I haven’t meant for this to be a forum for political discussion, so I’ve resisted the urge to post about health care reform. But not today.
The fact is that I can’t divorce my politics from my secular humanism. The latter indelibly informs the former. As a humanist, I’m outraged that we live in a country where millions are without access to affordable health care.
And such outrage is fundamental to any kind of humanism—religious or secular. If you care about human welfare and you’re not outraged about the state of the world (not just health care), you’re not paying attention.
Peter Finch’s monologue in the movie “Network” (1976) is among the most powerful expressions of this righteously indignant humanism. Today, as Congress votes on health care reform, this should be the Democrats’ rallying cry.
Now, humanists don’t have a monopoly on outrage. Health reform’s detractors can and have employed the same made-as-hell mantra—we’ve seen that displayed at the Tea Party protests. But what are they outraged about?
Taxes? This shouldn’t be a concern. The rich and the health industry will foot the bill; the vast majority of Americans won’t see any tax increases.
The deficit? The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill will actually save $143 billion dollars over the next decade.
Abortion funding? Politifact reports that “under the Senate plan, people will be able to buy insurance that covers abortion on the new health insurance exchanges, as long as the insurance company pays for the services with patient premiums, not taxpayer subsidies.” Still, some want more explicit language in the bill precluding abortion funding. But abortion funding or no, there is evidence that universal health care reduces abortions.
These are all reasons why people may oppose the current bill, but I don’t think these reasons alone explain the vitriol we’ve seen from the right in recent months. Something baser is animating their anger.
Just yesterday, at a Capitol Hill anti-health reform rally, some Tea Partiers chanted “Kill the bill, nigger!” to black civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis (D-GA). Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) was also heckled by the crowd, which called him a “faggot” and “homo communist.”
I am particularly haunted by this incident, where protesters mock and scorn a Parkinson’s victim who support health care reform:
Yeah, these Tea Partiers are outraged all right, but it’s no expression of humanism. To the contrary, it’s anti-human. Too many of these people (though certainly not all) do not understand themselves are their brother’s keeper. They’re intoxicated by this libertarian notion of the self as something distinct from “the other.”
In short, their philosophy is me-oriented, not we-oriented. If health care reform doesn’t pass, I feel as though we are surrendering to that philosophy. And that terrifies me. The very prospect has literally brought me to tears as I write this (and that’s saying something, given how stoic and unemotional I usually am).
Secular humanists can afford to lose over issues like “under God” in the Pledge. Those are peripheral concerns. But health care reform is different; it’s a defining issue. I mean really, what better embodies humanist values: a godless Pledge, or a country that values humans enough to provide them with affordable health care?
We would do well as a club to remember that our mission is more than a destructive project (disabusing people a false beliefs), but a constructive one also: working for the betterment of humankind. And that’s why I’ve broken my silence about health care on this blog. Far be it from being unrelated to secular humanism, health care reform is instead one of its most profound affirmations.
Thank you, Jon, for the post. I am not an expert on health care policy, and I must say that I am genuinely torn on this bill. A few thoughts:
a) I am not a “tea partier” because I am not a libertarian. But I do think it unfair to lump all of the libertarian tea partiers in with the handful of racists who made vulgar remarks yesterday. (I am not saying Jon meant to equate the two, but we should be careful not to).
b) There is no doubt that providing insurance to millions of uninsured is a great moral accomplishment. But I think there is room – even among a community of humanists – to disagree about the means to that end. Paul Ryan has a plan that he says the CBO rates as making medicare solvent which will also provide near universal coverage. I will confess that I am torn on the matter in this case, and am genuinely not sure which is the best means to the end. But my point here is that I don’t think that being a humanist necessarily requires that one sign on to politically liberal means of governance.
c) At this point I am myself confused about the actual abortion language in the two bills. But here again I think there is room for thoughtful people to disagree. Stupak is, after all, in favor of comprehensive reform. In other words, the abortion concern is not always a cloak for vitriolic libertarian selfishness. Same story with the Catholic bishops objections. Catholic bishops have been pushing for real health care reform for more than 60 years and really no one has done more to provide health care for the poor in this country than the Catholic Church. In fact, one Catholic critique of the current bill is that it does not go far enough because it does not cover illegal immigrants. Point is, I believe there are legitimate concerns – raised by people who are in favor of comprehensive health care reform – about abortion, conscience protections, etc. I am not an expert, but the legal and policy experts who provide the bishops (who I am almost certain would have pushed hard for passage if the Senate bill had used the House language on these issues) with information say that the Senate bill is “gravely flawed” in this respect.
d) Last point on abortion: Stupak and the Catholic bishops would say that politifact is buying into an accounting gimmick. As a non-expert, I am left wondering: if the Senate language is as strong as Hyde language, then why won’t they just incorporate Hyde language?
