House of Eratosthenes

Our Salesman In Chief, failing to sell the country He rules on all, or perhaps just some, of the health care provisions He desires, takes another crack at it in this weekend’s New York Times:

Our nation is now engaged in a great debate about the future of health care in America. And over the past few weeks, much of the media attention has been focused on the loudest voices. What we haven’t heard are the voices of the millions upon millions of Americans who quietly struggle every day with a system that often works better for the health-insurance companies than it does for them.

These are people like Lori Hitchcock, whom I met in New Hampshire last week. Lori is currently self-employed and trying to start a business, but because she has hepatitis C, she cannot find an insurance company that will cover her. Another woman testified that an insurance company would not cover illnesses related to her internal organs because of an accident she had when she was 5 years old. A man lost his health coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because the insurance company discovered that he had gallstones, which he hadn’t known about when he applied for his policy. Because his treatment was delayed, he died.

I hear more and more stories like these every single day…

I don’t think this is worth blogging because He’s our President, and I don’t think it’s worth blogging because He is the spiritual leader of so many millions.

I think it’s worth blogging because of the tyranny of the anecdote.

Think of a bad idea. Make it an appalling one, as reprehensible a thing as your dark little heart can conjure up. With a little bit of creativity, I can use the power of the anecdote to justify doing it. I can make it sound real appealing.

Thing I Know #297. If we know it’s one guy’s place to decide an issue and not another guy’s, our tendency is to respect the proper ownership of the issue — until we find out about some third guy who’s been somehow slighted or oppressed. Then we lose this respect for proper ownership. Our compassion is our undoing. We favor anarchy over order and we don’t even consciously realize it.

Actually, Thing I Know #297 wasn’t inspired by the tyranny of the anecdote. It was inspired by something that, out of sheer coincidence, in the last day or two has taken place all over again. Excuse the minor topic drift, and accept this as another testament to our common human failing of judgment —

A group of women staged a “nurse-in” at a Winter Park Chick-Fil-A on Friday after a breast-feeding mom earlier in the week was asked to cover up by the restaurant manager.

The gathering was more outing than protest. About 30 parents – mostly moms, some nestling babies close to them in wraps – filled about half the restaurant, chatting and eating lunch. Those who nursed did so discreetly.

Manager Virginia Piter, who on Tuesday suggested Chylain Krivensky cover herself, worked her way through the crowd accompanied by a costumed cow character.

“Everyone makes mistakes, and I made a doozy, and I’m sorry that I did,” Piter said.

Piter had approached Krivensky of Orlando as she nursed her daughter at the children’s play area in Chick-fil-A. Offering her some towels, the manager suggested she cover up.

“I was so embarrassed,” Krivensky said.

She later contacted Chick-fil-A’s corporate office to complain about her experience at the restaurant on University Boulevard. She also told her friends. Word got around on the Internet, and the “nurse-in” was planned.

This is just plain stupid, and that isn’t just my opinion; everyone with a working brain realizes it. You say “should a restaurant manager be the one to decide if patrons can…” followed by just about anything. Swear. Drink alcohol in this section or that one. Chew gum. Wear pants down around the crack of their asses. Be shirtless. And most of us would reasonably answer “of course s/he can!” And some of us will even approach that pinnacle of civilized behavior, which used to be a common realization — finding the hypothetical restaurant manager’s decision to be distasteful but still supporting his or her right to make that decision.

Thanks to Thing I Know #297, we have been losing this quality of our civilization and perhaps it’s entirely extinct. One or two sob stories, and we’re ready to impose our personal sense of “decency” upon some jurisdiction where we damn well know these things aren’t up to us to decide.

President Obama understands this well. So there He is, pushing our buttons. Here’s an anecdote…here’s another one…and another one…clearly we need “reform” so help get my bad idea passed. How many generations have we been falling for this, and passing financially crippling social programs we otherwise would recognize immediately as bad ideas?

There’s something else to President Obama’s editorial I find particularly objectionable though. It is this opening salvo about “the voices of the millions upon millions of Americans who quietly struggle” that we “haven’t heard.”

