When you ask people why they do not support President Donald Trump you will receive a variety of responses. Reasons for disliking him may include his disparaging remarks against women, his hardline immigration policies, or his lack of transparency with regard to his potential business conflicts. Trump is such a flawed character who adopts such extreme public policies that it is difficult to settle on one or even a handful of major reasons to dislike him. People with whom I have discussed the topic of Trump often have so much ire against him they have a different set of complaints each time I ask! I will state one major reason I disapprove of Trump as a choice to be President, which I hope other people share with me. That reason is simply the way he speaks.
Unlike a predecessor, President George W. Bush, President Trump has no endearing qualities to counterbalance his ignorance. At least Bush II had a likable personality. He had an "aw shucks," down-home way about him. So when he struggled with the English language or looked visibly uncomfortable in front of the press corps after being asked a straightforward question, he was still relatable even to those of us on the political left. Bush tried hard to put together a coherent speech even if it was riddled with gaffes. Despite the aircraft carrier and 9/11 photo ops, which every politician would exploit, Bush did not try to be the center of attention.
Trump, on the other hand, does not even (indeed, does not even feel the need to) compose and execute a coherent speech. Trump speaks in short, disjointed sentences, using hyperbolic adjectives like "teriffic!" and "horrible!" and vague adverbs like "very, very." Throughout his speeches he constantly refers to himself, the crowd sizes who have come to see him, and his personal connections to others who like him. And he has no endearing qualities to offset these (terrible!) communication techniques.
The key to understanding Trump's speeches, and why I believe he has conned so many people into following him, is that you must listen to or watch the speeches to get the mood and spirit. If you sympathize with the policies he proposes and you are captivated by the mood and spirit of his speeches, you will follow him, regardless of whether the content of the speeches makes sense when read in a transcript or whether the contents is based on fact.
A perfect example of a completely incoherent, bumbling Trump speech can be seen in his address to the CIA last week. Please take a moment to read it. If you do not shake your head, you are a die hard Trump supporter!
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-cia-speech-transcript/
Here is just one paragraph out of the entire speech. Trump is talking about Mike Pompeo, the person he has chosen to lead the CIA. Pompeo was a graduate of West Point. This is what Trump said:
Now, I know a lot about West Point. I’m a person that very strongly believes in academics. In fact, every time I say I had an uncle who was a great professor at MIT for 35 years who did a fantastic job in so many different ways, academically -- was an academic genius -- and then they say, is Donald Trump an intellectual? Trust me, I’m like a smart person. (Laughter.) And I recognized immediately. So he was number one at West Point, and he was also essentially number one at Harvard Law School. And then he decided to go into the military. And he ran for Congress. And everything he’s done has been a homerun. People like him, but much more importantly to me, everybody respects him. And when I told Paul Ryan that I wanted to do this, I would say he may be the only person that was not totally thrilled -- right, Mike? Because he said, I don’t want to lose this guy.
Why does Trump feel the need to say he "believes in academics?"
What does his uncle being an MIT professor have to do with this statement or Mike Pompeo?
How can someone "essentially" be number one at Harvard Law School?
How can "everything" someone has done be a home run?
Does "everybody" respect Mike Pompeo?
This is just one paragraph.
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
January 25, 2017
November 15, 2015
The Impossible Position of Moderate Republicans
We are witnessing in 21st century America the self destruction of the Republican party in the battle of a few right wing radicals versus a more moderate, traditional, and practical establishment. Right wing radicals such as the "Freedom Caucus" consisting of Tea Party members such as Texas Senator Ted Cruz can be contrasted with a more traditional group of Republicans on Capitol Hill, such as House Speaker Paul Ryan and New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte. Moderate Republicans are under threat from right wing radicals who accuse them of compromising too much with Democrats, a party which they believe is chipping away at foundational freedoms promised in the Constitution.
Sentiment for the radical wing is real, otherwise there could not exist a caucus whose purpose is to advance the radical agenda, an agenda which relies on extreme tactics such as shutting down the government, flirting with a US credit default, or relying on sequestration to slash budgets across the board. Across the country, enough citizens are electing these extremists. In order to be heard on Capitol Hill, the radicals influence the establishment by voting together, refusing to negotiate with moderates. This has the effect of pulling more moderate Republicans to the right to be viewed as not aiding and abetting Democrats. The entire party gets pulled into a more radical direction.
Tea Party Republicans should be labeled as radicals and extremists because their positions are so far from where the majority of Americans are politically, their policies would be damaging to the US economy and to its citizens, and their positions on issues are based on pure ideology, not reality.
One example is in healthcare reform. To be fair to Republicans, the way Democrats went about drafting legislation was too partisan so there is no mystery why it was not supported by the party. But was there not an opportunity for Republicans to respond to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that would have been more productive than simply saying no?
After all, Republicans are clearly not against expanding healthcare at the expense of the taxpayer. Notice how they are not calling to end a popular government run health insurance program called Medicare? Remember how in 2006 the Bush II administration expanded Medicare with the new prescription program called Part D?
In fact, given how much Democrats had to compromise just to get enough votes to squeeze the ACA through, the bill could have very well been a Republican bill! Except their vehement opposition from the beginning meant they cut themselves off from providing alternatives. They were so intent on proving healthcare reform was a bad idea that they neglected to come up with another solution. Here is what I mean about the ACA being a Republican bill:
1. There was no public option
2. States were not required to comply with creation of state exchanges
3. Long Term Care was scrapped from the bill for cost purposes
In addition, look at healthcare, health insurance, pharmaceutical companies, and medical device companies' stock price and profitability since the act was put into effect. These industries were given a corporate handout to keep their support for the bill. The industry helped draft the legislation!
The radicals in the Republican party believed the ACA undermined some fundamental American freedoms. They were against the taxes which would be required to pay for the program, the tax penalty for not enrolling, the rules and regulations for insurers and providers to provide a more consumer-friendly plan of care. This radical position prevented the moderates from working more with Democrats or from creating some alternative solution. Now that the law is in effect and is being used by millions of people, Republicans can be labeled as being anti-healthcare reform.
What it shows is how a radical wing of the Republican party can successfully be anti- practical things without being pro- anything that is not some sort of idealism. It is easy to imagine... the key word here being "imagine"... an America with a superlative health care system where health insurance is not a necessity because costs are reasonable, and for those who want health insurance, the only companies which exists are ones providing excellent coverage and will never cut off benefits as long as the customer is paying premiums. This ideal is what radical Republicans either think we have or think we could have. Even if it was possible to reach this ideal, they missed the opportunity to put forward proposals to get America to that place!
So just like the situation with the ACA, this is the common theme for the back and forth between Democrats and Republicans in Congress:
Sentiment for the radical wing is real, otherwise there could not exist a caucus whose purpose is to advance the radical agenda, an agenda which relies on extreme tactics such as shutting down the government, flirting with a US credit default, or relying on sequestration to slash budgets across the board. Across the country, enough citizens are electing these extremists. In order to be heard on Capitol Hill, the radicals influence the establishment by voting together, refusing to negotiate with moderates. This has the effect of pulling more moderate Republicans to the right to be viewed as not aiding and abetting Democrats. The entire party gets pulled into a more radical direction.
Tea Party Republicans should be labeled as radicals and extremists because their positions are so far from where the majority of Americans are politically, their policies would be damaging to the US economy and to its citizens, and their positions on issues are based on pure ideology, not reality.
One example is in healthcare reform. To be fair to Republicans, the way Democrats went about drafting legislation was too partisan so there is no mystery why it was not supported by the party. But was there not an opportunity for Republicans to respond to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that would have been more productive than simply saying no?
After all, Republicans are clearly not against expanding healthcare at the expense of the taxpayer. Notice how they are not calling to end a popular government run health insurance program called Medicare? Remember how in 2006 the Bush II administration expanded Medicare with the new prescription program called Part D?
In fact, given how much Democrats had to compromise just to get enough votes to squeeze the ACA through, the bill could have very well been a Republican bill! Except their vehement opposition from the beginning meant they cut themselves off from providing alternatives. They were so intent on proving healthcare reform was a bad idea that they neglected to come up with another solution. Here is what I mean about the ACA being a Republican bill:
1. There was no public option
2. States were not required to comply with creation of state exchanges
3. Long Term Care was scrapped from the bill for cost purposes
In addition, look at healthcare, health insurance, pharmaceutical companies, and medical device companies' stock price and profitability since the act was put into effect. These industries were given a corporate handout to keep their support for the bill. The industry helped draft the legislation!
The radicals in the Republican party believed the ACA undermined some fundamental American freedoms. They were against the taxes which would be required to pay for the program, the tax penalty for not enrolling, the rules and regulations for insurers and providers to provide a more consumer-friendly plan of care. This radical position prevented the moderates from working more with Democrats or from creating some alternative solution. Now that the law is in effect and is being used by millions of people, Republicans can be labeled as being anti-healthcare reform.
What it shows is how a radical wing of the Republican party can successfully be anti- practical things without being pro- anything that is not some sort of idealism. It is easy to imagine... the key word here being "imagine"... an America with a superlative health care system where health insurance is not a necessity because costs are reasonable, and for those who want health insurance, the only companies which exists are ones providing excellent coverage and will never cut off benefits as long as the customer is paying premiums. This ideal is what radical Republicans either think we have or think we could have. Even if it was possible to reach this ideal, they missed the opportunity to put forward proposals to get America to that place!
So just like the situation with the ACA, this is the common theme for the back and forth between Democrats and Republicans in Congress:
- Democrats recognize a problem exists
- Moderate Republicans agree it does exist while radicals do not
- Moderate Republicans are called out by the extremists for being too liberal which hurts their chances of being reelected so the moderates pull to the right
- Meanwhile, Democrats attempt to fix the problem with practical solutions
- While Democrats are fixing the problem, radical Republicans say over and again how they don't want Democrats to fix that problem, that it can fix itself by free market economics
- Democrats keep fixing and eventually move to pass the legislation
- Moderate Republicans allow the radicals to speak for the whole party out of fear. The radicals use tactics like shutting down the government, holding up funding for routine bills, etc. in order to stop Democrats
- Democrats pass legislation
- Republicans have no alternative ideas
- The problem slowly gets fixed and Republicans have to keep saying it is not getting fixed
Democrats do not think practically most of the time. In fact if they did Republicans would not even get as much support as they do. The Republican party is one which started an unnecessary war, tanked the economy, and shut down the government all in a span of 10 years! It should not be as popular as it is. When I say Democrats think practically, I mean they attempt to address problems with realistic solutions. Right wing extremists in the Republican party who have so much influence and often speak on behalf of the party do not attempt to address problems because they are too busy arguing that their idealistic solutions would be better, without providing a practical way to reach that ideal.
These extremists are exactly why qualified Republican leaders like Mitt Romney and John Kasich could not or will not get elected. The terms in which they speak are too practical and nuanced for the shouting of the tea party.
November 5, 2015
Questions For the Objectivist
This first question will provide me with a clearer picture of the mindset of an Objectivist. When faced with a difficult practical problem challenging Objectivism, how likely is the Objectivist to first blame the government? If it can be demonstrated that the government plays little to no role in the challenge, how likely is the Objectivist to blame the problem on the social/political/economic status quo, the most important being the economic system and the level and type of education of the population in their country? If the answer is "It is Highly Likely" to the first and the second question, I would be tempted to accuse the Objectivist of championing a system which will only work in its pristine, ideal state. If this is so, Objectivists should stop appealing to an ideal time in American history when an Objectivist could live his life the freest because there was never any such ideal. The only ideal exists in the mind of the Objectivist. And how would that idealism be different from religious idealism? It's like a religious ideal without god. If the answer does not involve blaming the government or the absence of the ideal environment and levels of education of the population, then I have the following questions:
Does Objectivism survive rigorous academic scrutiny in current philosophical literature?
How can a philosophical system maintain a closed status and not become an atheistic cult?
Does it bother Objectivists that there is a high percentage of fundamentalist Christians in the Tea Party?
Does it bother Objectivists that the US political party most closely aligned with their ideology (Tea Party Republicans) exhibit a distrust of academic pursuits and scientific inquiry in favor of simplistic explanations about how the world works?
What is appropriate recourse against a corporation whose owners/employees have been convicted of intentionally harming individuals?
How confident are Objectivists that if we removed social safety nets that individuals would fill the role of caring for those in need? If the number of individuals filling in those roles is insufficient to meet the need, would Objectivists be content with people dying in the streets?
How confident are Objectivists in the idea of Man as an economic being in an environment stripped of government interference as one who will rationally maximize his utility as both a producer and consumer while still maintaining his humanity?
What is the Objectivist stance on weak paternalism?
Does Objectivism survive rigorous academic scrutiny in current philosophical literature?
How can a philosophical system maintain a closed status and not become an atheistic cult?
Does it bother Objectivists that there is a high percentage of fundamentalist Christians in the Tea Party?
Does it bother Objectivists that the US political party most closely aligned with their ideology (Tea Party Republicans) exhibit a distrust of academic pursuits and scientific inquiry in favor of simplistic explanations about how the world works?
What is appropriate recourse against a corporation whose owners/employees have been convicted of intentionally harming individuals?
How confident are Objectivists that if we removed social safety nets that individuals would fill the role of caring for those in need? If the number of individuals filling in those roles is insufficient to meet the need, would Objectivists be content with people dying in the streets?
How confident are Objectivists in the idea of Man as an economic being in an environment stripped of government interference as one who will rationally maximize his utility as both a producer and consumer while still maintaining his humanity?
What is the Objectivist stance on weak paternalism?
September 25, 2014
US Propaganda for War on ISIS
Does anyone else see through these recent stories reported in the media about imminent attacks conveniently discovered or thwarted since US military involvement in Syria?
Congress can barely agree on anything, yet in the midst of reelection they come to a consensus with the President that ISIS must be stopped. The US has bombed ISIS in Syria almost by itself, without official permission from Syria to enter its airspace.
