Dear Bill

I thought of creating a catchy headline like, "Bill Maher is a Chicken", but in reality, I know you are not.

Bill, I am an average American.  I earn a good living, and I like my privacy.  The reason I am invading yours is for a couple of reasons.  First, you are already a public person.  Writing to you in a public setting is probably a pretty normal occurrence for you.  For me it is not.  If you don't mind, for the time being I'd like to remain anonymous.  I am not sure if you plan on using this as a bit on your show ... I can also assure you that this is not my intent ... I seek no 15 minutes of fame ... in all honesty, it would probably not sit well with my business partners, or my business interests to do so.  One thing I promise is that if you ever do decide to write, then I will respect your ideals, if you just have an open mind to respect mine.

I thought about commenting on your blog, but the things I'd like to open a conversation about go far beyond any single topic you publish.  My aspirations for this are very simplistic ... I don't expect you to respond, but if you do ... then it would far exceed my expectations.

I probably should get out on the table that I am not a fan of your show.  Not because of your ideals or topics ... but the way it's presented.  Sometimes the comedy hits below the belt and the taste of your show just doesn't suit me.  I did happen to see your movie, "Religulous" after being very skeptical about it being in the same vain as your show, but I found it very entertaining and insightful.

A few things you might want to know about me.  Like you, when it comes to God I'm not sure.  Politically ... I think we are opposites in some areas.  I'm not here to write an attack blog, or get in to a bitch session.  I think you are intelligent ... and you seem open most times to logical debate.

So, with that being said ... I will start my open letter.

I read an article today in which you said to Bill O'Reilly that Jesus would want everyone to have health care.  Well ... I think you are correct.  I can't imagine that Jesus would not desire this.  But when I thought about this a bit more, my thought was ... but then again ... Jesus could heal the sick by performing miracles, so maybe he would not desire health care for all as it is structured in the world today.  What I mean by that is this.  Taking Jesus out of the equation for now ... why should everyone have access to the entire health care system?  Some people have made horrible choices their entire lives ... smoking, drinking, being obese by overeating most of their lives.  So why should my taxes rise to compensate for others poor life style choices?  Now, here I am counting on you to use your head and examine what I am saying just like you dug in to the Religion question in your movie.  Bill, would you let a homeless man walk in to your home and take whatever he wants out of your refrigerator because the government thinks that all Americans deserve to eat three meals a day?  We both know you think that's a ridiculous notion ... but that's really what the health care system that Obama wants us all to have is like.

If you want my opinion, raise the sin taxes against tobacco and alcohol.  And while you are at it, lets start placing a tax on foods that keep Americans obese and offer subsidies for low income families to purchase whole foods ... vegetables and meats to feed their families.  Two things will happen.  Americans will be forced into making healthy or unhealthy decisions and the sin taxes can be set so that it will raise funds to cover health care for everyone.  In the long run, maybe we can reverse the obesity trends in our nation and start lowering health costs over time.  Then lets reward people for eating healthy, exercising and staying fit by reducing health care costs over time to people who aren't using the system.  What I mean by this is that for someone like me.  I've been to the doctor 3 times in the last 15 years.  Once for an ear infection, one for a skin rash and once because I thought I had bronchitis.  Over time I should earn some kind of discount for not using the system as others do?

I am entirely for helping my fellow man.  I am not against health care for every American.  But we also have to find ways to make people choose healthy options so that their usage of health care declines over time.  There should be a two prong approach to solving these kinds of issues.

All you have to do to realize that just giving things away is a horrible idea is to look at our welfare system.  Throwing money at the problem doesn't help anyone.  It keeps many people in the system from generation to generation.

Now, I am going to say something extremely odd for a Republican.  I am all for raising taxes ... with two conditions.  First, taxes should be fair and equitable.  I think it's an odd notion that someone pays more taxes as a percentage of income than someone else simply because they have, or make more money.  Even God makes everyone pay 10%.  I think you should get rid of the entire tax code, make everyone pay a national sales tax on everything but food and make everyone pay a flat tax.  If you want to have one tax rule for what is considered a poverty level and everyone over a certain income bracket pays a flat rate, that is fair. 

Two things are going to happen.  Americans will have to evaluate just about each and every purchase ... and maybe we won't have to end up being such a consumer based society.  Maybe we will force people to think about their income ... save more and be more solvent.  The wealthy will continue to spend their money on goods and services because that's what people with disposable income do ... they spend.  We will get the additional taxes due to the national sales tax.  If the flat tax rate is calculated to be more than my current tax rate, then so be it.  I will gladly pay as long as it's a fair and equitable system.  Maybe if we become a nation that thinks about money instead of a nation that thinks about spending money, we can solve other long term issues like how to build better public transportation systems in a suburban culture ... or maybe we can find ways like solar roof shingles and personal wind turbines to some day make each family home energy independent from the grid.  Think about how truly independent our society would be by not having to depend on energy from abroad to fuel our cars or heat and cool our homes.

