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David Brooks on Health Care and Moral Values

New York Times conservative columnist David Brooks wrote an unusual column this week. Though by no means an advocate of the Health Care Bill, Brooks did at least approach question of free markets versus civilized moral values. The Values Question

The bills before Congress would almost certainly ease the anxiety of the uninsured, those who watch with terror as their child or spouse grows ill, who face bankruptcy and ruin.

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.

Republican Party Health Care SolutionThere is no question that the Republican Party puts the free market – which benefits mostly themselves and the wealthiest Americans. But one would think that such a cold morality would be tempered by religious values, especially those espoused by Jesus Christ.

But no, American Jesus puts the petal to the metal on the free market and actively lobbies against the poor in favor of the wealthy. In fact right now on the Internet, the Schlafly Family with its Conservapedia is working on changing the Bible to better reflect American Ayn Rand Free Market purism, American gungoonery, advocate of war, torture, violence, revenge and of course that wholesale intolerance and bigotry that drives the American brand of Christian crap.

We can go back to 1905 (Teddy), 1935 (FDR), to 1965 (Johnson) and to 1993 (Clintons) and find the exact same rhetoric from these Republicans on not only any form of Universal health care but also on Social Security and Medicare and anything that puts a person above a buck.