Obama speech flap: Did adults learn anything?

September 8, 2009

With all of the public attention focused on President Barack Obama’s speech to the nation’s school children, I had to wonder: Did the adults learn anything?

Obama urged kids to study hard and not give up, even if they don’t like some classes or things are tough at home. He reminded students that each of them has special abilities, and it’s their responsibility to develop them.

The president acknowledged that, like many of us, he was “a little bit of a goof-off” when he was young. He told kids that success takes hard work, and nobody else will do it for them.

It was a speech that could have been delivered by any responsible leader, Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative.

AP Photo by Stew Milne

AP Photo by Stew Milne

It was a pep talk about personal responsibility, not politics. But from the way the right-wing fringe and some Republican Party officials reacted to it beforehand, you would have thought Obama was planning to sprout horns and advocate devil worship.

There was a lot of bluster about Obama “overstepping his authority,” even though previous presidents have made similar speeches. Timid school officials offered opt-outs for students whose parents objected. Cowardly school officials skipped the speech all together.

Steve Robertson, chairman of the Republican Party of Kentucky, last week called Obama’s plan to speak to children “very concerning and kind of creepy” and an attempt “to circumvent parents” and “gain direct access to our children.”

Robertson and some talk radio entertainers focused on an ill-chosen phrase that federal education bureaucrats used in material prepared for teachers. The phrase, suggesting teachers could have students write letters to themselves about how they can “help the president,” was reworded to how they “can achieve their … education goals.”

It seemed like a lame excuse for objecting to a presidential speech, because that’s exactly what it was.

Some GOP leaders have no interest in working with Obama and other Democrats, whether it’s rebuilding the economy, reforming health care or anything else. They just want to see Obama fail.

The talking heads of the right-wing media relentlessly bash Obama. They shamelessly distort facts, incite fear and call anyone who disagrees with them radical, socialist or even communist. It’s a profitable business model, because gullible listeners lap it up.

Obama is no radical, unless you think “middle of the road” means the right shoulder. But there are radicals out there, on both sides of the political spectrum, and this episode is a good reminder that responsible people should be wary of them.

American politics has always been messy, but it works pretty well. In robust, fact-based discussions among responsible people, ideology usually gives way to artful compromise and practical solutions. One of history’s best examples was Lexington’s own Henry Clay.

On the other hand, history’s ills can usually be traced to political or religious ideology and extremism, from Mao’s China and Hitler’s Germany to the Spanish Inquisition and modern Islamic terrorism. Those perpetrators believed they were right and their opponents were evil, and they had no reservations about saying or doing whatever it took to win.

Obama’s agenda and proposals should be carefully studied and vigorously debated. Thoughtful discussion could lead to good compromises, better ideas and ultimately solutions for the nation’s problems, some of which can be traced to past examples of ideology trumping common sense.

That has become more difficult, though, because modern communications technology amplifies the voices of irresponsible extremists, ideologues and the willfully ignorant people who follow them.

The best lesson to take away from the president’s speech to school children is that personal responsibility is a good concept for adults, too.

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5 Comments | Culture, Ideas, Newspaper columns, People, Politics, education | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Tom Eblen

Fear “socialized” medicine? We’ve had it for decades

August 20, 2009

There’s a fascinating audio clip on YouTube. It’s from a 1961 phonograph record in which a politically ambitious entertainer named Ronald Reagan tries his best to scare people about “socialized medicine.”

The threat he warns about is legislation to create the program we now know as Medicare.

So here we are, nearly a half-century later, with talk radio entertainers and some Republican politicians trying their best to scare people about “socialized medicine.”

They see a threat in almost any meaningful reform of America’s inadequate health care insurance system.

Some of their scare tactics, such as baseless claims about plans for “death panels,” are truly outrageous. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin might actually believe some of the crazy things she says, but other GOP leaders who lend legitimacy to such hogwash are simply seeking political advantage. They seem to have no interest in improving health care; only in seeing President Barack Obama fail.

What makes the recent tone of the national health care debate so ridiculous is that Americans have had “socialized medicine” for decades, and it has worked pretty well.

The popular Medicare program that Ronald Reagan warned against — and later tried to deny he ever opposed — covers 43 million people who are disabled or age 65 and older. Then there’s government health care for veterans and insurance for public employees. Members of Congress have especially good government health care plans.

My biggest fear about health care reform is that we won’t get any. My biggest concern about Obama’s approach is that it isn’t ambitious enough, especially now that he seems willing to give up on a government insurance option.

There are many improvements that can be made in our current system with electronic medical records and various cost-containment strategies. But I think the long-term solution is some form of single-payer health insurance involving privately delivered medical care — like Medicare.

Why wouldn’t it work to open Medicare, or something like it, to more people? That could provide a safety net. Then, individuals or groups could buy supplemental private insurance if they wanted more coverage and could afford it, as Medicare recipients often do.

Every major industrialized nation except ours has some form of universal health care. Are the “socialized medicine” systems in Canada, Australia, Britain and other European nations perfect? Of course not.

But here’s what you see in the United States that you don’t see in those countries: millions of people with no health care coverage. That includes nearly 600,000 Kentuckians, or 14 percent of the state’s population, according to U.S. Census estimates.

Here’s what else you don’t see in those countries: Millions more people who are scared of losing health insurance coverage if they get sick or lose their job. People who can’t get coverage because of “pre-existing” conditions. And people who see their life savings depleted because they get sick.

You also don’t see businesses struggling to pay spiraling health care costs for employees and retirees while trying to compete in an increasingly global economy with foreign businesses that don’t bear such burdens.

Talk show entertainers and Republican partisans have done an effective job of whipping up the frightened, ill-informed citizens we see at public meetings and protests across the country.

But if they want to rant about “socialized medicine,” they should put their money where their mouths are.

Members of Congress who oppose a government health insurance option for citizens should give up their own government coverage. Let them try to buy a similar plan in the private market.

Then they, the media hacks and other self-described “freedom-loving conservatives” should march down to their local Medicare office and renounce their “socialized medicine” benefits, now and in the future.

Yes, I know. Fat chance.

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Posted by Tom Eblen