What sort of conservative?

Red Phillips expresses some reservations about Rod Dreher: Rod Dreher is Now Blogging at The American Conservative. It's a good thing I didn't attempt a defense, because today Mr. Dreher writes the following: Are we our brother’s keeper?, in which he makes judgments about members of the Tea Party based on their reaction to a question posed during the most recent Republican debate. Mr. Dreher makes Mr. Phillips's attitude warranted.

I still think Mr. Dreher is useful as a crunchy conservative and for taking on social and cultural questions: ‘Anti-bullying’ as a pro-gay wedge. But admonishing the Tea Party for supposed failures could take a better form than using a supposed flaw as fodder for a blog post. See some of the comments to the first post; some familiar names from the comments sections at FPR. While American Conservative does provide an alternative understanding of conservatism for Republicans, it's openness does allow for those who are hostile to Republicans and other conservatives to use the website to vent their spleen against the "other."

Mr. Dreher: "I favor a law compelling those who can afford it to buy some kind of basic health care policy — even if it’s only catastrophic care coverage. We are not the kind of country that’s going to allow anybody to die on the street because they can’t pay their hospital bill — and we must not become that kind of country."

By what sort of interpretation of the Constitution does Mr. Dreher abide? I haven't seen anything to lead me to believe that he is anything other than a nationalist.

So what about health costs? Are people paying a just price for services and treatment? Or are such calculation outside economics and considerations of justice? Should insurance only cover unforeseen injuries and illnesses, and not illnesses that are preventable by proper self-care? I have read some (Karen De Coster?) suggest that those who follow the paleo diet and lifestyle form their own insurance plan, so that they don't have to pay for the poor choices of others who embrace conventional wisdom concerning nutrition and exercise. How many of current health costs are due to conditions that are the fault of the sick, or could at least have been prevented through different choices? What about illnesses associated with aging? Should the elderly expect less?

How about the return of indentured servitude for vicious free-riders, those who are at fault for their medical conditions and cannot afford treatment, or illegal immigrants? (This would require a rightly-ordered political economy and stronger communities and security--all other injustices in the system would have to be rectified first.) The political economy is unsustainable because we do not recognize limits. But it is also so in part because of the lack of stability in the citizenry of many of the states. Reform cannot be attempted with the Union at large -- it is too large and there are too many local differences that preclude a uniform set of laws being imposed on everyone. Reform can only be implemented with the States (which are not subunits, but if you have to think of them as such then do so). Citizens have duties to people and concrete communities and they and the exercise of their duties must be protected; those entities that have too much power to manipulate the market, leading to injustice in pricing and so on, must be countered.

*As for those who have become obese because they naively followed the recommendations of the government or of their experts: the bureaucrats and experts who are guilty of malfeasance or corruption in making those recommendation (especially because they serve the interests of the corporations) must be punished.


Misc:
'Speak your piece' and 'hold your peace'