We have to stop allowing corporations like Monsanto (a chemical company) to control the nations food supply.  And to stop corporations like this we have to rework what our democracy really means as it concerns the people of this country.  We have to make lobbying illegal ... we have to make the government and business once again about the people of this country and maybe some day we can influence other parts of the world as we rid our system of blatant corruption. 

I never hear anyone speak about how ridiculously interesting it is that hundreds of millions or billions of dollars are spent by private political action and lobbying groups as well as our two major national political parties on campaigns to obtain jobs that earn a couple hundred thousand dollars a year.  Now that's ridiculous!

Bill ... I know you think pot should be legal.  Personally I don't care.  I say make it legal and tax it.  I also don't think that abortion should be legislated.  If a doctor wants to perform an abortion, and a woman does not want the baby ... those are choices they have to make for themselves and live with it.  I do think another approach would be to put some money behind allowing women to make another choice ... have the baby and give it up for adoption.  Many families pay tens of thousands of dollars for a baby from another country.  Lets set up a national system that allows for these women to make another choice if they so desire.  I personally don't think abortion is right ... I believe that every life should be given a chance to survive and prosper ... but I do not believe the government should be the body that makes that moral decision.  One thing that does bother me is the argument of when life begins.  As a society we are so quick to determine that genes can tell us about a person such as their sexual orientation and that is easily accepted as scientific fact, but that same person can look me right in the face and tell me that life does not start at conception, but will strap themselves to an old tree because cutting it down is harmful to nature.  I too am a conundrum because while I don't believe in abortion, I do believe in capital punishment for some crimes.

I see one as the killing of a purely innocent life and the other is the killing of a malevolent one.  I don't believe that society should waste the money to imprison people who have committed heinous crimes.  As you like to simplify things like the 10 commandments (I will get to that in a bit) by saying that it's pretty much common sense that we don't kill each other and we don't take each other's stuff.  I say that there are some crimes that shouldn't be tolerated, and just like the 10 commandments ... I think most people could agree on what those crimes are in general.  I think prison and jails should be for people who do their time and earn their release.  Not for people who have life sentences and will never see the light of day as a free person again.  That's just a waste of taxpayer dollars.  Buy several islands ... or cordon off Idaho for God's sake, fence it like the  Berlin wall and let them fend for themselves.  At least defer the expense to the taxpayers.  Many people in the world exist off of having to live off the land.  I digress.

And then there is religion.  Bill, as I said before, I am like you.  I don't know for sure about any of it.  To me, there are things that boggle the mind so much, like the sheer vastness of the Universe that it seems to make sense to me that there is something bigger than us.  But it also makes sense to me that man has always had a very hard time with his own ego and self importance, so the thought of there being nothing after death is a real kick in the nuts that makes me understand why Religion and Gods have manifested throughout history.  But one thing that I remember about your movie Religulous.  You made a comment to a minister I believe  about how humanity inherently knows right from wrong and that many have died in the name of Religion.  True and False from my perspective.  First of all ... there have been dozens of blood thirsty conqueror's and tyrants in history that killed because of power alone ... with no religion driving them. 

Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, Stalin, Hitler, Genghis Khan, Peter the Great, Alexander and so forth.  These men alone have ordered and oversaw the killings of hundreds of millions of human beings, all in the name of power and maintaining power.  I argue that just like these men ... other men have killed in the name of Religion, but when it comes right down to it ... it's really just supposed religious men using their power and authority to harm and control other human beings.  Religion itself isn't the problem, it's the men that forward their own agenda in the name of religion that is.  Osama Bin Laden, Muhammad, the Catholic Church and the Papal organization, Jimmy Swaggart, Pat Robertson ... to a degree they all use Religion and God to forward their agenda and to manipulate people ... some are more violent than others for sure ... but it's the same concept.  But Religion itself isn't the corrupter ... it's the hearts of mankind, and as we can hopefully both agree ... mankind is pretty "fucked up" in general.

With that thought ... I can see how some people decide to fall back on teachings in the bible to make sense and place order in things that we can't seem to get right most of the time.

Bill ... you probably won't read this.  I highly doubt it.  But try and do me a favor.  I know you are a comedian, but just because someone doesn't believe what you believe ... it doesn't make them an idiot.  Like you, my oldest brother graduated from Cornell.  He's been a fundamentalist Christian his whole life.  He's raised three great kids and has run several successful businesses without ever harming another human being.  The only difference between you and him as far as your hearts is that he has spent his life trying to fill that void we all feel from time to time with spiritual faith.  That's no more ridiculous than filling that void by smoking a joint.

Thanks for reading.

S.Evans