In response to the health care bill passing in the House of Representatives Sunday night, I noticed a friend’s Facebook status that was something like this: “Here comes the downfall of America.” I expanded the comments to join in on the sarcastic follow-ups. “The health care bill is going to kill us all!” was my best candidate for something to add. Then I saw that they were all serious. America really was doomed in their eyes. Welcome to the end of the world, I guess.
This kind of hyperbole makes it difficult for anything to get done. But at least it admits that the health care bill could have big consequences on our society. That’s good to realize, because we can just stop the debate there. Conservatives are afraid of social consequences.
It’s like talking a little kid out of being scared of the dark. What do you say in response to fear? If a kid is afraid, you reassure him or her with past experience: “The darkness of your room isn’t actually going to consume you — you sleep in it every night!” Then you reassure them with promises of the future: “You’ll see tomorrow that the darkness isn’t anything to be afraid of.”
But make the same case to conservatives: “This is not the first social change to come to America, you know. We make social changes every few years. Medicare addressed health care for the elderly. Medicaid helped health care for the poor. And it’s not just health care that we change.
There’s welfare, seat belt safety, gender equality, and so on. We’re still here. European countries have way more radical health plans and they aren’t totalitarian dictatorships.” And they freak out. John Boehner, House minority leader, said Saturday the health care bill will “ruin our country.”
So you try talking about the future. “Taxes will go up some for some people, sure, and we will live in a country which has a fairer system for getting medical care.” Conservatives are afraid of this vision.
Keep in mind that fear and distaste are two different things. I just found out that New Hampshire doesn’t have seat belt laws for people 18 or older. That’s cool. And if you don’t like paying more so people without the same privileges can receive medical treatment, that’s cool, too. It’s just a difference in taste. I’m not saying reasonable people can’t disagree on health care.
But being afraid of change just because it is change, being extremist in predicting its effects and unwilling to debate pragmatic issues because of the idea of America crumbling to a grainy paste of lost dreams and liberty is crippling means that people have to treat you like a little kid afraid of the dark. For a little kid afraid of the dark, talk and reason is nice, but it eventually comes down to curling up in Mommy’s bed and waiting for the scariness to go away. In the morning, you’ll forget all about it.
If that’s what it takes, I’m willing to wait it out. Ever since we stopped slavery, our country has been doomed. That was sarcasm. I’ll see you in the morning.
Will Penman is an English senior. His column appears weekly.
