Lately it's impossible to ignore the din coming from every media source. Purportedly, the noise is related to the health care reform debate, but that's not entirely accurate. What we're hearing is a lot of breathless reporting of the protests at the so-called town meetings. Not only reporting of the protests, but also reporting of the objections to and defenses of the protests. And protests they are.
I've made my opinion clear in the last post. I absolutely support universal health care, and in fact, I believe it is a moral imperative in this, the richest most powerful nation in history. I also think we are about 100 years late in providing it to our citizens. Even so, I can hardly complain about those who are protesting the legislation. What difference is there between these protests and the protests of the anti-war movement in the Viet Nam era (in which I took part enthusiastically.) In this country, we have a right to protest the actions of our government. In fact, if we believe our government is doing wrong, we have an OBLIGATION to protest those actions.
The interesting thing is how conservatives angrily denounced our anti-war demonstrations 40 years ago as unAmerican, and how liberal/progressives are now denouncing the anti-health care reform people as unAmerican when they appear and shout down the speakers at the meetings. http://thinkprogress.org/2009/08/10/boehner-vietnam-unamerican/
A real problem has been uncovered by some media, particularly MSNBC, namely that certain paid political lobbyists employed by the high profit health insurance industry have been creating "straw man" organizations that purport to be grassroots organizations with legitimate concerns about the health care initiatives. Even this wouldn't be so bad, but in so doing they are publishing statements and allegations they offer as fact, but which are actually completely untrue. Other high profile politicians, most notably Sarah Palin, have been doing this as well. The most egregious example is the allegations that the legislation would require "death panels" to encourage or mandate euthanasia. THIS IS PATENTLY ABSURD. If any reasonable person thinks about this for even a nanosecond, he/she would realize that first, anyone proposing or voting for such a measure would be bounced out of office at the first opportunity; second, such a provision would be completely unconstitutional by anyone's measure. The Supreme Court would invalidate such a provision immediately. Frankly, without meaning to call anyone names, the allegation is just idiotic. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32412764/ns/politics-the_new_york_times/
But our world contains many ignorant, idiotic people. Sad but true. They are the kind of people who paid no attention to their high school civics or government class, and never read anything that does not agree with their preconceived ideas based upon a kind of loose general distrust of government. They parrot what they are told by professional fearmongers without question.
What these political hacks are doing by putting forth these statements is propagating fear. It's just that simple. They seek to defeat the proposed legislation not by offering reasoned arguments, but by garnering popular support by scaring people half to death with these lies. When challenged to point to specific passages in the bill to support their allegations, they quote passages completely out of context. In the case of Sarah Palin, she (incredibly) quoted passages from the bill which actually said something entirely different from what she claimed was said. All this proved is that I was correct in my suspicion that Ms. Palin is only marginally literate. I am baffled though, by her handlers' failure to minimize her failings.
I guess one of the things that has always disturbed me about extreme conservative politics is that their basic philosophy is fear. Fear of change, fear of progress, fear of trying to improve our lot for fear that we might fail. Any student of American History, even a casual student, knows that while we almost immediately sort of gravitated toward a two party system, the parties have changed a number of times. Even if you try to trace the sources of our modern parties to those of the past, it is easy to see that the parties have traded positions frequently and often mixed positions, at least based upon our current understanding of the two basic political philosophies.
In Lincoln's time, when the Republican party was born, the Republicans were the more progressive. The Democrats, while espousing an egalitarian system, torpedoed their own image by opposing emancipation of the slaves. The conservative Whigs, after the election of 1856, became pretty much irrelevant. The more centrist Whigs united with centrist Democrats (both of whom were at least open to emancipation if not clearly anti-slavery) and formed the Republican party. At the turn of the 20th century, the progressive Theodore Roosevelt was the standard-bearer of the Republicans. It was not until midcentury that Republicans morphed into complete conservatism. It's too early to tell, but it's at least possible that we're on the verge of something similar happening now. The more centrist Republicans are being vilified by the likes of Limbaugh, Cheney, Palin, and Gingrich. The "blue dog" Democrats are finding it hard to agree with their more liberal colleagues. The tattered remnants of the extreme right wing and the neocons have been pretty much hamstrung. Change may be in the wind.
But whichever party has carried the conservative banner, the basic nature of conservatism is timidity. I don't really have that much of a problem with that. I disagree, but completely understand that well-read, reasoned people may disagree with me. My problem is with those who are NOT well-read, reasoned, or rational. The opinion page of my hometown newspaper today illustrates perfectly the source of my frustration. There are at least two letters to the editor in the August 14, 2009 edition of the Daily Inter Lake from Kalispell, Montana, which argue forcefully against the health care reform effort. Both these letters state "facts" which are completely untrue, and/or quote passages from the proposed bill which the letter writer does not understand. One of the letters cites specific examples from the House version of the bill, and completely misstates language the writer quotes in his own letter. I know that the statements are untrue, and I know what the bill actually says and what the language means because I have taken the time and effort to educate myself.
It's sad. I am a lawyer and have to deal with the arcane, murky language of statutory law all the time. It's easy to understand how hard it is to understand the language of the bill. But that's no excuse for making (and publishing) such strong statements without a clear understanding of what one is talking about. Then some other like-minded person reads the letter, accepts, and passes on the misinformation to others. And so it goes.
Another gripe I have is the knee-jerk statements that health care reform is "socialism." Well, one act or bill does not make socialism. Socialism is a theory of economic organization. A entire theory, not just one program. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
However, I agree that universal health care might be, in whole or in part, a socialistic program. So is EVERY government program. I have to laugh when I see Medicare recipients on TV railing that they do not want socialized medicine, when to a large extent that is what Medicare is. Every government program is at least in part, socialized. Think about it. The armed forces, the highway system, public education, police and fire protection, the post office, and on and on. Most of these programs, at least in part, have a private sector component, that is private firms contracting with the government to provide services and materials, but they are organized and regulated by the government. PEOPLE, THIS IS NOT A BAD THING.
How much would you have to pay if you had to pay for all of these socialized programs and systems on your own? How would you even go about hiring soldiers to defend your portion of our country? I have long maintained, and I will argue this point with anyone, that we get more value for our tax dollars than any other money we spend.
So here's my suggestion. Think about how much profit the health insurance companies are taking out of our health care system. Think about those people, like me, who desperately need health care but who cannot buy any health insurance because the insurers wouldn't make enough profit from me. Read this link. http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html Think about how we do not have health care as good as we deserve and about how we pay more for less than any other country. When you hear someone say that the Canadian or English systems are "bad" don't just accept that statement, look it up. (See the "We Love the NHS" movement at various sites posted by British subjects who object to American criticism of their system.)
Above all, when you hear a ridiculous claim (that the health care bill would require doctors to advocate killing old sick people, or that the law would mandate "death panels" -- and that is truly, stupidly ridiculous) you should remember what Ronald Reagan famously said, many times over: "Trust, but verify." Actually, it's pretty funny that Reagan got "trust but verify" from an old Russian proverb, but there you go.
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