When opposition to health-care reform stops being polite and starts getting scary

By Ezra Klein

In the Wyoming state legislature, 10 congressmen and three senators have co-sponsored "The Health Care Choice and Protection Act." The intent? To make it a felony to implement the health-care reform law -- which is, you'll remember, the official law of the land. Here's the relevant bit:

Enforcement of federal laws prohibited; offenses and penalties. Any official, agent, employee or public servant of the state of Wyoming as defined in W.S. 6-5-101, who enforces or attempts to enforce an act, order, law, statute, rule or regulation of the government of the United States in violation of this article shall be guilty of a felony punishable by a fine of not more than five thousand dollars ($5,000.00), imprisonment in the county jail for not more than two (2) years, or both. Any official, agent or employee of the United States government or any employee of a corporation providing services to the United States government that enforces or attempts to enforce an act, order, law, statute, rule or regulation of the government of the United States in violation of this article shall be guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than five (5) years, a fine of not more than five thousand dollars ($5,000.00), or both.

There's not much use in worrying about something like this as it wouldn't survive two seconds in a court of law. But the sentiments are worth considering: The argument is that this legislation isn't just policy that the authors disagree with, but rather a deeply, profoundly, un-American threat to liberty. It's so un-American, in fact, that a plain reading of the Constitution makes clear that the Wyoming legislature, which has sworn to protect and defend the document, must "adopt and enact any and all measures as may be necessary within the borders of Wyoming to prevent the enforcement of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010."

Many of my friends on the right have legitimate technocratic differences with the Affordable Care Act. But many of the politicians they've stood with have not made a legitimate case against the bill. Rather, they've taken a bill that echoes past legislation Republicans have introduced and called it, as Sen. Jon Kyl did, "a stunning threat to liberty." They've told their supporters, as Sen, Chuck Grassley did, that they're right to fear that the health-care bill "determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma." This is not merely legislation that they have some technical or philosophical disagreements with. It is, in the words of Speaker John Boehner, "a monstrosity."

Given the extremism of the rhetoric at the top, is it any wonder that there is incredible fear trickling down to the grass roots? If those are the stakes, then of course criminalizing any implementation of the bill makes sense. Frankly, if those are the stakes, then violent resistance might be required.

Those aren't the stakes, of course. They're just the words. And words slip sometimes. Things come out too angry, or too quickly, or too sharply. I've had my share of experience with this. But words matter. And the Republican Party hasn't been slipping up: It's been engaged in a concerted campaign to scare the population into opposing health-care reform. That may be good politics, but it can have bad consequences.

Photo credit: Melina Mara/Washington Post.