ENGAGED

No, I'm not engaged but now that I have your attention...how about you "engage" in the following pop quiz:

(True or False)
1. Firearms are responsible for thousands of deaths each year.
2. Lack of health insurance is responsible for 45,000 deaths among working-age Americans each year.


ANSWERS:
1. False. Guns don't kill people; people kill people.
2. False. Insurance (or lack-there-of) has never killed a single person on this planet. How many people in Africa do you know have died as a result of not having American health insurance coverage?

Do you see the distinction? It's subtle, I know - like one of those "brain games" you have to stare at for long periods of time to finally see.

Why am I bringing this up?

Last week, Rep Alan Grayson (D) made the following comments:
Grayson said Republicans understand that a health care plan based on not getting sick "isn't always going to work," so they "have a backup plan in case you do get sick." "If you get sick in America, this is what the Republicans want you to do: If you get sick America, the Republican health care plan is this: Die quickly," he said. "That's right, the Republicans want you to die quickly if you get sick."

When asked about giving an apology to the Republican Party, Mr. Grayson responded:
“I would like to apologize,” he said. “I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven't voted sooner to end this holocaust in America.”

Holocaust - the systematic and deliberate murder of large numbers of humans.

Are you engaged here?

The statement about health insurance, based on the flawed assumptions and findings of this study, caused a member of the Democratic Party to speak out against the systematic and deliberate murder of large numbers of humans.

Oh, now isn't this interesting.

You mean like the 800,000-1.4 million abortions that have taken place each year over the past decade?

Now I realize that most of us haven't really had to use our critical reasoning skills since college, but this is asking a lot to expect for rational-thinking people to buy here.

I also realize that it is pleasing to the flesh to be filled with righteous indignation...feeling that you are championing the underdogs, the poor, the downtrodden, those who aren't able to speak up and defend themselves. But let's please not check intellectual engagement at the door. Common sense and reason are not part of the problem...but rather, part of the solution.

To say that having a nationalized health insurance plan is the only answer to solve the healthcare crisis shows lack of thinking and lack of creativity. That's like saying that the only solution to getting rid of the hassle of door-to-door solicitations is to round up all the solicitors and kill them. That's just plain silly thinking. Does this solve the "problem"? Technically, yes. Does this create other (and bigger) problems? You bet. I wouldn't get my thin mint cookies in the fall.

Friends, please don't get fooled by these "frame games." Stay engaged in your critical thinking. And if you get the chance, check out The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised As Freedom. I haven't read it yet (thus, I can not endorse) but it is on my reading list.

Stay vigilant; the principalities are actively warring.