It’s been a pretty rough few days. Not only did we all have to sit through the sad memories of 9/11, but we also had to sit through two Republican debates, one sponsored by the Tea Party.

Letting the Tea Party sponsor a presidential debate seems a bit like letting the high school drop-out organize the class reunion.

If anyone was paying attention to this last debate, when they discussed healthcare, Ron Paul was asked if a 30 year old man, with no health insurance, needed help, should society let him die. And from the Tea Party audience were shouts of “Yeah!” and applause. Ron Paul, a Doctor mind you, was happy to let that man die as it was part of his ‘freedom to choose,’ so much for the Hippocratic Oath.

The previous GOP debate had an audience clapping at the mention of 234 executions taking place in the state of Texas. They were not clapping for any specific case, or crime, or act of violence, they were merely clapping at the idea of a Governor (Perry) who was ‘strong enough’ to bring the swift hand of ‘justice’ down on their fellow human beings.

Now, add that to hours of 9/11 footage of the towers falling, the people running and the memorializing taking place all over America. Anyone hoping to feel a bit better about the evolution of mankind toward a more compassionate existence, well, let’s just say this was not the week to be watching television.

What’s the correlation? I was watching a show that was interviewing people who had gotten out of the towers alive. They were telling their stories about co-workers, and strangers, taking the time to go back for others, carry people down the stairs and in some cases, die in the process of trying to get others out alive. These survivors told their stories and cried. They said that every day, since that day, they think about that person who died so that they could live. They talked about how this young man, that older woman or that firefighter displayed the ultimate form of heroism, not leaving others behind.

So we have people risking, and sometimes losing, their lives in order to not leave their fellow Americans, their fellow human beings, behind. And at around the same time, we have thousands of people applauding the fact that we would either kill another person, or let another person die, because it was not ‘our problem’ to have to take care of them.

So here is my question. If a GOP presidential candidate were racing out of a burning building, or if an audience of thousands of Tea Partiers were evacuating a falling building, does this mean they would run over, push aside, step on or generally ignore anyone along the way that needed help?

50 million Americans cannot afford health insurance, and every year, an average of 45,000 Americans will die, not due to lack of proper care, but lack of being able to afford any care at all. Yet we watch as these candidates will talk about how they will repeal ‘Obamacare’ the first chance they get. They talk about how the healthcare industry is a capitalistic system and the free market will take care of itself. They talk as if 45,000 people aren’t dying every year. They talk as if the healthcare industry is somehow going to be regulated not by money, profit or greed, but some sort of underlying form of compassion that they have managed to keep hidden for this long, but will most likely kick in any day now.

If you allow your fellow Americans to die, not because there was nothing you could do, but because you didn’t want to do it, how is that different then stepping over that woman as you ran out of a building? If you allow your fellow Americans to suffer needlessly, go into poverty and eventually lose their life not because we don’t have the technology to help them, but because you felt it wasn’t ‘your problem.’ how is that any different than ignoring the cries of someone behind a closed door as you run past it on the way to saving your own life?

How can you lower your head and mourn those who died that day, when you are somehow okay with fifteen times that number dying every year, in the country you profess to love? How can you call those first responders ‘heroes,’ and then years later vote, against helping them, when these same ‘heroes’ are dying of cancers and other Ground Zero-related diseases?

You say it’s about cost. We spend 1.5 trillion dollars on our military, every year, all around the world. If you were really concerned about money, you would find a way to take just 1% of 1% of that money to help your fellow Americans. But you won’t, because the world is a scary place, even though more people die due to lack of healthcare then in all the wars we are fighting around the world.

You say it’s about keeping America from becoming a ‘socialist’ country, yet you are willing to accept a paycheck that is collected from the taxes of all your fellow Americans, the same way the military, the fire department and the police department are paid, from ‘society.’ What exactly do you think socialism looks like?

There is nothing I can say that will change the minds of a Republican who thinks with fear, hate or misguided pride, or a Tea Party member who thinks with hate, fear and blatant ignorance. Not one word will change the minds of those who are happy to applaud 234 deaths or letting one of their fellow countrymen die due to lack of healthcare, any more than they are willing to admit that sending our troops into wars based on lies, is really sending those who serve honorably to their deaths unnecessarily. You will continue to put your magnet on your car, staple teabags to your hats and pretend to worship a prince of ‘peace’.

There is nothing I can say that you haven’t heard before, well, except maybe this.

From me to you, with all due respect, I thank God that those men and women who were trying to get out of those towers alive that day, were not relying on your type of ‘compassion,’ ‘patriotism’ or ‘Christianity’ to help them out. I can’t even imagine how many more Americans would have died if it was you there that day, because in the end, you’ve shown you are willing to leave your fellow Americans behind to die. You’ve made it very clear you aren’t really concerned with anyone but yourself.

Not like you really care.

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