At some point in the past week or so, the health care debate stopped being about health care. Sure, how to reform the health care system – if at all – is what everyone notionally keeps talking about. But you don’t have to listen long to get the distinct feeling that deductibles and co-pays, cost containment and preventative care, government mandates and end-of-life decisions have started to function as a collective cipher through which at least one part of America – a largely white, largely Christian, very angry part – is really talking (and often shouting) about something else entirely.
In Hillsboro, Mo., not too far from where I grew up in the evangelical heart of the Ozark foothills, a furious crowd packed Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill’s town-hall forum on health care earlier this week in order to shout her down practically before she even started speaking. When she asked what the crowd wanted from her if they didn’t want to hear her out on health care, people yelled: “go home.” At a health care town hall in Pennsylvania, one particularly angry man concluded a red-faced harangue of that state’s Republican-turned-Democratic Senator, Arlen Specter, by declaring that Specter would have to stand before God and be judged for his involvement in health care reform. The crowd cheered.
This is not a public discussion, certainly not civil discourse. Indeed, it resembles nothing so much as an uprising among a post-modern Bible Belt whose buckle has come undone. But an uprising against what, exactly?
As Matthew Avery Sutton’s recent post about apocalypticism and the president shows, there are plenty of reasons to think health care reform for many fundamentalist and conservative evangelicals may well be just the latest, most visible evidence that Obama is antichrist. For others, as Frank Schaeffer suggested in another recent piece, opposing health care reform participates in a generations-long effort among evangelicals to aggrandize political power to themselves by obstructing democracy.
More broadly, these examples of religious extremism exist on a continuum of disturbing responses among many evangelicals and others on the far right to Barack Obama’s election to the presidency, and of large progressive majorities in Congress.
Just this week, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported that militia and other paramilitary group formation is on the rise, eerily echoing the kind of activity that preceded the run-up to the Oklahoma City bombing. It’s a chilling report, one suggesting that – without a step away from the brink – we may well look back at incidents such as the murder of George Tiller and the shootings at the Holocaust museum and see the beginnings of a resurgent vigilantism among religious extremists during the age of Obama.
What’s this got to do with the health care debate?
For starters, there’s the guy in New Hampshire who brought a gun (and a sign about watering the tree of democracy with blood from time to time) to a protest outside a recent presidential forum on health care. Interviewing the guy later on Hardball, Chris Matthews was baffled by this, but it makes a certain, scary sense to me.
Having spent a lifetime immersed in the fundamentalist evangelical culture of rural America (first as a Southern Baptist, later as a scholar of religious culture), I’m convinced that all the sound and fury generated by the health care debate is not about health care at all, but about a segment of white, Christian America finding in the health care controversy a sufficiently capacious political occasion to give expression to an intense but incoherent feeling of being displaced from the seat of cultural dominance.
It’s the same feeling of helpless rage animating the revival of the militia movement, the same desperate-times-and-desperate-measures ethos motivating protesters to bring side-arms to public policy debates (a conflation of the first and second amendments that led the blogger Josh Marshall to wonder sardonically about a “transitive property of amendments”).
America right now is full of potential energy supplies for all this rage. Take, for instance, this week’s image of a bi-racial American president of Kenyan descendant giving a hearty White House welcome to a wise – and unmarried -- Latina recently confirmed to one of the most powerful positions in the country. For many conservative and fundamentalist Christians, these types of images quite literally betoken a forsaking of the nation’s Anglo-centric, patriarchal heritage, and in this view we will – we must – as that Pennsylvania protester put it, be judged.
Another way to put it (borrowing Raymond Williams’s formulation): an emergent culture – the multiethnic, politically progressive, increasingly urban, pluralistic and humanist generation of leaders embodied in Barack Obama – is overtaking the once dominant position so long occupied by Americans of Anglo-European descent and committed to a conservative Christian worldview. This point of view is fast becoming what Williams called a “residual” culture, and history provides scant evidence of anyone quietly surrendering to that particular fate.
In this context, there are few issues as capable as health care of accommodating so many of the conspiracy theories, myths, and figments of the imagination galloping like a virus through the newly disempowered right wing of America. And thus does that once imposing, silent majority become ever more radicalized within a gestalt of grievance, alienation, and increasingly, its own self-induced political irrelevance.
