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12/08/2004: "How to Talk to a Dittohead (If You Must) about Social Services and Government"

Let’s get back to our series on chitchatting with Dittoheads at holiday get-togethers with family, office acquaintances, and affinity groups. An example of the latter is my scuba club, whose holiday party is tomorrow. As an aside, what is it about scuba that so attracts Dittoheads? Not that I want to discourage any visitors from participating in this very rewarding and worthwhile hobby, but I have to say that the Dittohead ratio seems a bit high (though not hopelessly so). Fortunately, divers are also very “live and let live” kinds of people, so even those with right wing tendencies don’t get personal about it. Besides, nobody’s talking politics at a depth of 100 FSW (Feet Sea Water)! Anyway, Social Services and Government is a common topic in conversations with Dittoheads. They see the topics as exactly equivalent – government only exists to provide useless giveaways to immigrants and the chronically lazy. Dittoheads never mention services they are enthusiastic about, like interstate highways, national parks, aircraft carriers, and for divers in particular, Air-Sea Rescue. Sometimes you get the impression that they think the “good” services are coming from somewhere other than taxpayer dollars (and I don’t mean borrowing!) That’s why Dittoheads see government as inherently evil, so much so that bashing government, bureaucrats, and the taxes that fund them is considered an absolutely safe topic. In other words, they assume that any of their general-purpose anti-government phrases will elicit only nods and laughs from any audience. Of course they are largely correct in this, making this all the more valuable a topic - they won’t be expecting pushback. But how to counter twenty-years of right-wing demagoguery on the issue? Here’s an angle: present government as a kind of insurance pool – like a group life policy – that is all the more effective because it applies to the entire population. Most people have a group policy at work for life or heath or both. Most people will ready agree that this kind of coverage a good deal, with low rates and virtually no paperwork. Companies offer these policies because they are simple to administer and because expenses are consistent and low in comparison to other alternatives. The larger the pool, the cheaper and simpler these plans are. Government is simply a risk pool that includes the entire country, the largest possible! This minimizes overhead and maximizes consistency. Could everyone in the country individually contract for every service provided by government? Sure, but it would much more of a hassle for everyone, and much more expensive. It also would lead the same social conditions that existed before governments started providing such services. Anyone interested in what that looked like should read Dickens. And that’s the last and best argument for social services from government – they were implemented as an entirely affordable way for citizens to not have to be bombarded on the street with the sight of fellow citizens who for whatever reasons find themselves starving to death. This is particularly important for people in that fix through no fault of their own: children, disaster victims, the disabled, the elderly. At the core of virtually every government service program is a desire to prevent people, particularly children and old people, from dying or suffering. Getting rid of these programs takes us back to the days of childhood theft rings and starving Grannies. That hardly squares with right-wing trumpeting of their glorious battle with the evil government beast!