All you need to do is look at the health care debate.
Do you and your friends and family feel that you have proper health care? Then your pack predetermines they you are most likely against any changes. Any changes means your pack is lessened. Who cares about those not in your pack? They are a secondary consideration.
Are you and your friends and family struggling with pre-existing conditions or loss of heath care coverage? Known any one who lost a job or a house or both because of an illness which left them bankrupt? Then you are probably all in favor of change, since the current system threatens your pack. Who cares if it works?
Unfortunately, the causality is truth. But then, it usually is. Governments always miss the last step of governing. Responsible government implies periodic check to see if programs actually work. Whatever you think of the philosophical meat behind a government action, there is a pragmatic consideration of whether it succeeds in reaching its goals. And it is a simple thing to look.
But governments never do. After all, looking for truth means there is a possibility that one may be proven wrong. And being proven wrong has a psychological cost. It is the Dick Chaney model -- never admit mistakes. Mistakes, after all, show fallibility. And fallibility will make people question.
Theologically, we see that all over. Questions are forbidden. Try to question the spiritual leader in Iran and.. well, you see the consequences -- protestors jailed, beaten, and probably killed. Question the pope, and one may get excommunicated. Question the President and one may be called a traitor or communist or some other thing. Flaws in one area imply flaws in others.
It is interesting how the interests of the pack dominate. The ideas which seem to support the preservation of the pack become dogma. The leaders who proclaim themselves worthy of defending the pack, become inerrant.
And somewhere in the whole debate is truth.
Pity it seems so unconnected to our conversations.
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