VIEWPOINT/A letter to Thomas Paine
Dear Mr. Paine,
When you penned "These are the times that try men's souls," General Washington read your writings to his troops at Valley Forge, to inspire them. And when they nicknamed you the voice of the common man, your vision for our budding American Democracy was to end slavery and to provide social security to the poor and aged with doctoring for sick patriots who had not a hen for the pot.
Well, Mr. Paine, we're about 3/4 of the way there, and that final 1/4 is trying the soul of Americans, perhaps more so than those foreign alliances President Washington warned against.
I write you regarding our upcoming national election: Wondering if you find it disquieting that politicians engage in endless debate as to whether every man, woman or child within our borders (including the wretched refuse of teeming shores) is deserving or undeserving of medical care, affordable or unaffordable (unaffordable is the kind members of Congress receive)? Or, please don't blush, but should our candidates then turn to pontificating about the bodies of women for whom they are neither physician, clergy, nor loved one? Or, forgive me for posing this ridiculous question to the modest son of a corsetmaker, but do you feel our leaders, spurred on by political mercenaries, need fritter away our time and theirs debating whether two patriot ladies (doubtlessly uncorseted) may wed; or, by a similar, but somewhat different token, whether two patriot gentleman may, in the pursuit of happiness, tie the knot?
No, I'm not asking if the gentlemen may marry the ladies without the whalebone stays, neither am I asking you to weigh in on the Constitutionality of this matter. I ask, is it a suitable topic for lengthy ad nauseum discourse when the real domestic issue is not with whom one chooses to domicile, but the paucity of good jobs?
http://www.fbnewsleader.com/articles/2012/09/20/opinion/00editavptdebbyarnold.txt
