Letters - Wednesday online

Palestinians don't want to co-exist
It is impossible not to respond to Arshad Yousufi's op-ed, "Complexities of Palestinian issue." I have recently returned from Israel after having lived in Kfar Sava, Israel, for the last nine months, and many months in previous years.
The issue is not complex, it is simple. When living in a land, one follows the laws of that land. One does not wear suicide belts or put explosives on women and children to blow up coffee shops, pizza restaurants, teen night clubs, schools, hospitals and places of employment.
Israeli Arabs are citizens of the land and are free to vote. Why not the Palestinians? They refused since Israel became a country to become a part of the state, as their brethren have. Israel built apartments for them, found jobs and gave them education facilities. They have chosen to remain "homeless", living in U.N.-run refugee centers, free of responsibilities to themselves and their children.
Israel is not responsible for the behavior of the Palestinians, the Palestinians are. It is their total lack of respect and regard for human life, their own as well as the Israeli's, that have forced them to live behind walls and fences.
You want to discuss Torah, then here is what it says. "Send the Ishmaelites from out of your land, or they will always be a thorn in your eyes!"
In an attempt to free the Israeli soldiers of "babysitting" the Palestinians, Israel removed thousands of Jews from the beautiful towns they had established in the Gaza Strip. My husband and I visited there many times and saw the wonderful greenhouses and dairy farms where the Palestinians worked alongside the Jews. Fruits, flowers and vegetables were being shipped around the world, providing work, money and food for all.
During the "occupation," a group of "peace loving" Palestinians tunneled under the fence of a dairy farm in an attempt to blow up the farmers and the cattle.
The day after the disengagement of the Jews from Gaza, every greenhouse was destroyed by the Palestinians. Much easier than actually going to work. The beautiful synagogues were ransacked, except one. It is now the Jihad training center.
If the Palestinians are so poor, why are they using American and Israeli money to keep their arsenals supplied? Daily, rockets are shot into southern Israel, terrorizing innocent men, women and children. Why? Are these the responsible actions of a people seeking a state?
Shortly before we left Israel, Hamas and Fatah were fighting and killing each other in Kalkiliya, the town neighboring Kfar Sava. Israel had no role in that. It is just the way those responsible people choose their leaders - last man standing.
Louise Eskanos
Colorado Springs

Few really need Obama's health plan
President Barack Obama says 46 million are without health insurance in this country.  That's probably true, but not for the reasons he hopes you'll assume.  Looking at the census data, nearly 10 percent of those uninsured are illegal aliens.  Should people in the U.S. illegally be entitled to free health care?  I looked for that in the Constitution the other day and didn't find that exact phrasing.  Maybe it's near the "life, liberty, and the pursuit of health care" clause.  Actually some wayward Supreme Court Justices might interpret the equal protection clause in this manner.
Anyway, that's 4.6 million people we shouldn't worry about, except that they do get free health care and overburden the hospitals, especially along the U.S.-Mexico border.  The Census Bureau also says that more than 24 million Americans making more than $50,000 choose not to purchase health care.  A large number of these people are 18-34 years old, the healthiest time of most people's lives.  Remember, they choose not to purchase health insurance even though they have the financial means to do so.  Maybe it's the financial downturn that affects their desire to buy health insurance.  Maybe they are just plain healthy.  I went for a number of years in graduate school without health insurance.  So take the 46 million and subtract 28 million and you get a more realistic number estimate of 18 million people.  These folks don't stay in this state.  Just like the list of wealthiest or poorest people changes from year to year, most people don't go
without health insurance for too long.  According to the Census Bureau it's usually not for a full year.  It's a dynamic state.
What I don't see Obama talking about is tort reform. How much of medical costs results from lawsuits and malpractice insurance rates?  What if Obama looked real hard at the lawyers to see the real impact on rising medical costs?  Maybe we should change the Constitution to read, "life, liberty, and the pursuit of tort reform."  Maybe the president, senators, and congressmen could get behind that.  But that won't happen.  Why?  Because they're all lawyers.  Lawyer, heal thyself.  That would be real change I can believe in.
Brian S. Penn
Colorado Springs

