A father tells you what kind of person you should be and expects you to fill that role. A mother tells you that you are good as you are and tries to protect you. Hillary Clinton et al are trying to be America's mother.

They claim that I must be protected from myself. I cannot chose if I want health care or not (I don't). I cannot chose if I want to have Social Security retirement or not (I don't). I cannot chose to not want to grow old and be forced on lots of medication to stay alive. There is no dignity in life, there is only life.

They care only about the quantity of living and not the actual life itself. It doesn't matter if your penis can get hard when you are 80, you really shouldn't be having sex to begin with. People cling to this notion that I have to be 20 again. Really? The only thing you have to do is pay taxes and die, and unlike most people, the one I don't want to do is the first one, not the second!

Before, we had to be responsible. If we wanted our children to not be poor, we would regulate their lives, discipline them, keep them from getting pregnant or impregnating, and force them to go to school. We would act like a father and say, "look, you just have to do this if you want to get ahead." Instead, with welfare, health care, and the rest, this mother figure is saying, "you don't have to work, we will protect you".

In Brave New World, the society was filled with the desire only to pursue pleasure. To be "happy" we better than actually working hard and providing for yourself. There was no independence, and you had to do nothing but soak up more drugs. What was "Brave" was to break out of this and say, "hey, maybe I don't need to be coddled anymore and maybe life is worth living".

We are not children. Our soldiers are not children. We are not a society of children. We were given the right to bear arms because our Fore Fathers said, "you are going to be adults and you deserve the right to decide for yourself and protect yourself!" I should not be told that I have to save money, and I should not be told that I have to take care of myself. If I want to retire and if I want to live a long life, I should save my money or change my diet!

Instead, by saying that the government is doing all of this for you, America decides that they don't need to care anymore. They become fat and lazy, and now we need laws to prevent that! We aren't even capable of putting the potato chip bag down!

Its about time that Mitt Romney decided to be a man and tell the people to grow up! The coddling does not work. It just makes people spoiled or lazy. We were a society of hard workers. Now, we are turning into a society of fat, disgusting slobs!

I cannot chose if I want health care or not (I don't).

Good for you! Can I remind you of that when you get hit by a bus/fall off a ladder/get cancer?

Unlike you, I have a healthy understanding of death and I am willing to accept my death when my time comes.

Ever think that cancer is happening for a reason? Ever wonder why the majority of cancer is skin cancer and that it happens when people are out in the sun more or artificially tanning?

To live a year or two longer is not worth millions of dollars and a dibilitating life. Sorry, but I would rather live healthy and die, then to waste money to drag myself along the rest of my life.

San, I think you are betraying your age. Either you're young and inexperienced, or you're comfortably well off and were born that way.

You say you're comfortable with your death, but I wonder how many times you've truly faced death. Anyone can say they're unafraid of death, but put them in the midst of a firefight and they might mess their drawers.

I have faced death several times in my life. Once I was in the line of fire from a deranged man who was pumping bullets into the back of the 18-year-old friend of his daughter. Another time, I was missed by inches by a speeding car that went through a red light. Another time I was driving a car that went out of control on an icy hillside and I found myself sliding right into the path of an oncoming vehicle. Another time, I found myself in the path of a madman in a pick-up truck who was driving like a bat out of hell and was headed right to the driver's side of my vehicle.

But a decade ago I had a heart attack. I went to the emergency room in severe pain and was sent up to the cardiac unit, where my heart stopped. If I had been home, I wouldn't be alive today. Years later I was found to have colon cancer and and had to have a colonectomy. But what really brought me to death's door was that while I was recovering from this operation, I went to sleep and woke up with a coughing fit, and all of the staples on my surgical wound came out, and I was rushed to the OR holding my guts in with my hand. I thought I had "bought it" that time, but I didn't panic.

I know you'll probably make cruel jokes about all of this, because that's the kind of sweet guy that you are, but I did have health insurance to cover my surgery and care, so I am alive today, exercise daily, and eat a semi-vegetarian diet. Yet I do meditation and reflect on my deathbed departure, if I'm lucky, and I think I know what my personal death would entail, and I think I'm reconciled to it. But I was struck by your callousness in boasting of not having health insurance, and I felt it could only originate in one who was quite young and inexperienced, or buffered by dollars from the hard knocks of life.

Show a little compassion for your fellow humans, San. We're all in the same boat in life and we all have the same end we're progressing toward. But I have a life to live, so I can't indulge in patronizing put-downs at Slate, so I'll leave you to your ego massages.

By the way, Mr. Intellectual, why did you choose "chose" for the present tense in your post? One time, I could figure it was a typo, but more than once...?

