In other areas of life, right-wingers are just as bad, or worse. This post was largely confined to economics, and the title is the core of what makes leftist economics fail time and again.

Also, it’s worth noting that many social conservatives (especially of the “compassionate” sort) are economic leftists. Bush, Buchanan, and Schwarzenegger, for starters.

The left doesn’t have a monopoly on that kind of thinking (of what “we” should do, or that “you should want what I want”). A lot on the right – especially the religious right – suffer from the same malady, such as when they are decreeing that “we” should mandate via constitutional amendment that marriage is between a man and a woman, or that “we” should require prayer in schools.

Just wanted to point out its not a failing limited to just one side of the spectrum…it just takes a different form.

I won’t correct the second to last paragraph because there’s nothing to correct. The existence of the program you cite does nothing to change the fact that a person is not allowed to be more tolerant of risk than the FDA.

If one applies for an emergency exception because he’s dying and it’s denied, the only legal option he has is to die. He is banned by the law from using his own judgment. The point stands.

Brad –

The OB/GYN thing was an indirect (perhaps too indirect) slam on the shallow nature of this mindset. I get the whole insurance thing quite well since I’ve spent two years designing and testing underwriting software, but the reality is that it reflects the idea that all people want a certain kind of health insurance.

My personal preference for health insurance is presently illegal. It’s what I call a pay-per-incident plan. Something happens to one’s health, and he gets a lump-sum payment based on the cost of treatment. That’s my preference, but since the government says I should want something else, I’m stuck with what they allow.

It works the other direction, too. The left thinks that everyone wants certain things from their health insurance, and so mandates them with the force of law. Thanks, but being a single guy, I really don’t want to pay for an OB/GYN benefit. Too bad, I should want it, therefore I get it no matter what.

Well, that’s not exactly what they’re claiming. They’re not saying you should want it. They’re saying that you, as a young healthy single guy, shouldn’t be risk-pooled with only other young healthy single guys because that makes it harder for high-risk people to get the coverage at low rates you would qualify for.

Simply put, insurance is risk-pooling. They don’t think you should want OB/GYN coverage, they just think you should pay for it. After all, it’s not fair that a uterus-free person like yourself should get a “free pass” and not pay your “fair share” for your fellow [wo]man’s healthcare.

When speaking with my left-leaning friends, they often profess what I assume to be an authentic concern for the downtrodden and “exploited”. When I ask what they recommend to address their concerns, they invariably respond with a list of what we should do, what we should prohibit, and what we can allow. This demonstrates to me the kind of collective thinking that fuels the perspective you write about. “We” always ends up being defined as their perception of a monolithic bloc of same-thinking countrymen.

“We” have enough resources to feed the “poor” and treat the sick. We = everyone who will obviously make the same decisions as I would. Resources = personal effort and property created by anyone and everyone which may be rightfully seized in service to those decisions.

In order to implement corrective measures to what they see as inequities, deviations, over-achievement, and inability, they inevitably look to government-sponsored coercive remedies. “We” will make them make the right choices.

I find it interesting that my friends who express the most concern for the downtrodden seem to have the least respect for any personal, non-violent choices that the object of their beneficence might make – particularly if the choice isn’t what the benefactor would choose.