I feel like this whole heath care reform has brought up a lot of issues. I’m going to try and touch on a few of them now without going too much into the reform itself. That’s going to be a beast to tackle in another post. So on to the slightly more veiled issues.

First, the way the political system of this country has devolved into being almost totally based on the person with the “right” answer being simply the one who is shouting the loudest is waring on me. I’ve met America, I know much of it is rather dumb. But I thought the people making decisions might be able to muster a little more sense. Apparently I was wrong. Sure, there are a number of elected officials trying to sort out the mess, but they’re simply being drowned out by the voices of the ignorant, who are being fueled by their Congressmen, Senators, and preferred media demagogue. It used to make me angry. Now I’m just growing weary of it. I’m not sure if anything can overcome the sheer volume of nonsense. And it only seems to be growing. But I keep trying anyway. And hopefully this project that Natalie and I have started will help with that.

I do wonder what the point is behind all this yelling. It must have started for a reason. And what keeps fueling it? The absurdity of protest signs like “Keep your government hands out of my Medicare” makes me think the people carrying those signs aren’t quite smart and/or informed enough to start a movement on their own. Because if they were then they may just have realized that Medicare is a government program, which would seem to necessitate the involvement of the government. Same goes for the people who rail against the “evil insurance companies” and then scream about it being unfair to those same companies to have a public option for health care. You can’t take both sides. Or can you? It seems like so many people are. Does the system we seem to have now allow for complete contradictions to go unchallenged?

So eliminating those people from contention, who else could have started this mess? It seems to me to be a movement originating in the minority party in the government. I could be wrong, but they almost seem hellbent on simply making sure the President and a Congress led by Democrats fails at whatever they try to do, even (especially?) if it hurts the people of this country. Is getting elected next time around so important to them that they would hurt the people they’re supposedly representing? It does tend to look that way.

(As a side note, I want to state right now that my intent throughout the entirety of this blog is not to bash one party exclusively. I don’t belong to any party and my political views put neither of the major parties in the right in my mind. I just don’t believe in government period. It doesn’t work. Giving anyone that much power will inevitably lead them to abuse it, no matter how well intentioned they were when accepting that power. But, since people aren’t ready to live without government, I’d like to make the one I live under as good as it can be. So if it seems like I’m ever picking on one party more than the other just wait a little bit, I’m sure the other guys will do something stupid soon enough for me to get on their case about.)

So now that I think I’ve found where it started, what keeps this movement going? The people who have taken up the cause of shutting down the reform aren’t all politicians. So why have they taken up a cause that will at the very best leave them in no better a place than they are now? This really had me stumped. And I still can’t come up with a definitive answer. As much as I don’t want to believe it, part of me does think it’s an underlying racism that’s helped fuel the fire. The pictures of Obama as Hitler display a hatred that’s hard to ignore. And disagreements on policy decisions just don’t seem to generate that kind of hate. Dislike, sure. Frustration, yeah. But outright hate? I’ve never seen anything like that before. So despite my reluctance, I just can’t shake the feeling that that’s at least part of it. But there’s more to it. It’s also plain, outright ignorance. I already mentioned some examples of this. People just aren’t informed on the issue.

But it’s worse than just ignorance. It’s ignorance fueled by misinformation. Some of it appearing to be intentionally disseminated to the blind masses. Death panels, bans on private insurance, enormous costs, rationed care. All fantastic stories, all designed to shock and excite. And anger. Because angry activists seems to be what they really want. Angry outbursts get news coverage. Which gets the false information to more people, creating more angry activists. Which leads to more angry outbursts. And so on.

People in America don’t seem to like to do much thinking. It’s hard. It takes effort. So they latch on to whatever they’re being told without looking for the truth themselves. And they repeat it. Loudly. Which means it must fall to those with the power and means of distributing information to do so responsibly, with care given to being as truthful as possible. Opinions are one thing, I have no problem with the free and unobstructed sharing of opinions, whether I agree with them or not. But when presenting something as a fact, it should be just that. A fact. Truth.

One last thing I’d like to touch on is one of the problems people seem to have with the bill. So many times I’ve heard elected officials and common citizens alike state that they will never support a bill that gives any money to help pay for abortions. Not one dollar. Everyone is entitled to their opinion on that issue itself, but to completely disregard the rest of the bill for that one point seems a bit stubborn and unreasonable. Not to mention a bit ridiculous. Just because I don’t agree with war doesn’t mean I can just not pay my taxes because some of that money might go toward paying for it. That would get me thrown in jail. Sometimes I wish they would do the same to these people. Sometimes.

So that’s all I have for now. Like I said at the beginning, there is more to come on this reform as a whole but I’ve said what I wanted to for now. Remember to keep thinking.

~George