The United States Supreme Court will soon rule on the sweeping 2010 health care law. The challenges to the law are interesting and complex. For the most part, the partisan debate about how the court will/should rule is neither. After hearing the cacophony spewing from the television squawk box, the Internet and what’s left of print media, one might think he can either be for the law in total, or rabidly against it. Translation; you are 100%, indelibly correct and the other guy is profoundly wrong.
Chances are both sides are correct and wrong. More important, here’s hoping Americans are fine with that.
In these days of 140 character tweets, Facebook posts and sound bites made for TV, we often spend more time trying to get liked by those who already agree with us than to provoke thought, or God forbid, challenge ourselves. The debate about health care demonstrates how this rush to boil the intricate down to simple is harmful to productive dialogue.
Even Mary Kramer, the former U.S. ambassador, president of the Iowa Senate, thinker, writer, advocate of civil discourse and self-described moderate Republican, fell into this trap this week. Motivated by good intentions she asked her social media friends a single multiple-choice question; Do you consider the United States Constitution to be (A) a pesky nuisance preventing government from doing what it needs to do, (B) a “living” document to be interpreted as the situation demands, or (C) the foundation that must be considered as the basis for our actions?
I doubt Kramer expected anyone to choose the pesky document option.
Placing quotation marks around “living” in (B) indicates she likely believes the term is something less than legitimate. Further, “as the situation demands” is a rather crude way to describe a belief the framers knew interpretation of the Constitution would continue to change as America evolved. “As the situation demands” fits in a sentence that begins with “it’s OK to let a child to skip his nightly bath.” It is hardly an adequate way to paraphrase a fundamental legal philosophy where members of the Court apply the Constitution’s values to modern circumstances.
It is rather easy to see why only those comfortable with selection (C) responded.
I have to admit Kramer’s informal poll for her friends made me stop and think about this issue. The two of us had a worthwhile exchange as a result. That is worth something, but we need much more than exchanges like this to bring our country together.
It is fair to expect the Supreme Court may rule that all or part of the health care law violates our Constitution. In the wake of the ruling, whatever is, Americans must decide if and how we should address the cost and sometimes devastating consequences of the U.S. health care system.
Fixing this vexing problem will not be possible if most of us choose to wrap ourselves in the warm self-knitted blanket of believing we alone are right.
The solution will come only if we are willing to challenge ourselves, test our beliefs and, most of all, commit to working together for the greater good. We need to stop worrying about who is more right, who will get the credit and what the Founders would do; and worry more about how we will build a better America on the Foundation they laid. Little of this can be done in a Facebook post, talking point, or in less than 140 characters.
###
Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com
This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register online essay.
No comments:
Post a Comment