A well-educated Christian friend of mine, who also happens to be a conservative talk-show host, wrote this on his Facebook page yesterday: "I don't know if I like the idea of the President sending you to jail if you don't buy into his healthcare policy."
He likes to make thought-provoking statements so I laughed it off until I read the ABC News interview with President Obama that was apparently what sent my friend and many of his conservative colleagues into a tizzy.
ABC's Jake Tapper sat down for an exclusive chat with the President regarding the health care bill. During that session, the President discussed possible penalties that should be paid by people who choose not to buy health insurance. This is the comment the President made as noted on ABC's website:
"What I think is appropriate is that in the same way that everybody has to get auto insurance and if you don't, you're subject to some penalty, that in this situation, if you have the ability to buy insurance, it's affordable and you choose not to do so, forcing you and me and everybody else to subsidize you, you know, there's a thousand dollar hidden tax that families all across America are -- are burdened by because of the fact that people don't have health insurance, you know, there's nothing wrong with a penalty.”
Asked if that penalty should include jail time, ABC quotes the President as responding that he doesn't think the jail issue is the "biggest question" Congress is facing right now.
It was a three-second give and take during a much larger Q and A on the health care issue yet many commentators have seized on it the way my friend did, emphasizing what the President did not say. Obama didn't call for jail. He called for penalties. And he excepted those who are hardship cases. In fact, he very much sounded to me like someone unwilling to go to the jail time option.
Similarly, the President hasn't proposed one gun control measure, yet the NRA and other groups fired up the gun folks after his election to the point that gun prices exploded and demand for ammunition so far exceeded supply that there were shortages. He hasn't proposed any abortion bill, even emphasized to ABC that he doesn't want anyone trying to change the status quo of no public funding for abortions with the health care bill, yet people at my church have told me they hate him because he supports the murder of children. These are devout Christians using the word "hate."
And that, to me, is the bottom line. Those who hate this President hate him personally. They don't just hate his policies or proposals. They eagerly pounce on any morsel of a statement he makes and rip it apart like wild dogs in a feeding frenzy. Their fervor is a murderous obsession. They are terrified of him, everything he does and what he "might" do.
I disagreed with previous Administrations on a number of issues. I have never hated any President. I distrust politicians. I don't hate them. Rapists, pedophiles and those who manipulate the criminal justice system to escape punishment for capital crimes, deserve our venom. Hatred of an Administration's policies? If that's your passion, certainly. Hatred for the person of the President? Absolutely not. That's where many ultra-conservatives cross the line. Not only that, they fear-monger, hoping to whip others into the same frenzy.
Hating someone for having beliefs different from yours, and the obstructionist thinking that has resulted from that hate, is absurd.
Hatred breeds destruction. Is that where we're headed?
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