This article is a response to the recent letters to the editor ("Conservatives fight health plan with facts," Sept. 29, "All should care about health care debate," Sept. 25) voicing strong opposition to the column, "Health care debate causes hysteria" (Sept. 22). Hopefully, a more nuanced line of argument will preempt any gross misinterpretations from occurring a second time.
Instead of responding to these objections with a predictable arsenal of liberal opinion, this column will work within the concerns of healthcare critics by attending to the most sensitive elements concerning those on the right: ideology and freedom. These two words not only fail to undermine the critique on conservative resistance but also expose a central problem with the healthcare debate.
Let's start with ideology. Like many conservatives on his side, Jonathan Gully asserted, "The arguments against the (health care) legislation are factual, not ideological." This perfectly phrased statement attempts to articulate the appearance of its opposite. The idea that we can determine the truth about a proposition from an objective or "factual" position is, itself the most fundamental argument of ideology. Those who rally against regulations on the free market or godless government bureaucracy try to appeal to the bare facts about health care but ultimately fail to take into account the ideological horizon upon which those facts are understood. In short, the "facts" presented by conservatives are thoroughly ideological since they are premised on a blind reverence for capitalism and, most importantly, freedom.
It is incredible how often the word "freedom" is used in American political discourse and it is even more incredible how often "freedom" is referenced without any real qualification. Perhaps we can turn to a resident authority on this subject to help us understand just what it really means to be free. With reference to the House version of the health care bill requiring everyone to have health insurance or pay a fine, senior Cory Bailey wants to know "How is this not an invasion of my individual freedoms?" I would like to shift the burden of explanation back onto Bailey by removing the word "not" from his own question.
What is individual freedom, exactly? In this instance, is individual freedom nothing other than the ability to engage in the market? Prior to the "invasion," Cory Bailey has a certain wealth and afterwards his wealth is, apparently, fined and decreased. Doesn't this mean literally the only value freedom has in this instance is a mass accumulation of wealth and then participation in consumerism? What sort of "choice" does this freedom represent? Is it the freedom to buy a new iPod or a new pair of Ugg boots in the same market that denies millions of people access to health care and forces them to work in dead-end jobs that are an insult to their human dignity?
We must resist such a simplistic view of freedom. Our lives are not a byproduct of the market and the possibilities of our being are not determined by the funds we have in our wallets, the liquidity of money we have in the bank or the rise and fall of the stock market. Freedom must lie somewhere else entirely. Now this may sound controversial. Surely, freedom is not the acquisition of obscene amounts of wealth with little or no concern for its consequences. Surely, it is not refusing to pay for the betterment of society so you can scrape another few dollars off the top. American political discourse reduces freedom to some sort of 19th century anachronism, where the only relevant freedom is a freedom from some monstrous governmental power.
Instead, we should affirm the freedom that lies in an interaction and ethical relation with others. Rather than resting our political groundings on such selfish values (freedom as wealth protection, etc.), our societal institutions should operate to foster an ethical, interpersonal life. We are most free when we affirm another being's life, when we act accordingly to ethically incorporate their existence within our own without violence. Unfortunately, those who sent letters to the editor view those who are left without health care or coverage merely as obstacles that threaten their selfish desires to accumulate wealth, wealth that was built upon the suffering of those without health care. Rather than affirm such a negative stance in politics, let us hope for something better.
Roger Young youngrq@muohio.edu
Drew Wallenstein gregoryw29@gmail.com
