Beware of They!

Although I suppose it would be easier (read, simpler) in many ways, we do not live in a black and white world.

Them! They! Certainly not US!

Originally written 9/21/2017, updated & edited today.

Do you ever wonder who “they” are?

I was perusing FaceBook, something I admittedly probably spend too much time on, and I stumbled across a post about them, which was to say not the poster, wanting to do something that seemed snowflakey. Snowflakes and triggers come in both red and blue, incidentally. Then I ran across another post about how they were hateful.

And I began, as I often do, to wonder, “Who is this they?” If you consider yourself a conservative, “they” is probably liberals. If you consider yourself a liberal, “they” is probably conservatives. If you’re a (true) libertarian, you get to alternate “theys” between both the liberals AND conservatives! Lucky you!

But I would ask you, before sharing, reposting, tweeting or retweeting, that meme or article, to ask yourself who that they is to whom you’re referring.

Because the fact of the matter is, unless you’re talking about a very specific (and generally small) group of people, there really is no “they.” Of course there are Nazis; of course there are anarchists (who, almost by definition, are a less than cohesive group); of course there are Kluckers; of course there are, well, you get the picture. And yes, there are true-believer Republicans and Democrats, and while frequently those who have been elected by their party will follow the party-line, it is often as much out of a desire to stay in office than any real commitment to a particular bill or even philosophy. Even those who do claim a philosophical affiliation with one party or the other (or some other) will often be loyal only to a point. Only the wonks actually know or follow the platform of their party, and even then selectively. (Note that the GOP didn’t even bother with a platform in 2020.)

But all generalizations, like all stereotypes, will seldom be accurate when describing any individual.

I’ve been called a liberal, a socialist, even a communist (that was a long time ago). I’ve previously expressed my scorn for labels, because labels are too simplistic. I lean left, no doubt, so in the eyes of a staunch conservative (including my own family), that makes me a liberal. Even if true, guess what? We don’t have meetings to decide what we believe, because there is no consensus.

My brothers lean right. But they don’t, at least as far as I know, meet up for lunch to define the weekly positions for a true-believer conservative. Or at least they didn’t invite me when you could still do lunch. Nor do any other conservatives, or liberals. Those terms are only marginally useful because there is no organized group. But if you want to rile people up, get them excited about fake issues (like removing statues of George Washington or Thomas Jefferson), feel free to talk about how they are doing whatever.

The Fallacious Fear of The Nanny State

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.