Supreme Court: The Republican Psyche Revealed

By Ron Steinman

As I write, we are waiting for the Supreme Court’s decision on the Affordable Care, better known, often with disdain, as Obamacare. The decision should come this week. Whatever the outcome and many are betting the court in a typical conservative political move, will strike down at least part of the law – the mandate portion – if not everything in it. What then? Stories abound that though most people are against the law because of ignorance and a hard sell against it by those on the right, health insurance companies are already thinking of ways to implement portions of the law because they make good sense. However, I doubt the companies that on their own enact portions of the law or adjust what they do to a new reality in health care will endear themselves to diehard conservatives. Let me offer a mocking view.

I understand that some in the Republican Party are more willing to eat their young than see that all Americans have access to decent health care. Raising taxes is in a virtual tie with the fear that many uninsured people might actually be able to afford decent health care. When a population is healthy, the chances are it will be more vocal in its desire for equality. If part of the population is weak because its health is poor, it will not be troublesome for those who rule. Providing good health insurance for those who do not have insurance is expensive. Conservatives do not want to spend money on those who cannot afford health insurance so they have a chance to be healthy. The Republican Party knows that many of those people usually do not vote anyway. The majority of people who oppose the White House plan are perhaps among the most shortsighted people in America. I have little hope that their vision will improve any time soon.

To help you with your thinking, if you want to listen, I have a suggestion how we in America might solve what we do about all those many mouths to insure. Many centuries  ago, a famous satirist advocated a similar solution to a similar, though distinct major problem of his time. With that in mind, I turn with reverence to Jonathan Swift when I am at a loss for how to tackle a subject that needs a goose. I will use an essay of his that I have used in the past. You know the one in which he advocates that the rich and powerful in the early 1700s in England resort to eating children to help alleviate famine in Ireland.

The essay, a Modest Proposal written in 1729 is Swift at his satirical best. In it, he suggests that the poor Irish could best help themselves by selling their children to the rich. He says, “A young healthy child well nursed is at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked or boiled . . . “

We do not have a famine problem in America, though there are millions of children who go to bed hungry every night. Because there are far too few people in high places that care about their fellow man, given a chance, I would wager there are Republicans who would consider Swift’s suggestion as a way to solve the problem of hunger, the poor and the disenfranchised. We have the Republican Party and its recent nefarious outgrowths that seem to care more about budgets, deficits, no taxes, defeat President Obama at any cost, forget the thirty or so million who have no health insurance and let the country and many of its people be damned. Sadly, the Republican publicity machine with powerful PAC money behind it has convinced a majority of voters that the government health care plan will ruin the life of every person. To these ignorant people, legalizing the mandate that makes a person purchase insurance is somehow an intrusion of how they live, thus a fate worse then death. Eating children probably comes in a close second.

When done reading this, apply what I said to immigration, student loans, the attempt to end collective bargaining by government unions and everything else about people as people that the conservatives in our midst oppose. Apologists for those who are proud to be Republican will disagree, as they should, as I hope they will. The presidential election in November is coming fast. Our eyes should be wide open when we contemplate a possible outcome that sees a Republican in the White House. If a Republican lands in the White House, woe to those in our society who lack the ability to stand and fight for their rights.

Oh, and this just in. Late last week the New York State legislature passed a bill to make it mandatory – a variation of that word again – for all 5-year old in New York City to attend kindergarten. By all measures a good thing that even the Republicans in the State Senate overwhelming approved. I can only assume the bill passed, the legislators knowing that there would not be a lobby of 5-year old fighting to maintain their independence or a PAC in support of so-called freedom with children standing up against something that everyone believes is a valuable tool. All expect Governor Cuomo to sign the bill into law. Mandatory. A lovely word.