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I can’t believe I fell for it. It stood in stark opposition to everything I believe about how life is organized, who and what we’re meant to be. It should have sounded alarms — and it did, but I shut them off, because I figured they were more reactive than thoughtful, that they were kneejerk disagreement. But fall for it I did.
The issue was health care, and the person with whom I was discussing it was my dad. We don’t see eye to eye on many things when it comes to politics or religion, but he’s my dad, and I respect and love him. He’s also a lot smarter than me, even though, once again, I think he’s wrong about pretty much everything, because those differences don’t come from intelligence, but from POV; he looks at the world through a very different set of eyes than me. So we got to talking about health care within the confines of whether or not someone has a right to it. Now, a right is a very powerful thing; it means that, beyond politics, beyond law, there are basic preconditions which should and must govern human interaction with a government, that there are things with a government is obligated to do or not do. The basic civil rights are freedoms of speech and religion and those derived from them, which my dad supports fully. He does not, however, believe health care is a right, and his argument seemed convincing at first.
What he said was that the basic rights among the first ten amendments are rights which prevent people from acting, rather than compel them to acting. That was the underlying principle: a right is not something that could force other people to act. That’s not a liberty but a coercion, denying others their freedom to choose. Now, I didn’t have an immediate answer for this. I should have, but I didn’t. For some reason, his case made sense to me, even as it violated my worldview. I suppose there’s more individualist in me than I like to believe.
Now, I couldn’t cite Catechism to the man. He’s not Catholic.
2211 The political community has a duty to honor the family, to assist it, and to ensure especially:
- the freedom to establish a family, have children, and bring them up in keeping with the family’s own moral and religious convictions;- the protection of the stability of the marriage bond and the institution of the family;
- the freedom to profess one’s faith, to hand it on, and raise one’s children in it, with the necessary means and institutions;
- the right to private property, to free enterprise, to obtain work and housing, and the right to emigrate;
- in keeping with the country’s institutions, the right to medical care, assistance for the aged, and family benefits;
- the protection of security and health, especially with respect to dangers like drugs, pornography, alcoholism, etc.;
- the freedom to form associations with other families and so to have representation before civil authority.
But it’s all there. There is a right to medical care. Now, how can these be reconciled? The basic difference is one of understanding what a right is. For my dad, a right is simply something that prevents the government from interfering in your life. Freedom is freedom from government involvement., government coercion, government requirement, and nothing could ever be a right which tramples on my God-givern ability to say eff off and leave you in the dirt. But that’s not the only conception of a right, neither is it the proper one.
The truth of the matter is that we are not wholly-independent autonomous units with no obligations toward each other. The right to medical care is a community right, something that strengthens and upholds the unit of the community, respects its individual members, values them as made in God’s image, and recognizes the inherant dignity belong to each. Rights cannot be taken solely as protections against government intrusion, but as aspects of justice, justice being each person getting what they deserve, what they are owed, not by any debt, but simply by the virtue of their being human.
See, you’ll notice the rights enumerated above cover civil and social rights: freedom of religion, freedom to own property, freedom of movement, freedom of assembly and representation — but rights to health care, property, and security. Taken wholly, this is a blueprint for a just society where freedom of conscience lives alongside consciences fully formed.
This gem straight from CNN TV: King of Pop’s Hair to Produce Diamonds.
So yesterday, I met for lunch with my friend Emma. We met in the line at Subway some years ago, her overhearing a conversation between myself and a friend regarding which of the Star Trek captains was the best. Longtime readers of Saint Superman are well aware of my stance on the issue, a firm and contrarian “Sisko,” from Deep Space Nine. Emma, on the other hand, is a staunch Kirkist. Most women, I’ve found, tend to be; perhaps its his rugged good looks or cowboy demeanour, but chicks can’t get enough of Jim Kirk. We quickly struck up a lasting friendship which has, unfortunately, fallen into disuse. We agreed to meet for lunch on the grounds that we’re both leaving Richmond forever in the next month.
After drifting into a number of areas, we ended up discussing the detritus of Michael Jackson’s life, and Emma made a telling comment, that it was strange to have lived through his death. His death wasn’t shocking like Heath Ledger’s, because Jacko’s always been a little sickly, but neither was it wholly expected, like, say Walter Cronkite’s or Ed McMahon’s, both of whom were elderly fellas. She had difficulty elucidating what, exactly, struck her as odd about Jackson’s death, but there was something wholly odd about it. “He was always there,” she said. “Strange, yeah, but he was always sort of around.”
