I think it’s best to analyze this claim simply by the words themselves, and to wonder, is this even true? How could we really tell? Do we have statistical data that shows the percentage of sick people back in say, 1920, and how often their families, neighbors, and church came to their aid? I remember growing up going to the Methodist church in town and often Pastor Al talking about how one of the church members had fallen ill and that we would pray for that person to be healed. I do not, however, recall the collection plate being passed around specifically for someone at any given time, where we took up a collection not for the church itself to then dole out aid as it saw fit (and pay its bills), but rather only to help someone in need. Maybe it’s just a lapse in memory on my part, but even so, if it happened, it was not something happening often enough to make an impression on me. More often my family and I were giving toys to Toys-For-Tots or singing Christmas Carols with the Salvation Army, church-affiliated programs, but not directly through any one church. But this is only my experience, and I’m more willing to accept that my old church did run collection drives – not just useless prayer sessions- for some of our neighbors. And I bet countless churches across the country have done so in the past and do still today. But what evidence is there to suggest that government intervention in a person’s health care through Social Security or Medicare has in any way dwindled the budding communal ideal that Rep. Paul fantasizes about?
I’m willing to bet that if there has been any loss of “community” over the decades in this country, it does not pertain to government involvement in health care, but rather to an eroding middle class in America and stagnant wages for much of the lower and middle classes. As everything has become more expensive, the vast majority of the population has seen no substantial increase in their earnings and, in fact, many have seen their wages decline when adjusting for inflation. People barely earn enough to pay their own bills, are drowned in debt due this imbalance between inflation and wages, and just do not have the additional money for benevolence. Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss government’s involvement in this trend: they’ve consistently lowered taxes benefitting the wealthiest and corporations most, and eroded workers’ rights hurting the lower and middle classes most. So, yes, government is partly to blame, but not how Rep. Paul believes it has exacerbated this problem. But I will point to one incident, a very important one that happened not that long ago, when government already interjected into society’s welfare and when Rep. Paul believes government had already overstepped its bounds. This incident shows that when things are the worst in this country, people still unify to defy adversity and pull together, reforging our sacred bonds of brotherhood and community that make the United States of America so great. I’m referring, of course, to 9/11. In that one morning the course of modern human history changed more than anything before it, probably since the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. And what we saw in the days after was a renewed sense of pride and nationality in this country where individuals came together and dropped their petty differences and animosities, their hatred. At least, for a short time. And Americans have shown a penchant for doing this over and over again.
I believe it completely false to assert that Americans have lost some sense of community in this country based purely on government intervention. For one, there is no statistical data to suggest such a thing; secondly, several examples go to show that this just is not true, and that people come together when times are their worst. Perhaps people seem more selfish because of monetary policy in this country, which has benefitted the wealthiest far more than the majority of the population, exactly the opposite of what Rep. Paul is arguing.
And this leads me to a broader point on Paul’s argument: the idea of the community itself. Rep. Paul wants less government and more community “interaction,” more neighborliness that he believes no longer exists. But say you live in a community of 100 people and you get sick. Say your medical bills total $100,000. If the community chips in to help you, each person pays $1,000. But say your community has a constituency of 1,000 people; then, each person only pays $100. But wait! What if your community has 100,000 constituents! Guess what? Everyone pays $1. One dollar. Based on the arguments Rep. Paul has put forward, he would have no problems with this scenario, as long as there was no government “bureaucracy” in the way of the community voluntarily coming together to help. But when the community only has 100 people, how many of them realistically could afford $1,000? Based on current census data, about 18. 18% of the population has no health insurance. And that’s not because they do not want it; they simply cannot afford it. That number is consistent with the population in the US who live in poverty, which currently stands at 15.2%, according to the census. And of course, that number does not include the portion of the population that though they are not technically in poverty, they have very little disposable income where they could afford to pay their neighbor $1,000 when that person gets sick. For, what should happen if they give their neighbor that $1,000 and the next month they are the one in the hospital? Would their neighbor, just out of the hospital and attempting to get back on their feet, be willinge to throw $1,000 into the pool? Doubtful. So, say the government steps in and says, well, there’s only 100 people in this community, but there are 100,000 in the state, or in the country, so if we mandate everybody to pay, they each pay $1 and no one really feels the adverse affects of helping out their neighbors, whether they know the person or not. I’ve ridiculously simplified reality, admittedly. But I’m only illustrating a point. And that is to say if you think the “community” should be responsible and willing to aid its’ neighbors, why isn’t the US one large community? We are after all, as italicized above, The United States of America. We are by definition one country of millions of interlocking communities, that though they may be separated by arbitrary borders, and more definitive state lines, we are one whole. We are supposed to help one another out when times are tough. We are supposed to send aid to another state when they are struck by some natural disaster, whether hurricane, flood, or drought. Rep. Paul seems so blinded by his staunch resistance to anything government that he’s blinded himself to the idea that this very country was founded on togetherness, common purpose, and common prejudice. It was together the colonies repelled the British. It was together the country defeated the advance of the Nazis. It is together that we can make this a country far better than any other, and far better than we have been in the past.
