Monday, December 14, 2009

Moralistic Language

Matt Yglesias seems to think that repeatedly pointing out the death toll that comes from blocking the healthcare bill should be an effective tool:
As I said in my Daily Beast column on Alan Grayson, the stark moralistic language Rep Grayson uses makes people very uncomfortable. Lieberman’s people are squirming at the accusation that he bought his Medicare concessions by threatening to kill people. Lame Washington Post editors are squealing. There’s a reason: Stark moralistic language works.
I'm not sure that's true when the very people who need to be morally embarrassed into action are mostly the people who, as I pointed out HERE, don't seem to care much about such things unless they're personally affected by them. It's tough to shame the shameless.

There is after all an oddly ironic vortex to the fact that the same people who insist on wars being fought in the name of roughly 3,000 people dying no matter how much it adds the debt/deficits etc are outraged at those deficits hopefully being reduced by preventing the deaths of the equivalent of ten 9/11s a year. But hey, healthcare's for fags, so.

No comments: