Given the Godspeak into which Obama so often descends, we should not, I suppose, be surprised that he is now trying to bring the big fellow upstairs into the fight over healthcare. It’s no surprise, but it’s still annoying. Writing for Reason David Harsanyi pushes back. Here’s an extract:
As CBS News recently reported, Obama has thrown around the name of God even more often than George W. Bush. Then again, no group couches policy as a moral obligation more than the left. On nearly every question of legislation, there is a pious straw man tugging at the sleeves of the wicked.
What isn’t a moral imperative these days? As if they were chiseling commandments into stone tablets, Democrats refer to budgets as “moral documents.” Thou shalt compost, or climate change will descend upon the lands and smite the wicked and innocent alike. Extend alms to the downtrodden moneylenders and carmakers, for it is just, and the president commandeth thee.
If the apostate argues that dependency programs keep poor people poor or that progressive environmental policies are ineffective and create poverty or that free will is more important than free stuff, they will be dealt with like the Amorites. And you know what happened to those swine.
Morality—whether derived from religion or a Starbucks coffee cup—is only one of the many considerations Americans take into account when thinking about policy. As an atheist, for instance, my core moral concern is that elected officials stop telling me what my core moral concerns should be.
For good measure, Harsanyi throws in a timely quote by C.S. Lewis (“a man who knew a thing or two about religion”):
“It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
May?
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This Harsanyi guy writes:
Seems that should have been “As a liberal…,” rather than “As an atheist…” (“classical” liberal of course). I don’t see that atheism has much to do with it. I’m an atheist, and I like the idea of government being involved in what our core moral concerns should be. That’s one reason I consider myself a conservative.
Should health care be one of those core moral concerns? In principle, I don’t see why not. Health is one of the most basic ingredients of a good life, right? If for some reason a significant number of people can’t otherwise get decent health care (however that’s defined, which is another political decision!), then I don’t see any reason why the government shouldn’t get involved. Of course there are lots of pragmatic arguments against various forms of government involvement, and of course government involvement doesn’t necessarily mean Obamacare.
It would be nice if “government” meant township or parish rather than a hyper-centralized national bureaucracy, but then that’s another issue. In practice we’re probably stuck with massive, impersonal bureaucracies, whether government or corporations.
Andrew: This may be un-civic-minded of me, but I take great pleasure in seeing the Democrats play the God card against the Republicans, who escalated the public piety wars in the 2000s–quite literally, with Bush’s invocation of God’s gift of freedom to humanity as a justification for invading Iraq. Let the Republicans now try to disprove that God doesn’t want a public option, if that is indeed what Democratic strategists are claiming. Pace Harsanyi, however, I am not aware of a heavy reliance on religiosity in Obama-era Democratic rhetoric; I don’t equate moral appeals with religious ones.
Ploni… I consider myself a conservative and I dislike the government telling us what our core moral concerns should be. Morality is not the concern of government.
When something is agreed upon by all to be bad, ie murder, then I can see a government role. When something is declared to be a good by government that is a whole ‘nuther ballgame.
The problem with government involvement in healthcare is that neither health nor its care are defined. Government involvement in insurance regulation is different.
At some point healthcare becomes a luxury item, not a need.
@Donna B.
Even to the degree that healthcare is a need, it’s not a right, and government has no reason to be concerned with it – most certainly not at the federal level.
Most of the discussion of healthcare is mere rhetoric. By definition, ‘insurance’ that everyone is entitled to isn’t insurance. It’s just a payment plan.