In this conversation, it occurred to me: Jackson’s death forced us to do something we were simply unprepared to do, which is to take stock and analyze the man’s life, to try and make sense of it. While he was alive, he could be shrugged off and ignored, mocked, belittled, or admired. He was still, er, evolving, and who knew what the future might bring? Perhaps an explanation for the last twenty-five years, some sense about the scandals and the surgeries, or some new groundbreaking work which would render everything forgiven. We could sit back and think “He’s insane, but he’s a genius,” and get on with our lives. When he died, though, this became impossible, because all of a sudden, we were plunged into a spirit of confusion, mourning, anger, or frustration, all stemming from the sudden termination of this strange and controversial life.
Quite unexpectedly, he was done, and his oddly-uneven body of work — from the stunning supernova brilliance of Thriller to the strange and disappointing Invincible — alongside his decidedly unsettling ;ife needed to be reconciled with each other, with the media, and with the fans and detractors. Stock needed to be taken. Sense needed to be forged. Somehow, we felt, it all needed some interpretive key, something to make it fit together so we could finally pick a narrative and move on. Because all the greats have a narrative.
- Elvis is the King of Rock. He was a musical trailblazer who introduced the beat to white mainstream audiences but fell into his own excess, struggled to reinvent himself, and ultimately succumbed to the very wealth and fame he had built for himself.
- Johnny Cash is the Man in Black, the contentious, contrarian saint and sinner, always at odds with himself, whose conflicted life fed his music.
- John Lennon is the Walrus, the hippie prophet who came with a message of peace and love, with overtly communistic overtones, whose life was cut tragically short.
Each of them has a conventional line. But what can we say about Jackson? He made excellent music but was driven mad by his fame? That his desire to be a childlike led him to take advantage of children? Was his music worth it? Did he hurt others, or just himself? How does it all fit together? These are the questions we still don’t really have a solid answer for, and I’m not sure when we will. In sixty years, will we remember his dalliances with kids, or will we remember Thriller?
I love Hulu and I love magic shows. When I was a kid, they used to have these magician specials on the Big Four now and then, and I bloody ate them up. I wish they still did them, because I got such a thrill from watching these gigantic, over-the-top performances where the impossible happened in the delightfully-controlled environment of the stage. I wanted to learn how to do this stuff. Ok, not the “impale myself on a giant drill” routine that Sabrina Mistress of Magic did, but, ya know, some of the stuff with cards. That’d be cool.
Which brings me to my point: Criss Angel: Mindfreek is now on Hulu. I refuse to watch this show because I’m about 80% convinced that Criss Angel is an evil wizard. I’m sure there’s a lot of special effects and camera tricks, but this show is so mind-bogglingly unsettling that I will not under any circumstances watch it. He’s a talented illusionist, so I’ll give him credit where credit is due. But let’s not forget that this is the show that featured a human torso crawling its way across the beach, and had him actually walking on water. So, um, yeah, I’m good.
Also, who the hell spells their name like that? No excuse for that.
Please, by all means, subscribe to my feed. I have, at present, a mere 33 followers, which places me THREE below my hated enemy, Nick Milne. This must be rectified!
Click for full size. This was an actual conversation.
[Addendum by Brian]
This is actually a really remarkable analysis of a massive cultural problem. I’m going to have to do a writeup on this later.
[Addendum by Kevin]
THAT’S WHAT I WAS HOPING FOR! I might as well, but seriously, good stuff here.
I always thought this was a duet!
Am I the only one who finds 90% of EWTN unbelievably dull? I always get excited when I visit a relative who has a satellite dish, and then when I actually put the channel on, it’s just a bunch of people praying out in a field. I mean, yeah, there’s the occasional flash of brillioans, but by and large, that channel is made of pure valium. I’m not being critical for the sake of being critical, but to me it raises a real question:
Catholicism is for me the most stupendous, exciting, adventurous thing out there. It’s full of human and divine drama, a star-spanning saga about death and love and the meaning of life, with an astonishing array of kings and prophets and martyrs and divines, wars fought and prisoners redeemed, all under the banner of Christ. It goes from Adam to Abraham to David to Christ, the slow and sure opening of redemption to the world, and the perpetual parousia of the Eucharist — it’s all and endless and breathless voyage. So why is it so boring on TV?
