I noticed a recurring theme when reviewing political cartoons this week. Liberals apparently did not appreciate Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s comparison of the healthcare mandate to forced purchasing of broccoli…
by Joel Pett at GoComics.com…
by Tony Auth at GoComics.com…
by Stuart Carlson at GoComics.com…
by Clay Jones at GoComics.com…
by Walt Handelsman at Newsday.com…
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Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Did I miss something> What is this brocolli thing about? And I like brocolli….but raw more than cooked…
I like Broccoli, but don’t make me eat asparagus.
Love it! Why not? Diet, exercise and lifestyle choices directly impact health. I am all for mandating employers provide boxes of fresh fruits and vegetables to all employees each week, and reduce their pay accordingly in the process. No one could force anyone else to eat the healthy food, but who can argue it wouldn’t be better for all of us if we chose to eat it?
Hi LILA,
Great idea. I’m also for mandating that employers provide gym memberships and giving employees an hour every workday for exercise.
Gee, my employer’s health insurer charges less for non-smokers and you didn’t hear me complain.
The answer to health care is clinics, not insurance offices. Spend the money directly on clinics and doctors, then all the people that would have been employed by insurance companies can instead work at clinics and businesses that supply clinics with medicine and products. Oh, and being pro-life, I’m talking about fix-your-kid’s-broken-leg clinics, not the abortion variety.
I think it is debatable if the government can pass a law that makes a person eat broccoli, but I know for sure that down the road (and soon if health care reform gets thrown out), it is constitutionally permissible to increase medicare/medicaid taxes and change eligibility laws to allow everyone to be covered.
Speaking of brocolli, I like vegetables, including brocolli, and asapragus.
Regarding the term “Reproductive health,” which appears in the first cartoon, the term should not be used in the context of preventing reproduction, or in the case of abortion.
Reproductive health refers to health care related to helping a mother or father to be able to reproduce, not to prevent it, or to kill the newly reproduced human being, as elective abortion does.
The solution to the health care issue is right under our noses and we haven’t seen it. Forcing insurance carriers to provide free contraceptives should simply be extended to making them provide everything free.
@Liz: During the oral arguments on Obamacare, Judge Scalia asked the pro-Obamacare dude to explain why, if the government can force you to buy insurance, it can’t force you to buy broccoli? Which is a good question.
I don’t think it is a comparable situation.
Everybody in their life time will be a consumer of the US medical system – the only exception really would be a baby born at home that quickly dies at home. Just about every one else will indeed use the system at some point. Furthermore, the current system really only works (long term) if everybody has skin in the game – which means people paying into the system and when they need it, they aren’t a freeloader.
Broccoli isn’t a comparable situation – it is simply a consumer good. Health care doesn’t work in the free market like broccoli does, unless we allow people to die that don’t have health insurance.
Maybe that’s the mandate conservatives will go after next – that health care facilities must cover somebody in an emergency situation regardless of their ability to pay. What do you say free market folks?
Liz, read the link next to Scalia’s name.
Tony Auth’s depiction of Scalia is instructive on how leftist editorial cartoonists are typically vicious and mean-spirited. Nothing new here in this regard.
On an opposing note a humorous rendition of Kagan and Ginsburg leading cheers for Obamacare complete with pom-poms might be a fun way to capture their position without delving into the character assasination methodology employed by the left.
Scalia’s broccoli comment was great! By utilizing a reductio ad absurdum argument he simply wants to point out how once we throw off the limits of federal government anything is possible.
NFP classes and the showing of an abortion video should be mandated for those who are willing to take free contraceptives/abortion from those who are forced to provide contraceptives/abortions against their consciences.
Prax -
I think there should be a day long “what to expect now that you’re expecting” class for all women who find out they are pregnant (regardless of their intentions) – go through all the options, the next years of life, budgeting, etc…
EGV 2:41PM
Health care worked fine before insurance and the gov’t got involved. I know because I’m old enough to remember when.
It could work again with people being given choices to establish their own accounts, and taking responsibility for some of their own costs. Also, more competition among insurance companies, and more options for various types of coverage as well. Tax breaks for out of pocket medical expenses.
Most important of all, personal responsibility. I know, horror of horrors, people actually taking some personal responsiblity for protecting their health.
Concerning care for those unable to pay, any thoughts on what will happen if Catholic hospitals that provide “free”(paying patients and taxpayer funds pay for) care refuse to follow King Barack’s mandate on birth control coverage and no longer get federal money or are forced to close??
Mary – when you say “taking responsibility for some of their own costs” – what if a person is poor and can’t pay? Are you saying that for the good of the free market, we should let them die?
If not, what is this all different compared to the current model?
(regardless of their intentions)
Teaching women what to expect during pregnancy and after is fine if they plan on allowing their child to live.
However, if mom’s intention is to pay to have her child killed, why would they need to know what to expect when they are expecting? They wouldn’t be expecting anything but a dead child.
Would you be okay with mandating mom being shown a video of an abortion and then showing her some dead baby parts and then spending the rest of the day being taught NFP?
