THIS IS THE COMPLETION OF A TWO-PART post, which I interrupted to disagree with Rachel Maddow and John Stewart on a closely related question.
In the first part, I...
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Pointed out that the title of the "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act" was factually false,
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Asked why, then, Republicans had chosen to try to mislead the American people, and
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Suggested that the answer to that question lay in the fact that, as humans, we use language in two distinct ways, for two distinct purposes.
These two uses of language can be called:
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Scientific rhetoric: the use of language (or behavior) to communicate reality contact, and
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Political rhetoric: the use of language (or behavior) to manipulate others.
I ended the first post by pointing out that political rhetoric has its place—when we tell a joke, tell a sad story, or lead a pep rally, we are manipulating others: that is we are attempting to affect their feelings, their motivations, their behavior.
But the other use of language—scientific rhetoric—is even more important.
When we calmly explain about flames hurting, when we teach the rules of the road, when we communicate the facts behind a news headline, we are attempting to pass on reality contact to another.
The problem arises in situations where the use of political rhetoric and the use of scientific rhetoric would conflict—when the facts will not motivate people to do what we want them to do.
This is the problem the Republicans are facing with healthcare.
They had multiple reasons for wanting to pass this bill in the House:
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Ideologically, they are against any government intervention in the corporate realm.
(They are not, by the way, against government intervention in the personal realm—they are quite happy, for example, that the government should tell people who they can or can't marry.) -
Politically, they are against anything that looks like a success for Democrats.
(They want to win the next election, and the better Democrats look, the less chance they have.) -
They are heavily backed, financially, by insurance companies.
(Those companies don't want a complete repeal, but they do want parts of the bill crippled, and this measure, which even Republicans know will never become law, is a step in the process.) -
They have a normal human need to prove that they were right when they spent the last two years trying to stop the law from being passed for the reasons above.
So, of course, they are going to try to convince the American people that there is something not just wrong, but fundamentally catastrophic about the law.
But healthcare reform was, on the whole, a relatively modest move in the right direction.
Telling the truth isn't going to help them meet their agendas.
Which is why they are not even trying to tell the truth about it.
Instead, since people care more about jobs right now, they are fastening on that issue.
Which raises an interesting spiritual question.
Are they lying?
I don't know the full answer to that question, but what follows is very likely:
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Some of them—at least some of the time—are lying: especially if you include not only the members of Congress, but their staffers and the lobbyists they represent as well.
Some of this group knows—and knew all along—that what the CBO report actually said was nothing like the political line they were handing out to the public, and they don't care. -
Some of them simply live in the world of political rhetoric.
Their only concern is political, and they never think about a "fact" beyond deciding how useful it is for convincing voters.
This group simply isn't interested in scientific rhetoric one way or the other. -
Some of them—and these are the most uncomfortable ones—have some concern for scientific rhetoric: they really do think it's important to have the facts, and to tell the truth.
But at the moment they are too scared by the political ramifications of the truth to allow themselves to believe the truth.
There may be other permutations, but the problem, at its root, is a spiritual one in all three cases.
And, on the party level, it doesn't really matter why the individuals will chant dishonest talking points—it only matters that lies have become an integral part of conservative rhetoric.
Political rhetoric is good and useful, but it should never be allowed to overrule scientific rhetoric in the public debate.
And this has become an ongoing issue for Republicans.
Democrats lie—to themselves and to others—as well.
But in recent years, the conservative propaganda machine has adopted systematic lying as a fundamental ongoing technique: at all levels—the floor of the House, the campaign trail, Fox news, talk radio, those emails you keep getting.
Healthcare reform includes "death panels", Obama is a terrorist, Iraq was behind 9/11, Obama is not a citizen, healthcare reform is a socialist "government takeover of healthcare", Obama is a Muslim, Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, global warming is a hoax, the White House is not celebrating Christmas, healthcare reform will cost jobs, etc., etc., etc.
Now it's creeping into the titles of legislation.
It needs to stop, not just for the country's sake, but for the sake of the Republican soul.
The same party that impeached president Clinton for a single lie about his personal life just two administrations ago now consistently lies about national issues as a matter of policy.
A party which embraces that path may end up advocating anything, justifying anything, doing anything—so long as it leads to power.
The title of the bill to repeal healthcare reform is a superficial sign of a much deeper spiritual cancer, eating away at the body politic.
At least, that's what I think today.
