Not surprisingly, Tara has been discussing (what she calls) "Obama's Health Control Plan" a lot lately. And I have to say that the entire issue has put me "on the fence" about a lot of my political views and how those views relates to my moral obligations as a Catholic Christian person.
Now, don't get me wrong - I think that 99.999999% of all this health care talk is garbage. I think the government has no clue what they are actually doing. I am tired to no end of hearing how questioning Obama is racist. I don't like Obama. I don't care if he's black or white or PURPLE. He is an idiot and him being black has nothing to do with it. As one person commented on The Curt Jester's blog:
"I hate his commie-hippie, white half. It's okay for a white to hate a white - right?"
Well, no, let's be Christian about it, please. But I digress...
The whole lot of them (White House, Senate, House, etc.) aren't doing it the right way. The liberal nuts believe that everyone born deserves to be handed everything they should ever need or want. Wait, I take that back, the poor people deserve to be handed everything they should ever need or want. The rich people deserve to have it ripped out of their hands to give it to the poor.
Who came UP with this idea? Seriously, they must have been high.
Life is not fair. PERIOD. We are born into a world which contains many things: love and comfort and trust and beauty... but that same world also has despair and pain and heartache. And NO ONE is immune. None of us are 'entitled' to not have suffering. In fact - we deserve pain and we should and WILL have it in our lives. And despite what the politicians or philosophers or left-wing media might want you to believe: suffering is GRACE. It is good and holy and brings us closer to Christ.
What does that have to do with healthcare, you wonder? Everything.
My cousin, Christopher, (who was also my godfather) died almost two years ago from brain cancer. The entire process of his illness and death was terribly hard on my whole family, most especially my Grandma and my Aunt Barbara. I would call my grandmother to check up on her and Christopher (she was basically his nurse for nearly six months) and she would tell me how terrible it was that he was suffering so much and that he didn't deserve to suffer.
I've never had the heart to tell her that she was wrong. As a human being, Christopher was made to suffer, just as we are all made to emulate Christ's suffering on Calvary. Christopher was not an especially religious person. Though raised Catholic, he hadn't been to Church in many years. But I believe he understood better than my family the point of his suffering - for he never complained. He never asked, "why me?" His deepest concerns before he passed were for his family - his mother especially (who would join him not long after). And I believe that his suffering connected him more with God and I pray that it gives him swift passage through purgatory to Heaven.
My point is, whoever we are wherever we come from we cannot escape suffering (and frankly, we should welcome it with open arms --- another topic for another time). The government would have you believe that each of us deserves health care so that we can get the treatment we need when we need it (never mind the fact that the government plans won't actually give us that).
Obama used the example of one woman who was despairing because she had cancer but no job and therefore no healthcare. While I don't believe in just handing her healthcare on a platter for nothing, this is where my political views start to fight with my moral views. How can you tell her that she cannot have healthcare unless she works for it? What if her illness prevents her from working? What if she has no family to care for her? It is here that things begin to get fuzzy... as a Christian, I cannot turn her away. She must be treated with charity in all things. However, I might wonder at this being something that is the responsibility of the government? I don't think so... The government does not exist to be a charitable organization. I do believe that there must (and does) exist organizations -- people -- who can help her for little or no cost.
I know I am a poor example of it but I believe that we as humans and more specifically Americans need to better learn how to 'deal with it.' Not that I'm saying we shouldn't use and benefit from modern medicine to help us but so much of the world has taken it to extremes never imagined - trying to rid ourselves of pain at any cost and extend our lives to the breaking point (perhaps instead of extending our lives we should be focusing more on the life to come). On the other hand, we use "medicine" for such destructive means as well: abortion, euthanasia and the death penalty -- things for which science and medicine should have NEVER been used for. It is beyond ridiculous.
My lunch break is almost up so I must draw this to a close...
My end point: we do have a responsibility to be charitable towards those in need around us but it is not the government's responsibility. We also have a responsibility to encourage people to help themselves rather than just hand them what they need.
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