Jesse Taylor spreads on a thick slab of teh stupid to explain why it's way better for the government to decide what healthcare you will get and how long you'll live as opposed to letting you make choices. But hey, at least you won't feel obligated to stay at your "shitty job" because of the insurance (because "shitty jobs" always have great insurance benefits!).
This post has, quite arguably, the best description by a liberal of what the difference is between liberalism and conservatism. I'm not saying it's accurate, but it certainly explains why liberals are illogical, selfish and a lot like your average teenager. Here's the description of liberalism:
Autonomy in the sense of personal liberty, from a liberal perspective, revolves around the idea that we are free to make decisions about the course and direction of our lives, even though those choices may not be particularly favored by society. The liberal safety net is designed (or supposed to be designed) to allow for people to move from activity to activity, job to job, in order to figure out what works best for them - in essence, to maximize their happiness. There is a concept of shared sacrifice, but there’s also a concept of shared benefit - opportunity has costs, and it makes more sense if those costs are distributed so as not to potentially ruin those who seek it. There is still room for success and failure (and the consequences thereof), but you are at least provided the chance to succeed or fail.
Like your 16-year-old, liberals think that having fun is what being a grown-up is all about. And why shouldn't they? The government (sorta like your parents) will make sure that you have food, clothes, a place to stay, a computer, and that XBox 360, without worrying about piddly things like who's paying for it. Meanwhile, you get to "maximize your happiness" by going to the movies, hanging out with your friends, and changing jobs every 20 minutes because the managers are mean. It's not that you're being irresponsible, bratty, and defiant. "Society" (read: adults) doesn't have to "favor" your behavior. They just have to continue to subsidize it.
Of course, the analogy isn't perfect. Unlike your parents, the government doesn't provide any money made on its own. It has to confiscate money from a third party, namely taxpayers. It would be sort of like your neighbor being required to help pay for your kids XBox but not being allowed to complain about his loud music, peeing on your flowers or throwing empty Monster cans on your lawn. Because that's just another example of "favoring" your behavior. Hey, it's all about letting people "maximize their happiness," regardless of how it affects society at large. "Society" just foots the bill.
Now, here's Jesse's description of conservatism:
Conservative autonomy, on the other hand, is the autonomy of money. It doesn’t matter if you’re locked into constricting social roles, shut out of jobs, bolted down to a single place doing a single thing for the entirely foreseeable future, so long as nobody tells you how to spend your meager paycheck. If you were going to dinner, liberal autonomy might land you in a vegan restaurant or in a rib shack or at a really terrible taco stand, but the nice thing about it is that you have all of those options. Conservative autonomy would land you at any Applebee’s that took your new Discover Card, so long as you didn’t get one of those homo arugala salads.
Autonomy of money? I suppose what Jesse's talking about is the freedom you have to make money. Under liberalism, you don't have to worry about a piddly thing like making money, because the government's just gonna take it all and redistribute it, anyway. Don't worry about having to pay for the house, the food, the clothes or the XBox 360 because the government is going to require that everyone have those same things and not anything more. What if you want a Wii? Well, the Wii isn't covered under the government option, you see, and so we need to make sure you can't get one. Of course, the politicians writing the laws will still be able to have a Wii, but why should you?
In fact, Jesse's description of liberal restaurants and conservative ones is exactly opposite of what happens under liberal ideas. Under conservatism, you can have the vegan restaurant, the taco stand, the rib shack and the Applebee's, because individuals determine which types of restaurants they want to sink their own money into. So, if the vegan restaurant tastes like crap and nobody goes there, it fails. We're not required to support that restaurant because someone thinks it's unfair that no one wants to eat there. And if the Applebee's is really successful because people love the ribs and sliders, then that's ok, too. Because that's what people want to pay for.
Just like the 16-year-old, Jesse thinks society should pay for a lot of things that nobody wants because a handful of people think it's a good idea. And in the insurance debate, Jesse and a lot of stupid people think that you can suddenly build a new health care system that is just gosh darn better than the old one without any damage to all the patients and workers in the old system.
In the real world, Americans don't want to give up the health care they now get. They'd like to improve the costs of things and they'd like to not worry about losing their insurance, but they are very happy with their physicians, hospitals, nurses and pharmacists. All that will change under Obamacare, which is why Americans are turning against it.
Bobby Jindal has an excellent opinion piece on why Obamacare is bad for America and what real reform would look like.
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