.BY Josh Lackner
Darren Bernard strikes again! (“Like a January Christmas,” opinion, Thursday.) Again thumbing his nose at the reality-based readership who like to see a scrap or two of evidence, even in a raving polemic.
As a loyal conservative he will follow our unflappable President George W. Bush wherever he might lead; this time, to Social Security “reform.” This reform will cost $2 trillion over 10 years while weakening our future financial security.
Bernard also supports capping malpractice suits. (Bush’s health-care plan consists of medical security accounts and capping malpractice lawsuits.) We have 45 million uninsured people in this country. We spend far more than any other country on health care, both per person (insured and uninsured) and as a percentage of our economy. Our healthy life expectancy (healthy life years) is below that of most industrialized societies.
Our health-care system has problems and they are not attributable to our litigious society. Capping malpractice suits in California only worked after it was coupled with regulation of the malpractice insurance industry.
Bernard then relishes what he hopes will be the imminent overturning of Roe v. Wade, which will never affect Bernard in all his misogynistic glory. (He is “Ron-Jeremy-at-the-Playboy mansion excited”). Bernard claims unwanted pregnancies result from women not taking “responsibility for their sex lives.”
If only the world was so simple. Of course contraception fails occasionally. And nobody likes to see unsafe, unprofessional abortions – the inevitable result of overturning Roe v. Wade.
He calls Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., a racist because Reid insults Justice Clarence Thomas’s intelligence. Reid claimed. Thomas was “an embarrassment to the Supreme Court” whereas Justice Antonin Scalia is “one smart guy.” Thomas lied about his position on abortion in his Senate confirmation hearing. Scalia, though unscrupulous, is reputed to be quite intelligent. Are these statements racist? I sure hope not.
Bernard states, pithily, “If you took the pulse of a Democrat today, you’d need an Institute of Technology student to do the calculation for you.” Perhaps. That is the understandable result of having our government run by people who act like Bernard talks.
Josh Lackner is an undergraduate student. Please send comments to [email protected].
