Why I'm voting for Barack Obama

Obama Wins

2008-11-05T15:46:00.000-08:00

I'd be lying if I didn't say I was elated.

What a night. An electoral landslide, and a decisive popular vote.

The man faces a nearly impossible task; I'm hopeful he can have a powerful impact. John McCain was right: for most any political persuasion, several hundred years of pain, suffering and advocacy really culminated in a powerful sense of unshackling last night. (McCain's concession speech was really, really classy, by the way).

I cannot imagine what it feels like to be in the minority, to be disenfranchised, to live on the outside, but I believe that Obama's win will warm the hearts of those who do and perhaps inspire us all.

For now, this blog will be on hiatus. If I choose to write more in the future, I'll be sure to promote it on facebook and myspace.

Thank you my friends for the spirited discussion.

Ron

Closing Remark

2008-11-03T08:23:00.001-08:00

The case is clear. Obama is a better, more inspiring leader, with better ideas about how to fix our economy, help the poor, bring healthcare access to the American people, save us money, conduct foreign and energy policy, and who will reduce abortion (and the desperation it tends to represent).

As a citizen, I believe Obama's policies and persona will provide us with a better future than John McCain can provide. He isn't the messiah, perfect, or the answer to all our problems. But as presidents go, he is pretty great. He will more reliable provide a path to a more prosperous future, and a prosperity that isn't just for the few, but the many.

As a Christian, I believe this election has profound moral implications. It's time to repudiate the patronization by the national Republican party, who has never tackled abortion or faith based initiatives. It is time to recognize the warrior nation label for what it is--the antithesis of the Jesus of the gospels. It is time to realize that the social and economic fate of widows, orphans and immigrants and how we treat them as a society is given far, far, far more time in scripture than gay marriage, abortion, abstinence or public profanity. Jesus, in continuing the prophetic tradition, argued for the "least of these" and we have continually left them behind.

It's time for our policy to reach out to the least of these, rather than rewarding those who are in the front of the line. It's time to recognize that some of us have benefited in far greater measure from the social situation, and that we thus owe a greater debt to our society. A debt of money, time, energy, civic engagement and social action.

I believe that Barack Obama represents this vision in far greater measure than his opponent, and I hope you will join me in voting for him tomorrow.

Blessings to you all.

Ron Davis

One Evangelical's Question

2008-11-03T07:25:00.000-08:00

One of my most mission minded evangelical friends asked me an interesting question a month or two ago. He asked me to respond on the blog--this is my belated response.

He was curious about foreign policy from a missions vantage point. His concern is that Christians are called to serve the people of the world and share the good news that Jesus can set them free from captivity--from the powers of the world through resurrection and living the kingdom of God--and from the power of our own sick selfishness to separate us from God.

There may be some disagreement about who would be most effective in terms of Foreign Policy. But for the question of the goodwill of our neighbors, of cooperation with our allies, and for a firm, but not illegally ceding moral high ground, response to our enemies--I think the answer is pretty obvious.

Obama would engender the goodwill of far more people internationally. The credibility of the US and its citizens would increase. This would make international travelers, such as myself, possibly more safe, and I believe it would provide the more amenable situation to sensitive missionaries.

Now, some people's reactions are already set for the matter ahead of time. But for the "swing" citizens of the world, who undoubtedly number in the hundreds of millions or more, our choices will effect their perceptions of us. Barack Obama's reputation would be a boon to missionaries' safety and opportunities.

If you are an evangelical Christian, this is something you should be considering.

10 Reasons to Vote for Obama

2008-11-03T07:23:00.000-08:00

I've explored a few matters on this blog of why you should vote for Barack Obama. If I had more time, I'd hit quite a few more. So, please forgive me for claims I make in this post that are undefended elsewhere. You all know I'm capable of defending them. I'm going to summarize why I'm voting for Barack.

1. Barack is the better leader: look at the brilliant organization he's built, his ability to inspire people from such varied ideological and socioeconomic backgrounds, his measured responses, his intellectual and tactical prowess, and his visionary skills.

2. Barack's economic policies are better: no candidate is perfect, but Barack has demonstrated more willingness to pay for what he proposes (and he's tied to the party who has done far better in this category for decades), and his proposals are better for the disenfranchised and oppressed of this world. Markets create wealth efficiently, but they don't self manage all that well (see the current crisis) and they distribute rather poorly. The system itself exploits some people, but the system gets a lot done. It needs to be preserved, but it also needs correctives along the way. This isn't socialism; it's social justice.

I've argued that democrats are more fiscally conservative, that stocks, GDP, inflation and unemployment all fare better under Democratic presidents, and that there is far more to a succesful society than these measures.

There are lots of ways to be pro-growth. You can certainly do what you can to unfetter markets. You can also use regulation to create new markets and raise revenues (Carbon Credits) or invest in the infastructure of a future economy (roads, ports, education, fiber optics, research, etc). When you invest in individuals, and keep those on the lower economic rungs from the risk of financial ruin, you grow the economy and save everybody a lot of money.

His economic policies will be as good or better for our economy in general, and they are more socially just. As a Christian I cannot ignore the latter.

3. Heath Care: In one of the defining matters of our time, Barack has a far better vision. His plan has been shown by bipartisan organizations to cover FAR more people (30 some million) at a comprable cost (1.3 trillion to 1.6 trillion) to John McCain. They both include some measures to curb costs, but Barack's plan addresses the problem of the uninsured and their role in increasing costs.

There is a lot of fear mongering around these issues--and certainly government provided medicine can and does have its faults. But in comparable market economies that are democracies and share cultural history with us, it is working. These countries pay half and way less than half of what we do, and have better health outcomes across the board. The data is very clear on this matter.

4. Iraq. We are in a terrible, unnecesarry, illegal war that was built on unfounded arguments. There are not clear answers at this point about what we should do, and both candidates can claim victories surrounding their judgment (Obama opposed, McCain and the surge). In reality, I'd prefer the man that wouldn't have gotten us in to this mess in the first place, the man who stood up and said no when almost the entire country (Democrats included) was rolling over. I believe that Obama will be faced with a lot of complicated reality in removing our forces incrementally, but the Iraqi government has 80 billion dollars saved up, and it is their responsibility to govern their own affairs. Because we have put them on this path, it is our responsibility to work to stave off a humanitarian crisis, but it is not our responsibility to govern.

Our treasury is being drained by this war, and the insurgency is because of our presence. The surge has helped but it is entirely unsustainable.

Barack has demonstrated better judgment on the matter.

4. Foreign policy in general: a steadier hand, a more strategic mind, McCain's history of overreacting (how many "greatest threats of our time" can we have, anyway?), Barack's popularity with the world and his willingness to work within the structures of multilateralism to leverage our allies resources on our own strategic behalf. Need I say more?

5. John McCain: A man whose greatest claim to personal character (Maverick) has caved to his party leaders by tacking significantly to the right. A man whose temperament isn't pretty, and whose policies are, on the whole, wrong. A man who has led a haphazard campaign.

6. Sarah Palin: I know a lot of moms, moms I love and respect. I wouldn't put them in charge of the country. Just because we identify with a candidate, would rather have a beer or hunt with a candidate, doesn't mean we should elect that candidate. Case in point, George Bush. She views our wars as holy wars, a dangerous, unbilical and historically naive assertion. She is divisive. She is incredibly lacking in foreign policy knowledge and judgement. She has demonstrated very little independent thought. She's agressive in a very unselfconscious way.

7. The big wedge issues. I addressed abortion rather thoroughly in my first posts. I argued that, whatever his intentions, Barack Obama's policies would bring about fewer abortions. I argued that if you really believe abortion is murder, then practicality matters more than ideology (it has been shown that outlawing abortion doesn't lower the rate of abortions). If you believe that abortion is murder, then you should consider that an Obama adminstration will likely pursue policies that result in fewer abortions. By preventing teenage pregnancy, and by providing an adequate social net for young, unwed mothers, desperation is reduced and more people chose to have their babies. It's the basic premise of the Pregnancy Resource Centers and it should effect the way you vote.

8. Judicial Appointments. The court has moved substantially to the right, and at the very least it needs balance. I am not going to attempt to argue for a paradigm here, except to say that the founding fathers saw the constitution as a live document. The world has changed, and although we ought to be constrained by the constitution, it needs interpreting because it has to both be relevant and it has to be acceptable to the population for our whole project in democracy to work. I prefer a candidate who sees this. Also, the founding fathers were not perfect, but we have had to understand the spirit of what they meant to move our democracy forward (their notions of equality, for instance, did not extend to women or black people--we have had to come to greater understanding while still being bound to the call for equality).

9. Democrats are more fiscally conservative. I alluded to this in issue #2. For decades, the Democrats have run smaller deficits than the Republicans. They have been outgunned in their marketing departments--the Republicans have pretended to be fiscally conservative. In fact, they have put our future on credit, running up the vast majority of our ten trillion dollar federal debt. Their resource allocation is indeed different than the Democrats, but they are still doling out trillions of dollars and also refusing to actually pay for it (through taxation).

I don't think I have to explain why that is bad. Let's repudiate that and vote against them.

10. Energy Policy: The "Drill Baby Drill" chant should be enough to see the matter for what it is. Fossil fuels not only are big carbon sources, but they are a limited resource and the need for energy is virtually unlimited. They represent a massive strategic problem, and we only seemed to finally get a sense of this as gas prices ran amok.

Obama will do more to create a whole new category of green jobs, and through carbon credits would create a new market for raising revenue and pushing the business world toward a more responsibile existence.

Foreign Policy

2008-11-03T06:50:00.000-08:00

Having been back in the US for Trina's interviews, my discretionary time has been swamped with other obligations and fun distractions

So I've done a bad job at hitting the leftover areas--Foreign Policy, Social Justice, some of the more nuanced elements of economic policy, environmental matters. I haven't analyzed Sarah Palin, who I find to be the scariest candidate in recent history. I haven't hit heavily on matters of character--moral, intellectual and leadership--and these issues matters as well. Unfortunately, even a loquacious guy like me takes breaks. I haven't really gotten in to the illegal torture issue of the Bushies, or the rapid deterioration of civil liberties (read: freedoms) at the hand of the homeland security department.

I'm going to do a quick summary on foreign policy, and then I'm going to summarize the main thrust of my blog's argument. I haven't decided if the blog has a real future after tomorrow.

On Foreign Policy:

First and foremost, the experience argument has got to be examined. The McCain claim that Obama isn't qualified is eviscerated by his choice of Sarah Palin. I'm not talking about Presidential Experience, Executive Experience or any of the other vacuous claims made surrounding election experience--I'm talking about Foreign Policy. You cannot have your cake and eat it too, saying Barack is naive because he wasn't a POW and hasn't been doing foreign affairs in the Senate for decades.

But, for a moment, let's ignore this hypocrisy. My pointing that out could be a bit of a straw man--is Obama going to be a capable international leader, compared with John McCain, Sarah Palin aside?

Yes.

There aren't guarantees with anyone, (McCain included) of course. But the signs point to yes.

Barack has demonstrated substantial awareness of the issues, and the intellectual acuity to see good strategy. Everything from his answers in debates, to his policy proposals and the way he has run his campaign points to the fact that he is able to organize a hierarchy of values and goes, subjugating some and elevating others, and is able to be fluid in response to the challenges that come up.

His answers on Foreign Policy--despite McCain's words--"you just don't understand"--were not silly neophyte answers. Pick up an issue of Foreign Affairs sometime, one of the most respected journals (that normal humans can understand, anyway) in the country on the matter. You will find both conservative and liberal voices in Foriegn Affairs, many of the leading thinkers in the country. You can easily find a lot of grounding for foriegn policy as Obama would have it.

And also please pay attention to the fact that Colin Powell endorsed him. George Bush's Secretary of State, who (before his case before the UN for Iraq) is one of the most respect statesmen and diplomats in the country, and who is a republican.

Also, think about leverage. There is this fear of ceding our interest to the world. It seems that when we act alone in our own interests, we risk losing partners with the net effect being a negative for our own interests (read: Iraq).

That said, there are many threats we face. Radical Islam, a resurgent and assertive Russia, instability in Pakistan, rogue regimes in Iran and North Korea and Burma, civil wars and genocidal conflict in Africa, an autocratic and rapidly rising China, the emergence of non state threats, a shrinking global economy, a limited amount of fossil fuel, rising population, and a huge proliferation of weapons and weapons technology. And global poverty and starvation in hundreds of places around the world.

We need our allies. We are powerful, but we do not have the power to take it all on. We barely have the resources to handle our own affairs right now. We need someone who can bring coherence to US policy, one not founded on illegal and failed principles (Bush Doctrine). We need someone who can keep a steady hand on the war hawks in the Pentagon (didn't JFK, in his "inexperience", save us from Nuclear winter when he said no to the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Cuban Missile Crisis?"), who will offer measured but clear responses, and who will consider the implications of our behavior.

We need someone who will pull our allies together, so that we can leverage their resources toward our policy goals. China's GDP will likely pass ours in just a couple decades, their purchasing power even sooner. Our best option for handling this is building robust institutions that China needs, and balancing relative power by linking arms with our allies. China's GDP won't surpass that of the US and Europe together in the foreseeable future, and India represents another massive power-partner in the effort to check potential future agression.

These linkages are matters of leverage. I understand that we do not want to cede our national interest to international organizations, but we have to be willing to look at what we get out of those international organizations. They are an opportunity to project our values, much like domestic law is here in the US, but they need to be robust and the laws need to be enforceable. That will depend on our cooperation.

Fortunately, the world (however naive) is enamored with Obama. He will face all the challenges a normal president does, but he will start with an enormous amount of goodwill from the worldwide electorate. I cannot imagine this will hurt his standing with international leaders.

There is the question of John McCain's war experience. No doubt it qualifies him to be a compassionate veteran's advocate, it has shaped his thinking on torture, and it makes him a bona fide hero. How many people do you know who have been to war, fought on the front lines, and really been through traumatic experiences? It's horrible. But it doesn't qualify you to lead a country, decide about when to go to war, or anything like it. If anything, the trauma may have the opposite effect. In either case, comptenece has to be demostrated.

