19
Aug
As someone who has a Masters in Public Policy, I am always astounded to hear people from all walks of life talk politics and policy. (There is a clear difference between the two that is lost on almost everyone.) But, the chatter from the extremities of American politics at these Town Hall style meetings about health care reform are just preposterous.
A woman openly crying to her Senator that she “wants her country back” as a poorly masked allusion to President Obama’s race.
The woman featured in the video above comparing a public option to Nazism - to, of all people, a Jewish man.
There are countless other examples of people acting out of turn or speaking like they are possessed by the Devil at these sessions.
And, you know what, good for them. They deserve time, too. This is a democratic republic and people should have the right the spew whatever mindless, baseless thought that they want. I’m doing it right now.
But, more importantly, I say good for them because there are plenty of people that are perfectly informed that are equally worthless to this debate. I met a bunch of them in graduate school. They did their homework, learned about issues, and took a fierce - and often divisive - opinion about the best policy remedy to a social, economic, or environmental problem.
But they never did anything about it.
They just complained, mired in their self-applied sense of genius, and did nothing to actually fix the situation at hand. Rather, they were happy to be a member of the intelligentsia that just philosophized about our ills. Do something about it? Why? I can just complain about it to illuminate the path in front of me and hope that someone else will actually roll up their sleeves and do the job.
As Homer Simpson so famously appealed to Springfield when running for Sanitation Director: Can’t someone else do it?
The stunning thing about people with opinions is that they’re often never willing to take the next step. The part where they get informed is easy. The call to action is much more difficult. Vote or Die? If that was the real choice, we would be bringing out the dead in droves - and they wouldn’t be “quite fine.”
Health care reform ilicits quite the response from the American populace. Sure, the American federal government has been effectively socializing many aspects of life for the better part of a century now. That never seemed to stop people from resting on their laurels in anticipation of their Social Security check, Medicaid health plan, and countless other programs funded by our tax dollars.
Why now, then, when a public option - not requirement - is laid out on the table does everyone begin looking for the mark of the beast in Washington?
Health care is a war, people. And we have never been shy as a nation about spending trillions of dollars on war. After all, our country was founded on war and not on genuine equality for all. We had to amend our Constitution to reflect what the Founding Fathers did not really intend. It was not their culture. In many ways, it still is not ours.
But, I’m just opining. I’m a part of the problem. Maybe it’s time for me to call in somebody to do something. Call Ghostbusters to vanquish the Town Hall Slimers, and call my representative to get them to commit to real reform.
