The Death Of Conservatism

I've mentioned before, I think, about how ridiculous the current hullabaloo about the 'Defense of Marriage' is. For starters, it's a completely ridiculous argument, one which does not hold up to the slightest bit of critical scrutiny. I think of myself as fairly intelligent, and I've never been able to figure out how two dudes in San Francisco tying the knot affects my ability to get married, or the decision-making process that leads me there. For another, and more important, it's a completely wasted rearguard action, since I am 100% confident that my grandchildren will someday think it absolutely as weird that two men weren't able to get married as I think it that, in the not-so-distant past, people of two different races couldn't get married.

In large ways, the ongoing and never-ending march of technological progress has a lot to do with these events. As technology opens our minds, expands our horizons, and forces us to interact daily with people and places and events that, previously, would never have even made it onto our radar screens, we grow to learn that other people are, well, people too, and equally deserving of our respect and the protection of law as we ourselves are.

Anyhow, the point of this meandering is that the technological march of progress will not be stopped, and Reihan is absolute right: if conservatives want to avoid a future which includes universal, government-delivered health care, they had better get off their ass and figure out a way to beat it. As technology gives us, and our doctors, and the insurance companies, more and more information about what the future holds for us (such as the likelihood of developing various diseases), more and more people are going to be dealt out of the private insurance game.

As Reihan said: read the N.Y. Times article on how this trend is already beginning, then read Stephen Cecchetti to learn about how its progression is inevitable, and what the only possible outcome may well be. As Cecchetti says, as markets fail, which the health insurance market is bound to do, in the long run, the government is always the body to step in and pick up the pieces.

Personally, I think it would be just super if we could, for once in the history of this godforsakenly shortsighted country, actually see this latent emergency as it's developing, rather than in hindsight, and actually take proactive steps to grease the wheels, rather than enact more shortsighted legislation to try and take care of an ongoing emergency.

But, having lived for 30 long years in said country, I'm not quite so naive as to expect it to actually happen. But still; a guy can dream, right?