Posted by
Andrews on Thursday, July 02, 2009 10:15:53 AM
I am worried my son has a future in politics. At four he has already learned that he can win negotiations by accepting any "yes" he can get, then renegotiating later. If he wants five cookies, and I say "how about two?" he agrees, and then starts wheedling for one more, then another and another.
It is frightening to see him learning to do this so early, as it is the basic approach of politicians. Think about the banning of smoking, for example. There was no way they could have come out and said "we want to ban tobacco" back in the 70's or 80's. So the politicians started with banning smoking on flights, as "you can't avoid the smoke, even if you want to". Then on other transportation, like trains. Then mandated smoking move to enclosed areas in buildings. Then prohibited it in buildings entirely. Then tried to ban it outdoors in some cities. And so on and so on.
Politics works through the same principle my son discovered. Any "yes" is an opening. If you can get the public to agree to any prohibition, even the most minor, then they have agreed to your basic premise ("
Inescapable Logic") and before too long you will be able to make them follow the logic to the total prohibition you desire.
This is why I so fear any steps toward government payment of medical costs, even the medicare/medicaid we have now. As we can see today, the logic of medicare/medicaid is used to justify more expansive coverage, maybe universal coverage. And once we admit to the government covering the uninsured, how to argue against a "single payer system"? And once we have that, what is to stop the state from nationalizing medicine entirely?
Unfortunately, while they are not quite as persistent as my son, they are much harder to thwart, as I can't send them to their rooms. At least they are nowhere near as cute as he is, so they lack that final secret weapon.