by

A short play

Family one: “Help! Terrorists might harm me and my family, destroying our home and ruining our lives!”

Republican politician: “Don’t worry, the government is here to help you, by checking phone messages and emails for suspicious types and stopping them before they can act! We’ll make sure nothing bad happens to you and your family!”

…

Family two: “Help! Cancer is destroying me and my family, and the costs have made us lose our home and is ruining our lives!”

Republican politician: “Oh, well, tough luck. Sorry, it’s not the Government’s job to help you.”

(curtain call)

11 thoughts on “A short play”

  1. Yes, a very short play. I think there is always a conundrum between government “sticking their noses in everything” versus no or little involvement because “this is a free (market) country and everyone has the right to struggle, if that is what has to happen”.

    Like

    Reply

    • The irony is having politicians thinking that it’s good for government to protect us against terrorists and criminals but not against other things that can destroy our lives just as much.

      To a family that has lost a child and a home, does it matter that much whether they lost them to terrorists or to not being able to pay for needed medical care?

      (And I’d suggest that one of those things is a lot easier to prevent than the other)

      Like

      Reply

      • Yeah, not agreeing. A politician’s response to cancer would be to make it illegal for cells to reproduce without any checks, but then they’d be unable to enforce it.

        Politicians deal with interpersonal interactions. The first is an example of that (albeit handled poorly); the second is not.

        Like

  2. You mean “In my opinion, politicians should not deal with the second issue.” Obviously, there are many who think that is exactly what politicians should do (for instance, almost everyone in every other advanced country in the world and a majority here in America.)

    Like

    Reply

    • Not sure how that is relevant to my point, which is that it doesn’t make sense to me that we would have government protect us only against certain things, when the end result is the same.

      I understand that you have a libertarian view (“all government is bad except the government part I agree with”), and I hope you will understand that I spent many years as an undergraduate studying all these theories and I don’t think an article posted now will do much to change my mind.

      Like

      Reply

  4. What it always comes down to is some people don’t want everyone to have health care because they are afraid that they won’t be able to get the attention they “deserve”. They believe incorrectly that there are limited health care resources and that providing what every other civilized nation on the planet provides for their citizens is something that Americans can’t afford. So for them letting poor people suffer and die is better then their possibly being inconvenienced with a longer wait in the doctors office. They fear government even for things that government does well and has traditionally provided, like health care. So sad.

    Like

    Reply

  6. Well, I for one, think that if ‘Capitalism’ actually worked the way it’s supposed to… (but aye, there’s the rub!)

    Whenever gov’t provides healthcare for everyone – more businesses providing the (gov’t paid for) healthcare services would sprout up to meet the increased demand & fulfill ‘the need’ just like the Republicans keep reminding us that Capitalism & Big Businesses are so good at doing…

    Hey, you could actually point to the example of how NASA used businesses to get us to the Moon and make the case why can’t that same American spirit to provide all of us with universal healthcare, Hmm?

    Oh but that would be, um, you know… SANE or something like that.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a reply to Michael A. Ventrella Cancel reply