The title above is not my personal opinion, but it does seem to be the opinion of many Conservatives out there. Had I not read some of George Lakoff’s hypotheses recently I would be at a complete loss to understand why this is the case. Now I think I have some understanding.
The big debate these days is whether the federal government should be in the business of providing health insurance. Ultimately that’s what the debate is about.
Your answer to this question depends on whether you’re a Liberal or Conservative. Liberals say “yes”. Conservatives say “no”.
What’s funny (to me anyway) is that Conservatives often cite capitalist motives as the reason why the government should stay out of the health insurance business. They say that certain care will be denied because it will cost too much. (They fail to mention that private insurance companies already do this.)
But that’s what capitalist motive is, right? Cut costs to increase profit?
The other fear tactic is that the government will have to raise taxes considerably to pay for this. But that’s a capitalist motive too. Raise prices to increase profit.
The real problem for Conservatives is that they believe that any government program that shows any caring for citizens is evil. To that end they will do anything they can to prevent any social program from coming into existence. Furthermore, they will do anything they can to cut funding for existing social programs to help ensure their demise while simultaneously claiming “see, the government can’t run this properly!”
Lakoff has what appears to be an explanation for this mindset. Conservatives have a strict father model of government. Liberals have a nuturant parent model. Rather than explain those models here, please see the linked Wikipedia articles instead.
People on both sides want to live as independently as possible. It is my belief, however, that Liberals understand that society has grown to the point where we are all interdependent. Conservatives have not yet acknowledged this.
As interdependents it is our duty to support each other when necessary. Conservatives do support each other through contributions to church or charity. But since they choose the church or charity they choose specifically who they support which generally means supporting their own kind.
Liberals believe in supporting people even if they don’t necessarily agree with them.
A Liberal would gladly pay additional taxes to help provide government run health care that took care of a Conservative. The reverse is generally not true. But a Conservative would gladly contribute to a charity that helped provide health care to someone in their own community who needed that help.
I believe that slowly but surely more and more people are moving towards the Liberal view of how things should work. This scares Conservatives who are becoming the dying breed. But obsolescence is a part of capitalism to which Conservatives put all their faith in. They should be happy to see it working even if it inevitably means their demise.
Tags: capitalist, conservative, government, Health Care, health insurance, liberal, medical, progressive, u.s.
[...] More: Capitalism is evil, but only for the government [...]