Final Healthcare Thoughts November 5, 2009

I think the divide on healthcare nets out to a misguided notion of American exceptionalism on the part of reform opponents: they think that the U.S. healthcare system is somewhere between “best in the world” and “extremely good,” and they’re just wrong.  I’m sorry to burst the bubble, but the facts just don’t bear that out.

Were you aware, for example, that a young mother in the U.S. is 11 times more likely to die in childbirth than a mother in Ireland?  Or that a child in the U.S. is two-and-a-half times more likely to die by age 5 than a child in Singapore or Sweden?

Nicholas Kristof wrote what is (I think) an absolutely critical primer on this topic for the New York Times.  And as it deals in facts and data (and not in opinion), it is REQUIRED READING.

Off-Term Election: Yes, it Mattered November 4, 2009

I’ve been listening to liberal pundits explain to the rest of the world how yesterday’s elections are not a referendum on President Obama, and how there really is no message sent by the drubbing that Democrats took in Virginia and New Jersey.

Baloney.

I think that this hard swing back to the right, fueled by the nonsense spouted on the airwaves and through the ridiculous “Teabagger” movement, is evidence of a gullible and uninformed electorate.  But at the same time: them’s the facts, folks, staring you right in the eyes.  These folks, informed or not, voted in droves while Democrats stayed home.  The Republicans are a machine, and we’ve pissed off the machine.

The most nonsensical “victory” for the Democrats was in NY-23, where our guy held off — a third party candidate, after the Republican candidate stepped down.  And then just barely.  Yes, we picked up a seat, but we’ll almost certainly lose it right back when the GOP gets their act together.

What’s scariest to me, and I really mean it when I say it’s scary, is how NY-23 showed the level of control that is currently in the hands of the Christian right.  I say this as a committed pro-religion, go-to-church-every-Sunday guy: these folks are frightening.  Their intent is to instill something as close to Biblical law as they can get in America, which would be great (I suppose) if it weren’t for this niggly Constitution thing.  Read “Republican Gomorrah” by Max Blumenthal, and you’ll begin to understand how terrifying this trend in America really is.  (And let me remind my fellow Mormons, who are currently boot-licking this bunch: They don’t like you.)

Overall, though?  A really bad day for Democrats.  Let’s not sugar-coat it.

 

Here is Where I Begin Banging my Head on my Table November 4, 2009

Meb Keflezighi became this weekend the first American to win the New York City Marathon.  Which is pretty cool.

But not, apparently, cool enough for some sports guy from CNBC named Darren Rovell, who said it was a little hollow because Keflezighi wasn’t born here.  He emigrated with his parents from Eritrea 22 years ago, when he was a 12-year-old, but that’s not good enough for Rovell.  Because he’s an idiot.

 

Paying for EVERYTHING November 3, 2009

Let me completely butcher the sacred cow: the U.S. spends waaaaaay too much on the military.  So much, in fact, that if we were to carve the military back just a bit we’d be in much better financial shape.  Just ask yourself if the following seem necessary:

• The United States accounts for 47% of the world’s total military spending.
• The U.S. outspends the next 15 countries…combined (That’s China, Russia, Britain, France, Japan, Germany, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, India, Brazil, Italy, Australia, Canada, Indonesia, and The Netherlands).
• Did you notice that the list above is comprised primarily of allies of the U.S., who presumably serve to limit our need to spend more?
• As I’ve noted before: if you had spent a million dollars a day since the time Jesus walked the earth, you would still not have spent as much money as we’ve spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
• If you include spending on our current military, on our past military, and on the wars, you’re now talking about over half of the U.S. budget.

Now, I don’t want you to walk out on me entirely, so let me be clear: I’m not anti-military.  I’m just saying: if I were CEO of this country’s budget, the first thing I’d do is look to see what I could cut out of defense without significantly harming our ability to defend ourselves… and I’m sure that I could find a lot.  A lot.  A small percentage of a huge number is a really big number.

Simply put: spending more than the next 15 countries combined is overkill.  It just is.  It’s as though we’ve built a house and installed a huge gate, a moat filled with crocodiles, security cameras covering every square inch, a top-of-the-line alarm system with flashing lights and sirens, and we’re employing an armed guard for every nine feet of perimeter, 24 hours a day.  Do I feel safe?  Yes.  Could I feel just as safe with a lot less?  Also yes.

It’d be like finding your entire mortgage in the couch cushions.  Just a little effort would pay for everything.

That’s all I’m sayin’.

Free Speech November 3, 2009

Minuteman leader John Gilchrist was recently disinvited to speak at a Harvard forum.  This came after a woman with close ties to him, Shawna Forde, was arrested for murder in a botched home invasion designed to “fund” their group.  One of the victims was a 9-year-old girl.

