What Did You Expect?

I decided to write this short essay after not being surprised about most of what is happening with "health care reform." It is not that I oppose reform of the American medical care system; quite the contrary, I believe reform is long overdue. I have favored a single payer system and a National Health Service all of my adult life (even though I believe it will not happen before I die).

I noticed the absence of strong Federal regulation and intervention proposals concerning medical care in Barack Obama's presidential campaign, so I expected little help from him in that matter. What is startling, thanks to Conservatives and Blue Dog Democrats (such as my Congressman), health care reform for the masses may be had in exchange for reductions in my Medicare benefits and significant increases of my medical costs. This is an unexpected result. I did not see it coming. Conservatives are indeed succeeding in making things worse.

Why is this happening?

Conservatives Hate "Socialism"

First, those old enough should remember that Conservatives have opposed almost every governmental intervention in medicine and other things for more than a century. Conservatives opposed creation of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on the ground that people should be free to use whatever substance thought fit. In the end, FDA was only created by a compromise: drugs in common use, such as alcohol, tobacco and some food dyes, would be exempt from FDA regulation. While that decision saved the lives of millions, it also condemned other millions to death. It engendered the huge, unregulated "health foods" industry which continues to make billions from the sale of untested and mostly useless products.

In the United States, Conservatives have always been the handmaidens of snake oil salesmen. Despite their unseemly company, business behavior is principled: for them, profit is the central goal and meaning of life. Of course, Conservatives do not want to be poisoned or suffer needlessly, but they are deeply suspicious and resentful of those who would tell them what to do (including not selling or eating poison). They believe each individual is naturally endowed with the ability and knowledge to determine what is best for oneself. Thus, if one dies of food poisoning, it is one's own fault because you did not know better (as distinct from 'should have known better'). Further, when asked for justification, Conservatives often retreat into religious beliefs ('God's Will' or 'It is written') or naked Malthusianism (natural causes will dispose of the surplus population). Conservatives often have a Social Darwinian view of human beings struggling to survive in a hostile jungle in which everything and everyone is an enemy. Whatever the justification or criterion of fitness, only the fittest survive which, according to Conservative circular reasoning, "proves" the validity of their principles.

Conservatives have always been with us. I do not know of anything in the modern world which would make them disappear. Theirs is a world view - a philosophy, a way of perceiving and explaining the world - which leads to a certain way of acting. It is very rare for people to change their philosophy after they reach maturity (usually in their 20s).

Of course, Conservatives usually see themselves as the most fit survivors; i.e., "winners." If they are not now on top of the heap, they believe they soon will be. This attitude implies that the less fit - the ones who have not "made it" - are less deserving: they are losers. On the Conservative view, it is mistaken to help the losers because that only reduces the fitness of the winners (the Eugenics argument). This outlook on life is frequently expressed as "greed is good!"

And, anything that helps losers is Socialism.

Working Together

A central feature of Obama's 2008 campaign was his promise of (capital "C") Change. This promise, in turn, was based on the idea that he could get Federal elected officials to work together in a non-partisan environment. Since his election, President Obama has continued to call for contributions to the common good by Liberals and Conservatives. He assumes that, somehow, people can and will put aside their differences to find solutions to common  problems. This is an unemotional technocratic or bureaucratic view of the world which relies on some notion of practical reason like that advocated in Rawls' A Theory of Justice. That view is often found in the philosophy of judges or Professors of Law, as Obama once was.

The Obama campaign was very clever in never defining "change" too exactly, leaving the details to each voter's imagination. Thus, many Progressives imagined Obama was for some sort of single-payer medical care program, even though he explicitly disavowed having that goal. In the same way, the politically illiterate "middle" was enabled to support Obama as the candidate of whatever they wanted. Arnold Schwarzenegger used the very same strategy to win the infamous 2003 Recall Election and become Governor of California. Of course, candidates using the "I am whatever you want" strategy must soon pay off their electorate (because the electors will demand it), which requires some insight into what will suffice. For Schwarzenegger, it was repeal of the hated "car tax." For Obama, it is bringing back the good times which ended abruptly in September, 2008 (and clinched Obama's election). What such politicians must hope is that the initial payoff will be enough to permit them to govern during the remainder of their terms.

Governor Schwarzenegger's tenure should be instructive. He accumulated enough credibility to get re-elected by taking away the car tax and postponing the huge California debt problem. He did not solve the budget deficit problem, but did make the State's debt much larger by following a policy of borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. In fact, the maze of bond issuances and debt re-financings was not much different from what the ill-fated former Governor Gray Davis had proposed. Finally, this year, the pastiche of California's finances became unglued, forcing the State to pay its debts with IOUs. The same sudden financial collapse which elected Obama has been Schwarzenegger's undoing. Neither Progressives nor Conservatives are willing to agree on realistic solutions to California's financial problems until faced with personal and electoral disaster. Now the Governor and many elected officials have lost face, but the power struggle over finances continues. This scenario does not omen well for Obama in a few years.

What the handling of recent economic problems by Federal and State governments reveal is that people's beliefs are extremely inelastic. (That is, they are like very hard billiard balls.) Short of personal catastrophe (such as being removed from office by whatever means), people do not come to terms with their antagonists. If anything, conflict only hardens positions. Thus, there is no coming together or working together unless the sense of conflict is removed. Still, most people cannot stand conflict, whence the pathetic, plaintive whimper, "why can't we all work together?"

Historical Processes

Just because Barack Obama got elected President, Conservatives did not disappear. They're still here as demonstrated by their recent protests against health care reform. They are still zealots about the things they believe.

While Obama was able to fool the electorate about everyone working together, he did not change the beliefs and purposes of most elected officials or those professionally involved with government. So, the impasse between left and right continues in Washington, D.C., just as it does in Sacramento, California.

The struggle among different American cultures is rooted in the past. It began shortly after European colonization of North America and continues unresolved to this day. None of the entrenched societies is willing to give up its identity. Thus, as happened in the Civil War, the Mexican and Indian Wars, and the Spanish-American war, a truce is declared when one side imposes its will on the others. The "winners" are free to gloat about their victories, but the losers are unconvinced and seek to overthrow the result.

So, in the present confrontations between North and South, white and black and brown and red, rich and poor, rural militias and settled townspeople, nothing will be ultimately resolved. Anglos and Gringos are still far apart and not very friendly. The only thing that might end these multi-lateral conflicts is a different culture which absorbs all of them or, more drastically, the liquidation (genocide) of contestants. This is just the natural consequence of "human nature."

Posted 08/25/2009 10:17:57 PM                Last update: 08/25/2009        Originated: 8/24/2009

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