I try to balance fluffy, silly and purely 'what I did today' posts with observations that I feel strongly about. Buckle up, this is one of the latter variety and it's a doozy.

“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”
- Sarah Palin.

I can’t tell you how much that statement makes my blood boil. Really… on so many f*cking levels it’s one of the most offensive paragraphs I’ve seen this year and I think I need to at least try and explain why.

I’m Left of Centre… most people who know me know that. However those who know me WELL know I like a good debate and I actually enjoy having a rational discussion about important issues with all sides represented and having the ability to respect each other in the morning. I don’t always go into debates to try and change another’s opinion, so much as provide a check on my own opinion to see if it holds up under pressure. Sometimes I’ve had my mind changed, sometimes reinforced. The only times I’ve changed my opinion it’s been through someone else’s rational argument. It has never been - and NEVER will be - by someone standing on a street corner and brow-beating me into submission by using phrases, words or ill-informed arguments that are SPECIFICALLY designed to mislead, obfuscate and terrorise you into agreement. Such tactics may work on some cable news shows and British tabloids, but they aren’t worthy of a civilised society. That’s the fire and brimstone and snakeoilsmanship that never worked for me when yelled from a pulpit, never mind in civilised conversation.

Palin’s press release outburst is a dictionary-definition of that. She’s commenting on a controversial issue and to SCARE people into agreeing with her stance she describes a scenario heavily-laden with Nazi/WWII imagery that not only COULD NOT happen under the bill she’s protesting about, but is not even suggested in such bill. She’s not, for one second, debating the bill’s merits, specifics or problems, she’s gone straight for symbolic sound-bite imagery that couldn’t be more darkly and deliberately emotive if she’d shaved her head and visited Auschwitz with a tear in her eye to deliver it. ‘How DARE government step in and have the right to decide your life and death???’ is the rallying cry from a politician who came to personify the Far Right when not applying lipsticks to farm-yard animal metaphors. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is the demographic who are adamantly Pro-Life and would gladly pass a bill making abortion illegal - which I presume would have to mean that the government has a lean-to on your womb and ovaries, no matter what your wishes. Sounds vaguely invasive of personal freedom to me. If I called ‘Pro-Lifers’ ‘Nazi foetus snatchers’ (and I wouldn't as I honestly believe it's an issue always worthy of debate), they’d rightly be up in the arms that they want the right to bear. I can’t help noticing the same courtesy isn’t being extended.

Also, the rallying cry is that people should not lambast her because she’s already been maimed by the obtuse way Sarah Palin’s family were spotlighted in the election run. Here there’s a tiny bit of credence - while most lambasted her obvious political inadequacies, a FEW people DID take a few unfair pot-shots at her family relationships. I admit to being somewhat surprised at the time that a parent of any newborn child (never mind one who would need greater care) would decide to run for an absurdly high-pressure job that would take them away from home for long periods so soon after delivery, but far from being sexist I would have made the same non-malicious, simply pragmatic observation if it had been her husband in the running too. But otherwise, I evaluated her run purely on her performance/ideas/plans and in that I don’t think she was generally treated any worse/better than other candidates. If FOX News said Hilary Clinton shouldn’t be treated any differently because of her sex, I see no reason why Sarah Palin should have been kid-gloved in the same area.

But in invoking her family and Down Syndrome child for this latest rant, I’m afraid Palin invalidates the ‘out of bounds’ nature. You can’t willingly use them as a political tool and then scream when others do the same against you. If they are out-of-bounds, then that must work and be respected in both directions. Just as you can’t celebrate your daughter’s DECISION to keep her child at the same time as campaigning for lack of choice in the matter for others. Whatever your political argument or stance, which I respect your right to have, the EXECUTION of it in that case was absurdly hypocritical.

Despite all of this, there’s huge merit in people saying ‘Hold on, this health reform is an important step and therefore I need to be convinced and have my concerns addressed’. No-one in their right mind should put their signature or support  to a bill that isn’t scrutinised, debated and shaped accordingly. However there’s huge default weight put behind such a bill when the opposition to it is largely made up of the vague insinuations and lack of specifics that seemed to pepper any interview that Palin gave throughout her run. If people are genuinely concerned about their future and any significant changes, then ASK. Don’t take the pet-pundits word on either CNN or FOX, who set out to convince you of the stance they feel you should take. Take some PERSONAL responsibility and look for a break-down of what things will mean, rather than what someone says they might mean in a certain light. In a modern society, if we’re rational human beings, we can demand such assurances without hurling abuse or storming town-meetings… ENGAGE in the debate, don't listen to the most comforting sounds: Listen to all the answers. If the answers aren’t sufficient, ask more questions. Ask for diagrams if necessary. Get ’your’ guy to put your side of the debate in an equally sensible manner.

As my brother Steven so recently pointed out to me, don’t take a popular, widely distributed misconception as default proof you’re absolutely right. When something seems outlandish, then check if it’s actually true. It may be. It may not. Example: In its own rush to demonise health care reform, US paper Investor's Business Daily  has said that Professor Stephen Hawking would have died under an set-up/arrangement similar to Britain’s National Health Service. Really? When actually ASKED, Stephen Hawking, one of the world’s most eminent minds and a qualified genius (who has lived in the UK for most of his life and is still VERY MUCH ALIVE), said he was furious with the comment because - quite the opposite - he feels he owes his LIFE to the NHS.

Anyone who believes that Obama has some genuinely nefarious moustache-twirling, Nazi attempt to sneak in legislation to spy on your life and create a dictatorship, reads too many comics or conspiracy novels (or lsitens to Rush Limbaugh make a similar comparison). On the other hand, if you believe he’s simply wrong and it needs better clarification or a different idea - get your own ducks in a row and DISCUSS it.

Fight your corner… convince me you‘re right with good, solid arguments based on facts, examples, official documents and experts. Good health care for ALL can’t possibly be evil and can ONLY be good as LONG as it is implemented well. I’m British. OUR system is far from perfect, but I know you shouldn’t have to cripple yourself to afford necessary surgery. Last year I had a brain haemorrhage and I can only speak in glowing terms of a medical team and the team at Leeds General Infrimary who didn’t ask to see my tax return before they treated me. (Actually, I tell a lie, the food was pretty bad…. But because of their skill, I’m happy to be able to live with that).

But anyone basing any of their arguments for preventing good health for all, merely on the ill-informed, ill-advised ramblings of a politician so inept that I never heard her speak of a single genuine specific, who barely mastered a sound-bite and for whom a mere transcription of one of her interviews gave SNL it’s biggest season-wide laugh really, really needs to find a better advocate, authority and a firmer foundation…

Don’t let someone who tells you what to think, tell you the spin stops with them. Today, you have to make it stop YOURSELF.