Fear of
an ever-encroaching “Nanny State” has been a common theme among conservatives
for a number of years, as they bemoan the decline of personal and the growth of government responsibility, the loss of liberty to do what you want when you want, the right to the consequences of your own actions. I get it in theory, but there
seems to me to be a fallacy in that thinking, one that has been brought to the
fore as over the weekend GOP contenders Rand Paul and Chris Christie pandered with their answers
about vaccinations. I was most disappointed with Christie who at least claims
to be a “Damn the consequences, here’s what I believe” kind of politician.
There
used to be another libertarian axiom, “Your freedom stops at the tip of my nose.” Those who claim to be most fearful of the growing nanny state seem to
have forgotten, or just deliberately ignore (as so many seem to do with that sciencey stuff)
such a concept. Too many of those trying to reclaim the primacy of personal
responsibility ignore the far-reaching consequences of the irresponsible. It’s
not government overreach if the majority are being protected from actions of
the few that put us at risk.
I’d be
happy to support your right to drive 110 mph (without a seat belt) if you
guarantee that you will travel alone on this highway to hell and pay for the cleanup
costs and damage to the infrastructure.
You don’t
want to wear a helmet riding your motorcycle? Fine, I concede your right, but promise to die instead of
living for months in a brain-dead coma, driving up health care costs for
everyone (to say nothing of creating mental anguish for those who care about you).
Don’t
want health insurance? Okay, but then don’t expect the hospital ER to treat you
when you’re sick or injured. There is no such thing as “free care.” Someone is
paying for it, and for a long time it’s been those who had health insurance.
It’s why conservatives from the Heritage Foundation proposed mandatory coverage to
solve what they called the “free rider” problem.
The
ironic coalition of ultra liberals and anti-government conservatives joining
forces in the anti-vax movement is mind boggling, but as long as the wackos are
willing to solely associate (and infect) each other and not put at risk
children with compromised immune systems, as long as they isolate their epidemic
to their own group, I’ll grudgingly accede to their misguided notions. However,
we protect children from bad parenting on so many other levels (and, having
seen too much of the negative results of irresponsible parents firsthand, I might argue not often enough), I have
my doubts about even this. And who will be paying for the children permanently damaged by their parents’ failure to vaccinate them? All of us.
I am a
live and let live kind of person, but our society has become too
interconnected, too complex, to allow the few to take actions that jeopardize
the well-being of the many. It is never just your mess, never just your problem. The fallout from individual irresponsibility spreads throughout society. It may not have been what John Donne was really talking about when wrote “No man is an island,” but we do have obligations to our fellow human beings, even if those obligations interfere with what we want to claim as rights. It is the price we pay to live in the world today. Your claim to a freedom that jeopardizes my, or a loved one’s, health,
safety, security, or future creates a problem that is beyond just you, a conflict that must be resolved in favor
of the majority.
Any
concept, pushed to its logical extreme, can be ridiculed, of course. That is
precisely the tactic used by both fringes, to advocate for the positions of those who want either no government involvement or those who want the government to
solve every problem. But the re-emergence of measles offers us the opportunity
to discuss rationally the role and limits of government rules and regulations,
as long as we don’t allow the slogan masters to slam the “nanny state” or “my freedom, my choice” doors in our faces.
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