And to be fair, the father needs to be mandated to be there since it would be obvious that he has a thing or two to learn about Life as well.
EGV,
I support allowing states to run their own programs to assist those in need. What happens when a person can’t afford rent, food, clothing, school supplies? Absolutely those who need assistance should get it. States can better assess the needs of their own residents than some mindless federal bureaucracy. I have no problem with my tax dollars assisting anyone legitimately in need of help.
Taking responsibility for some of their own costs. Well, can’t people pay for a needed doctor visit? People have to pay out of pocket for cosmetic surgery and you sure don’t see plastic surgeons collecting unemployment. We chose the option of paying for my husband’s diabetic supplies. Also, if people have to pay some costs they may also be more responsible about managing their health care. My husband found a cheaper pharmacy.
Why is it any more unreasonable to expect people to pay for some of their medical costs than it is to expect them to pay for food, rent, or a vacation? You’d be surprised the people the hospital tries to help by making payments managable only to never collect because people think they are entitled. Of course these costs get passed on to you and the rest of us.
Mary says:
Health care worked fine before insurance and the gov’t got involved. I know because I’m old enough to remember when.
Same here. And, Mary, did you ever see anyone laying sick in the gutter in those bad old days? Of course not. Families and religious organizations stepped in. The thought would not cross most people’s mind that the government should have a role. We took care of ourselves.
Now of course today we have socialists disguised as democrats and educators and others in the ruling elite telling everyone that the government is a cradle to grave provider of all needs we cannot do for ourselves. 42 million (and growing) people are enrolled in the food stamp program. Mary, that is another thing…do you remember seeing people starving? OMG, how did we manage back then without one in six people on food stamps?
We are not going to last very long as a free and strong society with the trends we see all around us. We ought to be alarmed, and I think a great many people are. These are exactly the things the tea party people see.
This is all part of my evil socialist plan to turn you all into vegetarians. Yay veggies! :)
What time period are y’all talking about Jerry and Mary? And do you really think that religious organizations are equipped to care for a population of 300 million with unemployment and need so high?
Hi Jack Borsch,
Jerry and I are talking pre-1965 before the gov’t stepped in with all the “anti-poverty” crap which by the way, did nothing to decrease poverty but create more poverty and dependency.
In my hometown we had an outstanding city hospital which took care of those in need that could not otherwise pay. It was supported by taxpayers, that is when the city had taxpayers. Its a craphole now. Years of liberalism have taken their toll. Other hospitals chipped in to help those in need. Doctors and hospitals competed for patients so prices had to be competitive. Insurance was catastrophic only, which meant we had to foot most of our bills. My grandparents, who never had a dime between them, managed to pay for hospital care. Seemed to me they were always in the hospital! Family helped out when necessary. My great aunt cared for my invalid grandfather and then sat with my grandmother in the hospital while she went through DTs. Our family couldn’t afford private nursing so they took turns.
My working class parents and eventually single mother family paid for the doctor and dentist. What else? Of course you paid. People didn’t expect hand outs. My grandmother demanded the welfare dept. give her a job during the Depression rather than just give her money. They let her run the switchboard.
Say what you will about state institutions, they kept the mentally ill off the streets. Whatever their failings, I don’t see dumpster diving or sleeping on heating grills as particularly humane.
Yes there were the poor and those in need. There were also charities and city and state run social services. Our next door neighbor sheltered battered women, including my mother. In schools we were expected to dress properly and behave. The teacher didn’t give a damn if my alcoholic father had left the family, my parents were in the midst of a divorce, and I was caring for my invalid grandfather on my lunchbreak from school because my mother had to work. I was in 4th grade by the way. I had damned well better be in school on time, and guess what, I learned. No excuses for assignments not being done. Another thing, my school and neighborhood were a mini-United Nations. We never heard of diversity or multiculturalism. Any moron could figure out we were all different. Pride in one’s heritage was to be taught by the family, community, and house of worship, not the schools.
Of course we had the derelicts who lived on the streets. Local charities and religious institutions did their best to help. So did social services. Sometimes people did not, and do not, want to be helped.
And like Jerry said, people were not lying in the gutters dying of starvation and lack of medical care.
Hi Jerry 6:50PM
I hope I covered our era pretty well in my post!
Mary -
I just want to clarify –
So you are not okay with your tax dollars going towards routine care or preventative care, but you are fine with them going to help person in an emergency situation (since they didn’t get the routine care or preventative care). Is that a correct summation?
Mary -
Pre-1965, can you tell me about the quality of the MRI machines?
What happened when somebody had a heart attack?
Can you describe the neonatal unit?
EGV 8:37PM
Nope, sure can’t.
However, I can tell you about the polio wards where people might spend weeks, months, or even years in iron lungs. Ever hear of irons lungs? I still remember children in braces and crutches, and the therapy and care they would require for a lifetime. No one was whining for gov’t handouts. Ever hear of Jill Kinmont, the championship skier paralyzed from the shoulders down in a 1958 ski accident? Her parents sold their ranch to pay for her rehab. She also fought tooth and nail to get an education and teaching degree.