War against a common enemy has a way of bringing the country together, fortunately or unfortunately. But military action alone would not be enough to maintain domestic and international support. The US government in cooperation with the military have fed the mainstream media stories of success since the start of this war against ISIS.
Is anyone critical of the thwarting of an imminent attack by the Khorasians?
http://wtkr.com/2014/09/23/khorasan-group-in-syria-plotted-attack-against-u-s-with-explosive-clothes-toothpaste-source-says/
Supposedly this group was planning to attack the US by smuggling explosives in carryon luggage. Could this be continued justification for TSA screening? Does it help to justify the actions of bombing people in Syria?
Today there was a story that the Iraqi PM heard of an (again) imminent attack on the US and Paris subway systems.
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2014/09/25/iraqi-pm-plot-to-attack-us-paris-subways-uncovered/
Is it possible the US government advised the Iraqi PM to release this information? How can these claims be verified? Is it not possible that ISIS could be plotting any attack anywhere? If so, the US government and military could claim they are thwarting terror attacks with every member of ISIS they kill.
We need journalists who will ask the difficult questions to hold the US government and military accountable for their actions. Mainstream media is too cozy with the very entities they are supposed to be questioning.
Of course, we want the US to succeed, but if they are feeding us lies, exaggerations, unverified claims as a means of garnering popular support for their bombing, they need to be called on the carpet.
Congress can barely agree on anything, yet in the midst of reelection they come to a consensus with the President that ISIS must be stopped. The US has bombed ISIS in Syria almost by itself, without official permission from Syria to enter its airspace.
War against a common enemy has a way of bringing the country together, fortunately or unfortunately. But military action alone would not be enough to maintain domestic and international support. The US government in cooperation with the military have fed the mainstream media stories of success since the start of this war against ISIS.
Is anyone critical of the thwarting of an imminent attack by the Khorasians?
http://wtkr.com/2014/09/23/khorasan-group-in-syria-plotted-attack-against-u-s-with-explosive-clothes-toothpaste-source-says/
Supposedly this group was planning to attack the US by smuggling explosives in carryon luggage. Could this be continued justification for TSA screening? Does it help to justify the actions of bombing people in Syria?
Today there was a story that the Iraqi PM heard of an (again) imminent attack on the US and Paris subway systems.
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2014/09/25/iraqi-pm-plot-to-attack-us-paris-subways-uncovered/
Is it possible the US government advised the Iraqi PM to release this information? How can these claims be verified? Is it not possible that ISIS could be plotting any attack anywhere? If so, the US government and military could claim they are thwarting terror attacks with every member of ISIS they kill.
We need journalists who will ask the difficult questions to hold the US government and military accountable for their actions. Mainstream media is too cozy with the very entities they are supposed to be questioning.
Of course, we want the US to succeed, but if they are feeding us lies, exaggerations, unverified claims as a means of garnering popular support for their bombing, they need to be called on the carpet.
July 21, 2014
Climate Change Skepticism - Why It's Healthy and Necessary
If climates around the globe are changing as a result of human-caused carbon emissions it has to be some of the worst news ever. I mean depressing news. I mean every time we are reminded of it we should all cringe and wish for a time when human activity was not so harmful to the environment.
A global problem with such dire consequences should prompt every individual to wonder what they can do to make the planet sustainable in the long term, for themselves and their children. Curiously, consensus among the US population is difficult to find. The very existence of climate change is doubted by many. But how can there be deniers when 97% of scientific papers agree that global warming is happening and that humans are responsible(1)? The human population in the 20th century grew from 1 billion to 6 billion and a cursory glance at the data shows a direct relationship between explosive population growth in the industrial age with an increase in carbon emissions. With mountains of empirical evidence affirming the existence of human caused warming, why is there still such a divide among the population regarding these facts?
When the United States Supreme Court denied candidate Al Gore the presidency in the 2000 presidential election he decided to use his free time to write a book on competitive eating, which required copious amounts of first person research. He also continued his lifelong investigation into the impending doom ushered in by global warming. A speaking series about the subject was made into a documentary film in 2004 titled An Inconvenient Truth.
An Inconvenient Truth cannot be credited with discovering the next big environmental problem. Climate change had been investigated by scientists for decades so Gore's observations were nothing new. His notoriety and extensive research did draw the world's attention to the issue and environmental groups latched on.
Gore's Democrat party tends to favor environmentalism more than Republicans. While Democrats are known for regulating industries to reduce pollution with the end goal of sustainability, Republicans are known for deregulating industries in the name of economic growth. Climate change was no different. The more Democrats called for action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the US, the more Republicans dismissed the need for action, claiming Gore's cause was backed by phony science, hyperbole, and scare tactics.
Since the documentary's release in 2004 the world has been barraged with meteorologists, scientists, Democrat politicians, professors, and the news media with stories about the impending doom the world faces from the growth in human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change deniers are outcast as backward and living under a rock. I call the deniers a healthy part of our democracy.
It is unfortunate that climate change should be announced to the world through a boring liberal politician through a documentary riddled with exaggerations. This method of delivery caused the issue to be more politicized than it would have otherwise been if presented by a well known scientist like Stephen Hawking. Politicization clouds the field of debate by causing each side to argue with a mix of genuine and false motives. Rather than hear a liberal and a conservative position on how to tackle the agreed upon problem, Democrats have to both defend the issue as legitimate while providing solutions as Republicans spend their efforts denying the issue while scrambling to defend why.
So why do I call climate change deniers a healthy part of our democracy?
Reason number one: Climate change is not easy to understand. Anything that is not easy to understand should not be accepted purely on the authority of experts. One should form one's own conclusions about a difficult problem after an investigation of the facts.
Reason number two: There are too many people in positions of influence who benefit from climate change being a big problem. These people in the order of those who stand to gain the most are politicians, the news media, climate scientists, and meteorologists.
I will not elaborate on reason number one because it is self-explanatory. I am more concerned with reason number two - the kind of people who stand to gain from it being true. I am not a conspiracy theorist. There is no way Democrats are colluding with the UN who is colluding with the Academy who is colluding with weather stations who are colluding with the news media to feed the world a message they agree on. It is purely coincidental that these groups benefit. I would argue that they are not doing enough to challenge each other and that is where I applaud the climate change skeptics.
The ones who stand to benefit the most from climate change being real and man-made:
1. Politicians. The government is only as powerful as the amount of power we yield to it. We appoint politicians to represent us in matters of law, defense, public policy, diplomacy, etc., but the power can be taken too far. Every day we see evidence of the government creeping itself further into our private lives through NSA wiretapping, healthcare mandates, illegal immigrant amnesty, nation building abroad, corporate welfare, among many other issues. If man made global warming is happening the United States is one of the biggest culprits because of our per-capita consumption. This means that the US with the encouragement of other nations would have to lead the way in taking large-scale, non market-based initiatives to curb greenhouse gas emissions. This would make the EPA essentially one of the most powerful institutions in the world. Taken to an extreme the government could use technology to track each person's consumption and fine people for forgetting to turn out a light. Politicians want this power. And once they have it, taking it back will be nearly impossible.
2. News Media. The media loves tragedy because it boosts ratings. CNN made millions from the disappearance of the Malaysian airline this year. The more climate change can be reported, and the higher the number of political actions that must follow, the higher the ratings will be for these news outlets.
3. Meteorologists. Hand-in-hand with the news media are meteorologists. What is more interesting, a weather reporter standing in the middle of a field on a calm day saying the temperature is exactly average for that time of year and nothing unusual is occurring? or a meteorologist pointing extreme weather that is tied to a global problem of climate change?
4. Scientists. Scientists exist to discover why the natural world works the way it does. They are in the business of discovering facts and disproving the theories of everyone around them to come up with better explanations for what is happening in our world. How many scientists have concluded in their mind that climate change is man-made before doing any investigating? How likely is their paper to be peer reviewed and published if it makes a case against the findings of the majority? I am not saying they will just fake data to reach pre-determined conclusions. I am saying the mentality impacts which experiments get conducted, how papers are written, and what papers get the most attention.
The problem is that we are relying on these groups to give us unbiased, accurate information yet there are too many incentives for them to look the other way when presented with any evidence that is contrary to the generally accepted viewpoint. Let me repeat that I do not believe in a climate change conspiracy; nor do I think that climate change is not happening. In fact, I think it is happening and humans are partly responsible.
First, let us assume that climate change is not occurring, that the planet is not getting warmer. Those who believe this must believe that all of the aforementioned groups are conspiring to fake the problem. These are the crazy deniers whose help I appreciate in their skepticism, but since their skepticism is probably based solely on the opinions of Rush and Hannity, I dismiss their conclusions out of hand.
It is much more plausible that climate change is occurring based on the findings of scientists and the rigorous process they must face to have their findings published. The part where I encourage skepticism is exactly when we hear the argument extend beyond the mere existence of climate change to a full fledged conclusion about its man-made cause. Even worse is when I hear alarms sounding for the need to act immediately or else face sudden destruction.
Politicization has made this skepticism nearly impossible because so many conservatives deny the very existence of climate change. So once a person says they are skeptical about some aspects of climate change they are immediately lumped into the conservative political camp as another crazy, unscientific climate change denier.
These are the kinds of questions we need to be asking to make real progress on the issue:
- How much of our human activity is directly responsible for the problem?
- How did humans handle major climate changes throughout our history?
- Given the answer to the last question is it reasonable to assume humans can act to reverse the current process?
- If we can act to reverse the process are we willing to sacrifice what is necessary to bring us to greenhouse levels we had in the past? or is it worth it to lose the coastal cities, move north and accept different climates everywhere for the long term?
These are the questions we should be asking. This is the way the discussion should be taking place. Instead, we have politicians arguing with each other over how much power they want to exert over us while news outlets are making fortunes reporting the findings of catastrophic events in the weather.
(1) http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/05/17/97-percent-of-scientific-studies-agree-on-manmade-global-warming-so-what-now/
In the past, humans have adjusted their behavior to mitigate pollution. We learned that reducing sulfur emissions from coal-fired power plants would stop acid rain. We learned that pouring petroleum products into the ground would harm wildlife and public water supplies so we started recycling it. We saw whole communities develop birth defects from the dumping of toxic chemicals so we created standards for proper disposal. Never before have we faced a foe like global warming. It is a problem that trumps all others because it means dramatically scaling back the consumption of fossil fuels - our primary energy resource. It also means we must radically change our behavior.
Unlike previous environmental challenges that were isolated and more manageable, decreasing carbon emissions is a much more daunting task because we cannot simply make our smokestacks cleaner, have higher fuel efficiency standards, or switch from coal to natural gas. Addressing climate change will involve huge American sacrifices, a change of lifestyle, bigger government intervention in business and private life, cooperation with other nations, and at least a temporary economic recession. If we do not act a warmer climate will disrupt entire ecosystems, change ocean currents, melt ice caps, raise sea levels, increase temperatures further away from the equator (rendering more areas on Earth uninhabitable for humans), and much else.
A global problem with such dire consequences should prompt every individual to wonder what they can do to make the planet sustainable in the long term, for themselves and their children. Curiously, consensus among the US population is difficult to find. The very existence of climate change is doubted by many. But how can there be deniers when 97% of scientific papers agree that global warming is happening and that humans are responsible(1)? The human population in the 20th century grew from 1 billion to 6 billion and a cursory glance at the data shows a direct relationship between explosive population growth in the industrial age with an increase in carbon emissions. With mountains of empirical evidence affirming the existence of human caused warming, why is there still such a divide among the population regarding these facts?
An Inconvenient Truth cannot be credited with discovering the next big environmental problem. Climate change had been investigated by scientists for decades so Gore's observations were nothing new. His notoriety and extensive research did draw the world's attention to the issue and environmental groups latched on.
Gore's Democrat party tends to favor environmentalism more than Republicans. While Democrats are known for regulating industries to reduce pollution with the end goal of sustainability, Republicans are known for deregulating industries in the name of economic growth. Climate change was no different. The more Democrats called for action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the US, the more Republicans dismissed the need for action, claiming Gore's cause was backed by phony science, hyperbole, and scare tactics.
Since the documentary's release in 2004 the world has been barraged with meteorologists, scientists, Democrat politicians, professors, and the news media with stories about the impending doom the world faces from the growth in human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change deniers are outcast as backward and living under a rock. I call the deniers a healthy part of our democracy.
It is unfortunate that climate change should be announced to the world through a boring liberal politician through a documentary riddled with exaggerations. This method of delivery caused the issue to be more politicized than it would have otherwise been if presented by a well known scientist like Stephen Hawking. Politicization clouds the field of debate by causing each side to argue with a mix of genuine and false motives. Rather than hear a liberal and a conservative position on how to tackle the agreed upon problem, Democrats have to both defend the issue as legitimate while providing solutions as Republicans spend their efforts denying the issue while scrambling to defend why.
So why do I call climate change deniers a healthy part of our democracy?
Reason number one: Climate change is not easy to understand. Anything that is not easy to understand should not be accepted purely on the authority of experts. One should form one's own conclusions about a difficult problem after an investigation of the facts.
Reason number two: There are too many people in positions of influence who benefit from climate change being a big problem. These people in the order of those who stand to gain the most are politicians, the news media, climate scientists, and meteorologists.
I will not elaborate on reason number one because it is self-explanatory. I am more concerned with reason number two - the kind of people who stand to gain from it being true. I am not a conspiracy theorist. There is no way Democrats are colluding with the UN who is colluding with the Academy who is colluding with weather stations who are colluding with the news media to feed the world a message they agree on. It is purely coincidental that these groups benefit. I would argue that they are not doing enough to challenge each other and that is where I applaud the climate change skeptics.
