Last week the WHITE HOUSE had a press release titled “Facts are Stubborn Things” encouraging citizens to report any “fishy” conversations about health care reform to a White House website.  They have created an “enemy list."
 
Facts ARE stubborn things -- If I could tell the President one thing, I would tell him it’s easy to paint the truth because the truth does not fade over time.  A lie requires a fresh coat of paint often.  A lying artist will stand by his work and “interpret” it for you.  The honest artist will hang his painting and leave, allowing the work to say it all.  This health care bill is nothing but a bad painting. The color and texture changes daily and every new version smells like dead fish.    All that really matters to them is that heath care reform passes, never mind that it will give government control of 20% of our economy, cost $100 billion a year, and cut your quality of care. Never mind that every other social health care program in the world has failed, the fact is, Obamacare is not art.  It’s garbage.
 
Eighty-five percent of Americans have health insurance and access to health care.    The balance of the uninsured has access to affordable health care through multiple channels.  Community Health Services has 7,000 clinics providing care around the country for the underserved.  Multiple hospitals, doctors and municipalities provide indigent care.  Today everyone has access to some form of health care. To say otherwise when the truth is evident sounds ‘fishy’ to me.
  
The first amendment gives us the freedom of speech. This administration is in a full court press to pass this legislation and if intimidating us and trampling our Constitution by depriving us of our fundamental rights is the cost, obviously ‘the means justifies the end’ to them.
 
My son is on his fourth tour in the “Global War on Terror.”  For security reasons we are not allowed to know where he is or his mission when he is deployed.   When he calls his voice sounds tired.  When he goes on missions he carries a 28 pound weapon, wears 20 pounds of protective plates and carries 30 pounds of ammo.  He also packs a radio, water, side arm, night vision and a med kit.   They are trained to walk in, ride in, rope in, or drop in on their objective.  Imagine jumping out of an airplane with all that strapped on to your body.   His uniform is fire retardant so it does not breathe and the temperature there reaches 125 degrees.  He has smelled burnt gunpowder and tasted the grit of combat in our “Global War on Terror”.  He like the thousands of America’s sons and daughters who have answered the call to serve our country are American patriots.  The difference between my son and myself is that he is much stronger than I am.  He has far greater courage than I ever had and the measure of his conviction fills a deeper vessel than my being possesses.  But he has provided me a much better understanding of what it means to be a patriot.

This nation is under assault from an administration with an agenda that is not pure.  But the truth is emerging daily as their “painting” fades and needs a fresh coat.  So in honor of my son -- and our military heroes fighting foreign enemies -- let my name top this list of those willing to fight, using the truth, against our the domestic ones.

Ben T. Briscoe