Tie-in Tuesday
ObamaCare, Frost-Nixon, The Lives of Others, The Hunger Games
What do ObamaCare, the Frost-Nixon interviews, The Lives of Others and The Hunger Games have in common? Examining differences and similarities, they are distinct. A law governing America’s complicated health care system—a syndicated series of broadcast interviews between a disgraced American president and a self-aggrandizing British journalist—a taut foreign film about one who goes against the surveillance state—a movie adaptation of the first novel in a young adult franchise about a girl who defies dictatorship. Two of these are movies—one’s a major motion picture and the other’s a small, independent film—and all contain key differences. Could these things be similar? If so, how? Why? What’s the common thread or tie-in?
Both of the movies are dystopian, though one’s based on a state, East Germany, which existed in reality and the other is set in a fictional regime. What of the Affordable Care Act law, known as ObamaCare, and Nixon’s televised interviews? They’re both predicated on modern American presidencies. One’s a law and one’s a broadcast. Closer evaluation demonstrates and underscores other major differences:
ObamaCare is an American law—the principal mark of an American president who was decisively elected after campaigning and promising its enactment.
Frost-Nixon is an interview series between David Frost and Richard Nixon showcasing, querying and divulging opinions, facts and reflections—sometimes, contentiously and with both parties’ consent—on a pivotal U.S. presidency.
The Lives of Others dramatizes surveillance statism, East Germany, Communism and, ultimately, altruism in the arts with emphasis on altruism’s essential, fundamental purpose: self-abnegation.
The Hunger Games dramatizes the rise of a social movement exalting the role of the individual in a game that propagates the omnipotent state.
Let’s consider the similarities. ObamaCare dictates every aspect of health care, from price, terms and practice of health care in the United States to whether one is at liberty to exercise the right to opt out of state-controlled health care. The Frost-Nixon interviews expose, address and elucidate the role of government, including in domestic affairs such as health care, which Nixon put on track toward total government control. Nixon did this through the HMO Act as well as laws governing the handicapped and polluting the environment. The in-depth interviews show that Nixon, who also discusses his initiation of relations with Mao in Communist China and expansion of government intervention in economics, makes Obama’s historic presidency possible. Government control—particularly the state’s power over whether you live—is the conflict of both The Lives of Others and The Hunger Games. This is the fundamental philosophical tie-in among these significant events; each event hinges upon the fundamental corruption and control of government in dictating the individual’s life.
These are serious events. ObamaCare, which centralizes and binds America’s disparate health care cartels, utilities and companies under government control, was hotly debated for the first two years of Barack Obama’s presidency. The Constitutionally dubious law passed without bipartisan support, totally reshaping America’s economy and subverting the practice of medicine to the authority of a single law. For the first time, the single greatest medical profession in history was nationalized to operate under total government control without any serious, widespread or fundamental consent of the governed and, it should be noted, with no major opposition from those who claim to support, promote and advance capitalism, including the world’s only authorized institution bearing the name of Ayn Rand. The Frost-Nixon interviews, skillfully recreated in Ron Howard’s 2008 film, Frost/Nixon (based on Peter Morgan’s stage play), are an achievement. The four interviews exist as an exercise of free speech and the press to shed light on America’s rotting, encroaching government. In the motion picture arts, The Lives of Others, which apparently influenced Edward Snowden to blow the whistle on America’s secret surveillance statism, and The Hunger Games (two movies I’ve watched, reviewed and recommend) also exist as a free exercise of speech—in both instances dramatizing the injustice of government control. Finally, each of these events happened on this date, March 23, in history; ObamaCare was enacted in 2010—the first Frost-Nixon interview was broadcast in 1977—The Lives of Others debuted in America in 2006 and The Hunger Games was released in theaters in 2012. Today’s tie-in: government control of your life.
The antidote to statism comes in a declaration in Virginia on today’s date in 1775. Crying out against tyranny for individual rights, Patrick Henry explicitly identified—and, crucially, asserted—the basic choice: “Give me liberty or give me death!”