How about the TB sanitariums, where a person might be committed for months or years?
How about the state institutions where people, like my cousin’s DS daughter, would be put away for a lifetime?
I can tell you about those EGV.
EGV 8:35PM
Where do you get the notion I am against tax dollars going for preventative care?
Didn’t I say that I have no problem with my tax dollars helping anyone legitimately in need of help?
I’m really hungry for broccoli right now. :)
Mary – my point is, comparing the medical system of pre-1965 to now is absurd. Things people would die for back then can be dealt with not, but it costs, and it costs a lot.
On your second post – my guess is you don’t want ETALA overturned, but you don’t feel government should pay for more universal coverage. So that is where I feel you don’t want your money spent for preventative care – but you are okay with it going for the results of not getting preventative care.
EGV,
Do you think it didn’t cost back then? If anything, there has been a vast improvement. Shorter patient stays, better diagnosis, etc. Polio and TB don’t require the months and years of care they once did, sometimes very complex care. These people didn’t die early EGV, the polio afflicted child could live a normal lifetime. The person in the iron lung or state institution could live for years.
What does ETALA stand for? Whatever I do NOT feel the gov’t, which is already in debt, should pay for universal coverage. I’ve already told you what I see as the free market solution and I support my tax dollars helping anyone legitimately in need of care, preventative or otherwise.
I feel these programs should be controlled by the state, not the federal gov’t. I support charities, which have done a tremendous service to our community, and always have.
I can’t make it more simple than that EGV.
Mary – Polio treatment did cost back then – a lot – in fact insurance companies started to offer coverage including polio treatments (if needed) as the iron long cost as much as a house.
ETALA – Emergency Treatment and Active Labor Act – it MANDATES that a medical facility must cover anybody in an emergency situation, regardless of their ability to pay. No reimbursement is laid out by the act.
Notes that the socialized medicine countries have reduced drug, procedure, and imaging availability and are rationing. The US leads the world in health care but not for long. Of course this sacrifice will be worth it so long as the birth control -abortions- sterilization are free. Gotta have priorities.
Hi Pharmer,
Good point. That explains why Canada contracts with American border hospitals for, among other things, imagining.
EGOP,
Well polio was catastrophic but tell me, what happened if someone didn’t already have insurance? If iron lung care lasted for months and even years? Did everyone on the polio wards have insurance? What about poor people who didn’t have insurance? Did they shut off the iron lungs and let them die?
Thank you for the info as to what ETALA stands for. You darned well better hope that King Barack’s birth control mandate doesn’t force a lot of Catholic hospitals to close down or tighten their belts, as they provide charity care.
Pharmer -
The US rations as well – we simply ration care for people who can’t afford it. Furthermore, we’ve rationed for years based on pre-existing conditions, medical caps, and insurance company coverage limits. Look up the definition of health care rationing – we’ve been doing it for years.
PS - in what measure does the US lead the world in health care?
Mary -
Couldn’t find answers in regards to your polio questions – though this study seems to say not all hospitals would even accept polio patients - http://universityhonors.umd.edu/HONR269J/projects/sokol.html#note10
Those facilities will simply raise the rates for those who are insured. That is the spiral we’re on without health care reform. Rates will raise, so more people will drop and need emergency care. Pretty screwed up system. But at least the right wing is fighting for the right of people to freeload off of the system!
I dunno Ex, it looks like some people think we kinda suck at healthcare:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/06/23/us-usa-healthcare-last-idUSTRE65M0SU20100623
I think that people tend to idolize “the old days” without really thinking about how society has changed. For one, we have a much bigger population. More importantly, we have an aging population. That’s going to change the ball game. Second, I don’t think minorities have such a positive opinion of that time period and their access to healthcare. Plus, as Ex pointed out, we have a lot MORE available treatments and expensive things. And we already ration, I think the last estimate is that 45000 people die annually from lack of access to preventative and other services. I don’t have the solutions, but I think that “do what we did in the fifties!!!” is short-sighted.
“But at least the right wing is fighting for the right of people to freeload off of the system!”
The level of ignorance and lack of compassion exhibited on this thread just takes my breath away.
mp – Do you disagree with my statement?
“I don’t have the solutions, but I think that “do what we did in the fifties!!!” is short-sighted.”
Yeah, I remember all that. The funeral home’s hearse doubled as the local ambulance. The “ambulance” crew was usually a couple of high school kids during the summer months.
There were no radios and no one had any emergency medical training or life support equipment, but we got to drive fast.
Yeah, those were the good old days, especially when it was your turn to clean out the hearse, er, “ambulance” after somebody bled out.
“mp – Do you disagree with my statement?”
No, I don’t disagree with it in the slightest.
I’m simply pointing out that, by attempting to discuss something rationally with breathtakingly ignorant people, you’re wasting your time.
Surely you jest, mp. People have assured me that the fifties were perfection. Unless you were someone with heart problems, a woman who didn’t want to be a housewife, black, gay.. etc.
“Surely you jest, mp. People have assured me that the fifties were perfection. Unless you were someone with heart problems, a woman who didn’t want to be a housewife, black, gay.. etc.”