“But my point here is that I don’t think that being a humanist necessarily requires that one sign on to politically liberal means of governance.”
Sure. I wouldn’t want to commit myself to the view that humanism necessarily requires support for this particular bill. My argument is just that health care reform can be understood as an affirmation of humanism. And you’re right that thoughtful people can disagree. Rep. Ryan would be counted among the thoughtful detractors, but the bulk of the Tea Party movement in my opinion would not be.
I did find some persuasive arguments against Ryan’s proposals, however. The Citizens for Tax Justice evaluated them, and found the following:
The federal government would collect $183 billion less in 2011 and more than $2 trillion less over a decade than it would if Congress adopted President Obama’s tax proposals.
Federal taxes would be lower for the richest ten percent, and higher for all other income groups, than they would be if President Obama’s proposals were enacted.
The bottom 80 percent of taxpayers would pay about $1,700 more, on average, than they would if President Obama’s proposals were enacted.
The richest one percent would pay about $211,300 less on average than they would if President Obama’s proposals were enacted.
The poorest 20 percent would pay 12.3 percent of their income more than what they would pay under the President’s proposal, while the richest one percent would pay 15 percent of their income less than they would pay under the President’s proposal.
You can learn more about their findings here: http://ctj.org/pdf/ryanplan2010.pdf
http://unitedstatesofscamerica.blogspot.com/2010/03/distress.html
Get out while you can rusty. The government thugs are coming for you tomorrow. I hear Guyana is a great place to emigrate. Take lots of Kool Aid.
Wow, really? Haha, Rusty, that is completely ridiculous.
We had a live one there with Rusty, didn’t we? I am not sure about the bill, but the sun did rise this morning and I have not yet received a memo that professors must goose step to their classes.
Kleiner, I’ll have Suzanne send you a new copy, and make sure you get the right cover on those TPS reports
This just in (BIG news): Stupak announces support for the bill after an agreement on abortion was made. From the Huffington Post:
Rep. Bart Stupak has made it official: “I’m pleased to announce that we have an agreement…to protect the sanctity of life in health care reform.” The executive order will make clear that federal funds will not go to abortion services. “We’ve all stood on principle,” Stupak told reporters.
And from Politico:
The White House and anti-abortion Democrats have reached an agreement to defuse the controversy over abortion in the health reform bill — planning a series of steps that will secure the support of Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak and other Democrats to give party leaders the votes they need to pass reform, sources tell POLITICO.
Under the agreement, President Barack Obama would sign an executive order ensuring that no federal funding will go to pay for abortion under the health reform plans. In addition, Stupak will get to state his concerns about abortion funding in the bill during a colloquy on the House floor during the debate.
And then, Stupak and several other Democratic holdouts over abortion will sign on to the bill, the sources said. The agreement would almost certainly give House Speaker Nancy Pelosi the 216 votes she needs to secure an historic health reform vote by day’s end — capping a yearlong drive to achieve Obama’s signature legislative goal.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34767.html#ixzz0iqS8TAOn
Talk of this negotiation led to this statement from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops:
“One proposal to address the serious problem in the Senate health care bill on abortion funding, specifically the direct appropriating of new funds that bypass the Hyde amendment, is to have the President issue an executive order against using these funds for abortion. Unfortunately, this proposal does not begin to address the problem, which arises from decades of federal appellate rulings that apply the principles of Roe v. Wade to federal health legislation. According to these rulings, such health legislation creates a statutory requirement for abortion funding, unless Congress clearly forbids such funding. That is why the Hyde amendment was needed in 1976, to stop Medicaid from funding 300,000 abortions a year. The statutory mandate construed by the courts would override any executive order or regulation. This is the unamimous view of our legal advisors and of the experts we have consulted on abortion jurisprudence. Only a change in the law enacted by Congress, not an executive order, can begin to address this very serious problem in the legislation.”
I presume Stupak knew about this objection, and disagreed with this interpretation of the validity of an executive order in this case. We’ll see.