Tags: evangelical, health care, obama, reform, religion, white
America is becoming a more mature culture. There is no more Wild West to tame. Industry is transforming. How do we respond? We resist the urge to vilify the people who are carrying the pain of the transformation, we resist our own knee-jerk responses, and we let the psyco-drama play out, intervening only when necessary.
But all I can picture in my head is the scenes in Southpark where the rednecks gather in the streets and shout, "they took 'er jobs!"
Doug, excellent piece. But what's the middle ground between letting the psycho-drama play out (as KAS suggests), which sounds passive to me, and waging a counter-war? Speech and facts. Talking calmly to friends and neighbors about issues, resisting the temptation to get sucked into the emotional jihad. It doesn't help that most mainstream media coverage on health reform is about an emotion -- the anger, and whether it's "real" or Astroturf, and not about the substantive issues themselves. Maybe attacking what lies behind the anger -- fear -- is a place to start. sorry for so many dashes
Very thought-provoking article. I had never considered the evangelical right as being angry with the changes of society, but it is all very clear now. As usual, the Republicans and the right play on this, not knowing what disaster might happen. I guess it's OK as long as you're right. Very right.
As someone who also shares background in rural evangelical territory I appreciate this piece. You said what I had been thinking lately, only you said it better. I especially appreciate that final paragraph.
First of all a Latin women being a supreme justice is not a problem for as you would put it White, Evangelical Christians. The problems is in the depth and scope of her beliefs and convictions. Now about healhcare. I am proud of the people I see standing up for their rights. If those White, Evangelical Christians had never stood up to England, we would not be the great country that we are today. We help, protect, feed more people than Bono could ever think about. The problem lies with this healthcare proposal is in the way it seems to devalue life and give no one another alternative. Obama and his cronies want us to depend on the federal government for everything. He is a man on a mission and that mission is "change". Do we really want or need the "change" he is proposing is what these we really deserve to know. But we are lied to from the media, from our politicians, from our bankers, from pretty much everybody and people are sick of it. I stand behind those AARP members who raised concerns when someone that is supposed to be working for them is working against them. I could go on but I am sure you get the gist of what I am saying.
Thank you for this. I am getting tired of people trying to make this into a race issue, which is absurd. Government is taking over industries one-by-one, and our freedoms along with them. Medicare, Medicade, and Social Security are already in the red; we should fix that before taking on more expenses that our children and grandchildren will have to pay for. Where is the compassion in taking what benefits we want and leaving the debt to our heirs?
It is factually incorrect that "white, evangelical Christians" stood up to England during the Revolution. It just ain't so.
First, modern evangelical Christianity of the fundamentalist sort, did not exist in the late 18th century. It was, instead, a product of the Great Awakening of the 19th century. In other words, the Founding Fathers were all born c. a century too soon.
Second, not all the Founding Fathers were devout Christians. They ran the gamut from dogmatic Christians (e.g. Roger Sherman), to Unitarians (e.g. John Adams) to people whose religion can't be identified except by the umbrella term "Deists" (e.g. Thomas Jefferson & Thomas Paine).
It's time for modern American fundamentalists to stop absconding with the Founding Fathers. It is a LIE to claim them as their theological forefathers. They are not. A modern fundamentalist could never have written Age of Reason, Paine's indictment of religion (read it online).
It's one thing to have beliefs. It's another to believe that one's beliefs must also be those of the entire country, or even to work those beliefs into government. But it's just plain wrong to lie in furtherance of those beliefs.
Enough is enough. Stop with the lies already.
Condascending drivel and paranoid blather...but well written.
Having spent some time in journalism, I think that two weeks of prime time exposure of angry protests following the same script could lose their luster, especially if another big news story comes along. Meanwhile, the slower momentum of people who support reform visiting their senators, writing letters, talking to neighbors will have an effect if people who are moderate and progressive in their religious expression will just take the time to do it. This week I started; a letter I wrote to our daily will be published on Saturday; I'm planning a visit to Claire McCaskill's office as well. And by the way, Sen. McCaskill did not go home. Electronic outlets (TV, Radio, Blogs) did not elaborate on how she used her powers of persuasion to calm the crowd, answer every question and keep the forum going for 2-1/2 hours. She was quoted in a newspaper story saying that dissent didn't faze her and she welcomed the dialogue. That's what the late Paul Harvey, noted for his conservative commentary, used to call "The Rest of the Story." Let's get to work. Yes We Can.
I don’t see a new generation of leaders “embodied in Barack Obama” - I see the same old political hacks playing the same old games, trying to wrap it up in the new “Obama” wrapper.
