Obamacare: The Hate Can’t Be Cured

[n2doc]

Garry Wills

I fear that the president declared a premature victory for the Affordable Care Act when he said that its initial goals were met, it was time to move on to other matters, and the idea of repealing it is no longer feasible. He made the mistake of thinking that facts matter when a cult is involved. Obamacare is now, for many, haloed with hate, to be fought against with all one’s life. Retaining certitude about its essential evil is a matter of self-respect, honor for one’s allies in the cause, and loathing for one’s opponents. It is a religious commitment.

I am reminded of an exchange that took place between the historian Francis Russell and John Dos Passos. In 1920, two Italian anarchists—Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti—were accused of killing a security guard and an employee of a shoe factory during a payroll robbery to finance their political subversions. Their trial, which resulted in murder convictions for both, was manifestly unfair, and it caused an eruption of sympathy and protest on the left.

Celebrities around the world rushed to the two men’s defense. One of the leaders in this movement, who wrote extensively about the case, was the novelist Dos Passos. Nonetheless, the two men were executed in 1927.

But in the 1960s Francis Russell produced new ballistics tests and interviews to prove that one man, Sacco, had killed the two men at the shoe factory; the other, Vanzetti, was innocent. He tried to show this evidence to Dos Passos, who had given up his leftist ideas by that time. Dos Passos told Russell he could not even hear evidence that would unsettle his personal stake in the matter. He had invested too much of his youthful energy and self-esteem in the case to reopen it even for the slightest reconsideration. It would destroy his very identity, which had been tied up in that passionate commitment.



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http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/apr/22/obamacare-hate-cant-be-cured/

[WhiteTara]

1. that's until they need medical care

and then it all changes.

[Doctor_J]

3. No it doesn't

they're so stupid that they can decouple the two

[WhiteTara]

4. I overheard one at dinner not long ago

and he was in awe that he had insurance for the first time since he was a teen in the 70s, maybe early 80s. He had serious medical problems and he was getting care and didn't die. But I did write and LTTE wondering if he would vote for the party that gave him health care or would he vote like his daddy and would he take into account or hate he was being helped by a black man.

In an aside, I think what they hate and fear the most is that instead of an armed insurrection from the black community, they would be helped and cared for by a black president...you know like Jesus....and omg HE had to be white because they are! I think that "made in God's image" really f*ed a lot of people up. White men, who are most powerful get to choose the color and sex of God and then the rest of us are left to say "but, what about me and God's image?"

[greymattermom]

2. easy, just call it something else

Each state has a different name for it. Kansas and Georgia should accept the money and set up exchanges called NOT Obamacare. Or something like KYNECT. I think they actually hate Obama, not healthcare.