For the last two years of the nineties the job was managing the systems shop at the locomotive factory up in London, Ontario. And that meant that late every other Friday afternoon it was catching the puddle-jumper down to Pittsburgh, to catch the long evening flight back home to Los Angeles, to pay the bills and water the plants, and then catch the Sunday evening red-eye back across the continent. Yes, it was odd, but it paid well, and the view was great. And it was borderline amazing in the autumn, following the Friday evening twilight west. It was the high school football games – for those the five hours across the heart of America, to the far coast, there were all those brilliant green tiny jewels in the black down below, the high school football fields all lit up for the big Friday night game, all across the country. And since you were flying in the direction of the time zone change, not against it, it was probably always the first quarter of the game. Even from thirty-five thousand feet it felt like some sort of confirmation of one of the cultural things that binds us all together – Friday Night Lights, like that television show of course.
And most of us have memories of those Friday nights. In the mid-sixties it was North Hills High School in Pittsburgh, and although Western Pennsylvania isn’t Texas – where they’re just crazy – high school football is a big deal there too. Western Pennsylvania is Joe Namath territory and all that. And if memory serves, back then our big nemesis was Penn Hills High School, just up the road. They beat us often enough. And we hated them, we thought they were jerks – in short, we were high school kids. But it’s like that all across the country – and there’s a cool riff on such rivalries in that movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High – the movie that made Sean Penn a star. High school is intense. Rivalries are intense. And then you graduate and forget it all.
But some of it sticks with you. There’s that politician from Penn Hills who rose to the Senate and peaked out there – Rick Santorum – now one of the many seeking the Republican nomination. He wants to be president. Or maybe he knows there’s not a chance in hell he’ll get the nomination and he just wants to get his views out there. And those are some views. He is the most conservative of social conservatives – homosexuality is a sin and an abomination, and way back when Terri Schiavo was just fine and would recover, and our invasion of Iraq was, even as he sees it now, way cool, and evolution is nonsense and Darwin wrong and intelligent design should be taught in public schools instead of that Darwin nonsense, and Social Security should be privatized. And of course he opposes abortion, as murder, and he additionally opposes all forms of birth control. He wants to outlaw birth control because people should not enjoy sex – it’s nasty and not meant to be enjoyed. It’s just something you have to do because God says have lots of children – it’s something quite unpleasant that you dutifully suffer. So he’s an interesting fellow, or he’s a jerk. And of course he’s from Penn Hills. You know what those folks are like. Maybe there aren’t cultural things that bind us all together after all.
And now there’s this:
Rick Santorum is usually quite amiable on the trail, but Monday evening at a campaign event at a small Christian college in Sioux Center, he had some tense back-and-forth exchanges with one student and another graduate of the college.
Jason Kornelis, a 23-year-old recent graduate of Dordt College, asked the former Pennsylvania senator about his anti-same sex marriage stance comparing it to when interracial marriage was illegal in this country.
Clearly agitated, Santorum seemed astounded when Kornelis said he couldn’t contemplate how this would “be a hit to faith and family in America.”
“You can’t think of any consequence?” Santorum asked.
Kornelis answered that he did not.
And that sent Santorum off on a real rant – if same sex marriage was legalized then “their sexual activity” would be seen as “equal” to heterosexual relationships and it would be taught in schools. And that would be the end of faith and family in America. Kornelis said he still did not agree – he just didn’t get it. And Santorum then came up with this – “I think you’re wrong, okay; in fact you have to know you’re wrong…” And that was that.
But that was the least of it. This is one of those many small fundamentalist evangelical Christian colleges that dot the Midwest, and he should have known a student would ask him about health care and the Christian responsibility of caring for the poor. Heck, half the curriculum at such places is Bible Study. And that means they have to read the thing, and take it seriously, talking snakes and all. And thus there was a problem:
The student said he didn’t “think God appreciates the fact that we have 50 to 100,000 uninsured Americans dying due to a lack of healthcare every year,” citing a 2009 study out of Harvard University.
“Dying?” Santorum answered before going back and forth about the validity of the study.
“The answer is not what can we do to prevent deaths because of a lack of health insurance. There’s – I reject that number completely, that people die in America because of lack of health insurance,” Santorum said to a crowd of 100.
“People die in America because people die in America. And people make poor decisions with respect to their health and their healthcare. And they don’t go to the emergency room or they don’t go to the doctor when they need to,” he said. “And it’s not the fault of the government for not providing some sort of universal benefit.”
People die in America because people die in America. Now that’s nihilistic. But Igor Volsky at ThinkProgress provides some background on Santorum’s thinking on healthcare policy – Santorum has told people who can’t afford health care to stop whining about the high costs of medical treatments and their medications and just spend less on non-essentials like cable and cell phone bills:
I had a woman the other day who came up and complained to me that she has to pay $200 a month for her prescriptions… I said, in other words, this $200 a month keeps you alive, she goes yes. I said, and you’re complaining that you’re paying $200 a month and it keeps you alive? What’s your cable bill? I mean, what’s your cell phone bill? Because she had a cell phone. And how can you say that you complain that you have $200 to keep you alive and that’s a problem? No, that’s a blessing!
