Socialized Medicine
4th September 2019
Severian does a deep dive.
The history of medicine highlights the deepest, most dangerous irony of “Progressivism:” They must assume that what’s now is forever. Progressivism is, at bottom, just organized envy. If anyone, anywhere, possesses X, then there can never be justice until everyone, everywhere, possesses X. That X might just be an accident, a historical hiccup, a blip of static on Time’s radar screen, never occurs to them. It can’t. Otherwise, they’d be praising the Gilded Age’s “universal access to healthcare,” since John D. Rockefeller’s kid was just as likely to die of some horrible infection as the poorest immigrant’s. Same for Rockefeller himself — burst appendixes are no respecters of rank.
This locks “Progressives” into their categories, such that they can’t see the runaway freight train heading right at them. Bernie Sanders is still on the campaign trail sounding like a refugee from the Wobblies, talking about poverty. Poverty, fer chrissakes! As if America’s “poor” people didn’t keel over from heart disease while fiddling with their Obamaphones in front of their HD TVs. The real driver of social change isn’t poverty, it’s idleness.