Am I supposed to apologize for being committed to a conservative Christian worldview? How about spreading a little "tolerance" my way? It’s not a religious issue, it’s not an anti-intellectual issue, it’s not a racist issue - change for the sake of change is just as stupid as clinging to the status quo. There is a solution out there - and it will be painful for all involved, but this is not it.
Creating more bureaucracy will not help reduce costs, and THAT is what the American people are enraged about. If this program being ramrodded through doesn’t scare or anger you, then you are not paying attention or you are drinking the kool-aid.
You may be right that there is something familiar about all political leaders. But if, as you say, you're "committed to a conservative Christian worldview" - the important point there being a Christian worldview - then how can you say something like "I'm already paying for mine, why should I pay for yours?" That's a very un-Christian sentiment, regardless of whether or not, politically speaking, you agree with the reform.
I agree generally with the sentiment that the health care debate gets stupid very quickly.
In Canada, anytime anyone wants to make major changes to the health-care system they had best beware lest some opportunistic lefty start blathering about going towards demonic "American-style" health care system, as if this was an either-or question.
The Canadian government-funded system is neither as saintly or as demonic as the proponents or opponents might suggest. One good way of putting it is that the day-to-day service rather sucketh but at the high-end or in the case of a life and death emergency it is second to none.
Frankly, it makes the most sense to provide some subsidized service for those who can't pay for it, and allow those who can pay to access better service if they want it. Of course it's not entirely fair, but frankly, neither is making people who are willing and able to pay wait just so they can suffer with everyone else. It's 2-tiered and unequal and evil but it makes sense.
LOL
Very unbiased survey of several health care systems here
Interesting you chose not to acknowledge the majority of well-reasoned, thoughtful and insightful objections being expressed at these meetings by engaged constituents to their elected representatives, who are in fact, under their employ. You simply put them in white robes, hoods and capes in an effort to summarily dismiss them.
People of faith are trying to stop America’s slide into the same post-Christian culture that permeates Europe. I would ask what in European society is worth emulating?
You know, there's been civilisation in Europe for a long time. Much longer, in fact, than the United States has been around. So your question is funny, in the sense that it's like a rebellious student asking, "why should I learn from the schoolmaster?" What on earth could possibly be learnt from experience?
Oh, we can learn a great deal from Europe. We can learn how confiscatory taxation, cradle to grave entitlements and the post-Christian welfare state can lead to double digit inflation, double digit unemployment and a demographic death spiral. Europe serves as a great example for us........of what NOT to do.
Since you are a Christian opposed to health care reform, can you help me out? I've been searching all over the internet for a Bible verse or two that supports your point of view on health care. Can you help find a few for me?
Were I to give of my money voluntarily to help the poor, that would be laudable. Were I to take money from my neighbor's wallet and give to the poor, that would be despicable....and criminal. Socialism is based on doing just that, taking through government that which belongs to my neighbor. You want Bible verses....refer to the Ten Commandments where it talks about stealing and coveting.
I have a bachelor's degree in Political Science. I have a master's degree. I have worked in government, education, and business.
My view of this type of health care reform is simple. The bigger government becomes, the less responsive it is to individual needs. The federal government cannot financially or logistically handle the job of health care.
I gladly defend your right to free speech, and I welcome logical discourse. And I defend the right of every American to protest the governments actions - past, present, or future.
I'm guessing you would defend the rights of Iraq War protesters during the last administration.
I would, too.
However, I doubt you would be interested in using the same type of expose on that group of protesters. Could you have found a religious or racial element in their actions as well? Would they have warranted such generalizations? Stereotypes? Would they have been subject to derision for their ignorance -- a given based on their position on the subject?
Your article does not contribute to a higher level of political or religious discourse. The broad generalizations, the factual errors, and your propagation of stereotypes are all disappointing, especially coming from someone whose scholarship should be more rigorous.
Why should I pay for yours? If I choose to do so because I care and want to help - that is FREEDOM. Because the government forces me to do it - that is TYRRANY! Jesus fed the five thousand because of his compassion and not because Rome was enforcing crowd regulations.
If you come to Ohio where I live, why should you get a free pass using our roads and bridges, especially if you pass through without spending a dime here? Why should I get a free pass using Indiana's infrastructure just passing through? Because some things are just for the common good. I mean you wouldn't put the State Police to the lowest bidder....Health care is just as much a matter of public safety as police, roads etc....