This then is a matter of how you define blessings, but he has also suggested that insurers should deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions:
I had insurance under my employer. And when I decided to run for president, I left my job, I lost my insurance, I had to go out and buy insurance on the open market. We have a child who has a pre-existing condition and we went out and we said, we like this plan… we have to pay more because she has a pre-existing condition. Well, we should pay more. She’s going to be very expensive to the insurance company and, you know, that cost is passed along to us… I’m okay with that.
Those guys have to make money, after all. That’s why they’re in the business. And he went on to explain that health insurance is like auto insurance – you reduce your premiums by paying for services out of pocket, and you only rely on their health insurance coverage for the most catastrophic expenses. Hey, there are fender-benders you don’t report – your premiums would triple. It’s the same thing.
But as for the main point of contention here, Volsky adds this:
While the number of people dying due to lack of health insurance may be in some dispute – one recent 2009 study found that 45,000 die in the United States each year because they don’t have access to care, a 2002 study put the number at 18,000 a year, and a 1993 analysis concluded that the uninsured had a 25 percent greater risk of death – it’s hard to deny that forgoing needed treatments or putting off expensive could lead to death. Unfortunately, rather than addressing that problem and expanding coverage, Santorum would rather blame the individuals for their own demise.
People die in America because people die in America, but for many reasons, and seldom for no reason. And Steven Taylor at Outside the Beltway goes a bit further:
I will stipulate from the start that Rick Santorum is inconsequential to the question of the GOP nomination process. He started the contest as toast and will leave it as naught but the crumbs at the bottom of the toaster.
Having said that (and hopefully have forestalled comments along those lines), Santorum does keep saying things that I think a substantial portion of the population believes. To wit: he frequently makes moral claims that paint the picture of a universe in which all outcomes are justly generated by the actions of individuals. In this universe, people are successful because they work hard and make good choices and people fail because they do not work hard enough and/or because of bad choices.
Taylor does not see it quite that way:
It is doubtlessly true that hard work and good decisions are incredibly helpful to the generation of success whilst slothfulness and bad decisions frequently lead to bad outcomes. This is not the issue. The issue is the degree to which is it possible to neatly categorize the citizenry into nice, neat boxes of the good and hard-working (i.e., the successful) and the bad and slothful (i.e., those who have failed in one capacity or another). Indeed, this issue is the crux of the social policy debate and is at the heart of contemporary partisanship (e.g., it is why Republicans frequently cast tax increases as “punishing achievers” – a phrase rife with normative judgments about the way the universe works).
Well, how does the universe work? Taylor cites a town hall meeting in Iowa where Santorum carefully explained the value of suffering – where Santorum explained that all sorts of policies – food stamps, Medicaid and all the rest – seem problematic to him. And that was simple – “If you’re a Christian, suffering is part of life, and it’s not a bad thing. It’s an essential thing.”
So that’s how things work. We are here to suffer. It’s essential. And the government is messing things up by interfering. And in response Taylor offers studies and charts and tables showing that the implementation of social security – what passes for a universal social welfare program in America – has significantly contributed to a substantial and important reduction of poverty among the elderly. But there is the other view. They should be poor, and suffer horribly, because, for Christians, that’s a good and essential thing. It seems so.
And Taylor adds this:
Santorum’s notion that suffering is just part of life, or even something to be valued, is problematic when asserted by a person of obvious wealth and privilege. In other words it is easy for Santorum to talk about suffering when he and his family are manifestly not suffering (and, likewise, have the means to deal far better with potential suffering than do most in the society). Indeed, Santorum is sufficiently wealthy that he is able to run for president as a hobby (I am not sure what else to call it, as he clearly has not shot of even being Not Romney for an afternoon, let alone the nominee).
But Taylor does admit that choices in life do matter, somewhat:
If one smokes, partakes of various substances (legal or illegal), overeats, etc. then one’s choices may very well lead directly to death (of course it is worth noting, at least parenthetically, that in some cases, they won’t: there are plenty of people who overeat, for example, who live a good long time while there are other examples of people who eat well and exercise and who die prematurely – one cannot discount the gene lottery).
So while some suffering can be directly linked to choices made, others cannot – there is cancer and mental illnesses and so on – so it is a bit more complicated. Santorum only has a point if, in fact, the only people who die or suffer do so because of bad choices. But everyone knows better:
Many people make a plethora of good choices, and yet find themselves bankrupted over medical bills. Likewise, some people make a host of really bad choices, and yet live to ninety in relative comfort. The universe is not as simple as Santorum and his ilk make it out to be. And even if we take his notion that suffering is a part of life (or ordained by the Heavens), there is the question of the degree to which the alleviation of that suffering is, in any way, a societal responsibility (by the way, the Christian ethics that he supposedly lives by would say yes, it is).
