This is rather silly. Is it honestly realistic to believe that everybody either thinks American culture is either exceptional or evil (paragraph 6). How about some American Realism, where we celebrate our successes and are honest about our flaws and mistakes? It is also silly to think America has a single culture. This nation and its political system would be near unrecognizable to the Founding Fathers.

There are so many things wrong with this analogy, it's hard to know where to start.

If health insurance should only be extended to those who have "paid their dues" and earned their SAG cards, then so should all care. We should either make sure everyone has insurance (and everyone pays, like with auto insurance), or we should swipe your credit card before we put you in the ambulance or admit you to the ER. Choose one or the other. Giving (emergency) care to everyone (like we do now) but only insuring the "top 1%" gets us in the sort of expensive mess we're in now.

Let the insurance companies compete, and include a government option that's cheap and basic as a safety net. Get everyone in the pool, and get everyone chipping in. That's how insurance is supposed to work.

Steven - you might benefit from a dose of your own medicine. Analyze the failings of your previous columns, look for mistakes, "take a good, long look inside of [your]self," &c (whining about the other guys at the gym, anyone?). This column is mostly whining about other people who are whiny. If I were you, I'd suck it up and realize that . . . well . . . sometimes people suck. Of course, you suggest that people ought to focus on "Doing your job and doing it well." If your job is to write a consistently whiny column, you're doing well. It always surprises me that a self-styled "Lonewolf" would spend so much time complaining about the people around him.

This is why same-sex marriage is inevitable. Opponents are bleeding from both sides -- on the left, and the libertarian right. Prop 22 won by 22 percentage points, prop 8 by 4. 10 years ago, supporting civil unions was political suicide, today it's a moderate alternative. There just isn't a large enough core of supporters to withstand an assault from both sides.