From the AP this morning, via the Houston Chronicle, the bit in bold caught my eye...
They travel for days though checkpoints, across dangerous roads and past Myanmar's bribe-hungry soldiers to make it to the Thai border. They're not refugees fleeing the junta — they simply want to see a doctor.Myanmar has one of the world's worst health care systems, with tens of thousands dying each year from malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS, dysentery, diarrhea and a litany of other illnesses.
While there are hospitals in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation also known as Burma, only a few can afford to pay hospital workers the various "fees" in the tightly controlled nation fueled by corruption.
"Even if you use the toilet in the hospital you have to pay money," said a 70-year-old man from Phyu Township, who journeyed two days by bus to see a doctor at the Thai border town of Mae Sot and have a cataract removed. He declined to give his name for fear of reprisals.
"They never think of improving health care," he said. "They only pull the trigger. Because they are holding the guns, we have to live like this."
But remember, my friends, the government must have a monopoly on force!
In all seriousness, though, I would love to see those who subscribe to that notion be forcibly deported to places where they would have to bear all the consequences of such a circumstance. I do wonder, though, why exactly they don't go live in one of those places. Like all the leftists who threatened to leave the country when George W. Bush was reelected in 2004, just get off their tails and leave. There are plenty other places in the world where the government has that monopoly on force, why the hell won't these people just go to those ratholes instead of trying to make our country just like them? Food for thought...
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