All these labels I am completely comfortable wearing in any season, no matter how derogatory and dirty they are made out to be, and they won't cost me even a fraction of a Chanel suit.

But in the U.S. debate about health care reform the labels are flying, along with slurs, fear-mongering, misinformation, esoteric philosophies and soapbox dogma. And no matter what form we take in the information–online, television or print–we are bombarded with advertisements for pain relievers, mood enhancers, stool softeners and a multitude of products and "stuff" that is supposed to make our lives better, more tolerable. It is our constitutional right to consumption, greed, guns and God, goddam it! And not one politician or pharmaceutical manufacturer or private health insurance company will let you forget it.

Now call me "un-American" because I no longer find living in America ideal. 

Call me unrealistic because I want to live somewhere where art is more important than football and women's health is as well-researched as an old man's limp dick. I want cheap gas and inexpensive dental care. I want people who are less fortunate than I to be looked after, not left alone and ashamed to rot in the streets or in institutions or prisons or cheap cookie-cutter housing. I want rampant avarice, i.e. Wall Street to be as regulated as screaming toddlers at a kiddie pool. I want education of minds to be more important than making all the money in the world. I want to smile at neighbors who don't intrude in my lifestyle, but do take action if I am threatened or my dog gets lost or my property gets damaged. I want quality of life to take priority over billable hours. I want rehabilitation of the fractured brain and spirit to be the one and only goal. I want to feel and cope with the world, not numb it into apathy. I want health over cost. Breasts over bombs. Candidness over censorship. Freedom over fear. Reason over faith.

I am not naive enough to expect a society that doesn't have crime and selfishness and garbage. But along with the crap, I want some cake. I want some compassion. I want open hearts and charity. We don't all have to have the same tastes or think the same, but whatever happened to being kind and gentle? I'll stomach WWF wrestling and gun shows as long as I'm allowed gay marriage and a woman's right to her own body. 

Label me a dreamer. Utopian hopeful. Quixotic optimist. (Insert judgement here.)

But however I am tagged, I will not play the fool. The United States of America's brand of government is supposed to be the best the planet has to offer and yet from this ant view it looks to be a well-orchestrated mountain of corruption, litigation and bankruptcy. A free market that is an oligopoly. A free country with few free choices. And a stock market, Department of Treasury and banking system that are set up as the greatest Ponzi schemes of all time, controlled, promoted and sold by the top one-percent and bought and swallowed whole by "we the people", the duped investors." We're getting screwed over and over and over. The middle class is not getting ahead, the middle class is getting pushed into poverty. Perhaps it's time to clean house and start over. Let's fire the entire Congress, every last one of the them, and force these bureaucrats to actually work for a living. 

Mark me an anarchist? Nihilist? Nope, too much work. I'm definitely a lazy American. I'll simply move to Denmark. However, the lack of Trader Joe's grocery stores and southern California sun will drive me insane. New label... Danish ex-patriot nut.