- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
In this case, because the history of the development of socialized police forces has been as fraught and political as health care.
Arguments were made in the 1800's that government control of police was a sign of increasing totalitarianism, and loss of freedom. Arguments that are not unlike the arguments against socialized medicine that are being made today.
Just because something seems like a no-brainer now does not mean it was not a subject of heated debate when it was first introduced. Someday our decendants may look back on this debate and wonder why we were all so completely insane as to let healthcare be managed for profit, the way you assume law-enforcement is naturally the provenance of government.
Anesthesia during surgery, for instance, was once decried as immoral because it unnaturally aleviated (god-intended) pain.
