Interview!

A buddy of mine did an interview with me for his college political studies course. He tried to shake me up a little bit but it didn't work. ]:)

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A lot of the Michigan blogosphere is erupting with heavy support and admiration for Rick Snyder’s campaign. You’re not one of them?

They’re clearly all getting some insider info or something that I’m not aware of. Maybe he’s buying them all a new car or toaster or something if they talk him up. I have not seen one reason to vote for Rick Snyder over Virg Bernero. That being said I don’t have really anything that warm and fuzzy to say about Virg Bernero. Snyder avoided debates during the Republican primary and somehow, maybe attesting to the ignorance of the Michigan Republican electorate, he was picked as the GOP’s candidate. All he did was flood the media outlets with advertisements and spots in which he pretty much stuck his face in a camera and talked about how smart, rich and successful he was. I’m not a big fan of people who flash their pocketbooks as credentials for being elected to public office.

So I bet it’s safe to say that you’ll be casting a vote for a Democratic governor this November?

I wouldn’t say that. In fact the safest bet would be leaving that part of the ballot blank. Bernero is that angry fiery candidate that appeals to the emotional voter. People are angry in this state. People are frustrated in this state. So the Democrats are going to use a candidate that appeals to those emotions because they’ll get creamed in the arena of facts and the arena of actual ideas. Democrats aren’t known for coming up with solutions. They’re just good for talking about the problems and milking a crisis.

You actually directed your readers in one post to “not vote”. Why would you even say that?

I never told anybody to not vote. You're misquoting me there. I said that people need to hold their political leaders accountable and ask these candidates: “Why should I vote for you?” and “Why should you stay in office?”. I said that people should have a reason for why they’re voting for a candidate and if they can’t think of a reason they shouldn’t waste their time voting. People like to go out and throw around the whole “Vote or Die” thing. We have a right in this country to vote and that’s great. However, the greatest threat to this republic is not poor voter turnout. The threat lies in an uninformed and apathetic electorate sending unqualified misfits to positions of authority. That’s where the damage is done.

One part of the upcoming November ballot that has both widespread bipartisan support and opposition is the proposal for a new Michigan Constitutional Convention. The last time voters were asked this was in 1994 and the proposal was widely struck down. Do you feel that there is a chance that this proposal could be approved this November?

I want to say I doubt it. However, I doubted that the Michigan electorate was going to go for these two nimrod candidates. Anything is possible. However, I’m pretty sure that the average Michigan voter isn’t convinced that the problems in this state are stemming from the state’s “hardware”. The problems stem from the operators.

How do you feel about the idea?

Oh I’m totally 110% against the idea. I mean just look at who supports the measure. On one side of the aisle you have our current governor, Jennifer Granholm, who has about as much business sense as a cornflake. On the Republican side you have Tom George who for all intents and purposes is a complete nut. He voted in support of state smoking bans yet voted against a requirement for motorcyclists to wear a helmet when on the highway. Then he voted in support of the "Texting While Driving Ban" that stated “Michigan needs to do whatever it can to protect drivers.” A principled voter wouldn’t have these kind of discrepancies on their record. Tom George is another special interest Republican who needs to the door to hit him on the way out.

Michigan has been reeling for long enough. If we go for a Constitutional Convention, this state is going to be tied up for a good five years. A lot of people don’t have three years, let alone five, to wait in limbo for a bunch of bureaucrats who have caused all of our states problems to draft a new state constitution. If the pilot gets drunk and crashes a plane--the reason the plane went down had nothing to do with the plane’s mechanics. If the pilot’s drunk you don’t change the plane. You get rid of the pilot. Same can apply to this state.

A latest Rasmussen poll has indicated that only 31% of Americans feel that this country is headed in the right direction. Now you make it clear on your blog that you’re no fan of the Obama administration. Do you feel that the cynicism of American voters could carry on into 2012?

Well yeah. I think that Washington really screwed up when they dismissed before looking into extending the Bush tax cuts. Businesses in this country don’t know what to do. 99% of employers in this country are small business. I mean if business owners don’t know what their tax rates are going to be in January, they’re not going to be spending money and they’re not going to be hiring people. On top of this we already have the highest corporate tax rates in the world. People wonder why our larger businesses are packing bags and heading to the far east. Take a look at our financial environment. Take a look at what these people are doing in power. Our economy is bleeding out and the Fed is force-feeding us anticoagulants.

You mention anticoagulants. A large part of your blog deals with life as pharmacy technician. Do your experiences as a member of a health care profession form our political opinions and do your political opinions affect how you approach your profession?

My political opinions have no affect on how I approach my job. I work for a retail pharmacy and it’s my job to dispense medication to paying customers and make sure they know enough to avoid killing themselves. My job does however rub off on my political opinions but I think any job that you’re constantly face to face with the public has to have that effect.

How so?