McCain has the habit of chronically overreacting to foreign policy challenges, and overreaction is what got us into this Iraq mess to begin with (and McCain voted for that). He's not an idiot--despite being (fairly) linked with Bush, I don't believe he would be the bufoon that Bush II has been (Palin would), but I think when compared with Obama, he is not what we want as Commander in Chief.

We want someone who understands the issues, who has the goodwill of our allies, who is consistent, and who can run a tight and highly strategic organization in a shifting environment.

Given the choices, the clear one is Barack Obama.

A Libertarian Vote for Obama

2008-11-03T06:39:00.000-08:00

Christie posted a link to this in a comment, and I wanted you to see the whole article.

For those of you who are historically somewhat conservative, have been thinking about Barack, but are having cold feet, please read.

David Post, Trackbacks

Why I’ll Be Voting for Obama:

As those of you who followed the dust-ups here on the VC after some of my earlier postings critical of Sarah Palin will not be surprised to hear, I’ll be pulling the Obama lever on Tuesday – and quite enthusiastically, too. I consider myself a “pragmatic libertarian” – I’m not a big fan of the state, I believe that power inevitably corrupts, that individuals, when left to their own devices, are capable of remarkable feats of self-organization and problem-solving, and that the freedoms of speech, conscience, and association are, by far, our most precious ones and need to be zealously protected from the folks with the monopoly on coercive force. I haven’t voted for a Democratic candidate for President since 1980 (and I came to regret that one pretty soon thereafter). My personal list of great Presidents is a short one: Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, and Reagan.

So that’s where I’m coming from, and in my eyes the choice couldn’t be easier. My reasons:

Reason 1 is John McCain. During the two months since he was nominated – the two months during which he (and Obama) got to act “shadow presidents,” and in which we all got to ask ourselves, more seriously than we had been able to before: “If this guy were the president right now, would we like what he’s doing?” – McCain has, time and time again, shown himself to be a panicky, impulsive, shoot-from-the-hip decision-maker, and we don’t need panicky, impulsive, shoot-from-the-hip decision-makers at the moment. I really used to like John McCain a lot. In his role as “maverick Senator,” McCain was a real asset – I think he showed enormous political courage in taking on the culture of earmarks, and in standing up to the more xenophobic elements of the Republican party on immigration, and even on political financing, and I trusted his instincts on the important questions about national security, war, and peace. I also think he’s an immensely likable guy. But with each decision he’s made – his choice of Gov. Palin as his running mate, his almost pathetic reaction(s) to the financial crisis (from his initial “Fire Chris Cox!” to his belated discovery that there’s actually greed on Wall Street – who knew! – to his suspension, and un-suspension, of his campaign), to the choices he made about the overall tone and tenor of his campaign – each one made him less and less credible, in my eyes, as president.

Reason 2 is Barack Obama. The country, and the world, are in a precarious state at the moment, and the prospects for a very dark and gloomy future are very real; it took three years for the effects of the 1929 stock market crash to be felt throughout the global economy, and I can’t help but worry that something similar is on the horizon today. We have, as a nation, become demoralized and pessimistic and cynical about our ability to solve our problems. It’s not just that our “infrastructure” is crumbling, it’s that nobody seems to give a shit. Our belief that we are, in fact, the greatest nation on earth has always been one of our most precious assets – something of a self-fulfilling prophecy that has made us the engine for economic growth, and for freedom, for two centuries. It is becoming increasingly difficult for people to believe that, these days, and when people stop believing it, it will no longer be true. Countries can descend into the ranks of the second-rate in the blink of an eye (historically speaking): it happened to Spain, and to Portugal, and to Argentina, it is now happening to Italy, and it can happen to us.

We need a truly great president right now – and for me, a great president isn’t one who magically solves all our problems, but one who inspires us to solve our problems. No president can get us out of the mess we have made unless he or she can inspire us to do great things, and there is at least some real chance that Obama has it in him; that’s no guarantee that he’ll be a great president, but given the alternative (see Reason 1) that’s plenty good enough for me. I think he grasps the significance of the moment, and I think he understands that ideology is not policy and policy is not ideology. His gift for oratory, far from being the sideshow that some of his detractors claim, is in fact central to the prospects and the possibilities of an Obama presidency. The Great Ones – Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, Reagan – have had one thing (and maybe only one thing) in common: the ability to stir us to great deeds with their words. It is, I think, a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for greatness, and Obama’s got it; McCain does not. Obama’s astonishing capacity to connect with young voters is also part of why he might be a great president; like it or not, the young have a bigger stake in the future than the old because they’ll see more of it, and if they are energized to take the reins of power they deserve the chance to do so.

Nor is Obama’s obvious, and profound, appeal to the people of the world irrelevant to my choice. Whatever you, personally, think of Obama or his policies, it is simply an indisputable fact that hundreds of millions, or possibly billions, of people across the globe are damn near infatuated with him, and that the world will, almost instantaneously, become much better-disposed to the United States when he is elected. It’s quite astonishing, when you think about it; he’s the first global candidate for office. There are many good reasons, to be sure, why a (rational) voter in the United States should ignore the views of the French, the Indians, and the Kenyans etc. when deciding for whom to vote in this (or any) election; presidential elections are and should be about our “self-interest,” and there are plenty of good reasons why we don’t give French, Indian, or Kenyan citizens a vote in our elections. But a world in which hundreds of millions of people are far, far better-disposed to the US is a world in which we are more likely to get a handle of serious global problems, from terrorism to the banking collapse to global warming and the energy crisis. It’s just easier for me to imagine, say, the people of Pakistan actually helping us out in our efforts to protect ourselves from the madmen who are taking refuge in their country if they think we stand for something important and that we deserve protection, rather than because Pervez Musharraf orders them to do so. I know that it’s not all about “hearts and minds” and all that, but it won’t hurt.

Reason 3 is Bush. George W. Bush has, almost single-handedly, destroyed (a) the Republican party, (b) our standing among the nations of the world, and (c) our pride in being Americans. His “compassionate conservatism” turned out to be mean-spirited and exclusionary, his attitude towards the people he was elected to serve contemptuous, and his capacity to lead virtually non-existent. His approval ratings are an accurate indicator of how miserably he has performed. I’m not enough of a historian to know whether he’s the worst president we’ve ever had, but he’s on the short list, and he is certainly the worst I have encountered in the 40-some years I’ve been paying attention to this stuff. The Republicans needs to be punished for allowing it to happen.

Reason 4 is energy policy. For my money, this is the big domestic issue for the next several decades, because pretty much all other important domestic issues will turn on whether or not we can solve it. The sight of 10,000 oil-addicted junkies shouting “Drill, Baby, Drill!!” at the Republican convention (repeated over and over again at campaign rallies this Fall) was chilling. The idea that we can drill ourselves out of the economic and ecological hole in which we find ourselves is as wrong as an idea can be (as McCain, before he began pandering, understood quite well).

So I hope he wins. Ultimately, in a democracy, you take what your fellow-citizens give you, and you accept that whatever answer the democratic process has produced is the “right” one. If a majority of the people in this country think McCain is the man to lead them, then so be it; they must view things very differently than I do. But I’m pretty confident that we’re going to be taking the other course, and that we’ll be better off for having done so.

Gridlock is better?

2008-10-31T04:13:00.000-07:00

I am pretty close to some people who think it is...and in some cases it is.

But, in the (albeit narrow) question of the stock market, a democratic president with a democratic majority in both houses is better than a democratic majority in both houses with a republican president.

So, since there will, in fact, be a democratic majority in both houses, this is just another (small) point for Barack Obama over John McCain.

Focus on the Family Action

2008-10-31T03:38:00.000-07:00

Focus on the Family action, which is basically an arm of Focus on the Family, has published yet another embarrassing letter. It is a made-up letter from a Christian in America in 2012. In it they make outrageous claims, absurd conjectures, and they preach a message of fear.

Beside being incredibly far-fetched, Focus on the Family has committed itself to irrelevance as an organization offering a prophetic view of our society because it has been so transformed by one political party's platform. That's not to say they are not entitled to their political opinions, but they have become such a caricature of themselves that it is hard to imagine that anyone behind these letters has any measure of humility, history, or self-conscious thought.

Whether in making the claim that "at no time has America been in greater danger" because of "judicial tyranny" during the Terry Shiavo case (when the country was run from top to bottom by Republicans), to spreading their gospel of fear (nuclear attacks, churches being forced to close because they won't allow gay staff members, hardcore pornography on television, terrorist attacks because Obama is president--be serious), Focus on the Family has sacrificed credibility for power, and a sacrifice for power is anything but Christian.

Obama's Tax Cuts

2008-10-31T03:35:00.001-07:00

For those of you who are concerned that Obama will be raising your taxes, and independent review of the two candidates tax plans has been conducted by Deloitte and the Brookings institution.

Turns out John McCain is being deceitful in trying to convince you that Obama wants to rob your pocketbook.

See the details here.

McCain and Foreign Policy

2008-10-30T07:28:00.000-07:00

I would like to focus on Foreign policy in the closing days of this campaign.

It seems that Matt Welch's article is a good start. I've provided the entire text here. He basically argues that McCain is given to hyperbolic responses, which I would suggest is the last thing we need in a president. Experience doesn't do you much good if you have poor judgment.

McCain's Georgian Hyperbole
Exaggerating threats is a feature, not a bug, of McCainite neoconservatism, and reveals much about what kind of president he'd make.

Matt Welch | August 18, 2008

On Thursday of last week, Republican presidential nominee John McCain said that Russia's invasion of Georgia was "the first probably serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War." This is most certainly not true, at least according to the last two decades' worth of foreign policy assessments from one John McCain.

In December 1990, two months after Germany reunified and four months after Saddam Hussein did unto Kuwait far worse than what Vladimir Putin has so far done unto Georgia, the Arizona senator asserted that "the peace and security of the world for future generations [demand] that the world community act decisively to end the Gulf Crisis now." Pretty serious stuff.

In January 1994, he described North Korea's nuclear weapons program as "the most dangerous and immediate expression" of "the greatest challenge to U.S. security and world stability today," and warned that "there can be no serious doubt that our vital national interests are imperiled." Serious!

In an April 1999 speech that everyone considering voting for McCain should go read now, the rogue-state rollbacker said that "America's most important values—life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—are under vicious assault by the Milosevic regime," requiring "an immediate and manifold increase in the violence against Serbia proper and Serbian forces in Kosovo," including mobilization of "infantry and armored divisions for a possible ground war." Très sérieux!

And of course, during the current campaign, he has repeatedly reminded voters that he's running for president to confront "the transcendent issue of our time: the battle and struggle against radical Islamic extremism." Which, he argued at a Republican debate in June 2007, "is a force of evil that is within our shores.... My friends, this is a transcendent struggle between good and evil. Everything we stand for and believe in is at stake here." If that isn't a "probably serious crisis internationally," then the phrase truly has no meaning.

OK, so McCain misspoke with that whole Cold War bit. But did he really? Consider another line from last week: "I think it's very clear that Russian ambitions are to restore the old Russian Empire. Not the Soviet Union, but the Russian Empire."

Let's review what McCain is alleging here: Not only does Russia have malevolent designs on recently detached "Near Abroad" territories within nearby Georgia, Belarus, and Moldova—a critique, I hasten to add, that I share—McCain warns that the Bear is also working actively toward re-swallowing all or much of such Russian colonial holdings-turned sovereign states as, oh, Finland, Armenia, the Baltics, a pack of 'stans, and a big chunk of Poland.

It's one thing to look into Putin's eyes and (accurately) see three letters: K-G-B, quite another to base your foreign policy approach on the assumption that the second biggest nuclear arsenal in the world wants to go on the biggest nation-gobbling rampage the globe has seen in over 60 years, devouring a half-dozen NATO members in the process.

These aren't the exaggerations of a novice or a naif; quite the opposite, actually. McCain knows Georgia and the Near Abroad perhaps more intimately than any other senator. The taxpayer-financed International Republican Institute, which he has headed up for 15 years, has been deeply involved with democracy-building projects in the formerly Soviet republic. His chief foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, has performed extensive lobbying for the country (including directly to John McCain), and like all the best lobbying efforts, it appears to be a case of genuine shared interests.

The case against neoconservative foreign policy has never been about an insufficient store of knowledge. You couldn't, for example, accuse Paul Wolfowitz of inexperience with the Middle East. Neoconservatism's problem, and electoral advantage, is one and the same: By escalating international problems into monumental crises and impending threats, interventionists such as John McCain have been able to appear knowledgeable, "serious," and presidentially tough, all at once. Any competitor preaching policy restraint and rhetorical prudence looks like a wuss in comparison.

Like Democrats ready to re-intervene in the economy at the first sign of crisis, the neocons' continuing state of red-alert readiness—whether directed at China, Russia, or the Middle East—provides a go-to set of policy prescriptions, expertise, and action items whenever the latest "holiday from history" comes crashing to a halt. George W. Bush's "humble" foreign policy approach, however sincere it might have been, was no substitute on Sept. 12 for an offensive strategy backed by a well-worn worldview. By 2002, Bush's foreign policy was little different than what a President McCain's might have looked like and, not uncoincidentally, McCainite National Greatness Conservatives went from being prime candidates for defecting from the Republican Party to the in-flight ideological officers of Air Force One.

The problems with their approach should be evident by now, but are worth repeating. Perpetually exaggerating threats leads to, well, perpetual exaggerations, whether about a bad guy's wickedness or a good guy's virtue. On such faulty edifices are constructed unnecessary wars, those most murderous of foreign policy mistakes. In October 2001, McCain, a longtime Iraq hawk, told David Letterman that "some of this anthrax may—and I emphasize may—have come from Iraq." And the senator has long been a supporter of disgraced Iraqi National Congress schemer Ahmad Chalabi.