The ones who stand to benefit the most from climate change being real and man-made:
1. Politicians. The government is only as powerful as the amount of power we yield to it. We appoint politicians to represent us in matters of law, defense, public policy, diplomacy, etc., but the power can be taken too far. Every day we see evidence of the government creeping itself further into our private lives through NSA wiretapping, healthcare mandates, illegal immigrant amnesty, nation building abroad, corporate welfare, among many other issues. If man made global warming is happening the United States is one of the biggest culprits because of our per-capita consumption. This means that the US with the encouragement of other nations would have to lead the way in taking large-scale, non market-based initiatives to curb greenhouse gas emissions. This would make the EPA essentially one of the most powerful institutions in the world. Taken to an extreme the government could use technology to track each person's consumption and fine people for forgetting to turn out a light. Politicians want this power. And once they have it, taking it back will be nearly impossible.
2. News Media. The media loves tragedy because it boosts ratings. CNN made millions from the disappearance of the Malaysian airline this year. The more climate change can be reported, and the higher the number of political actions that must follow, the higher the ratings will be for these news outlets.
3. Meteorologists. Hand-in-hand with the news media are meteorologists. What is more interesting, a weather reporter standing in the middle of a field on a calm day saying the temperature is exactly average for that time of year and nothing unusual is occurring? or a meteorologist pointing extreme weather that is tied to a global problem of climate change?
4. Scientists. Scientists exist to discover why the natural world works the way it does. They are in the business of discovering facts and disproving the theories of everyone around them to come up with better explanations for what is happening in our world. How many scientists have concluded in their mind that climate change is man-made before doing any investigating? How likely is their paper to be peer reviewed and published if it makes a case against the findings of the majority? I am not saying they will just fake data to reach pre-determined conclusions. I am saying the mentality impacts which experiments get conducted, how papers are written, and what papers get the most attention.
The problem is that we are relying on these groups to give us unbiased, accurate information yet there are too many incentives for them to look the other way when presented with any evidence that is contrary to the generally accepted viewpoint. Let me repeat that I do not believe in a climate change conspiracy; nor do I think that climate change is not happening. In fact, I think it is happening and humans are partly responsible.
First, let us assume that climate change is not occurring, that the planet is not getting warmer. Those who believe this must believe that all of the aforementioned groups are conspiring to fake the problem. These are the crazy deniers whose help I appreciate in their skepticism, but since their skepticism is probably based solely on the opinions of Rush and Hannity, I dismiss their conclusions out of hand.
It is much more plausible that climate change is occurring based on the findings of scientists and the rigorous process they must face to have their findings published. The part where I encourage skepticism is exactly when we hear the argument extend beyond the mere existence of climate change to a full fledged conclusion about its man-made cause. Even worse is when I hear alarms sounding for the need to act immediately or else face sudden destruction.
Politicization has made this skepticism nearly impossible because so many conservatives deny the very existence of climate change. So once a person says they are skeptical about some aspects of climate change they are immediately lumped into the conservative political camp as another crazy, unscientific climate change denier.
These are the kinds of questions we need to be asking to make real progress on the issue:
- How much of our human activity is directly responsible for the problem?
- How did humans handle major climate changes throughout our history?
- Given the answer to the last question is it reasonable to assume humans can act to reverse the current process?
- If we can act to reverse the process are we willing to sacrifice what is necessary to bring us to greenhouse levels we had in the past? or is it worth it to lose the coastal cities, move north and accept different climates everywhere for the long term?
These are the questions we should be asking. This is the way the discussion should be taking place. Instead, we have politicians arguing with each other over how much power they want to exert over us while news outlets are making fortunes reporting the findings of catastrophic events in the weather.
(1) http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/05/17/97-percent-of-scientific-studies-agree-on-manmade-global-warming-so-what-now/
April 22, 2014
Uninteded Consequences of Socialized Health Care
Socialized medicine in its truest form is government ownership of health care facilities, government employment of physicians, and government control of financial transactions between doctor and patient.
A less extreme form of socialized medicine has either privately run health care facilities receiving payment from public funds or publicly run facilities receiving private funds.
A more moderate form would entail a mixture of government run and private facilities receiving payments from both public and private funds. This form closely resembles the current system in the United States. VA hospitals are government run facilities with federally paid health care workers whose patients have a mix of private and public insurance plans to pay for care. For-profit hospitals accept Medicaid, Medicare, private insurance, and self-pay patients.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) took this current, more moderate system and simply added a bunch of mandates and subsidies to it. By forcing citizens into insurance plans by threat of a tax penalty the ACA will drastically reduce the number of uninsured. Since our health care reformers in Washington DC have determined that insurance is a necessary middleman between patients and physicians, one can see from their perspective why forcing citizens into plans is a good thing.
Opponents of the ACA argue that the act is an infringement on personal liberty but have failed to explain how. Just saying that citizens should not be forced to purchase something is not a solid argument against it; after all, the government can force us to do all kinds of things like purchase car insurance if owning a car.
An overlooked infringement Republicans should be explaining is how a move toward true socialized medicine grants the government the authority to dictate what citizens eat and the lifestyles they choose to adopt.
If the government is paying for and/or providing health care it has a vested interest in promoting healthy life choices. An obese person long ago would choke on their own fat and die a premature death. A stuntman could bankrupt his family after suffering a debilitating injury. A poor person could be refused life-saving emergency care for failure to provide proof of payment. This was a harsh system, but one that encouraged people to independently make good decisions or else they, and no one else, would suffer the consequences of their actions. Under a government run system that covered everyone, these three people would drive up costs to the system. The obese person would have their diabetes meds, heart problems, and weight-loss surgeries paid for by the government. The stuntman would be pieced together like Humpty Dumpty after each fall, driving up system costs. The poor man who contributes little, if anything to the government run pool would be granted the life-saving care at the expense of every taxpayer in the nation.
The government wants to promote a healthy society in the same way in wants to promote an educated society. But when the health of a society becomes a budgetary issue, its intrusion into private lives could become more than even the most liberal proponent of socialized health care would want.
Higher utilization of care puts a strain on the health care system. Who uses more care than anyone? The sick, elderly, and daredevils. Washington DC, as the collector and payor of health care services in a more socialized system, has an interest in meeting its budget every year. A growing health care budget can be met by increasing premiums (taxes), diminishing services, and influencing a patient's lifestyle choices. Those citizens using the system more often - the sick, elderly, and daredevils - would be targets in this budget balancing act.
Sometimes the fear of being unhealthy is not a sufficient incentive by itself to promote healthy lifestyle choices. In fact, if cost is no issue to the individual, there is even less incentive to be healthy and avoid risk. Here are some ways in which the government could try to control a citizen's lifestyle in order to keep health care costs down:
Checking grocery items purchased under a shopper's card
Targeted mailings to households in areas with statistically higher obesity rates
Banning hazardous recreational activities like base jumping
Verifying purchases of prescriptions from Rx databases
Monitoring those with criminal records with drones
Keeping tabs on purchases for "sinful" services like prostitution, gambling, and drugs
Web purchase history
Frequency of clubbing, going to bars, or partying using geolocation
Checking online dating profiles for signs of risky behavior
Outlawing the most unhealthy foods like ice cream
Euthanasia/hospice/chronic elderly care decisions contrary to what an individual would choose
Some might dismiss these potential controls as paranoid. It cannot be denied that the technology for this type of intervention exists and is currently being used by advertising agencies and law enforcement.
Private health care has its own set of problems, the main one being the refusal of services to thsoe who cannot afford to pay. This can be addressed in its own time. Right now if Republicans want to start fixing our health care system they must acknowledge it is not working well, propose a way to fix it, then demonstrate how the ACA will only make things worse. The ACA can only be effectively opposed if there is a better alternative and if Republicans can show not just that the ACA will be more expensive but that it could lead toward greater government intrusion into people's lives.
A less extreme form of socialized medicine has either privately run health care facilities receiving payment from public funds or publicly run facilities receiving private funds.
A more moderate form would entail a mixture of government run and private facilities receiving payments from both public and private funds. This form closely resembles the current system in the United States. VA hospitals are government run facilities with federally paid health care workers whose patients have a mix of private and public insurance plans to pay for care. For-profit hospitals accept Medicaid, Medicare, private insurance, and self-pay patients.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) took this current, more moderate system and simply added a bunch of mandates and subsidies to it. By forcing citizens into insurance plans by threat of a tax penalty the ACA will drastically reduce the number of uninsured. Since our health care reformers in Washington DC have determined that insurance is a necessary middleman between patients and physicians, one can see from their perspective why forcing citizens into plans is a good thing.
Opponents of the ACA argue that the act is an infringement on personal liberty but have failed to explain how. Just saying that citizens should not be forced to purchase something is not a solid argument against it; after all, the government can force us to do all kinds of things like purchase car insurance if owning a car.
An overlooked infringement Republicans should be explaining is how a move toward true socialized medicine grants the government the authority to dictate what citizens eat and the lifestyles they choose to adopt.
If the government is paying for and/or providing health care it has a vested interest in promoting healthy life choices. An obese person long ago would choke on their own fat and die a premature death. A stuntman could bankrupt his family after suffering a debilitating injury. A poor person could be refused life-saving emergency care for failure to provide proof of payment. This was a harsh system, but one that encouraged people to independently make good decisions or else they, and no one else, would suffer the consequences of their actions. Under a government run system that covered everyone, these three people would drive up costs to the system. The obese person would have their diabetes meds, heart problems, and weight-loss surgeries paid for by the government. The stuntman would be pieced together like Humpty Dumpty after each fall, driving up system costs. The poor man who contributes little, if anything to the government run pool would be granted the life-saving care at the expense of every taxpayer in the nation.
The government wants to promote a healthy society in the same way in wants to promote an educated society. But when the health of a society becomes a budgetary issue, its intrusion into private lives could become more than even the most liberal proponent of socialized health care would want.
Higher utilization of care puts a strain on the health care system. Who uses more care than anyone? The sick, elderly, and daredevils. Washington DC, as the collector and payor of health care services in a more socialized system, has an interest in meeting its budget every year. A growing health care budget can be met by increasing premiums (taxes), diminishing services, and influencing a patient's lifestyle choices. Those citizens using the system more often - the sick, elderly, and daredevils - would be targets in this budget balancing act.
Sometimes the fear of being unhealthy is not a sufficient incentive by itself to promote healthy lifestyle choices. In fact, if cost is no issue to the individual, there is even less incentive to be healthy and avoid risk. Here are some ways in which the government could try to control a citizen's lifestyle in order to keep health care costs down:
Checking grocery items purchased under a shopper's card
Targeted mailings to households in areas with statistically higher obesity rates
Banning hazardous recreational activities like base jumping
Verifying purchases of prescriptions from Rx databases
Monitoring those with criminal records with drones
Keeping tabs on purchases for "sinful" services like prostitution, gambling, and drugs
Web purchase history
Frequency of clubbing, going to bars, or partying using geolocation
Checking online dating profiles for signs of risky behavior
Outlawing the most unhealthy foods like ice cream
Euthanasia/hospice/chronic elderly care decisions contrary to what an individual would choose
Some might dismiss these potential controls as paranoid. It cannot be denied that the technology for this type of intervention exists and is currently being used by advertising agencies and law enforcement.
Private health care has its own set of problems, the main one being the refusal of services to thsoe who cannot afford to pay. This can be addressed in its own time. Right now if Republicans want to start fixing our health care system they must acknowledge it is not working well, propose a way to fix it, then demonstrate how the ACA will only make things worse. The ACA can only be effectively opposed if there is a better alternative and if Republicans can show not just that the ACA will be more expensive but that it could lead toward greater government intrusion into people's lives.
March 27, 2014
Defense of Private Health Insurance
What is so nefarious about the Affordable Care Act that Federal Congressmen would hold the government hostage in order to de-fund a program its supporters hail as a monumental achievement of social justice? How can right wing news outlets decry the law as an infringement on personal liberty while liberal news outlets celebrate every new enrollee?
The Affordable Care Act was enacted to address two problems: the inability of Americans to obtain health insurance due to a pre-existing health condition and the growing cost of health insurance that renders it unaffordable for many Americans.
In my opinion the arguments for or against the Act are illegitimate because the Act was a poor attempt to fix a real social problem in America - the high cost of health care services. It is the high cost of health care services which has led to expensive health insurance, and since insurance companies are not themselves providing the health care, they should not be the primary target of reform.
The debate was flawed from the beginning because each side of the argument accepted the current health care delivery system when it realized it could not magically create its own ideal system. If the Democrats had been given a magic wand to reform health insurance, they would have created a single-payer, Medicare-for-all program that outlawed private insurance companies. A single payer system could have addressed the problem of the high cost of health care services from the top-down. Reform was not a priority for Republicans so they could not be expected to automatically propose an alternative.
Republicans are by nature adversaries to sweeping social reform, especially when it involves moving away from privatization toward government control. They have opposed funding for government run health care programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Their hostility toward these programs and their defense of private industry led them to a position against Democrats in the health care reform debate which equated to more or less a defense of the status quo. Republicans were too concerned with issues like Iran, the economy, and the budget deficit to try and find solutions to the rising cost of health care services.
Democrats were unwilling to try for a single payer system because they wanted to have some Republican assistance in reform, or at least they wanted to minimize the level of heated opposition. Democrats even removed the public insurance option to garner Republican support, but in the end the vote ran along strict party lines anyway! So their ideal solution was not tried, and their watered-down reform of health insurance was heatedly opposed too! Instead of risking thinking big and trying to address the real root of the problem by completely overhauling the entire delivery system with a universal, single payer plan, and doing the hard work of conducting a carefully crafted debate while generating populist appeal, they decided to just accept the current delivery system, flawed as it was, and manipulate it the way a puppeteer controls a marionette by slapping all sorts of mandates on everyone participating in the health care delivery system. Their lack of courage and creativity meant they would just accept the current system while legislating countless mandates on consumers and providers within that system.
