Empathy?

In the myopic and biased outrage that President Obama should, unlike the presidents before him, attend the funeral of Nancy Reagan, one person posted his opinion on FaceBook that said that the president should go because she was much more than a First Lady.

I had no idea what that meant, but in my experience, although she knew how to act as a Hollywood star, she actually wasn’t any more a first Lady than any of the others before or since.

I was around during the Reagan years, the real ones, not the stuff of promoted myth, and my memories of her are that she, like many in her Party, lacked empathy for those not in her class.

By definition, “empathy” is the vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another. It is feeling through the experiences of others without having to experience them yourself.

I do not have to be hungry to feel for those who are and understand how it might affect them in order to do what I can to reduce their condition.

There have been a number of stories in various news outlets lately, some causing a degree of joy among some of the ACA’s supporters, where conservatives who had done what they could to eliminate the Affordable Care Act have changed their attitude when they were helped by its existence.

While others were sick, the act was no good. It was evil incarnate.

They got sick, hooray for it.

Somehow we are supposed to cheer for them while we forget how hard they tried to eliminate it for others.

Dick Cheney was strongly against Gay Rights, until his daughter came out of the closet, and now he is for them.

Until it hit home, he opposed them.

When people with AIDS were dying in the hundreds and then the thousands back in the 80s, it was no big deal. The government chose not to get involved until it was discovered that it wasn’t a Gay thing and that straight people had actually been dying from its complications, but, not being Gay, no one had taken notice.

When it was discovered it had already been hitting home, things changed.

It was no longer them, so it was no longer okay.

When stem cell research was being heavily debated and strongly opposed by the Party of Reagan, and while research was considered as a possible lead to preventing and curing Alzheimer’s, politicians discussed it in an extremely impersonal way until Ronnie Reagan was found to be suffering from it, and people, including Nancy Reagan, became very strong in their support of that research.

But only after it hit home.

Jeb Bush promoted strong action against people hooked on drugs, but became very understanding when his daughter got hooked.
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Rush Limbaugh wanted all druggies to be locked away, until his own painkiller addiction came out, and he got very quiet and more understanding.

When Cindy McCain, Senator McCain’s wife, announced that she suffered from migraine headaches, she expressed outrage that the United States government only spent $13 million annually for medical research on migraines. She had no problem with that until the headaches began.

“I’m missing a large part of my life,” she said. “I want to stay active. I want a cure.”

While others were suffering from mental health issues, former New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici opposed the wasteful government spending that would have resulted from research in that area until his daughter began showing signs of the schizophrenia that eventually disabled her.

Who can forget when two males, Todd Akin and Richard Murdock, made inept and uncompassionate remarks about rape and abortion?

This are just examples from a quick search on the internet.

These people belong to a political party that uses religious like a club, and promotes the idea that their religion should have special rights because they follow Jesus and this is a Christian Nation.

But Jesus’ first miracle was to keep a bride and groom from getting embarrassed by keeping the wine flowing so they would not go down in their wedding guests’ estimation.

Wasn’t his wedding. Wasn’t His reputation. He could have simply walked way, but He didn’t.

He gave sight to the blind even though His own was divinely 20/20.

He cured ten lepers while He himself was clean.

He cured people He had never met, and from a distance, because it was good for those other people that He did so.