One point of clarification that might be worth making, something that came up in a conversation with my Dad last night (he is cardiologist):
Jon says “As a humanist, I’m outraged that we live in a country where millions are without access to affordable health care”.
This is the common way of framing the debate: providing health care to people who currently don’t get health care. The most extreme rhetoric on this point is the oft cited statistic that “45000 americans die each year because they lack health insurance”. But this is really misleading and is frankly usually inaccurate. Everyone has access to health care since no one can be turned away from an emergency room. So no one is denied health care. If you are uninsured and have a heart attack, my Dad will treat you. As he put it, “The only difference now with this new bill is that I will be paid for those services when I was not before”. There is a reason the stock of insurance companies are at all time highs – now they won’t have to eat as much cost. (Michael Moore has been beating this drum for weeks now). Most doctors were against the bill not because of their self-interest (in fact, the bill appears to be in their interest) but because most recognized that this bill does not really change the cost curve because we remain in a pay for service system (there are still incentives to run expensive tests that are not always necessary). As my Dad put it, “We are ignoring the elephant in the room – health care must be rationed.”
He was quick to add that providing insurance for the uninsured is a good, but he placed a some caveats on each:
a) With insurance, people can avail themselves of considerably cheaper (for the system) preventative care. That said, there is no guarantee that people will actually take advantage of that preventative care, they might not and will just end up in the emergency room anyway (this is particularly so for the uneducated and homeless).
b) There are some instances where people die, or at least die sooner, because they don’t have health insurance. Once the emergency is handled, someone without insurance probably would not get expensive transplants or other such things. But this is going to be relatively rare. But it might be that the quality of life for people goes up if they can access certain medications.
Point is, it is a mischaracterization (or at least an oversimplification) to say that this bill will provide health care to people who did not have any health care before. At best, this bill provides insurance for those that did not have it before. It might, then, provide them with better care and more preventative care, but they were not being denied care before.
The question then becomes a prudential one. Are the benefits of providing insurance to these 30 million people worth the cost? Keep in mind (as I understand it) that the budget reduction numbers that Obama cites depend on (a) some double counting and (b) require that later Congresses enact taxes that are assumed in the accounting but not currently enacted (that tidbit from Meet the Press on NBC yesterday). In other words, it depends on later Congresses having a fiscal courage that this Congress did not have. Cut out the accounting tricks and suppose later Congresses do not raise the taxes (does anyone think they really will?) and then estimates that the first 10 years have a $460 billion deficit with a second 10-year deficit of $1.4 trillion.
Now I won’t swear by those figures, I am not an expert on this stuff. My point is just this: it is at least possible (and most Americans seem to think probable) that the real cost of the bill is being underestimated. The we have a prudential question where we must weight the benefits and liabilities of providing health insurance (NOT health care) to the uninsured.
You only have the right to care at an emergency room if your treatment is deemed an emergency. That is far from optimal care. For instance, if you need to be evaluated for renal insufficiency, you will not get treatment at an emergency room without paying; however if you’re in renal failure you will. Your dad my treat a heart attack or (maybe) angina, but he would not evaluate a patient for preventive care. People seeking care at an ER for routine health care are in dire straights.
I’ve known of people who use the emergency room for bloody noses and colds. They ought to be more than turned away, they should be kicked in the ass on the way out. Your statement doesn’t refute what Kleiner said, that no one will just up and die without insurance. An emergency doctor doesn’t time to go about checking you for early stage of the measles. It isn’t about “right” its about practicality. It would probalby be good if they checked you and found an early cancer stage or something, its remotely possible this bill might do something about that, but much “preventative” care that I hear about involves people with bad habits who put themselves in those situations. While I still have coverage from the VA, I’ve always been afraid to go because I’m fairly young and healthy, and while their facilities aren’t top notch to begin with, there are many other veterans who need help far more than myself, and they were still waiting in huge lines both to have an appointment and waiting for actual service. That’s the reality I see with this bill in many ways, since I don’t see any new hospitals going up, which are crowded already and now have more people to deal with. Its good some people will be able to get a cancer screening, bad that they may be waiting behind 30 who have the sniffles. I don’t have health insurance for a variety of reasons, even though when I work its usually a dangerous job, but now I’ll be penalized for being uninsured, as will so many others. I don’t mind laws that help kids and others but we could have just stayed with the damn laws instead of going into a 3000 page labyrinth of economic theory that is teetering.
