More Sacrifice, Please

David Brooks just can't seem to understand why America would want to be known as the country that fixed health care when it can continue to be the country where the poor are sacrificed to the wealthiest one percent, as he spews forth a Randian parable this week.

Reform would make us a more decent society, but also a less vibrant one. It would ease the anxiety of millions at the cost of future growth. It would heal a wound in the social fabric while piling another expensive and untouchable promise on top of the many such promises we’ve already made. America would be a less youthful, ragged and unforgiving nation, and a more middle-aged, civilized and sedate one.

We all have to decide what we want at this moment in history, vitality or security. We can debate this or that provision, but where we come down will depend on that moral preference. Don’t get stupefied by technical details. This debate is about values.

If you're a Villager reduced to talking about values, you've lost the argument some time ago.  But David Brooks wants to talk about one value in particular:  sacrifice.  So far in the health care debate, those who cannot afford health insurance are the ones making the sacrifices.  Brooks admires that ethic so much that he gladly wants those sacrifices to continue rather than rob America's insurance companies of their precious bodily fluids vitality.

America's serfs should be happy being serfs, not asking for the scraps from the Lord's table.  The Lord is wise enough to know when to give the scraps out, and it is not your place to ask in Brooks's world.  You must continue having tens of millions of Americans without health insurance, or something bad might happen in the future!

He's just looking out for us, you see.