Those of you who watch this blog regularly (both of you!) know that from time to time, I attempt to reach out to people who disagree with me (or sometimes, some of you — you know who you are (*cough* Ryan *cough*) — bring them here) and attempt to dialog.

In my case, I want to see if they have facts I don't know about, or, lacking that, if they themselves sincerely want to do good (that is, help the poor, bring as much health as possible to the sick, minimize death and increase happiness in the world) or if they just want to think of themselves as "good" people, even if that means inflicting harm on others, or wrongly demonizing their opponents.

Tom Degan is a blogger who has opposite political views of mine, but has actually said a few kind words to me, so I wonder how he'd respond to the answers he seems to ask for on his blog. So I wonder if he'd back up his claims of caring for the poor, wanting to do good, etc — and wanting to bring "the right" to task for lacking the same, as he sees it — with a bit of dialog.

Just to pick two topics that seem to concern him:

War & Peace

This post assumes that conservatives actually know liberal ideas regarding peace and national security are right, and that Jesus would have been horrified by the typical modern conservative's idea of how to keep peace:

Watching George W. Bush at the funeral of Teddy Kennedy yesterday was, to say the very least, amusing.... the basic tenets of Liberalism are in perfect harmony with our Christianity... Oh, how I wish the camera would have cut to Bush's face the moment he was confronted with the most famous line (and justly so) from the Gospel according to Matthew:

"I tell you this: whatever you did to the least of these brothers of mine, you did to me."....

"Blessed are the peace makers
For they shall be called Sons of God."

I imagine being confronted with the words of Jesus Christ might make old George just a tad uneasy.... Surely Bush and those like him must realize that the teachings of the Prince of Peace are so diametrically opposed to the agenda of the modern-day Conservative movement, that it has gone beyond parody.

Conservatives can explain, all day long, that they think the policies of the left harm people and lead to more deaths (and give evidence, as I'll do in a moment), and yet, somehow, the left really thinks the right actually believes in liberal ideas, but is just somehow evil in their heart — and knows it. From the right, we think we have a policy dispute. From the left, they think there is NO policy dispute — we just pretend to disagree with them because, for some unknown reason, many of us want to make the world a worse place.

To Tom: I started out, as a Christian, as a pacifist. I believed it was even immoral to join the military. Over the years, I have come to believe that pacifism is deadly. That there is a time for one to turns one's own individual cheek, in martyrdom, even (a passage most Christians misunderstand), but a purpose of government is to protect the innocent — including by using force, such by the police and the military.

In the case of the Iraq war, I struggled with the question, but resolved it (in part) by comparing pre-war death rates in Iraq with what I expected from the war and post-war. I was not wrong: last I checked, there were, net, easily 200,000 Iraqis and other alive today (and growing every year) who would not be alive otherwise. Now, I could be mistaken (feel free to bring up evidence and facts!) but the point is that the motive here is to minimize death, and maximize peace. It would be delightful to me, even if the left felt they had better facts, if (besides pointing them out) some of their members would at least acknowledge we have a disagreement over policy, instead of pretending we on the right know leftists have better policies, and we're just somehow trying to inflict evil on the world.

As far as Tom's implication that Jesus would have been shocked and stunned at the alleged evils inflicted on the world by the previous administration (waterboarding KSM three times, firing a gun in another room to make a suspect think his life might be in danger, etc) I suggest that Tom should take more time to understand Jesus's world and his views. The Roman government was far more draconian and violent than our own, and yet Jesus seem to sanction all that, and spent most of his effort telling people to examine and judge themselves rather than some far-away politician.

For example: when Jesus was told that Pilate had slaughtered a number of Jews, in the temple, who were offering sacrifices, instead of condemning Pilate, he suggested the crowd should consider if they, too, had sinned in a manner deserving that kind of death. When Jesus stood before Pilate, he noted that God had given Pilate, as leader, power over life and death, even the power to crucify: "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above..." (John 19:11, Romans 13 says the same) Jesus would have not been shocked at all by an administration where a gunshot was fired in the next room (or a person was made to stand for a long time) — such tactics would have been gentle and cushy by the standards he neglected to condemn in his time.

My point here isn't that Jesus was a "warmonger" (nor that I think the Roman government was ideal — not at all) — just that his views were highly complex, and don't match at all with the cartoonish version of him so popular on the left. Some of the things he said were far further to "the right" than anything you'd hear out of Don Rumsfeld's mouth. That should lead us to introspection and thoughtful debate about what he meant and wants from us, not simplistic name-calling and condemnations.