Even though Republicans were blamed for blocking reform I suspect the partisanship of the Democrats and their inability to start a healthy discussion of the root causes of the problem contributed more toward of Republican reticence than the Republican's defense of the current system. Even if Republicans wanted to reform the system in some way, the smell of partisanship was so strong that they knew it would be better to defend it than participate in a solution they knew would be too heavy on mandates. I am not letting Republicans off the hook here. Republicans did not oppose the Affordable Care Act because it failed to address the root of the problem; they opposed it because of the level of government intrusion into the market - an understandable position to take, but they missed the point just like the Democrats did. The reason to oppose the Act was because it would not work, but that had to be demonstrated thoughtfully!
So Democrat unwillingness to find an idealistic leftist solution led it to a tacit approval of the current system which the party then decided to reform around the edges while Republicans had no choice but to defend that system. This is where the grounds for debate got completely muddled. Each side had to accept the current health care delivery method! (By "that current system" and "health care delivery method" I am referring to the inefficient way in which health care services are paid for.) From the time the Act was first mentioned until the present day, every time a news organization prints or broadcasts a story for- or against the Act, the journalist or commentator accepts the Act as a given, as a legitimate attempt to solve a problem, and then tries to show how the Act is either working or not working by giving examples of how difficult the law is making the lives of Citizen X while supporters show how much it is helping Citizen Y.
I would like to show why the Act is illegitimate by peeling back the layers of the main problem the Act should have addressed - the high cost of health care services (not insurance) in America. I will do this by highlighting the role the private insurance industry plays in the purchase of health care services. In order to defend the private insurance industry it is necessary to first demonstrate what an insurance company is and how its business model relates to other types of goods or services we purchase. In the end I will show why attacking this financial intermediary between doctors and patients is the wrong target.
Picture a community in which each resident is a sole proprietor and each is the only owner/employee of his or her respective business. The town has enough sole proprietorships to meet the needs of everyone in the community.
They agree to a common set of laws to protect themselves from each other and from hostile outsiders. The residents do not simply live together for safety but also benefit from each other's expertise. The Barber can cut the hair of the General Store Owner in exchange for smoked fish the General Store Owner has obtained from the Fisherman. An exchange takes place for the following reasons:
1. No man will work for free so he wants something in return for his services
2. No one man can provide every possible need himself
3. Even if he could provide every need himself it would be so time consuming that life would be very difficult
4. Those enforcing safety within and without the town must be compensated, for they will not work for free either (this is the government)
The ease with which one good or service is exchanged for another is improved by creating a mutually agreed upon measure and store of value called money. Money makes it easier to quantify the value of each individual's good or service; in addition, it also allows for everyone to store up value for something that might be needed in the future. A bank is created to safely guard this money. In exchange for this storage, the bank lends money to residents who desire expensive items that can be used while the owner pays financial installments for them over a period of time. The bank charges interest on the money to cover the cost of lending the money for that time period and to protect customer deposits in a central location.
In a very short time we have created a group of individuals with occupations, a government to safeguard that population, and a means of exchange by which residents can purchase and store the value of their goods and services.
What is the incentive for each resident to work and not mooch? Who determines how many sole proprietors are in each field? How are the Safety Enforcers (the government) elected and held accountable? and What guarantees the store of value will not be stolen by the banks?
Man's desire to work stems from two primary motivations: the need to survive and the desire to perform meaningful work. The motivation to achieve these two goals are sufficient reasons to acquire the necessary knowledge and training to perform the role.
What determines the role is determined partially by the desire to follow one's personal interest and partially to meet a need in society. If society is flooded with Police Officers, one can obtain the knowledge and training to become a Police Officer, but unless the individual can prove himself more worthy than an existing Police Officer or there is a strong need for another, pursuit of that occupation will be a failed endeavor and he will be forced to either stay in the community and die or move to another community with an unmet need for Police Officers.
Safety Enforcers, or government officials, will be elected and held accountable by residents who place them in charge of enforcing laws which protect residents from each other and from outside threats.
Banks are one of the entities bound to abide by these laws that protect customers from theft.
The value, and therefore the price, of each good or service is determined strictly by the need in the community and not by any centrally planned amount. Prices develop organically and are subject to change. If the Barber charges 5 sheckels for a haircut but gets no customers because patrons like the Lawyer and Fisherman have determined it is too expensive. The Lawyer makes 12 sheckels per day and the Fisherman makes 5 sheckels per day and they determine that 3 sheckels for a hair cut is a good deal. The Barber has no choice but to lower his price to 3 sheckels. Seeing the lower price, the Lawyer and Fisherman can stop poorly cutting their own hair and decide pay for the service once again. The amount of sheckels each man receives is based on how difficult the occupation is to perform and how important the job is to the community.
At a very basic level this is an example of humanity living in a free market economic system under the protection of laws overseen and enforced by a democratically elected government. Next, I will demonstrate how one occupation provides its services.
There are two Doctors who provide all of the health care services in the community. The occupation is one of the most advanced, requiring years of study and apprenticeship; consequently, the work is difficult but it pays handsomely. On average, a Doctor will make 15 sheckels per day. The pay can vary widely because each service costs a different amount and there are periods of time like the winter when there are more sick people visiting him.
Prices for all services are written in a book and the most common services are displayed on a giant chalk board above the Doctor's desk at his office downtown.
Regular physical evaluations are common and only cost 1 sheckel for the 15 minute visit. Every service is paid for out of pocket after the visit with no financial institution facilitating the transaction. If a person is unable to pay for a service the customer has the option of asking the Doctor to provide the service for free or for a reduced amount. The Doctor is under no obligation by the community or the Safety Enforcers to provide a service for which he is not compensated. When asked why he will not perform his services for free he retorts, "Must you provide your expertly crafted _____ to me for free?"
The Affordable Care Act was enacted to address two problems: the inability of Americans to obtain health insurance due to a pre-existing health condition and the growing cost of health insurance that renders it unaffordable for many Americans.
In my opinion the arguments for or against the Act are illegitimate because the Act was a poor attempt to fix a real social problem in America - the high cost of health care services. It is the high cost of health care services which has led to expensive health insurance, and since insurance companies are not themselves providing the health care, they should not be the primary target of reform.
The debate was flawed from the beginning because each side of the argument accepted the current health care delivery system when it realized it could not magically create its own ideal system. If the Democrats had been given a magic wand to reform health insurance, they would have created a single-payer, Medicare-for-all program that outlawed private insurance companies. A single payer system could have addressed the problem of the high cost of health care services from the top-down. Reform was not a priority for Republicans so they could not be expected to automatically propose an alternative.
Republicans are by nature adversaries to sweeping social reform, especially when it involves moving away from privatization toward government control. They have opposed funding for government run health care programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Their hostility toward these programs and their defense of private industry led them to a position against Democrats in the health care reform debate which equated to more or less a defense of the status quo. Republicans were too concerned with issues like Iran, the economy, and the budget deficit to try and find solutions to the rising cost of health care services.
Democrats were unwilling to try for a single payer system because they wanted to have some Republican assistance in reform, or at least they wanted to minimize the level of heated opposition. Democrats even removed the public insurance option to garner Republican support, but in the end the vote ran along strict party lines anyway! So their ideal solution was not tried, and their watered-down reform of health insurance was heatedly opposed too! Instead of risking thinking big and trying to address the real root of the problem by completely overhauling the entire delivery system with a universal, single payer plan, and doing the hard work of conducting a carefully crafted debate while generating populist appeal, they decided to just accept the current delivery system, flawed as it was, and manipulate it the way a puppeteer controls a marionette by slapping all sorts of mandates on everyone participating in the health care delivery system. Their lack of courage and creativity meant they would just accept the current system while legislating countless mandates on consumers and providers within that system.
Even though Republicans were blamed for blocking reform I suspect the partisanship of the Democrats and their inability to start a healthy discussion of the root causes of the problem contributed more toward of Republican reticence than the Republican's defense of the current system. Even if Republicans wanted to reform the system in some way, the smell of partisanship was so strong that they knew it would be better to defend it than participate in a solution they knew would be too heavy on mandates. I am not letting Republicans off the hook here. Republicans did not oppose the Affordable Care Act because it failed to address the root of the problem; they opposed it because of the level of government intrusion into the market - an understandable position to take, but they missed the point just like the Democrats did. The reason to oppose the Act was because it would not work, but that had to be demonstrated thoughtfully!
So Democrat unwillingness to find an idealistic leftist solution led it to a tacit approval of the current system which the party then decided to reform around the edges while Republicans had no choice but to defend that system. This is where the grounds for debate got completely muddled. Each side had to accept the current health care delivery method! (By "that current system" and "health care delivery method" I am referring to the inefficient way in which health care services are paid for.) From the time the Act was first mentioned until the present day, every time a news organization prints or broadcasts a story for- or against the Act, the journalist or commentator accepts the Act as a given, as a legitimate attempt to solve a problem, and then tries to show how the Act is either working or not working by giving examples of how difficult the law is making the lives of Citizen X while supporters show how much it is helping Citizen Y.
I would like to show why the Act is illegitimate by peeling back the layers of the main problem the Act should have addressed - the high cost of health care services (not insurance) in America. I will do this by highlighting the role the private insurance industry plays in the purchase of health care services. In order to defend the private insurance industry it is necessary to first demonstrate what an insurance company is and how its business model relates to other types of goods or services we purchase. In the end I will show why attacking this financial intermediary between doctors and patients is the wrong target.
Picture a community in which each resident is a sole proprietor and each is the only owner/employee of his or her respective business. The town has enough sole proprietorships to meet the needs of everyone in the community.
They agree to a common set of laws to protect themselves from each other and from hostile outsiders. The residents do not simply live together for safety but also benefit from each other's expertise. The Barber can cut the hair of the General Store Owner in exchange for smoked fish the General Store Owner has obtained from the Fisherman. An exchange takes place for the following reasons:
1. No man will work for free so he wants something in return for his services
2. No one man can provide every possible need himself
3. Even if he could provide every need himself it would be so time consuming that life would be very difficult
4. Those enforcing safety within and without the town must be compensated, for they will not work for free either (this is the government)
The ease with which one good or service is exchanged for another is improved by creating a mutually agreed upon measure and store of value called money. Money makes it easier to quantify the value of each individual's good or service; in addition, it also allows for everyone to store up value for something that might be needed in the future. A bank is created to safely guard this money. In exchange for this storage, the bank lends money to residents who desire expensive items that can be used while the owner pays financial installments for them over a period of time. The bank charges interest on the money to cover the cost of lending the money for that time period and to protect customer deposits in a central location.
In a very short time we have created a group of individuals with occupations, a government to safeguard that population, and a means of exchange by which residents can purchase and store the value of their goods and services.
What is the incentive for each resident to work and not mooch? Who determines how many sole proprietors are in each field? How are the Safety Enforcers (the government) elected and held accountable? and What guarantees the store of value will not be stolen by the banks?
Man's desire to work stems from two primary motivations: the need to survive and the desire to perform meaningful work. The motivation to achieve these two goals are sufficient reasons to acquire the necessary knowledge and training to perform the role.
What determines the role is determined partially by the desire to follow one's personal interest and partially to meet a need in society. If society is flooded with Police Officers, one can obtain the knowledge and training to become a Police Officer, but unless the individual can prove himself more worthy than an existing Police Officer or there is a strong need for another, pursuit of that occupation will be a failed endeavor and he will be forced to either stay in the community and die or move to another community with an unmet need for Police Officers.
Safety Enforcers, or government officials, will be elected and held accountable by residents who place them in charge of enforcing laws which protect residents from each other and from outside threats.
Banks are one of the entities bound to abide by these laws that protect customers from theft.
The value, and therefore the price, of each good or service is determined strictly by the need in the community and not by any centrally planned amount. Prices develop organically and are subject to change. If the Barber charges 5 sheckels for a haircut but gets no customers because patrons like the Lawyer and Fisherman have determined it is too expensive. The Lawyer makes 12 sheckels per day and the Fisherman makes 5 sheckels per day and they determine that 3 sheckels for a hair cut is a good deal. The Barber has no choice but to lower his price to 3 sheckels. Seeing the lower price, the Lawyer and Fisherman can stop poorly cutting their own hair and decide pay for the service once again. The amount of sheckels each man receives is based on how difficult the occupation is to perform and how important the job is to the community.
At a very basic level this is an example of humanity living in a free market economic system under the protection of laws overseen and enforced by a democratically elected government. Next, I will demonstrate how one occupation provides its services.
There are two Doctors who provide all of the health care services in the community. The occupation is one of the most advanced, requiring years of study and apprenticeship; consequently, the work is difficult but it pays handsomely. On average, a Doctor will make 15 sheckels per day. The pay can vary widely because each service costs a different amount and there are periods of time like the winter when there are more sick people visiting him.
Prices for all services are written in a book and the most common services are displayed on a giant chalk board above the Doctor's desk at his office downtown.
Regular physical evaluations are common and only cost 1 sheckel for the 15 minute visit. Every service is paid for out of pocket after the visit with no financial institution facilitating the transaction. If a person is unable to pay for a service the customer has the option of asking the Doctor to provide the service for free or for a reduced amount. The Doctor is under no obligation by the community or the Safety Enforcers to provide a service for which he is not compensated. When asked why he will not perform his services for free he retorts, "Must you provide your expertly crafted _____ to me for free?"
When the Doctor provides a service to a resident in exchange for money it is no different than the Lawyer purchasing fish from the General Store Owner. The General Store Owner is not obligated to give the Lawyer the fish for free, but only for the price that is determined in the marketplace, which is based on the need for fish in the community and the difficulty in obtaining the fish from the sea. In the same way the Doctor is not obligated to fix the Lawyer's broken arm for free, but instead charges him 9 sheckels, the advertised price, which is based on the need to fix broken arms in the community and the difficulty of providing such a service.
In order to provide better services the Doctor must learn how to improve his services. This involves studying new subjects and investing in new technology. One area of improvement the Doctor is determined to focus on is infant mortality. He has learned of a new technique for delivering babies that increases the chance of survival and reduces pain for the mother. Using the new method will require hours of study and an investment in a new machine that costs 85 sheckels. To compensate for the improved baby delivery, the Doctor increases the price for that service from 20 to 22 sheckels.
