Conservatives Suspicious of the Concept of Health

[phantom power]

Looking back, it now seems inevitable that the conservative rhetoric against Obamacare would drift away from attacking the policy and toward casting aspersions on the concept of getting health care itself...

...

For years now, there’s been a streak of conservative rhetoric that is openly suspicious of health itself, especially the idea that everyone—whether rich or poor—deserves good health. There’s always been a tendency to be hostile toward good health on the right, though it only cropped up on those occasions where there was a conflict between big business and people’s health. Conservatives consistently defend corporate profits over people’s health in battles over things like pollution, tobacco, gun safety, and now junk food. But in recent years, this tendency has taken a turn toward the radical side, with the very concept of healthiness increasingly becoming an object of scorn and mockery on the right, with dark intimations that a healthy lifestyle is somehow a threat to their nebulous, ill-defined concept of “freedom.”

Indeed, it’s common for anti-choicers to imply that using contraception is a form of “enslavement.” No wonder the same notion—that voluntarily choosing to take care of your health is somehow a capitulation to fascism—cropped up with the attacks on Michelle Obama’s healthy eating programs.

Michelle Obama decided to make nutrition and exercise, especially for the young, her official priority as First Lady. Obama’s program is focused on education, and also includes some rules requiring schools to offer fruits and vegetables, though there’s no requirement students have to eat them. Being told that eating vegetables is good for you, however, has been received on the right as if Obama was showing up at your house and forcing Brussels sprouts down your throat. As Media Matters reported last week, Fox News has been regularly trying to convince its audience we’re on the verge of facing fines and even jail time for buying french fries or salty foods, and that assigned marriages are next. Rush Limbaugh tried to convince his audience that they would be personally monitored by the food police.

Michelle Obama has also been pushing Americans to drink more water, saying that one more glass a day will make you feel better. The possibility that people might listen to her, drink more water, and feel better was clearly more than conservatives could bear. Conservative media went absolutely nuts, as Roy Edroso at the Village Voice‘s Runnin’ Scared blog documented recently, comparing the suggestion to drink more water to “torture” and implying that voluntarily pouring yourself a glass of water was capitulation to fascism. True patriots are forever dehydrated, I guess.

http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/09/23/conservatives-suspicious-of-the-concept-of-health-but-anti-choice-extremists-beat-them-to-it/

[gopiscrap]

1. Conservatives are suspicious of everything

it's one of the things that makes them conservatives. Like my wife said, I don't think in the last 15 years I have seen a Republican smile unless they're in the process of screwing some one over!

[Arugula Latte]

2. Liberals like health, so I suggest conservatives adopt anti-health measures.

Listen up, conservatives. Here is your regimen: Three packs of cigs a day, minimum. An all-Big Mac diet. No water, only soda or energy drinks (you don't want to be like Michelle Obama, do you?!) No routine health screenings. In fact, no doctor visits whatsoever. No exercise except to press the remote to turn on Rush or Fox News.

That's how real 'Murikins do it!

[Scuba]

3. "I think healthcare is a privilidge. I wouldn't call it a right." ~ Jim DeMint, Asshole Teabillie.