So take care when the would-be commander in chief says "we are all Georgians" (a rhetorical flourish made goofy by the fact that not all Georgians are even Georgians). McCain may indeed have a usable, just-add-water approach to Russia (consider that his calls to kick Russia out of the G8 went from being crazy-sounding to a distinct possibility within a few short months), but after nearly seven years of seeing a McCain-lite foreign policy in practice, our burden of proof should shift back to the boys who perpetually cry wolf.

Brian McClaren, reason #3

2008-10-28T12:17:00.000-07:00

See McClaren's article here.

Obama the Socialist.

2008-10-28T12:08:00.000-07:00

And this from Bruce Carruthers, a sociology professor at Northwestern University:

"Obama is like a center-liberal Democrat, and he is certainly not looking to overthrow capitalism. My goodness, he wouldn't have the support of someone like The Wizard of Omaha, Warren Buffet, if he truly was going to overthrow capitalism."

A Reply to Matt - Economics

2008-10-28T12:02:00.001-07:00

On the vacuum: Yes taxes do come back to us. But relative to less taxes, isn’t this a form of nationalism?

You are asking way too fundamental a question for an election. Haven’t you heard, this is a two party system and they aren’t all that far apart in their basic political philosophies? Sheesh!

Instead of allowing the most unfortunate in the world to ultimately receive the benefit of profitable companies, the government chooses where the profits go. I understand that many people think the government is more capable of deciding how profit should be distributed than the market and that’s a separate argument, but let’s tell it like it is: democratic philosophy – our elected officials choose ; market philosophy – consumers choose.

I don’t think it is nearly so simple. That profitable companies maximize benefit to average worldwide consumers is spurious or at the very least, a hotly debated issue.

And when we talk about world wealth, the consumer versus government dichotomy is a false one. It’s a bit hard to follow what you are saying. Are consumers choosing how infrastructure is built, who gets educated, and the like? In the market, aren’t those who capture consumers imagination (read: successful corporations) actually the ones making the big choices? Isn’t one of the primary reasons for corporate existence to maximize profits? Isn’t it a bit hard to line that up with the common good? Assuming that is our goal…

Here’s the thing, everyone wants the best of both worlds which just may not be feasible.

Agreed.

People want low cost, high quality goods (including services like health care) that are created by lots of people (low unemployment) with high wages. We want homes that appreciate fast but are inexpensive to purchase. Essentially we want our government to defy the realities of accepted economic theories.

I agree except to say that we also want our markets to defy the same realities. We cannot always have our cake and eat it too.

I think wealth can be measured by our ability to get what we want when want it. We are in economic crisis because we have faked our way into wealth and decided that everyone should be able to get what they want when they want it. People demand it of our government whether its run by democrats or republicans.

I agree again, except that many of these demands are driving markets as well. Further, they are propagated by the marketplace as well.

Personally, I think it has to get better before it gets worse. I think people have to suffer, I have to suffer too and not get some of the basic things that I want. People getting what they want is tied in to the global system. Every time I see Obama giving a speech in some small manufacturing driven town telling them how we need to start building more and buying more American cars I get a little queasy. PEOPLE DON’T BUY AMERICAN CARS BECAUSE THEY DON’T WANT AMERICAN CARS. If we want to create jobs in America people have to be willing to work for less, or become more innovative at providing the world with some kind of value. It’s like we want to rip the rest of the world off for our own gain. We want to make a car for $5000 and sell it to the rest of the world so that we can be wealthy; at the expense of the Chinese labor force who wants less than we do and is willing to make it for $2000. It’s just silly but it’s what Americans want and it’s what government tries to do whether its republican or democrat and it doesn’t work all that well. Do some people in the United States suffer when we don't buy American cars; yes, but they are just making a naturally decided wealth contribution to the Chinese who… are willing to accept a lower quality of life (meanwhile we get what we want for less) AKA in the theme of definition of wealth, want/need less.

Okay, I am following you here I think. I certainly agree that protectionism is naïve, that patriotic buying can be foolhardy, or a marketer’s way of covering bad products, and that wages combined with local purchasing power vis a vis those wages complicate matters.

In the end they are the one’s making an investment into their future / more capitalist and I think they are really going to reap the rewards in the not so distant future while we suffer trying to sell cars without value so that we can say we are taking moral high ground.

Now you’ve lost me. “They” are making an investment in their future and are thus more capitalist? Who, exactly? The Chinese? The Japanese (the ones who own the car companies)? How does this relate to Japanese car jobs on American soil? Would you really say that China is more capitalist than us? Don’t you think Japan has some future sustainability issues in terms of their economy? Also, aren’t the Chinese benefiting from lower pricing in general and thus more purchasing power for their lower wages? And aren’t many of their prices artificially being held down by their government (along with the value of their currency being set)? I’m not sure I follow your argument here.

When you really boil it down, we want to spend our wealth buying jobs. It's kind of like my own business in that if I don't earn a return on my investment, but break even after paying myself a salary, all I did was spend $400,000 buying myself a job. Doesn't really make sense unless I am not capable of earning a return.

You wouldn’t say a salary is a return? Interesting—say if you made 60k a year, you’d be getting a 15% return on your investment (well, not really, I guess, because of time invested as well). It may be about quality of life—you want to earn a salary, while being the boss and pet expert…

So it's the same with the American job system, if the government just subsidizes everything we are essentially investing into a system with no return, instead of a system that can BOTH pay salaries, and earn a return which is the goal of my business.

I don’t think that anyone wants the government to just subsidize everything.

On democratic vs. republican conservatism:
First, our government consists of two parties making decisions. The economy under a republican president doesn’t just switch over to some sort of idealistic republican ran economy.

The study I mentioned did account for some lag time, and it was consistent enough over a long period of time that it was indeed interesting. It was not meant to be a nuanced account of which party’s policies (if there is any such coherent set of policies) is better for GDP. It was to raise the point that democrats are not the anti-growth party.

In business we talk about the hedgehog concept, which is basically do one thing well instead of two things half well. Pretty basic concept.

One of the most basic, but frequently most failed strategic frameworks I’ve run in to…

My opinion is that democrats and republicans have two different strategies. Unfortunately in this country we also have democrats and republican people so in politics our government attempts to blend two strategies for success into one and it often fails.

Failure on what level? GDP growth? Consumers acting responsibly? Just trying to get to the bottom of what you are thinking…

I think the republican strategy is better… however, I think the country wants a more democratic strategy. I think it can work if it’s done consistently and vice versa. In short, I don’t think it’s the republicans OR the democrats causing economic problems, it’s the fusion of the two.

Well, I suppose the question is what “better” amounts to.

The good news is, that since you think gridlock is bad, and since the congress will absolutely be Democratic this time around, and you think unified strategy will be better, you are now obligated to vote for Barack Obama!

McCain Desertions

2008-10-26T18:01:00.001-07:00

Some bigtime Republicans have been defecting. Read about it here! Ron PS. Sorry about the paucity of postings lately. Our time on the east coast has been full and somewhat out of our control. I'm still hoping to hit foreign policy before we leave (and answer some of Matt's questions).

Some of our Allies Would Like a Vote

2008-10-18T04:34:00.000-07:00

They don't get one, but world attitude certainly is interesting. After all, our power is much more powerful if it is in concert with our allies.

Read about their pick here.

Barack Hussein Obama

2008-10-11T15:05:00.000-07:00

Beside all the obvious reasons to wonder about the Republican ticket, Sarah Palin particularly, I wonder how Christian people can be so excited about her. I'm not talking about her questionable ethics or her inability to answer a question cogently (although these are interesting topics).

I'm talking about her rhetoric. Please read below...

October 12, 2008 (New York Times)

Op-Ed Columnist

The Terrorist Barack Hussein Obama

By FRANK RICH

IF you think way back to the start of this marathon campaign, back when it seemed preposterous that any black man could be a serious presidential contender, then you remember the biggest fear about Barack Obama: a crazy person might take a shot at him.

Some voters told reporters that they didn’t want Obama to run, let alone win, should his very presence unleash the demons who have stalked America from Lincoln to King. After consultation with Congress, Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, gave Obama a Secret Service detail earlier than any presidential candidate in our history — in May 2007, some eight months before the first Democratic primaries.

“I’ve got the best protection in the world, so stop worrying,” Obama reassured his supporters. Eventually the country got conditioned to his appearing in large arenas without incident (though I confess that the first loud burst of fireworks at the end of his convention stadium speech gave me a start). In America, nothing does succeed like success. The fear receded.

Until now. At McCain-Palin rallies, the raucous and insistent cries of “Treason!” and “Terrorist!” and “Kill him!” and “Off with his head!” as well as the uninhibited slinging of racial epithets, are actually something new in a campaign that has seen almost every conceivable twist. They are alarms. Doing nothing is not an option.

All’s fair in politics. John McCain and Sarah Palin have every right to bring up William Ayers, even if his connection to Obama is minor, even if Ayers’s Weather Underground history dates back to Obama’s childhood, even if establishment Republicans and Democrats alike have collaborated with the present-day Ayers in educational reform. But it’s not just the old Joe McCarthyesque guilt-by-association game, however spurious, that’s going on here. Don’t for an instant believe the many mindlessly “even-handed” journalists who keep saying that the McCain campaign’s use of Ayers is the moral or political equivalent of the Obama campaign’s hammering on Charles Keating.

What makes them different, and what has pumped up the Weimar-like rage at McCain-Palin rallies, is the violent escalation in rhetoric, especially (though not exclusively) by Palin. Obama “launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist.” He is “palling around with terrorists” (note the plural noun). Obama is “not a man who sees America the way you and I see America.” Wielding a wildly out-of-context Obama quote, Palin slurs him as an enemy of American troops.

By the time McCain asks the crowd “Who is the real Barack Obama?” it’s no surprise that someone cries out “Terrorist!” The rhetorical conflation of Obama with terrorism is complete. It is stoked further by the repeated invocation of Obama’s middle name by surrogates introducing McCain and Palin at these rallies. This sleight of hand at once synchronizes with the poisonous Obama-is-a-Muslim e-mail blasts and shifts the brand of terrorism from Ayers’s Vietnam-era variety to the radical Islamic threats of today.

That’s a far cry from simply accusing Obama of being a guilty-by-association radical leftist. Obama is being branded as a potential killer and an accessory to past attempts at murder. “Barack Obama’s friend tried to kill my family” was how a McCain press release last week packaged the remembrance of a Weather Underground incident from 1970 — when Obama was 8.

We all know what punishment fits the crime of murder, or even potential murder, if the security of post-9/11 America is at stake. We all know how self-appointed “patriotic” martyrs always justify taking the law into their own hands.

Obama can hardly be held accountable for Ayers’s behavior 40 years ago, but at least McCain and Palin can try to take some responsibility for the behavior of their own supporters in 2008. What’s troubling here is not only the candidates’ loose inflammatory talk but also their refusal to step in promptly and strongly when someone responds to it with bloodthirsty threats in a crowded arena. Joe Biden had it exactly right when he expressed concern last week that “a leading American politician who might be vice president of the United States would not just stop midsentence and turn and condemn that.” To stay silent is to pour gas on the fires.

It wasn’t always thus with McCain. In February he loudly disassociated himself from a speaker who brayed “Barack Hussein Obama” when introducing him at a rally in Ohio. Now McCain either backpedals with tardy, pro forma expressions of respect for his opponent or lets second-tier campaign underlings release boilerplate disavowals after ugly incidents like the chilling Jim Crow-era flashback last week when a Florida sheriff ranted about “Barack Hussein Obama” at a Palin rally while in full uniform.

From the start, there have always been two separate but equal questions about race in this election. Is there still enough racism in America to prevent a black man from being elected president no matter what? And, will Republicans play the race card? The jury is out on the first question until Nov. 4. But we now have the unambiguous answer to the second: Yes.

McCain, who is no racist, turned to this desperate strategy only as Obama started to pull ahead. The tone was set at the Republican convention, with Rudy Giuliani’s mocking dismissal of Obama as an “only in America” affirmative-action baby. We also learned then that the McCain campaign had recruited as a Palin handler none other than Tucker Eskew, the South Carolina consultant who had worked for George W. Bush in the notorious 2000 G.O.P. primary battle where the McCains and their adopted Bangladeshi daughter were slimed by vicious racist rumors.

No less disconcerting was a still-unexplained passage of Palin’s convention speech: Her use of an unattributed quote praising small-town America (as opposed to, say, Chicago and its community organizers) from Westbrook Pegler, the mid-century Hearst columnist famous for his anti-Semitism, racism and violent rhetorical excess. After an assassin tried to kill F.D.R. at a Florida rally and murdered Chicago’s mayor instead in 1933, Pegler wrote that it was “regrettable that Giuseppe Zangara shot the wrong man.” In the ’60s, Pegler had a wish for Bobby Kennedy: “Some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow falls.”

This is the writer who found his way into a speech by a potential vice president at a national political convention. It’s astonishing there’s been no demand for a public accounting from the McCain campaign. Imagine if Obama had quoted a Black Panther or Louis Farrakhan — or William Ayers — in Denver.

The operatives who would have Palin quote Pegler have been at it ever since. A key indicator came two weeks after the convention, when the McCain campaign ran its first ad tying Obama to the mortgage giant Fannie Mae. Rather than make its case by using a legitimate link between Fannie and Obama (or other Democratic leaders), the McCain forces chose a former Fannie executive who had no real tie to Obama or his campaign but did have a black face that could dominate the ad’s visuals.

There are no black faces high in the McCain hierarchy to object to these tactics. There hasn’t been a single black Republican governor, senator or House member in six years. This is a campaign where Palin can repeatedly declare that Alaska is “a microcosm of America” without anyone even wondering how that might be so for a state whose tiny black and Hispanic populations are each roughly one-third the national average. There are indeed so few people of color at McCain events that a black senior writer from The Tallahassee Democrat was mistakenly ejected by the Secret Service from a campaign rally in Panama City in August, even though he was standing with other reporters and showed his credentials. His only apparent infraction was to look glaringly out of place.

