The Moral Depravity of Triumph by Default
The Moral Depravity of Triumph by Default
Don't Worry, It Will Collapse!
Observing the fight within the Republican Party over funding Obama-care, one might come to understand how thoroughly broken is the moral state of so many politicians. One might also begin to grasp the fullness of the amoral position of political advisers and analysts, who help to shape the debate while bearing none of the consequences for its outcome. The proposition advanced by Karl Rove and the hapless congressional Republicans who drink his brand of kool-aid is that threatening a government shutdown over the funding of Obama-care is dumb, since in their expressed view, it will somehow "collapse under its own weight." I wish to direct your attention to the ethical position of this group of moral defaulters, and what it says of their view of fellow Americans, even if we take them to be sincere: They are willing to see billions or trillions of dollars wasted in order that the program will "collapse on its own." There is a certain cowardice attached to this sentiment, but more, it speaks to a deep depravity that is part and parcel of their notion of governance: They wish for you to believe that "triumph" may be had by a moral default that will destroy the lives of millions.
Naturally, given the advocates of this position, one is right to wonder in the first instance how sincere they may be. After all, it is not exactly a state secret that many of these Republicans and their puppet-masters will make out like bandits from the implementation of Obama-care. If the program collapses in the end, it won't matter because it will have been during the implementation phase that they had made off with the loot. Contracts of every description are being made between the federal government and vendors, so that a huge sum of money is flowing directly from the Treasury into the hands of cronies who are filling their pockets with cash. Not nearly all of those cronies are Democrats. For this reason alone, it is wise to suspect the sincerity of Rove and others like him who wish to continue implementing Obama-care on the basis that its collapse is allegedly nigh.
Taking them at their word, momentarily, let us imagine that they're clean and pure as the wind-driven snow. Let us imagine that they're not filling their pockets with as much Obama-care implementation cash as their pockets and the pockets of their friends can hold. Let us further stipulate that they may sincerely believe that Obama-care is so obnoxious to liberty and so burdensome to economic prosperity that it will be crushed under its own weight. Even if this is so, what can one say about the moral depravity of a person who stands aside as a children play with matches having doused themselves with gasoline? Is it possible to later claim that one hadn't possessed some responsibility to intervene and to stop the certain disaster?
If and when Obama-care "collapses under its own weight," I suspect this crowd will show up on television to gloat and to proclaim themselves "right." It will be an empty victory dance to be sure, since along the path from the passage of the Affordable Care Act to the supposed collapse, trillions of dollars will have been wasted on implementing a bad idea, trillions of dollars in economic activity will have been suppressed, and real people will have their lives shattered or ended if they happen to lose life's lottery and come to need substantial health services during the period Obama-care remains in effect. How many tax-payers dollars will have been squandered? How many people will endure extended, protracted poverty because they were unable to obtain full-time employment because companies will restrict workers to twenty-nine hours per week? How many will run head-long into those death panels Sarah Palin predicted while her critics chortled, only to later admit that rationing is a primary goal of Obama-care? How does one perceive victory in any of this?
When Senatorial lemmings like Richard Burr(R-NC) suggest that Mike Lee's(R-UT) intention to fight Obama-care by de-funding it even at the cost of a government shutdown is the "dumbest idea" he's ever heard, what one can detect in his further explanation with laments about 1995 is the pulse of a coward who hopes to escape the difficulty of taking a solid position, instead hoping to win by default. This man and all those like him, including Rep. Tom Cole(R-OK) hope to avoid controversy and avoid any political blame, but I must demand that they take the blame for failing to stop what they admit they already know will be a catastrophe.
I blame each and every Republican, whether elected or instead part of the consultancy class, because these alleged "leaders" who by their own statements on the terminal estimates of Obama-care, know full and well that it is a calamity. By standing up and being counted now, they could help the country to avoid the grotesque spectacle of a health-care law that is certain to fail and cause untold suffering for millions, perhaps tens of millions, but they are not haunted into action by the ghosts of their future victims. This disease that pervades Washington DC and its professional consultancy permits them to imagine they will be insulated from judgment, but every American, whether they had supported Obama-care, or instead like the vast majority who opposed its passage and implementation will have known or ought to have known that these default-merchants are really amoral merchants of death.
There is no moral abstention possible in a matter in which the lives and financial futures of three-hundred million Americans are at stake, and the outcome is already known. They claim to sincerely believe that it will collapse, but even if we imagine that they are not filling their pockets from the mad scramble to implement this program, these people claim to understand what a disaster the Affordable Care Act will be, so that they have a responsibility to act. Instead, what we get from these political cowards and opportunists is a dance of default, hoping to celebrate on the ashes of a program that will have destroyed trillions of dollars in wealth for average Americans and prematurely ended the lives of so many who need not have gone to their graves so soon. When I see the grinning face of the rotund, balding and bespectacled carnival-barker on FoxNews, holding up his whiteboard while advocating the acceptance of an onrushing disaster we should have avoided, I know I am seeing the Devil incarnate, because what he demands that we accept is a vast slaughter of Americans and their wealth so he can later claim: "It told you so."
"Winning" by that sort of default is no victory. If conservatives wish to take the moral high road, we must first discard this shoddy notion of "triumph by default," deciding instead to fight against this as the last living defenders of ourselves and our fellow man, knowing that if it does collapse under its own weight, Obama-care will crush the lives of millions. Worse yet, what will the wreckage be if it doesn't collapse? Rove and his acolytes never answer this question, but it is one we must confront as we consider his advice. If the road to Hell is paved with allegedly good intentions, then the speed at which we travel down it will have been determined by our own moral default.
At the end of the road, you may pass a welcoming man with a whiteboard.
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The Moral Depravity of Triumph by Default
http://markamerica.com/2013/07/27/the-moral-depravity-of-triumph-by-default/
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