Judge Hatchett just made a very passionate plea for socialized medicine

in the US. Room mate is watching her show and she just talked about the Canadian system of mental health and how we needed to "step up" and have this for every family in America.

I tivo'd this transcription of her quote -

"See, the wonderful thing about it, and this is something I feel very strongly about, the fact that you all live in Canada, and there is socialized medicine there means that we have wonderful resources that we can tap into for Mark. We have these referrals that the family advocate has already made..."

She goes on to say - " Socailaized medicine is a wonderful thing because you're in Canada and you can access this. This is what needs to happen in America. We need to have these resources for every family in America and I am hoping one day America will step up and follow Canada's lead with some very progressive health care for it's citizens. And so, you are very fortunate."

You just never know where the message will appear, do you?

Good on you Judge Hatchett.

You see, Americans don't have that fellow feeling for each other that other societies share. In fact the lower half or so of America is downright despised and vilified. Most of America wishes the other half would die a horrible death, and go away for good never to darken our doorways, parks, streets and schoolyards again. Since they don't anticipate a final solution for the other half, they rest content with the idea that the other half will live miserable lives and die horrible deaths. They are not disappointed. If the Invisible Hand of the marketplace were stripped of all its powers but one, it would still exist to fulfill that wish.

In France they had a revolution for liberty equality and FRATERNITY. In America we had a revolution for liberty equality and property. That fellow countryman feeling encompassed in the term fraternité was never part of the deal. We had always-already exchanged a more perfect union for a blighted patchwork of ghettoes and rotting cities on the one hand and sprawling stripmall developement and mcMansion gated communities on the other.

I'm afraid this is the truth about the country of my birth. We are a nation perpetually divided against itself by resentment not of the great so much as a resentment bordering on open hatred for the poor. To work, socialized medicine requires an enduring political committment--no, a SPIRITUAL committment-- to care about the lot of others in life. And the evidence is that we just don't have it in our hearts to give.

Seriously.

was "at risk" because he was breaking and entering, doing drugs and just generally being a rotten kid. Judge Hatchett sent him to a boot camp type of program for two days. When he returned to court she told them that they would need to get him into counseling to reinforce the lessons he had learned. She "ordered" group therapy, individual therapy, family therapy and something similar to anger management, I think.

Then she talked about how good it was that he had access to the socialized medicine system in Canada and could access all the help he needed. The family therapist for the court had made recommendations of the programs he should join.

I was surprised to hear this message on this type of show and so passionately too. I was pleased though, because this message needs to get out and if it reaches her audience (which is probably not the same audience that watches "real news" all that closely), then all the better for us.

Yes, it's a TV court show and has a lot of the "baby mama drama" etc. and people suing each other for dumb shit like the other TV court shows, but Judge Hatchett is a lot different. I believe she is/was a family court judge and she has a lot of cases involving troubled teens and their families.I watch her a lot, and the thing I like the most about her is her depth of compassion for people. I am not surprised in the least that she's progressive in her politics.

I remember one case that just broke my heart. This mother brought her teenage son to Judge Hatchett because she was at the end of her rope with him, he was abusing alcohol, skipping school, hanging with a bad crowd, etc. He had already been to juvy like three times and he was only 15. It turns out that the reason he was acting out was because he was gay and was terrified of coming out to his family because they were very religious and extremely homophobic. He just broke down in court and started crying because he felt so alone. You could tell he felt so guilty about everything, he wasn't a bad kid he just needed some support. Judge Hatchett and ordered him into a substance abuse program, ordered his mom into attending PFLAG meetings and ordered both of them into counseling. There was an update on it a while later and while the family still had some issues, the kid was doing a lot better in school and had been sober for some months.

I don't watch it much myself, but my room mate does quite often. I just happen to be here today while she was watching it and it caught my ear. The times that I have watched it certainly agree with your thoughts about the type of show that it is. She always seems fair to me.