Page Two

Thanksgiving weekend, my visiting brother-in-law Jan and I were driving around with my son and his friend. We started making Immanuel Kant jokes. Don't ask me how it started, and, no, it wasn't a variant of his last name. They were probably talking about rap and punk bands, and Jan asked them whether or not they were enjoying reading Kant or some such. They responded in line with the joke. Thinking it was as good a time as any, I shared with them my memory of Kant's Categorical Imperative -- figuring that, though only 12, they would understand it: A right action for the wrong reasons is morally worse than a wrong action for the right reasons. Intentions matter.

They understood, actually giving examples, but Jan thought I had it wrong. Given my memory and that Jan was a philosophy graduate student before becoming a lawyer, I happily conceded my potential error. This moral equation, regardless of source, started me thinking about the Seton situation. Especially in light of a letter I saw in the Statesman that said something along the lines of what a great idea the Seton children's hospital is: Not only do we need quality children's health care, but it's about time the revenue from it stopped subsidizing other health services. (Someone is probably going to write in to clarify Kant's thoughts, which will be great if it's short and sweet but a boring drag if it's long, condescending, and pedantic.)

The greatest failure of Seton's current role in the community health picture is not simply their betrayal of the trust given them in 1995, when they acquired the lease to run Brackenridge, but their sabotage, intentional or not, of the ongoing planning for a hospital district. Seton is going to win this one; that seemed likely even before they hired Jesus Garza, which is a master stroke. The services offered at the Brackenridge Children's Hospital will be dramatically truncated. The new Seton children's hospital will probably be a superior institution.

The sad part here is not just the loss of revenue that helps fund Brackenridge's other services, it's the devaluation of planning as a necessary, if not crucial, civic responsibility, as well. Over the last couple of decades, access to health care has become one of the major issues confronting our society. A group of exceptional community leaders, understanding the critical need for long-range planning, especially in this area, have spent a lot of time meeting about the district, how to structure it, and how to sell it to the affected citizens -- voters clearly averse to any new taxes.

Even with Seton's curve ball, the possibility for the district exists. Still, more long-range, cohesive planning is needed, not more fragmented special interests expeditiously serving perceived needs, even when they are legitimate. Seton's children's hospital could turn out to be great and the hospital district established, without mitigating the negative symbolic meaning of this disruption. Key to serious planning is cooperation and trust on the part of the participants. The whole needs to be greater than the sum of the parts, and the priority of community over any specific interests must be clear. Any failure in this area is a setback for more than any particular problem. The truth is we don't have this planning, with most attempts at it having failed. We don't even see the groundwork being laid for more of it. Our greatest need is not only on the back burner with the gas off -- the pilot light isn't even lit.

It is frustrating and disturbing that the social safety net, never really completed, is being so aggressively dismantled. There needs to be a serious civic commitment, contemporary and visionary, to the overall health of the community. Ongoing civic priorities must include: effective police, fire, and EMS service for all neighborhoods, no matter their economic status; sufficient health care for everyone regardless of their income; well-maintained, functioning infrastructure -- including roads, traffic lights, and at some point, it is hoped, mass transit -- throughout the region; decreasing pollution and keeping the environment as clean and healthy as possible, given industrialized, automotive-based societies' inherent destructiveness; and continuing to provide drinkable water (water is going to become a dominant issue in the next half-century). This thinking is not driven by pie-in-the-sky idealism, naive, feel-good altruism, nor classic, knee-jerk liberalism. The reality is that we all are in this together. What affects one of us in contemporary society eventually affects us all.

The easy, new-right rhetoric of less government, fewer taxes, and less services must sound great, because so many vote for it. The image is of America returning to the get-tough, frontier ethics and laissez faire, democratic capitalism that made us great -- farewell, welfare state; farewell, Rooseveltian big government. The consequences of these politics will be devastating. Social policies didn't come into being in a vacuum; they weren't imposed on us by communist traitors determined to destroy America from within or by world-government, jealous-of-us monsters from without. The world is not as it is portrayed by right-wing radio talk-show hosts nor demagogue politicians. The politics of blaming the bad people to make all things right, coming from the left or the right, is more social masturbation than serious analysis.

The social safety net and accompanying programs were created to address real needs. Some failed, some succeeded. The failures were usually noticeable and noted, the successes, helping to keep the society smoothly functioning, less perceptible and thus ignored. The abandonment of planning, the pruning of services, the cutting back of taxes, the lack of attention to the mundane chores of governance will have consequences. Disenfranchising any segments of the populace will have an impact on us all.

So am I making too much of Seton's decision, putting the weight of the failures of Western Civilization on a simple, well-intentioned civic decision? Sure, there's no question. This is barely a street sign on the road of potential social deterioration. The problem is that, though it's a tiny step, it's another one in the wrong direction, and those steps have become strides.

Back to my interpretation of Kant. It's not just Seton doing the right thing (if it is) for the wrong reasons, it's an aggressive public agenda that, whether birthed by the right, left, or middle, privileges special interests and narrowly focused concerns over the health of the entire community. This kind of thinking and action, regardless of intent, will have serious, ongoing consequences for our world and for us.

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Our radio show continues: Talk Radio 1370AM, 6-7pm, on Fridays. Most of the time this station offers talk-show hosts who don't just offer differing views from the Chronicle, they regard our kind as the active enemy. When the listeners call in, this has made for some lively conversations. Join us and listen in.