I recently had a conversation with a beloved but wing-nutty friend of mine that opened my eyes forever, I believe, to the motivations of at least some of the conservatives who continue, against all logic (at least in my humble opinion), to oppose universal health care.
Follow me below the flip.
"Health care is not a right," he announced over lunch. I was shocked. Wondering how to argue against that one, I first tried to appeal to his self-interest. I pointed out to him that HE loses out when other people's productivity suffers as a result of poor care (e.g. my favorite restaurant closed when the owner got sick and ultimately went bankrupt).
He said, "That's a price I'm willing to pay."
Ironic, that. What he's NOT willing to pay are the taxes to create support systems for all. For an insanely overbloated military, yes; but for anything that supports life rather than destroys it, no.
But that's not what did it. Most revealing of all, when I told him in a mix of private and public he'd still be able to purchase extra, luxury insurance (this guy is a debt collector and has lots of money), his eyes lit up. "You mean I'd still get the goodies?"
Yes, I told him, you'd still get the goodies.
And then I saw. That's the crux of it; it's the flip side of the "I work hard for my money" anti-tax teabagger argument. It's about DESERVING. People like my friend need to feel like they have EARNED it while other people haven't; that life is not about chance or fortune or plain dumb luck, it's about affirming that they've done all the right things and so they are, in life, where they are. And other people are not as GOOD.
I believe that's one of the key underlying, unstated assumptions: that I have health care while I've "worked hard" and done everything right, while you do not because you have not. And my privilege is my proof. Giving people health care they "don't deserve," to a conservative, is a negation of everything they believe about themselves, particularly in relation to other people.
In this economy--perhaps a small positive to a very negative situation-- maybe a few will come to see the light as fate and fortune overtake them. One can hope they will learn some true compassion. The conservatives I know and love are not bad people, but I have often noticed that many of them lack empathic imagination. That is, they don't grasp events emotionally until they experience something similar themselves.
In the meantime, as a sidebar, I think we should DEMAND that every member of Congress who refuses to vote for "socialized medicine" should immediately take a scissors to their own health care cards.