Over time other improvements are made that cause an increase in prices but residents do not complain because have never been healthier. Meanwhile, the rest of the community has seen an improvement in their own occupations because of advances in technology and an increase in the population. Residents pay more for shovels from the General Store Owner because the new model he carries is made with a metal that makes the shovel last twice as long as the older models. The overall standard of living has increased so while prices have increased so have the quality of goods and services.
The rate of the prices charged by the Doctor have outpaced prices for other goods and services because of a more rapid investment in technology and a high level of need in the community. While most in the community are still able to afford the basic services like checkups, fixing broken bones, and medicine by paying out of pocket at the end of a visit, there are some services like baby delivery and major surgeries that cost more than what a person can pay at once. The cost of a baby delivery has risen to 65 sheckels and surgeries can be as high as 100 sheckels for life-threatening situations.
Since these large sums are only needed once in a while some members in the community decide to pool some of their monthly pay to a fund that can be used to cover these services when they occur. Pooling the resources transfers the risk of having to pay a high amount at once to a third party entity that can manage the funds, keep track of who is involved, and pay the Doctor at the end of the visit for services rendered. This marks the beginning of the creation of the Health Insurance Proprietor
The Health Insurance Proprietor is just like any other individual in the community. He begins his career wanting to be a Banker but finds there are too many other Bankers and his passion is more for health related issues. When he hears some members of the community are pooling money to pay the Doctor for more advanced emergency services he writes up a plan to start a business. The Health Insurance Proprietor will collect an affordable amount of sheckels from the Fisherman, General Store Owner, Lawyer, and others and pay the Doctor for the expensive service when the need arrives. The Proprietor's business is similar to that of the Bankers in that it keeps some amount in reserves to pay claims while investing the rest in other things.
In order for the Health Insurance Proprietor to stay in business he must successfully collect premiums from participants, invest the money responsibly, and pay for services in a timely manner. The amount of money going toward services must be less than the amount of money being collected by participants. If at any point the cost and volume of expensive services charged by the Doctor exceeds the amount of money collected and reserved for his customers, the Health Insurance Proprietor will have no choice but to go out of business.
To protect himself from going out of business and to ensure that the prices for the insurance can be affordable, the Proprietor develops a conditional underwriting standard. This standard asks a series of questions to the applicant who wants to join the pool that render the applicant eligible for participation. If the applicant has a condition like kidney failure that requires the Proprietor to pay the Doctor 60 sheckels per month but the applicant can only afford 15 sheckels per month in premium then the Proprietor can deny entry into the pool. Agreeing to allow the applicant into the pool would be the equivalent of the Doctor offering his services for free. The Proprietor knows if he must pay the Doctor 60 sheckels per month while only collecting 15 sheckels per month from the customer he will quickly go out of business. And just as the General Store Owner cannot be forced to price his fish lower than what it costs him to obtain the fish from the Fisherman, so the Health Insurance Proprietor is not forced to offer his service for less than what it costs to provide it.
Residents are not demanding the Doctor reduce his prices because they value the service he is providing. What residents want is a means by which they might budget for an unforeseeable medical emergency that costs more than what they can pay at one time. Eventually the automobile business develops its own version of insurance and an Automobile Insurance Proprietor is born. And just as the Doctor still gets paid out of pocket for basic procedures like physical checkups and pain pills and reserves insurance only for very expensive services, so the Auto Mechanic continues to receive out of pocket payments for oil changes and popped tires while reserving insurance payments for major accidents.
An American Health Insurance Company as we know it today is a corporation made up of a CEO who could be considered the initial sole proprietor who has hired employees to act as extensions of himself to handle the thousands of policies he cannot possibly handle on his own. Their collective expertise involves taking small, affordable monthly payments from individuals, and then paying for expensive services listed in a contract when that service is required. This contractual relationship transfers the financial risk from the customer to the insurance company. In order for the insurance company to continue to exist it must collect more premiums than it distributes. To do this is must make sure it is only accepting those into the pool who meet the entry requirements. If the customer would end up getting more benefits than they could possibly pay in over time, the Health Insurance Company has the right to refuse entry into the pool. The customer says, "I am healthy. I will pay X for this plan in exchange for this company Y amount for services should the need arise. I am under no obligation to remain in the plan, and the insurance company must keep me for as long as the terms and conditions indicate in the contract."
The insurance company is not obligated to accept anyone but wants to accept as many as possible so as to have a thriving business with a greater pool of resources. It is not the facilitator of all financial transactions between a doctor and a patient but only those deemed too expensive for a customer to afford all at once at the time the service is provided. The service should not purchased by employers as a tax free benefit but by individuals in the marketplace. The insurance company is not an enemy, a health care provider, the facilitator of all transactions, the determinant of prices charged by doctors, nor are they to be taken for granted. They are to be perceived and treated like any other business in the free marketplace.
At one time private insurance companies in America resembled the Health Insurance Proprietor of our theoretical town. Like auto insurance companies of today it only paid for very expensive health care services. When employers started giving health insurance as a tax free benefit it took it off the private market, distorting the price. When insurance companies became the facilitators of all health related transactions, not just the expensive ones, it became equated with health care services, and thus a gatekeeper between you and the doctor. When the Affordable Care Act went into effect it kept the insurance company in this role instead of bringing it back to the Health Insurance Proprietor is had always meant to be.
The insurance company is not obligated to accept anyone but wants to accept as many as possible so as to have a thriving business with a greater pool of resources. It is not the facilitator of all financial transactions between a doctor and a patient but only those deemed too expensive for a customer to afford all at once at the time the service is provided. The service should not purchased by employers as a tax free benefit but by individuals in the marketplace. The insurance company is not an enemy, a health care provider, the facilitator of all transactions, the determinant of prices charged by doctors, nor are they to be taken for granted. They are to be perceived and treated like any other business in the free marketplace.
At one time private insurance companies in America resembled the Health Insurance Proprietor of our theoretical town. Like auto insurance companies of today it only paid for very expensive health care services. When employers started giving health insurance as a tax free benefit it took it off the private market, distorting the price. When insurance companies became the facilitators of all health related transactions, not just the expensive ones, it became equated with health care services, and thus a gatekeeper between you and the doctor. When the Affordable Care Act went into effect it kept the insurance company in this role instead of bringing it back to the Health Insurance Proprietor is had always meant to be.
In 2014 the Affordable Care Act took effect. Here is what it has done:
It forces the Health Insurance Proprietor to accept every applicant.
It tells the Proprietor what services it must cover.
It maintains the status of the Proprietor as the facilitator of the most basic services that should be paid for out of pocket.
It continues to favor tax-free employer payments as the main method of purchase.
It equates the Doctor with a Health Insurance Proprietor under the term "health care."
It blames the Proprietor for the high prices charged by the Doctor.
It takes the occupation of the Health Insurance Proprietor for granted, demonizes it, then tells it what to do.
By "It" I mean the Safety Enforcers - the elected officials - the lawmakers - who will fine the Proprietor for failure to comply with its demands until it is fined into bankruptcy. This is health care reform in the United States.
The act gives the Safety Enforcers who know nothing about the Health Insurance Proprietor or the Doctor the authority to determine what services are necessary, what services should cost, how services should be provided.
So when evaluating the pros and cons of the Affordable Care Act, please take into consideration what is actually being debated. If you believe that every American should have access to affordable health care, that is quite a different thing than the Safety Enforcers making the Health Care Proprietor let someone into its pool while also forcing the General Store Owner and Fisherman and Barber to purchase that service from the Proprietor. If you believe that every American does not have the right to affordable health care, that is quite different than giving preferential tax treatment to employers who purchase plans from the Health Insurance Proprietor whose role has drifted from risk pool manager to service denier and premium hiker.
Further, if a healthy society is not a desirable goal because a proposed solution to fix the system contains allegedly socialist undertones, perhaps having an educated society is too socialist and therefore the public school system as we know it should be completely privatized as it was before the adoption of a national public school system. Under that old system, only the rich could afford a quality education. Can you imagine if we had that system today and some in the government wanted to take some of the richer people's money to educate the public? The move could be perceived as too radical so its proponents would settle for a hybrid system where private teachers would be forced to teach some quota of poor students while also forcing the parents of poor students to attend those classes.
Further, if a healthy society is not a desirable goal because a proposed solution to fix the system contains allegedly socialist undertones, perhaps having an educated society is too socialist and therefore the public school system as we know it should be completely privatized as it was before the adoption of a national public school system. Under that old system, only the rich could afford a quality education. Can you imagine if we had that system today and some in the government wanted to take some of the richer people's money to educate the public? The move could be perceived as too radical so its proponents would settle for a hybrid system where private teachers would be forced to teach some quota of poor students while also forcing the parents of poor students to attend those classes.
These are the grounds on which the debate should have taken place in Washington D.C. Instead, politicians decided to accept the current delivery system while forcing everyone involved to do something at the point of a gun. Employers have to offer minimum coverage or pay a penalty, individuals have to enroll or pay a tax, insurance companies have to cover everyone regardless of medical condition or pay a fine, and states have to provide exchanges or lose Medicaid funding. And why? How did the purchase of a service from a doctor turn into fining and mandating everyone do something? To make matters worse the price of services are still high and the cost of insurance is still high.
Current news stories updating the public on the Act are providing evidence for or against the Act within the context of that poor debate and poor solution. So when we get angry about insurance companies dropping plans because of the mandates or individuals paying higher premiums than before we are getting angry about the wrong things!
In spite of this criticism, the Affordable Care Act has accomplished what it set out to do. It has forced the Health Insurance Proprietor to accept everyone into its pool of customers regardless of the cost. It has also made the previously uninsured Fisherman and Barber get plans at an income-adjusted monthly price. Congratulations Washington! The Safety Enforcers are now intimately involved in the health care delivery system because they force everyone to participate while taking a small amount of money from the income of the Lawyer and redistribute it to the Fisherman and Barbers to make their insurance plan cheaper.
In order to reform something you must first identify the real problem. Only by stripping away the layers of complexity can this be achieved. In the end the market favors private health care, private health insurance companies with individuals making the choices, not the government. The social impacts and solutions to the problem of pre-existing conditions can be addressed concurrently with the private solution. If a society believes that the need for public health is similar to the need for public education, the debate must still go back to basic principles and its merits should be debated in a bi-partisan way with true leadership that brings everyone together.
Current news stories updating the public on the Act are providing evidence for or against the Act within the context of that poor debate and poor solution. So when we get angry about insurance companies dropping plans because of the mandates or individuals paying higher premiums than before we are getting angry about the wrong things!
In spite of this criticism, the Affordable Care Act has accomplished what it set out to do. It has forced the Health Insurance Proprietor to accept everyone into its pool of customers regardless of the cost. It has also made the previously uninsured Fisherman and Barber get plans at an income-adjusted monthly price. Congratulations Washington! The Safety Enforcers are now intimately involved in the health care delivery system because they force everyone to participate while taking a small amount of money from the income of the Lawyer and redistribute it to the Fisherman and Barbers to make their insurance plan cheaper.
In order to reform something you must first identify the real problem. Only by stripping away the layers of complexity can this be achieved. In the end the market favors private health care, private health insurance companies with individuals making the choices, not the government. The social impacts and solutions to the problem of pre-existing conditions can be addressed concurrently with the private solution. If a society believes that the need for public health is similar to the need for public education, the debate must still go back to basic principles and its merits should be debated in a bi-partisan way with true leadership that brings everyone together.
March 7, 2014
Justifying the Minimum Wage
President Obama has been touring the country trying to garner public support for his push to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10/hour and peg it to inflation. He issued an executive order raising the minimum wage for federal contractors; now he wants to extend the increase nationally. The tour is an attempt to simultaneously get the public to pressure their federal representatives to vote this way while encouraging states to increase their own minimum wage laws.
His most recent speech took place on March 5, 2014 at Central Connecticut State University. One line from this speech bothered me:
"...what we also believe is that nobody who works full-time should ever have to raise a family in poverty. That violates a basic sense of who we are."
To me, poverty means the state of existence where one is incapable of providing the necessary means of one's own existence according to the standards naturally established in the society in which one finds oneself, and where the shortcoming occurs either due to hardship, lack of effort, or opportunity.
To go a little deeper, human beings can only continue to exist if they have the necessary means of providing their own sustenance and shelter. At the most basic level, a Native American living in pre-colonial America lived off of the land, didn't own property, and required very little to survive. Today, that person can still exist in such a manner but most of us would consider that an unacceptable and poverty-stricken state of existence because the standard of living has changed over time.
Notice I say the standard of living has changed and I did not say it has increased. I say this because our sense of what is an acceptable standard of living is relative to what is happening around us right now. We no longer think of living in the woods in a hut without running water, electricity, or health insurance as an acceptable lifestyle even though on a welfare check that kind of existence would be much better than the life of a pre-colonial Native American.
Today, we have an expectation that every person in the US should be able to live in a shelter with at least a small amount of money to purchase bare necessities. Even the most conservative among us agree to this in principle by the laws which are not only NOT repealed, but continue to be funded. These programs are Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, welfare, food stamps, freecare (health), etc.
I was bothered by the line in Obama's speech because if you take his message to the extreme he is really saying that any person who performs any work for 40 hours per week should be given the amount of money deemed by society to be at or above a basic standard of existence.
This is an excellent question for all of us - Do we believe that every person born in this country deserves to make at least $11,670 regardless of the quality or need for the work they are doing? The figure is based on 100 percent federal poverty level figures for an individual in 2014 in Washington DC and the 48 contiguous states in the US. link: http://familiesusa.org/product/federal-poverty-guidelines
As of this date Americans have said "yes." We have agreed that if a person cannot work because of an injury or illness or they cheat the system they will be paid a welfare check equal to $11,670 per year. We have also agreed that if you are employed full time you will be paid at least $15,080. This is based on the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr.
Is it possible to support a minimum wage and at the same time agree with Obama's statement that any work for 40 hours should be at or above poverty?
