The ObamaCare Scare

Most observers, right or left, are surprised at the recent spectacle of outraged citizens vociferously protesting Obama’s plan for socialized medicine.

They are asking what, exactly, in the politically quietest month of the year, could have compelled so many Americans to show up at those Town-Hall meetings to shout down their political leaders? How could Obama’s team have misread their reaction so badly?

This has been no set-up by Republicans, as spooked Democrats persist in claiming. And as all can see (or could until these meeting were cancelled in a panic), the anger is quite genuine and is bubbling up from a deeper source. What source?

From the 1960s, to be precise. They have grey hair, bellies, and grown up kids now. But the Hippies are back!

If anything united Joan Baez, the flower-children of the left, the Students for a Democratic Society, and all the other artsy and protest groups of the hippie generation, it was the simple message they wanted to send to their elders, to big government, to the military, the media, to anyone who aimed to order them around:

“Get your foot off my neck!”

When it came to equality of external public goods such as education, welfare for the poor, affirmative action quotas for the disadvantaged, even subsidized medicine for the poor or the elderly, the cheers went up because all those things were publicly funded and had nothing to do with individual private choices.

But when it came to even a hint of messing with their own bodies or relationships, the sit-ins, marches and window-breaking began.

Free love and marijuana? My choice, my body.

Whether or not to abort my baby? My choice, my body.

Homosexuality? My choice, my body.

Assisted suicide? My choice, my body.

Spend my money on my own health care? My choice, my body.

You can almost hear Bob Dylan a-singin’ it.

So how do we make sense of what seems to be a passionate concern for tax-supported public services – more government – alongside a concern just as passionate for personal freedom from government?

Just think of the private body as the boundary. Your skin. Anything outside it is fair game for the state. But anything from the skin inward is your own private business, including whether or not you want to spend your own money on another CT scan, buy organic carrots, or pay to see the specialist of your choice at the Mayo Clinic, or ... buy a vacation instead of health insurance. My choice, my body.

We are witnessing a resurgence of that old American revolutionary spirit of independence. When the Obama government wrapped itself in the symbols as Big Brother-provider of public goods, that was acceptable. But once it started talking seriously about getting under the people’s skin, so to speak – to control and ration the quality and availability of what they will be allowed to do for their own bodies, or for their children’s and parent’s bodies – all hell broke loose.

I have described this seeming contradiction elsewhere as “libertarian socialism,” a political reality in which the state has all the public duties and individuals have all the private rights. It’s the legacy of the ‘60s.

It’s who we are now. And don’t mess with me, is the message.

Comments

[MarkTheTruck]

The Author appears to be suggesting that the "Tea Party" atmosphere surrounding the public healthcare protest is an organic movement; free of right wing manipulation. One hour of Fox news puts the lie to that theory. To tie the movment to the peaceniks of the sixties seems equally spurious. One has only to look at the age and class of the supporters of Obama to recognize that middle aged white males were not his key demographic. No, I'm afraid this one was a bit off beam. What you are witnessing in the US healthcare debate is a lesson in class warfare and corporate rapacity, with the big money (little surprise here) lining up behind the status quo.
It may resemble the sixties, but I'm afraid you may be a little hazy on who The Man is and who wants to stick it to Him.