Health care is not something to be provided by the government for the common good. Our system is the envy of the world and if we socialize it then it will cease to be good and will become common. I've been to Russia and toured the hospitals so you won't convince me that it will work here, there or anywhere. No thanks.
Here's a thought:
Jesus said "As you do for the least of these, ye do also for me." Insofar as I heard over and over a ridiculously similar argument for SCHIP--which was for children (truly the least of these if ever there was one)-- I take exception to the "I pay for mine, why should I pay for yours?"
What has happened in the free-market system we have now is that instead of driving costs down, it has driven them up. Patented prescriptions, sold by brand name require us to buy the promotion, not the drug itself.
An analogy would be clothing. Some folks can afford to shop at Neiman-Marcus, some of us have to afford Wal-Mart. But the drug companies are requiring us to shop at Neiman for their product...I for one cannot afford a $300.00 antibiotic, but that was what was prescribed for me.
The society we have created, which is litigious at best, and extremely so at worst, has caused the malpractice insurnce rates to go up astronomically, which causes those in the medical profession to drive up their fees and run unnecessary tests just to cover their own hineys. In reference to the $300.00 prescription, I went to an urgent care (saturday am, fever, sinus pain, fatigue) to have a rather bad sinus infection treated. I had to be back at work on Monday, so had to be on meds before. Doctor that saw me ran a CAT scan because he wanted to make sure my pain was not from a brain tumor, he said. WHAT in the HECK???? I'm a grown woman, and had enough experience that even I could figure this one out.
Health care reform that streamlines and eliminates unreasonable testing is a good thing, not a bad one. To say it will turn us into Russia is an emotional argument and not a valid one. Provide objective data on diminished quality that will result from reform, and maybe I'll believe you--until then, not so much.
Agreed! And what about the rest of western Europe? The French and British health care systems work quite well. What's to say reform will turn us into Russia and not France?
The question is not whether or not there needs to be reform, but what kind of reform is needed. The plan being presented supplies a "public option" which will destroy the competition. We have a gov. that is full of programs that are running at defecits, why would this program be any different. A private company can not operate at those defecits and will therefor not be able to compete. There are a few things that can be done that I would support to bring health insurance prices down.
Let's make competition in Health insurance across state lines a possibility. That will dramatically increase the competition between companies and brind down rates.
Let's put an end to frivilous law suits. A great portion of medical costs are to cover the malpractice insurance you mentioned earlier.
I agree that there are cases where it seems some tests that are run are ridiculous, but there are many cases where someone thought they had a sinus infection (and maybe even a history of those) that turned turned out to be something more serious such as a tumor. I would rather have the CAT scan to be safe than to miss a diagnosis and find out about a tumor when it is too late. Now, if you need stitches for a cut, no CAT scan. In most cases, broken bones can be diagnosed without one as well, so I think the judgement on whether or not to allow such tests needs to be between you and your doctor, with you being able to make the final decision and accepting the consequences of your choice if you refuse the doctor's advice.
Finally, there is never anything streamlined about any gov. program. Try pointing to one, you want find one. You will be hard pressed to point to any social program our gov. has created that is not operating in the red as it is and that the costs were extremely underestimated.
We don't need a gov. program. We just need common sense rules and regulations that encourage competition, creativity, and personal responsibility instead of those that encourage ridiculous law suits. The last thing in the world we need is a system supplied by the gov. that is operating at a defecit that will in turn squash creativity due to the lack of profitability, a system that is based on how much money we can rip out of the pockets of a small percentage of the population. Those top 5% that we continually hear about do not have enough money if we took 100% of their earnings to cover the program that is being laid out. Where is the money going to come from to keep this program from being severely in the red in less than a year?
You say "Let's put an end to frivilous law suits. A great portion of medical costs are to cover the malpractice insurance you mentioned earlier." According to Americans for Insurance Reform, "research makes clear that medical malpractice claims and premiums have almost no impact on the cost of health care. Medical malpractice premiums are less than one-half of one percent of overall health care costs, and medical malpractice claims are a mere one-fifth of one percent of health care costs. If Congress completely eliminated every single medical malpractice lawsuit, including all legitimate cases, as part of health care reform, overall health care costs would hardly change, but the costs of medical error and hospital-induced injury would remain and someone else would have to pay." You can't blame the lawyers for this one!
