Tonight the United States Senate takes up the measure of health care reform for the American people. While this is being looked at as a budgetary issue, a political issue or a religious issue in the form of abortion, it’s really about whether people have the right to go to the doctor, here in the “wealthiest nation in the world.” The not so funny part is that a bunch of people with excellent health coverage are deciding for everyone else whether they can get help if they need it; or if they are entitled to the same preventive care. That is, if your kids should be allowed to live, or just theirs. Whether one should have to sell their house and go bankrupt due to medical bills, which in other advanced countries would be seen as scandalous.

Notice that through this conversation, the number 60 senators keeps coming up. We fancy ourselves to in a democratic system where majority rules, but we have a senate that calls for a 60% majority to get anything done. Tonight it was a big deal that 60% allowed the conversation happen — and 39 senators voted against proceeding with the discussion. Isn’t that strange? I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to build support for a political project of any kind, or to get people to agree on what day they should go out for lunch. But it’s not easy to get any two people to agree on the fine points of something, much less 60% of a political body that’s already sold out to special interests.

The 60% majority necessary to pass any law in the senate means that the minority rules. It cannot actually do anything productive, but it can do exactly what we are seeing — threaten to block any progress. In fact, tonight, one senator can sway the entire debate and in effect determine the fate of the country on this issue; one senator can make or break break the 60% majority (and the vice president cannot assert his right to break a tie in the senate, like he could do of the vote were 50-50).

As you listen to this conversation, and try to sort out the truth, I suggest you keep this in mind: Intelligence is not about how many marbles of wisdom one has collected, or how noteworthy one’s achievements are. Intelligence is about one’s humanity, and sensitivity to the truth. In part it’s also about sensitivity to the pain of others, and the plight of others. There is the crucial piece about understanding how the lack of awareness of our own pain or issues can lead us to be insensitive or intolerant to the pain others.

Intelligence is about the awareness of hypocrisy – and how little of it we can stand.

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