A Salutory Lesson in Ruthlessness

A recent editorial in the Washington Post, by Michael R. Strain, entitled End Obamacare, and people could die. That’s okay.

This article has created moral outrage in some quarter, for example in Crooks and Liars: Alan Grayson Was Right They Want You Die. I wish the reason for making this type of argument were obscure to me.

I suspect using points such as positive 'rights', sanctity of human life, and self evident goods in argument is laziness:  for it restricts discussion within a bubble of the converter,  and avoids the actual work of governing.  I suppose it could also be a desire to educate by providing a demonstration of what begging the question really means.

Never forget why the German state decided to become the first to create social welfare programs, including health care, 130 years ago: to increase the quality of recruits to their army, promote industrial production, and reduce labor unrest.

This, by the way, is why many socialist of the day rejected such moves -- viewing them as co-opting and delaying an more thorough going change, ie revolution.

So instead of pointing with disgust and disdain at reactionaries, let me suggestion that in making arguments in defense of any  policy, one begin with the following presuppositions -- not because they are necessarily right, but because by embracing them one can build more persuasive arguments and better political organization.

1. All political actions will, at some level, determine who will live and die. 
2. The system of resource distribution in a society implicitly must give human life  a economic (resource) value.
3. Arguments based on what one believes is an a priori moral position cannot by their nature be persuasive in a polity which allows differing points of view. Opposition merely justifies its position with its own 'moral position and conversation stops.

The arguments for national health care are, to me, quite practical. They stand the best chance of improving the national economy by allowing labor mobility, increasing the velocity of money (by decreasing non-useful spending), and improving the aggregate health of the people.

The arguments by Strain and his ilk are refutable on this basis, and one can dismiss the (to my mind) false defenses of 'liberty/freedom' they invoke.

Drop the shocked outrage as a primary appeal, and speak about GDP, increased buying power, and less waste.

Or fail.