Tens of thousands of people die each year from being uninsured, Will. Emergency room care is no substitute for reform.
To be clear, I am in favor of health care reform. And I am so for the reasons Hunt gives (hey, Hunt and I agreed on something!) – the current situation with loads of uninsured does not provide optimal care or preventative care (even if it does provide emergency care).
Jon, do you have any evidence for the claim that “tens of thousands of people die each year from being uninsured?” My Dad and sister (both doctors who work in the industry and who are both in favor of some kind of reform) think this stat is totally bogus.
How is this being counted? Are we just taking the number of uninsured people that die each year and presuming they died BECAUSE they didn’t have health insurance? That would be absurd. Would the people have died even if they had health insurance? Maybe someone doesn’t get treatment for bone cancer but the bone cancer probably would have killed them anyway. To oversimplify: are there “tens of thousands of people” a year who need Pill X in order to live but are refused it because they don’t have health insurance? I suspect that there are some people who die who might have lived (might have been given that liver transplant or whatever else), but “tens of thousands”? I want evidence for this claim.
“How is this being counted? Are we just taking the number of uninsured people that die each year and presuming they died BECAUSE they didn’t have health insurance? That would be absurd.”
That would be absurd, but no. That’s not how it’s counted. The studies I’ve seen attempt to control for confounding factors (race, income, etc.) to isolate insurance as the independent variable. Depending on how they control for it, though, determines the number. The 45,000 deaths strikes me as high, in light of other studies putting it consistently around 20,000. The exact number is up for debate, but I don’t see how anyone could deny that lack of insurance is a contributor to poor health and (at times) death.
From doctor and Harvard professor J. Michael McWilliams: A rigorous body of research tells us the answer is many, probably thousands if not tens of thousands. Short of the perfect study, however, we will never know the exact number. In the meantime, we can let perfect be the enemy of good. Or we can recognize the evidence to date is sufficiently robust for policymakers to proceed confidently with health care reforms that promise substantial health and financial benefits for millions of uninsured Americans.
http://theincidentaleconomist.com/letting-perfect-be-the-enemy-of-good/
(Hooray for appeals to authority!)
I don’t mean to detract from the discussion here, but I’d like to respond to the post.
1. This is a “win” for the “rich and healthy insurance industry.” This bill places a number of regulations on the insurance industry which will ultimately hurt smaller companies and protect the giants of the industry from competition. As much as the Democrats have rallied behind a collective hate for the “evil” insurance companies, this wouldn’t have been possible without their compliance. The largest insurance companies have spent millions of dollars lobbying the president and his party in order to secure their interests… and predictably, this president who decries lobbyists, caved into the pressure. This bill benefits the largest insurance companies, not the American people. Your characterization is misguided by the rhetoric of your party.
2. The CBO “estimate” is a joke, and I’m sure you’re aware of the gimmicks involved. Democrats have long argued that this bill would reduce the deficit, yet such a claim assumes that the money cut from Medicare would directly go to the new program… and we both know how Congress works, that will never happen (it doesn’t happen for other entitlement programs, it won’t happen for Obamacare). Instead, after that charade was discovered, the CBO released a report that Obamacare would actually increase the deficit. Your CBO claim is riddled with flaws, and hardly justifies the current health care bill.
3. You mischaracterize the TEA-party protests. It should be difficult to label this movement, as it is largely unorganized and non-partisan. While there are crazies, racists, and homophobes within the movement (and practically every other political movement imaginable), such elements hardly define the movement altogether. How many TEA party protests have you attended, Jon? I have been to my fair share as an outsider, and I have never met someone I have considered to be racist or homophobic (I have met some crazies, however). While I am sure they do exist, I have not personally found any such individuals. Instead, in my own exploration of the TEA parties has shown me a movement comprised of average Americans from a variety of backgrounds and political affiliations. They are concerned about government spending, taxes, health care, and the ideological direction this country is taking. I have met a number of highly intelligent individuals who join these protests, and unsurprisingly, these kinds of people are hardly ever interviewed or given any form of publicity. Instead, the crazies, homophobes, and racists tend to get all the limelight. This has been a frustration for many protesters within the TEA party movement, and while we should condemn the actions of the few who act inappropriately, they do not characterize the majority of the protesters involved… We have all seen people go too far. I saw it in Washington when Code Pink came to the House and Senate Office Buildings to protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan… they threw things at elected officials, screamed in their faces, spit on people (seems to be a bipartisan tactic these days), vandalized property, and disrupted many of the meetings taking place. To allow such antics to define the anti-war movement would be irresponsible, I would ask you to give the same courtesy to the TEA party movement.
I have a lot more to say, but I’ll give you some time to breathe. Sorry for the length. To be honest, I am very upset with the passage of the bill and have spent a number of hours brooding about it. I appreciate your post, however.
“I don’t mean to detract from the discussion here, but I’d like to respond to the post.”
Disagreement is never detracts from a discussion at this site. Thanks for commenting. I’ll have to respond later, though, when I have more time.
“This is a “win” for the “rich and healthy insurance industry.””
I don’t know if it’s a “win.” The industry fought against health care reform tooth-and-nail, but they relented last minute because health care reform looked inevitable, so they signed on to a reform bill where they could at least mitigate their losses. Under this bill, the insurance industry will enjoy millions of new customers (as per the mandate) and subsidies, but that comes at the cost of increased regulation (can’t deny care to people with pre-existing conditions, must cover preventative care, etc.). All things considered, I think the status quo was better for the insurance industry–and that’s why they’ve fought alongside the Republican Party for decades to maintain it.
Good point about the small insurance companies. Every bill has it winners and losers. It looks like these companies stand to lose, but that doesn’t mean a competition-free marketplace for the insurance giants. The health care exchanges established by that bill should considerably increase competition. Democrats are all for increased competition in health care, and that’s precisely why many of us supported a public option.
As for the CBO report, is it fair to say that you’re just echoing Rep. Ryan’s criticisms? Health care blogger and political wunderkind Ezra Klein thinks Ryan is off-the-mark on many of his criticisms:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/paul_ryan_and_the_true_cost_of.html
I’ll respond to your comments about the Tea Party later this afternoon. That’s where you and I disagree most, and I want to be able to spend some time (that I don’t currently have) on articulating my problems with the movement.
Okay, now for my thoughts about the Tea Party movement.
“It should be difficult to label this movement, as it is largely unorganized and non-partisan.”
I agree that it’s largely unorganized, but I’d quibble over the word “non-partisan.” Sure, the Tea Party doesn’t explicitly endorse the Republican or Democratic Party. But while Tea Partiers as individuals may profess political independence, that masks just how conservative they are. Independents are usually just “closet partisans”—that’s political science 101.
A recent CNN poll of Tea Partiers found that more identified themselves as independent (52 percent) than Republican (44 percent) or Democratic (4 percent). BUT…87 percent say they would vote for the GOP candidate in their congressional district if there were no third-party candidate endorsed by the Tea Party.”
So the Tea Party movement is non-partisan on paper, but not in sentiments.
“How many TEA party protests have you attended, Jon?”
Zero. So I won’t be appealing to my personal experiences (which would admittedly just be anecdotal anyway). Any generalizations I’ll make about the movement will be drawn from scientific polls.
Also, I won’t argue that the majority of Tea Partiers are racists or radicals. What I will argue, though—and what the polls show—is that an alarming proportion of them are.
You probably saw the latest Harris poll about Republican views of Obama. Granted, these are Republicans and not Tea Partiers per se, but there is definitely overlap between the groups. Here are the poll’s findings:
* 67 percent of Republicans (and 40 percent of Americans overall) believe that Obama is a socialist.
* 57 percent of Republicans (32 percent overall) believe that Obama is a Muslim
* 45 percent of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was “not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president”
* 38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is “doing many of the things that Hitler did”
* Scariest of all, 24 percent of Republicans (14 percent overall) say that Obama “may be the Antichrist.”
I’d bet that these numbers hold true for the Tea Party movement, unless you’d care to argue that Tea Partiers are more moderate than self-identified Republicans.
The poll doesn’t establish that the majority of Tea Partiers are racist or radical, but thoughtful conservatives like yourself, Marc, ought to be horrified by just how prevalent these racist and radical views are on the right.
Even if the crazies are a small minority within the Tea Party movement, conservative organizers facilitate their being a very vocal minority. This year’s CPAC convention, for example, was co-hosted by the far-right and paranoiac John Birch Society, which dismissed the civil rights movement as a communist conspiracy.
At least early on, the Constitution Party was an important organizer for the Tea Party movement. This is concerning given the party’s extensive ties to the League of the South, a racist neo-Confederate organization. The LoS has advocated outlawing interracial marriage, deporting Jews and Arabs, and disenfranchising all but white landowning males over twenty-one. President Michael Hill went so far as to call slavery a “God-ordained” institution.
