subversive confession: October 21, 2008

Am I the only liberal who thinks it’s going too far to ask candidates to make public their medical records?

I’m asking this honestly, in a spirit of inquiry. I’m truly puzzled here. I’m confused about what this McCain medical record outcry says about us, about what we do to our public figures.

I’m wondering if this might give us a clue to the much-lamented conventional wisdom that those who are truly wise enough to run this country are too wise to run for the office.

I understand where this demand is coming from. I do. We want to have an idea of what we’re getting ourselves into. We want to know just how worried we need to be about the possibility of having Sarah Six-Shooter in the Oval Office. It’s in our nature as humans to want as much qualifying and quantifying information about our options as possible, and it’s in our socialization as Americans to want it now.

I’m as terrified as the next person of what might happen here. I do think the only thing worse than having McCain in office would be having McCain die in office. And as someone who has staked out a clear side in this very partisan race, I’m generally in favor of bringing to light information that might damage the chances of my candidate’s opponent. Honestly, I want to support this new component of the initiative to let the American people know what they’re getting themselves into.

But I can’t. I can’t do it, and you know what? It’s because I’m a liberal. It’s because I’m a youthful idealist liberal and I can’t bring myself to ask that another person’s private information be made public. Even if he is running for the highest office in the country. Even if he is about to keel over. Even though I know “giving up privacy” is part of a politician’s job description. This, for me, is where the line gets drawn on those considerations.

I don’t want to know this stuff. I don’t want to know whether John McCain has ever been treated for ED or Joe Biden has been on antidepressants. That stuff is for John McCain and Joe Biden and their doctors and their families. It’s not appropriate for me to know that stuff. If I did, I know I would be repulsed – not with their maladies, but with myself, for having wanted to know such intimate information.

Do we really need this kind of information to be responsible voters? Is it truly so impossible to get the measure of a candidate without knowing things that their former bosses and maybe even their families have never known? I don’t think it has ever been necessary. Honestly, I think we’re deluding ourselves if we claim that an informed citizenry is really what this is about.

Of course it’s about playing politics, and that gets dirty even though we shouldn’t let it, but I really think this is symptomatic of a bigger issue: we are a voyeuristic society. We have lost respect for individual rights and privacies. We want to treat everyone like celebrities, to keep them under a microscope, and we think we have the right to do so.

That’s a troubling conclusion in itself, but considering the ramifications of our demands scares me even more. Yesterday, celebrities; today, politicians. We’re moving down the chain here; what’s next? The more disclosure we demand from our public figures, the closer we get to permitting a government to demand it of us.

As a private citizen whose medical history, if indiscreetly disclosed, may prevent her from gaining employment or insurance, I’ve worried about this subject before, maybe more than most, and I’m well aware of what could be in our future if we continue to make these unreasonable demands. We can’t sustain this; we’re going down a road whose ending we’re not gonna like. The right to privacy, although less discussed than more controversial rights, is precious, and we’re not only letting it slip away by our silence about things like the Homeland Security stuff, but we’re actively helping to erode it by tearing down the walls between the public and private spheres for our political candidates.

So as much as I would like to be able to say “Here guys, look at McCain’s medical records if you don’t believe me that it would be dangerous to put him in office,” I can’t bring myself to do it. I can’t support it because it’s inhumane. It’s not right, no matter what I think of the man, because I have myself to consider, and I have my morals to consider.

I would love to be proven wrong about this, truly, but I can’t see how – so if you differ from me here, let the games begin, folks.