Well, I’ve previously described how I found my father wheeled into a dark corner of the emergency room at a Catholic hospital in California because he didn’t have proof of insurance. He’d suffered a massive heart attack. His lips were blue, gray pallor, very close to collapse.
The so-called “emergency room physician” was absent at a party, even though the hospital’s American Hospital Association charter required a physician to be on duty 24 hours a day.
I finally reached the doctor by telephone and he refused to allow the on-duty nurse to admit him, even though I assured him that we had a $10,000 self-insurance fund for him. He was, you see, a businessman who had been denied medical insurance because of his pre-existing heart condition.
The so-called “emergency room physician” told me on the telephone that he was instructing the “nurse” to call an ambulance to take my father to the county hospital, 20 miles away, where there was a “charity ward.”
I explained to the good doctor that it was his decision but, if my father died on the way to the county hospital, I would return and deal with him.
On reflection, the good doctor admitted my father and prescribed a course of emergency treatment. He left the hospital 12 days later and his bill was paid in full by cashier’s check, on discharge.
This, of course, all occurred prior to the passage of ETALA.
Yeah, those were the good old days.
Fortunately, for both the good doctor and for me, I didn’t have to deal with him, so I’m here to bear witness. Yeah, those were the good old days.
Have a good evening.
I’m glad that things turned out okay for your dad that time, mp.
Three things all health care policies must include at not charge…birth control, abortions and brocoli.
EGV,
No, not all hospitals took polio patients, just as all hospitals didn’t take psychiatric or TB patients either. I just remember the iron lung wards. I also remember the psych wards at the state hospital. 50 beds. But heck, it was better than people sleeping on the street or eating out of dumpsters.
JackBorsch 10:50PM
You’re not serious, right? I lived these changes. What I have seen go down the crapper is the result of gov’t interference and “help”. Read what black conservatives Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams have to say about the once strong black family and thriving black community, and how it was destroyed. I remember when the black family and community were thriving where I lived. No more.
No times were certainly not perfect. Are they now? When has the human condition ever been? Certainly there have been vast improvements. But Jerry and I also see where much has also gone down the toilet.
Hi Mary! I suspect that it wasn’t all so idyllic. My mother was one of 10 kids in a poor Polish Catholic family from Detroit, and actually – as the 7th kid – she had a different father than most of her older siblings, because my grandmother’s first husband died of an infection after a workplace injury. He actually had gone to work already injured – separate injury – because he couldn’t afford to get the first injury properly taken care of; I don’t know all the details but I suspect that it was “working through” an existing injury that led him to suffer the work-related injury.
Another time, my mother fell down the stairs and broke her arm. Just about the only things they didn’t lose as a result of that were their house and their phone. My mom told me that no matter what, they kept the phone – because otherwise your number would get taken away and even if you got service back later you’d have a new number, and everyone would know just how poor you were (people knew they were poor already, but the extent of it was something of a family secret). They lost the electricity. The car got repossessed. My mother and her siblings were constantly hungry; they would pick a different house each day and would break into the cellar and each take a potato from the bushel, they were so hungry. They went up and down the block like that, careful not to repeat houses too frequently lest anyone notice that potatoes were going missing. My mom couldn’t do the break-ins at first, due to her arm, and her siblings – who viewed it all as her fault in the first place – sometimes refused to steal a potato for her out of spite and anger. My grandmother cooked their pet rabbit one night and all the kids cried and refused to eat it, but eventually they wore down over the week since there was just nothing else.
I don’t know the details of how they paid for the care for her broken arm, or where they went. But I do know that immediately after she broke it, her father was furious because he knew it would devastate them financially. He dragged her to the car by her good arm as she screamed and cried, and he yelled at her the entire time they drove to the doctor, asking if she knew what she’d just done to their family. She was about 9 or so.
This was in the late 50s.
Alexandra, it sounds more like a case of abusive parenting then evidence of financial devastation due to a broken arm.
All I know is, the current system isn’t sustainable. And, attempting to heap EVERYONE onto a system that isn’t sustainable SURELY will not be sustainable!
EGV 10:49PM
You’re making my argument. How third party payment, be it insurance or gov’t raises costs. In case you haven’t noticed, medicare costs skyrocketed beyond what they were projected, not to mention the billions in scams, abuses and ripoffs. Doesn’t sound like the gov’t is the most trustworthy bunch to run much of anything.
Make insurance companies to compete with each other more. Offer people more options. Allow for medical accounts for those who don’t want insurance. My employer offers that.
This situation got out of control because of third party payment. Roping it back in won’t happen overnite and certainly not by more gov’t involvement.
Xalisae,
Exactly.
mp 11:19PM
While what happened to your father was tragic and indefensible, and I am thankful he recovered in spite of it, nothing magical by the gov’t completely changed everything for the better. Patient “dumping” schemes abound, insurance and private pay patients preferred by hospitals and the medicare, non paying, or medicaid can go across town, usually to the Catholic hospital. I understand even our gracious First Lady when she was in that high paying job in Chicago was also alleged to be involved in patient “dumping”.