Could the old racial politics still be determinative? I’ve long been skeptical of the incessant press prognostications (and liberal panic) that this election will be decided by racist white men in the Rust Belt. Now even the dimmest bloviators have figured out that Americans are riveted by the color green, not black — as in money, not energy. Voters are looking for a leader who might help rescue them, not a reckless gambler whose lurching responses to the economic meltdown (a campaign “suspension,” a mortgage-buyout stunt that changes daily) are as unhinged as his wanderings around the debate stage.

To see how fast the tide is moving, just look at North Carolina. On July 4 this year — the day that the godfather of modern G.O.P. racial politics, Jesse Helms, died — The Charlotte Observer reported that strategists of both parties agreed Obama’s chances to win the state fell “between slim and none.” Today, as Charlotte reels from the implosion of Wachovia, the McCain-Obama race is a dead heat in North Carolina and Helms’s Republican successor in the Senate, Elizabeth Dole, is looking like a goner.

But we’re not at Election Day yet, and if voters are to have their final say, both America and Obama have to get there safely. The McCain campaign has crossed the line between tough negative campaigning and inciting vigilantism, and each day the mob howls louder. The onus is on the man who says he puts his country first to call off the dogs, pit bulls and otherwise.

Obama's Small Business Plan

2008-10-10T14:10:00.000-07:00

Obama Proposes Small Business Rescue Plan

(Sharon Mcloone, Washington Post)

Barack Obama today proposed a plan of tax cuts and loans for small businesses hurt by the current credit crisis, a temporary program he said is needed to help Main Street and complement what has already been done for Wall Street.

In The Trail, a daily diary of campaign 2008 on washingtonpost.com, Robert Barnes writes that the Democratic presidential nominee told a courthouse crowd that the program would be a way of "extending our hand to the shops and restaurants, the start-ups and small firms that create jobs and make our economy grow. Main Street needs relief and you need it now."

Obama said the $5 billion Small Business Rescue Plan would be similar to one implemented after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and would be run through the Small Business Administration.

More on Economic Outcomes and Presidents

2008-10-10T14:08:00.000-07:00

Granted, the data is complicated (consider the role of congress), but I'm not addressing the congressional election.

And I'm not trying to prove that the Democrats are always better for the economy in every way. What I'm trying to show is that the Republican party isn't the growth party (versus the nongrowth Democratic big government party).

The Big Government Party

2008-10-09T10:37:00.000-07:00

And you thought that Republicans believe in less government intervention.

Read this regarding the Bush Administration's respect for your civil liberties.

It also highlights the fact that George has been dishonest with us once again. So much for the whole 'godly' president argument.

Economics IV - The Vacuum

2008-10-08T11:39:00.000-07:00

I continuously hear rhetoric like "tax burden" and "they take this many thousands dollars of my money." This belies some conceptual assumptions that I think are grossly mistaken.

I. The Vacuum as it relates to income.

We do not operate in a vacuum. It may seem like it. Today I have no job and no pay check. Tomorrow I do, and now I have 5000 dollars a month. Well, actually, no, I have 3000 dollars a month, since the government takes my money. It seems like something is being taken from us.

But we fail to simultaneously recognize how impossible that paycheck would be without what the government does. We worked in conjunction with social forces, the government and luck to get that paycheck, and we have to keep paying back into that system for it to work.

Imagine if there were no public education. How would our economy function, especially now that the world economy is fast becoming an information and service economy? We would be in big trouble. My lucrative job at the title company would nary be possible without a highly employed public that could buy houses. The people who buy from your firms need to be on stable footing for you to be profitable.

There are other forces that can work against your success, even if they don't touch you directly. Broken families. Unemployed parents. Teenage pregnancy. Crime. A Canadian invasion. No postal service, or roads, or the existence of toxic levels of pollution. Climate change can and will effect many. People who go bankrupt because of health problems, or who engage only in acute care because they don't have insurance--their situation will ultimately work against your prosperity. What if there were no seaports, airports, or agencies that coordinate quality control and safety policies (lead in childrens toys, procedures for getting something imported through LA without including bioweaponry, road safety standards)? How about fire, police, 911? What about the children who need intervention early, or the mentally ill? Do you really think that by failing to give them a helping hand that the economy will be in better shape?

The money was never all yours or mine to begin with. There are trillions of contingent facts that needed to be in place historically and in the present for it to work. And at least a few million of those facts need to continually be in place for the system to not collapse.

Taxes can be very good for the economy. Even fiscal conservatives realize this.

II. The Vacuum as it relates to overall lot in life.

There are those who look talk about "reaping what you sew" who frequently fail to pay attention to the number of causes at play in a person's life. They feel it is unjust that "just because I am successful" that I should have to support those who "haven't worked as hard, or as smart" as they have.

I would suggest a thought experiment, courtesy of a (republican) professor of mine from college.

Suppose you are the parent of a baby girl. Someday she is going to marry a boy two years older than her, and you have the option of chosing between two.

First: Johnnie is the son of two middle class, blonde haired americans. They both have a college education, and Dad has an MBA. Mom is presently taking a few years off to be a stay at home mom, at least until the kids are in school. Dad works about 50 hours a week, but he is pretty emotionally present. Both parents plan to send Johnnie to private school and have started saving up for this.

Second: Nick is another two year old boy. He lives only 10 miles from Johnnie, but has a different story. His mom is a single mom. He has four siblings. He was a crack baby, but has had no major lasting effect (that they know of) from that. His mom works three jobs and his oldest brother, who is 11, does a fair amount of the supervising. Because his mom has three jobs, they do not qualify for welfare, and so Nick doesn't have any medical insurance.

Who do you pick for your daughter?

Duh.

Context matters. As I said before, we don't operate in a vacuum, and that is true in many aspects that aren't related to government programs. Our social background--our religion, our race, our culture, our work ethic, whether and how we are taught to delay gratification, whether and how we are taught to network, how agressive we are or are taught to be, our educational quality, our personal supervision and relationship to our parents as children, our connections, our intelligence, our nutrition, our health-prevention measures... You get the idea.

Why take the time to say this? Because it is, in my mind, what underlies a lot of this discussion The money is mine, and it is being taken away? Why should I be punished because someone else fell short?

In short 1: the money was never yours to begin with and 2: the system favors some and it hurts others; we who have been favored need to make sure this is remedied for purposes of justice and utility (a system that favors one group over another is unjust, and a system with gross inequity will fail to be robust for even most of those at the top).

Economics III - Fiscal Responsibility

2008-10-08T11:18:00.000-07:00

I know I am belaboring the point a bit, but it is necessary because so many people have been duped into believing that the Republican party is fiscally responsible.

According to Investors Daily Edge,

"From 1946 to today, Democrat presidents pushed the deficit up by 3.2 percent per year. Republican presidents, on the other hand, increased the budget deficit by 9.7 percent (thanks to Reagan and Bush Jr.). "

Take a look at the federal debt as a percentage of GDP. It's pretty clear who is causing problems here.

Now, I'm not suggesting there aren't times for borrowing. It is true both in micro and economics that certain kinds of debt for certain kinds of investments are a good thing. The US government is among the most dependable sources of money, and so it is one of the few entities that can simply spend more than it has without massive repercussions. But there are limits to this.

That said, the formula isn't terribly complicated. There is spending. There are taxes. We have to be willing to bring them closer to parity. And we have to be strategic about our spending--is it growing Lockheed Martin executive's 401ks? Or is it helping the much larger number of americans who, say, need retraining, or are likely to be paralyzed by the debt incurred from sickness, etc.

Some people argue that more taxes will mean the decimation of our economy. Certainly there is a level of taxation that would be harmful. But this can be handled strategically like anything else. The tax rate of the Scandanavian countries is nearly double ours, but their per capital GDP is on par with ours, and in Norway's case it is higher. And as I have shown, the economy performs better under Democrats.

There is the fear by some that they cannot afford the extra 500 bucks per person that a tax increase will cost. First, it should be noted that for the middle class Obama has said he would bring a tax cut, not an increase. But he would roll back the tax cuts for the richest americans.

What does a healthier economy mean with an expanded social system mean? Your buying power is stronger. You have more job security. More retraining is available for the unemployed (which even if you are employed, is a good thing, since they can then have jobs and buy goods that keep your business going). You are protected by catastophe by guaranteed health coverage and a strong social security system when you are old.

Even if there were a tax increase, I'd take it. It would be better for everybody, including me.

But there won't be one (for the middle class!).

Economics II - The Situation

2008-10-08T11:01:00.000-07:00

We live in a time of much borrowing. Bad debt is now wreaking havok in the financial and now job markets. The US Government does it own share of borrowing--it outspends its intake by some 400 billion dollars a year (not counting the bailout) and we are coming up on 10 trillion (that is $10,000,000,000,000) in government debt. That's about $33,333 in debt for each man, woman and child in the US. For a four person family that is 130,000 dollars.

What a mess. It is going to take decades to pay back, and the future only looks worse. Demographic shifts, wanton military spending, interest on the debt, Bush tax cuts and a weak economy promise only more and more debt. This cannot go on forever.

Economics matter. Jobs are a path to livelihood, although often not (many people work two or three jobs, don't have health care, and are falling farther behind in debt just to meet the demands of daily life).

For those of you who haven't read it, I would suggest reading Nickle and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. It is an excellent book about what goes on in the life of the working poor. Their situation is extraordinarily difficult.

During the Bush presidency, real wages have failed to make any headway, and now employment is taking a massive downturn. We also engaged in an exensive (and foolhardy at best) crusade in Iraq that has costs hundreds of billions. We also got a big tax cut to boot. I am awfully tired of the "change" mantra (what does it really mean?) from the Obama people, but I am afraid I am going to have to use it here. It is time for a change!

Economics I, outcomes

2008-10-08T10:45:00.000-07:00

Before tackling the whats and why's of my positions, I wanted to dispel an unfortunate cultural myth.

The economy does not perform better under Republicans. In fact, if you look at the records since the sixties (extracting Bush II (which helps Repubs!), so that there are an even number of years being compared, the Democrats trounce the GOP.

The Democrats substantially outperform their GOP counterparts in GDP growth, employment, inflation, the stock market and the strength of the dollar.

Here is an article that gives the details. I'd like to paste it here, but I cannot get the table to work.

Also, from Reuters...

"From 1953 to 2006, average real GDP growth was 4.2 percent under Democrats and 2.8 percent under Republicans, said Benedikt Germanier, chief currency strategist in the U.S. at UBS AG in Stamford, Connecticut. Stock prices have also tended to perform better under Democrats. Since 1900, the Dow Industrials have climbed 13.3 percent annually under Democrats versus just 7.1 percent under Republicans, Germanier said. "

It should also be noted that Republican policy is not more fiscally conservative. Spending less and not taxing for it is just borrowing for the future. And they often spend more!

Here is an excellent article that points out that Democrats don't outspend Republicans.

Republicans aren't the party of good economics, or fiscal policy. They are just the policy of good marketing. If you are truly fiscally conservative, you should be angry at being manipulated. That doesn't mean you should be a Democrat, but it certainly takes away a reason for being Republican.

The Economy

2008-10-08T10:38:00.000-07:00

I am afraid I have to apologize for my absense. Istanbul, Gallipoli, Troy, Pergmamum, Ephesus and Cappadocia have kept me very busy.

Next, I'm going to tackle economics. I suppose foreign policy should follow, since those are presently the two biggest issues of the campaign.

That said, I will need some forgiveness along the way. Economics are far from simple, and there is always more to the story.

Rather than enter the shouting match about who would have reformed Wall Street earlier, or who is tied to whom in implicating the candidates, I am going to stick to more general issues that are related, but not quite as policy specific.

So, I'm not going to get into an argument about whether the bailout should include 300billion of bad debt or not. What I'm interested in is how these men will approach economics in general.

Country First?

2008-09-30T11:29:00.000-07:00

Just read an interesting article about John McCain's country first mantra. Seems it may be a bit disingenuous (well, or may have become so).

If you are interested, read here.

Ron

PS. I'm presently in transit. Left Istanbul this morning, toured Gallipoli today, Troy and Pergamum tomorrow and then to Ephesus. After a day touring Ephesus I have some major ground to cover by train. I'm hopeful to do some writing then.

Quick Update

2008-09-24T04:15:00.001-07:00

Hello dear readers,

I am going to Oktoberfest today and then late tonight I'm catching a plane to Istanbul. Needless to say, this is my last post for a day or two.

I believe I will have interent in Istanbul, and I will most certainly take time to post. My priority, of course, will be to see this amazing city--so full of lessons, history and culture. But I will continue to post if possible.

My intention was to tackle taxes and related economics, and then move into the question of "social programming" as well. I will probably do that. Matt has opened up a numer of interesting questions (stay on topic Matt!) =), that I may try and address (although I'm hoping Sabina's hat will do me a big favor and cover that while I'm flying over Gallipoli).

Thanks again all for your reading and your comments. I hope together we can work hard to gain mutual understanding and enhance our own understanding. I'm also hoping you end up persuaded to vote for Barack!

Ron

Healthcare XI: Revisiting the Issue with Matt Johnson

2008-09-23T15:59:00.000-07:00

For those of you who didn't see it, my friend and brother in law-in law (or something like that) posted an pretty interesting comment/challenge to the framework I'm working in.

I've decided to respond to it here, rather than in a comment, because there was so much to say. I've also included his comment at the bottom, for fairness and relevance.

Matt,

First of all, I love your post. I love it because it starts by asking a philosophical question, and not the “is it really the government's responsibility?" question, but a more complex question, which is “what actually makes these people better off in the end?” You question the power of health insurance to get to the actual goal--access to quality health care. You don’t question the goal—that people flourish.

