It’s all about the selfishness. The “I got mine — you fend for yourself to get yours.” The fear that someone might take “my stuff.” It’s the attitude of a four-year-old, and a poorly-raised one at that.
Vjack raises this interesting point:
Have you seen any of the clips from Rep. Lynn Jenkins’ (R-KS) July town hall? I was watching it the other night, and I think it contained a moment that perfectly sums up the Republican mind set when it comes to health care reform and most social programs. Jenkins received a great question from Elizabeth Smith, a constituent whose employer does not provide health insurance and cannot afford private insurance.
I want an option that I can pay for. I work. I pay my bills. I’m not a burden on the state. I pay my taxes. So why can’t I get an affordable option? Why are you against that?
It is a fair question at which Jenkins initially laughs and then responds in a condescending manner, suggesting that “people should…go be a grown-up and go buy the insurance.”
Right. “Grow up.” Belittle those who have fallen through the cracks. Assume it’s their moral failing, not our responsibility.
But none of this was what really got my attention.
No, even though Rep. Jenkins appeared to be saying something akin to “let them eat cake,” this was not the significant moment for me. That came when someone in the crowd could be heard shouting the following to Ms. Smith:
Why should we pay for your health care?
The horror! The idea that one might feel any obligation to care for another! That “I got mine” and that to help someone else get “theirs” would be tantamount to theft.
Isn’t it ironic that this is the sentiment of groups like Glenn Beck’s “9/12” organization, which ostensibly seeks to reinstill the spirit of pulling together like we did after the 9/11 attacks? Would it be right to say, “Hey, I didn’t get trapped in a building? Why should we pay for someone to dig you out?”
“Why should we pay for your health care?”
Maybe this story will be illustrative:
And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.
Decades of GOP rabble-rousing about “welfare queens” and “illegals stealing our jobs” and “deadbeats who won’t work” have turned the idea of a compassionate society (let alone a “compassionate conservatism”) into a joke. People are so angry, or so selfish, or so frightened, that they’d just as soon see others die, or be crippled, or be driven to bankruptcy, than lend a hand. They see nothing wrong with telling people to “let them buy insurance,” or to insist that anyone who wants care can get it by going to the Emergency Room.
“Why should we pay for your health care?”
As a literary character put it.
“At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge,” said the gentleman, taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.”
“Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge.
“Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”
“They are. Still,” returned the gentleman, “I wish I could say they were not.”
“The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?” said Scrooge.
“Both very busy, sir.”
“Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,” said Scrooge. “I’m very glad to hear it.”
“Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,” returned the gentleman, “a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?”
“Nothing!” Scrooge replied.
“You wish to be anonymous?”
“I wish to be left alone,” said Scrooge. “Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.”
“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”
“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides — excuse me — I don’t know that.”
“But you might know it,” observed the gentleman.
“It’s not my business,” Scrooge returned. “It’s enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people’s. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!”
“Why should we pay for your health care?” Why should we mind others business? Why should we be our brother’s keeper?
Because morality — Christian, among many others — demands it. Because it is what we should want to do — to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, as someone once put it. Because a society cares for one another, holds a social contract to stand together, so that life is not, as Hobbes put it, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
Because it’s the right thing to do.
Do I hate cheats? Sure. Do I get pissed off at deadbeats? Of course. Do I worry that some person who doesn’t “deserve it” will get something paid for with my taxes, earned by the “sweat of my brow”? Yeah, I do.
But my offended sense of fairness is trivial compared to the thought that people’s lives may be ruined, or lost if I don’t help. If once I have “mine,” my greatest imperative is to keep it at any costs, which means throwing anyone else off the sleigh, then I can hardly claim any moral high ground — unless it’s morality as defined by Ayn Rand.
So have we come to the point that John Galt wins? Where everything is a matter of who comes out at the top of the zero-sum game of “all against all”? Where all that matters is that, for this moment at least, “I’ve got mine, and if you try to take it, I’ll frackin’ kill you, man!”
Is that what your parents taught you? Is that what your church teaches you? Is that how you treat your neighbors? Is that the lesson you want to pass on to your children?
And if your children fall through the cracks, if despite working hard they (or their children) fall ill, and can’t afford insurance, or the treatment they need, will you ask them, “Why should we pay for your health care?”
It’s the right thing to do.