Seems like everything old is new again.
truthseeker, my mom’s father was definitely abusive in his parenting tactics, though he was seen as pretty standard and normal in their neighborhood at the time. But that’s not what devastated them financially. They were simply poor – not very poor, they had a house and a car (before and eventually after the broken arm incident); but inarguably poor – and a fairly common medical problem was a pretty financially devastating thing.
Hi Alexandra.
Always good to see you. Please, where did I say the 50’s were idyllic? I addressed a post from JackBorsch to Jerry and me. I remember our neighbor sheltering abused women in the neighborhood because they had no help otherwise. That’s idyllic? Hardly.
Also, there were expenses then that we don’t have now, like long term polio, iron lung and TB care. Times change but problems remain, only they come in a different form.
If anything medical costs should be decreasing, given advances in surgery, infection control, and outpatient care. Because of third party payment and gov’t interference, they’re not. Also, let’s not forget how people are so lawsuit happy. I wonder if these juries think of who the increased costs of insurance will be passed on to when they so happily help someone “rip off” the insurance companies.
Alexandra, it sounds more like a case of abusive parenting then evidence of financial devastation due to a broken arm.
I thought this too, truth, before I even saw your post. Did the children happen to ask for a potato from the homeowners before they broke into the houses? Sounds like the parents were abusive, had too much pride and cared more about what others thought about them then they did about their children. Having a phone will never feed your kids.
Did the Catholic Church know the children were stealing potatoes to survive? Where the parents practicing members of a Catholic Church in Detroit or just Catholic in name?
Jack asked earlier, “And do you really think that religious organizations are equipped to care for a population of 300 million with unemployment and need so high?”
We have enough to help everyone in this world. The problem is greed and people wanting more than they need. Maybe if more people were attending church and willing to help out the religious institutions and not expecting to get paid for every good deed, the help would reach more people. People need to research the good that churches do and have done and be willing to jump in the mix themselves. Even then, the poor will always be with us because Christ told us so.
Mary, I meant that more tongue in cheek than anything. I am sure there were great things about that time perio that we can learn from, but there were certainly some serious problems and our society was quite a bit different.
There is this guy who is African-American in the nursing home my wife works at, I go by and play poker with him every once and a while. He has quite a different take on the time period than you and Jerry do, and was quite grateful for government intervention in some cases. I think its all in the perspective. I dunno, I wasn’t born yet. I do think that we have different issues facing us that we can’t really apply what worked back then across the board and expect that it will work well.
It really bothers me that healthcare and health insurance have become inseparable. There is something seriously wrong with the system as it is now.
Looking at my latest EOB, I was billed $194 for lab work. The insurance company covered the allowed amount for these services, $27. I do not owe the remaining because it was a participating provider (thankfully). Really? Something is wrong here. If I didn’t have insurance I would be paying $194 for something that others get for $27. THIS IS WRONG!
My teenage son is going to take part in a week-long mission trip this summer. We just filled out the final paperwork this weekend and I noticed…if you don’t have HEALTH INSURANCE you cannot go on the trip! So you can’t spend a week helping others if you don’t have freaking health insurance?!?
I don’t know what the answer is, but somehow making sure that everyone participates in the screwed up system we have now just doesn’t seem like the answer to me. Will prices go down? Will my $194 of lab work suddenly be billed out at a more realistic $27? Or even $50? I remember looking at the hospital bill for one of my baby deliveries. Motrin was billed out at $10 per pill. Really? For all my future hospitalizations I took my own bottle of Motrin with me.
The world has gone mad.
Alexandra: “and a fairly common medical problem was a pretty financially devastating thing.”
Not picking an argument with you, just springboarding from your phrase to a thought: Much of the argument regarding medical insurance is how devastating medical problems can be.
I was having some fun word play with my 14 yo daughter in the car the other day. She’d said something silly, so I [shortly after explained to her how I] derived a general principle from her remark and applied it to a different situation to see whether a principal deriving from her particular case could be reasonably applied more broadly. In this case it was preposterous, and we both laughed. Later, when the levity was behind us, I caught her doing it with something specific I asserted. Fast learner. ;-)
Anyway, when defending large-scale government / insurance coverage, people seem to adduce the principle that financial blows are a reason to cover folks. I don’t disagree. But the question arises — is this principle robust enough to survive its application elsewhere? Are we obliged to socialize risk wherever the potential for serious financial crises threatens people?
The question isn’t just in the medical corner of national discourse, it’s implicated in the whole “too big to fail” reality behind TARP, and it’s even relevant to government subsidies of industrial corners that end up failing, with the taxpayer stuck with the bill before the private sector creditors see a dime of loss.
Perhaps it would help to consider limit cases. If we socialized all risk, taxes would be huge and there would be little incentive for providers to keep costs low. Government-enforced cost controls would simply lead to rationing.
At the other extreme, what if we [government-]socialized nothing at all? There’d certainly be incentive for providers to keep costs low — they’d have no customers at all, otherwise. And statist liberals who prefer the alternative would live up to the bleeding heart stereotype by becoming advocates of, apologists for, contributors to, and boosters of private charity.
