I'll tell you right up front that I do not yet know where I stand on health care reform. There is such a confusing array of misinformation and propaganda dominating the discussion right now that I think it would be very unwise to lock down on a position until the facts are better known.
That said, I would like to suggest that I think we've seen some of the tactics being used by the various special interests in the debate before. When following Jesus became a state controlled religion, it became the norm to threaten the uninformed public with threats that a big angry God in heaven would send everyone who did not comply with church authorities to a place of terrifying eternal conscious torment. Countless "free thinkers" were tortured and executed by the fear mongering religionists.
When Hitler wanted to rule the world he played on peoples' fears and ignorance drumming up the evilest lies of anti-semitism. It lead to the Holocaust and WWII. In the United States we were so led to be afraid of the Japanese by our leaders that we locked up Japanese Americans just because they were of Japanese heritage--a terrible injustice.
In the 1950's McCarthyism echoed throughout our culture resulting in black listing, false arrests, and an unprecedented assault on the First Amendment. Controlled by fear of communism, we lived in a society where everyone was a suspect, the bogeyman lurked behind every corner and the cold war shaped a generation.
Anti-Catholic sentiments were exploited to demonize JFK. I remember and witnessed first hand the way those who opposed civil rights went after Martin Luther King. It was all fear based.
Now we are being bombarded by a similar sort of "the-sky-is-falling-and-the-devil-is-taking-over" paranoia. Irrational people are screaming at their elected representatives. E-mails are anonymously spreading ugly and libelous rumors about the President. Power brokers are fanning the flames of fear and angst for their own selfish agendas. It's an absurd circus.
I have concluded from history that whenever fear is used as a tactic to mobilize and manipulate people it is not from a source that should be respected nor trusted. I will not be frightened into going along with your agenda. If you want me to consider your point of view, it is far better if you lower your voice, present a well reasoned argument and allow me to respectfully disagree if I so choose. You may have some valid points, but if you couch them in angry rhetoric and slogans, I'm not listening to you. In fact, I will tend to consider you a propagandized dupe.
On a positive note, I recommend that anyone wanting to find a balanced and reasoned approach to the health care reform discussion check out the excellent material that Jim Wallis and Sojourners have put together You can find it at http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=action.display&item=HC09-main
