I am always amazed at how idiotic people can be in this country. Mind you, I fervently believe in their right to be that way; I just thought we were a little smarter across the board. I am referring to the protests against reforming our health care system.

I can’t believe the slogans: “Stop socialized medicine” and “We can’t afford Obama’s health care plan.” We have had socialized medicine in this country for decades without a single complaint as to its form. It is called Medicare. When your turn 65, you get free health care coverage from the government. Isn’t America great? Now President Barack Obama wants to expand that to more Americans. So what is the problem?

The health care industry doesn’t want to lose its billions of dollars. Since former president Bill Clinton, health care costs have gone through the roof, thanks to the Bush/Cheney era. This has impacted every working American. The choice employers have had to make is, “Do we give you a raise or just pay for the increase in health care costs?” It is actually worse than that because employers can’t pay for all of the increases, so it is passed on to the worker who ends up taking a pay cut just to get the same benefits. Raise your hand if you like that idea.

If health care costs were reduced for employers, then the workers’ pay would go up. The real problem with today’s cost of living is that people’s wages haven’t kept pace with increased costs. Housing costs have more than doubled in the past 10 years. Gas prices have tripled. How much has your salary increased? Not much.

Yes, there will be a cost of government-funded medicine. But it will be a whole lot less that the cost of the war in Iraq. Where were all these protesters when former President George W. Bush was spending $10 billion a month on his war based on lies? Where were their outcries at the billions in no-bid contracts being awarded to large corporations?

It seems they are just making the statement that they are willing to spend unlimited amounts to kill other people but not a dime to help our own. They s are saying that they are willing to spend billions to cause suffering but nothing to end it. They don’t consider compassion to be an American virtue.

Many of these protesters against giving health care to millions of Americans are from the same groups that consider America to be a Christian nation. What a warped version of the Christian ethic. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

I wonder what the real motivation is behind all the protests. There have been health care proposals in the past starting with former president Harry Truman that have not evoked such a malicious response. What is different this time is that the president proposing it is black. If you look at the overwhelming majority of the protesters, they aren’t black. It appears that some white people still have a hard time accepting that a black man can have a good idea. It appears it is even harder for them to let him talk to their children on TV.

The majority of us who elected Obama as president have to speak out against this blatant hypocrisy. If we don’t speak out, we become part of the problem and not part of the solution.

Jeff Blanck is an attorney in private practice in Reno. He can be reached at jblanck@jeffreyblancklaw.com.