It was two years ago that we bought our house in Prescott and started getting ready to move from Tucson. Arizona is a conservative state, and we’d been residing in its most liberal district for more than two-dozen years; we knew we were relocating to a more traditionalist, less culturally diverse area but were willing to pay the price to escape the heat and sprawl.
It’s not just conservative politically: one of my friends commented that we were moving to the “Bible Belt,” and I can see his point. Summer church camps abound and Gideon Bibles lie in physicians’ waiting rooms. A questionnaire from one doctor for whom I got a referral even inquired about my faith. On the other hand, there’s a thriving arts community; Prescott College students provide a semblance of hippie culture; and last fall just down our street two houses on opposite sides sported Obama signs in their yards.
Another indicator of Prescott’s having two sociopolitical camps appears in on-line comments to editorials and letters-to-the-editor in the Daily Courier. The exchange between left and right is nothing short of scathing. I thought it had been brutal during the election, but the debate over health care has really pushed the envelope. I wouldn’t have bothered commenting on this since I’m sure it goes on everywhere, but a letter that appeared yesterday – and the comments to it – are worth noting.
The letter is brief: “I am being priced out of health care. I needed a test done and the doctor wanted the $1,000 co-pay first. It has been 11 months and I still have not had the test. If you are a Christian, vote for national health care.”
Some of the responses are startling: “Charity at the threat of government fines and imprisonment is neither charity OR Christian. It is fascism.” . . . “It’s time for everyone to get off their hind ends, quit looking for handouts and start doing for yourself.” . . . “So you want the government to control you is that it?” . . . “If you had worked harder in school you would not be in the position you are in, using BLASPHEMY to try to further your selfish agenda.”
I hope the last one was tongue-in-cheek, but suspect otherwise. (And btw, if you go to the link, the Wayne commenting is not yours truly.) I’ve come to expect these kinds of reactions in the general give-and-take over the issue, but not with so much hostility to an appeal to religious solidarity. What I find most disturbing is that in an overwhelmingly Christian community the notion of providing a common good for fellow citizens is trumped by knee-jerk paranoia about big government. If W had proposed health care under the banner of Compassionate Conservatism, would the reaction have been as fierce? Reactions to the precedent of other industrialized nations outdoing us simply echo the parental response of “If everybody else jumped off the bridge, would you jump too?”
I find this a sad commentary on a supposedly Christian nation, where the poster-girl for the religious right advocates America getting back to God (in advance of what is presumably a presidential bid). I suspect she means the God of the Old Testament – you know, the vindictive slayer of enemies – not Jesus’ God of Love. Because there’s no love showing in some folks’ attitudes about what government of, by, and for the people can do for their fellow man.
It’s not just conservative politically: one of my friends commented that we were moving to the “Bible Belt,” and I can see his point. Summer church camps abound and Gideon Bibles lie in physicians’ waiting rooms. A questionnaire from one doctor for whom I got a referral even inquired about my faith. On the other hand, there’s a thriving arts community; Prescott College students provide a semblance of hippie culture; and last fall just down our street two houses on opposite sides sported Obama signs in their yards.
Another indicator of Prescott’s having two sociopolitical camps appears in on-line comments to editorials and letters-to-the-editor in the Daily Courier. The exchange between left and right is nothing short of scathing. I thought it had been brutal during the election, but the debate over health care has really pushed the envelope. I wouldn’t have bothered commenting on this since I’m sure it goes on everywhere, but a letter that appeared yesterday – and the comments to it – are worth noting.
The letter is brief: “I am being priced out of health care. I needed a test done and the doctor wanted the $1,000 co-pay first. It has been 11 months and I still have not had the test. If you are a Christian, vote for national health care.”
Some of the responses are startling: “Charity at the threat of government fines and imprisonment is neither charity OR Christian. It is fascism.” . . . “It’s time for everyone to get off their hind ends, quit looking for handouts and start doing for yourself.” . . . “So you want the government to control you is that it?” . . . “If you had worked harder in school you would not be in the position you are in, using BLASPHEMY to try to further your selfish agenda.”
I hope the last one was tongue-in-cheek, but suspect otherwise. (And btw, if you go to the link, the Wayne commenting is not yours truly.) I’ve come to expect these kinds of reactions in the general give-and-take over the issue, but not with so much hostility to an appeal to religious solidarity. What I find most disturbing is that in an overwhelmingly Christian community the notion of providing a common good for fellow citizens is trumped by knee-jerk paranoia about big government. If W had proposed health care under the banner of Compassionate Conservatism, would the reaction have been as fierce? Reactions to the precedent of other industrialized nations outdoing us simply echo the parental response of “If everybody else jumped off the bridge, would you jump too?”
I find this a sad commentary on a supposedly Christian nation, where the poster-girl for the religious right advocates America getting back to God (in advance of what is presumably a presidential bid). I suspect she means the God of the Old Testament – you know, the vindictive slayer of enemies – not Jesus’ God of Love. Because there’s no love showing in some folks’ attitudes about what government of, by, and for the people can do for their fellow man.
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