Many political arguments in America are a mixture of both well-reasoned arguments and hysteria, prudent caution and fear-mongering.
Take health care reform. The U.S. bishops concluded — reasonably — that Catholics could not support the recently passed legislation because it was fundamentally flawed from a moral perspective for failing to provide adequate protection for the unborn, conscience rights and fairness to immigrants. They also concluded that the 11th hour “executive order” compromise was inadequate and are now pushing HR 5111. The head of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, said a bipartisan bill before the House of Representatives would bring the new health reform law “into line with policies on abortion and conscience rights that have long prevailed in other federal health programs.” This demonstrates the possibility that exists for enacting health care legislation in this country and still protecting the unborn.
The spectre of death panels, on the other hand, was a far less reasonable objection to have been raised in the health care reform debate. They were something that simply never appeared in any of the several bills in a couple of congressional committees.
The fascinating thing about many of those who were unequivocally and vocally opposed to health care reform is that they have become the unpaid army conscripts of the for-profit insurance and pharmaceutical giants, the very forces that today see to their own death panels that deny coverage for pre-existing medical conditions. The fear that government will “socialize” health care coverage, allowing competition with insurers who will be allowed to continue selling insurance, seizes them. Yet they have no such fear that government has been successfully running (note the adjective) Social Security successfully, so much so that they unblinkingly cash their SS checks while protesting big government. The only trouble Social Security has is the tendency of Congress to borrow from its treasury to pay other unrelated bills, like the monstrous allotment to arms. Now arms are Big Government. We lavish without any fear of hideous collectivism 60 percent of discretionary federal dollars on the Pentagon.
This Catholic newspaper and most others like it have reported that the U.S. bishops have testified before Congress in favor of health care reform that protects the unborn and sees to everyone being insured. This astounds some Catholics. It does not matter to those who know it that most industrialized countries have had universal health coverage for generations. Why are such prosperous and in fact healthier Europeans not paralyzed with paranoia about deadly socialism when it comes to government-run health insurance?
I think some people’s fears are because of “igmathwee.” My spell-check just choked on it, too. It’s like nimby, an acronym that has entered the language: not in my back yard. Like nimby, it is an attitude of stark selfishness, of un-Catholic disregard for the common good, so steeped are we Americans in egoistical consumerism, in rugged individualism, in positively ruthless contempt for a sense of responsibility for being my brother’s and sister’s keeper.
It stands for I got mine and the heck with everybody else. I. Me. That’s all that counts. Government exists to protect and enrich and gratify me. Not you or, God forbid, them. Screamers at town hall meetings and at joint sessions of Congress herald it.
Our country benefits from debate between the right and the left. But extremism, on either side, and the use of fear tactics and misinformation, diminishes us.
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