“You’ll hear a lot of folks, by the way, say that government is broken. Well, government and politics are two different things. Government is our troops who are fighting on our behalf in Afghanistan and Iraq. That’s government. Government are also those FEMA folks when there’s a flood or a drought or some emergency who come out and are helping people out. That’s government. Government is Social Security. Government are teachers in the classroom. Government are our firefighters and our police officers, and the folks who keep our water clean and our air clean to breathe, and our agricultural workers. And when you go to a national park, and those folks in the hats — that’s government.

“So don’t be confused — as frustrated as you are about politics, don’t buy into this notion that somehow government is what’s holding us back…[D]on’t buy into this whole notion that somehow government doesn’t do us any good; government is what protects us. The government is what built the Interstate Highway System. Government is what sent a man to the Moon. It’s what invested in the research and development that created innovations all across this country.”

 — Barack Obama

via Steve Benen

As most of you who know us well enough to be here already know, Anne has Crohn’s Disease. She was diagnosed with it in 2004 (?) while we were still dating.

I remember making an emergency trip from California (where I was living at the time) to Colorado because she was in terrible pain and was admitted to the hospital and was told she had a disease and was understandably freaked about it. Being there for her felt like the right thing to do, and it turns out it was.

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