If there’s one thing I about which I wish people would show some more vigilance when they hear democrat party talking points, it is the notion that democrats have been somehow deprived of a fair hearing for advocating their interests, or represent others who have been deprived of such a fair hearing. Obama, Himself, in a sane universe would never be allowed to use such a talking point in any unrestrained way ever again. The democrat party chooses its leaders according to who can attract the greatest and most loyal following while supporting the logical reason for such a following in the sloppiest, most ramshackle way. They choose such leaders based on personal ability to sell things contrary to the interest of the buyer. They live, breathe, eat and sleep thinking about how to get more attention. It is the central pillar to their existence. They raise money to get that attention and they make sure it is spent very, very well.

The fact is, if their social programs worked as well for the nation as their campaigning maneuvers do for them, we would be living in a very different place. They recruit people who are good at getting attention. They promote people who are good at getting attention. They make damn good and sure this attention-getting works to the benefit of their party, over the country.

And if there is one thing no democrat should ever be permitted to say — at least, and get away with it — it’s that the democrat suffers from, or represents someone who suffers from, a lack of attention.

I recall as last year wound down to a close, a certain family member made it his mission to start conversations with people about what books they were reading. He has a reputation for steering such conversations, once started, toward what he thinks people should be reading instead. A prolonged and unproductive merry-go-round e-mail exchange followed when I refused to indulge the ritual yet one more time. The direction in which he wanted to pull the book-reading list, was toward Barack Obama’s autobiography. I recall that as he refused to let things go and move on, he ended up arguing from the position that it was far better to consume Obama’s written words, whether one agreed with His political viewpoints or not, and see what He had to say about things. The family member’s point was that one proceeded from a background of ignorance if one did not take this step of enlightenment.

The “fair hearing” argument again.

I said so back then and I say it again now: Barack Obama may very well be the one single mortal human living now, or who has ever lived, on this planet — ever! — least entitled to interject more ideas into the discourse, to attract additional attention to those ideas be they complicated or simple, on the basis of the “fair hearing” argument. From all I know about human history, even when I compare Obama to people like Napoleon, Caesar, Thomas Paine, Walter Cronkite…anybody who has ever enjoyed attention for themselves or for the ideas they espouse…I know of not a single true peer for our current President along the metric of capturing and holding attention.

Of course, whether an idea has merit or not is a question entirely unrelated to whether it has successfully captured attention.

But any notion that Obama has been burdened by an undue difficulty in finding a voice, or shares a close kinship with someone so encumbered, or speaks out on behalf of anybody so encumbered — is patently absurd. Whoever wrote these words, knowing full well that His Holiness’ Glorious Name would be carried above it in a byline, ought to feel thoroughly ashamed and abjectly silly. Presuming they were keeping good track of what it was they were saying, which I’m inclined to doubt, they would have to be wondering how far they can push this envelope, deep into “I Can’t Believe We’re Getting Away With This” territory.

We’ve listened too much to the “loud voices” and we’d better balance things out by granting a fair hearing to Barack Obama’s side of the story — hah!

When THEY are the loud voices, “Illegal! Immoral! BushHitlerCheneyHalliburton! Brown skin! RAAAAAAAACIST!!!!” they are the legitimate voice of the people. When we raise our voices, “Read the bills! Stop the march to Socialism!!!! Government out of my health care!!!!” We’re just loud voices and need to be balanced out.

Same thing every time. Ignore evidence to the contrary and assume you’re right. There is no need for rational argument. Teh Debate Is Over, because I was the last one to speak and I make the rules.
- philmon | 08/16/2009 @ 12:18
[…] Hat Tip: House of Eratosthenes […]
- Cassy Fiano » Can flashers stage flash-ins, now too? | 08/16/2009 @ 13:32
Wow, I haven’t even finished my opus, “OediPOTUS Wrecks”, and you’ve already given me the idea for the follow-up.
Thanks, man.
- smitty1e | 08/16/2009 @ 14:18
“The plural of anecdote is not data” Frank Kotsonis
- Robert Arvanitis | 08/17/2009 @ 05:00
[…] Best Sentence LXIX “Conclusion First, Back Story Later” My Day in Court “I Hear Stories Like This Every Single Day…” Girls in Bikinis Reading Star Wars On Software Development, and Quality Communication What Exactly […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 08/17/2009 @ 18:54
[…] HEALTHCARE– “I Hear Stories Like This Every Single Day…”; What Exactly Is a “Strategist” […]
- Steynian 374 « Free Canuckistan! | 08/18/2009 @ 17:06

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“I Hear Stories Like This Every Single Day…”Sunday, August 16th, 2009

“I Hear Stories Like This Every Single Day…”
Sunday, August 16th, 2009