"San, I think you are betraying your age. Either you're young and inexperienced, or you're comfortably well off and were born that way."

Or maybe you are a pompous assuming ass that assumes that everyone else needs to chip in for YOUR health.

I don't care about your health.

You can die. Everyone dies.

I don't want to pay so your miserable life can continue.

The simple fact, is that I have the right to my property. The government can't take it away without fair compensation. Giving me "health care" when I am already healthy is not fair compensation. What is is, is a subsidy for people like you who feel that your expenses need to be lessen by taking from my pocket.

In actuality, you are a theif.

You are a crook.

You deserve to be locked up in a prison.

If you want me to pay for your sickness to keep you alive, I demand that you be locked up in a prison during that time.

Its just that simple.

I take care of myself. If that doesn't work? Then too bad. Thats life.

I am not paying you so you can continue to live off of my dime. People like you take up more room. You buy up nice farm land. You ruin the country side. You pollute the environment. You clog the roads.

I don't want more people.

I am just paying for you to live longer and to take more stuff from me.

Guess what?

Its not your right.

And I "chose" to not have health care because I made that choice a while ago.

Chances are, people like Hillary and YOU will just steal from my pocket and destroy any ability for me to make choices.

So I chose, past tense, in a time when I had freedom to choose.

But theives like you demand my money and my freedom.

You make me sick and I hope that you die before you can vote again.

Thanks for the good wishes, San. Many happy returns!

You're one sick dude, San. Seek therapy, eh? I don't hope that you die. Why should I? Would I get a thrill out of hearing you died?

And you had the nerve to call me "hateful" in one of your posts? Ever heard of projection? Why are you so filled with hostility? I've had more than my problems in life, but I served my country in uniform, I fathered two fine sons, and I don't hate one living being.

By the way, San, the insurance I had was all taken out of my salary. I paid for it out of my own pocket, so you never put a penny into my recovery. It was private insurance from my employer.

"You're one sick dude, San."

Actually, you are the sick creep. People are supposed to die, not use medicine to artificially promote their life because they can't get over themselves! You are a disgusting, arrogant bastard, and you have no right to my hard earned money.

Do the world a favor and die. Its people like you that are causing all of our over population problems.

So I'm a creep because I used medicine to recover and live longer? You have a warped sense of values, San.

And I am a "disgusting, arrogant bastard"? You don't even know me, and you make such judgments?

As for me having no right to your "hard earned money," when have I ever had any of your money? Or when did I say I was ever entitled to it?

My life-threatening crises occurred while I was an employed worker, and my medical bills were paid (minus my co-pays) by my private insurance obtained through my employer. Presbyterian, in fact. Not a penny of yours ever went to pay my premiums or to pay for my hospitalization or surgery. Don't you even bother to get your facts straight before you go off on your "I hope you die" rants?

And by the way, the way you post goes far beyond mere disputes on philosophy or politics. Telling anyone, "I hope you die" is entirely heartless, but telling that to a cancer survivor with heart disease puts you in a category entirely your own.

I don't know if it will make any difference, but I am filing a complaint of abuse about you to the Fray. People who come here to post expect an exchange of ideas and perspectives, and admittedly it sometimes gets a little heated, but when you tell me you hope I die, I know you really mean it.

I won't tell you to die or that I hate you. I just pity you. But I don't think the Fray should be for someone with your emotional problems. Seek therapy; you desperately need it. You also need a heart, but I don't know what you can do about that.

"So I'm a creep because I used medicine to recover and live longer? You have a warped sense of values, San."

Yes, you are.

You are going against the natural cycle.

You are artificially prolonging your life while draining society.

You are disgusting.

You don't deserve to live. You don't deserve to extend your life. You don't deserve health care.

non-rhetorical question, San: if medical procedures are a violation of the natural cycle, and thus not a legitimate function of government, then what IS a legitimate function of government? Remember, as you answer this, that many government agencies have at least a partial function of preventing deaths by a variety of means.

Government is only responsible for public safety.

Thats the only reason why governments are formed.

Public safety requires interactions between multiple individuals. Thus, they have no right to provide free medicines or the like unless they are for contageous diseases. Then, they aren't helping an individual, but preventing that individual from harming another. You, as a sick person, do not have the right to force your disease upon another.

If you are hurt by someone else, THEY pay for it. If you are hurt because of cancer or some other thing YOU caused, or your body caused on its own, then you pay for it or you suffer the consequences. Its that simple.

What if a person is a good parent still in the process of raising his or her children? Are the kids supposed to be orphaned, their chances of becoming productive members of society stunted, because saving that parent would violate the natural cycle? What if a person, parent or not, is a productive member of society who benefits many people in addition to him or herself?