His most recent speech took place on March 5, 2014 at Central Connecticut State University. One line from this speech bothered me:
"...what we also believe is that nobody who works full-time should ever have to raise a family in poverty. That violates a basic sense of who we are."
To me, poverty means the state of existence where one is incapable of providing the necessary means of one's own existence according to the standards naturally established in the society in which one finds oneself, and where the shortcoming occurs either due to hardship, lack of effort, or opportunity.
To go a little deeper, human beings can only continue to exist if they have the necessary means of providing their own sustenance and shelter. At the most basic level, a Native American living in pre-colonial America lived off of the land, didn't own property, and required very little to survive. Today, that person can still exist in such a manner but most of us would consider that an unacceptable and poverty-stricken state of existence because the standard of living has changed over time.
Notice I say the standard of living has changed and I did not say it has increased. I say this because our sense of what is an acceptable standard of living is relative to what is happening around us right now. We no longer think of living in the woods in a hut without running water, electricity, or health insurance as an acceptable lifestyle even though on a welfare check that kind of existence would be much better than the life of a pre-colonial Native American.
Today, we have an expectation that every person in the US should be able to live in a shelter with at least a small amount of money to purchase bare necessities. Even the most conservative among us agree to this in principle by the laws which are not only NOT repealed, but continue to be funded. These programs are Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, welfare, food stamps, freecare (health), etc.
I was bothered by the line in Obama's speech because if you take his message to the extreme he is really saying that any person who performs any work for 40 hours per week should be given the amount of money deemed by society to be at or above a basic standard of existence.
This is an excellent question for all of us - Do we believe that every person born in this country deserves to make at least $11,670 regardless of the quality or need for the work they are doing? The figure is based on 100 percent federal poverty level figures for an individual in 2014 in Washington DC and the 48 contiguous states in the US. link: http://familiesusa.org/product/federal-poverty-guidelines
As of this date Americans have said "yes." We have agreed that if a person cannot work because of an injury or illness or they cheat the system they will be paid a welfare check equal to $11,670 per year. We have also agreed that if you are employed full time you will be paid at least $15,080. This is based on the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr.
Is it possible to support a minimum wage and at the same time agree with Obama's statement that any work for 40 hours should be at or above poverty?
December 16, 2013
Two Headed Monster
Author Peter Schweizer has written a book called “Extortion”
in which he sheds light on the “sellers of influence” in American
politics. Lobbyists and big business is
criticized for its influence on the political system. Perhaps they wouldn’t be as effective if
those selling the influence were not able to advertise for it so easily.
When certain laws get created they can be intentionally written
with confusing language. Industry
leaders who would be impacted by these laws are forced to work with lawmakers
to understand the bills. Lots of money
is made in this process.
The author points to PACs as a major problem in this
country. They are the political action
committees that collect campaign contributions.
Leadership PACs are one type of these groups. They are essentially personal expense accounts. Congressmen use them for golf, pro sports
tickets, vacations, or whatever else they want.
If a certain industry would be strongly affected by a
certain bill, a member of a company might visit a congressman with influence on
the legislation. The politician might
ask for a donation to their PAC in exchange for an outcome that would favor
that businesss.
It’s all extremely shady.
When you combine this kind of backroom dealing with NSA spying
revelations, government shutdowns, botched healthcare rollouts, near war with
Syria, status quo with the tax code, no immigration reform, (the list goes on),
Washington starts to look like a two headed beast arguing with itself, playing
the American people like puppets on a string.
I drew this picture to represent how I perceive Washington
politics at the moment.
December 9, 2013
NSA FOIA Request Denial
Two major stories came out this weekend regarding the growing threat of a police state in the USA. One article reports that 8 of the most prominent technology companies are responding to recent findings of NSA surveillance with a petition to the President and Congress to overhaul spying practices:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/google-apple-and-microsoft-agree-nsa-spying-undermines-freedom/282143/
Another story, which was on the cover of USA today this morning, says that police departments in 33 states are harvesting cell phone tower data in much the same way the NSA is doing. After all, if the Feds are doing it, why can't they?
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/08/cellphone-data-spying-nsa-police/3902809/
In local news, I had the privilege of receiving a denial letter from the NSA regarding my recent request for disclosure on what information the NSA was collecting about me. Page 2 says my request was denied because of statutes and executive orders which prevent the release of any records (which may or may not exist) that could be used in the interest of national defense.
I only give them a break insofar as sending me that amount of information would be difficult. How does one send "records of all social network activity." Would they print it out and send boxes of paper records on a truck? Would they give me a thumb drive with gigabytes of code?
I sent them the request out of principle to show them that I, along with many other Americans, are concerned that the mass harvesting and storage of personal information can lead to an invasion of privacy. Once this information gets into the wrong hands it can create a police state like history has never seen.
Link to the imgur album with the NSA response:
http://imgur.com/a/yHnLx
First page here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/google-apple-and-microsoft-agree-nsa-spying-undermines-freedom/282143/
Another story, which was on the cover of USA today this morning, says that police departments in 33 states are harvesting cell phone tower data in much the same way the NSA is doing. After all, if the Feds are doing it, why can't they?
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/08/cellphone-data-spying-nsa-police/3902809/
In local news, I had the privilege of receiving a denial letter from the NSA regarding my recent request for disclosure on what information the NSA was collecting about me. Page 2 says my request was denied because of statutes and executive orders which prevent the release of any records (which may or may not exist) that could be used in the interest of national defense.
I only give them a break insofar as sending me that amount of information would be difficult. How does one send "records of all social network activity." Would they print it out and send boxes of paper records on a truck? Would they give me a thumb drive with gigabytes of code?
I sent them the request out of principle to show them that I, along with many other Americans, are concerned that the mass harvesting and storage of personal information can lead to an invasion of privacy. Once this information gets into the wrong hands it can create a police state like history has never seen.
Link to the imgur album with the NSA response:
http://imgur.com/a/yHnLx
First page here:
November 11, 2013
Endless Q & A Over the Affordable Care Act
NPR's Julie Rovner has done an excellent job covering the Affordable Care Act to the point where I would wager she knows more about the ACA than many members of Congress. The amount of coverage dedicated to explaining the ACA has been helpful to those affected by the law, but it goes to show how complex the law is.
And does it need to be this complex? Listening to Morning Edition this morning, I heard David Greene asking listener questions to Ms. Rovner about the ACA. The interview can be heard here:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/11/11/243987330/self-employed-and-with-lots-of-questions-about-health-care
Questions came from small business owners who are often caught between a subsidy and a higher priced plan. I couldn't help but think as I was listening to the answers: Does it need to be this hard?
How messed up is our health care system that instead of focusing on improving the cost of care or the quality of the services we are putting all of our effort into the financial intermediaries between us and the providers of the services?
If the cost of health care services (not insurance) was lower to begin with there would be less of a need for insurance companies to play such a significant role in the process. So how can we get the cost of care down?
The President and proponents of the ACA have paid some attention to the cost of care but have instead focused most of their efforts on getting people into insurance plans - public or private, which has increased the role of insurance companies without putting enough pressure on the cost of services. I suppose the President wants to worry about that later.
What are the possible ways of reducing the cost of care?
1. Federal laws dictating prices for each procedure at the provider level
2. Federal laws dictating reimbursements at the reimbursement level
3. Reduction in demand from the consumer level
4. Voluntary proactive demand for price reduction from consumers
5. Voluntary proactive demand for price reduction from insurers
It would be too difficult at this time to get back to a time when health insurance was only used for catastrophic purposes. We could get there eventually. What I would propose first would be much simpler. We should stop subsidizing health care providers with tax dollars and no health care plan should receive favorable tax treatment. Getting rid of favorable tax treatment would eliminate the incentive for employees to request plans from their employers. Insurance plans would then have to compete on a private marketplace in the same way car insurance plans do.
Over time the competitive insurance marketplace would help to keep the cost of services down. At that point we could explore making plans more catastrophic with high deductible health savings accounts paying for less expensive services.
_________________________________________________________________________
The goal of the ACA appears to be getting people into insurance plans by accepting most of the current system as non-negotiable. To get people into plans the government is pointing a gun at insurers saying they must offer a minimum plan that doesn't max out and one where they cannot turn down applicants for pre-existing conditions. There is a gun to the head of the states to expand medicaid to cover the poor. There is a gun to the head of consumers to buy insurance or else pay a tax. There is a gun to the head of the taxpayer saying they must subsidize plans for those making too much for medicaid.
The administration has decided that health care is too necessary, health insurance is too expensive, and not enough of the population have access to it. Hmmm this is starting to sound like the necessity of public education, something which was at one time totally privatized. When having an educated population became a national priority public schools were created. Hmmmm...............
And does it need to be this complex? Listening to Morning Edition this morning, I heard David Greene asking listener questions to Ms. Rovner about the ACA. The interview can be heard here:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/11/11/243987330/self-employed-and-with-lots-of-questions-about-health-care
Questions came from small business owners who are often caught between a subsidy and a higher priced plan. I couldn't help but think as I was listening to the answers: Does it need to be this hard?
How messed up is our health care system that instead of focusing on improving the cost of care or the quality of the services we are putting all of our effort into the financial intermediaries between us and the providers of the services?
If the cost of health care services (not insurance) was lower to begin with there would be less of a need for insurance companies to play such a significant role in the process. So how can we get the cost of care down?
The President and proponents of the ACA have paid some attention to the cost of care but have instead focused most of their efforts on getting people into insurance plans - public or private, which has increased the role of insurance companies without putting enough pressure on the cost of services. I suppose the President wants to worry about that later.
What are the possible ways of reducing the cost of care?
1. Federal laws dictating prices for each procedure at the provider level
2. Federal laws dictating reimbursements at the reimbursement level
3. Reduction in demand from the consumer level
4. Voluntary proactive demand for price reduction from consumers
5. Voluntary proactive demand for price reduction from insurers
It would be too difficult at this time to get back to a time when health insurance was only used for catastrophic purposes. We could get there eventually. What I would propose first would be much simpler. We should stop subsidizing health care providers with tax dollars and no health care plan should receive favorable tax treatment. Getting rid of favorable tax treatment would eliminate the incentive for employees to request plans from their employers. Insurance plans would then have to compete on a private marketplace in the same way car insurance plans do.
Over time the competitive insurance marketplace would help to keep the cost of services down. At that point we could explore making plans more catastrophic with high deductible health savings accounts paying for less expensive services.
_________________________________________________________________________
The goal of the ACA appears to be getting people into insurance plans by accepting most of the current system as non-negotiable. To get people into plans the government is pointing a gun at insurers saying they must offer a minimum plan that doesn't max out and one where they cannot turn down applicants for pre-existing conditions. There is a gun to the head of the states to expand medicaid to cover the poor. There is a gun to the head of consumers to buy insurance or else pay a tax. There is a gun to the head of the taxpayer saying they must subsidize plans for those making too much for medicaid.
The administration has decided that health care is too necessary, health insurance is too expensive, and not enough of the population have access to it. Hmmm this is starting to sound like the necessity of public education, something which was at one time totally privatized. When having an educated population became a national priority public schools were created. Hmmmm...............
November 3, 2013
Health Care Reform by "Professor" Jamison
Various US Presidents have tried to reform health care in the United States. President Obama succeeded in passing the Affordable Care Act. In this video I explain why I believe the Affordable Care Act will not fix this country's health care problems.
October 25, 2013
NSA Spying
Day after day there are new revelations of NSA spying. The reach of the NSA extends beyond the United States into even the private phone lines of foreign diplomats. Those in positions of power who defend the overreach of the seemingly unregulated spy organization say that every government participates in spying, that information obtained is limited to phone numbers and times, that it has been successful in thwarting terrorist attacks, and that every day Americans are not the subject of this massive collection.
The number and type of stories being reported on a daily basis from all over the world suggest otherwise. The NSA is the product of the War on Terror. It is able to operate its spying network in the name of keeping American's safe. What it is doing has been made possible by FISA and its subsequent amendments.
The NSA needs to be investigated more thoroughly by Congress to make sure it is kept in check from unnecessary invasions of privacy.
Here are some reasons why the NSA is not being investigated:
- One job of government is to protect its citizens from domestic and international threats. A government will use whatever tools it has at its disposal to accomplish this task. It just so happens that in the information age people are connected together digitally, making it easier for the public to obtain information, but also easier for those in power to spy.
- In order to operate effectively, law enforcement agencies and the military require a certain level of secrecy. If their methods of gathering intelligence were completely transparent it would be impossible to act preemptively against threats to security.
- Laws and amendments passed during the Bush administration and not overturned by the Obama administration are perpetuated by the Obama administration. Republicans have a reputation for being hawkish when it comes to national security, but even liberals know the value of intelligence gathering. Look how outspoken a defender of the NSA is Democrat California Senator Dianne Feinstein.
- No government official wants to give Edward Snowden the glory when it is forced to admit wrongdoing.
There are other reasons why the NSA has not been officially held accountable for its overreach. It is extremely important for this to be addressed because if any government agency is able to harvest a large scale of data on the habits of it citizens, if a tyrant gets into power it could be just a serious a threat as the government taking away guns by force.
The number and type of stories being reported on a daily basis from all over the world suggest otherwise. The NSA is the product of the War on Terror. It is able to operate its spying network in the name of keeping American's safe. What it is doing has been made possible by FISA and its subsequent amendments.
The NSA needs to be investigated more thoroughly by Congress to make sure it is kept in check from unnecessary invasions of privacy.
Here are some reasons why the NSA is not being investigated:
- One job of government is to protect its citizens from domestic and international threats. A government will use whatever tools it has at its disposal to accomplish this task. It just so happens that in the information age people are connected together digitally, making it easier for the public to obtain information, but also easier for those in power to spy.
- In order to operate effectively, law enforcement agencies and the military require a certain level of secrecy. If their methods of gathering intelligence were completely transparent it would be impossible to act preemptively against threats to security.