Gilchrist has bellowed about “free speech” after his removal from the Harvard forum.  But here’s the thing about free speech, Mr. Gilchrist: it gives you the right to speak your mind, which you’ve done all over the airwaves, and which you’re welcome to do on a street corner or to your neighbors.  It does not guarantee you the right to speak at a private forum at a private university.  They get to pretty much choose whomever they want, and apparently you’re not it.

Little factoid I thought might be worth pointing out.

From the “Do Your Homework” Department: October 31, 2009

1.  The other day, President Obama went to Dover Air Force Base to meet with the families of fallen U.S. soldiers and to pay respect to the soldiers’ coffins as they were unloaded from a military transport.  An iconic photo was printed in several newspapers featuring President Obama saluting the coffins.  Rather predictably, Republicans pounced.  Liz Cheney, daughter of the former vice president, took issue with the photo op, explaining that her father and Pres. Bush did that kind of thing in private.

Only…ummm… they never did that kind of thing at all.  Never.  To be fair: they visited military hospitals and met with families.  But neither one of them went to Dover to meet military planes.  Not once in seven years.  This might be because there was a ban on photographing military coffins during their administration.  Bad press, I guess.

Meanwhile: President Obama?  Classy move.

2.  The conservative press was all atwitter (literally — many used Twitter to spread this “news”) when the White House released its visitors’ log.  It seems that Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright (remember them from the campaign?) have both visited the White House since President Obama took office.

Only…umm, again… Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright are not entirely uncommon names in America.  It turns out that two regular ol’ citizens named Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright traipsed through the White House… on tours… over the past nine months.  Their two infamous namesakes have not been to the White House at all.

Homework, people.  Homework.

5000 Year Leap — of Logic October 27, 2009

I’ve been hearing so much about Cleon Skousen’s “The 5000-Year Leap” — from Glenn Beck, obviously, and also from friends of mine — that I decided to read it.  There are reasons that I should be inclined in the direction of Skousen’s arguments: I am, like Skousen and Beck, a Mormon; and I do in fact believe that America is a special place.  Not without its flaws, mind you, and I don’t believe in American exceptionalism.  But I think that America has a destiny.  I do.

So I read the book.  And it’s a crock, overall.  He makes some decent points, and some of the things he says in the book are in fact true.  But overall: almost unthinkably poor scholarship, conclusions drawn from thin air, support for points carefully selected while ignoring equally compelling opposing views, etc.  As a former high-school English teacher: I give it a C-.

I should give here a little background on Cleon Skousen.  I remember, from the time I was a kid, hearing about Cleon Skousen.  He was one of those Mormons who had gained a measure of “fame” among their fellow worshippers, without actually holding a position of authority in the church — and he had also developed a following outside the church.  Perhaps the analogous personality in today’s Mormon church might be Steven R. Covey (although I don’t equate the two in any other way than their fame — I really admire Dr. Covey’s work).  It was easy to confuse Cleon Skousen back then with a church authority — I think, in fact, that my young mind muddled the two.  I just sort of assumed he was somebody I was supposed to pay attention to.

But Skousen was actually a long way from church authority, though I didn’t know it up in northern Idaho.  He was a bit of a nutjob, truth be told — a former FBI man who made claims about his connections in the agency that simply weren’t true, a guy who preferred to be called “Dr. Skousen” when his degree was a law degree, a Salt Lake police chief whose methods were said to resemble “a gestapo,” and a writer and speaker on topics as fanciful as the Red Scare and the notion that the Rockefellers had aided the election of Jimmy Carter to foster a “world government.”  You know… a good ol’ tinfoil-hat guy.  Eventually the Mormon church issued a communique distancing itself from Skousen and his organization, the Freemen Institute.  That ought to tell you how far to the right Skousen is.

On to the book everyone’s so gaga about: a major portion of the book is intent on convincing us that the Founding Fathers intended to build an explicitly Christian nation.  Let’s talk about that.

To be clear: I firmly believe three things: (a) that the Founding Fathers certainly intended for Christianity (in all its forms) to thrive in the American nation.  I also believe, because I’m sane and I know my history, that they also intended for Jews and Muslims and yes, even atheists, to find place here.  (b) I believe that the separation of church and state which was so passionately a part of our founding documents was designed primarily (but not exclusively) to protect the church from the influence of the state.  Think of where these people came from: their experience was not with an oppressive church wielding power over the state — it was the opposite.  I don’t take that to mean that the Founding Fathers were unaware of the possibility of tyranny arising from a powerful church (hey, wait a minute… were they thinking about us?); but I think that their sensibilities were more in line with protecting people’s rights to worship.  (c) While I believe that the current “anti-Christian” sentiment has been brought on mostly by Christians overreaching and wielding too much influence in government, I nevertheless think that this sentiment is a bad thing.  While this is demonstrably not a Christian theocracy, it is still true that most Americans are Christian, or at least have Christian sympathies.  As usual, the middle ground is best: Christianity is neither a thing to be rooted out of our government, nor is it the driving force behind our government.  It is simply what feeds the sensibilities of most Americans, and should thus be honored and respected — but not revered.

