A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about being trapped in a flash flood with an elderly friend as I drove her to church. The car was lost, and we were rescued by workers at a nearby gas station. "My friend complained bitterly at the damage to her expensive shoes and the loss of her umbrella," I wrote. "Folks in pain do not want to hear that it could have been worse. Desperate people are outraged by even the best excuses."

My friend was obsessed by trivial concerns, only dimly aware of the fate we had been spared. I had not intended to trivialize the panic experienced by folks who lose their jobs, or the hardship that awaits many. But a fair minded reader could easily have read that implication into my comparison.

A few months ago, I defended Representative Nathan Deal (R-GA) after he made an unfortunate reference to "ghetto grandmothers." The context was the key. He was proposing that proof be required of citizenship for medical care. It reflected a harshness toward immigrants. But he was expressing concern for the elderly poor who might lack such documentation. There was no intentional offense. My vote was to give him a pass.

A Republican Congressional representative a while back told a cheering crowd that the country needed a new Great White Hope to defeat President Obama. A spokesperson later said she had not been thinking of race, but rather about the bright luminaries within the GOP. She had no history of race baiting. So I suggested we take her at her word.

Some episodes do grate. Every few weeks some major figure in the GOP makes headlines with a racial slur, or a broadly racist joke. The First Lady has been compared with a gorilla, the President has been portrayed as a half clothed witchdoctor, and the Obama children have been targets.

Andre Bauer, the Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina, came under some criticism recently. He compared poor people to stray animals. "My grandmother was not a highly educated woman but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals," he recalled fondly. "You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that."

Time constraints, impulse, or (in my case) limitations of space, can cause us to abbreviate our thoughts, with unintended verbal consequence. People get offended, and rightly so. That is why heartfelt apologies should be accepted at face value whenever they are reasonably plausible.

Lieutenant Governor Bauer has also apologized. "I never intended to tie people to animals," he says. He talks fondly of taking in a stray cat, feeding it, loving it. He points out that he has raised money to protect animals. He is "not against animals," he says. As with others, we can take his regret as genuine. He does seem sorry at having offended any four legged creatures.

"Hunger can be a positive motivator. What is wrong with the idea of getting a job so you can get better meals?"

 - - State Representative Cynthia Davis (R-MO), June 4, 2009
     On why school children in poverty will do better if they are not fed

The most pernicious practice of insurance companies, the greatest single source of abuse, is the practice of denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions. Stories abound of absurd applications of the policy.

The entire concept of denial of coverage because of some previous illness seems so outrageously unfair that elimination of the practice is more widely popular than any other aspect of health care reform. Over 70% support banning denial of coverage over pre-existing conditions. Why should anyone be penalized because they were ill sometime in the past?

Suppose that you are an insurance executive who really wants to be fair. So you eliminate pre-existing conditions as a consideration of coverage. The obvious consequence is that nobody buys coverage with your company unless they get sick. There is no point to paying premiums until you are really ill since health coverage is easy to get when you are sick. This is called adverse selection, and insurance companies generally avoid it, since it would mean going bankrupt pretty quickly.

As an executive, you could raise rates to compensate, but that would absolutely guarantee the people who are not seriously ill would go to cheaper companies, the ones who deny coverage because of pre-existing conditions.

Okay, you want to be fair. You are willing to provide coverage to anyone willing to pay a fair price for it if you can keep from losing your shirt doing it. So you call your congressional representative. That person is agreeable. We'll require all insurance companies to give the same deal. No denial of coverage because of pre-existing conditions.

Except that puts every company in the same boat. Why buy coverage before you need it, if coverage is guaranteed? Every insurance company would go out of business and nobody would have coverage. So you make a counter-proposal. You'll accept everyone who wants coverage if every insurance company is required to do the same, AND every person, sick or not, is required to buy insurance. There! No more adverse selection.

But not everyone can afford to be covered. So Congress would have to help people who can't afford coverage with some sort of alternative. Maybe some government help or maybe a public option.

And that's how you get the Obama proposal. And that's how, unless reform is passed, you get insurance companies acting like heartless jerks. They have no choice.

Don't hate the players.
Hate the game.
Then change the rules.

The end.

What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing. This will not pass. We will do whatever it takes.

 - - Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN), August 31, 2009
     On defeating Health Care Reform

By way of conservative blogger Ned Williams, we have a recommendation by Thomas Sowell on how Republicans can start getting significantly greater support from black voters. Sowell is often quoted to me by conservative friends in a some-of-my-best-friends sort of way, since he is black. Alan Keyes used to be the example of choice, but Sowell is thought to have more credibility by virtue of not being widely considered as insane. The one redeeming characteristic I find in Sowell's writings is that he is not afraid to refer to the "Democratic party" or the "Democratic agenda" or even "Democratic candidates." Such is the current state of my search for good things to say about Republicans. My apologies.

Ned has no discernible racial prejudices, his public bigotry being confined to his reaction to gay people. He presents Sowell's thoughts in his usual straightforward manner. Sowell believes that conservatives should revive a proposal they have kept in hibernation for the last several years. If black voters were presented with school voucher proposals, Republicans would still not get a majority of black voters, but might get a large enough share to create major problems for the Democratic party.

Over time, conservatives have accumulated a considerable body of evidence that kids in private or semi-private schools, like charter schools, end up with better academic records. Ignored is the fact that cherry picking has an effect. Schools that are allowed to accept, reject, or expel students at will are likely to bounce children with learning problems.

Liberals reject vouchers as a back door to using taxpayer funds for religious education. I like the idea of religiously based education. The church I attend runs tutoring programs, one specifically targeting disadvantaged students. They are staffed by volunteers. I would think it bizarre if government took them over or funded them.

Sowell's, and presumably Ned's, political argument has three main flaws.

Enthusiasm by black voters might not be as great as hoped. Vouchers first obtained significant support as a reaction to integrated schools. Whites-only "academies" wanted government funding. So history, properly presented, might dampen black support for an idea that is historically racist.

Republicans won't back it. White support drops off significantly, particularly conservative white support, for voucher programs that significantly affect black students. Lack of white support is a major factor in the dropping of the issue as a significant thrust by the GOP.

Even if Republicans back it and black people become enthusiastic, it won't result in black support for a political party whose officials regard disadvantaged folks as akin to stray animals. "They don't know any better," says South Carolina's Lieutenant Governor. Odd as it may seem, voters of any color or economic status demand respect.

My grandmother was not a highly educated woman but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better.

 - - Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer(R-SC), leading candidate for Governor, January 22, 2010