Letters: Will the tea party kill US compassion? (Here it comes!

Have no doubt about it: compassion is out of fashion, as Paul Krugman noted in the New York Times Sept. 15. At the recent tea party-sponsored GOP debate Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul what we should do if a 30-year-old man chose not to purchase health insurance and then found himself in need of six months of intensive care. "That's what freedom is all about – taking your own risks," said Paul. Blitzer followed up, "So, society should let him die?" Before Paul could answer, the crowd erupted with cheers and shouts of "Yeah!" Who are these tea party people? ! A year and a half ago when this movement got started we were assured they were just "average Americans." And polls in April 2010 showed this was somewhat true: a little over half were Republican and the rest were independents and conservative Democrats. But the latest survey of their membership shows a much different picture. More than 80 percent are Republicans, 15 percent are independents and 5 percent Dems. They are for the most part the radical religious-right sector of the Republican Party that we have always known. The most recent study of this group, posted Aug, 17, 2011, on the Internet, reveals the truth: They are white, have a low regard for immigrants and blacks, have a desire for religion to play a prominent role in politics, seek deeply religious elected officials, want religion brought into political debates. These people who scream to let the poor fellow without health insurance die are religious! And let's say it, they are Christian religious! This is most disconcerting to me, a Christian clergy person. I have always assumed being Christian meant being compassionate for the weak and vulnerable. And especially those who are vulnerable through no fault of their own. For as Krugman points out, most uninsured Americans either have low incomes and cannot afford insurance or are rejected by insurers because they have chronic conditions. The tea party attitude, evidently from the audience response last week, is let them wither and die. The same for immigrants. The same for minority school children in poor school districts. The same for Muslims. So, the lack of compassion has become a matter of principle for tea party members. It is a truly radical movement that is angry and organized to overturn the kind of society that we have enjoyed in the past, a society that tries, with the help of government, to ease some of the hazards of life through programs like Social Security, unemployment insurance, Medicare and Medicaid.