I do agree that health insurance can certainly be a bit of a red herring to the essential problem, but it may also be the solution. I think you have made an important distinction here, although you haven't convinced me that the McCain plan is better than health insurance (for the 43 million). But I will do my best to keep the distinction in mind.

I’m also going to have to insert headings, because you opened so many wormy cans.

The Philosophical Question and a Key Distinction

You are right that “Health Insurance” varies in quality. The health insurance offered will be similar to the federal plan. According to the site, it covers preventative, critical, maternity, et al. Typically, government benefits are pretty decent, and so modeling it after this is very promising.

Small Businesses

The effect on small businesses, like Critter Cabana (the best pet store in the Portland Area, in Newberg and Wilsonville), has also been considered and was included in the aforementioned bill. They are exempt, and when they do pay, they get substantial reimbursement.

From Obama’s website:

· Small businesses will be exempt from this requirement, and will receive a new Small Business Health Tax Credit that helps reduce health care costs for small businesses.

· Support for Small Businesses: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will create a Small Business Health Tax Credit to provide small businesses with a refundable tax credit of up to 50 percent on premiums paid by small businesses on behalf of their employees. This new credit will provide a strong incentive to small businesses to offer high quality health care to their workers and help improve the competitiveness of America’s small businesses.

What about the other issues affecting health care costs (including competition and innovation)?

I also agree that there is more to the story. You raised the issue of innovation and competition. Of course, as I have mentioned, competition doesn't always cover the multitude of sins it is believed to, but it certainly can be quite helpful.

That said, Obama’s plan does this. I’m guessing you may have missed this part of his plan. I should note that I didn’t spend much time on this, although it would have been well-warranted. The 10 posts seemed like enough for the moment!

Selections from Obama’s Website.

Lower Costs by Modernizing The U.S. Health Care System

Reducing Costs of Catastrophic Illnesses for Employers and Their Employees: Catastrophic health expenditures account for a high percentage of medical expenses for private insurers. The Obama-Biden plan would reimburse employer health plans for a portion of the catastrophic costs they incur above a threshold if they guarantee such savings are used to reduce the cost of workers' premiums.
Helping Patients:

Support disease management programs. Seventy five percent of total health care dollars are spent on patients with one or more chronic conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure. Obama and Biden will require that providers that participate in the new public plan, Medicare or the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) utilize proven disease management programs. This will improve quality of care, give doctors better information and lower costs.
Coordinate and integrate care. Over 133 million Americans have at least one chronic disease and these chronic conditions cost a staggering $1.7 trillion yearly. Obama and Biden will support implementation of programs and encourage team care that will improve coordination and integration of care of those with chronic conditions.
Require full transparency about quality and costs. Obama and Biden will require hospitals and providers to collect and publicly report measures of health care costs and quality, including data on preventable medical errors, nurse staffing ratios, hospital-acquired infections, and disparities in care. Health plans will also be required to disclose the percentage of premiums that go to patient care as opposed to administrative costs.

Ensuring Providers Deliver Quality Care:

Promote patient safety. Obama and Biden will require providers to report preventable medical errors and support hospital and physician practice improvement to prevent future occurrences.
Align incentives for excellence. Both public and private insurers tend to pay providers based on the volume of services provided, rather than the quality or effectiveness of care. Providers who see patients enrolled in the new public plan, the National Health Insurance Exchange, Medicare and FEHBP will be rewarded for achieving performance thresholds on outcome measures.
Comparative effectiveness research. Obama and Biden will establish an independent institute to guide reviews and research on comparative effectiveness, so that Americans and their doctors will have the accurate and objective information they need to make the best decisions for their health and well-being.
Tackle disparities in health care. Obama and Biden will tackle the root causes of health disparities by addressing differences in access to health coverage and promoting prevention and public health, both of which play a major role in addressing disparities. They will also challenge the medical system to eliminate inequities in health care through quality measurement and reporting, implementation of effective interventions such as patient navigation programs, and diversification of the health workforce.
Insurance reform. Obama and Biden will strengthen antitrust laws to prevent insurers from overcharging physicians for their malpractice insurance and will promote new models for addressing errors that improve patient safety, strengthen the doctor-patient relationship and reduce the need for malpractice suits.

Lowering Costs Through Investment in Electronic Health Information Technology Systems: Most medical records are still stored on paper, which makes it hard to coordinate care, measure quality or reduce medical errors and which costs twice as much as electronic claims. Obama and Biden will invest $10 billion a year over the next five years to move the U.S. health care system to broad adoption of standards-based electronic health information systems, including electronic health records, and will phase in requirements for full implementation of health IT. Obama and Biden will ensure that patients' privacy is protected.
Lowering Costs by Increasing Competition in the Insurance and Drug Markets: The insurance business today is dominated by a small group of large companies that has been gobbling up their rivals. There have been over 400 health care mergers in the last 10 years, and just two companies dominate a full third of the national market. These changes were supposed to make the industry more efficient, but instead premiums have skyrocketed by over 87 percent.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden will prevent companies from abusing their monopoly power through unjustified price increases. Their plan will force insurers to pay out a reasonable share of their premiums for patient care instead of keeping exorbitant amounts for profits and administration. Their new National Health Exchange will help increase competition by insurers.
Lower prescription drug costs. The second-fastest growing type of health expenses is prescription drugs. Pharmaceutical companies are selling the exact same drugs in Europe and Canada but charging Americans more than double the price. Obama and Biden will allow Americans to buy their medicines from other developed countries if the drugs are safe and prices are lower outside the U.S. Obama and Biden will also repeal the ban that prevents the government from negotiating with drug companies, which could result in savings as high as $30 billion. Finally, Obama and Biden will work to increase the use of generic drugs in Medicare, Medicaid, and FEHBP and prohibit big name drug companies from keeping generics out of markets.

Fight for New Initiatives

Advance the Biomedical Research Field: As a result of biomedical research the prevention, early detection and treatment of diseases such as cancer and heart disease is better today than any other time in history. Barack Obama and Joe Biden have consistently supported funding for the national institutes of health and the national science foundation. They strongly support investments in biomedical research, as well as medical education and training in health-related fields, because it provides the foundation for new therapies and diagnostics. They have been champions of research in cancer, mental health, health disparities, global health, women and children's health, and veterans' health. As president, Obama will strengthen funding for biomedical research, and better improve the efficiency of that research by improving coordination both within government and across government/private/non-profit partnerships. An Obama-Biden administration will ensure that we translate scientific progress into improved approaches to disease prevention, early detection and therapy that is available for all Americans.
Fight AIDS Worldwide. There are 33 million people across the planet infected with HIV/AIDS. As president, Obama will continue to be a global leader in the fight against AIDS. Obama believes in working across party lines to combat this epidemic and recently joined Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) at a large California evangelical church to promote greater investment in the global AIDS battle.
Support Americans with Disabilities: As a former civil rights lawyer, Barack Obama knows firsthand the importance of strong protections for minority communities in our society. Obama and Biden are committed to strengthening and better enforcing the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) so that future generations of Americans with disabilities have equal rights and opportunities. Obama and Biden believes we must restore the original legislative intent of the ADA in the wake of court decisions that have restricted the interpretation of this landmark legislation.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden are also committed to ensuring that disabled Americans receive Medicaid and Medicare benefits in a low-cost, effective and timely manner. Recognizing that many individuals with disabilities rely on Medicare, Obama worked with Senator Ken Salazar (D-CO) to urge the department of health and human services to provide clear and reliable information on the Medicare prescription drug benefit and to ensure that the Medicare recipients were protected from fraudulent claims by marketers and drug plan agents.
Improve Mental Health Care. Mental illness affects approximately one in five American families. The National Alliance on Mental Illness estimates that untreated mental illnesses cost the U.S. more than $100 billion per year. As president, Obama will support mental health parity so that coverage for serious mental illnesses are provided on the same terms and conditions as other illnesses and diseases.
Protect Our Children from Lead Poisoning. More than 430,000 American children have dangerously high levels of lead in their blood. Lead can cause irreversible brain damage, learning disabilities, behavioral problems, and, at very high levels, seizures, coma and death. As president, Obama will protect children from lead poisoning by requiring that child care facilities be lead-safe within five years.
Reduce Risks of Mercury Pollution. More than five million women of childbearing age have high levels of toxic mercury in their blood, and approximately 630,000 newborns are born at risk every year. Barack Obama and Joe Biden have a plan to significantly reduce the amount of mercury that is deposited in oceans, lakes, and rivers, which in turn would reduce the amount of mercury in fish.
Support Americans with Autism. More than one million Americans have autism, a complex neurobiological condition that has a range of impacts on thinking, feeling, language, and the ability to relate to others. As diagnostic criteria broaden and awareness increases, more cases of autism have been recognized across the country. Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe that we can do more to help autistic Americans and their families understand and live with autism. He has been a strong supporter of more than $1 billion in federal funding for autism research on the root causes and treatments, and he believes that we should increase funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to truly ensure that no child is left behind.

Preventative Care and Holistic Health

You also questioned whether preventative care would be adequately covered because of the prejudice of the medical establishment toward holistic health workers and perspective.

I would say that my health plan was heavily focused on prevention, but perhaps not holistic care. The general trend, I believe, is toward prevention, and as I mentioned above, the Obama plan will cover this.

But for "holistic” health care providers, the issue is research. Massage therapists, herbalists, doulas, acupuncturists, and naturopaths have an opportunity. If they can show that they have a positive effect on outcomes, especially in a way that saves money in the long-run, I'm certain the insurance and government communities would be more interested.

That said, strong professional standards, self-regulation (in the guild sense) and evidence could really transform this. Of course most people who patronize holistic care givers seem to believe there is a conspiracy of entrenched interest. Although there are entrenched interests, for sure, one thing is for certain. The big corporate insurance companies are driven more by money than responsive care ideology. Show it saves money, and they will come flocking.

There also is the question of which holistic health care? Do we equate aligning chakras with herbalists, chiropractic with diagnostic by inspecting the tongue? There may be potential here, but the individual disciplines will probably have to submit themselves to substantial empirical research on a consistent basis.

I don’t see McCain’s plan moving in this direction (although I don’t know if the tax credit would apply to holistic care).

Economics and Costs

Of course, economics is a quagmire and there are brilliant, world-leading economists in the private and professorial world who can support our varying plebeian views. So I will try not to pretend there is an “economic” view.

You are right that it isn’t incontrovertible that increasing the number of insured will reduce costs. But, I would suggest a key reason why it is true.

Most of the other problems that involve rising health care costs are endemic in our 'peer' systems as well. These other countries all struggle with these matters (electronic recordkeeping, best pratice, et al) and are facing rising costs.

There seems to be only one major difference between us and our peers--the percentage of people covered. And the cost. Ours doubles most of them, often even more. And we have way less people covered. It therefore seems likely that it is the "cause."

Also, it is pretty generally agreed that prevention lowers costs. The government program will cover preventative care (presumably that has substantial empirical evidence that it does work), which would dramatically expand the availability (and affordability, your supply and demand question notwithstanding, yet) of prevention--to 43 million people. It would seem to follow that "costs" would be lowered significantly.

But the question is: do the lowered costs get passed on to the consumer?

Your concern is that it would ‘artificially’ inflate demand, which would drive up costs. Certainly most of the 'demand' would be eaten up by the commensurate increase in 'supply', i.e. the government insurance agency that covered the uninsured.

If anything, if John McCain’s plan were to actually increase the number of insured or people accessing health care (which it most likely won’t), it would genuinely increase demand (without a commensurate increase in supply).

Even if that weren’t the case, it seems that a service like health insurance isn’t necessarily a limited commodity (the supply is basically infinite). It seems like insurance companies will always want more (profitable) clients and will compete for them.

The availability of care infrastructure could be a problem—hospitals and doctors and the like. But again, I’m guessing that, given the way other government health programs squeeze providers, massive rises in prices from providers would not be tolerated by the compensating institution (i.e. the government health insurance company).

But again, it seems clear that supply will be commensurate with demand, or also that supply isn't limited (which is key for that whole supplly/demand law) and that more people in the pool will not therefore raise prices for the supply/demand reason. So it will neither be passed on to consumers or businesses.

I would suggest that more republicans would be making this argument if it is truly viable.

But you did catch me off guard when you posited that—insightful and creative, but I think in the end it doesn't hold up.

Economics and Costs

I will be the first to admit my ignorance—I don't know the details of all the South American economic crises. I am quite willing to believe that the rise in minimum wage ignited the inflation problem, but again, the issue of causes are indeed complex.

There are certainly economies structured much more like ours that have high minimum wages that are regularly increased with costs that don't suffer from hyper-inflation. If that is the case, the counter-example shows that minimum wage is neither a necessary or sufficient (it certainly wasn’t necessary for German hyper-inflation after WWI) cause of hyper-inflation or other economic problems.

For those who don’t follow what I’m saying, think of it this way. If you have a group of people, and someone yells “fire”, everyone runs out of the room and tramples one another. The exclamation, "fire", did indeed cause the stampede. However, if at another gathering, someone yelled "fire" and no one did anything (maybe the music was loud, maybe they were smoking pot) or everyone shot a gun (the gathering was a military attack), it would serve as a counter-example. What that would mean is that "fire" yelled in a gathering doesn't necessarily cause a stampede.

Perhaps “fire” can cause a stampede, but it doesn’t follow that fire is guaranteed to cause stampedes. It is neither shown to be sufficient and it is a stretch to say it is even necessary. There are obviously other circumstances that go must accompany it.

This is why my counter-example invalidates what Matt said. Yes, increasing minimum wage can cause inflation, but it doesn't necessarily do so. The context is the key.

Health Care Philosophy Revisited.

Matt, the solid plan you haven’t seen is the link you provided. That is the McCain plan for the most part (although he also eliminates the tax deduction for health care, although I cannot remember if that is for individuals or businesses). I don't see that on his site.

Of course, I also like that he wants to make costs more affordable, and he addresses some of the problems Obama does, just not the uninsured (well, not in a way I find acceptable).