I have a unique political outlook in that I don’t believe in entitlements and hand outs. I believe that when you’re down only you can pick yourself up. You lose your office job and you end up working for less at some restaurant or coffee shop. So what? You take that job and work for less and you keep plugging away until something else opens up. You go back to school and diversify yourself and reeducate yourself. The biggest problem in this country is that we have so many people who fall for this entitlement rhetoric and then live their lives accordingly. I was in the parking lot and a woman in a brand new Lexus parked right next to me. She came up to our pharmacy that day with a Medicaid card. This woman walked into the store decked out in designer clothes, smelling like a stale cigarette, and had been on Medicaid since 2007. How is it that somebody like that can’t afford their medication but can spend 80 bucks on a carton of Marlboros and drive a 2010 Lexus? I mean it’s not just her. I see this kind of thing all the time. It’s the exact reason that I don’t subscribe to the liberal take-and-take ideology.

Taxation for the new Health Care plan begins in January.

I’m aware and I don’t see any good coming out of this. How anybody could be sold on a plan that starts off with a “two year in advance tax” stupefies me. Then again when I’m this dumbfounded I just remember Virg & Rick. This bill is being sponsored and written by people that have no idea how things really work in the health industry. They have no comprehension of the costs of manufacturing new medications. They have no understanding of the innovations that are results of a competitive health care market. They just hear people whining that they pay too much. I’m sorry but that’s reality. You have to pay for products and services if you want products and services to maintain their quality. The only thing that can offset the costs of treatment is an infusion of competition.

Health care is not a right. It’s a service. People in America want to say everything is a right. I have a right to drive! I have a right to a job! I have a right to health care! No you have the opportunity to take a test and get a drivers license. You have the ability to go out and make money and purchase a car. You have the opportunity to go out and go to college and get a job. You have access to medical facilities in emergencies. If you are sick a public hospital cannot turn you away once you’re in it. They have to treat you regardless of your ability to pay or not. Anyone who says otherwise is lying. I worked in a hospital. I know what goes on. Washington doesn’t.

Some would counter that a national healthcare system has worked positively for nations like Canada.

The only way the system in Canada has worked fairly well is because the Canadians always had the US as a scapegoat to get procedures that their national healthcare wouldn’t pay for. The problem with our system is we don’t have that scapegoat. These people want full control of our health options. Americans will be waiting in lines for procedures. Unfortunately the sick don’t have that kind of time to just take a number and wait.

It's not an easy problem to solve but what would you suggest would be a better alternative to Obamacare?

By letting the doctors do their jobs and getting the insurance companies out of the ways of people who really need help. The reason we are in a “crisis” is because we have too many people in this country who are getting health care at the expenses of others. Working in the pharmacy, we see a lot of people that are on Medicare Part D plans and Medicaid plans and these plans frankly in my opinion are ridiculous. Walk into a restaurant, order a lobster dinner and tell the waiter you’re only going to pay the restaurant up to $5 for it. This is what is happening with these plans. Pharmacies are selling these medications at a loss. This affects how much the pharmacies can order from the distributors and then the distributors have less to pay the manufactures. Manufactures have to pay so much to keep innovation going so they raise their prices and in the end the customer who pays for insurance and their medications gets totally screwed. It’s a vicious cycle. The same goes in a hospital. Hospitals have to order supplies for treatments. That’s the reason why a band-aid costs you $20 in the ER.

You’re a major supporter of the military. You’ve talked about the importance of volunteering and donating to charitable causes such as the USO. However, one thing I have noticed from your blog is that you don’t often talk directly about the war. Is that on purpose?

It’s a divisive issue when you start getting into whether we should be over there or not. People want to pigeonhole others as anti-war or pro-war. I don’t know anybody personally of sound mind that can say that they are “pro-war.” I don’t like war but I also realize that there are some cases in which diplomacy can only go so far. You can only talk to people who are willing to listen.

Do you think that pulling the troops out of Iraq and focusing on Afghanistan is the right thing to do?

I don’t know at this point. I think we made a mistake going into Iraq. I think that there were special interests at play with the Bush administration getting us involved. I believe it’s time that we pull our guys out of there and focus on our domestic problems. We’re not going to make an impact with military force in a region that‘s only known fighting for thousands of years. You make an impact on a region like that by hitting them in the pocketbook. We need to drill our own oil. We need to establish our own fuel sources. That’ll get their attention. We’re just simply fanning the fires sending our troops over there.

So you’re pro-military but anti-military action?

I love peace and support our military but you can only do so much militarily when the political powers to be stand in the way. Saudi Arabia was proven to have funneled money to terrorist organizations. Why does our government cozy up to these people? Intelligence has reason to suspect that Osama Bin Laden is being harbored in Pakistan. Pakistan has been very smarmy in their supposed side of the “alliance”. None of our leaders have the cojones to stand up to these people. So I don’t see a purpose to military action if our guys aren’t going to be allowed to fight a war. War is ugly. You blow things up and you kill people. There is no room for political correctness on the battlefield. Our country doesn’t seem to realize this. Our enemy doesn’t care. They have no problem hacking off the heads of our servicemen. Meanwhile back in the good old USA, our courts are busy prosecuting soldiers for putting panties on a terrorist’s head.

Last question who would you like to see in the White House in 2012?

No idea. I haven’t seen someone yet.