Life brings a host of things beyond my ability to understand. For example, people, good people, who stand to benefit from access to adequate and affordable health care vote as if such was of no consequence to them. I understand why people of significant financial wealth with excellent health insurance do not see, care about or agree with the tenets of national health care efforts.

Small hospitals such as ours here in Fairfield County treat indigent patients at no cost to the patient or at subsidized costs. Just visit the ER some time and see who is there and why. You and I are already bearing these costs since somehow somebody has to balance the bottom line for hospital finances. Remember that just last year our County Council subsidized our hospital by over a million dollars of our tax monies, if my memory serves correctly.

And now some of our political office holders threaten to decline federal Medicaid assistance, even though you and I again will pay the same federal taxes whether or not we accept these federal monies. Friends, this is not rocket science.

South Carolina pulled out of the Union once, and it decimated our economy, the ranks of our young men, and for generations our progress. But even today we have so-called leaders who would again run down this road to perdition, dragging us with them.

Do we have the intelligence to see beyond this myopia? If present political conditions continue, one could argue that we do not have the intellect, that we are cursed to repeat the failures of the past instead of moving forward. Such progress appears to be possible only through enlightened leadership, civic improvement, and a stronger adherence to our religious heritage, including the teachings of one who over two thousand years ago experienced similar social conditions and a societal disdain for the less fortunate.

It seems to me that Democrats are more attuned to serving the less fortunate of our times, to ensuring that affordable health care is available to all, that our lifetime investments in social security are honored, that the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer is ameliorated, and that my grandchildren will have opportunities at least as varied and sustainable as those with which my generation has been blessed.

For the life of me I cannot comprehend the mindset of smart people who believe that fighting the economic and social policies of our president — the American voters’ choice — can do anything but further divide and damage our venerable nation.

Paul Dove

Fairfield County Democratic Party