Good Argument Against Conservatives

Dr. David Katz, writing online, makes some points which I think put very well what I have long believed. He rebuts the conservative points about people needing to take "individual responsibility," rather than relying on help from the government:

. . . [D]espite the popular railing about bootstraps and personal responsibility, we are subject to forces larger than ourselves. We have millions more uninsured, unemployed neighbors, friends and relatives than we had a year or three or five ago. Do we think these people succumbed to a contagion that siphons off personal responsibility? Did a virus devour their determination? Has some new plague agent ravaged willpower, self-control or work ethic?

All nonsense, of course. Personal responsibility, willpower and work ethic are the same as they ever were. Human character has not undergone a wholesale metamorphosis in the past year, or three, or five (or, for that matter, 500). To reiterate: It's the economy, stupid. It is a force larger than any individual victim's control.

We all know that with great power comes great responsibility. There is an overlooked corollary: We can't expect people to take responsibility when they are disempowered.

Larger forces can disempower us. A dismal economy is one such larger force.

He goes on to talk about the obesity epidemic, which is more his (medical) field. To read the full article, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-katz-md/the-economy-and-obesity_b_963823.html

Copyright (c) 2011 by Richard Stein