Initial Thoughts on Health Care and the Conservative Reaction

by D. Ray Morton



I can't begin to describe how difficult it is to thoughtfully engage someone on the other side of the heathcare debate, not out of frustration with their opinion so much as a combination of my own ignorance on the subject and my struggle to justify my sometimes very general and idealistic opinions on the matter. It's hard when I'm talking to someone who is ready to stock up on ammo and canned goods as if the world is ending, and the burden of proof is suddenly on me to prove to him things AREN'T going to hell, instead of the burden of proof being on him to prove to me the world is going to end if Obama's health care bill passes.

If in the last 8 years you happened to nod along to the suspension of habeus corpus and our rights to privacy, I have a hard time believing your outrage that suddenly we all might have to buy health care is an unnacceptable encroachment of our freedom. Annoying? Sure. A financial burdon? More than likely. But let's try to look outside our own window and think of it as something we might have to buy into so that millions more can afford it themselves.

We always forgo the societal good for our own selfishness.

Clearly conservatives and liberals are hardwired to wonder how the hell the other side can rationalize their arguments, but DAMN. After everything we experienced with the last administration, doesn't it seem strained to treat the introduction of new healthcare reform as the last straw?

There are a couple of things I've never understood. It seems to me that the conservative exremist view is that Obama is after power and wants to cripple the country. It's this "He wants to fuck up what we love" mentality. I just don't get that. What the fuck is he, a Bond villain? He wants to destroy the world? What does he gain? If nothing else, the reaction to Bush being a fuckup at least took into account that we as liberals were aware he was doing "what he thinks is right", even if it was misguided and irrational. But it seems the more ridiculous arguments against Obama and his health care plan paint him as someone who doesn't care if the world crashes down around him, which to me is proves just how bad conservatives are at propaganda. It's always seems to be an argument more obtuse, over the top, or life-and-death.

More soon.