It’s been a literal mental thug of war in my brain concerning how to feel, and what to say, since I heard about Senator John McCain brain cancer diagnosis. I’ve hear all the sentiments and the myriads of reasons for each on of them, and I tend to understand and have no problems with the two overriding sentiments of all of them. This may be a pointer as to why I’m a bit at sea with how to feel, and what to say.
The two sentiments I understand and have no problems with are on the one hand, the people who do not feel sorry for the Senator concerning his plight for reasons of his political stands which they feel has lacked compassion for the people. On the other hand are those who feel compassion for him and his plight despite his political stands which they completely understand and disagree with. Such people just feel like there’s no excuse that makes it right to celebrate the ill fortunes of anyone, even your enemies.
There’s a third group which has the same sentiments as the second group, but instead believe that the illness in this case, cancer, is such a scourge on humans that it cannot be celebrated on anyone, no matter who. I believe that such people may have lost someone, family or friend, to the disease and have witnessed first hand the trauma of it, and are not willing to wish that on anybody else.
Like I said, I do understand all these positions, and why people might take them in this situation, and doing so has both made my own decision making on this very difficult while also helping shape my final position on it.
Having closely followed American politics since my time in this country, I am a witness to the political stands of the senior senator from Arizona, Senator John Sidney McCain III(R) on all sorts of issues. One thing I can say about this record is that Senator McCain has done very little to endear himself to the average American with his stands on things that benefit ordinary people. I know he’s a Republican, and that party has a reputation, but he has voted for some legislation that even some so called extremist members of his party had rejected.
There’s a running joke that the Arizona senator has yet to see a war he didn’t approve of, and that’s because the Senator McCain has voted for every single war which America has fought during his time in the Senate. He is a war monger per excellence, and is always at the forefront of all pushes for invasions of other countries by the United States military. These are invasions that have killed millions of humans combined, including Americans, in addition to completely destabilizing the invaded countries.
But this is a health issue so I will concentrate my analysis on Senator McCain’s records on healthcare matters. That part about his war records was just to make a point on how much he values other peoples’ lives being that this issue involves his own life.
Senator McCain, just like he does on war votes, has yet to see a healthcare bill that supports ordinary Americans; men, women, children that he likes. He has voted against all attempts to institute universal health care so that his constituents, the people who elect him every time, can have good health care like he and his family have.
Senator McCain has voted against all attempts to pass government funded single payer health care despite the fact that it’s what he and his family enjoy. He has voted against protecting women’s health from corporate interference. The purpose of the Act is to ensure that employers that provide health benefits to their employees cannot deny any specific health benefits, including contraception coverage, to any of their employees or the covered dependents of such employees entitled by Federal law to receive such coverage.
Senator McCain has voted every time to either repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) otherwise known as Obamacare, or make it less effective by reducing the coverage it offers. How a man who gets the best health care coverage sponsored by tax payer funds keeps working to deny those same tax payers that same health care is beyond me.
A Story is making the rounds in the wake of the Senator McCain’s diagnosis, of how he told a constituent family of his to move away from Arizona if they wanted good healthcare because he was against healthcare as a human right. I know there has been a lot of back and forth over the veracity of this story, so I’ll leave you with a link to what the website Snopes says about it. For the records, I want to say that I believe the story to be true.
Yes, I believe that story to be true, and based on that, I made my decision not to care about Senator McCain’s diagnosis with cancer one way or another. This means that I feel no sympathy for him and his family, neither do I feel happy, or think that he deserves to have cancer. I just don’t feel for him and his family like I would for someone who I believe deserves my empathy. I just don’t think someone like the senator deserves my empathy.
I believe that you have to care about others and their plights to deserve to be care about. This man has clearly never cared about anybody but himself and his immediate family and friends. Even today, he’s hoping to get cured, using the good health care he’s provided by us citizens, so he can go back to Congress and vote to take away, from many of us, the half measure coverage we currently get from the ACA.
Yes, It’s difficult for me to care about a person like that when they get hit by misfortune, so, while I’m not happy and rejoicing that he got diagnosed with a horrible disease like brain cancer, I’m also not exactly sad about it. My feeling towards his diagnosis is one of numbness….callousness, if you will. I don’t think Senator McCain exults or rejoices when he votes to deny health care to his constituents and other Americans, so I’ll not exult or rejoice over his illness.
I don’t believe he rejoiced or exulted when he told the family that came to him for help to treat their husband and father who had cancer to move away from Arizona if they wanted to get treatment. I think he was just numb and callous. He didn’t care what happened to that man, that family, and the tens of millions of Americans he denied health care. He felt nothing for them, so I feel nothing for him. He didn’t give a shit about them. Neither do I, about him.