- Laws and amendments passed during the Bush administration and not overturned by the Obama administration are perpetuated by the Obama administration. Republicans have a reputation for being hawkish when it comes to national security, but even liberals know the value of intelligence gathering. Look how outspoken a defender of the NSA is Democrat California Senator Dianne Feinstein.
- No government official wants to give Edward Snowden the glory when it is forced to admit wrongdoing.
There are other reasons why the NSA has not been officially held accountable for its overreach. It is extremely important for this to be addressed because if any government agency is able to harvest a large scale of data on the habits of it citizens, if a tyrant gets into power it could be just a serious a threat as the government taking away guns by force.
August 22, 2013
Foreign Military Aid
Egypt has dominated the headlines for the past two weeks since the military, with the support of many in the population, overthrew the democratically elected government headed by Mohamed Morsi. The takeover was a coup d'etat, but the US will not label it as such because to do so would cause it to cut off aid to the country.
Aid to Egypt is what got me more interested in the story. I was listening to a radio story by journalist Julia Simon on August 8th. She wrote an article titled, "Egypt May Not Need Fighter Jets, But The U.S. Keeps Sending Them Anyway." What caught my attention was the first few lines:
"Every year, the U.S. Congress appropriates more than $1 billion in military aid to Egypt. But that money never gets to Egypt. It goes to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then to a trust fund at the Treasury and, finally, out to U.S. military contractors that make the tanks and fighter jets that ultimately get sent to Egypt."(1)
What? The money never gets to Egypt? Egypt gets the money in the form of weapons made by US contractors. These contractors are making weapons Egypt does not even need and possibly may never use. The lobbying done by these contractors and the Congressmen who authorize the funds could be the subject of another post, but I am more interested in the use of foreign military aid and foreign aid in general.
After researching some US Government websites I found out that the United States provides $5.5 billion annually (FY 2011) to foreign military aid. The aid gets scattered around the globe with countries like Colombia getting $51 million and Tonga getting $600,000. The largest share of the pie is shared by five countries who make up over 90%:
- $3,000,000,000 Israel
- $1,300,000,000 Egypt
- $300,000,000 Jordan
- $296,000,000 Pakistan
- $100,000,000 Lebanon (2)
The current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan dwarf the above mentioned figures when accounting for the total amount of military investment since the start of the wars - Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. In FY 2011, Afghanistan received $10.3 billion in military aid and Iraq got $1 billion.
Many questions could be raised from these figures. We could discuss the Israel-Palestine problem, the conflict of supporting a dubious government in Pakistan, or the need for the US to support a nation like Lebanon which has supported terrorist acts against Israel through Hezbollah. But the question I would like to raise is the legitimacy of devoting this much money to foreign nations while the US is heavily in debt. $5.5 billion of military aid to which the US has committed is only a smaller fraction of the larger $49.5 billion in combined economic, military, and humanitarian aid. (3)
The United States uses these funds to influence itself around the world. As a promoter of free market capitalism it wants to keep trade routes open; priding itself as having the longest running constitution it wants to promote democracy; and having experienced its own social problems, it feels compelled to assist other nations less fortunate. In the age of imperialism nations fought battles to prove who was mightier. Today, nations prefer to settle their differences diplomatically, using a combination of carrots and sticks that often take the form of foreign aid.
There is an argument to be made for paying off Egypt to keep the Suez Canal open. Such a trade route is economically valuable. It is also strategically significant since it provides naval vessels access to the Persian Gulf. A sudden conflict with an unpredictable nation like Iran would require access through the Red Sea. And Egypt has become an ally in our support of Israel against its many Arab and Muslim enemies in the region.
But as Julia Simon wrote in her article, not all of the aid is being well spent. The military aid going to Egypt never makes it there. I bet much of the aid we see going to the top 90% is not being spent well either. How can our lawmakers, with good conscience, continue to authorize the disbursement of these funds, which come strictly from individual taxpayers and businesses in America, when the money is not well spent and when we are running a huge national budget deficit?
Congress is just now talking about curtailing the amount of military aid to Egypt in light of the new government crackdowns on peaceful protesters. I hope this aid gets cut off completely so it can be put to better use at home. Furthermore, I hope it sheds light on the fortune being shipped overseas while we have many areas in which to invest at home.
(1) http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/08/08/209878158/egypt-may-not-need-fighter-jets-but-u-s-keeps-sending-them-anyway
(2) http://www.state.gov/t/pm/ppa/sat/c14560.htm
(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_aid
April 23, 2013
Gov. Patrick's Intro to Obama Speech at Interfaith Memorial Service
Last Thursday night I was listening to live coverage of the President's speech at the interfaith memorial service in Boston that followed last Monday's Marathon bombings. Governor Deval Patrick introduced the President with a list of things he is thankful for. The most impressive aspect of the speech this second half:
"...And I am thankful, maybe most especially, for the countless numbers of people in this proud City and this storied Commonwealth who, in the aftermath of such senseless violence, let their first instinct be kindness. In a dark hour, so many of you showed so many of us that 'darkness cannot drive out darkness,' as Dr. (Martin Luther) King said. 'Only light can do that.'
"How very strange that the cowardice unleashed on us should come on Marathon day, on Patriots’ Day, a day that marks both the unofficial end of our long winter hibernation and the first battle of the American Revolution. And just as we are taught at times like this not to lose touch with our spiritual faith, let us also not lose touch with our civic faith.
"Massachusetts invented America. And America is not organized the way countries are usually organized. We are not organized around a common language or religion or even culture. We are organized around a handful of civic ideals. And we have defined those ideals, through time and through struggle, as equality, opportunity, freedom and fair play.
"An attack on a civic ritual like the Marathon, especially on Patriots’ Day, is an attack on those values. And just as we cannot permit darkness and hate to triumph over our spiritual faith, so we must not permit darkness and hate to triumph over our civic faith. That cannot happen. And it will not.
"So, we will recover and repair. We will grieve our losses and heal. We will rise, and we will endure. We will have accountability, without vengeance. Vigilance, without fear.And we will remember, I hope and pray, long after the buzz of Boylston Street is back and the media has turned its attention elsewhere, that the grace this tragedy exposed is the best of who we are..."
Then he introduced the President. I have never listened to a speech by the Governor before, but this was profound. Well done.
http://www.boston.com/news/source/2013/04/text_of_governo.html
"...And I am thankful, maybe most especially, for the countless numbers of people in this proud City and this storied Commonwealth who, in the aftermath of such senseless violence, let their first instinct be kindness. In a dark hour, so many of you showed so many of us that 'darkness cannot drive out darkness,' as Dr. (Martin Luther) King said. 'Only light can do that.'
"How very strange that the cowardice unleashed on us should come on Marathon day, on Patriots’ Day, a day that marks both the unofficial end of our long winter hibernation and the first battle of the American Revolution. And just as we are taught at times like this not to lose touch with our spiritual faith, let us also not lose touch with our civic faith.
"Massachusetts invented America. And America is not organized the way countries are usually organized. We are not organized around a common language or religion or even culture. We are organized around a handful of civic ideals. And we have defined those ideals, through time and through struggle, as equality, opportunity, freedom and fair play.
"An attack on a civic ritual like the Marathon, especially on Patriots’ Day, is an attack on those values. And just as we cannot permit darkness and hate to triumph over our spiritual faith, so we must not permit darkness and hate to triumph over our civic faith. That cannot happen. And it will not.
"So, we will recover and repair. We will grieve our losses and heal. We will rise, and we will endure. We will have accountability, without vengeance. Vigilance, without fear.And we will remember, I hope and pray, long after the buzz of Boylston Street is back and the media has turned its attention elsewhere, that the grace this tragedy exposed is the best of who we are..."
Then he introduced the President. I have never listened to a speech by the Governor before, but this was profound. Well done.
http://www.boston.com/news/source/2013/04/text_of_governo.html
September 25, 2012
Mass 2012 Ballot Questions
In addition to the various candidates running for office this election season, Mass residents will be voting on three state ballot questions on November 6th. If you haven't gotten the book with the info yet it looks like this:
The first glance at the cover looked boring so I didn't bother with it until it was the only thing to read on the table. There are three pretty interesting measures up for a vote.
1. A law that would make vehicle diagnostic and repair information available to everyone, including individual consumers and third party repair shops. I guess right now the manufacturers keep that proprietary at the dealerships, probably because it gives them an edge when it comes to certain repairs.
2. An assisted suicide bill. It would let a physician administer an end of life drug as long as the patient met certain criteria like 6-months to live, terminal illness, etc. There would be a process to it. It wouldn't be like a drive through clinic!
3. Medical marijuana. Currently there is only one type of medical marijuana available and that's a pill called Marinol. This bill allow dispensaries like those seen on that National Geographic show, American Weed, to provide 60 day supplies to treat certain chronic illnesses like AIDS and MS.
The booklet has law summaries, brief pro and con arguments, then the boring ass full text of the whole bill.
I will use this opportunity to praise our country for the kind of questions we are debating while taking a jab at some of the backward cultures on the other side of the planet.
The drama created by the political campaigns of those running for office this year, exacerbated by the media, are eye-rollingly frustrating. But aside from the name calling there are real issues being debated. Our presidential candidates are debating real issues like budgets, the economy, and health care reform. Local governments are giving citizens the opportunity to vote on vehicle repair laws and assisted suicide. This is a model of what modern industrialized nations are supposed to be doing!
Meanwhile in Pakistan, hordes of people with nothing else to do are protesting in the streets, flipping cars, lighting fires, destroying property, all because some guy with a studio in California dissed some icon they respect? I feel like telling them, "Hey, why don't you get back to your office and make something instead of destroying property that doesn't belong to you. Oh, and grow up. I used to get mad when someone made fun of my dad but I'm not 7 anymore."
The first glance at the cover looked boring so I didn't bother with it until it was the only thing to read on the table. There are three pretty interesting measures up for a vote.
1. A law that would make vehicle diagnostic and repair information available to everyone, including individual consumers and third party repair shops. I guess right now the manufacturers keep that proprietary at the dealerships, probably because it gives them an edge when it comes to certain repairs.
2. An assisted suicide bill. It would let a physician administer an end of life drug as long as the patient met certain criteria like 6-months to live, terminal illness, etc. There would be a process to it. It wouldn't be like a drive through clinic!
3. Medical marijuana. Currently there is only one type of medical marijuana available and that's a pill called Marinol. This bill allow dispensaries like those seen on that National Geographic show, American Weed, to provide 60 day supplies to treat certain chronic illnesses like AIDS and MS.
The booklet has law summaries, brief pro and con arguments, then the boring ass full text of the whole bill.
I will use this opportunity to praise our country for the kind of questions we are debating while taking a jab at some of the backward cultures on the other side of the planet.
The drama created by the political campaigns of those running for office this year, exacerbated by the media, are eye-rollingly frustrating. But aside from the name calling there are real issues being debated. Our presidential candidates are debating real issues like budgets, the economy, and health care reform. Local governments are giving citizens the opportunity to vote on vehicle repair laws and assisted suicide. This is a model of what modern industrialized nations are supposed to be doing!
Meanwhile in Pakistan, hordes of people with nothing else to do are protesting in the streets, flipping cars, lighting fires, destroying property, all because some guy with a studio in California dissed some icon they respect? I feel like telling them, "Hey, why don't you get back to your office and make something instead of destroying property that doesn't belong to you. Oh, and grow up. I used to get mad when someone made fun of my dad but I'm not 7 anymore."
August 27, 2012
The Harm of the Religious Experience
Intro
In a previous post I defended the
religious experience as valuable to human existence because of the
things it offers to individuals that have no direct, competitive
substitute in secular society. The three greatest benefits of the
religious experience include community, moral teachings, and prayer.
Having all three under the same roof increases the benefit
tremendously because members of the group meet regularly to learn and
practice what is taught.
What cannot be completely described,
what can only be felt, is the reinforcing feelings of peace and
tranquility that result from following what one believes are the
absolute-ly true commandments of a Creator that has one's spiritual
path in his control. Being surrounded by others who believe the
exact same creed with equal conviction enhances the experience.
There are unique groups of religious followers who sacrifice
everything for the good of each other with a long-term focus on
winning the ultimate prize – immortality. The awe it inspires
leads the devout to live in a state of tingly assurance where he
cannot believe the world is missing out on such a glorious,
liberating truth.
Here I will pose a seemingly random
question: Is revelation a reliable means of obtaining knowledge?
The question is not the focus of my
argument but should serve as a general wake up call to those who view
alleged pronouncements from a divine being as heard by someone else
as a legitimate form of learning about anything. After all, what
matters is not what makes us feel peaceful, tranquil, and
liberated, but what is true.
Make no mistake, fundamentalist
monotheists deserve respect for the courage they have to affirm the
truth of their faith in spite of so much secular opposition (1). This argument is focused on the devout follower of a faith and not
the person who inherited the label “Protestant” from their
parents. If someone says they are a Christian, I assume they mean
they believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God, their Savior and
Redeemer, and the one who will come again to judge the living and the
dead.
Religion is not exempt from scrutiny to
determine whether it is true or false. Spiritualists, cafeteria
Catholics, and nominal believers will water down the argument by
claiming religion falls into a separate category that cannot be
evaluated in terms of absolute truth. They say the metaphysical
nature of the subject renders it outside the realm of hard scientific
or historical scrutiny. They say God's decrees are revealed, not
scientifically tested; confirmation is felt, not reasoned to the full
extent; and the coexistence among faiths is preferable to determining
the truth or falsehood of any particular faith.
The focus of this argument is on the
devout, who will be much more offended by criticism because it
attacks the cause to which they have dedicated their existence. They
actually believe their faith is true, something that infuses their
actions with such conviction. Nominalists and spiritualists I hope
will be persuaded to avoid any temptation to further their quest
toward deeper religiosity.
Religious Harm, Micro to Macro
Religious believers have made a
tremendous impact on helping the poor, on promoting peace, standing
for social justice, and many other aspects of human existence.
