Though it has been my favorite sport since Bush (41) was President, I am done arguing with liberals. They are still high-fiving over their victory over public opinion – they do know best, after all – and uttering self-congratulatory phrases about how it is well past time for America to have joined the civilized nations by instituting socialized medicine. I do not want to waste my time anymore because I finally realize what I should have realized a few years ago. They are not going to get it. They don’t even want to get it.
Ever since I was 21 and noticed that Mike Dukakis was a ridiculous gas bag of a candidate for President, I have been debating politics with liberals. Along the way I went through a long hard-core Libertarian stage and debated with both right and left, often getting into Constitutional issues that neither side thought were very relevant. Outside of the second amendment, very few Republicans even focused much on the Constitution back then. In the last year I have been thrilled to hear people discuss and the debate the Constitution in ways that would have been unheard of outside of libertarian circles ten years ago. I have certainly argued with a lot of liberals since the 2008 election, but as much fun as it has been I need to redirect my energy now. I still like my liberal friends and assorted sparring partners. I am due to eat lunch again soon with one very liberal guy who only half-jokingly calls himself an “Elitist Party” member and perhaps we still might collaborate on that book we talked about. But I am done trying to convince you liberals. You’re a lost cause, bless your hearts.
Thanks for sharpening my rhetorical sword while it lasted, guys.
Anyone who does not understand why a large portion of America remains both shocked and defiantly angry about how this health care debacle turned out is simply never going to get it. Only a real statist steeped in end-justifies-the-means thinking could look beyond the back-room deals, bribery, closed-door meetings, and an outright defiance of the will of the people in order to implement such an extreme ideological agenda. Such an attitude requires an elitist distain for liberty and representative government that disgusts me, particularly when the stakes are this high. This was not just a debate about public policy or tax increases or even just another modest entitlement program. This is in effect the “third wave” of a gradual but relentless Fabian socialist attack on Constitutional government in America that got its first huge wins under FDR. The two previous such waves brought us Social Security and Medicare, both of which are inarguably insolvent and will bankrupt future generations. It seems clear to anyone with the power of observation, a decent understanding of history, and the ability to perform basic math that the last thing America needs right now is another huge unsustainable entitlement program.
Don’t get me wrong. I still intend to try to convince the convincible, mostly Independents and liberals under the age of 30 – at that age you can still chalk a lot of it up to naiveté and inexperience. And I will certainly try to turn lukewarm conservatives into Constitution-defending activists, because I believe that these people are finally ready to stop standing on the sidelines. I am seeing old friends on Facebook who had never before posted a single politically-motivated status ranting about socialism, and justifiably so. Even the older woman who sold me a biscuit the other morning mentioned the R-word, and she likely has teenage grandchildren. There are people out there that we can get into this peaceful Constitutional revolution. Let’s get them fired up.
Take it from me, the guy who has bored people for years with political arguments rooted in specific Constitutional issues. When patriotic people learn about the specificity of the US Constitution and then compare that to the twisted claims used by the Left to justify implementations of their ideology, they get angry. These are people who will always go vote Republican when the election rolls around but are not active beyond that. I want to reach these people. I want to get them engaged.
WOW. It seems all conservatives are coming to this conclusion in the last day or so. I just wrote a blog about it on my own page. It’s true, we are all realizing that they are NEVER going to get it! I have pulled back from trying to argue my points with liberals on my facebook the last two days because I am TIRED of focusing so much attention on a lost cause.
I don’t really side with liberals and conservatives one way or the other, just as with Democrats and Republicans. They all work themselves up into such a frenzy over their ideals. I don’t care what their ideals are. They should be working for our common interest, not what they resolutely believe in. I make just enough to afford a decent health care plan for my family and myself. If anything were to happen, say, if I lose my job and have to seek a new one, then we are likely to be uninsured while the job hunt commences. Since jobs which pay enough to comfortably support an insured family of four aren’t always easy to come by, it might be a while before I find a new one. Let’s say I or my wife falls ill during this period in time. It could be attributed to bad luck, but that isn’t where it would stop. Outrageous hospital bills would follow, drowning me in debt as I scramble to attain the money by any means necessary. This would likely be by way of a loan that I probably won’t be able to pay off, or I could take the faster route and commit larceny. You see where this is going? Practically forcing those who don’t have a secure position in life to pay ridiculously large sums of money to big, faceless healthcare corporations monthly is only bound to cause problems. I had a buddy a while back who had his kid get injured in a dirtbike accident, his healthcare provider refused to cover the costs. Because they decided to take in money from him every month and not pay back a cent when he actually needed the service they provided to him, his kid’s hospital bill plunged him into debt. Thankfully, his parents were there to pull him out (but imagine how embarrassing asking your parents for bail-out dough must be.)
All I’m saying is, wherever you stand on the issue of health care, please just think about the people out there who struggle to get along even without the added weight of an expensive insurance policy. Big Business isn’t doing what it used to do for this country. People are only seen as walking dollar signs to these corporations, and because of that, many Americans aren’t being treated as people when they actually need help. A Government-supplied safety net for those who can’t afford or do not trust corporate insurance providers just seems like common sense to me. And why complain about the debt this system would/might cause? We are over 55 TRILLION dollars in debt. We aren’t getting out in our lifetimes, or our childrens’ lifetimes (or even our grandchildrens’ lifetimes, for that matter, even if we get the budget balanced and manage to fix everything.) So what’s the point of forcing our less financially stable citizens to wallow in a living hell where everything they do submerges them in their own little sea of debt? I doubt that this dog-eat-dog mess we see today is what the Founding Fathers had in mind.
It all comes down to the cost of health care. Start with asking yourselves if doctors deserve to make more money than construction workers. Then consider the fact that malpractice insurance costs keep going up due to an overly litigous people encouraged by attorneys who benefit the most from suing doctors.
We can only start to restrain the rise of health care cost by starting with tort reform.