You’ve been at war with a credit card outfit. The card company (fronted by the issuing bank) says you owe a streaming fee for a movie service you didn’t want. You say you canceled a trial but they didn’t listen.
Eventually, you’ll split up. They’ll say you didn’t pay, and you’ll say you dropped them for being greedy. Who’s right?
You usually win these squabbles because you can shrug and choose a competitor, while they’ve just lost a potential customer.
What do American Catholic bishops, health care-denying members of Congress and these streaming companies have in common?
They’re inviting a needless train wreck. They’re all bucking the power of majority sentiment. Conservative American bishops, mixing the Eucharist and politics, are pledging to deny President Joe Biden communion because he favors abortion rights. They’ll alienate Catholics who’d been loyal since Sunday-school days.
Conservatives in Congress will crow about the evils of Obamacare but will yank your health insurance even though they have no plan. You’ll always win against a misbehaving credit card because you can replace plastic more easily than they can replace a customer.
Some call these little episodes the tyranny of the majority. You’ll settle for a glass of bubbly and a toast to majority feeling.
Pick your fights. If the stakes are simple, don’t get our buns in a knot over a fight you’ll likely lose because you don’t have majority sentiment with you. Stay alive for a better fight on a better day, with better odds.
Devout Catholics believe the wine and bread they receive at communion to be the literal blood and body of Christ. They can agree on that. But Catholics are split on whether communion should be a weapon for use in their fight against abortions. That split goes right down to the pope, who doesn’t agree with a majority of about 200 U.S. Catholic bishops. The pope is with Biden. Both are devout, and neither thinks a fight over communion is worth spilling blood.
American Catholicism thinks it is in crisis, with thinning attendance at Mass. The U.S. bishops, mostly older men, are following scripture. The church is split, so it hasn’t yet rewritten the rules on communion. Catholics are squabbling and the writers have not even worked up a draft yet.
The same is true of Obamacare (the ACA). The signature health care law, In place for a decade, is under attack by people who dare not say Obama in public. In the name of doctrine, they detest government-overseen health care. Its backers understood that the only way to make it work was to require everyone to sign up. Otherwise, it would be picked apart because the sick, fearing cost, would opt out and die (putting it bluntly).
The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 last week to keep the health care law in place. Republicans are vowing to push on, but theirs appears to be a lost cause. They have hired writers to replace it.
Obamacare fixed “pre-existing conditions” and improved eligibility for younger Americans. It couldn’t crack the hideous cost of U.S. health care, still locked up by the power of the medical industry over congressional campaigns.
The “weaponization” of health care is a losing battle because a majority haven’t agreed to throw millions off health care plans.
This is a project for economists, not politicians. It’s a battle without a current majority.
You’ll have a fight over a streaming company bill if you haven’t already.
When you refuse to pay your credit card bill because most such companies don’t have reachable customer service, you’ll get warned. But If you don’t back down in the face of false credit threats, they’ll fix the charges and you’ll win.
Why? You have choices that they don’t. You can switch. They can’t.
In the long run, you’ll win because of the majority of folks. After that, they’ll favor you.
So many people waste blood, sweat, tears, communion warnings, health care threats and streaming come-ons without majority support.
They should await a fight worth fighting. Let’s all go out and save Girl Scout cookies and the Isis Theatre first.
The writer (dukeofdanforth@gmail.com) is a founder of the Aspen Daily News and appears here Sundays.
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June 20, 2021 at 05:00PM
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Danforth: The power of choice - Aspen Daily News
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