Blood Pressure !

Man, there's so much crap out there to rage about, where does one start? First, with the tea-bagger/ birther / nutjob campaign of "disinformation" and "protest" about health care --- and then with the lack of balls the media and almost everyone else is exhibiting in responding to them.

Exhibit One: (from Salon's "say what?")

"People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless."

-- from Investor's Business Daily editorial on "death panels"

"I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS [National Health Service]. I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived."

-- Stephen J. Hawking, who has motor neurone disease, was born in the UK, and has lived there his entire life

Ummm... And we should listen to uninformed people, why?

Exhibit Two: (from NYT's account of Sen. Arlen Specter's town hall in PA)

"It says plainly right there they want to limit the type of care elderly can get," said Laurel Tobias, an office manager from Lebanon, referring to a bill in the House. "They are talking about killing people."

Um.... Right where? In one of the several draft bills still circulating? Which she has read? Or "right there" in some unidentified document waved by the host on a right-wing tv show? Has Ms. Tobias ever seen a living will form? I made mine out the other day, prompted by all this discussion --- well, I'd been thinking about it for some time -- and one of the choices you can check basically says "use all the friggin' technology you can to keep me alive for as long as possible." Prompting people to think about these choices before their health is seriously compromised does not mean "coercing them to make a particular choice."

Exhibit Three: (from Salon; this meeting also reported in Charlottesville Daily Progress)

At the latest in a series of town hall meetings in Charlottesville, Rep. Tom Perriello heard both cheers and jeers for health care reform. Among his comments? "There are no 'death panels' in the bill, there just aren't," he said. "If one believes as a matter of faith that this is a secret strategy to get to rationing care, that is a legitimate position to take, but I can't refute it." (emphasis added)

Oh dear oh dear. We shouldn't decide policy issues (or much of anything in the public sphere) based on our "beliefs." Belief does not require evidence. Does not require facts. Does not require reason. That's why we say we "take things on faith." Okay, so some citizens, unfortunately, decide in the absence of any evidence or any thought to believe that reform will ration care --- what makes that "a legitimate position to take"? And surely Perriello means that it's not possible to refute any article of faith, since it's not subject to reason, but he comes off sounding like he condones their misguided beliefs. Wouldn't it have been better -- not politically better, but more honest -- to say "If people choose to believe as a matter of faith that this is a secret strategy to get to rationing care, those people can't be reasoned out of that belief. But their position is not supported by the facts." I myself would add something like "You dimwits shouldn't be disgracing Thomas Jefferson's town this way," but that would be optional.

And the hits just keep on coming.

UPDATE -- Glenn Greenwald's guest columnist, here:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/08/13/palin_grassley/index.html