Statist liberals are always skeptical about private charity. But if their esteemed bureaucratic programs disappeared, their skepticism — if we’re to trust their integrity — would morph into private-sector activism, advocacy, and service.
Unless, of course, they’re just statist hypocrites doing delusional latter-day homage to discredited economic ideologies, whether those pre-dating 1989 or those afflicting contemporary Europe.
The bizarre self-fulfilling irony is that American progressives want a bureaucracy to be compassionate while expressing not just skepticism but scorn at the idea that a vibrant society would — should — showcase the private virtues they wish, instead, to relegate to regional compassion commissars.
I’ve cited Scrooge before on this:
“At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge,” said the gentleman, taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.”
“Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge.
“Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”
“They are. Still,” returned the gentleman,” I wish I could say they were not.”
“The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?” said Scrooge.
“Both very busy, sir.”
“Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,” said Scrooge. “I’m very glad to hear it.”
Scrooge loaths the notion that anyone should accept personal responsibility to redress the misfortunes of those fallen on hard times. He deems the gentlemen soliciting him fools for imposing on men such as himself, for expecting that “it takes a village,” as Hillary observed.
In short, it is statist liberals who personify the spirit of Scrooge, and it is the benevolent gentlemen entreating his personal participation in the lot of the poor that is righteous and good.
Scrooge: “But you were always a good man of business, Jacob”
Marley: “Business! Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
Not an agency’s business. Not Washington’s business. Not a department’s business. MY business. And Scrooge’s redemption did not consist in becoming a better taxpayer. He already was: “
I help to support the establishments I have mentioned — they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.”
In his redemption, he didn’t expand the state’s care of those in need. To the contrary, he left the state with fewer expenses and less need of tax revenue:
(To Cratchet): “
I’ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon”
This is probably what those of us who oppose statism wish for everyone: “
Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.”
God — not the State — bless us, everyone!
Did the Catholic Church know the children were stealing potatoes to survive? Where the parents practicing members of a Catholic Church in Detroit or just Catholic in name?
They were definitely practicing members! All 10 kids went to Catholic school and were confirmed, and the whole family (minus my grandfather, who often had to work) went to mass on Sundays. As for telling their neighbors – most of them were in pretty similar financial situations; it was kind of the demographics of their neighborhood/community. The cellar-stealing was kind of something the neighborhood kids often resorted to, depending on who was going a bit too hungry at any given time period.
My mother’s family was definitely not above asking for or accepting help from the community. For example, the school gave them free uniforms and some supplies, and they certainly put out requests for aid whenever large unexpected expenses befell the family (as happens a lot with so many kids). They asked for help and gratefully took what they were given. Sometimes it came through and sometimes it didn’t.
Sounds like the parents were abusive, had too much pride and cared more about what others thought about them then they did about their children. Having a phone will never feed your kids.
I don’t like the sort of parents they were, no, but I wouldn’t say they had too much pride. They did have some pride, the sort that people tend to grasp onto to maintain some semblance of normal life – ie, my grandmother would make and mend all the clothing all her children would wear, nothing fancy, but it was all kept in reasonable condition, free of holes, etc. That sort of thing. When it came down to things like which to temporarily lose – electricity or phone – the phone was ultimately more valuable and carried the added stigma of being a very public sort of loss. And having a phone will feed your kids if it allows you to find, and arrange transportation to and from, work.
My teenage son is going to take part in a week-long mission trip this summer. We just filled out the final paperwork this weekend and I noticed…if you don’t have HEALTH INSURANCE you cannot go on the trip! So you can’t spend a week helping others if you don’t have freaking health insurance?!?
Hey Lrning, Two of my kids are going on a week-long mission trip this summer to help others as well (their idea, but my prayers).
I received an email today about our group getting together to meet and the email mentioned we needed to bring insurance cards to the meeting. Does it happen to be a Catholic Heart Workcamp your son plans to attend?
Thanks for the background information, Alexandra. I know the Catholic schools and churches in my area helped out (and still do) those with larger families and those in need. It does kinda irk me to see some of the kids who were most helped not involved in helping others now that they have the means, though but I know I can’t judge because there were many years in my adult life when I didn’t volunteer to do squat for others either. I truly believe it is only because of both of my grandmom’s prayers for me that I’m even where I am at as it is and it wasn’t until I needed to ask for help myself that I was willing to help others.
I think the cost of a college education fits in this discussion somewhere too. My daughter was accepted to a great college (she leaning toward nursing) but the cost and thought of years and years of debt is causing her anxiety and she’s even talked of not going in spite of being a high honors student (I’ve only been able to put a couple grand away for her). Hopefully, she’ll get a few of the many scholarships she applied for because it’s sad to think that some qualified students don’t go on to college because of lack of finances (and vice-versa).
Praxedes says: Does it happen to be a Catholic Heart Workcamp your son plans to attend?
