The Power of Bad Faith! Prophesying a “Death Panel” for Health Care Reform
Faith is a positive factor in the world of most!
Faith creates and contributes to a certain buoyancy of life. And the kind of faith of which I am referring is hardly limited to or in the sole possession of those who subscribe to an organized religion. Rather it is the human capacity to eke out a vision of positive change despite negative evidence to the contrary. Positive faith allows us to summon our better angels while resisting our base temptations.
Faith can be a beautiful thing!
It doesn’t have to be, however. Faith is a neutral category. Just as one’s faith can foster attitudes of sincere hope and sober optimism, it can also cultivate defeatist dispositions and pessimistic postures. It’s like the proverbial half full or empty glass. Some may believe in what’s possible while others commit themselves to cynicism and the status quo. It’s this latter type of negative faith that has led too many down the path of self-inflicted demise. This is how I interpret the otherwise illogical responses to America’s current health care debate.
According to a new Gallup poll, the populations who are most inclined to believe mistruths about President Obama’s healthcare proposal live in states that have the highest numbers without insurance coverage. Southern states like Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana and Georgia where at minimum an excess of 20% of residents are uninsured. So it seems that he parts of the country that are most in need of health care reform are most likely to have citizens who decry “socialism” and believe in government initiated “death panels.”
Now it would be easy to dismiss ardent health care reform opponents as politically manipulated cogs at best and racially-insensitive ignoramuses at worst. The latter view is particularly understandable after witnessing protesters deploy images of Hitler and Nazism with such little, if any, regard for survivors and descendants of the Holocaust. But that would be too simple.
I would argue that it isn’t just about political ideology, but a rugged-individualist theology. The raucous and uncompromising critics are not just misinformed cretins, but rather embody a slavish belief in a mythic liberty over against a corrupt government. The collective state is always bad and we as individuals, in the spirit of William Ernest Henley, are the masters of our fate and the captains of our souls. To hell with a government “for the people by the people,” when we can embrace a nebulous idea of freedom. The question of “freedom for what?”, though, remains irrelevant for this faithful tribe of self-proclaimed patriots.
But the problem with this, like all unyielding yet nihilistic forms of faith, is that it obscures the real circumstances of existence and any possibility for positive growth among its adherents. Theological certainty coupled with an insecure social reality is fertile ground for religious fundamentalism. It doesn’t matter whether we are talking about religious fundamentalism in Alabama or Iran, the results are the same. Self-criticism is short-circuited. Logical reasoning is eliminated. And all personal anxieties are projected upon an “evil enemy,” real or constructed.
This explains how a region that can consider itself the “bible belt” full of “value voters” can have the highest rates of divorce, teenage births, and least performing schools. Just as it might explain why those who are actually in most desperate need for their nation to work on their behalf, would rather embrace martyrdom at the altars of individualism.
The possible tragedy of this health care debate, however, is that these right-wing fanatics won’t die alone. They threaten to take with them millions who will succumb to treatable illnesses due to inaccessible and unaffordable healthcare. And by doing so, the zealots with the Hitler posters may just fulfill their own “death panel” prophecy and “pull the plug” on their own grandma!