Having shown some heartfelt appreciation for the religious experience
in my previous post, I would like to now focus on its harm, which
turns out to be greater than the benefit it provides. The criticism
is primarily against Christianity, but because of the similarities
among the major monotheistic religions, the critique applies to them
as well. I argue that the harm of the religious experience has to do
with the damage it does to self esteem, relationships, and politics.
It infects the individual, then two or more individuals, then a
political system.
Intro to Self Esteem – Original
Sin
Religions were started and continue to
flourish because man from the beginning of time has tried to find
answers to philosophical questions like, Who am I, What is
my condition, How can I change, and Where will I go
when I die? Many answers are provided by the major religions,
but the one the major monotheistic religions use as their starting
point is the belief that man is born in a sinful state which
separates him from God. He must follow God's commands if he is to be
set right with God to live a devout life and go to heaven.
Accepting the premise that man is born
sinful is an essential part of the teaching of these faiths. Without
a spiritual problem like sin there is no need for a spiritual
solution. The religions have taken the bigness of space and time,
and contrasted it with the smallness of man, using it to their
advantage to demonstrate the gulf that exists between man and his
grasp of the universe. Over time, man has gained more and more
knowledge, making the gulf smaller and God's job more difficult.
Still, the drum of original sin lives on.
The damage of this central tenet to
one's psyche is obvious. If one is born sinful, one has no ability
to change one's nature. Without God's solution, say the religions,
the rest of man's life is a futile struggle for forgiveness,
redemption, and ethical perfection. As soon as a religion gets a
person to associate one's guilt, bad habits, failures, and passions
to an inherited state of sinfulness over which one has no control but
to obey, the believer has no choice but to accept the prescribed
Atonement.
There is nothing wrong with a great big
divine excuse to behave in a moral way, especially if the belief
system in question is providing peace to the believer. But the
temporary and intermittent relief that the feeling of
forgiveness these faiths provide is completely overshadowed by the
nagging invisible third party that is God hanging over one's
shoulder. Man will continue to struggle with guilt, anger, pride,
and failure even after he has drunk the spiritual medicine of
Atonement because man is not perfect. The difference between the
religious believer and the secularist at this point is that the
secularist is concerned about the big philosophical questions, but is
not so preoccupied with the sin and death part to allow it to be
all-consuming. The secularist does not associate his behavior and
feelings with a sinful nature because to him it's just a myth. But
the religious man has already bought into his religion's spiritual
solution so he will associate his failures with his own spiritual
unworthiness. (insert footnote – this is how cults get members.
the believer has accepted central tenets so moves to a different
congregation that really has the truth). The most harmful
consequence of this internal mental struggle between God's will and
man's is that it reduces man to a groveling servant, willing to do
whatever it takes to obey the commands set before him. Man's natural
need to survive, set goals, and achieve success are hampered by
self-doubt that he is not fulfilling God's will, but instead chasing
after worldly satisfaction.
So let's recap. Man is faced with
metaphysical questions about existence. Answers are provided by
religions that include the sinfulness of man as a central problem.
Man follows the commands of God to get rid of his guilt and live
forever. Man is then the slave of the faith that he follows. What
results is a feeling of peace and forgiveness that are bought at the
expense of what I call “self esteem.”
Self Esteem
Self esteem is a profound psychological
need that establishes the foundation for success. It is a feeling of
self worth. It provides humans with the motivation to move forward
in life against obstacles, and to take pride in success having
achieved one's goals. Unfortunately, “religion is not only
incompatible with self esteem, but actively destroys it by promoting
premises that are against a successful, moral, and happy
life” (2.) The premises religions promote are that man is
sinful from birth, that knowledge is gained by faith and not reason,
and that ethical perfection is the sacrificing of one's self for
others.
Think about everything that a person
must do to overcome the obstacles he faces every day: Hunger,
gravity, inertia, discouragement, sickness, tiredness. In order to
furnish the means of existence and move on into the future, man must
have enough reason to face the obstacles and achieve goals. Man uses
his mind to support his own existence, first by acquiring knowledge
through the senses; using the knowledge to fashion tools to make
food, shelter, and clothing; then establishing a set of short and
long-term goals.
When man is told in the midst of this
ongoing activity that he has a sinful nature that is the cause of his
failures and unhappiness, he begins to doubt himself. The free will
and clean slate he thought he had from birth is a figment of his
imagination. He is told that only by substituting his own goals for
that of the One with the ability to fix his problem of original sin
can he truly achieve happiness. Desperately, he submits. The
feeling of “rightness” with God enters his heart, but the failure
and self-doubt continues, for those teachings are riddled throughout
the texts expounded upon by religious teachers. Man must continue to
exist IN SPITE of his sinful nature because he is never able to
overcome it.
I must emphasize the mental shift that
results from succumbing to the idea of original sin. Until a certain
point in his existence, man has acquired knowledge through the
senses, using his reason to understand the world. Some things are
unexplained, but man presses on, confident that through the same
method used his whole life, he will grow to understand life's
mysteries. Rest is granted, food is harvested, goals are achieved.
All of a sudden, man is told from revelation that his goals are not
correct, that his nature is not what he thought, and that he must
alter his goals and activities to align with a cosmic plan!
Instantly, man spends less time acquiring knowledge empirically and
more time acquiring them through revelation. He constantly doubts
his own conclusions about the world, instead relying on faith, even
when the teachings of the faith do not make reasonable sense.
Man will go through an emotional
rollercoaster on the faith journey, one minute fervently praising the
Lord's name in worship, then another crying in a corner because of
ethical failures. Man will attempt to achieve the goal of ethical
perfection according to the demands of his faith with as much fervor
as he does for his own existence in the worldly realm. But the
ethical goal preached by many faiths is self-sacrifice above all else.
Every believer recognizes the difficulty of this striving toward
ethical perfection eventually because at what point does one stop
thinking about one's self and start thinking about others? Ethical
perfection can only be achieved by self-immolation, which is why
Jesus of Nazareth is held in the highest regard in the Christian
faith. Ethical perfection is a slow path to death.
Relationships
There is no doubt that when an
individual commits his heart and soul to a cause dictated by God that
his relationships with his fellow man will change as well. Have you
ever noticed how an extremely committed believer will try his utmost
to sneak in the topic of spirituality when having a discussion? It
makes perfect sense that a person will want to discuss what they
spend their entire life contemplating. But it's not mere discussions
many are after, it's proselytizing. Love God, love your neighbor,
then convert your neighbor.
When the secularist sits among a group
of friends the conversation is free to grow organically in any
direction. The committed believer, on the other hand, has an agenda
to discuss religion. The believer views humanity in two separate
classes – saved and unsaved. Every interaction with others is an
opportunity to convert another person, to save them from the life of
sin, and bring them into the fold. Constant evangelism is
exhausting. Eventually stubborn friends will be pushed away and the
believer will gravitate exclusively toward those already in the club.
Many faiths preach the believer to
abandon everything for God, even family. In some ways it makes
sense. If the cause to which a person has dedicated himself is
cosmic, sacrificing family is a small price to pay. After all, there
is a whole family of believers welcoming him into their flock. You
might know someone in your own family who has gone to the extreme end
of religious belief and won't talk to anyone in the family that isn't
a part of that belief system.
To be fair, not all religious folk feel
the need to convert their friends and family. But think about the
tendency to lean forever in that direction. If church is attended at
least once per week, prayers are said at least once per day, a bible
study meets once per week, and on top of everything, the person has
committed their mind to the religious cause, refraining from the
discussion would be more difficult than indulging! If one believes
the biggest problem for individuals (extended to humanity) is that
the problem of original sin needs to be addressed, what follows is
the conviction that friends and family will not be truly happy until
they fix that problem. If they don't see it as a problem the
believer will be consciously or unconsciously be making case for it.
Politics
Every human being lives under some form
of political system. A collection of individuals with similar ideals
grant power to a group of leaders into which they entrust the use of
physical force to govern the collection. Laws and guns allow the
leaders to maintain order. Leaders legislate with votes and the
citizens vote in legislators. This is a political system in its most
basic form. Every citizen has a different viewpoint on how society
should operate. It is the clashing of this variety of viewpoints
that make politics extremely complicated.
I concede the point that in its most
abstract principles, the fundamentals of any system of government,
being based in political philosophy, have a metaphysical element that
involves axioms and premises: “We hold these truths to be self
evident”, “We have been endowed by our Creator with inalienable
rights”, “In order to have laws we must understand right and
wrong,” etc. Evangelicals use the term “Judeo-Christian values”
and the 10 Commandments as being foundational to our system of
government in the United States. This is a stretch, but I will
concede that point as well. But the problem with faith influencing
political decisions in its most harmless form, is not the belief that
there is a Creator who has given humans rights, but that there is no
one religious document, some mana from heaven that is agreed upon
worldwide that defines what these rights are and how they are to be
used in a system of secular government.
The complications that arise from using
one particular faith to influence a political system is why systems
of government have evolved over the centuries away from theocracies
toward democracies. Getting religion out of politics frees people
from the shackles every belief system inevitably tries to place on
its unconverted citizenry. Governments function best when they grant
citizens the right to practice their faith within the confines of
their lives while simultaneously separating religious influences in
the political system. No one religion is mandated and none is able
to gain political power to create such a mandate. Separation of
church and state cannot completely stop its religiously devout
citizens from voting.
The best-intentioned, most tolerant
religious people will try to avoid the biases of their faith when
making political decisions. But just like in their relationships
with friends and family, these same individuals will be almost forced
into thinking a certain way because of what is taught and reinforced
with the religious group of which they are apart. It's not even
about brainwashing, though that happens among extremists. It's about
the conclusions that have been reached within each particular faith's
most influential figures and theologians who have something to say
about the issue.
For example, a typical evangelical will
turn on a Christian radio station to listen to a sermon from a well
known preacher. At the top of the hour selected news headlines will
air that have a political bias. A show later that day will be a
family-oriented program that will discuss how certain political
issues are affecting the nuclear family. The believer who is just
trying to learn how to grow in his faith ends up hearing political
viewpoints throughout the day on this station. In many places,
though, this kind of station is the only one available. The specific
pastors, theologians, and other hosts the listener is engaged with
might not have the same political views as the ones broadcast in the
news or by the blatantly politically oriented shows, but the
association takes place in the listeners head nonetheless.
So the religious person ends up
adopting the political beliefs of the most leading, dominant,
outspoken part of that faith, however extreme the views might be.
His opinions on controversial topics like abortion, gay rights,
euthanasia, welfare, war, international relations, etc. are
influenced heavily by the religious teachers and texts, ideas that
have come come primarily by means of REVELATION and not empiricism.
Teachers and texts are quoted to support the political opinions of
the believers. And the believers will not be content enough to pray
because while they are praying, there will be those who are
participating in the political process to get laws passed. They will
realize prayer does not actually work so they will be forced to
become active participants.
Take the issue of abortion. The bible
is mute on abortion, yet almost all Christians have a strong opinion
on the issue. Why is this so? Contemporary Christianity has adopted
a theological position from some date in the past when some
influential figure used some quote from Psalm 139 to say life begins
at conception. This is the reigning belief in the church today. The
believer who is brought into the fold must adopt this position or
face the discomfort of using his own mind to come to conclusions
about the issue that are opposite the generally accepted belief of
the church. What has resulted from the countless hours of prayers to
overturn Roe vs. Wade? Nothing. So when Christians see that prayer
does not actually work they will vote in legislators who will vote in
justices who will vote to overturn it.
The effect can get very ugly when the
religious followers get heavily involved in government. Watch out
they don't pulling quotes from older texts in the bible! At one
point in time God told Israel to commit genocide against people
around its homeland. This is well documented in the Old Testament.
If the Jew, Muslim, or Christian believes these ancient texts to be
their inspired Word of God then there is no wonder why so many wars
have been justified in the name of the religion. How much simpler
would the Israel-Palestine conflict be if we were just discussing
land, economics, water, and culture? Instead we are wasting our time
with terms like “promised land” and “holy land” and
“Canaanites.”
Conclusion - The Mind Pitted Against
Itself
To become a committed religious
follower, one must accept the fundamental tenets of a faith. The
spiritual diagnosis followed by the spiritual prescription opens a
whole new world to the previously terrestrial-focused human. Peace
quickly fills the heart after the guilt of having been blind to such
a glorious truth has abated. But the peace is never fully realized
because throughout the rest of the believer's life, he is constantly
battling the contradiction of what his being requires and what is
being asked of him by his God.
For fear of focusing too much on
himself, and fearing the retribution for attempting to accomplish
anything that might reek of glorifying his own self, the faithful
servant slowly loses his self esteem. Charitable contributions to
the flock are generated because in spite of the damage to ones
psyche, the human has no choice but to keep himself alive through the
sweat of his own brow. He cannot help but be motivated by the desire
to achieve worldly success. The sweat fills the collection plates
that pay the salaries of the staff that builds buildings to house
ever more believers.
Relationships will change when
proselytizing overtakes the innate ability to simply sit down and
chat with another human without an agenda to convert. Eventually,
the believer will focus less on converting and more on associating
exclusively with his own kind to avoid the awkward result that occurs
from having converted nobody after all. Viewing every person in the
world as either saved or unsaved is a taxing on the mind.
Political participation will become
focused on the political party that has aligned itself with the
values of particular persons of faith. The believers must take care,
but will always repeat the same mistake of their predecessors –
once in power the religious will force through laws that achieve what
their prayers were unable to change. If the religious gain too many
seats in the government then theocracy will creep in to the point
where the religious freedoms the men and women of faith once enjoyed
for all will be a thing only written in a chapter of their history
books. The state will become a more modern version of 17th
century New England, and the secularists will have to wait for time
to pass before the theocrats realize that they are killing those who
oppose them instead of loving them.
(1.) The
secular opposition is not a war, but rather natural human progress
against which religion must constantly fight by its very nature.
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