The Left Has No Right to Abandon the Elderly

In the last few weeks we have seen a huge push-back on the part of seniors against Obamacare. They have turned out in droves to town hall meetings and other gatherings to ask questions or to simply object to the plan, as is their wont. We have seen push-back against the elderly on the part of Democrats, who claimed that the very people who fought the Nazis were carrying swastikas, or were only attending these gatherings in order to get on YouTube. We have even watched as representatives of special interest groups funded by seniors walk out of the very meetings which they staged, ostensibly for the benefit of those very seniors.

I firmly believe in respecting one's elders out of a regard for simple human decency and because, the older I get, the more clear it becomes that everything I believed when I was younger was wrong. Not only do I realize that with age comes wisdom, but that my parents were right about everything all along, something that used to be unthinkable to me, particularly given that my parents are older than those of most people my age. My parents provide shining examples of the American dream: they grew up poor and never minded it, attended fantastic universities, and went on to have successful careers which neither wants to abandon, even though they are now 65. My father is a war hero four times over. They provided my sister and myself with good teeth and college educations in order so that we might be as successful as they are. One could not dream of better parents.

Now the left wants abandon them because they are elderly, their bodies are broken, and because (in my mother's case, anyway) they no longer contribute to the public coffers. The Left does not have to like or respect my parents, but they have no right to abandon them, and this is precisely because of their own failed social engineering programs. We all owe our freedom to people like my father, who risked their lives in defense of freedom and democracy, but the Left will never accept that as a valid reason to respect him. They were thrilled to see the communist slaughter which they had worked so hard to make happen as U.S. forces pulled out of Vietnam. They would not accept victory then, just as Pelosi would not accept victory as General "Betray Us" testified before Congress to the success of the Surge. The Left's ingratitude is stunning, and this has never been more apparent than in recent weeks.

The Left's rationale for rationing healthcare among the elderly is that they are no longer productive members of society, but in terms of dollars and cents, the elderly are actually the rightful owners of this country. The socialist Ponzi schemes which the Left loves so much have extorted my parents for sickening sums of money. Over the course of their forty-year careers my parents each worked sixteen of those years just for the benefit of the Federal government. Does the Left just expect us to allow the very government that parasitized our parents for the entirety of their productive years to throw them under the bus now that they are no longer the IRS's cash cows?

Just as my father fought so that I could live free, so it is my duty to fight so that they can live free. I find it disturbing that anyone would consider ripping away the hard-earned right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness from our greatest national treasure, even if evil individuals regard them only as dollar signs. It terrifies me to think that soon my own parents may no longer enjoy the freedoms laid out in the Amendment 14 of the U.S. Constitution:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Betsy McCaughey wrote in a July 30, 2009 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that Obamacare "will reduce access to care, pressure the elderly to end their lives prematurely, and doom baby boomers to painful later years." With provisions for "end of life counseling" for seniors, this bill would ration care for the elderly and hasten, if not engineer, their early deaths.

Even if the euthanasia-and-eugenics-happy far Left only regards an individual's worth in terms of what he or she contributes in taxes, the elderly have given more than anyone else, having spent more years in the work force than younger generations. At the same time, the far Left already sanctions free medical care for illegal immigrants, who contribute nothing in taxes, so the cost-effectiveness argument does not seem entirely feasible. Could it be that Obamacare would actually kill off the Greatest Generation simply because they tend to vote conservative and therefore are not worthy of enjoying the rights and freedoms laid out in our founding documents - rights and freedoms of which they are more deserving than the rest of us, not less - while illegals, who are guaranteed none of these freedoms under the law, are somehow worthy of receiving healthcare for which they pay nothing? This is a power-grab on the part of the far Left, and a genocidal one at that.

The elderly own this country, if only because of the far-left, socialist Ponzi schemes - Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security - which have extorted them for the entirety of their productive years. If they choose not to vote Democrat it is probably because doing so is simply the wrong choice. They should know. They are far wiser than the rest of us.