I try my best to avoid my sister on Facebook. Don’t get me wrong, I love her dearly, but since she is a staunch Republican and a very conservative Christian, we don’t have a lot to talk about when it comes to politics and religion. I tend to let her status updates slide by unchallenged, but I couldn’t help commenting on her latest one protesting about health care reform.
My sister, who works for the US Postal Service, is enrolled in what she calls one of those “Cadillac” insurance plans that will be taxed under this new law—and “it ain’t cheap!” she proclaimed. As a good Republican, she believes in the self-regulating power of an unencumbered free market. If insurance companies are allowed to compete freely with one another, she figures, then insurance premiums will go down and people will have more choice. She noted that about 10 companies compete for her health care dollar each year when they have open enrollment. I noted that she may want to rethink her logic since all that competition still means her health insurance “ain’t cheap!”
I was really not trying to pick a fight with her, and decided to back out of the conversation when she told me that the real reason she hates this reform is that she’ll be asked to pay for someone else’s medical care. “I EARN my benefits,” she asserted. In short, health care is a privilege and not a right.
This is the crux of my dilemma. I was raised in the same home with this woman, learned the same values, was taught the same religious dogma, and still, we came out very far apart on matters of equity, social justice, and ideas about how we ought to care for one another. I refuse to fight with my sister about this. We’ve had our battles in the past but have reached a point of truce—we both know where we stand and neither are budging, so we simply agree to disagree, work on issues dear to both of us, and love one another. Do we still have skirmishes from time to time? Yes, usually around the holidays, but we try to be civil to one another.
Civility seems to be a casualty of this health care debate. Members of Congress were spat on, called racial and sexual slurs, and demeaned by a group of “Tea Party” protestors before the historic vote over the weekend, prompting Majority leader Steny Hoyer to issue a statement: “On the one hand, I am saddened that America’s debate on health care—which could have been a national conversation of substance and respect—has degenerated to the point of such anger and incivility. But on the other, I know that every step toward a more just America has aroused similar hate in its own time; and I know that John Lewis, a hero of the civil rights movement, has learned to wear the worst slurs as a badge of honor.”
I, too, am saddened by the lost potential in this debate. We could have had a great national conversation on what it means to be our brother or sister’s keeper. I recall one Tea Party rally last summer where a woman, sick after being denied health insurance, was shouted down by the crowd who were outraged that they might be asked to help lend a hand and pay for her insurance. They didn’t want to do that. Like my sister, they EARNED their insurance, and if she’s too sick to work, then too bad, so sad.
I find it distressing that those who crow the loudest about how the United States is a “Christian nation” are the very ones who would deny health care to the “least of these”—those who can’t afford it because of skyrocketing insurance rates, those who have lost their jobs—thus the chance to “earn” those benefits, and those who haven’t yet had the opportunity to “earn” it because they are young and can’t find jobs. Jesus was very clear that we are to take care of one another, that we should love our neighbor as ourselves, something even Paul reiterated in his letter to the Galatians, urging us to “be servants of one another” (Gal. 5:13), instead of biting and consuming each other. Sadly, instead of displaying the love Jesus might expect from a nation presumed to follow his teachings, we have eagerly devoured one another in this whole health care debate.
I understand that each revolutionary moment in our history has been filled with some manner of acrimony, and perhaps whatever we’re living through will always seem the worst of the worst, but it really does feel like this is getting out of hand and will come to no good end. I agree with Wayne Besen from Truth Wins Out that conservatives have gone too far this time.
The very strategy of today’s conservative movement is an affront to this nation. They incite their most fervent and fanatic followers by questioning the legitimacy of America’s leaders and institutions. They engage in legislative obstruction. And, many of these zealots believe that God commands them to rule, while anyone else is a usurper of the natural political order.
The results of this growing belligerence can be seen in a new Harris poll of Republicans that reveals “two-thirds think he’s a socialist, 57 percent a Muslim—and 24 percent say ‘he may be the Antichrist.'”
The hateful rhetoric hasn’t just affected the opinions of conservatives, though. The poll is alarming in that it shows overall, 32 percent of those polled believe the president is a Muslim (and we need to then ask, what’s wrong with that?), a quarter believe that Obama wasn’t born in the United States and 14 percent believe him to be the Antichrist, even though classic prophecy in this area requires him to be a Jew. But wait, there’s more:
The full results of the poll are even more frightening: including news that high percentages of Republicans—and Americans overall—believe that President Obama is “racist,” “anti-American” “wants the terrorists to win” and “wants to turn over the sovereignty of the United States to a one-world government.” The “Hatriot” belief that Obama is a “domestic enemy” as set forth in the Constitution is also widely held—a sign of trouble yet to come.
As the Senate takes its next step to pass the revisions to the new law, I can’t help but think that the process is cruelly and ironically named: “reconciliation.” The true reconciliation that we badly need is nowhere in sight. In fact, Republicans have promised increased rancor over this whole process, as Sen. John McCain swore:
“There will be no cooperation for the rest of the year,” he said. “They have poisoned the well in what they’ve done and how they’ve done it.”
Buckle up. We’re not done with the name calling, spitting, and threats. We’re just getting started.
