During his address to the joint session of Congress, President Obama was called a liar by Joe Wilson (R-SC). This irrational outburst was a prime example of the fear rhetoric that has loomed over the health care debate.

From town halls to national media, fear has been touted as truth.

Rebecca Hannagan, a political science professor at NIU, conveys some reasoning to why conservatives are responding in such fashion.

“Conservatives are threatened because they do not think the government has the right to distribute health care,” said Hannagan.

It is ridiculous that politicians, who are supposed to be well-respected, use childish scare tactics when voicing their ideas for different issues.

“With any political debate, when people want to avoid substantive arguments, typically what people fall back to are arguments that have to do with ideology, and a lot of it is ideological stereotypes,” Hannagan said.

Why is fear so influential?

“Fear rhetoric is persuasive for it is a short memorable sound bite. If people are made to be scared of change, then they will hold on to the status quo, no matter how imperfect it may be,” said Brad Sagarin, professor of psychology.

Sagarin, who has done research on how to resist persuasively deceptive advertisements, believes the treatment he developed to help people recognize faulty claims can also be used for political messages.

“If there is a deceptive aspect of a political opponent’s persuasive message, what the other politician would want to do is get people to admit they believe in that deception and then dismiss that false belief with facts. Once they had dismissed that belief, people would also be more inclined to filter the messages they receive from that source,” Sagarin said.

To help dismiss those that are deceived by current unsubstantiated jeopardy claims, a continuance of the rational argument for a public choice for health insurance is as follows.

Government is the collective will of the people: we have elections. If a group of citizens view health care as a right, and want to relinquish the freedom to self-protect that right to the government, they are at liberty to.

Health care is a right. It is not morally tangible to condemn those that earn less to a lower quality of security. Securing the equality of our citizens is why the government needs to be involved in health care.

Many citizens value the security the military provides, which takes 20 percent of income tax revenues. Any citizen that values the benefits of medicine could argue the inconsistency in a government which provides the security of a military without the security of health care.

The era of deregulation has proven the greed of human nature. Average citizens are being gouged and manipulated for profit in most industries, but in the aspect of health it is remarkably disgusting. Humans have no choice when they get sick, and are not at luxury to ‘shop around.’ This is why there is value in having laws protect access to health care.

Arguments of jeopardy have, for too long, frightened government from prompt progress. As citizens we are at fault. To be an intelligent democracy, we first have to be educated in the facts of our society and the perspectives of those within it. If we fail to find reason in a path that we take, we must admit to being lead astray, and choose another.

Remember what Franklin D. Roosevelt said in his inauguration address, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

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