In the midst of the attacks on a 12 year old’s family, a commenter from a previous post wrote:

I see you guys engaging in a lot of hyperbole about someone who did some actual reporting about the family in question but yet, you are doing nothing to engage the substance of their arguments.

Which are: We have a family that was willing to put their 12 year in the middle of a political battle. Now, people have questions about the family, their income and the lifestyle they lead.

Those are legitimate questions and yet you people are hiding behind a 12 year old. rather than taking a good look at the family itself and wondering why they can’t seem to find the money to pay for health care.

Ann Coulter has you guys pegged. She sees right through your game. You socialists try to run out someone you think no one dares attack. You’re reduced to using a 12 year old to shield yourselves against legitimate political arguments.

Completely shameless and hypocritical is all you people are.

If you guys have such compassion for children, then is it right for these parents to put their child in the middle of a political battle?

This is my response:

Substance, Blake? Okay, here you go: politicians enter the public arena either out of a sense of public service or they’re attracted to money and power. Either way, they push forth policy prescriptions and are rewarded decently for that.

They rely heavily on motivating volunteers to do their grunt work for them. Republicans or Democrats. And other than an occasionally upset person on the other end of a doorbell ring or phone call, those volunteers don’t get subjected to a raft of shit. The candidates might and it’s longstanding practice to expect that, dating back centuries.

So now we have entered a time when every volunteer, no matter their age or circumstance, subjects themselves and their families to microscopic scrutiny. Any perceived flaw about any of them is held up to ridicule, verbal abuse and sometimes threats.

No matter what the argument, that’s utter bullshit, rude, crude, uncivil and vicious. The level of personal destruction aimed at volunteers is justified by the abusers as necessary to win some point that ALWAYS is a far smaller gain than what gets lost: our humanity.

This sort of behavior only began with the Newt Gingrich crusade about 13 years ago. And the intervening time does not make it less reprehensible. It will always be wrong.

So if the arguments you seek are related to this family, sorry, Blake, I refuse to consider it a game according to somebody else’s rules. I believe they should be left out of it instead of being attacked based on partial investigations, outright errors and lies, and speculation.

And you say I’m ‘doing nothing to engage the substance of their arguments’. You’re right. Because the first and only essential issue is about what our elected representatives intend to do. We pay them to be our public servants and they’re failing us on the issue of affordable national health care. Michelle Malkin plays the victim card unconvincingly yet constantly. She says liberals are always trying to silence her or the Right. What she’s always doing is deflecting criticism away from the politicians opposing the policy change we seek. ‘Shoot at me!’ she says, and drawing the desired response, whines that we are shooting at her. And in the meantime, the real issue is sidetracked, which is her real goal all along.

We don’t want to silence the Right. WE just want to have a serious debate instead of dealing with court jesters playing infantile and repetive games with peoples’ lives.

I say, 2 out of 3 voters want a plan for affordable national health care, which I believe is a sufficient argument by itself. For many years, Republicans have said “that won’t work’, or ‘that’s a bad plan’ yet they never offer a substantive alternative. Meanwhile, they support unlimited funds to kill people all around the globe, with no end in sight. Cost-efficiency isn’t required. Evidence isn’t required. All that’s required is they fear somebody and the president says ‘let’s kill them’.

Unless it’s a Democratic president.

As if defense is a partisan thing. Or worse, offense, which should be a bipartisan no-no.

I think the S-Chip plan is an imperfect patch to a badly performing sector that’s inefficient because there’s too many greedy leeches attached to it, motivated solely by greed. Insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and corporations beholden only to investors all feed off the misery of the populace. And contrary to free market principles, competition hasn’t made the system better or less costly. It’s far outpaced other economic sectors in rising costs, serving maybe 85% of the country, with many in that 85% feeling badly squeezed.

If Republicans intend only to thwart democracy or to serve as impediments to any progress in a highly visible problem, then what’s the point of reasoned debate? If it’s only about refusal to debate and finding any means to win, again, it’s a complete waste of time to debate people with such hollow core principles.

It’s only a fool or a liar who would suggest Ann Coulter or Michelle Makin are motivated by anything but self-interest or serve any purpose but to act as a boorish clown or promoters of hate towards entire groups of people, based on income, race or other demographics.

Our healthcare system is a failure. Measured against other first world countries, it rates well down the list by almost every benchmark. Considering it purely economically, we’re wasting an enormous amount of human capital and our nation as a whole suffers for that. But it’s not just an economic equation. It’s also a measure of our conscience, our consideration, our humanity.

I believe, if we err, it’s better to do so with some cost inefficiency than with a substandard level of care and concern. We can argue forever whether intangible things like ethics supersedes all other arguments. I will argue that it does according to the principles I choose to live by. Principles I will always believe a morally exceptional country must live by to ever be justified in considering itself exceptional.

I want the nation to win and the ill to be treated well. I don’t view that as a political game but as a necessary level of humaneness. I don’t care at all who gets the credit. The result is a healthier nation. If that’s socialist, or carries any other label, that’s meaningless. What counts is the essential outcome of a national gain.

Naysayers are a dime a dozen. Innovators who successfully meet the need with even an inefficient plan are preferable to the ‘No’ Birds.

Thus, if Republicans want an honest debate, they should propose alternatives. Otherwise they serve only as speedbumps and traffic barriers in the road forward. And it’s futile to argue with people who choose to bring nothing constructive to the pursuit for better answers.

It’s in the best interests of a nation to keep both its human and financial capital as healthy as it can achieve. And in an affluent first world society, finding ways to meet essential human needs is critical. If everyone can afford decent shelter, heat, electricity, nourishment, health care, and a quality education, that’s a solid foundation to advance from. And I firmly believe the vast majority would continue to try and advance from there. Most people want more than those essentials. Few would settle for that.

As long as we consider it necessary for the able-bodied to work, just to achieve those minimums, there’ll be no shortage of workers trying to achieve far more. Yes, it’s partly socialism, but it incorporates most of the capitalist motivations. You work if you can and you get a solid foundation. Everything else takes personal initiative.

But as it exists, one may work two or three jobs just to reach that basic level. There’s no cushion for emergencies, there’s no time to further one’s education. If, while young and inexperienced, a person underestimates the cost of raising children, or the birth control fails, or an accident or emergency disrupts their tight budget, is it really necessary to be punitive and say ’sorry, dude, you’re fucked for life?’

Of course not. We can do better than that as a society. If we choose not to, we cheapen our worth as a nation. Many nations aim higher. Ours should as well rather than to accept second class status.