Don’t presume to speak for me, Congressman

Congressman Roe took office this year. He was elected to Congress from the 1st District TN, which has not been represented by a Democrat in over a century. Congressman Roe, a retired OB/Gyn physician served as mayor of Johnson City prior to his election to Congress. He defeated an incumbent, David Davis. Davis claimed after the votes were counted that he had been defeated due to large numbers of Democrats crossing party lines to vote against him in the primary. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of Davis’ claim, but had I given the matter much thought I might have considered doing just that. These two seem locked into a contest to see which of them can be the most reactionary. Davis seems to have Roe beaten in the religious fundamentalist category. His campaign sites were almost always churches and he seemed to have a house gospel group with him to make sure everyone attending understood how pious he is. Unctuous is a better adjective, I believe. He suggests a televangelist used car salesman.


Davis has a 13 week certification in Respiratory Therapy. He followed that up with a AAs from a correspondence college then took a BS in organizational management. All of this atop very little actual clinical training has apparently qualified him to run a home health company and then later become an owner of a corporation marketing hyperbaric wound treatment to hospitals. Everything I find regarding Davis’ time in Congress causes me to have less and less regard for his political stance or his ethics. Anyone who tells me he votes as Jesus tells him to vote is not a valid candidate for political office in my opinion. Davis is making noises about running against Roe next year. While the idea of him returning to Congress is abhorrent, I’d like to challenge him at some public forum when he starts in with, “this is a Christian nation.”

While religious freedom brought the Puritans and the Quakers to the new world, not all immigrants arrived here with a Christian bible in hand
http://www.revolutionarywararchives.org/salomon.html




In this Rosh Hashanah greeting card from the early 1900s, Russian Jews, packs in hand, gaze at the American relatives beckoning them to the United States. Over two million Jews would flee the pogroms of the Russian Empire to the safety of the US from 1881-1924.

As mentioned in previous posts, my father’s family arrived from Russia.

group photo just prior to Immigration in 1917

My great, great, great grandfather lived to be 112 and is buried in St. Louis MO








It could be an interesting instance if I do meet Mr. Davis. I’m certain that his view of American history and his view in the culture wars that still separate Americans are quite different from mine.


I expect the dynamic between Roe and Davis to heat up. Davis wants back into office. In light of his legislative history, I suspect he wants to hear from more lobbyists.

As much as I dislike Roe, Davis is the worse choice. There is no viable Democrat candidate in this congressional district and will likely never be in my lifetime.



Below is an excerpt from an e-mail sent to Congressman David Phillip Roe, R TN in response to a mass mailing we both received from his office.

“Your letter, a physical mass mailing, obviously, assures me, that you will “continue to fight in Congress to assure that your voice is heard.” Obviously you want me to believe this as three paragraphs later you write, “Please be assured that I will fight to make sure your voice is heard.” Nice sentiment, Congressman; but first you have to hear what I said, not what you want to imagine I said.

You did not hear my questions I hoped to ask you at your meeting or during the AARP phone meeting. You spent so much time repeating your beliefs that very few people had the chance to tell you their concerns.

You tell me that disease has no political party affiliation. That’s true. But the willingness to fund national health insurance is certainly divided along party lines and you stand firmly against anything that would decrease the grip health insurance companies have on the American citizens. I find your party’s refusal to consider the need for access to health care repugnant. You, as a physician, should be highly aware of the failure of our current profit-driven system to provide any option but to abuse already overloaded ERs for the poor and working poor. Yet you stand firmly with a lobbyist-funded opposition to any realistic health care delivery reform. You stood in a meeting and threatened an aging audience with “rationing.”

You and your party know full well that this nation rations health care delivery heavily, by affordability. Thousands of people who could be diagnosed and treated at a stage in their particular disease die every year because they are unable to obtain health care in the vaunted United States, “best system in the world,” until they are dropped off at an ER in terminal status. “

And then in closing:

“Although you choose to ignore my views, Congressman, I’ll try once more to get through to you. I remain in favor of single payer national health insurance for all citizens, I remain in favor of abortion rights,And I remain opposed to religion intruding into political matters and public life. I favor national education standards based on teaching science instead of superstition. And I support mandatory national service for all 18 year olds, no exemptions for athletes, before expanding our role in Afghanistan. Your party values a fetus far more than the soldiers you repeatedly vote to send out to die for Corporate America.

When you begin listening to all your constituents, rather than just those who can afford to buy health insurance and who pray in your party’s approved manner, then perhaps, I will believe you might possible be able to speak for me. Until then, I don’t want you to presume to speak for me. You can’t.”



Also closing, the pool company arrived about 1000 this morning to winterize and close the swimming pool. I was nearly at the halfway point in my morning walk with our downstream neighbor, Mike when I saw the truck drive by. We ramped up the pace a bit and covered our two miles in good time. The morning was very humid, around 65 F and lots of no-see-um sized bugs in the air. A bit more color on the hillsides.

Mike is an interesting neighbor and a good friend. He and I are often at loggerheads politically. Mike feels himself a libertarian and considers me a communist. I’ve never considered myself more left leaning than a democratic socialist. Mike’s a gun person, NRA instructor, votes the 2nd amendment party line as espoused by the libertarians and the NRA. He’s an arts major, a teacher, and spent years working for Comcast. I’d trust him with our lives. Surprisingly enough, in a state with about 16,000 Jews, we find him living essentially next door. Long odds but a good happenstance.

Waffles, eggs, and bacon tonight.