MORAL EXHIBITIONISM ON HEALTH CARE IN PASADENA

Pasadena Sub Rosa ^ | October 17, 2009 | Wayne Lusvardi

[WayneLusvardi]

The Pasadena Star News posted a public notice online (since removed) that an interfaith group is to hold a health care "vigil" at Pasadena City Hall on Monday night, October 19. It seems to this writer that any such "vigil" is an exercise in what Theodore Dalrymple calls "moral exhibitionism," which is defined as "generosity of spirit at other people's expense; "the desire to feel more compassionate-than-thou" without regard for the larger consequences.

No doubt this "interfaith" coalition is comprised of those "usual suspects" who also have advocated affordable housing, among a number of other social justice "causes," only to avoid any complicity in the national economic collapse due to legally-sanctioned reckless lending to expand housing affordability. Now the same crowd of the self-righteous want to tell us that they hold the moral high ground on national health care policy. We shouldn't believe them.

Let's take a look at the local religious advocacy of affordable housing before we give any kind of moral legitimacy or authority to those now advocating national health care reform on moral and religious grounds.

The consequences locally in Pasadena of the national meltdown due to the government overheating of affordable housing have been devastating: high unemployment, about 500 foreclosures and growing probably to 1,000, the collapse of many long-term non-profit institutions such as Pacific Oaks College, the unsustainability of the Pasadena POPS symphony Orchestra, stress on municipal budgets due to lower sales and property taxes, the cancellation of the summer session at PCC, the closure of many large iconic auto sales dealerships along Colorado Boulevard (Ford, Chevy, etc.), the raising of water rates due to unsold and unrented condos in downtown Pasadena, a national political sea change resulting in a pending $97 million cut to Cal-Tech to manage JPL, the Federal takeover of Indy-Mac and Countrywide banks, and the complicity of Pasadena-based Fannie Mae in the whole process. All of the above was apparently sacrificed for something like 1,000 units of inclusionary affordable housing in Pasadena, much of which is sitting vacant.

I would venture a guess that even if the majority liberal political constituency of Pasadena had the chance to vote whether affordable housing was worth all of the above-described local economic collapse and social chaos, they would vote "NO." But our elected leaders and elites are proceeding with a new General Plan and Housing Element calling for more inclusionary housing and "smart growth." Cognitive dissonance, where your religious belief or mass delusion gets stronger in the face of contrary evidence, is prevalent in the political-religious culture of Pasadena. It suggests that we're not headed for an economic recovery any time soon.

With utter disregard to any of the above, affordable housing continues to be a religious mass delusion in Pasadena, with special church services at Throop Church, prayer sessions, golf tournaments with church participation for affordable housing, the issuance of resolutions by the Affordable Housing Group connected with the Unitarian-Universalist Church, the Evangelical Left's advocacy of affordable housing at City Council meetings, an Affordable Housing Summit held at the Pasadena Nazarene Church, and on and on. The sociologist Max Weber was apparently right in his classic book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism written around 1900 - the economy is always suffused with religion. Religion lends moral legitimacy to economic policies.

Not one church in Pasadena has issued any statement of culpability or repentance in all the devastation that the mass religious delusion for affordable housing has wrought. Not one church has bothered to look hard at the U.S. Census data for Pasadena that indicates that Pasadena does not even have an affordable housing problem, contrary to the mass hysteria otherwise. And where an affordable housing problem has been perceived, it was due to the Housing Bubble religiously sanctioned by affordable housing advocates in the first place. Once the Bubble collapsed, apartment rents were reported to have dropped dramatically and homes suddenly became "affordable" again. The "solution" apparently was the "cause" of perceived unaffordable housing.

It is now only fitting that a "vigil" should be held at City Hall for health care. Only the vigil should be held for all the victims, economic casualties, collapsed institutions, and devastation this has wrought on low income families in the form of foreclosures, unemployment, and displacement due to religious advocacy of affordable housing. Perhaps a counter vigil, or more appropriately a wake, should be held on Halloween for all the victims of affordable housing and for the future economic and medical casualties of health care reform.

What gives the "interfaith" religious community in Pasadena any moral credibility to competently advocate health care reform in view of their abject failure with affordable housing policy? NOTHING!

[BenLurkin]

“generosity of spirit at other people’s expense”

So true!