Did I Go Too Far?

There are a couple dozen folks I went to high school with that, after no contact for 25 years, I now communicate with via Facebook.  As mentioned in an earlier entry, most seem to have fallen in with the very christian groups.  One's comments I even had to hide due to the incessant "oh my, ain't that J a great guy" right after her husband died of cancer.

Health care reform passed the House this past Sunday, so yesterday (Monday) there were a LOT of comments on the bill passing.  Way too many were decrying America's downward spiral into socialism/nazism/communism/obamaism (choose one or all - the folks making the claims did not seem to have a clue).  Here are some:
"Everybody sing - 'Welcome to the USSA...'"
"Home of the fee and land of the caved..."
"Well, we now took a step farther towards loosing our freedom last evening. We are well on our way to a Socialist country."
"Sorry guys...my freakin husband had said it passed...going to have to go and hurt someone now..."

All but the last were from ex-classmates.  Then I read another comment.


"Okay its time to put the coffee cup away and get motivated. I am so glad that the state of our country is not my savior. Jesus is and he never changes and provides in all situation",

I responded

"Here here! Why grant 32 million people affordable health care when you can simply slap a bible down in front of them! How about alternative medicine - you know, stuff like the torah, quran, or dianetics?
I am curious - what verse do you use to cure tonsillitis, and which verse is best for appendicitis?" 

To say the resulted in a firestorm ("fire" was not the 4-letter word I was thinking) would be an understatement.  Folks I did not know were berating me for being mean and uncaring.  I even had folks say they would pray for me.

One of her friends claimed that the writer was simply stating "time to get going and do the housework", but I did not read it that way.  I did offer to apologize to the writer if, as her friend stated, her comment was that innocent.  I sent the writer's friend, whom I do respect to a certain degree, the following note:

So where did my response come from?


I read (a comment) that I interpreted as "time to get off our butts, the country is going to pot, only the big J-man can save us now". Legislation is well on its way to helping 30 million people, and the response is "the country is going to hell - let Jesus help them"? Last I checked, a bearded and robed figure was not walking around emergency rooms curing folks (at least not for a couple of millennia) - that is being done by doctors and nurses. So when I read a note that says "let Jesus do it", that had to be straightened out.


I did not write what I wrote to be mean. Straight-forward (based on how I read her note), yes. Mean? No. (Mean would have been making my last sentence "I am curious - what verse do you use to cure tonsillitis, and which verse is best for appendicitis?... know any that cure Cancer???") I am aware of the hell she and her family has gone through. It was horrible reading about it, let alone living through it. I've lost two brothers already (sitting in a hospital next to my mother, siblings, and my brother's wife and kids waiting for one's body to die), so I don't screw with people about that sort of thing.

So, the question of the day is - Did I Go Too Far?

I may be biased, but my answer is "no".  (Would have been a "yes" had I included that cancer shot.)