N.Y. Times Writer David Leonhardt: ObamaCare on Same Level as Civil Rights
New York Times writer David Leonhardt is not happy with a judge’s ruling a vital part of Obama-care – the individual insurance mandate – is unconstitutional. In his latest front-page “Economic Scene” column, “In Health Law, Old Arguments Get New Airing,” the paper’s neo-liberal conscience on economic matters compared conservative opposition to Obama-care not only to past opposition to Medicare, but to opposition to civil rights for black Americans.
“We are against forcing all citizens, regardless of need, into a compulsory government program,” said one prominent critic of the new health care law. It is socialized medicine, he argued. If it stands, he said, “one of these days, you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.”
The health care law in question was Medicare, and the critic was Ronald Reagan. He made the leap from actor to political activist, almost 50 years ago, in part by opposing government-run health insurance for the elderly.
Today, the supposed threat to free enterprise is a law that’s broader, if less radical, than Medicare: the bill Congress passed this year to create a system of privately run health insurance for everyone. On Monday, a federal judge ruled part of the law to be unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court will probably need to settle the matter in the end.
We’ve lived through a version of this story before, and not just with Medicare. Nearly every time this country has expanded its social safety net or tried to guarantee civil rights, passionate opposition has followed.
Is Leonhardt really comparing opposition to government control over health care to opposition to civil rights for blacks?
Leonhardt again put Obama-care in the same sacrosanct position as civil rights:
Both traditions have been crucial to creating the most prosperous economy and the largest middle class the world has ever known. Laissez-faire conservatism has helped make the United States a nation of entrepreneurs, while progressivism has helped make prosperity a mass-market phenomenon.
Yet the two traditions have never quite reconciled themselves. In particular, conservatives have often viewed any expansion of government protections as a threat to capitalism.
The federal income tax, a senator from New York said a century ago, might mean the end of “our distinctively American experiment of individual freedom.” Social Security was actually a plan “to Sovietize America,” a previous head of the Chamber of Commerce said in 1935. The minimum wage and mandated overtime pay were steps “in the direction of Communism, Bolshevism, fascism and Nazism,” the National Association of Manufacturers charged in 1938. After Brown v. Board of Education outlawed school segregation in 1954, 101 members of Congress signed a statement calling the ruling an instance of “naked judicial power” that would sow “chaos and confusion” and diminish American greatness. A decade later, The Wall Street Journal editorial board described civil rights marchers as “asking for trouble” and civil rights laws as being on “the outer edge of constitutionality, if not more.”
Leonhardt continued his relentless front-page cheerleading for “moderate” Obama-care.
In truth, the law is quite moderate. It is more conservative than President Bill Clinton’s 1993 plan or President Richard Nixon’s 1974 plan (in which the federal government would have covered anyone who wasn’t insured through an employer). It’s much more conservative than expanding Medicare to cover everyone. It is clearly one of the least radical ways for the United States to end its status as the only rich country with millions and millions of uninsured.
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Comments
Yeah, these are the same
Submitted by Barack_must_go..... on Thu, 12/16/2010 - 11:51am.
Yeah, these are the same idiots that were touting the Ass Clown as the 21st century ( tear down that wall ) Ronald Reagan as the only man/child on earth that could straighten out the terrible domestic terrorist school union debacle last Summer.
I've noticed since the unions pony'd up suitcases of cash for the mid-terms and beyond, that has become a moot issue out of the ' usual suspect ' media outlets.
I'm wondering if there really is something to Barack's narcissistic god complex as I farted really hard the other night and when I looked there was a faint likeness of the Ass Clown in my underwear.
I'm having them appraised as I type, so look for them on E-Bay just in time for the perfect gift for that special progressive on your Christmas list. GOOD LUCK!
Barack_Must_Go.....
A genuinely stupid argument
Submitted by KC Mulville on Thu, 12/16/2010 - 12:11pm.
