I read Barack Obama's opinion piece in the New York Times reminding us all once again why we so desperately need the glories of his health care reforms, and I was left with one distinct impression: The man writes as if he is trying to drum up support in the high school cafeteria for better access to the nurse's office. It is pathetic. It is pure boilerplate, you know, the treacly stuff sensitive Democrats like to pen to tug at people's heartstrings, and then their purses. It's sophomorically sentimental; it's an appeal to sympathy, which is, to those of us familiar with logic, naught more than the fallacious use of language. It is meant to persuade the affections, not the mind. It is fodder for feel-good acts rather than effective acts that are well-conceived and well-designed.
Mr. Obama's first paragraph sets the tone for all that's to follow, with his sly fallacy of argumentum ad misericordiam concealed as some sort of decisive syllogism that ends discussion: Don't you want to hear the voices of the "millions upon millions" of people who "quietly struggle"? Have you no pity?
Of course, I do have pity, pity for a president who would stoop to such vapid and pretentious arguments. He is, ironically, scare-monger in chief, creating anxiety not only about the uninsured, or the allegedly gross profits of insurance companies and their alleged penchant for rationing health care and discriminating against certain people, but about whether you are truly a decent, moral, and democratic American. Don't you know that the truly good would just accept what Mr. Obama says? Don't you really, really care? Are you one of the genuinely moral and compassionate souls? Or do you side with those who seek to profit from healing the sick by raising insurance premiums and rejecting the petitions of the many?
The editor of the high school paper has made his appeal. The cool kids know which side to take. They'll be blowing off the morning block tomorrow to protest outside the principal's office.
It's so bold, so trendy, and so very, very right. The good people will be there. Will you?
No?
Loser.
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4 comments:
The pulling at heartstring method is the approach he has to take because there has been no convincing argument put forth over the past several years to 1. justify an increase in socialized medicine in the USA, or 2. what to do about the current failing socialized system, Medicare which is a far larger problem than the issues of the uninsured. Obama's focus on the uninsured shows that he "cares." The problem with his approach is that he just might drag down the health care system that is working for the insured, and the insued get the impression that he does not care about them.
It would appear to me that an honest discussion of the "health care crisis" would involve first determining whether or not the American people want a National health plan. That should be the only question that Congress and the President should attempt to answer at this point.
sorry about the typos...
Aren't polls and elections used to determine the general consensus of the American public?
Dear Isome,
Indeed, polls and elections do often reflect what is the will of the people. I understand polls show that over 80% of those polled support health care reform. Of course, "reform" is a very vague concept. So, when pollsters ask about "universal health care", it is my understanding that the vast majority of Americans oppose such an idea. The Obama Administration, as far as I can tell (which is never very far) has conflated these polls for political gain. Large majorities actually oppose Mr. Obama's broadest aims, and yet he and his folks continue to assert the first rather general data: "83% of Americans support reform."
Of course we do. We just don't support THAT kind of reform, which is not really reform, but total reconstruction.
Peace.
BG
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