Since I have argued that McCain’s plan doesn’t really increase coverage, there is the question of the uninsured. There should still be roughly 40 million or more uninsured under his plan. What does the tax credit do for them regarding catastrophic care? Not only is that what really ruins people's lives, it is also known to increase health care costs for everyone when they cannot pay.

Final Matters

I'm glad you seek a just society. I do think the language of redistribution is somewhat misleading (obviously not on purpose in your case) because the costs are already being raised and redistributed by the market (neither markets nor governments are the “fundamental” order of things).

So, you have suggested that Obama’s plan isn’t obviously more just nor does it favor those left behind in the socio-marketplace.

But your key reasons for doing so have included:

Obama’s plan doesn’t address the other issues of cost (it does, you missed that).

The uninsured aren’t necessarily keeping costs higher (and they could raise it if brought into the plan). (I argued that your supply demand position was interesting, but unlikely (and I showed why), and that McCain's plan doesn't bring more coverage and for those that do have the tax credit, their catastrophic situations will continue to destroy lives and raise overall costs). I also pointed to strong evidence that the uninsured are, in fact, keeping overall health care costs high, and therefore unaffordable (which you agreed is the key aspect here).

Regarding the Christian thing—probably the Christian thing would be to vote for the more just plan, whatever that may be.

Really, Truly, Final Matters.

Thanks, Matt, for a thought provoking post. You made a lot of work for me tonight, but it was very profitable (and indeed, for a capitalist, that is a high compliment!). Although I think I adequately answered your questions here, they were incisive indeed. Clearly not garnered from Fox News, as you worried I might think. Trust me, the thought never crossed my mind.

Ron

FROM MATT's COMMENT

Ron, you have some interesting points of view, I don't think either candidate has a solution... if there is one. I think the major disagreement I have is the framework from which you are addressing this problem, which I'd say is the same for Obama.

Looking at the problem from a standpoint that every desiring person should be able to afford a reasonable quality of health care(better framework) vs. every desiring person should have health insurance (Obama framework).

It seems looking at the problem from a the better framework the problem can be summed as "reasonable levels of health care currently cost more than the lower socioeconomic strat is able to afford." I see many more potential avenues for problem solving when the problem is framed this way.

Health insurance for all (Obama's plan) is far from a cure all in my eyes.

#1 health insurance varies greatly in the extent of it's ability to provide reasonably affordable health care because it merely augments the cost at varying levels chosen by investement and health insurance, is notorious for being just as problematic in its own right for people who are already insured.

So for starters there should be some focus on addressing innovation and competition in the health insurance markets (not mentioned in your argument on voting for Obama).

You did mention preventative health care, but health insurance is notorious and currently has a history of supporting primarily the hospital/doctor system exclusively which is focused on problem solving. My wife through our broad health insurance policy doesn't recieve any coverage for holistic health practictioners who are in my experience the most likely health care professional to offer preventative patient care vs. symptomatic patient care.

A health insurance focused plan also relies on the theory, I emphasize theory, that in the current or forseeable future US economy adding more people to the insurance system will reduce the costs. All it is really doing is artificially inflating demand at its current price which by the nature of supply and demand would very likely result in an increase in insurance prices.

While the end consumer wouldn't feel this increase directly since their employer would be paying the cost, the employer would feel the cost increase and more government control would be necessary to curtail insurance pricing. Else, the businesses would have to decrease salaries or other costs, or raise prices of their goods and services to compensate.

Obama does have a good plan for this, increase minimum wage with inflation so that consumers can afford the increases in inflation. But we all know this scenario from the attempted reforms in South America that led to hyperinflation significantly impacting world economy.

I haven't really seen a solid plan from McCain but philosophically, (http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/19ba2f1c-c03f-4ac2-8cd5-5cf2edb527cf.htm) his ideas are more consistent with solving the problem at hand which is making reasonable quality health care available to everyone.

Does a just society still matter, YES. Can a just society be achieved without government directed redistribution of wealth, depends on the people in the society but, HOPEFULLY. Is Obama's plan arguably more just than McCains, MAYBE but not by your argument IMO. Does Obama's plan favor those who are left behind by the socio-marketplace, I would say emphatically NO. Since I am a christian should I favor Obama's plan, LOL.

Thanks for the blog Ron, it did give pause for thought on an issue I hadn't really looked at beyond the extra sacrifices I and my former employees would have to make as a small business owner. (former meaning if Obama got elected and Scott and I had to fire them and work long hours at the store by ourselves)

Addition to previous post:
I don't see Obama as so stupid as to not see a lot of the problems with his overarching philosophy. However, his plan for dealing with all those problems is government oversight and regulation and utilizing government programs, basically welfare programs for the middle class, to fill in the gaps. All I'm really saying that are ramifications that could easily leave people worse off than they are now.

Also I'd like to say that you have clearly put a lot of thought into this, more than I have, and I'm not married to my position. In fact its more like a first date, My argument is really the result of one hour reading the two candidates web sites as well as your blog applied to my experience and education.

I'd also like to mention you blog is my first real exposure to opinions on the matter so I'm not just regurgitating some snippet off of Fox news. I have never been attached to the issue as I have always had lots of friends and family with and without health insurance and its never turned into an issue (lack of experience on my part, and your stories are compelling, I'm sure there are many more out there). The experience I do have with insurance is far from positive so seeing it as a solution to a health care crisis is just hard to accept. Looking forward to your and anyone else's defense of it.

George Will

2008-09-23T14:35:00.001-07:00

For those of you who know him, George Will is a serious conservative, with an showy vocabulary and an occasionally pendantic style to go with it.

But he is very smart. He's actually probably my favorite conservative commentator, because he is most certainly substantive, and occasionally clever.

He's also got some integrity. He is a true fiscal conservative, for instance, and he rips anyone who fails to be so.

Interesting what he says about McCain's temperament and the presidency.

(taken from the Washington Post)

By George F. Will

Tuesday, September 23, 2008; Page A21

"The queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. 'Off with his head!' she said without even looking around."

-- "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama.

Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated. This childish reflex provoked the Wall Street Journal to editorialize that "McCain untethered" -- disconnected from knowledge and principle -- had made a "false and deeply unfair" attack on Cox that was "unpresidential" and demonstrated that McCain "doesn't understand what's happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does."

To read the Journal's details about the depths of McCain's shallowness on the subject of Cox's chairmanship, see "McCain's Scapegoat" (Sept. 19). Then consider McCain's characteristic accusation that Cox "has betrayed the public's trust."

Perhaps an old antagonism is involved in McCain's fact-free slander. His most conspicuous economic adviser is Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who previously headed the Congressional Budget Office. There he was an impediment to conservatives, including then-Rep. Cox, who, as chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, persistently tried and generally failed to enlist CBO support for "dynamic scoring" that would estimate the economic growth effects of proposed tax cuts.

In any case, McCain's smear -- that Cox "betrayed the public's trust" -- is a harbinger of a McCain presidency. For McCain, politics is always operatic, pitting people who agree with him against those who are "corrupt" or "betray the public's trust," two categories that seem to be exhaustive -- there are no other people. McCain's Manichaean worldview drove him to his signature legislative achievement, the McCain-Feingold law's restrictions on campaigning. Today, his campaign is creatively finding interstices in laws intended to restrict campaign giving and spending. (For details, see The Post of Sept. 17; and the New York Times of Sept. 19.)

By a Gresham's Law of political discourse, McCain's Queen of Hearts intervention in the opaque financial crisis overshadowed a solid conservative complaint from the Republican Study Committee, chaired by Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas. In a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, the RSC decried the improvised torrent of bailouts as a "dangerous and unmistakable precedent for the federal government both to be looked to and indeed relied upon to save private sector companies from the consequences of their poor economic decisions." This letter, listing just $650 billion of the perhaps more than $1 trillion in new federal exposures to risk, was sent while McCain's campaign, characteristically substituting vehemence for coherence, was airing an ad warning that Obama favors "massive government, billions in spending increases."

The political left always aims to expand the permeation of economic life by politics. Today, the efficient means to that end is government control of capital. So, is not McCain's party now conducting the most leftist administration in American history? The New Deal never acted so precipitously on such a scale. Treasury Secretary Paulson, asked about conservative complaints that his rescue program amounts to socialism, said, essentially: This is not socialism, this is necessary. That non sequitur might be politically necessary, but remember that government control of capital is government control of capitalism. Does McCain have qualms about this, or only quarrels?

On "60 Minutes" Sunday evening, McCain, saying "this may sound a little unusual," said that he would like to replace Cox with Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic attorney general of New York who is the son of former governor Mario Cuomo. McCain explained that Cuomo has "respect" and "prestige" and could "lend some bipartisanship." Conservatives have been warned.

Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.

It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?

Brian McLaren

2008-09-23T14:25:00.001-07:00

Some of you may know of Brian McLaren, who wrote the highly influential books A New Kind of Christian, A Generous Orthodoxy, The Secret Message of Jesus and many more.

He has been credited as basically the "pastor" of the emergent church movement, an evangelical movement that has questioned the role of modernity (read: enlightenment) in Christian theology and praxis.

My wonderful mother-in-law, who is a very thoughtful woman and is working very hard to make sure she votes responsibly (as far as I know, she hasn't made up her mind), sent me some links to his blog.

Apparently he calls it "Why I'm Voting for Barack Obama" as well.

Here are the links.

http://www.brianmclaren.net/archives/blog/why-im-voting-for-obama-and-why.html

http://www.brianmclaren.net/archives/blog/why-im-voting-for-barack-obama-a.html

Healthcare X: The Argument

2008-09-23T02:50:00.000-07:00

So my argument goes something like this.

1. Not having health care is detrimental for the people that don’t have it.
2. 43 million people do not have health care in the US.
3. Millions of people are experiencing a system that is to their detriment. (1,2)
4. The uninsured have a deleterious effect on the system as a whole.
5. The system as a whole is broken. (2,4)
6. A broken system is a policy failure, and thus should be changed in a way that addresses the causes of that brokenness.
7. Our system should be changed in a way that includes insuring at least most of the uninsured (4,5,6)
8. Barack Obama’s plan does this; John McCain’s does not.
9. We should favor Obama’s plan (7,8).
10. There are other reasons to favor this plan that might strengthen our favor.
11. A just society matters and such matters should affect how we vote.
12. A just society maximizes good for many people and gives people at the lower socioeconomic strata a reasonably livable life situation.
13. A massive lack of insurance fails to maximize the good for many and present an acceptable state for the disadvantaged of society (1, 5).
14. Obama’s plan is more just than McCain’s plan (12, 13).
15. The health plans should push us more energetically toward voting for Obama (11,14).
16. If you are a Christian, Biblical morality should be at least somewhat decisive.
17. Biblical morality presents a model of self sacrifice and care for those who are left behind by the socio-marketplace.
18. Obama’s plan favors care for those who are left behind by the socio-marketplace.
19. Obama’s plan is more acceptable in terms of Biblical morality (17, 18).
20. If you are Christian, you should favor Obama’s plan over John McCain’s (16,19).

It looks like people who like systems that work, people who want a just society, and Christians should all favor Obama’s plan. It also looks like people who are two or three of these things should STRONGLY favor it.

Now, the basic logical flow of this argument works. You can attack my assumptions (a just society matters) or some of my assertions that were argued for in my posts (lots of uninsured hurts the health system, Christian morality’s application to public goods, the effects of John McCain’s plan, etc.).

I think it is safe to say that my assumptions are obvious, the things I have briefly argued for above are most likely true and supported by the evidence, and that the flow of my argument is sound. If that is the case, you should be favoring Obama’s health care plan, energetically.

Healthcare IX: A Summary

2008-09-23T02:39:00.000-07:00

Healthcare: a summary of entries.

I have to apologize for the occasionally meandering nature of this series. I have been in multiple countries, dealing with family death, and have had spotty internet access. So the coherence factor has been undermined a bit.

That said, I’d like to summarize the basic thrust of my articles.

I and II. Not having healthcare is a REALLY bad thing, sometimes tragic.
II (b) An unfathomable number of people in the US don’t have it.
III. A quick numeric look at how our system stacks up. Our system is dramatically more expensive and notably less effective than our peers.
IV. Why is it so?
V. The Candidate’s Plans.
VI. Objections.
VII. A just society
VIII. Christian Morality
IX. A summary of what has been written.
XII. Clarifying the argument (to come)

Healthcare VIII: Christian Morality

2008-09-23T02:36:00.000-07:00

And then there is the moral question. Of course the philosophical questions relate to morality, but I’m talking about Christian morality now.

I have a hard time understanding how someone who has ‘died to themselves’ would not support healthcare for everyone. Perhaps this is idealism. So is “love your enemies; turn the other cheek; care for the poor; true religion is taking care of widows and orphans in their distress; whatever you did to the least of these you did to me; be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect; blessed are the poor in spirit; overcome evil with good; do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with thy God; mercy triumphs over judgment.” Apparently Jesus, Micah, James and Paul were idealists too.

I think from a basic Christian vantage point, it should be nearly impossible to countenance being in the wealthiest society in history and denying tens of millions of people access to decent healthcare. I understand that there is no ‘law’ the denies access, but the power of money and social structures is just as potent a force. And we have the power to change that.

Of course I may be charged with a more nuanced idealism—it is not that we want to deny people health care, it is that we think the government will not do it well.

I would suggest revisiting the facts. Our healthcare system is broken. Lots of choices aren’t helping. Capitalistic health care models are not the only successful ones. Ours is less successful than most systems that guarantee health care for all. The uninsured not only represent a moral failure, but a vast strain on the system itself, contributing significantly to the rise in prices and subsequent decline in care.

Again, one only has to look around the world to see that yes, all systems are flawed, but we can do better. Also, the plans presented are not single payer systems, and, undoubtedly for the 43 million uninsured, they would be a marked improvement.

The biggest problem the rest of us would have to face is longer waits because millions of people who couldn't afford care could now have it.

Healthcare VII : How Should a Society be Arranged?

