Advantages of Dictatorship in Bettering Healthcare: A metaphorical comparison
Our national healthcare debate has kicked open the bedroom doors of the collective American conscience, revealing a schizophrenic, square room, fringed with red, liberal guilt interiors on one side, and a wall of protruding but rapidly oxidizing, neo-conservative rivets on the other.
These two guys are making healthcare reform really hard for America
In the middle of the room, a bed; and on it a donkey with a fine edged epee lies uncomfortably on a mattress - the mattress, like the room, equally divided in two. The donkey lies next to a grim, Caucasian elephant carrying a bludgeon and trying to slip a bomb under the bed, but carefully, so that only the donkey gets blown to pieces. The donkey, his glasses perched at the tip of his nuzzle, is nonplussed, reading a bill revision under the dim yellow light of a fluorescent, curly fry light buld. The elephant, reading the USA Today sports section under the yellow light of a gas stove, is listening to talk radio.
On the ottoman at the foot of the bed, President Obama sits intently studying the layout of the room and its occupants, trying to figure out exactly what he needs to do in order to bring some fresh air to the entire situation without getting blown up by big white Al Qa'Elephant in the room. The issue for the President is that the room is not his to do with as he pleases - he must get the reluctant bed mates to agree if he wants to do so much as open a window.
The land of dragons might be a great place for healthcare reform
By contrast China's Paramount Leader, Hu Jintao, looks out on his empire from the top floor of a concrete battlement and his healthcare planners sit at his feet, reading off the latest intel from around the world. He calmly opens and closes the windows in the room, and pees in one of the rooms many corners. For good measure he pees on one of the round sloped walls - Hu JinTao's creative space is not a simple square. There is no healthcare debate apart from the one that goes on inside this room, and the conscience of China does not matter. Glancing outside Hu Jintao calmly surveys the representatives of the Central Committee; three hundred red dragons, calmly facing the same direction, up towards the top of the battlement.
As President Obama ponders what he has to say in order to get representative Joe Wilson's vote, Paramount Leader Hu ponders whether he should confer health insurance upon the 65 million or so residents of Hebei province before or after lunch. He's just not sure how long lunch is going to last. He pulls the trigger before he leaves the bastion office.
The next day, 65 million ambivalent farmers in Hebei shed their human skin and emerge as red dragons. Their newly-bought, prescription generic medicine bottles hang from leather money purse strings. Meanwhile, in the United States, the Elephant has finally set off the bomb, but he, the donkey, and President Obama are all unscathed. Only the bedroom is shattered, and any hope for universal healthcare is shattered with it. People all over America stop believing in donkeys and elephants, and start believing in dragons.
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September 14th, 2009 - 20:33
Also, dictatorships make managing the unfunded liabilities that seem to come with all government healthcare plans much easier. They may not even form if you’re don’t grant the elderly voters their every healthcare wish.
September 15th, 2009 - 09:02
@Fu Manchu
True enough. But China’s elderly are in a sense even better represented by a core leadership which is itself very elderly.
September 14th, 2009 - 21:00
I’m not quite sure what you are talking about with the first paragraph. Could you clarify what liberals are guilty about and what exactly conservatives are angry about? Put either of those in a coherent, non-fact-free sentence, and I owe you a drink, friend.
I do agree with you in part, though. It is not the most politically incorrect truth, but the best system of govt is one of a benevolent dictator (The key word being benevolent) who can show special interests the finger and steer the country in the right direction, big labour, lobbyists, and corporations be damned. However, both political approaches have faults. If Grover Norquist gets his wish of govt being so small you could drown it in a bathtub, Katrina-like responses become par for the course and you get state capture by lobbyists and corporations (Ask Russia). Too much discretion, and you get govt telling you how to eat your pasta. There is, of course, a balance here, and policy questions must be approached with a simple question: What works? As opposed to religiously clinging to ideologies that are never one-size-fits-all. The throwing about of cries of “Socialist” and “Commie” are especially infuriating from a nation that honestly has had a very pampered history when it comes to its leaders. Nowhere in Europe (Or most other countries in the world, for that matter), where they genuinely suffered the spread of Fascism and oppression, would the label “Hitler” be thrown about liberally.
Those people frothy with rage at Obama on the left and right must have slept through Civics 101: The limit on discretion on the federal govt was to protect the country from tyranny and put in place a system of checks and balances. You want better laws? Don’t just change your executive. Change the legislative and how they get there. Everything from the financial hell-hole to housing crisis and the health care mess shows a country need Campaign Finance Reform badly, lest a day will come when people need not even bother voting. The legislative, after all, the level of government that passes bills. All the president can do is propose. Will that be enough? Does the govt as is have the tools it needs, the will it needs, to get things done? We’ll see in the coming weeks. But whatever happens, I would not blame Obama entirely. It would be a failure on the part of the American govt as a whole– all 3 arms– if they stare in the face of what is the best thing to do for the American people and turn around just the opposite.
September 15th, 2009 - 09:01
@Saratu
I agree with you 100%. My metaphor is an attempt to illustrate that the President has his hands tied with the legislative branch of government. The eppe wielding donkey represents uncompromising liberals who obsess over the fine details of the bills (hence the precisely cutting eppe), and the elephant wielding a cudgeon is representative of the neo-con, far righters, who prefer to break the bill up in favor of preserving their parties ‘core sentiments’.
I think, too, that this is my answer to your question about what the decorations in the room stand for – the unyielding sides of the legislative, far right and far left, who refuse to compromise productively on this bill.
September 15th, 2009 - 02:34
“For good measure he pees on one of the round sloped walls”
“He calmly opens and closes the windows in the room, and pees in one of the rooms many corners”
I LIKE TO PEE ON WALLS, TOO!
September 15th, 2009 - 08:44
@ I.P. Freely
Maybe too much?….haha
September 15th, 2009 - 07:15
one of the more vivid blogs i’ve read
September 15th, 2009 - 08:44
@ Tim GU
I think that should be our new tag line.
September 16th, 2009 - 05:18
A well stated metaphoric reality.
Currently, socialist investments, using capitalist firms, are building the healthcare infrastructure, the value and foundation of the Chinese healthcare marketplace. It sounds like China is buying into the idea in George’s blog – meritocracy.
Our marketplace may be making the “haves and have-nots” of healthcare coverage the socialist and the insurer the capitalist, the healthcare institution is trying to be somewhere in the middle dealing with its own escalating costs.
September 18th, 2009 - 21:57
Wow. What Obama is coming up against is what the China’s never experienced. REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT. Heavily FLAWED though it is. The blue dogs are the ones that he has to convince …the elephants can’t do a thing about it. Then again, why would anyone in their right mind, knowing history, willingly sign on for redistribution of wealth disguised as compassion and health care? I weep for my country.
January 4th, 2010 - 07:45
whats up my niggahs!?