So the last few weeks, what with my work schedule change, I have sat through a couple of episodes, not really watching them, as I have nearly no chance of really following what was going on, but there is a sub-plot in which there is a bid by a larger hospital to absorb the smaller, local one. Most people support the move on the grounds that it will result in better care locally. Professor McGonagall*, who has transformed herself into the current mother of the Earl of Grantham, and is therefore known as the Doawger Countess, OTOH, is fighting to maintain local control; everyone assumes that she simply does not want to lose power, despite the fact that she has said repeatedly that the move would result in worse care locally, notwithstanding the allegedly better equipment the move would bring.
The other day she expanded on that, using a line of reasoning one might not expect from a member of the gentry. Citing King John Lackland and the Barons, she said (from Washington Examiner)
"For years I've watched governments take control of our lives, and their argument is always the same — fewer costs, greater efficiency — but the result is the same too," Violet said. "Less control by the people, more control by the state, until the individual's own wishes count for nothing. That is what I consider my duty to resist."
She went on to argue, "Your great-grandchildren won't thank you when the state is all powerful because we didn't fight."Alas, not only your great-grandchildren not know whether you fought or not, it will probably never occur to them that there was anything to fight about.
*Yeah, I know, but I couldn't resist. Some actors, you always see them in a certain role.
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