Two issues have been hot lately:
- Contraception, religious freedom, and health insurance
- LGBT advocacy issues in public schools
In both of these cases, the same principle is in play. We want something for free. We get someone else to pay for it, then we get upset because we have lost our power to choose what we get.
This should not be a surprise. It is an iron law. He who pays gets to choose. The ancient fable puts it as “He who pays the piper calls the tune”.
The first is the case of health care. The PPACA (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—aka Obamacare) dictates the content of health insurance policies nationwide. It also makes private medical practice very difficult. From the beginning of the debate, it was clear that there would be a “standard” of care. Would abortion be covered? If included as “standard care”, the pro-life community would be enraged. If excluded from “standard care”, abortion would be much more expensive, and possibly very difficult to obtain. There is no middle ground, beacause “the standard” dictates so much about medical care, prices and availability.
The second issue is the conflict over the role of public schools in dealing with homosexuality. Proponents of “LGBT-friendly” policies want any hint of disapproval of homosexuality banished from the public school. Proponents of traditional family values want to preserve and defend traditional standards of sexual behavior, or at least maintain the primacy of parental authority in those subjects. The trouble is that public schools are paid for by the taxpayer. Parents don’t get to choose how the schools are run or what is taught. The curriculum, the teachers’ qualifications, and many other things are chosen through the political process. Changes in policy are very difficult to obtain, and tilt heavily toward not offending any constituency. In the end, the same principle applies. We demand that the taxpayer bear the cost, and those taxpayers run the schools in a way that may or may not be to my liking.
As a people, we want “free stuff”. In one case health care, and in the other, education for our children. In both cases, we have induced others—the taxpayers —to pay the bill. Later on, we find that those paying the bill have a different idea than we do of what health care should look like, or what our children should be taught. We are outraged, and it becomes a political fight to get a “majority” to support our favored policy.
The principle is the one illustrated by the “Pied Piper of Hamelin”
http://www.indiana.edu/~librcsd/etext/piper/
He who pays the paper calls the tune. If you get someone else to buy you something, you don’t get to choose what it is. If you pay for something through taxes or mandatory fees, you don’t get to say how that money is spent.
This is why we have markets.
In markets, if 60 people want green neckties, and 40 people want red, 60 people buy green and 40 people buy red. Everyone is happy.
In politics, we have majority rule. We vote. Everyone gets green ties, and 40 people are unhappy.
This is about freedom. We cannot have it both ways. If we want freedom to choose ties, medical care, or what our children are taught in school, we will have to bear the costs. The moment you accept the “free stuff”, you have lost your power to choose.
Remember this as the candidates make their rounds this summer.
