Of all the framing narratives of the Right, none has been more tenacious than the repetition that healthcare reform constitutes a "government-takeover" of the system. Considering the huge haul in new customers that private insurers will be getting if HCR passes, this is ridiculous on its face. But to hear the characterization of government by the right wing, you'd think "V" was a blueprint to the near future. Obama is going to unzip his face and reveal himself to be a lizard from a Kenya-shaped planet. Then his Acorn-trained census-troopers will break into your home, requiring the abortion of all non-Muslim pregnancies. God-fearing Christians will have no choice but to use all the guns they've been hoarding. The tree of liberty and all that.
What I haven't heard from the President is a pushback on the very definition of government itself. As a nation, we've decided some things must be done for the good of all of us, and therefore need to be paid for by all of us, via the legislation of our elected representatives. These things include public education, a court and police system, national defense, homeland security, transportation and infrastructure, aid for the elderly, medical care for the poor and children, food and drug safety, the space program, medical research, veterans' benefits and on and on. Almost all of these programs are supported, individually, by the vast majority of Americans. By definition, they also require a large public sector. But if you ask these same people if they support "big government," they will almost universally say no.
The American paradox is that everyone wants small government and high services, low taxes and a balanced budget. The genius of the Republicans is that they've convinced a huge swath of America that all of this is actually possible, even though both Bush and Reagan failed miserably at it. There is an otherworldly mathematical disconnect between what the programs they are committed to cost and how they seem to believe they are paid for. It's magical thinking to the point of mass psychosis.
They denounce the IRS, as if society as we know it could function without it. Uncollected taxes would mean no postal service, no Social Security checks, no funds for the military. Our planes couldn't take off, our trains couldn't run, our water would be dirty. Our borders would be unpatrolled, prisons unguarded, disasters unrelieved. No teachers, no courts, no prisons, no firemen, no police.
There's a name for a place like that. It's called Somalia.
The Right has hatched the stereotype that a typical " government bureaucrat" spends all day figuring out ways to increase red tape so that real Americans can't start small businesses or God forbid, make money. There's a method to this madness. It's easy to denounce those you dehumanize. But the people who perform all the functions of the government---from delivering your mail to defending our borders--- aren't nameless, uncaring drones. They are your neighbors, your friends, your sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, perhaps even you.
The government is not "them." The government is us. It deserves our participation and respect, not our derision and contempt.
Follow Mark Olmsted on Twitter: www.twitter.com/MarquisMarq
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