That's the headline on a post over at Left Coast Rebel. It is written by Progressive Republican Frank Hill, who has a resume that is (sadly) far more politically impressive than most.
For me, the post could have been titled, "Sunday Morning Head Explosion." I'm still on my first cup of coffee, and simply in no mood for a smarmy liberal do-good politico calling himself a Republican telling me it's my duty to behave in a manner that benefits his interests in his definition of "the common good." I wrote a hasty response over there, then found myself wishing I had posted my response here instead, partly because I can't edit over there. Like I said, I'm still on my first cup. So I'm reposting it here, hoping you'll forgive me for switching from the third person to the first person here and there, and of course encouraging you to go read the original article.
Conservatives - real conservatives, not the Democrat-lite big government brand that want to run our lives as well as the entire world - ask questions like, "why should I pay your bills?" However, with this smug soliloquy, Mr Hill has shown us he represents the wing of the party that the Democrats sent over. He and his ilk have done damage to both the brand and the country that we may literally never recover from. Their spin on that question, "why should I have to pay your bills if you don't behave in a manner that suits me?" is exactly the same argument that the Democrats are now beginning to make - how health care needs to be rationed to benefit the thin, the young and the workers.
First of all, aside from the cost to the proud legend of rugged American individualism and self-sufficiency, the approach he is suggesting, that government "trim the fat," undermines market forces. It provides the health care market absolutely no incentives to develop new, less expensive treatment options. For that reason alone, most of the readers would happily opt of of their future benefits if they were allowed that option. But since our generation (Hill's and mine) depend on those young beefcakes to fund our health care programs, he's not ever going to recommend that approach.
Instead, he's saying that the state has an interest in ensuring that my children, who will soon be entering the workforce, not provide benefits to me in my old age. Instead, their contributions should be routed to him because he considers himself a more-worthy recipient of the fruits of their labor.
As to the question, "Aren't you going to draw from it when you're old?" I suspect that most of the readers of this blog would happily opt out of they were only given the option, a choice that would also benefit the system in multiple ways. However, what Mr. Hill suggesting with that snide misdirection is that although we're forced to pay into a system we don't want to contribute to, we're somehow hypocrites if we remove our contributions at a later date. Seeing as that it's very likely we're also going to take spend more federal money that we contributed to the program, one has to wonder why you feel entitled to make a case for depriving people of their entitlements based only on your criteria of choice?
If we go down that path, we quickly find that people are financially forced into those programs, because government intervention has driven the price of cost up beyond anything rational. Allowing the small government minded to opt out of Medicare and Medicaid would lessen the burden long term, as well as allowing at least a small section of the almost-dead free-market to function in the way it was intended.
The "state has an interest" is a horribly frightening phrase, and here's why: The state doesn't have a legitimate interest in me, you or my Aunt Millie, nor should they. You're making the case for specific welfare, while pretending it's the definition of the general welfare. All you're really saying here is "I want a bigger piece of pie, and I want the government to take it away from someone else !!!"