Yes. My oldest went a few years ago and it was an amazing experience. I’m just so disappointed to see that health insurance is required for service. :(
Oh, don’t get me started on college expenses, Praxedes! Most people here know that I forfeited a full scholarship when my mom got cancer; what few people here know is that I never went back to school after that. In high school I was a National Merit Scholar, which got me automatic full scholarship (even room/board and textbooks) to a variety of colleges. I stopped looking at any other schools, picked the ones of those schools that I liked best, and was very excited! But when I had to take an extended leave of absence to care for my mom and work full-time (to cover what insurance would not), the school said I was always welcome back but that the scholarship was contingent on me being a full-time student for four consecutive years. It was a $30,000/year school.
That was that.
I’m 29 now and while my life is pretty good, it is not what I thought it would be. I’ve been surprisingly successful in my chosen field (technical theater and production management) but it’s not what I intended to do (wanted to be a librarian), and I have no insurance. My only real shot at getting insurance is picking up more union work – I have a card but my full-time job is non-union, so it’s just the side jobs I pick up randomly that add towards my union requirements. It’s been difficult to go in that direction – I had to take a pay cut to start putting more time in labor work than management work – but it’s the only way to eventually move into primarily union labor positions, and it’s far more feasible than getting a degree.
My daughter’s college is $30 grand plus a year, too. What the college recommends her step-dad and I contribute is way over what we have ever had left over at the end of the year and we live very modestly the way it is. We need a new roof and both vehicles are on their last leg and her dad helps very little. I guess, we could eat more potatoes, though (:
I’ve put in my sleepless nights of anxiety years ago over money and I don’t want to become anxious along with my daughter so I think I must be putting in more trust in Jesus than I used to (: Alexandra, I’m sorry about your college plans — you would have made a great librarian but you are the most precious daughter any mom could hope for!
Lrning, Where is your son going? My two are going to Nashville.
Wow. Ellie wants to go to college someday, but I pretty much secretly thought there is no way we could afford that. Seeing what you all have said, I know now for sure we can’t afford it. It really sucks, she really wants to get into nursing.
Hey Jack, we need prolife nurses! Don’t give up hope — It just might happen. Look at all the good that JUST one prolife nurse can do (:
Jack, don’t be discouraged about college. You may qualify for financial aid. And some community colleges offer nursing programs.
Hi JackBorsch 12:38PM
Certainly the 50’s were a difficult time for black Americans, though interestingly enough, at that time 78%- 85% of black children lived in two parent homes. Government intervention in the ending of segregation and voting rights violations was definitely needed. Both Dr. Sowell and Walter Williams have different takes on the 50s in the black community and blame the “anti-poverty” programs of Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 War on Poverty for the destruction of the black family and creating dependency and poverty.
In the first 5 years of the early 1960’s, the black middle class had grown substantially and produced 7 million new jobs. Since 1965 the black family has unraveled at a rate almost unparalled in history. Today 70% of black children are born to single mothers. In some neighborhoods, two parent homes have vanished.
Kay Hymowitz
“An Enduring Crisis for the Black Family”
The Washington Post
Dec. 6, 2008
You can draw your own conclusions.
Thank you mary for reminding us what happens when liberal humanists try to use the purse string and the power of government to solve social problems.
The ‘great society’ cost many times more than the liberals originally projected, much more than the conservatives warned.
The bureaucraZy which was created continues to grow.
And the problem it was supposed to solve is many times worse than when democRATs declared war on poverty.
And these same wackos say we should trust them with our health care.
Jack, don’t get discouraged. One of the best parts of community colleges are their nursing programs – you can become an LPN or get an associate’s degree towards nursing at lots of community colleges. Or, if nothing else, you can do part of a degree at a community college and then transfer elsewhere, saving literally tens of thousands of dollars that way. I should know – I did two years at a community college myself! Even as an English major (ie not a “solid facts and learning” subject like biology) I found that education invaluable. There are some great teachers at community colleges, not to mention some great classes – I had always taken AP English courses in high school and read a lot on my own, but I had NEVER even THOUGHT to dip my toe into Latin American literature until I took a course at community college. I’d read Dostoevsky over and over, and Flaubert, and James Joyce and Balzac and all the rest of your common and uncommon canonical writers – but I had never even heard of Borges or Quiroga, or of the entire style of magical realism. Taking that class was a real eye-opener – that there were whole styles and genres of literature I still didn’t even KNOW EXISTED. I went to office hours with that professor every single day, even after I finished that class; and even now, years later, they are some of my fondest memories.
Personally I still think I’d like to be a librarian someday. There are lots of things I’d like to do someday. Have kids, have a garden. I’ll always keep my goals in mind and work towards them at every fork in the road, and that’s ok for me. I’m paying rent and saving money, I’m happy, I get to build things and weld and load trucks. I get to see most shows that hit Broadway for free, which is a nice perk. ;) There’s lots of living to do – how boring would it be if I achieved all my goals by the time I hit 30? To be honest, now I kind of think that I’d like to finish my degree part-time after having kids – once they start to hit school ages maybe. I have no plans to have kids at this point but that seems like it would be a good life to look back on when I’m old and creaky.
