It seems to me that the foundation may be this:
Most health care, especially western health care costs, surrounds the fact that these human bodies just don’t last very long. Don’t work perfectly and medicating them and sustaining them past every individual’s shelf life is very very very expensize.

Sometimes the body you get doesn’t work well to begin with.

Keeping these tiny skiffs, these tiny rafts afloat upon the ocean of space and time long after they’ve started to leak is very very expensive and ultimately.

Futile.

There’s nothing to be done, and it ends badly in the physical sense for each and everyone of us.

So it may be that the foundation of the argument is the white elephant no one speaks of in any context pretty much.

What we are speaking of isn’t *Health-care*

It’s rather *death-care*

And that is why for me this is such an impossible debate.

It’s akin to trying to decide who should take the life-boats.

Modern Medical American Care is indeed a lifeboat of wonder for so many. It’s powerful and can sustain a sinking body for years once it’s started to become frail and take on water and in many cases it offers one the ability to perfom past what anyone could possibly imagine (Lance Armstrong anyone?)

It’s no wonder everyone want’s it. To surf across as many waves of space and time as is possible. To stay on stage as long as possible and while doing so, doing so without pain or suffering.

So I think once the discourse is oriented to a constructed architecture of that which is *most* true for the human condition, for the American Tradition… i think a beautiful ship may be built. It won’t save anyone. But it indeed may make life beautiful for a few more moments. Especially if

since we’ve all hit the iceberg from the moment we’ve been born…. there will be those few inspiring souls that step back from that which super-affluence and station in life have bought them, and say here: “take my lifeboat”.

Kudo’s for broaching the subject. Yes it is difficult. What helps me is to see things through a wide angle lense.

The Foucaultian (or Foucaultdian depending on how one pronounces) Spatialization of the sick, the inconvenient, the indigent (well more inconvenience) or the mad dates back to the 1700′s.

While the acute difficulty of untangling ourselves (as humans) from monstrous moments that have slipped through the grasp of even the righteous, seems frustrating at the conceptual level.

There’s nothing to stop folks from being as aggressive about taking care of each other as they are themselves. While much indeed needs to be worked out (en-fleshed). Some movements do give hope. Livestrong for example, and the few communities, churched or otherwise that continue to gather around and sustain and support the sick in many diverse and varied ways, regardless of the Politik.

If indeed the government is “by the people and for the people”, what does it say about “the people” if the world they enflesh is only suitable to “me the individual” especial if that individual happens to be wealthy (relative to the un-fairly incomed masses) and able and un-Foucaultian spatialized.. or perhaps better said, marginalized.

Merci!

I relate to your reluctance to dive into the fray surrounding current hot button political topics. I heard that a couple of weeks ago one angry guy bit off another man’s finger at a healthcare town hall event. Even exchanges with no physical violence turn into nasty vitriolic confrontations between opponents or equally ugly bitch-fests between people with similar opinions. Who wants to be a part of that? You’re right, there is no beauty there.

I think many Christians have the same struggles when dealing with the intersection of their faith and politics. Some Christians look at the way Jesus refused to be made a political leader, despite the urgings of his followers and say that Christians should not be involved in politics. Throughout history, whenever Christian institutions have gained too much political power, the results have often been oppression and bloodshed, (ie., the inquisition, the burning of Protestants at the stake, etc.).

There are other Christians who see Jesus as a very political figure. The religious leaders of Israel were the local government and Jesus very openly confronted them. The Romans definitely saw his teachings as a threat to their political system, or they wouldn’t have crucified him. If all Christians avoided involvement in politics, then slavery may never have been abolished in this country and the Civil Rights movement might never have come to be.

While looking to Jesus for an example in how to participate in our political system can point us in the right direction, it is also problematic. Jesus did not live in a representative democracy, nor did anyone in the Bible. Because we live in this type of government, each American has a certain amount of political power. If we refuse to use this power by abstaining from participating in the politics of our country because we are afraid of confrontation or because other Christians have made mistakes in this area in the past, are we any different than the servant who hid his talent out of fear rather than using it? I respect your willingness to wrestle with this issue, as well as your humble approach.