"Bless me, what do they teach them at these school?"
Thus spoke Professor Digory Kirk at the end of C.S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. Earlier in the book he had lamented the apparent lack of logical training in modern schools, a fact which has been proven over and over again in government-funded schools across the world and is as true today as it was when Lewis wrote in 1950.
The current health care debate has many more details than I can possible comment on, but one of the more puzzling aspects of this is the very public debate over death panels. If I am hearing correctly, former Governor Sarah Palin first alerted most of us to the essential nature of this aspect of the Obamacare plan, not as something spelled out in a particular section of the bill, but as something that would take place in essence if the bill were passed as is. There is a big difference between saying we are going to pull the plug on Grandma and doing it because it makes sense to someone in authority because Grandma is just too much of a drain on the money pot.
The interesting thing about this for me has been the apparent lack of ability to form a real refutation of this charge. Everyone I have listened to, speaking from the left, has denied the death panel charge and said something to the effect of, "Of course we would never want to do that" without ever actually saying it would not happen. All they really ever get around to saying is that the bill does not call for death panels. But again, this is different from saying we will write language in that prevents the bill from being enacted in such a way as to make death panels a essential characteristic of Obamacare.
Doug Wilson wrote on this a while back from a different point, but I think the point still stands. You can read his post here. If you want to refute a charge, it is important that you speak to what the charge actually says. Neither Palin nor anyone else said that on line such-and-such of the bill it says there will be death panels composed to determine if it is in the best interest of the government or the people to continue paying for medicine or treatment for the elderly or terminally ill. What they said it that the language of the bill is sufficiently weak as to allow for this to take place and that given human nature and the federal government, it most certainly will eventually list in that direction if imposed as is.
So all these media guys and senators and whatnot running around saying it's ridiculous to suggest that the bill has death panels written in are not refuting the charge, they are stating the obvious, which is not what the charge is about. The charge of death panels is about the consequences of ideas, not about what words are on the page.
If this health care bill is passed, this is what will happen down the road.
"Why don't they teach logic at these schools?"
