Today, Sojourners sent a bit of mail containing this:
Honor Kennedy with Unity
[...] On the occasion of his death, I pray that God may now move us as a nation to address the greatest cause of Sen. Kennedy's life -- the need for a comprehensive reform of the health-care system in America -- as a deeply moral issue and one that calls forth the very best that is within us.
May we honor the life and death of Sen. Edward Kennedy by laying aside the rancor, lies, fear, and even hate that has come to dominate the health-care debate in America this summer, and regain our moral compass by recovering the moral core of this debate: that too many Americans are hurting and suffering in a broken and highly inequitable health-care system, and that it is our moral obligation to repair and reform it -- now.
It's true that "healthcare", broadly speaking, IS a moral issue for Christians. (Jesus often mentioned the need to take care of the sick.) But what's disgusting here is that the is a legitimate debate which needs to occur about HOW we will take care of the sick: which approaches do the most good, and result in the greatest number of alive and healthy participants.
This is a dialog that "the left" (to use an unfortunate but necessary label) is apparently completely unwilling to permit. The word "unity" above is simply a codeword for "don't disagree with us, don't think independently: do whatever we tell you." The left has a fetish for unity — but only around their policies. When it comes to someone else's policy, well, unity be damned: dissent is the highest form of patriotism! (You didn't hear the left demanding we all "unify" around the Iraq war, for example — despite the vast majority of Democratic senators who voted for it.)
Imagine you have a seriously ill loved one: your mother, say. The doctor tells you: 'There are three options for treating her: A, B, & C..." How would you act? Wouldn't you ask about all three options? Wouldn't you try to carefully weigh the pros and cons of each approach? If the doctor was pushing you into option A, wouldn't you ask around about the other treatments, and, if time allowed, get a second opinion? Of course you would: that's what love, the act, entails: you want whatever's best for your loved one, so you listen to and think about tough criticisms of each treatment, you bring up other options, you carefully weigh one against the other.
Yet this is clearly not how the left, speaking broadly, is behaving: they do not act as the loving son or daughter described above. If they did, they'd want to have a national debate before rushing ahead; they'd welcome other options being brought to the table, and they themselves would try to think "outside the box" — as I and so many others would welcome.
Instead, they are demanding that we buy their option as fast as possible, act without thinking, and shut down, rather than answer (using emotional appeals, like a dead senator, and codewords like "Unity!") sincere and well-grounded questions about how their demanded "treatment" has fared in other cases — even for the sick people right next door.
In short, they do not act as if they "love" the sick. Instead, they act like a callous son or daughter, hiding another agenda, who is more than willing to use the spectacle of a loved one's suffering or even death as a way of rushing into some desired situation, and shutting down deliberation as "uncaring" — while telling everyone who will listen, as often as possible, how deeply "caring" they are about the tragedy at hand.
Sorry for being a bit ranty here, but this is how I really feel. There are many ways we could reduce problems with healthcare, helping more people to be healthy, and yet the people controlling the debate today are clearly doing everything possible to prevent the public from having that discussion. There is no possible way for me to believe that someone who acts in this manner actually cares about the sick. It sure isn't the process they would follow for choosing their own medical treatment.