Ted Cruz’s dilemma put me in
mind of a predicament I too have faced.
Mind you, my quandaries have been on a smaller scale, but the ways I
solved them have much in common with how Cruz has fought the ObamaCare wars.
Cruz was told that he couldn’t
defund, or delay, the president’s signature legislation because he could never
get the votes in the senate—and that even if he did, the president’s veto would
nullify whatever he accomplished.
The recommended alternative
was simply to go with the flow and not make too many waves. Because this is said to be an unwinnable
battle that might get the Republicans blamed for a government shutdown, even
some Republicans asked him to delay his crusade until the next congressional
election during which they could even the odds.
Needless to say, my difficulties
have been over nothing as consequential.
Still I too have essentially been advised “to go along, to get
along.” The reason is that as a
conservative in a liberal institution (Kennesaw State University) I do not
always see things the way my colleagues do.
The question is then whether I should speak up at all.
More than once, my peers
have sought to introduce a policy to our school or to my department that I was
convinced would not work. Also, more
than once, as the years rolled by my fears were vindicated.
Nevertheless, at the point
of decision it was not clear to others that I might be right. From their perspective, I was an annoying
Cassandra who would do everyone a favor by keeping his opinions to himself. After all, I was not going to win (and
didn’t), so why put people through this pain?
No doubt, what was perceived
as my intransigence cost me friends. But
I had to ask myself, what was the proper course of action? Was it to stand back and let events unfold as
they would? Or was it to speak up and
warn people that what they were about to do might have unfortunate
consequences?
Time and again, I decided
that the moral course was to issue a warning.
It might not be heeded; nevertheless to do nothing when I had reason to
believe people could be injured struck me as cowardly. People might not want to hear the worst, but
didn’t they deserve to be alerted to the danger anyway?
Isn’t this what Cruz has
been doing. ObamaCare is bound to be a
train wreck. Even many Democrats fear
that it will. Jobs will be lost. People will die. And the United States will be put on the path
toward impotence, all in order to help people with a program that will not help
them.
The president of our country
is obstinate. The Democrats in the
senate are obstinate. They will not
negotiate; they will not modify; they will not delay the impending
destruction. Moreover, they tell us the
law is the law and therefore it cannot be revised.
But many laws have been
reversed in the past. For goodness sake,
prohibition was enshrined in the Constitution; nonetheless it was overturned
once the American people realized how ruinous its implementation had become.
ObamaCare is apt to be no
different. So why shouldn’t Ted Cruz
fight for it to be suspended? He may not
win the current battle, but this is a war.
The opening skirmish may go badly, yet didn’t the North prevail in the
Civil War after suffering a terrible defeat at Bull Run?
Should Lincoln have called
the whole thing off because, as many people assured him, there was no way to
defeat the Confederacy? Should he have
stood back because the rebels were obstinately determined to preserve slavery?
Today we know how things
turned out, with even most southerners honoring Abraham Lincoln. And while I doubt that Cruz is a Lincoln, I
applaud his efforts to protect our nation from harm. He deserves our support, not our calumny!
Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
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