Incredibly, the Constitution Party ran a member of LoS, Michael Peroutka, as their 2004 presidential candidate.
The founding figure of the Tea Party movement was Ron Paul, who unsuccessfully ran for president in 2008 and who remains the favorite 2012 pick of CPAC conservatives.
Paul knowingly took campaign funds from white supremacists, like Stormfront founder Don Black.
His political newsletter (“The Ron Paul Political Report”), which ran from the mid-80s to late 90′s, often published racist nonsense:
Paul was very sympathetic to the Confederate cause and decried Lincoln’s emancipation of the slave via the Civil War. Paul believed that blacks are naturally inclined to crime and that very few blacks were not criminals. “If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be,” said one newsletter. The newsletters routinely mocked Martin Luther King, Jr. and claimed the civil rights movement was a communist concoction. It also warned that there was an impending race war and advised whites to buy guns because “the animals are coming.” Paul also presumably wrote that New York should be renamed “Lazyopolis,” “Dirtburg,” Rapetown,” or “Zooville” because of its low-income black population.
Ron Paul has made his political career out of courting crazies and racists. I think today’s Tea Party movement and its overheated rhetoric continues to attract these same people.
The list of statistics you cite, Jon, is alarming. But I’d be interested in seeing what percentage of the radical left had similarly ridiculous and obnoxious views. And it would be interesting to see how many general Democrats shared those views. Bush with swastikas signs were practically routine for a while. The hatred of Bush became pretty irrational. Were Democrats sufficiently “horrified” over these things? Pelosi recently (and rightly) expressed outrage at some signs comparing Obama to Hitler. But her outrage is awfully selective, I don’t recall hearing her say much about the fanatical quality of a considerable amount of the Bush hater movement. And I don’t recall msnbc and other channels leading the stories about left wing protests against Bush by focusing on the few who were over the top. Hmmm.
I googled around and this sampling came up:
http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=612
Is calling Obama a socialist more or less absurd than calling Bush a war criminal or a theocrat? I think it is considerably less absurd. (Bear in mind I am not a tea-partier and I was not in favor of the war in Iraq).
But to be clear, my primary objection to the Tea Party movement has nothing to do with the bigotry I perceive in the movement. More than the racial and homophobic epithets, I get most offended by the libertarian philosophy that undergirds it, like the notion that we don’t owe anything to society–that all we’ve earned all that we own, and that the less well-off were just irresponsible/lazy and have earned their circumstances. Unlike the racism and homophobia, I do think this is the prevailing philosophy of the Tea Party movement.
This is essentially the point I was making in my post:
“Too many of these people (though certainly not all) do not understand themselves are their brother’s keeper. They’re intoxicated by this libertarian notion of the self as something distinct from “the other.”
In short, their philosophy is me-oriented, not we-oriented. If health care reform doesn’t pass, I feel as though we are surrendering to that philosophy. And that terrifies me. The very prospect has literally brought me to tears as I write this (and that’s saying something, given how stoic and unemotional I usually am).”
Sure, the left has its loons. A lot of Dems bought into 9/11 conspiracy theories, for example: http://www.scrippsnews.com/911poll
And yes, there were too many swastikas at anti-war rallies.
The difference though, Dr. Kleiner, is that the Democrats didn’t court the far-left fringe. The Republicans, however, are courting The Tea Party movement (perhaps because it’s too large a fringe to ignore). The Tea Party movement is a mainstream movement within the political right. They are the political kingmakers on the right, as I think was evidenced by the CPAC convention where Ron Paul was the favorite 2012 pick.
Also, I don’t remember prominent Democratic politicians parroting the rhetoric of the far-left. You didn’t hear Democrats promote 9/11 conspiracy theories on the Congress floor, for example. But Republican politicians have often exploited and advanced theories that Obama wasn’t born in the US and that health care meant “pulling the plug on grandma.”
For the record, I don’t care that people call Obama a “socialist.” By my definition, I agree that he is–but so has every politician in recent history been. Republicans Teddy Roosevelt and Richard Nixon, for example, both proposed far more ambitious and socialist health care plans than Obama did. I find it more objectionable when Obama is called a Nazi or a closet Muslim terrorist.
I should also disclose that I do think Bush and many of his officials are war criminals. But I’m sympathetic with Noam Chomsky’s view that “if the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.” Not that they should be hanged(!) but that they could have been.