I did not say end all law suits, but if you take a look at the state of TX as an example, they have lowered costs dramatically by limiting the number of lawsuits. As it stands now, many of those ridiculous tests that are performed and drive up the price are done in an effort to protect from such lawsuits. I guarantee that was not factored into your study by the "Americans for Insurance Reform" which has a buyist opinion on this issue to begin with. That is also only one thing I mentioned. You'll have to do better than that to point to any reason why the gov. can do better than the private system. Another interesting fact for you. We do not have to look to other countries to see what a "public option" looks like. All we have to do is look at the failure of the "public option" in Hawaii that lasted only 7 months before running out of money, the bankrupt MA plan, and the failure of Tenncare in TN. You can point to no instance of a gov. run "public option" that has had the success nor the quality of our healthcare system. The problem we have is cost. Let's address that issue instead of ruining the best healthcare in the world.
What about rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's? What about doing unto others? What about Acts 2:44? "And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need."
Please cite a Biblical passage that supports your point of view, and I will shut up.
You see, Doug will NEVER quote scripture to back up his arguments, because he's never been able to do so.
I have been following him for a few years - and frankly, he is just bitter.
He is bitter that his parents dared drag him to church, bitter that the Word of God doesn't allow him to just do whatever he wants whenever he wants, bitter that anyone DARES to stand up for Christian values.
He is a bitter, bitter man. He is nothing more than the guy who left the family of God and wants to stand outside the church and bang on the windows to make a ruckus to distract all the folks.
I am the guy that Doug is screaming about in the article - and frankly, I supported every one of Bush's nominees (men and women) and many of them were latina(o), black, hispanic and such....he and all his little liberal buddies forget about that....even Bill Clinton can't claim as many minority and women appointments as Bush. I didn't care for the way he ended his presidency - but we must remember.
Oh yeah - and no matter what ANY of you think - what was the reason that the pilgrims came here? Oh yeah - let's not talk about that. All you have to do is claim that Jefferson was a "deist" and then you win the argument.
Yeah - that's how it works.
I don't think your own bitter comments will "cancel out" those of the editorial's author, even if you do feel you're on a first-name basis.
The poster Suzanne has asked on several occasions for scriptural backing to your statements - why won't you answer? She even suggested a few verses of her own, and you respond with a rant about how "Doug will NEVER quote scripture." You're just avoiding having to face up to the fact that no scripture and no true religious tradition supports your position.
Let's look at the things you listed in context. We live in a republic that has elected officials, not a dictatorship as was in the days of Caesar. Under our form of gov., Obama and his administration are subject to us, not the other way around. So in a sense we are Caesar. The gov. is not entitled to our money, but is suposed to be a steward of our money. The taxes we pay still belongs to us. We have to make the gov. be responsible for the way they spend it.
"Doing unto others". There is another concept you took out of context. That phrase has nothing to do with a beuracratic program that insures we all have some form of health care, no matter how good or bad. That verse has everything to do with how we treat each other on a personal level. Don't try to add meaning to it. It doesn't need your help.
Finally, the verse in Acts has nothing to do with a socialistic form of gov. It has everything to do with recognizing every thing good in your life comes from God and should therefor be used in such a way that glorifies Him and lifts each other up and draws each other closer to Him.
The Bible puts great emphasis on work. It puts great emphasis on puting gifts to work to bring prosperity. The parable of the talents compares the master's reaction to those that invested the talents and worked with them allowing them to multiply and the one who just sat on the talent. One of the morals of this story (that Jesus himself taught) is that we are to work hard to recieve reward. Laziness leads to nothing. Healthcare or Health insurance is not a right, it is a luxury. No one is denied emergency care in this country. However, insurance is a different story. You are not guarateed home insurance, auto insurance, life insurance, or malpractice insurance. All of those things are protections or rewards that you work to pay for. The same is true of Health insurance, which is what this debate is really about.
Now, to answer your question about citing a Biblical passage that supports the opposite of your point of view, I think I just clearly pointed out how scripture points out the value and teaches the value of earning your keep. I would love to see you try to use any scripture in proper context to back up your socialized view point. You will not find that. Maybe it would be a good time to start the process to "shut up". Unless you really want to get into this in depth.
Obama's press secretary Robert Gibbs stated that there has been no increase in threats to the President based on town hall activity.
Article in www.thehill.com
http://tinyurl.com/qf46xg
Where does the editorial say "Obama is being directly threatened by people in direct relation to his town hall meetings," precisely?
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