Skousen, as you might expect, picks and chooses quotes in an attempt to show that America was designed to be Christian.  (He uses “Natural Law” and other designations, but it’s clear that he’s talking about Christianity — he would not be pleased to discover that America was a highly pious Muslim nation.)  For completeness, I should also note that Skousen is a free-market guy, a states’-rights guy and a small-government guy, and I think he may have excellent points on some of those (particularly states’ rights).  (Republican friends: don’t pick at that statement.  Please be humble enough to remember that your guys oversaw the largest expansion of our federal government in the history of the nation, and that… well, they were:  Not.  Right.  About.  ANYTHING.)

For example: Skousen selects this quote from Benjamin Franklin to show that, instead of being what he was (a noted Deist), Franklin had Christian notions — and then he suggests that these notions were shared by all the framers of the Constitution:

Here is my creed. I believe in one God, Creator of the universe. That he governs it by his providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other children. That the soul of Man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion…

The first problem here, of course, is that even if we stipulated that this was an accurate description of Franklin’s “Christian” sentiments, it doesn’t show a thing about the rest of the Founding Fathers (who fought and debated on everything, and among whom were other deists, including Thomas Jefferson and George Washington).

The second and more damning problem is that it’s only part of the quote (a common theme in The 5000-Year Leap).  The rest of the quote makes one wonder how often this kind of misstatement of positions happens in the book:

As for Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequence, as it probably has, of making his doctrines more respected and better observed, especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of the world with any particular marks of his displeasure.

Look, I’m not trying to say that we should all be Deists, nor am I saying that Christianity has no place in our lives (obviously).  I’m just saying: this is a book frought with inaccuracies and misstatements, it is written by an incredible extremist and something of a charlatan, and too many people are reading it as though it were the new Bible.  Put it down.

What is equally disconcerting, of course, is the other side: folks who hold the notion that the Constitution is completely Godless.  While there is scant evidence to support a strongly Christian Constitution, there is even less to support the idea that the Founding Fathers were trying to create a nation not under God, but beyond God.  This is nonsense in the extreme, and attempts at this conclusion torture the facts beyond recognition.

The fact is, the framers of the constitution were a large and diverse group of men, many of whom were Christian, some of whom were devoutly so.  Many others, though, and particularly key players, simply weren’t.  They fought and argued and bickered and… well, they produced something wonderful.  We don’t need to go back to John Locke or de Toqueville to divine the intent of the Founding Fathers: it’s there on the page, for all of us to see, and it is the most enduring and wonderful political document this world has ever seen.

Short Version of Why I Support a Public Option October 15, 2009

…because as long as your healthcare and mine are controlled by companies whose fundamental motive is to limit our access to healthcare, then no amount of fiddling around on the edges will make things any better and costs will continue to rise twice as fast as inflation.

My wife, who runs HR at a tech company here, was thrilled to discover that her company’s insurance costs only rose 15% this year, so long as she cuts some benefits.  Isn’t there something wrong with being happy about that result?

Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize October 12, 2009

A few observations:

• What, precisely, is President Obama’s accomplishment? Simple: the re-establishment of American moral authority in the world, and re-instituting America as the world’s best hope for peace.
• Is that an accomplishment worthy of the Nobel Prize? Well, umm…I probably wouldn’t have done it.  But of course it doesn’t matter what we think.  The fact is, the Nobel Prize Committee thought so.
• Who makes the decision? A committee of five people chosen by the Norwegian Parliament.  They are almost always former Norwegian politicians.

Importantly, here is what the Nobel Peace Prize is not:

• Partisan.  It has nothing whatsoever to do with Republican/Democrat/conservative/liberal agendas.  It’s five guys chosen by the Parliament of Norway.  Period.
• Affected by the U.S. press and its presumed “liberal bias.” These guys aren’t listening to MSNBC.  Or Fox, for that matter.

Look, no matter what you think of President Obama, this is a proud moment for the U.S.  At its essence it is an acknowledgment of how important America is on the world stage.  That’s a good thing, right?

A final note that I just cannot help but say: Rush Limbaugh threw a fit, in which he called Obama a “worldwide joke” and a “laughingstock.”  After the president had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.  I’m sure that even someone with Limbaugh’s limited education can see that the data set simply does not fit the hypothesis there.