2008-09-23T02:03:00.000-07:00

For me, this is a philosophical and moral question.

The philosophical one is this: how should a society be arranged? What is a just society, and what is the relationship between the government and the public in that society?

These are complex and relatively unsolvable questions, and they depend heavily on context, but I will offer a few thoughts.

1. John Rawls popularized a wise thought-experiment. A just society is one you would design if you had no idea which social stratum you would end up on--your gender, religion, economic status, etc. Would you care to be on the lower strata in the US, presumably without health care? Obviously Rawls' "original position" is not going to create exact consensus, but it is insightful nonetheless.

It seems obvious that a society with the kind of disparity like ours is indeed unjust. I think a just society is a goal we should strive for, although I won’t attempt to defend that here. Perhaps we would arrange this rich society differently, from behind the veil, if we knew there was a very real chance we would be without healthcare?

2. Common good utilitarianism. Utilitarians work to maximize the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Although the theory has its shortcomings, it has real strengths for macro social considerations. As I’ve argued before, the present system not only hurts 2150 Rose Garden arenas full of people, it also hurts everyone else. The system continues to be less robust over time. The good of the whole and the parts are all being sacrificed. Conservatives in other countries have long figured this out.

3. Egoism. I think egoism as moral theory is vacuous, but I would suggest that even it offers something here. Egoists believe in acting with their own interests most heavily in mind. I’d suggest that this is what most of us actually do. If you want to act for your own benefit, consider both the real cost of failing to change the system or the potential that you too, may end up uninsured.

Health VI. Objections

2008-09-22T15:08:00.000-07:00

There are the typical objections:

Social health care doesn’t work. My aunt in France had to wait too long for her surgery and she died.

1. What has been proposed is not a one-payer, social health care regime.

2. For the record, it does work. It has worked extremely effectively in a number of countries. Again, take a look at how the US ranks on healthcare outcomes. Granted, this is partially because so many are uninsured, and so they ‘drag’ down the numbers. We pay more than twice as much or even more than many of these counterparts. Let that give you pause. Private enterprise competing is not acting more efficiently.

3. Wait times: we have these too. We also don’t like the idea that there would be metrics that decide our fate, despite these being based on science. We are much more comfortable that such decisions are now made by the access that money buys?

I should point out that, in countries where the cost of living is not substantially lower than our own, I obtained prescription drugs at a drug store and purchased them directly. I did so for less than the ‘negotiated and coverage-based cost’ I got from my old health plan (you know, the 10, 30 or 60 dollar thing?). I purchased them directly for less than I would have if I was at home AND they were covered.

3. You are going to put a bureaucrat between me and my doctor.

Read the Obama plan. This is not going to happen. At worst, it will happen to some uninsured people—who then at least will have a doctor!

You will not be forced into this plan.

4. The VA is terrible. Government health care won’t work.

The VA is a great example of strained government health care. This isn’t because of the nature of government provided health care—that has already been shown to be false through the counterexample of many other countries. The VA is underfunded, for a variety of very sad political reasons.

5. We cannot pay for it. It will be too expensive. I do not want to have to pay for someone else’s healthcare.

Please look at the numbers in Health Care III. You are already paying for someone else’s health care. The notion that ‘as goes the community, so goes you’ isn’t just a liberal, feel-good idea. It is rooted in actuality. It has driven rising costs and thinning care similarly, and is expected to do so more in the future. If you don’t consider that ‘paying’, you might rethink how you define it.

6. It isn't fiscally conservative.

John McCain's plan is extraordinarily expensive as well, estimated at 1.3 trillion over ten years, to Barack's 1.6. And it doesn't get at the key issue of the uninsured.

And John McCain is going to pay for it how? Barack has addressed how he will grow revenue, through tax increases on people making more then 250,000 in areas like social security (they aren't paying on wages over 105,000), capital gains, etc.

I'd say 1.3 trillion, less insured people and no way to pay for it sounds like a fiscal nightmare.

Healthcare V: The Plans

2008-09-22T14:50:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama and John McCain have very different plans for health care for the US.

John McCain's plan focuses on deregulation, moving creating a tax credit, and no longer making employer provided benefits deductible.

Obama's plan involves requiring large corporations to provide care, parents to provide care for kids, and a series of subsidies and a federal insurance plan for those who opt in.

The nonpartisan tax policy center estimates that the McCain plan will cost 1.3 trillion, and Barack's plan 1.6. Obama's plan will cover an additional 34 million, McCain's will lower the number of insured.

While I cannot say that either plan is perfect, I think Barack's plan is clearly preferable, for several reasons.

McCain’s plan does little about the fundamental forces driving the dramatic cost increases in health care. The uninsured are a key factor here. It actually shifts the burden away from larger corporations to the average American. It would lower the number of insured people, or if by some miracle it didn't, it would only add a small amount. It also may offer sigificant problems for those with preexisting conditions. It also eliminates health deductions, which takes some of the bonus out of the tax credits.

Now, Obama’s plan isn’t exactly utopia either, but it is a dramatic improvement. It is estimated that it will take 34 million off the ranks of the uninsured. This will undoubtedly have a stabilizing effect. Obviously the other causes need to be addressed as well.

Healthcare IV: Rising Costs

2008-09-22T14:49:00.000-07:00

Why does healthcare cost so much in the United States?

Many reasons have been posited, a substantial number of which are likely contributors.

One of the primary problems is a lack of preventative care. This should come as no surprise when 43 million people do not have health insurance. Insurance companies provide some of the most obvious evidence for this. These companies base almost all their underwriting on statistical models, and they are starting to cover the full cost of preventative care. The choose preventative, because in the long run it saves them money.

But 43 million people are without prevention. That means they cost the system much more in the long run. When people do not get the prevention they need, they generate acute care. Emergency rooms cannot turn away people because of health insurance, but the cost of emergency care versus doctor visits is substantially higher. Of course, the patients in the ER typically have worse problems as well. This use of the ER tends to overrun it and make ER’s less effective for those it is intended for.

When such a large percentage of the population is uninsured, it puts vast pressure on the entire system. It wreaks absolute havoc on people’s lives, financial and worse. That said, car insurance forms a helpful analogy. It is for the sake of both the individual and the common good that we are required to have car insurance if we want to be on the road. The fact that we are required to have car insurance isn’t ruining our lives by socialistically owning our souls. It is a stabilizing factor in microeconomics, which affects macroeconomics.

This is an example of why a large gap between the rich and the poor is indeed problematic for more reasons than injustice. It actually weakens the system. When the lower financial strata are so at the mercy of circumstance, we all pay.

There are other issues—inefficiencies, massive duplication because of competition between private enterprises, the nature of underwriting rather than service, prescription drug cost issues that are more complex and political, and a host of other things. Healthcare is big business in the US, and the fact that it is so isn’t helping us do appreciably better. In fact, it seems the opposite when we are compared with other nations with less money, less infrastructure, and less technology who spend far less per person on health care.

Granted, we who have money have access to pretty excellent care. It just is expensive. From a selfish vantage point, the problem for the insured is more expensive care accompanied by diminishing coverage. For the wealthy, this isn’t a big problem, but it is a significant inconvenience (obviously not for the super-rich). But for the middle class, or anyone without a significant savings buffer, it is a real burden. And for anyone without insurance, the problem is dire.

Healthcare III: A Few Quick Facts

2008-09-19T17:01:00.000-07:00

In the US there are 43 Million Uninsured people.

We spend 7600 dollars per person per year on health care.

Health care spending accounts for 16 percent of GDP and is expected to rise to 20 in a few years.

Health care spending accounts for 10.9 percent of the GDP in Switzerland, 10.7 percent in Germany, 9.7 percent in Canada and 9.5 percent in France, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

We spend twice what other developed nations do, and we spend a vastly larger percentage of our money as well. And our outcomes are not as good.

We are 45th in life expectancy, 33rd in infant mortality, despite having access to some of the most cutting edge technology in the world.

By most recognized measures, we dramatically lag our international peers despite spending twice as much. And we have 47 million uninsured people.

Who has the better plan to address this? Barack Obama or John McCain?

I guess the obvious answer will have to wait, as it is almost three in the morning!

Healthcare II: Another Story and Stadiums more

2008-09-16T17:27:00.000-07:00

One more story, I'll keep it shorter.

Jeanine Durban was in her mid forties in the early nineties. She noticed a mole that was changing on her back. It worried her, but she didn't go to the doctor. Her and her husband didn't have health coverage.

Finally, the mole became grotesque and she felt she could wait no longer. She had waited too long. The melanoma had already burrowed deeply into her body. Within just a few weeks and months, they found tumors in her eyes and in all other sorts of places. They found two dots, one in each lung. In two weeks her lungs were full and she did in hospice care, surrounded by loved ones.

My great-aunt Jeanie died in her forties, and a significant part of why can be attributed to her lack of health care coverage. My aunt Rhonda, also in her forties, is possibly on her deathbed, and she has suffered copious agony and depression, also significantly attributable to her health care situation.

Now, Rhonda and Jeanie are perhaps extreme examples, but there are plenty of others. Many people suffer, have shorter and lower quality lives, raise costs through acute care and emergency visits, or live in fear (or in the reality) of financial destruction in the case of a health care crisis (just what you want to bequeath to your family).

Imagine the Rose Garden arena, in Portland. It holds roughly 20,000 people, a mind-numbing number. Now, you would have to fill two thousand, one hundred and fifty Rose Garden Arena's to get the number of people in the US without health care.

If you divided up those arenas equally, you would get 43 for each state. Now, to be fair, Oregon is a small state. If you account for our share of the US population, we would only get 26 and a half. Stop and imagine that for a second. A Rose Garden Arena, full of uninsured in Portland, Gresham, Happy Valley, Clackamas, Beaverton, Hillsboro, Tigard, Lake Oswego Tualatin, McMinville, Newberg, Astoria, Lincoln City, Tilamook, Eugene, Corvallis, Salem, Bend, Grants Pass, Ashland, Pendleton, Redmond, Wilsonville, Coos Bay and half of one in Burns, all uninsured.

43 million people in the US, filling 2150 arenas, all without health care. Suffering, raising the costs of your health care, and experiencing declining health outcomes in the richest nation in the history of the world.

This, my friends, is a crisis and an abomination.

Healthcare I: A Story

2008-09-16T17:05:00.000-07:00

First, a story.

I don't wish to use this person to make a point in any crass way. The person below believes strongly in what I'm going to say and I am certain she would support this posting.

Rhonda was born in the early sixties with tangled intestines and a series of complications. She manged to get through them, but her gastro-intestinal health was poor. After some rocky teenage years, she grew up like we all do. She was forced to do so by an impending baby girl, but enjoyed pregnancy and welcomed her little girl into the world.

Rhonda worked for a number of years, but was eventually laid off. She lost her health benefits. She had to go on welfare--living with her mother, they (and her mother's second husband) spent a significant number of years taking in loads of foster children. Rhonda was an instrumental contributor to their care. She was also stuck. She wanted work, and was depressed that she didn't have an income producing job. But she had a young daughter. Work meant no health care, and even a fairly minor sickness would set them back enough to make low wages with no benefits hardly worth it. Consequently, she spent a number of years on welfare, and her daughter got her health care.

For whatever reason, the welfare eventually ran out. Proper health care did as well.

It should be admitted that Rhonda's body had rebelled against her from a young age, and she didn't treat it perfectly either. She smoked and her eating habits were periodically less than excellent, but she exercised and did watch her weight.

Rhonda had a stroke in her early thirties. Fortunately, she eventually recovered.

Rhonda eventually was diagnosed with Chrons disease. I believe this was probably about nine years ago. She became extremely ill. Her sickness was severe. She has spent hundreds, possibly thousands of days stuck vomiting into the toilet, or sitting on it at the very least. The kind of sickness that absolutely lays waste to all of us, she has faced on a daily basis.

There were some occasional periods of health care. She married a wonderful man named Duane. He had health insurance, and when she could get the proper medication (it took a while to find it), her Chrons abated somewhat. She still struggled, but she was able to live as well. She was actually going to marry him a few months later (they planned a big ceremony), but they went to a judge before. She needed to be on his health care.

Dwayne died of a sudden heart attack, just a couple weeks after they married. A few months later, she said to me, "Every moment matters. It is who and how we love that matters."

Of course, she has been discouraged. She's fought real depression. And then her healthcare ran out. After what Dwayne left her disappeared, she has really struggled. Her sister has housed her, taken care of her, and borne enormous expense on her behalf. But, for several years now, she had to go without health care.

You see, the disability people thought she could work. They looked at her history of welfare, and decided she was freeloading. The woman couldn't leave the bathroom long enough to sit through a short family gathering. But that didn't matter. Her doctors' words availed nothing. Her multiple surgeries weren't enough.She would have to suffer.

And suffer she did. Her Chron's got more severe. She started to have sort of strange spells, where she would get disoriented, about every six weeks. Eventually she would sleep, for a day at a time, and could barely be roused. Then, not at all. She actually became comatose.

In the last year or so, she has been in the hospital, in this severe comatose state, and/or with nearly lethal pneumonia, at least a dozen times. She's had to be on a ventilator multiple times. Her health has deteriorated significantly while she couldn't get her appropriate medicine.

Lawyers recently got invovled, and the disability people were wrong, and have had to pay back pay (of course the lawyers had to be paid, too). That was nice. Rhonda is on disability for life. Wonderful. She can get great health care. This has happened in the last few months.

But it seems to be too late. She is in the hospital right now. Her lungs are full and she has had another stroke and she is throwing clots. Her legs seem to be getting too little blood, and she may lose them. Her life is in the balance for the umpteenth time, and we are all wondering if it is even fair to Rhonda to hope.

Rhonda is on her deathbed. She has cost the 'system' hundreds of thousands of dollars for her acute care, and much of it can likely be attributed to her lack of preventative maintenance along the way. It is, of course, not clear as to how much her lack of healthcare has brought about her present situation, but it is clear that for years and years, she has suffered acutely when she need not have. She has suffered so taxes can be slightly lowered, but it still costs the average person more for their healthcare than it would have had they been taxed for hers (more on this later).

