If fear of the result is preventing us from trying to fix a system that is broken for a significant number of people, then we're already no longer the home of the brave.

If selfishness promotes and supports that fear, then we're no longer the land of the free, because we've been enslaved by our own vice.

Numbers are faces. How many faces should we be willing to condemn to unnecessary early death? How many to unnecessary suffering?

This is the reality I look at. We have to deal with numbers because money is involved, but if we can't see the humans behind them, then it's easy to write humans off.

So, you know, are we going to live up to the whole equal opportunity thing? As a society? Because, if we don't, or won't, or can't, then the higher calling we like to think of as the American mission is no more, only a fig leaf we use to justify our own selfishness. If people don't deserve care and support because they don't belong to an in-group more powerful than the generic "citizen of the United States" or "fellow member of the human race", we're already done.