Yesterday morning I joined MSNBC to discuss the pending health care legislation. Opposite me was Karen Hunter, a formal journalist and journalism professor. Throughout the segment, Hunter said repeatedly that the outrage about the health care bill had to do with more than health care.
I agreed.
But Hunter was clearly suggesting that racism underlines much of the (conservative and Republican) anger – frankly, a stale and clichéd argument. (But she’s not alone. See what Bill Burck and Dana Perino had to say today on NRO.)
Let me just say this…If racial slurs were used by individuals protesting on the steps of the Capitol over the weekend, then that’s a terrible thing and it should be condemned. But the vast majority of people who showed up in opposition to the health care bill were not racists and their anger had nothing to do with race. It had to do with freedom.
ObamaCare is going to drive up prices and drive down care. It’s going to place hefty taxes on individuals and businesses, limit job growth, put the brakes on essential medical research and development, and interfere with the patient-doctor relationship.
But there’s still more. Americans reject a government that has expanded into every facet of their daily lives from education to the environment to the arts. Government forces you to save for retirement in a futile savings system; it dictates where your children go to school and what they learn; it wants to have a say on what you eat, what kind of car you buy, and what type of windows you use in your home; it creates “problems” it can fix – and it uses your tax dollars to do so.
So, yes, Karen, American’s anger has to do with a lot more than health care reform. But let’s keep race out of it.