(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (Oct 18, 2010 / 18:46 PDT)

I agree that we all have strange priorities when it comes to what we spend our money on, but it is hardly fair to compare what tax money is spent on versus money in-hand spent by individuals. It would be more fair to compare what amount of tax money is spent on health care for the country’s citizens versus how much is spent on building highways to access new subdivisions or on the war machine, which is based on American ideologies being forced on other cultures (for their own good, of course) and/or on protecting American-claimed resources on foreign soil. (I fully realize that pretty much every other country in the world fights on foreign soil - I’m just using your own country as an example).

Why is an unborn child more important than someone’s 20-year old son or daughter who is recruited to fight more often than not under false pretenses (as history sooner or later tells us)?

I would be more impressed if you included a strong stance against violence against anyone of any age, not just unborn babies and the elderly. I am also not impressed by your ‘Christian’ foundation. Why do Christians continually reference verses from the New Testament, which were more politically-correct words written by men long after the fact (if, indeed, any of it is fact), while conveniently ignoring the Old Testament violence and - oh, yes - genocide perpetrated by a jealous and vengeful god? Let me suggest that you keep any Christian or anti-Obama stuff quiet in order to influence a broader audience. As it stands, you are immediately turning off any Obama supporters or non-Christians, so they probably won’t really listen to your message, no matter how in-your-face it is.

The whole point of universal health care is to give everyone of every age and every economic level access to health care. Your 100-plus-year-old did not have access before and probably still doesn’t because you still do not have a government-run health care system. Obama was trying to compromise with the Republicans on this issue and therefore ended up with a worthless bill. He should have stuck to his guns and overhauled the whole system (including many of the suggestions you make), but he probably would have been lynched. So, the United States is pretty much the only ‘Western’ society without universal health care, but you still somehow have one of the largest debt-to-GDP ratios.

If these (mostly) right-wing extremists don’t want a ‘socialist’ government, then they’d better hand over their cotton-farm subsidies, their government-subsidized pensions, their football stadiums, their public schools, and their highways, among other things. It would be literally impossible to live in a modern urban environment without having collectively-paid-for sewage systems, garbage pick-up, road upkeep, hydro systems, etc. (Rural dwellers could, and sometimes do, manage it.)

Back to the abortion issue: I have no real problem with your campaign. I believe in education on all issues - the more REAL information, the better. That is what enables individuals to make informed choices. I certainly hope that you advocate REAL sex education in schools, including what is good and bad sex (i.e. consensual vs. forced), all birth control options with how they work and don’t work, side effects, etc., abstinence, sexually transmitted diseases, abortion facts (including pictures!), the development of the foetus, adoption, fertility treatments, etc.

Perhaps parents should be the ones to do this, but a lot of them aren’t, or they aren’t doing a good job of giving a straight-up, unbiased account of it all (and I mean bias in either direction).

My question: What is your stance on violence outside of infanticide and violence against the elderly?