"Nearly every time this country has expanded its social safety net or tried to guarantee civil rights, passionate opposition has followed."
That only makes sense if you already assume that healthcare is a basic civil right. But that's what the debate is about in the first place. We don't think that insurance is a civil right. Leonhardt makes his argument as if we all know that buying insurance is an inalienable right guaranteed by God and James Madison.
And so then, he can't understand why anyone could be opposed to it. It must be just the reflexive racism and ignorance of conservatives?
Liberals work on the premise that government works to expand civil rights ... and that anyone who labels their personal agenda as a "civil right" is automatically assumed to be the next Dr. King. (Of course, now everyone labels their legislation a civil right because it shields them from criticism.) Liberals believe that government has the power to bestow rights, and even create them, and then to perform this magic for every "aggrieved" group that attracts their attention.
I want you to know, therefore, that conservatism is a civil right.
Who's next?
Submitted by almostacowboy on Thu, 12/16/2010 - 1:36pm.
Men who love their sheep?
Women who want to marry their sons?
Brothers/sisters?
Bob and Ted and Carol and Alice?
I have no doubt that I am one of those "opposed to civil rights".
Inquiring minds want to know
Submitted by DontFeedTheTrolls on Thu, 12/16/2010 - 12:18pm.
If this health care scam is a civil right, why are so many, including those who forced this law on us, exempt from it? How can anyone be exempt from a civil right? When did we start having to pay for civil rights, or be fined and go to jail? Is Al Sharpton exempt from civil rights? Can I legally lynch him?
Lot of lies as facts.
Submitted by Red Jeep on Thu, 12/16/2010 - 12:35pm.
Lie #1: "...the bill Congress passed this year to create a system of privately run health insurance for everyone."
Huh?!?! Either David Leonhardt is misguided or ...(fill in the blank)
If I were a black person and
Submitted by liberalsarefunny on Thu, 12/16/2010 - 12:57pm.
If I were a black person and had been around back in the 50's and 60's, and much longer before that, I would be really pissed off if some politician tried to compare obamacare to the true civil rights struggle in this country.
mmmmmmm.......
Submitted by almostacowboy on Thu, 12/16/2010 - 1:38pm.
I imagine some of those you specify are, but the subsequent generations are probably of the mind that they are, in fact, entitled to health care.
Anti-Civil Right Bill.
Submitted by CobraMan on Thu, 12/16/2010 - 1:23pm.
Contrary to the claims of the liberals, this "health care reform" bill is actually an ANTI-CIVIL RIGHTS Bill. How many "civil rights" laws do you know of that forces people to do something? None. Civil rights allows people to do something, but it doesn't force them to do something. Forcing people to do something is the exact opposition of a civil right. Where's my right to say no without being punished? That is a "civil right," the right to make you're own decisions without fear of recrimination.
Take voting "rights" as an example. Every citizen in America who's over the age of 18 has the "right" to vote, but none of them are FORCED to vote. They have the right to say no, to not vote. This health care bill removes a right for the vast majority of Americans, the right to say NO to federally controlled (federally chosen) health insurance. Just how is that even remotely comparable to the Civil Rights Bill? It isn't.
The same is true with Medicare, you don't have to apply. You still have the right to say NO. Where's that right in this insurance mandate? For the majority of Americans, it doesn't exist.
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. The US Constitution
Unless you're a fetus. The US Supreme Court
Or Anwar al-Awlaki.
This is the best the false
Submitted by Edhenry on Thu, 12/16/2010 - 1:21pm.
This is the best the false media can muster?
They lose on
1. Merits
2. Economics
3. The Constitution
4. Polls
5. Supreme Court Precedent
Let them keep talking; its so easy to expose them as ignorant and irrelevant.
We all know how great things
Submitted by mrsimele on Thu, 12/16/2010 - 2:05pm.
