Bleeding Hearts

The term "bleeding-heart liberal" must exist because of hard evidence. For some reason, perhaps guilt by association, lefties often want the world to be as they wish it ... not as it is. So, President Barack Obummer and Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown, Governor of California, are both in a pardoning and sentence commutation frenzy ... particularly insofar as drug dealers are concerned (many also with gun violations). Over his eight years in office, Obama has pardoned or commuted the sentence of 1324 felons ... see: NY Times Article ... with some more Bill-Clinton-like bomb shells likely to occur before January 20th. And Brown has had equivalent but likely misguided compassion ... forgiving the sins of 856 mostly drug felons ... see: LA Times Article.

Yes, the federal and often state Constitutions grant these government executives these powers ... but I don't believe that the framers believed that they would be granted in such a blanket fashion. Yes, in the past, there have been overall pardons granted to soldiers after the Civil War, for polygamist Mormons and for  the draft evaders in the Vietnam War ... but these were special cases. It would appear to this observer that Obama and Brown's mass forgiveness comes out of a sense of empathy with these criminals ... both executives having been heavy drug users in their pasts.

It is almost a certainty that some of these released felons will display recidivism and return to their criminal ways ... at which time bleeding hearts will most certainly result in more bleeding bodies.

Afterward: Over the past year both presidential candidates and the media have focused on the epidemic of drug use and abuse that is sweeping our nation. Somehow, releasing thousands of drug dealers back onto our streets likely won't help this problem ... and actually may be part of the reason it exists in the first place.

Bleeding Hearts

First the NBC health reporter, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, and her crew whose cameraman had come down with Ebola in West Africa broke quarantine to travel to a fast-food restaurant in New Jersey. Then a nurse who treated the Ebola patient Thomas Duncan in Dallas traveled to Cleveland and back by plane even after she detected a low-grade fever which later turned into Ebola. Then a medical clinician who had handled bodily fluids from Ebola patient Duncan in Dallas took an ocean-liner cruise to the Caribbean that cost thousands of passengers their vacations when it was forced to return to port.

Next the doctor who came back from West Africa with a case of Ebola initially lied to police about his activities in New York City … see: New York Post Story. Now the nurse who also returned from West Africa after volunteering to treat Ebola patients there is refusing to observe her quarantine in Maine … see: CBS Story.

What is it about these people … professionals all? Can they not give up twenty-one days of their lives so that their fellow citizens can remain a wee bit safer from this dreaded disease? Have we become such a selfish, me-centered country that so many professionals irresponsibly ignore what appears to be rational public-health policy? Are their neighbors just as worthy of their empathy as those who are already sick? And how can our president encourage such bad behavior on the part of our citizens’ (but not our soldiers’) parts? His logic and that of the CDC and NIH appears to this observer to be so convoluted as to be silly … see: Logic is Logic.

Do liberals somehow lose all their gray matter when their hearts start bleeding?

Afterward: Just heard the president talk on the Ebola crisis ... and imply that anyone, who is in favor of a 21 day quarantine for workers who has been in close contact with Ebola patients, does not appreciate the sacrifice that they have made ... and will discourage others to do the same. Our president's brain must be miswired in that he cannot hold both thoughts at the same time. Clearly these volunteers are wonderfully fine people ... but they still should be quarantined for the safety of their friends and neighbors.

The president also mentioned that Nigeria and Senegal are now free of Ebola. What he neglected to note was that these two countries (and many other African nations too) have closed their borders to the three raging Ebola-infected West African nations.

By the bye, California has just instituted this same 21-day quarantine for returning health-care workers ... see: LA Times Article. (Look out Jerry Brown!)