I recorded the following video at today’s town hall meeting with Senator Specter in State College at the Penn Stater hotel. It captures something of the anger and passion of the event.
It illustrates too an absolute inability to recognize the positive role that government can and does play in people’s lives. It is striking that the lesson this man learned from the way the VA and “the state” supported his wife’s heart transplant is that government is evil and that all we need is prayer to sustain us.
Thanks for posting this Chris. This clip is more scary than I imagined after running into you the other day.
How F*&ing stupid some people are. Stop the world. I need to get off!
@Stephanie: Yes, when I saw you I was still in shock a bit, so I was not able to articulate my frustration and amazement to you in the hall. I am glad you had the chance to see this.
@Jesse: Despite the frustration voiced in the above comment, if you get off the world, there will be one less person who is capable of being persuaded by rational argumentation. We can’t afford to lose any more such people.
Stunning. The man was not even smart enough to just keep his mouth shut. Perhaps Arlen could have posed a series of questions: “What if we found out that God wants the United States to reform healthcare? Would you HAVE to support it then? Or would you make up some other reason to hide your partisan anger and hate?” But that would be too fun, revealing and possibly seen as ‘mean’. Good for Arlen for not doing that. He can leave that type of fun to people like…well, like me.
I am unsure about the best way to reply to this video. On the one hand, I meet people who belive that “prayer can change things” or that God(ess) will “take care of everything in His/Her time.” I think that most people resort to this way of thinking because they have no other resources that could help them economically, socially, and politically. However, I find it problematic when people like the man in this video belive that God(ess) will do the same thing for everyone else that was done for him.In addition, I think that it is selfish to not want the government to fund programs that can help people gain EQUAL access to healthcare.
Most importantly, this man ignores the fact that everyone else in the world does not have his same testimony. Thus, it is selfish for him to belive that God will always do the same for others as He/She has done for him. Furthermore, his testimony has not addressed the question on the table. What should the government do about universal healthcare?
To wrap up, I am pointing to the fact that if God(ess) exists and actually operates in our lives then there can still be no guarantee that God(ess) will help everyone in the same way. Moreover,even if God(ess) is active in all our lives in the same way, this does not rule out the governments’ responsibility in ensuring all equal access to healthcare.
Keep praying that our goverment will pass theese universal healthcare bills!