Still, picking on this minor character like Rick Santorum is, Taylor admits, a bit of overkill, or it isn’t, as he has his reasons for picking on the odd guy:
The real reason is that these are kinds of issues that one has to take into account when considering the appropriate moves on fiscal policy. As we talk about cutting spending, reforming entitlements, and raising taxes (all things that need to be done) we have to address the question of what kinds of societal obligations exists to persons who cannot adequately address the difficulties of life by themselves (a group that may include any one of us, given the wrong set of circumstances).
And Taylor knows that many may be sympathetic to Santorum’s point of view and think all of this should be discussed, and maybe it should be discussed:
I think that one of the major issues facing our politics at the moment is sorting out this question of the balance between personal and social responsibility. Now, on the one hand, the public appears to have spoken (i.e., there is massive support for Medicare and Social Security in the populace), but (and this is a big but) – a) the challenge of funding these programs is huge, and b) the Republican Party, in general, often speaks more like Santorum than not (which reflects a disconnect between the party and the vast majority of Americans).
So Taylor says that we do need to work this out:
I will confess that I find a basic philosophy of individualism to be attractive – it would be easier to make policy if, in fact, we all rise and fall on our own merits (certainly the universe would make more sense than it otherwise does). But, alas, I am also attracted to the empirical, and an honest examination of society suggests that life is not so simple (the rain falls on the just and the unjust, dontcha know). There is also the broader question of the degree to which the success or failure (especially of an extreme type) has broader social implications that government ought to seek to ameliorate. To wit: sure, I would make sure that my children were literate not matter what the government did, but what would life be like if the government did not ensure a literate society in general?
What are we to make of all this? Santorum has performed a valuable service by saying foolish things, things that many seem to be believe. There is the problem.
But John Cole at Balloon Juice offers this:
The thing is, Steven doesn’t realize it, but the only thing that separates Santorum from most of our elites is how blunt he is – he actually uses the word suffering, and not some euphemistic bullshit like “shared sacrifice” that David Brooks or Douthat or some other douche-bag might trot out. It’s the core of the entire mythology they have used to divide “real America” from the decadent coastal elites. Real Americans understand “belt-tightening” and don’t want a “handout” and will “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.” It’s so ingrained in our conversation that we actually have people making the honest-to-goodness argument that we shouldn’t extend unemployment benefits during the worst recession since the Great Depression because… we don’t people too comfortable while unemployed or they might not look for a job.
It’s madness, or Cole says, something else:
Now, mind you, as with everything else involving the GOP, this is a hoax. When they talk about suffering, they aren’t talking about the rich and well-to-do. They are talking about everyone else out in idiot America who hasn’t been able to see through this shit and keep voting Republican because both sides do it or the baby jeebus told them to save snowflake babies or because Obama is coming for their guns or because gays make them feel icky. That’s how they can simultaneously argue that the payroll tax should die but GOD FORBID any tax cuts on the rich expire.
Cole smells a set-up here:
To them, if you are suffering, it was because you made unwise choices in our fabulous free market. At any rate, suffering is the entire core of the GOP philosophy. It’s just that you are the one they want suffering.
Damn, there was a reason we thought all those guys from Penn Hills were total jerks. But maybe, aside from high school football, there aren’t cultural things that bind us all together after all.
All this talk of “Christians” and “suffering” is obviously way off the point, the main reason being that we’re talking about public policy, not theology, and public policy effects all Americans and everyone else who lives here, not just one religious segment or other. After all, America is jointly-owned by all of us, not just his crowd.
Now I can’t tell Santorum to leave his religious beliefs out of it, since our religious beliefs are naturally going to inform our political opinions, but I can advise him that, in framing his arguments for us non-Christians, he needs to work a bit harder at finding common ground with all Americans. (And lest he try that “this is a Christian country” stuff, I would point out that I, for one, am not a Christian, and I have lived here longer than he has, and have been a non-Christian longer than he has even been alive — and, if it even matters (which it doesn’t, but never mind that), my family, of which one branch traces back almost to the Mayflower, has probably been American longer than his family has.)
The real public policy discussion should be centered on whether or not it is “our” (or, as the Republicans might put it, “our government’s”) responsibility to ensure the life and health of all of our fellow citizens. In my opinion, “we” do have a stake in the health of all Americans — if everyone is healthy, the society itself is healthy, and we all benefit, and it’s our constitutional right to insist on it (“promote the general welfare,” as it says in the preamble.) We already recognize this principle when we support public education for the rich and poor alike, but moreover, we all acknowledge that we already ensure the health of the poor with laws that require hospitals to treat patients even if they can’t pay. So by instituting universal health coverage, we the people (“our government,” if you must) are merely choosing to do more efficiently what we are already doing less efficiently.
Still, even as I disagree with his position, I have to tip my hat to Santorum for bringing this whole discussion into the public square.
Rick