Healthcare

The question here, again, is "what works best?" Tom speaks as though "the right" is just scared because they're sheep, and speaks as though we either have never heard left-wing views, or are so morally flawed that we simply don't want whatever works best. To the contrary, my own observation is that the left isn't hearing our answers, and doesn't engage or think about them seriously.

Quoting his brother, Tom notes that some people have good experiences with European hospitals (France and England). True! But anecdotes are useful for illustration, not making policy. (I could cite my own experience with Danish healthcare — what I saw there (albeit when I was younger) was far worse than what I'd see here.) But you have to look at larger trends than "my brother had two good experiences and, hey, checkups and kids' drugs are free!"

While his brother asserts: "The quality of the care? Mostly good," the Telegraph notes a regular pattern of "cruel and neglectful" care of over one million NHS patients, while the Daily Mail notes that healthcare shortages in the UK have forced "4,000 mothers to give birth in lifts, offices and hospital toilets." These don't emanate from some right-wing US politician, so it's understandable that, noting such, people in the US might be a bit hesitant to rush into that experience.

Now truly, perhaps these reports are also flawed in some way, or also lacking perspective. But even if so, that doesn't lead us to a worldview where the left is just so obviously correct and moral that they can criticize and demonize their opponents are brainless sheep or immoral and uncaring.

Don't let them try to fool you into believing that it hasn't worked Over There. It has. If the British health care system is so bloody awful, why has it been adopted by every other nation (but ours) in the industrialized world?

Politicians adopt many stupid things. (Eugenics was once popular all over the industrialized world too.) I tend to look at the choices being made by individuals, and notice that where people have a choice (such as at the Canadian border) a lot of people tend to prefer to come to the US for treatment — not many US citizens sneaking into Canada for healthcare (though I suspect a few have, in honesty).

An even more telling point is that many of these same politicians refuse the "public option" in their own lives, visiting private clinics (or clinics otherwise not available to the public, or traveling abroad) for healthcare, or putting their own children into private schools rather than public ones.

NOTE TO THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT: When Jesus healed the sick, He did not disqualify anyone because of a "preexisting condition". A little something I think you might want to ponder.

The point here is that health insurance companies shouldn't exclude pre-existing conditions. Yet if a person is wealthy enough to cover their own non-insured condition, why should an insurance company be forced to pay for it? And if a person is too poor to cover their own healthcare, hasn't the argument been that medicare or medicaid should cover them? Why is that suddenly the responsibility of insurance companies, rather than, as the left has always argued, the government? Wasn't the institution of medicare and medicaid supposed to have solved this problem?

Further, if that's a good idea, why not force coverage of "pre-existing conditions" on auto and home insurance too? Aren't homes and cars important also? People could just wait until they have an accident, or disaster, and then run out and buy "insurance" against that, and then cancel right after the repairs are finished. Of course, then insurance would become impossibly expensive, so the argument would be that the the government should foot the bill and impose price controls or mandate universal insurance coverage. In the end, what results is either "Romneycare" (which Democrats don't seem to be proposing at the moment) or a socialized system where the government ultimately pays the all bills or sets all the rates.

And that returns us to a question of which system works best, provides the best healthcare, and saves the most lives. A policy dispute, not a failure of concern or morality, as the quip above implies.

And here's another tasty little question to munch on: why is it that the English live, on average, two years longer than we do? Can it be the fish 'n' chips? I kind of doubt it.

Because of reasons which have nothing to do with healthcare, Tom. If you factor out "fatal injury" deaths (such as fatal auto accidents and homicide, which aren't preventable by today's healthcare systems) the US turns out to have a higher life expectancy than these countries. And doesn't that then imply, by your argument, that you should be recommending our medical system over theirs?

Wrap-Up

Tom says he has taken time out "to become a freaking civics teacher." He speaks as though he wants whatever helps people and is moral. He writes as though the right has never heard the left's views and considered them (we're lacking crucial information) or that we already know he and peers are correct, but just choose to be, somehow unaccountably evil.

Yet his arguments are well-known among the right, and yet he seems ignorant of the standard responses and evidence given, such as those mentioned above. Why is this? For example, if he thinks life expectancy is important, then will he support the healthcare system which produces almost the highest healthcare-related life expectancy in the world? If he thinks it's important to produce peace and lowered death tolls, will he seriously engage the question of what policies have that result?

If he says he wants to know why the right refuses to answer him on this question or that one, will he even bother to read and answer this piece?

Is he sincere or not?

We'll find out shortly.