And with his very first statement, David Brooks pushes us directly into the weeds.
Reform would make us a more decent society, but also a less vibrant one. It would ease the anxiety of millions at the cost of future growth. It would heal a wound in the social fabric while piling another expensive and untouchable promise on top of the many such promises we’ve already made. America would be a less youthful, ragged and unforgiving nation, and a more middle-aged, civilized and sedate one.
We all have to decide what we want at this moment in history, vitality or security. We can debate this or that provision, but where we come down will depend on that moral preference. Don’t get stupefied by technical details. This debate is about values.
By making this a discussion of morals and values, you turn it into a kind of Internet debate, where no one can be proved wrong. And I'm not sure at all how capping an abusive monopoly reduces our national dynamism. But morality isn't simply about thoughtful principle, it's about what you actually do in a situation. Take, as an extreme example, child molesting priests.
So if that's the discussion you want, you need to add some physical facts to the discussion. Facts like the operating principle of all for-profit health insurance companies: they are here to profit themselves, not you. Their goal is a constant, and constantly increasing, stream of revenue derived from you...in exchange for which they will give you as little as legally possible. And that is very, very little.
Another fact to take into account is that for all the money being spread around, no one has done a damn thing for the humans being crushed by the current state of affairs.
We citizens aren't the ones involved in the discussion. This is a discussion between business and politicians. That is the kind of nation we are.
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Newsvine
Furl
Google
Yahoo
Brooks AND "decency"?
Someone should get an injunction to prohibit Brooks from ever claiming to know what is decent. Six months before Abu Ghraib was publicly exposed, he wrote a notorious column in the fall of 2003 insisting that Americans had to get used to the necessity of grotesque, nauseating practices to defeat the Iraqi insurgency. We had to be willing to get our hands dirty. It read like something to justify the French use of torture in Algeria. I have no proof but I am convinced that he wrote that column because he already had advance knowledge of what was transpiring at Abu Ghraib, Camp Cropper and elsewhere in Iraq, and was trying to desensitize Americans to it in advance.