Our involvement in Vietnam and Cambodia, Reagan’s involvement in Iran-Contra and his meddling in Central American affairs, Ford’s support for the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, Bush Sr’s invasion of Panama, Clinton’s bombing of Libya and his enforcement of a draconian sanction of Iraq…all of these presidents took illegal actions where foreign policy is concerned, I’m convinced.
I hope that didn’t open a can of worms—I don’t care to revisit those issues. I’d refer people to Stephen Kinzer’s book “Overthrow.”
http://www.amazon.com/Overthrow-Americas-Century-Regime-Change/dp/0805078614
The popular narrative (and the one Jon puts forth) is that the “radical right” is a big and influential part of Republican tent but that the radical left (and let’s be honest, no one really talks about them) are a small and incidental part of the Democrats’ tent. I’m not convinced.
If the far-left were really all that influential, why didn’t more push for a single-payer health care system or even a public option? Why haven’t we withdrawn already from Iraq? Why haven’t prominent Democratic officials called to put Bush and co. on trial for war crimes? I don’t see any evidence that the Democratic Party is listening to the far-left.
Prominent Republicans, however, are listening to their crazies. Sarah Palin and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) have fanned the fears that “Obamacare” would lead to euthanasia of the elderly and the mentally handicapped. Republicans have offered several bills in the Congress demanding to see Obama’s birth certificate, etc.
And even were the far-left as crazy and influential as the far-right (and I don’t think that’s the case), that wouldn’t then justify the actions and the rhetoric of the latter. So at worst, my criticisms of the Tea Party movement are hypocritical, but not wrong.
Kleiner’s right that few talk about them, and in fact for many years they were considered the voice of true patriotism (how funny that for one side its “independent thinking” and “courage” “true patriotism” and the other side its bigotry and partisanship and racism.) I also agree that both sides have mostly sheltered some of these elements. I can’t recall many republicans on cspan (for what its worth) talking about death panels, though some would bring up something like that with their silly posters or whatever, but the democrats did the same thing during Obama’s election and during this reform campaign. I did hear democrats argue against republican ideas by citing the Iraq invasion or Bob Dole. The past doesn’t matter, you’re in charge, shut up and move on with actual information. Though to have a slight “past” tangent, Barack Obama has been called bad things, but nothing so suggestive and incendiary as what Bush was called. I don’t think you could make a movie about a group assassinating Barack Obama and it get viewed by many people (and justly so).
I’m not a total libertarian, I don’t know if the TEA Party has enough identity to say they are either (which makes that term with “party” a bit funny). I also don’t think people voting for a party means they are just that party in disguise, there’s going to be backlash against the controlling party as there tends to be everytime. What I think has happened is that some people were legitimately concerned with the direction of the country in regards to what they consider healthy policy for a flourishing culture (not just existing or nice looking but flourishing) and unfortunately they’ve been swarmed with rebellious fools. The difference between this time and what happened under the decline of the Bush presidency is that the news blowhards called one heroes against a tyrant and the other vile and hatefilled and stupid. Barack Obama is a Muslim terrorist=Bush is the tyrannical Antichrist.
I’m with Harrison and many others, I would like to see changes, but responsible ones, and I don’t know if this law will do that. Using hyperemotional statements like the 45,000 dying without substantial proof is what to my mind put the Democrats on a lower level. They’ve been doing this for years now and it got them in the White House and huge sweeping legislation. (Not to politicize all this into camps, the reps had a lot of the same nonsense, they just made better arguments)
An interesting (I think) piece by Brett Stevens on this whole thing, off his amerika.org blog: http://www.amerika.org/2010/organization/paternalism/
Note, the bit about the crowd wanting an easy truth isn’t talking about religious groups, and while I know very few teachers that would fit his “former group” of professors, I think some here in the Polisci and philosophy dept. of USU would fit that former group.
One con that I see with this health care reform is that now, everyone HAS to have insurance. Is that correct? Some people like to have a big savings account and pay for medical expenses when they need to, instead of paying continual insurance bills. Is that not allowed anymore?
Everyone is mandated to have health insurance, correct. There are several exemptions to this mandate, however. If you can’t afford health insurance, you can be exempted for example. But if you can afford it and don’t get health insurance, then you’re liable to pay a yearly fee of about $700 dollars.
I read this as you asking “are big savings accounts not allowed anymore?”