Author Archives: Sheila

Simple Question

If the people insisting that Obama is a fascist/socialist (as if the terms were synonymous–maybe they’ve heard of  “national socialism” and are too ignorant of history to know the difference) had legitimate grievances about the various healthcare proposals on the table, wouldn’t they talk about those, rather than making shit up?

I mean, why invent “provisions” that clearly don’t exist, provisions that have been debunked by multiple credible sources and can easily be seen as fictitious by anyone genuinely interested in determining what is true–unless truth is irrelevant and your only goal is to defeat anything this President proposes?

Which leads me to another observation. A number of “tea baggers” have defended the vitriol coming from the right by pointing to accusations made about George W. Bush by the Left. (I believe this criticism falls into the category of “But Mom, he started it!”) In one sense, that’s fair enough–there were certainly some on the left who were excessive in their language and accusations–although as a friend of mine observed, unlike the rightwingers, they were generally not armed. But there is one telling difference between those who were appalled by GWB and those hurling obscenities at Obama–the criticisms of Bush began AFTER HE’D BEEN IN OFFICE FOR TWO/THREE YEARS. They were based upon actions he took. Many of us who came to believe that he was a disaster for the country (and count me among them) came to that conclusion based upon his actual conduct.

In striking contrast, the hysteria over Obama began even before he took office, and almost none of it has been based upon what he has actually said or done. The justifications have been inventions out of whole cloth. These are not people reacting to measures they disagree with; they are looking for reasons to justify their pre-existing hatred. And the only possible explanation for that is racism.

What we are seeing is what happens when a racist wakes up one morning to find a world in which there is not only a black man (Tiger Woods) who is the best golfer in the world, and a black woman (Oprah) who dominates the entertainment industry, (not to mention women of all colors doing all those jobs that used to be reserved for men) but now, a black man in the White House.  What else explains the refrain of people at “town halls” who keep saying “I want my country back”?

Raw bigotry has crawled out from under its usual rocks so we can see it in full display, and it isn’t pretty. Alka-Selzer, anyone?

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Hissy Fits

Conflict is a given in democratic systems. Citizens are expected—nay, encouraged–to bring their different value systems, ideas and political preferences into the public square, where we have not only the right but the duty to make our arguments as forcefully and persuasively as we can. Only after we’ve aired the relevant pros and cons in our lively but civil marketplace of ideas do we select the winners in a fair and square, open process. We elect the most persuasive candidate, or we pass (or defeat) the proposed legislation. Everyone gets a say, we have a fair fight, and everyone abides by the result.

 Or so the theory goes.

 Unfortunately, this system only works if everyone plays by the rules, broadly conceived. Another way to put that is the system only works if the participants are grown-ups.

 I can remember when my sons were small. Telling a two-year-old who doesn’t want to share his toy that “time’s up, now it’s Johnny’s turn” would more often than not be met with a tantrum, and screams of “no! mine!” Some of the footage we’ve been seeing on the evening news has reminded me forcefully of those less-than-idyllic moments of motherhood. We see people showing up at Congressional “town halls” with guns, or signs accusing the administration of being “Nazis.” We’ve even seen people biting each other! (Talk about angry toddlers!)

 Now, people are refusing to let their children hear President Obama tell them to study hard and stay in school. (It’s communist indoctrination!)

 There’s no polite way to say this, folks. This is nuts.

 Now, this is the place in the discussion when someone can be counted on to sputter that they “have a right” to say their piece. And they do. I absolutely agree. But just because you have a right to do something doesn’t mean that doing it is appropriate, or helpful, or smart. Name-calling—especially when it is abundantly clear that the person hurling the accusation has no clue what “socialist” or “Nazi” really means—is about as persuasive as a two-year-old’s shriek.

When people on the left called Bush a Nazi, they made it much more difficult for people with principled and very specific concerns to be heard. When people on the right throw hissy fits, they  drown out more thoughtful and reasonable critics, making it easy—if unfair—to dismiss all opposition as unhinged. When we see television clips of people who have gone off the deep end because there is a black family in the White House, it makes it tempting to paint all opposition as racist.

Many of us were dismayed when Bush won in 2004, but he was elected, he was the President and we had to suck it up and live with it. We made our arguments, we registered our protests and we waited for the next election. It’s time for these rabid Obama haters to grow up and do the same.

You win some, you lose some. It’s called democracy.

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Our Public Discourse

The Board of Directors of the American Society for Bioethics has issued a statement responding to accusations about “death panels” that have become a theme of attacks on healthcare reform efforts. The final paragraph of that statement reads as follows:

“The Board of Directors of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities deplore the attempts by opponents of health care reform to scare the public by parodying bioethicists’ efforts to promote respect for patients’ wishes concerning compassionate care at the end of life. Ripping language from its context in a living will or policy proposal can easily make any document or mechanism sound inhumane and cruel, but it is a form of dishonesty that merits only contempt.”

In fact, “dishonesty that merits only contempt” has characterized this entire debate. Insults have replaced arguments; ad hominem attacks and threats have replaced reason and evidence. “Facts” have been manufactured out of whole cloth. It is very depressing for those of us who teach public policy. It makes me wonder whether democratic self-government is really possible.

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