The People vs a Person

One vivid moment that occurred last week at the Birmingham Healthcare Rally (My Report from the Birmingham Healthcare Rally) was a confrontation that I had with a supporter of Obamacare. She had a sign that said "Healthcare for the People." I asked her who 'the people' were, and she began sign about 'the people,' and how 'the people' were taken advantage of by corporations, and how 'the people' had hope only in a government of change, etc. I tried to talk about each of these points with her, but in my frustration I only was able to get out 'I am a person.'

Thinking back on this event, it really speaks to a larger debate in our society, between those people who are working on behalf of 'the people'- some mythological group of middle-class multicultural liberals- and those who are working on behalf of 'person's'- individuals who are real people who have different ideas and beliefs. To liberals and supporters of Obamacare, a person now means nothing- 'the people' instead matter, and this way of thinking is not new.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that the people were the main force in society, not individual person's. Rousseau believed that each person must give up totally all of their rights to the 'the community as a whole' in order to be more free- in other words, individuals no longer matter and what matters instead is the people. You give up your right to choose your own healthcare decisions, you give up your right to choose how you power your home, you give up your god-given right to make your own decisions on smoking, and instead, 'the people' make these decisions for you, and you are somehow then more free.

When I was confronting this lady, I was confronting someone out of the French Revolution- this lady singing to me the loud songs of fraternity and equality could very well have been ready to guillotine me for my loud protests of liberty and property. My confrontation with her was playing out a long debate between those who fight for persons and those who fight for the people. Sadly, those who fight for the people and who sing songs of equality and fraternity and wave their flags for collectivization and government control are usually the same type of people who were in control of France during the reign of terror.... and they currently run our government today.