Passionate Intensity

posted at 1:48 pm on August 11, 2009 by Doctor Zero

The people protesting Obama’s health-care agenda have been criticized, from both the left and the right, for their loud and aggressive behavior. The Left’s criticism is both opportunistic and hypocritical, while some on the Right feel the protesters would better serve their cause by being calm and reasonable. I understand this sentiment, and the time for such an approach is coming. For the moment, I don’t begrudge the protesters their anger. Contrary to insinuations from desperate Democrats, these people are not organized political operatives, and many of them have never attended a town hall meeting before. They showed up because they’re worried about their health, and the future of their country. They’re angry because of the rhetoric Obama and the Democrats have deployed against them. I doubt they find last week’s campaign of insults, violence, and intimidation to be soothing.

It was the Democrats who created the atmosphere of tension in the first place. For months, every Administration official and Congressional leader has rushed to the microphones to breathlessly assure us there is no time for debate. Everything is a crisis, and action must be taken immediately. We have to pass half-written bills with trillion-dollar price tags at once. Only six months have passed since the $787 billion “stimulus” heist, rammed through Congress with the speed of a robbery crew taking down a bank. It’s only been two months since the House passed the half-baked, economy-killing Mad Lib of the cap-and-trade bill – a hastily-brewed poison we were expected to chug down without uttering a peep, because the slightest delay would cause the Earth to burst into flames. After all that, we were expected to bite our tongues and assume a posture of silent prayer, as the Democrats wiped their dirty hands with an old copy of the Constitution and got to work “fixing” the health insurance industry. When you’re trapped on a bus driven by a lunatic, who keeps screaming at everyone to shut up while the bus hurtles toward the edge of a cliff, you don’t clear your throat and quietly ask him to think about pulling over so you can get off.

All of the harrumphing about rude town hall protesters ignores the fact that Democrats were not looking to have a reasoned debate, by their own arrogant admission. The health-care takeover is a brass ring most of them have been waiting to grab for the entirety of their obscenely long political careers. They weren’t going to be calmly reasoned out of slapping down the ace in the royal flush of statism. The only way to stop them was to frighten them out of playing that card.

Democrats obviously don’t have any problem with organized groups of citizens applying pressure against the government, provided those groups have a liberal agenda. Groups of passionate citizens will always be an influential part of democracy. If you turn up at your local City Hall by yourself, and demand the construction of a new road, you’re a noisy crank. If you make that demand with the support of a hundred fellow citizens, you’ll be taken much more seriously. This is a perfectly reasonable attitude for the government to take – a road desired by hundreds of citizens is probably more important than a road demanded by one person.

The influence of a group depends on its size, passion, and discipline. This is particularly true in a republic, where we elect representatives, rather than voting directly on specific issues. In a republic, success depends on persuading enough people to join your cause, get the attention of politicians, and impress them with your commitment. Your goal is to create a wave powerful enough to rock the ship of state. When that ship is the titanic dreadnought of the federal government, a monstrous wave is needed.

Group discipline matters as much as size. Politicians are quite capable of weathering a few isolated protests, even if they’re large and noisy. What rattles them is the appearance of momentum, and the sense that a particular interest group will never grow tired and go away. The most politically successful interest groups are distinguished by their volume and tenacity. Most of those groups are liberal, or at least enthusiastic clients of Big Government. Conservative popular movements usually lack the endurance to force the political class to take them seriously. Conservative “activists” have to get back to work in the morning, after all.

The enduring genius of America’s founding fathers was their recognition that organized petitions to the government were inevitable, and entirely appropriate – the Founders were the original “community organizers,” after all, and they were vocal in their respect for the right of free assembly. This underscored their insistence on limited, federalist government. If people will inevitably organize to pressure the government, and if the most aggressive and dedicated organizations are certain to acquire the most influence, it follows that the government must be sharply limited in what it can be pressured to do… or else the population is doomed to live under a thousand small tyrannies of greed and zealotry.

The bloated central government of modern America has been distorted by the pull of countless small but vocal groups, who care much more about their billion-dollar entitlements than the great mass of taxpayers care about the individual nickels and dimes of their tax bills. The ugly political brawl that fills our evening news is, ostensibly, about restructuring the entire medical industry to please the small minority of people who are unsatisfied with their health care. In truth, it’s about an opportunistic political class that sees that small minority as a vehicle they can ride to spectacular power.

When government is small and limited, the debate between opposed interest groups can be calm and rational… and those who choose not to join any interest group can get through their lives without becoming collateral damage in a power struggle. Big Government obliges interest groups to become loud, fanatical, or violent to secure their share of increasingly gigantic spoils – or to avoid the seizure of large chunks of their lives, to be distributed as spoils. We’re wasting thousands of hours, and millions of dollars, fighting over a ridiculous, unconstitutional health-care scheme that never should have been allowed to trouble us in the slightest. I don’t blame people for being angry about that.

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