenes.  Similar to these films, I propose a mass infection of the United States' citizenry, in order to nationalize the health care system.

 

The infection must be able to spread itself, thus a treatable quasi-zombie virus is ideal.  Initially, there would be a need to infect many people, but the virus would eventually become autonomous.

 

A mass infection would produce horrific images and an undeniable urgency to stop the epidemic. Images of people running through the street, brain lumps smattering their chins, gnawing on neighbors knuckles—pandemonium, whole subway cars leaking blood, and mountains of pustuous, fetid corpses cluttering up the streets.

 

The cure would be readily available at all hospitals, provided one can juke through the throngs of malodorous undead. Citizens would rush to their hospitals demanding the remedy. While still thoroughly brain damaged, the cured would no longer crave cranial lobes. They would then demand money for those services from insurance agencies. The volume of requests would force insurance barons to turn to their government for support whom would then buy them out.

 

I assure you that I have no ulterior motive but that of the common good. It is undeniable that nationalizing health care, unifying the country through crisis, rewarding the rich with our tax dollars for their inability to handle this catastrophe, and zombifying the general public,  is good for each and every one of us.