(May 25, 2014 at 9:08 am)Darth Wrote: I love how you bemoan the black and white worldview of (people of enemy political persuasion) while stating that (people of my political persuasion) can see shades of grey, and in so doing reveal your own black-and-white thinking of the world and how you believe people of various political persuasions think. It's called irony, and you sir are a fuckwit.
I'm neither a fuckwit nor a sir.
I don't view anyone as an "enemy" political persuasion. I just often notice how folks on the more conservative side of things tend to not want to think about the nuances of a problem. They like their choices in black or white. They love tidy sound bites. You can observe this for yourself, if you care to bother.
As has been pointed out many times already in this thread, the problems with the VA are long-term and systemic. You cannot expect the influx of veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, which includes severe injuries that normally soldiers wouldn’t survive, and the numbers of wounded not to put a strain on a system that has been outmoded for decades.
I notice no one has pointed out that upon taking office, Obama increased the VA budget by 38% and increased appointment schedulers by 10%. Was it enough? No. Because you know, you don't start two voluntary wars of aggression -- done by your hero, not mine -- then fight for 13 continuous years and not make accommodations for the predictable and attendant damage -- as Bush never did. But then, Bush left a lot of untidiness for Obama to clean up.
And that's another thing... Obama has had a few little problems on his plate since he took office. Getting us out of those stupid wars started by Bush (one of which may have been a quick and surgical operation had we not turned our attention to Iraq), salvaging an economy that threatened to pull us into a global depression, just a few little things. Considering the extent to which he's been frustrated at every turn by the GOP-controlled Congress, I am rather in awe of how successful he's been. Which is not to say I'm in love with everything he's ever done, not by a long shot.
Should Obama get a pass on the VA mess? Of course not. Should he be crucified for the ennui of every administration dating back to Vietnam for it? I don't think so.
Here's something else to think about: The biggest problem with the VA is a shortage of health care workers to address the medical problems of veterans. This is a problem endemic to the health care system in this country. We simply don't have enough doctors, nurses and/or facilities. What should Obama do about that? Just shit them out? Pull them from the private sector? There's a big bubble of baby boomers coming through the pipeline, and there won't be enough health care workers to go around for quite awhile. Not for the VA, and not for the private sector, either. Any ideas how to fix that? Whatever the answer is, funding WILL be critical to addressing it.
See? That's N-U-A-N-C-E.
