This past Monday, Sept. 12, the CNN/Tea Party debate was held in Tampa, and if you played the Republican Debate drinking game where you drink every time Ronald Reagan or Tax Cuts are mentioned you probably got alcohol poisoning.
Most presidential primary debates these days are just a glamorized opportunity for candidates to spout talking points, but something surprising happened to the normally timid CNN host Wolf Blitzer. He vigorously went after Ron Paul for his stance on health care which is basically, if you get sick and are uninsured, take some personal responsibility and acknowledge that society shouldn’t have to pay for you. Ron Paul softened his stance by claiming that churches and charities would help those in that circumstance by stating, “We’ve given up on this whole concept that we might take care of ourselves and assume responsibility for ourselves. Our neighbors, our friends, our churches would do it.”
Wolf Blitzer then proposed a hypothetical situation of a 30-year-old man who was uninsured and needed six months of critical care to survive.
I admire Ron Paul’s ideological consistency and often agree with him on issues such as foreign policy and some social policy, but his policy views on health care would leave millions to die because of lack of insurance.
Wolf Blitzer then proceeded to directly ask Paul if he would let that hypothetical man die. What came next left many people with their collective jaw on the ground. Dozens of Tea Party supporters yelled “YES” to the question; the response even startled Ron Paul for a second. I don’t think anyone expected any rational person to actually say “yes” to that question.
Any political party will attract psychos and nut-cases but there is a disturbing element among far-right Republicans that almost celebrates death.
At an earlier debate the crowd erupted into applause when it was mentioned that Texas Governor Rick Perry had executed 234 death row inmates during his tenure as governor. This is despite the fact that there are a significant number of cases where the state of Texas may have executed innocent individuals.
This could all be chalked up to a bunch of wing-nuts that were at the debate if it wasn’t for the almost nonchalant attitude being emitted from Republican Party leadership.
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell stated on NBC’s Meet the Press that “There are going to be a lot of debates, a lot of things said. A lot of audience reactions. I don’t have any particular reaction to what’s going on in the Republican campaign for president right now.”
Any reasonable person would have taken the chance to denounce the outbursts as immoral and profoundly un-American. This is the same apathetic attitude from Republican Party leadership that fosters this kind of thinking and leads to things like the “birther” debate.
It’s almost sickening to believe that this is the same party that advocates so much for limiting a woman’s legal right to reproductive choice, and does so under the banner of pro-life, yet brazenly cheers for the death of anyone down on their luck or who’s committed a crime. That is not pro-life, it’s hypocrisy.
The whole issue is laden with a sense of sad irony because the chairman of Ron Paul’s presidential campaign, Kent Snyder, died in June 2011 due to viral pneumonia. As a campaign staffer he had no formal health insurance and he left behind over $400,000 in medical bills to his family for two weeks of hospital care. So far, around only $39,000 has been publicly raised to retire his medical debt.
For Kent Snyder, the brains behind the libertarian firebrand Ron Paul, the 30-year-old uninsured man wasn’t just a hypothetical situation, it was him.
The Tea Partiers who openly cheered for uninsured Americans to die should prioritize their values.
I’m confident that if it was their loved one, their relative or their child they would not be so quick to utter the same response. It’s for this reason that they believe what they believe — they haven’t been through a situation like that.
It’s a lack of empathy with our fellow human beings that leads towards that kind of thinking. If you can’t put yourself in others’ shoes then you can’t be compassionate with others. We as a society, especially one as rich and developed as America, should not let anyone die because they can’t afford a medical bill. Health care is a basic human right, not a privilege for those who can afford it. Just remember that someday it could be you in a hospital without health insurance.
Alex Caraballo can be reached at acarabello21@gmail.com
HAHA… looks like it. I think we should just clear out the White House, Congress, Supreme Court etc, and just start over. It’s getting pretty ridiculous.
Uh oh, looks like the Ron Paul drones are out in full force.
I love the way you blow off Ron Paul’s consistent position against perpetual war causing thousands of deaths to focus on the trivial. Yes, the trivial. You seem to have missed the point Ron made. We always took care of the uninsured as well as we are doing now. (by the way they are still here).
As far as those rednecks in the audience, they are largely perpetual war advocates – like the politicians you vote for. Besides, I heard Ron Paul disagree with the idea that the man should be left to die. Isn’t that rebuking the deathmongers in the audience? If you haven’t noticed, that is about as upset as Ron Paul ever gets. He assualts his opponents with logic, not rhetoric.
Can’t put that in the article. It would not go along with what he was trying to say.
Kent Snyder did not die because of lack of insurance. He received medical care ($400,000 worth). He died due to his illness, which the doctors were unable to successfully treat. So how does that translate to Ron Paul advocating to let him die? BTW, Ron Paul’s immediate response to the few individuals in the crowd who shouted “yes” was a resounding ” NOOOOOO…”.
I like how he made the “tea party” member a tractor-driving redneck. Stereotyping much? Also, quit spreading hate. Not everyone is going to agree with you, but that doesn’t make them “psychos”. I understand you have an opinion, and I respect that, but you should be careful what you say.
I’m not looking for an answer here to the following question, it just strikes me as something interesting to ponder.
At what point does empathy become self destructive?