Self-Righteousness on Steroids

Liberal Democrats have jumped the gun. They have raided the medicine cabinet even before their health care reforms have passed congress. Their self-righteousness is so robust it must be drug-induced. Indeed, only a severe overdose of steroids can possibly explain such muscle-bound moralizing.
To hear them tell it, either the House or Senate versions of government-based health care are necessary to save the republic from medical disaster. These public benefactors energetically insist that a drastic overhaul is essential to reduce unsustainable health costs and to provide universal medical services. Indeed, without these changes, the specter of death will continue to haunt the nation.
Come to think of it, didn’t congressman Alan Grayson plainly assert that Republicans want sick people to die? Didn’t he also claim his adversaries have no plans to help the disenfranchised? Then again didn’t the president of the United States earlier suggest that physicians willingly cut off patients’ feet in order to make an extra buck? According to him, doctors too are insensitive boors.
Democrats, especially those who support the public option, are, in their own opinion, quite otherwise. By their testimony, they are remarkably compassionate. They both care and have the courage to do something about their concerns. Whatever the polls may indicate, they will do what is right for their constituents. Once and for all, they will break through the unproductive debates of which their opponents are so fond.
Senator Debbie Stabenow put the matter quite succinctly. She asserted that health care should never be a matter of profit. Moreover, so far as she was concerned, only the government is sufficiently disinterested to offer genuinely benevolent assistance. Another Democratic commentator described governmental health care as being in his party’s DNA. Certainly, ever since the Roosevelt administration died-in-the-wool Democrats have dreamt of completing FDR’s mission.
Put all this together and liberal smugness has gone into over-drive. Unfortunately, this is not without consequences. Their self-righteousness apparently explains the inability of liberals to perceive obvious truths. A belief in the correctness of their own ambitions prevents them from listening to what others say or even from considering the implications of their pet projects.
First, there is the fantasy that Republicans are the party of “No.” Time and again Republicans are said to have no ideas of their own—even as they are pleading for tort reform and interstate insurance policies. Or is it merely that bad guys (those opposed to Democratic reforms are surely bad) cannot possibly have good ideas.
Next, there is the problem of busting the budget. Deficit projections are so immense that it is difficult to fathom the damage they will do. Former senator Everett Dirksen once claimed that “a billion here and a billion, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.” Today it is a trillion here and a trillion there that is adding up. Taking so much money out of the economy can only cause a roaring inflation while simultaneously depriving the private sector of essential investment funds.
Then there is the problem of just plain lying. Republicans have called balancing the budget by “taxing for ten years, but spending for six” as a bait-and-switch or Ponzi scheme. But whatever it is, it is not honest. The only way that Democrats can pretend as much is by convincing themselves their program is so “good” it deserves to be defended by a bodyguard of lies.
Self-righteous people are generally unaware of their limitations. They are so transfixed by their presumed rectitude that they see little else. It is therefore up to the rest of us to recognize what they cannot. However passionate they may be they are not Mark McGuire. They are not hitting home runs. To the contrary, they are repeatedly striking out. As a result, we cannot allow them to win the game based solely on a self-inflated opinion of their moral worth.
Next year, let’s bench them so that they have the opportunity to get the drugs out of their system. They may not appreciate it, but it will be for their own good.
Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University