Go Ahead, Make My Day

Every time I see someone around here driving a motorcycle without a helmet on, I shake my head. You see it all the time - some big, burly guy on his hog, hair streaming behind him in the wind.

Back where I come from, motorcyclists are constantly under fire for merely existing and thus apparently driving up insurance rates - if they ever started to eschew helmets and risk a lifetime of head injury recovery paid for by other motorists, howls of derision would rise and Manitobans would take to the streets clutching their MPI bills in protest.

(Actually, being polite Canadians, at most we'd get a few strongly-worded letters to the newspaper. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.)

Of course, no Manitoban motorcyclist would ever drive without a helmet, anyway, since going without is illegal. As in, there is a law dictating that helmets must be worn, and law enforcement officials are charged with, well, enforcing that law.

No such law exists down here. And why, you might ask, since this is clearly an issue where a societal concern for personal and corporate safety overrides individual comfort. Surely all of Minnesota would benefit from motorcyclists wearing helmets (not least the riders themselves).

Except that they see things differently here.

One of the most difficult things for me to wrap my head around about living in America has been the favouring of the individual over the many. The rights of the individual trump those of the community every time.

It's kind of like the Wild Wild West down here. Every man for himself in a lawless one-horse town where there's baddies in black hats all around and no sheriff in sight. Or, if a new sheriff shows up, the locals take bets as to how long before the outsider who has no clue How Things Work gets strung up and they get back to the real business of taking The Law into their own hands.

Which is why there is so much opposition when the Government tries to usurp (or seems to try) the autonomy of the individual. Like recalcitrant teenagers, some Americans declare belligerently "you can't tell ME what to do!" and raise the alarm whenever they feel that Government is overstepping its bounds.

This suspicion of The Man seems to have been handed down since America's beginning. The country's very birth originates in a defiant stand against being told what to do. The "taxation" part itself was bad enough, but it was the "taxation without representation" - that is, the dictation of behaviour without the opportunity to have a say in it - that tipped the balance.

This is in part what makes many of the current right-wing objections - including the oh-so-inappropriately-but-hilariously named "tea-bagging" protests - against the Obama administration so laughable. You might not like the outcome of the election, but your ancestors fought a war of independence so that they could govern themselves - in short, for democracy. And democracy only works if all parties involved agree beforehand that they will accept the proverbial will of the people. It's not really democracy if you agree to accept the results only if your candidate wins.

The other day I followed a truck with a sign on the back: IMPEACH OBAMA - YES WE CAN! And I thought, for what? What exactly has he done in six months that is so contrary to either this country's constitution or what he said he would do before y'all went and elected him?

Their problem with Obama, it seems, is that he's not content to leave the West so wild. He's riding in with his big white hat and, unlike his predecessors, he's not going to capitulate, return home in defeat, or simply join the black hats. And it's driving some of the locals crazy.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the increasingly ramped-up rhetoric around this country's healthcare.

The other day I was chatting with one of the kids' daycare workers. When she found out we were from Canada, she moved in about two inches from my face and demanded, "so what do you think about healthcare?"

I replied, "Actually, I'm a huge fan of universal healthcare."

She was shocked. "But I heard that in Canada if you need an MRI it takes three months to get one."

Well, yes, I allowed. There are issues with waiting lists.

"But my mother-in-law in Ontario was waiting for surgery, and they stuck her in this room with ten beds (men and women together in one room!) and she didn't even know when her surgery was - this was just the waiting area and she was there for three months!"

Well, yes, I acknowledged, Canadian healthcare definitely has its problems and you certainly do hear stories about people stuck in frustrating and unenviable situations while dealing with an often-antiquated or seemingly inadequate system.

"The Canadian system certainly isn't perfect," I said. "Down here, my husband and I have great jobs and great health plans. But I have never been so worried about healthcare before. And what about people who don't have great plans? Or can't afford them? Or have to deal with the one-two punch of cancer plus the resultant bankruptcy?"

She was quite dissatisfied by my response. As are many Americans. Because their greatest fear is that, while they pay ridiculously high insurance premiums and are one pink slip away from having no healthcare at all, the Government is going to take away their choice in the matter. That they will be forced to exchange a bloated, unfair, inadequate, expensive system that works really, really well for a few people and really, really poorly for most people for a bloated, unfair, inadequate, expensive system that makes everyone experience the same mediocrity and (worse) that they would have to shell out their hard-earned taxpayer dollars to fund.

In short, that some individuals might have to give up something in order to better the overall lives of all Americans.

Now, I'm not sure that this needs to be either/or. I don't think Americans need to (or should) throw the baby out with the bathwater and move to an exact replica of the Canadian healthcare system. Or that Canadian healthcare wouldn't benefit a lot from exploring the advantages of some privatization.

I do think that this elected administration is absolutely right that something needs to be done and that a move towards a universal system (even if it means some additional hardship for some of its citizens) is necessary for the well-being of all. I also think that the link between employment and healthcare is insane and it's not universal if "everyone gets access to good healthcare" means "everyone who has a job."

But this ain't my town, and this ain't my fight. All I know is that high noon's getting close and there's a showdown a'comin'. We'll see who draws the quickest.