Today the Outrage provides two fine examples of why Hillary was right.
There are indeed grave problems with America's current system of health care, whereby critical medical services are denied to good Americans like Emil Matasareanu. Other Americans are being denied their constitutional right to, uh, well, see below.
LESSON ONE
Emil Matasareanu and Larry Phillips were well prepared. They wore full-body armor and carried a number of automatic weapons. After preparing for full-scale war, they attempted to rob a Bank of America branch in North Hollywood on February 28, 1997.
Banks are also well prepared for robbery, so it should be no surprise that Los Angeles police officers responded in mass. There ensued a wild shoot-out during which the two bank robbers exhausted the ammunition in their rifles, and then calmly reached into the trunk of their car to get weapons with fresh clips.
The firefight left eleven police officers, as well as five bystanders, wounded. The shooting spree also left Matasareanu dead, shot 29 times by the police officers who returned his fire.
Matasareanu is suing. Well no, that's not quite correct - even in America dead men can't file lawsuits. A lawyer, Stephen Yagman, is filing suit on behalf of the dead thief. In his federal civil-rights lawsuit, Yagman maintains that the police department "cold-bloodedly murdered" Matasareanu by not providing adequate medical attention as he lay bleeding in the street. (Cold blooded? We normally think of that phrase in reference to attacks on undefended, unarmed, unprepared innocents. But lawyers and language have never been close friends.)
Of course, it's possible that medical personnel were busy attending to some of the sixteen people that the robbers had shot.
To recap: men rob bank, shoot 16 people and endanger the lives of many others. Of course it then follows that taxpayers have an obligation to provide prompt medical service to the men that started the shoot-out.
Technically, the suit has been filed on behalf of the robber's two children - and we're sure he was a great dad. You may think that this is all too absurd to take seriously - after all, no one survives 29 gunshot wounds, and Matasareanu would have spent the rest of his life in jail anyway. But think again - the Justice Department is using your tax dollars to launch an extensive investigation to determine whether the gunman was, in fact, denied adequate medical care.
LESSON TWO
A satisfying sexual life is one of the rights granted, or at least implied, by the US Constitution, so we applaud the decision of Medicaid programs to provide the new impotence drug Viagra to those who can't afford it.
"The sex drive being what it is in some people, it may very well have a lot to do with the mental well-being of a person," said state representative Ron Johnson, a Republican who heads the Medicaid Oversight Committee in Alabama. Of course, it goes without saying that the "mental well-being" of a person is the responsibility of the government.
Alabama and Florida pay for four state-funded satisfying encounters per month, Arkansas, Louisiana and Maryland cover six, and the home of polygamy, Utah, springs for 10. Go Boy Go!
(We wonder if the real men live in Rhode Island. The state began offering to pay for Viagra recently - but no one has yet applied.)
This is a great opportunity for America. If taxpayers fund an increase in the virility of those on Medicaid, we may well also get the opportunity to increase the cycle of subsidy - to pay for the birth, education, and medical expenses of the resulting children. Or perhaps we can pay for some more federally funded abortions.
WHAT WE CAN LEARN
Obviously we need to be more sensitive to the needs of wounded bank-robbers and the impotent poor. We should also prepare for the next wave of lawsuits, which will come from those whose unsatisfying sexual lives forced them to get killed while robbing banks in order to pay for Viagra denied them by the state.
READ MORE ABOUT IT
To read more about helping the impotent poor click here.
Regarding lesson number one - it's really not that unusual in Los Angeles for lawyers to seek money on behalf of the dead - read about the lawyer who filed a workers compensation claim on behalf of Ron Goldman. Outrage Library (March 24)
Regarding lesson number two - We are, in fact, concerned with the issue of sexual opportunity. See our Exploring New Frontiers in Fairness: The Outrage Plan for Sexual Equality essay.
