I keep getting into... I don't know what to call them, they aren't discussions because normally the other people wind up trying to insult me or screaming at me, they aren't arguments because the other people speaking can't find a way to defend their ideas, so I am not quite sure how to refer to the silly little verbal jousting matches I have found myself in lately over health care reform. I think I know how to avoid getting into any more of these confrontations though.
To those of you who oppose health care, I have found that the vast majority of you already have insurance through either a private health insurer or through a program like Medicare. The few of you who don't have health insurance are such a small minority that you are statistically unimportant, so to the uninsured opponents of health care, ignore the rest of this blog. All of you are free to continue yelling at me. You still won't make any sense, but feel free.
To those of you who have health coverage through a plan like Medicare and who oppose health care reform and I can say is, what the hell are you thinking? You are being served by a program that is guilty of anything you could accuse the new health care reform plan of being, actually it is guilty of much more, and yet you are complaining about the new plan? OK, there is no reason to take you seriously so shut up, put your Obama is a socialist signs away and go home. You have nothing to add to this debate.
To the rest of you. Those of you who have insurance might have an actual argument to make against health care reform and so I beg of you, please make it.
Please tell me how the new law impacts your health care in any way, shape, form or fashion. Don't tell me what you heard so fat guy on the radio say or what you heard some blubbering guy on TV say as he wiped the tears away from his eyes, no, tell me what the final version of the law says. Tell me how the actual law effects your health care. Show me exactly in the law where it says you won't be able to keep your doctor or current insurance plan. Show me where in the law it sets up the death panels you talked about so much a few months ago. Show me just how it effects you negatively.
Don't try and say you dislike this law because it takes away some amorphous freedom you think you used to have because none of you were carrying signs and spitting on congressmen when President Obama renewed the Patriot Act, a law that actually does take away rights and freedoms from the citizens of this country and involves the government in our lives in ways that should concern all of us. No, none of you said a word about that. But for some reason you think that health care reform is going to turn us into a North American version of the Soviet Union. Well here is your chance, show us unbelievers exactly where in the law it does this. Show us where it says that if you don't have health insurance the government will lock you away. Show us where the law has the government taking over anything. Show us. There is a convenient comment section below. Use it to show us where the actual law proves us wrong. I dare you.
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If you assume a common bond and literal or spiritual connection of all humanity and you assume that abortion is an immoral act, and you assume that one is responsible for things done without their consent but with their taxes... then pro-lifers might have reason to feel that the inclusion of abortion in the bill makes them guilty of it, which could lead to moral dissidence for those individuals.
ReplyDeleteor, if you are a sociopath (or capitalist), and consequently altruism is against your belief system, then the bill is immoral to you.
or maybe, assuming you're a privately insured taxpayer, who is also a shareholder in health insurance companies, then it might lead to reason that your income could suffer. to work though, this would need to assume that you are also the previous person for whom altruism is inconsistent with your beliefs.
in all seriousness though, I'll be surprised if anyone will answer your question. You're making an incorrect assumption about the motives of those in opposition to the health care reform, you're assuming they are interested in reason and making sense. I don't see any evidence to support that assumption.
Of course the reasoning behind this post wasn't to get a bunch of tea party types to respond with thoughtful, logical, reasonable answers as to why they oppose health care reform. I realize that would be too much to ask. The reason for this post was to challenge those who are opposed to health care reform to put serious thought into why they are opposed to it and to realize that their opposition is based on lies, lies they have heard from others and believed and lies they have told themselves. I posted something very similar in a discussion on Facebook that was started by an Obama hater (that is what their ideology comes down to, they hate Obama and any thing that he supports. If he had come out against health care reform they would have been all for it) and most of the participants were tea baggers as well. Challenging them to show how this law effects them ended the discussion, none of them could come up with a single thing to say.
ReplyDeleteI seriously doubt this will turn any of them into reasonable human beings but maybe, just maybe, it will cause them to stop and think, something they aren't used to doing. If they would just put a little bit of thought into what they are saying they would have to admit that they might sound a little bit ridiculous and maybe this would allow us to start having real conversations instead of shouting matches.