Health security leads to financial security
It's become clear that fixing the economy will be an uphill battle. Companies are closing their doors and employees are not only losing their jobs - they're also losing their health insurance. Laid-off workers are saddled with a terrifying choice between going without health care or going broke trying to pay for it. This is a decision no American should have to make.
It's clear that we cannot let our economic problems get any worse, and fixing America's health care system is the best place to start improving our economy.
Just last year, millions of people lost their jobs. It's safe to assume that hundreds of thousands more will become unemployed before the economy bounces back. Without health insurance, more and more families will go into debt paying off medical bills.
When Americans go into medical debt, the result is bad credit, insecurity in the housing market, and even bankruptcy. Our economy is already suffering and cannot afford any more of what got us into this mess. Health reform is key to bringing ourselves out of this recession.
There are thousands of special needs children sitting on Medicaid waiver waiting lists across this country. The waiting lists are years long with no end in sight. There are some parents that can't afford the health care costs, even with private insurance. The the catastrophic caps are maxed out for lifetime and these children sit waiting on a list. These children wait for needed therapies, procedures, surgeries and durable medical equipment. With no more coverage, parents are forced to lower the amount of hours they work or quit to live underneath Supplemental Security (SSI) guidelines. This makes the child eligible to get the Medicaid. As backward as this may seem, this is the current system. This is what we have dealt with for the past nine-plus years of our daughter's life.
We cannot fix the economy without fixing health care first. I urge you to write letters directly to the president or visit www.standupforhealthcare.org and write your story there. Let's start today!
Rebekah Fish
Colorado Springs

Columnist an apologist for abortion
Mark Barna's column, "Climate in U.S. ripe for violence," reminded me of another time in U.S. history when an entire segment of the U.S. population was being systematically victimized with the full knowledge and support of the government and of "polite" society. Victims were classified as not quite human. Victimizers insisted on their "rights" to do as they pleased with the victims. The victimizers were not condemned for their inhumanity; rather, they were respected leaders of society and enjoyed a sumptuous lifestyle. Supporters of the victimization warned of the economic consequences of outlawing the practice. Those who attempted to support the rights of the victims were pilloried in the press and harassed by law enforcement agencies. Freedom of speech was squelched in support of the status quo. Politicians who attempted to end the victimization faced fierce opposition and, often, risked defeat at the polls. The U.S. Supreme Court even upheld the rights of the victimizers, which led many people to argue that if the practice was legal it couldn't be immoral.
Of course, the victimization I'm speaking of is slavery. The parallels to the abortion business are illuminating. Abortion is a multibillion-dollar industry; eliminating it would have a negative economic impact. Friends and supporters of abortionists ignore the ugly fact that abortionists make their living through violent, cruel, and inhuman (though legal) practices, much as acquaintances of slave owners ignored the human-rights abuses that were responsible for the wealth and social position of slave owners.
Abortion supporters classify unborn babies as not quite human in order to avoid the inconvenient truth that abortion is the taking of a human life. Those who oppose killing unborn babies are portrayed by the press (including Barna) as "right-wing extremists," those who support killing unborn babies are considered tolerant and progressive. Many people fought to eradicate the detestable practice of slavery: some by persuasion, some by protest, some (such as conductors on the Underground Railway) by subversive and illegal activity, and some by violence. I'm not defending the murder of abortionists; those who choose such actions are subject to the penal code, as were the abolitionists who chose that same option. But I think it's ironic that those who devoted their lives to abolishing slavery, whether they did so nonviolently or violently, are now honored as heroes.
What would a journalist have written 150 years ago? The easy path - the path of least resistance, the path of social acceptability, the politically correct path - would have been to ignore the inconvenient humanity of slaves, disregard the rights of the powerless, and defend the rights of the slave owners. If a slavery-era writer had chosen that easy way, if he had attempted to evoke sympathy for slave owners as potential victims of extremist abolitionists, the resulting column would have closely resembled the one Mark Barna wrote for The Gazette.
John Conaway
Colorado Springs