SORRY FOR MY recent absence from the mull—I've had a virus, which has kept me from my usual schedule.
The topic that brings me back is the recent revelation about the Republican attempt to repeal the health care bill.
One of the ongoing themes at the daily mull has been the deep connection between spirituality, politics, and reality-contact.
This bill, or rather its title, serves as a perfect case study of the problems we face as a nation in that regard.
As you probably know by now, Republicans titled the bill the..
Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act
As you also probably know, they back up the claim in the bill's title by citing the Congressional Budget Office, as the source of their estimate that the bill will cost 650,000 lost jobs.
On Tuesday, the Associated Press published a Fact-Check on their claim.
That check found the claim to be false, but I'm more interested in how it was false.
Why are the American people interested in jobs?
We care about jobs because we don't like people not being able to get them.
We don't like long unemployment lines, created because the number of jobs available is so much lower than the number of people who need work.
In economic terms, we want more supply in the job market (more hiring) and less demand (fewer people looking for jobs).
What the CBO actually said was that the Democratic health care law would decrease demand.
A small percentage of Americans (about half of one percent) who were working a second job, or putting off retirement, in order to hold on to their health care would now drop out of the job market.
In other words, it was good news in terms of what the American voter cares about.
The people who would not be working because of the health care law would be people who didn't need or want to be working so much.
The title of the repeal bill was designed to give the exact opposite impression.
So what's going on?
The answer lies in our use of language, and a distinction I have made in previous posts.
Human language has two completely different uses:
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It can be used to communicate reality contact, or
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It can be used to manipulate people.
Neither of these uses is bad.
When you raise your voice to warn your child not to touch an open flame, you are intentionally using the manipulative force of language (political rhetoric).
You want to change your child's behavior—and quickly.
When we write our loved ones a poem, complement a friend, or tell a joke, we fully intend to manipulate their feelings—we want to make them experience pleasure of one kind or another.
Next: Scientific Rhetoric and
the Republican Dilemma...