Praxedes, thank you. I wouldn’t trade my mom – or even those boring, depressing years hanging out with her at home as she went through everything – for any degree. :)
Good luck with everything with your daughter! (yet again I will need to recommend looking at doing the first two years at community college – not butting in! just since it already came up!)
Hi Mary:
Just catching up since last night. It seems the sense that it hasn’t always been this way and that people used to take much more responsibility for their actions sans government involvement is being twisted into our claiming the 50’s were a panacea. Did either one of us say it is preferable not to advance, that we should not have applied any learnings and advancements in health care as they occurred?
I still do not see how anyone can claim we are better off now that we have overburdened our health care services with an unsustainable (thank you xalisae) and unworkable top down system that creates and rewards scams, waste, and excess. The only solution to this in their minds lies in an even bigger system wherein we will look to the same benevolent government that has brought us to the brink of insolvency and a collapse of health care as we know it. This wishful thinking is remindful of what we all know as the definition of insanity…doing the same thing over and over and believing the result will differ. Governments all over the world have tried centralized health care and none have delivered a system remotely close to ours in terms of quality of care delivered to the greatest number of people.
In a nutshell the reason health care was once more affordable and accessible to the average person was that our health care system (and most of the institutions in our society) originated within the principle of subsidiarity–local entities, individuals, and families had much more say over the course of their treatments than we have today. Now in its stead are the competing interests of big pharma, big lawsuits, big government, big health care/hospital chains, and big insurance that leave us little peons struggling for some control. The further we move away from the principle of subsidiarity the more difficult things become.
The notion that big gov will engineer a more equitable distribution of health care without sacrificing quality is more fairy tale than fair. And the scariest thing of all about big gov is that the bigger and hence more powerful it becomes the shorter the route to its inevitable endpoint; tyranny.
Hi Alexandra,
Our local community college is outstanding. My daughter is a successful paralegal after their two year program, plus it produces many nurses and other health care professionals for our community.
Hi Jerry,
Excellent post. Good to hear from you.
In the early 1960’s our family came together to care for my grandmother because private nursing could not be afforded and she was too much for the limited nursing staff to handle on the nite shift. My mother, sister, great aunts and family friends covered nite time shifts sitting with my grandmother as she went through alcohol withdrawal following surgery. This was in addition to working all day. After her release from the hospital a family friend took her in and helped nurse her back to health. My semi invalid grandfather stayed at our house and I helped care for him because my mother, in the midst of a divorce, worked. My mother also found out my sister was pregnant out of wedlock at this time as well. Amazingly my grandparents could eventually return to their own upper flat and my grandmother watched me during that summer while my mother worked. Then I went to stay with my great aunt for the rest of the summer.
When my father finally had to leave the house, my sister’s new husband parked in the living room to make sure he left. My mother stayed with my sister. In the meantime my grandmother developed seizures and my grandparents moved in with us, and we all helped care for my semi invalid grandfather. In retrospect I can only shake my head. We thought nothing of it. This was life. You handled problems. No government agencies. No handouts. No social programs. No whining. Oh, and no excuses for not being in school on time and doing your assigned work. Back then the biggest problems teachers had were chewing gum and talking in class.
No, this era was no panacea, but people definitely had more sense of responsiblity for their families and their lives.
Hi Ken 7:50PM
Up until the early 50’s one looked long and hard to find a black family headed by a woman. Traditional black family ties were very strong. Upon emancipation, and before, black Americans proved themselves a remarkably resilient and resourceful people who, despite the obstacles of Jim Crow and klan terror, both of which came courtesy of the Democrat Party, nontheless established schools, colleges, churches, businesses, farms, and thriving neighborhoods with large middle and professional classes. They also excelled in the arts and sciences.
I believe it was Thomas Sowell who said the government programs and interference did to the black family and community what the KKK could only dream of, and could never succeed at.
Like you said Ken, these people want to handle our health care!! What’s more terrifying is that there are actually people who want them to! :O
Good post on the destruction of familes and the welfare mindset. Excellent read by Star Parker “White Ghetto: How Middle Class America Reflects Inner City Decay”. Biggest problem of today’s society both black and white ”Decaying Values and Fatherlessness” “Star Parker…contends that urban anarchy is just a magnified reflection of the moral collapse happening all over America: in our schools, our churches, our homes”. America’s demise is reflected by the new numbers for out-of-wedlock births at 40% and climbing. Hospitals are seeing fewer and fewer married committed couples welcoming babies into the world and more “baby daddies and baby mommas”. The same people (ideologically) who promoted “free love” and the “sexual revolution” in the 70s, 80s and 90s are now in charge of the asylum (or should I say country) to promote “free birth control” “reproductive freedom” and” Planned Barrenhood” and Obamacare with abortions on demand for all (it is not free, our tax dollars will pay for it) . You ain’t seen nothing yet if President Obama gets a second term. He just chastised the Supreme Court for not sounding like it worships at the altar of Obama (in front of 2 other world leaders no less) and he will ram it down our throats and stick it to the entire country if he gets another term. How dare they not agree with him and go along with his supreme authority? May God help the United States of America and the entire world.