When is enough enough?

Status of Upcoming Posts

2008-09-15T03:07:00.000-07:00

Well, we have arrived in Budapest, and we have great internet access. There are only two problems.

1. I have to finish my law school applications, hopefully today.
2. We are in BUDAPEST!

Thus the delay. However, I do have great ambitions, at least a substantial portion of which will be fulfilled, to write on the following topics. I've already got outlines written on them.

Healthcare
Economics--Taxation and Markets
Free Trade
Fisscal Responsibility
Poverty
Social "Programming"
Education

Thus far I've had the most requests for taxation and healthcare, (some of these have come by email), so I will probably address those first.

Thanks again for reading!

Ron

Gay Marriage

2008-09-09T15:20:00.000-07:00

It's nearly one in the morning and I have to catch a train to Vienna in the morning, so this will be brief (for me). I will be away from the net for two or three days, but I will have open access for the following week.

Barack Obama and John McCain have similar views on gay marriage. Granted, it is more likely that the difference is clearer when you compare the Democratic ticket with, say, Sarah Palin, who is obviously much more conservative.

Assuming McCain remains healthy for his entire presidency, I'm guessing there won't be any substantive differences in policy between the two potential presidents. If that is the case, there isn't much reason on this count for a socially conservative person to favor McCain.

Strike II. John McCain isn't any more socially conservative than Obama here.

That said, I wonder about the role of the state in 'the definition of marriage' to begin with. I'm awfully surprised to see the Church slugging this deeply spiritual matter out with their opponents in the political sphere over a distinction that largely serves policy purposes (tax laws, inheritance, etc.).

I'm not suggesting that our values be checked at the door to the political marketplace, only that it is something of an oddity that 'marriage' (vis a vis God) and 'marriage' (vis a vis the state) are in any sort of significant dialogue. Perhaps we should have a new name for the state one. Mawwiage, or something like that.

Sometimes I wonder why Christians are okay with state involvement at all, or as an alternative, why we care at all. It seems to me that state involvement in the matter is farcical from the vantage point of someone who believes marriage is a transcendent reality decreed by an omnipotent God. Whether the state calls gay marriage "marriage" seems to be a mere quibble about words, rather than protecting an institution.

And, I have to be honest, we Christians haven't shown much more respect for the institution of marriage than have our non-Christian counterparts.

Of course, there are those who are don't want gay couples to be afforded marriage 'benefits'. I don't intend to address that at the moment. But for most of the 'definition of marriage' people, I would suggest that the fact that marriage has been in some sense co-opted for political and economic purposes is far more offensive than any policies proffered in recent times.

Perhaps we should figure that the separation of Church and state is violating the Church in this matter, and the state should butt out and call it something else?

Any thoughts?

Is Sarah Palin a Fiscal Conservative

2008-09-09T02:26:00.000-07:00

Here is an interesting article from a reporter who, admittedly, isn't impressed by Sarah Palin.

That said, Time is great for rigor with their facts.

To be fair to Palin, she's not the only one. The record clearly shows that the Republican Leadership over the last 20 years is not remotely fiscally conservative.

Yes, they favor low taxes. But that by itself is not conservative. They spend as much or more than the Democrats, and then simultaneously lower taxes. Some call this supply-side economics. They suggest that the tax breaks will create so much economic activity that the increased tax revenues will cover the costs. Although this takes a small bite out of the cuts, the theory has failed to be credible.

That said, if I were really fiscally conservative, I wouldn't be happy with the Republican party at all--for failing to be so and for cynically marketing themselves as such.

Abortion V - some thoughs for you Pro-Choicers

2008-09-08T05:21:00.000-07:00

Now, that doesn't leave pro-choice people off the hook.

You, too might get a bit more practical and less ideological.

Too often, being pro-choice means being against anybody or anything who thinks abortion is a moral matter. It means jumping down someone's throat for having a concern about fetal life. It means litmus tests for judges, and therefore the subjugation of many subjects to the one. These approaches are as irrational as your opponents'.

That's not to say that you shouldn't feel passionate about choice or privacy. It means that you should understand the passion that drives your political opponents.

If you take seriously their assumption that a fetus is a baby, perhaps this could bring some epistemic humility to your position. The ontological status of a fetus is actually questionable--it's not radically clear in one direction or the other, especially at certain stages of development.

If it is a human being, choice doesn't trump the right to live. And you could be wrong as to whether it is a human being.

We have to ask ourselves the pertinent question "what if it might be a human being?" I don't mean that we should live by hypotheticals, but this question lies at the heart of the matter. There are many things these fetuses have in common with persons, and killing innocent persons is among the most pernicious acts a human can commit.

Perhaps some humility about your clarity would do you some good. It would be ideologically appropriate, it seems. But more importantly, it would be practical.

If you really want the right to choose, show a pro-life person how committed you are to taking care of women, of providing them with opportunities to thrive if they do chose to have a child, even if it is because of a moral structure you don't believe in. This will make the debate less entrenched, which will more likely protect the legal rights you believe in.

It will also reduce the number of abortions. The nastiest conservative commentators say that feminists want lots of abortions to happen. Make sure their attack is as vacuous as I believe it is. Be willing to work against abortion without fear that you are conceding ideological ground.

Practicality matters for you too.

Abortion IV - What to do?

2008-09-08T04:48:00.001-07:00

So, then, how should we vote?

As it turns out, I'm very concerned about abortion. I think we should be aggressively pursuing a policy of reducing the number of abortions each year.

How can we do this?

It turns out that we do something. We can help prevent unwelcomed pregnancy and we take care of the down and out.

It might make sense to vote for initiatives that make abortion less legal as a matter of principle, but it should be known that that isn't the way to reduce abortion. A child's life may be more important than other issues, but making a point isn't. This means that we cannot make all other issues subservient to the issue of legalization and Roe v Wade.

And, if we believe that we have to subject other issues to the practical matter of stopping abortion, then we should clearly vote for a candidate that is going to focus energy, time and money on reducing teen pregnancy and developing an adequate social net for pregnant women and mothers in need.

In this election, the choice, then, is utterly clear. Do you want to reduce abortion? Will that come through tax cuts and a president who is lukewarm on abortion, has an anti-abortion VP, and through legal initiatives? Absolutely not.

Will it come through an expanded social net (that costs money), and an increased focus on pregnancy prevention through abstinence and safe-sex education? Yes. This is the most promising avenue for reducing abortions in the US.

A vote for Barack Obama is a vote for life.

Abortion III - A pragmatic approach

2008-09-08T04:31:00.000-07:00

Now, my appeal will be directed at those who believe abortion is morally wrong, even murder.

The abortion debate has focused almost exclusively on the legality of abortion, which, although an interesting issue, especially for the pro-choice person, misses the point for the pro-lifer. Abortions trump (or should trump) "abortion". The question arises, then, about what causes reductions.

Now, statistics can lie, I’ll admit. But, I’ve tried to select ones that I believe are reasonable and fair and come from reputable sources. Most people have agendas, but fortunately, these studies are accessible and open to criticism, which should mitigate some of the bias effect.

First and foremost, it has been found that making abortion illegal does virtually nothing to stop it from happening. In fact, it doesn’t appear to even lower the abortion rate appreciably. And the WHO cannot be dismissed simply as biased--if you have a criticism of this study, find it and criticize it--no ad hominem fallacies here, please.

If that is the case, the question most simply put is, how else can we reduce abortion? If it really is murder, then, we should be above all practical. What is more important, taking a stand on legal precedent that won't actually do anything about abortion, or stopping abortion?

If abortion is murder, we should go to great lengths to stop it. In the past, that has meant not only protesting, but throwing out many other worthy matters to defend the lives of unborn children.

Perhaps we should consider doing something to actually stop it.

And what, pray tell is that? What we need to do is look to our international peers for guidance. Despite the fact that “abortion on demand” is so readily available in western Europe, and attitudes toward sexuality are far more permissive than in the states, their abortion rate is a mere fraction of the US rate.

See below:

Comparison of abortion statistics in the U.S., France, Germany and the Netherlands:

Advocates for Youth report the following annual rates, per thousand adolescents:

Factor	United States	France	Germany	Netherlands
Pregnancy	79.8	20.2 25%	16.1 20%	8.7 11%
Births	48.7	10.0 21%	12.5 26%	4.5 9%
Abortions	27.5	10.2 37%	5.6 20%	4.2 15%

The percentages show the rate for each country expressed as a percentage of the U.S. value. For example, the Netherlands abortion rate per year is 4.2 per thousand adolescents which is about 15% of the American figure.

Absolutely isolating the causes is indeed difficult, but an extremely reasonable explanation can be proffered.

Reducing teen and unwanted pregnancy matters. These countries do it well. As it turns out, abstinence-only, although the best form of contraception, is less effective as a teaching tool. For a balanced look on these stats, click here.

Increasing the social net for down and out mothers matters too. This is the instinct behind the Pregnancy Resource Centers--not that we should be screaming at clinics, but that we should be caring for those in need so that they have other options. When women are taken care of, there is less need to act out of despair. In addition, taking care of young-unwed mothers is the right thing to do. And these are the people most likely to have an abortion.

It seems we know exactly how to save millions of lives a year. We just aren't doing it.

Abortion II - Common Ground

2008-09-08T03:51:00.000-07:00

Now, I’m going to do something slick. I’m going to put that question aside for a while. I actually have something to say about it (not-surprisingly), but I’m pretty certain that few people will be convinced of anything they don’t already think.

What I want to focus on is common ground. Most people thing abortion is a serious matter, many even consider it a moral matter.

For a pro-lifer, it is serious in the highest degree. Not only are we murdering, but we are murdering an innocent child. There is very little we would find so offensive as that.

For a pro-choicer, the matter tends to be more symptomatic and social. A high abortion rate reflects a large degree of unplanned pregnancy among the down and out, a large number of down-and-out people, social disintegration and a lack of education among people regarding safe-sex (which also raises fears regarding sexually transmitted diseases).

There is common ground. I’m going to ask you to be pragmatic here, people, on both sides of the debate.

For you pro-choicers, I’m going to ask you to admit that there is a need to reduce abortion—at the very least abortion is symptomatic of social problems, at the most it is murder, and likely it is somewhere in between, which makes it an issue of extreme moral concern. When I speak of it as a moral concern, do your best not to respond in a conditioned manner of offense or indignation that I’m avoiding the most important topic—women’s rights.

If you are a pro-lifer, you too need to be pragmatic. You too need to be focused on the goal, which is stopping abortion. I want you to ask yourself—is the principle the point, or is the life the point? If the life is the point, you have to get pragmatic and less ideological.

Abortion I - Opening the discussion

2008-09-08T02:49:00.000-07:00

We might as well jump right in to the thick of things.

This is a hot topic. Not hot because it is new, but hot because it is often decisive and divisive.

This has been further underscored by recent events. John McCain’s seemingly unequivocal statement at the Saddleback Church Forum that life begins at conception was the beginning of his increasingly successful courting of conservatives. His inclusion of Sarah Palin on the ticket has also been a base mobilizer—no doubt her stance on abortion has contributed to this.

Let’s start with the basics:

The debaters are entrenched for the most part. Pro-choice people believe that government control of medical decisions, as well as the most life-changing event in a woman (or person’s) life should be anathema. They believe that such an intervention is not only offensive and inappropriate, but it is an encroachment on human rights. They are right to point out that it is very much a women’s issue. A male dominated world has asserted authority over the most significant decision a woman can make.

To conservatives, that would all be absolutely true (perhaps excepting for the male-dominated part). After all, conservative values tend to strive for personal liberty and minimalist government intervention. But, the fetus is a human being. No manner of personal liberty trumps the right for a person to live. Conservatives are evoking John Stuart Mill’s harm principle. We should be able to act with liberty unless the exercise of that liberty harms another. Choice matters, but murder matters more.

No reasonable pro-life person would suggest that the government should decide whether or not you are going to take chemotherapy, whether your son is circumcised, or even whether you can have children. And no reasonably pro-choice person would suggest that we euthanize orphans or the disabled.

The "except for the cases of rape and incest" clause only further illustrates the divide. Nobody who believes in choice can understand why a pro-lifer would show so little compassion for these people. And nobody who wishes to outlaw abortion can understand why these things would comprise an exception allowing murder.

As in most things, both sides are ‘right’. There is a fundamental assumption that each side makes, an ontological assumption. Is a human fetus a person? To a pro-lifer, yes, or probably. To a pro-choice person, no, or probably not. The debate hinges on that.

It has surprised me when I’ve discussed this with people how unaware they are of this. Many pro-lifers are so perplexed as to why anyone would think choice trumps the human right to exist. And I’ve also had many pro-choice people tell me the debate has nothing to do with ontology; it’s about choice, privacy, and women’s rights. But when cornered, these people have admitted that they don’t think the fetus is a person. The reality is that choice, privacy and women’s rights don’t actually trump human rights.

Unfortunately, then, the hardest question is perhaps the most important. Is the fetus a person?

My Purpose

2008-09-07T13:34:00.001-07:00

I feel passionately about this election, and I'm not just your everyday partisan.

I want to share with friends, family, and even foes if need be, my reasons for voting for Barack Obama. I'm not a traditional democrat--I'm not a labor guy, I don't buy 'secularism' carte blanche, and I'm pro-life. I was raised an evangelical Christian and I'm still a line-towing orthodox follower of Jesus.

I've also studied philosophy and history, traveled somewhat extensively, and am a reasonably intelligent guy. Lots of people ask for my opinion about lots of things. Unfortunately, I give it even more often. So, we'll keep wise off the list of personal qualities for now.

I intend to offer all sorts of reasons for my choices--religious, political, historical, statistical, rational, empirical, etc.

Feel free to comment. Authentic and civil disagreement is welcome!

Ron