We all know how great things have gotten since 1964. The inner cities are so much safer now. Crime is much lower. Not nearly as much drug use as prior to '64. The public school system is better, the dollar is worth more now than it was then... Listen to the libs. They really know what they are doing.If healthcare is a civil
Submitted by Thoreau on Thu, 12/16/2010 - 4:08pm.
If healthcare is a civil right, then so is food, clothing, and shelter. And last I checked the only time the government provides that is when they are Communists.
A sickening fallacy.
Submitted by Phryj1 on Thu, 12/16/2010 - 4:51pm.
This is hardly the first time liberals have advanced the absurd position that health care is a civil/human rights issue. They think if they wrap it in a blanket of human rights, that it makes it untouchable. It's another example of liberals relying on appeals to emotion in order to advance their agenda.
Fortunately, this fallacy doesn't hold up under logical scrutiny. First of all, needs and rights are not one in the same, despite what libs would like you to believe. Nobody has the right to have all their needs met. It's one thing to help out people who are unable to meet their own needs, but people who ARE able to take care of themselves have the personal responsibility to do so. Those who would make it a rights issue are really trying to create a dependency on government, and the only reason they would want that is because it allows the government to control people. Secondly, in order for it be a rights issue, you'd have to have a situation where people are being systematically denied care. Under our system, it was already illegal to deny care. Yes, insurance companies would still refuse to pay, but there was nothing stopping anyone from getting medical care. Now, they say denying health care is a rights violation, well, nationalized health systems do that all the time. In the UK, Canada, and Europe, there have been numerous cases where care is delayed or outright denied. So moving towards a system like that, even with a hybrid pseudo-nationalized private system, is actually a step backwards for human rights. Third, having access to health care, and having access to insurance are not one in the same. Inversely, not having access to insurance does not deny you access to health care. Not to mention, forcing people to purchase insurance is an absurd solution to the non-existent problem of people not having insurance, especially considering it fails to take into account people who choose to pay as they go instead of purchasing insurance. In fact, the whole "access" argument is rendered moot if insurance is mandated. Finally, the argument is self-contradictory. See, health care as a right would neccesarily mean BEING HEALTHY is a right. But if being healthy is a right, then why are they taxing it? Because for healthy people, the insurance mandate is nothing more than a tax on being healthy, and as a matter of principle, you don't tax something that's considered a basic human right.
There, I've just completely eviscerated the "universal health care is a human/civil rights issue" argument with simple facts and logic.
Progressives seem to be completely averse to facts and logic. Apparently, reality has a conservative bias.
The argument has shifted so many times...
Submitted by drsamherman on Thu, 12/16/2010 - 4:55pm.
...I think we all need some Compazine to treat the vertigo.
FIrst it was an issue of economic security, which was torn apart by the sheer cost and burden imposed by regulations. Then it was a matter of national security, in context for the nanny state control of everything from the insurance market to school lunches to food marketing. After that, the gears are shifted to the emotional heartstrings of putting grandma out on the streets and now it is a basic human rights issue.
In the narrowing from the logical to the emotional, the facts are becoming even more and more distorted. What concerns me is that a judge rendered his opinion of the individual mandate as congress overreaching its authority, but the argument to overturn that opinion is based on a visceral, emotional context--once again grandma is on the streets. It is striking that the Democrats, who so often trot out the illusion that Obama is just too darned smart for the rest of us, instead choose to defend the health care monstrosity with such emotional claptrap.
obama-care on the same level as civil rights
Submitted by martin_s on Thu, 12/16/2010 - 9:26pm.
Unless I am mistaken, the concept of civil rights as we understand it had its origins in the Magna Carta, hundreds of years ago. And has been refined and expanded marginally since then. Other grand ideas have arisen and fallen since then, but this has endured and grown. So to put healthcare on the same level as civil rights would seem to demonstrate ignorance of history and the evolution of civil rights, or blind adherence to the politically correct dogma du jour.
Regards, Martin
www.selling-a-business-without-stress.com