Al's Opinions

Some of my Conservative friends have accused us Liberals (Progressives? Social Democrats?) of believing in a religion.  I shall try to present their arguments fairly and objectively.  They argue that we Liberals ignore human nature.  Humans are greedy and selfish.  On election day they vote their immediate self-interest.  An economic safety net comprising Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, free medical care, and the like discourages saving for retirement, living a healthy life style, and looking for and accepting jobs that aren't the kind we are used to.  Instead, our society should encourage or even force self-reliance and discourage dependence on government to bail us out when we are in trouble.

My response to that argument is that Conservatives are ignoring human nature.  Humans may indeed be greedy and selfish.  However, the history of our species indicates that cooperation with and taking care of other humans are characteristics that have enabled us to dominate the planet and climb to the top of the food chain.  We Liberals believe in exploiting these social and mutual help aspects of human behavior.  We believe that a successful society is based on mutual support rather than individual greed.  Certainly there are greedy individuals.  However, the society must contain structures that exploit human tendencies toward mutual support.  Hence, we advocate in favor of free medical care for all, for unemployment insurance, for generous pensions, for a generous and effective social security system, and the like.

Are these two opposing sets of beliefs like religions?  Are Conservatives ignoring important aspects of human behavior in advocating a society that rewards greed and self-reliance and punishes dependence?  Are Liberals ignoring other important aspects of human behavior in advocating a society with adequate social and economic safety nets?  I suppose you could say that either set of beliefs resembles a religion.  In a religion there are certain things you are supposed to believe even though they seem impossible (Jonah and the whale, Moses and the burning bush, the punishment of the snake for tempting Eve).  Both Conservatives and Liberals believe that in a fair election the majority of the people would choose their respective visions of the ideal society.  In the case of Conservatism it would be a society without labor unions, without pensions or social security, without Medicare or Medicaid, without unemployment insurance, and an absence of government regulations on business.  In the case of Liberalism it would be a society with free or almost free medical care for everyone, with generous pensions, with strong democratic labor unions, an effective economic safety net for the unemployed, and with enough good jobs that no one would have to be unemployed.  Conservatives tend to look to Hong Kong as their model.  Liberals look to Denmark.

Labels: Conservatism, Liberalism, pensions; General Motors; Social Security; universal health care

Having passed my 86th birthday, I have to keep proving to myself that my brain is still functioning as well as it did on my 76th birthday, my 66th birthday, etc. As you conclude when you read this blog, I belong to a class of writers who are loosely called “liberal.” In fact, my friend H considers me to be a far leftie, perhaps even more “left” than Senator Kennedy.

I plead guilty to H’s charge. H and I exchange e-mails often. We accuse each other of being set in our ways of thinking. He can not think of a single good thing to say about “liberals.” I can not think of a good thing to say about “conservatives.”

There is a reporter here in Los Angeles who writes a blog about the political doings, both above and below the board, in our city. I wrote to a friend that he seems to be concerned about inefficiency, waste, and fraud in government and that these are standard and respectable Republican issues. My friend wrote back that the reporter is actually a Democrat. Democrat or Republican, I have to approve of his task of exposing inefficiency, waste, and fraud among our civic leaders.

My thinking doesn’t always go in a straight line. This experience of guessing wrong about the reporter’s political preference led me to consider writing an essay about an imaginary debate, in the style of Galileo, with characters defending and attacking the admirable features of conservative and liberal thought. I realized that I am no Galileo, and decided instead to try to write something to justify the thinking of an honest and sincere conservative. Most of the time I think of H as honest and sincere, even though wrong.

Conservative thought in this country seems centered on the question of government. How big and powerful should government be? Should government try to stave off a severe depression by spending oodles of money to spur the economy, as Mr. Obama is doing? It seems to me that an honest conservative fears the consequences of a government powerful enough to prevent a depression as being worse than the depression itself. Hence, there is sincere conservative opposition to Obama’s economic plan.

I have to concede that there is good reason for this conservative fear. The world has been treated to countries that managed their economies. A good example is the former Soviet Union. The government not only set goals for all the various economic activities in the country, but also used its power to stifle criticism and dissent. Although many argue that Russia, as part of the Soviet Union, was a special case in that criticism and dissent were never encouraged under the previous regime of the czar, we all have to respect the saying of the British political philosopher Lord Acton, that “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Both Czar Nicholas and Josef Stalin demonstrated the validity of that saying.

One definition of conservatism is that the conservative knows that conditions are not very good, but he or she is reluctant to try to make changes because the changed condition may be worse than the original one. “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.” At present we know about the devil of depression. Or, at least we think we do. We forget that a severe depression can lead to a revolution. Franklin Roosevelt could not prevent or cure the great Depression of the 1930’s but I believe that he did save the nation from a communist revolution. A conservative probably wouldn’t share my belief.

To summarize, conservatives fear big government. They have good reasons. Liberals like me, who advocate some serious reforms in certain aspects of society, like health care and the welfare of workers, have to be able to convince conservatives to take some chances on experiments. Obama’s economic policy is an experiment. A change in our health care system will be an experiment. There are degrees to the depth of belief among conservatives. Some will agree to some experimentation, others will not. We liberals will have to make compelling arguments and be willing to accept compromises that we won’t like very much if we are going to persuade the public to try to make changes.

I’ll leave the original question to you, the reader. Is my brain (mind) operating as well as it did ten, twenty, thirty, or more years ago? Do you detect incipient mental degradation? Am I about to succumb to dementia? I certainly hope not.

Labels: Conservatism, Czar Nicholas, dementia, Franklin Roosevelt, old age, Senator Kennedy, Stalin

You may think, from the title to this opinion, that I have discovered some new and important feature of government. It is not new. What I am going to discuss was well-known to the 17th and 18th century political theorists who provided the thinking behind our federal constitution.

Let be introduce the subject by relating a frequent e-mail argument I have had with my conservative friends H and R and my "moderate" friend S. In particular H has been eager to justify the use of an interrogation technique called "water boarding." He writes that the technique has extracted useful information from several terrorist suspects and implies that the information has been used to foil plans by Al Qaeda to stage another attack on the United States. This attack would have been, I presume, as disastrous at the destruction of tall buildings by flying commercial airplanes into them.

H cites this beneficial result from the use of water boarding and asks whether S and I would condone giving the President the power to authorize its use in future interrogations. S and I have pointed out that we are skeptical that the technique yields reliable information. A torture victim is apt to say anything to please his tormentor. The information provided may or may not be true. H asserts without proof that the technique has indeed yielded useful information.

In recent e-letters to the group (H, R, S, and myself) I have stated the existence of an uncertainty principle that requires us to find a balance between complete security and complete freedom. If we want complete security, we then must permit the President (i.e., the government) to use any and all torture methods in interrogations. We must also give the President the authority to conduct warrantless wire taps to listen in on private conversation to find terrorists who otherwise would escape detection.

I argue that to give the President that much power would enable him to spy on and frame any political opponent. An unscrupulous or ambitious President would be able to establish himself and his cronies in power with no limits on what they could do. Our liberties would vanish. In order to prevent the emergence of a fascist state, we have to place limits on the President. The price of maintaining our liberties is the likelihood of other terrorist attacks that will not be detected in time to stop them. We are governed by other imperfect humans, not by Thomas Jefferson's angels. The imperfection, the corruption, the dishonesty of some public officials requires that we limit the things they can do. The result is that we live in freedom but not in safety. That is the uncertainty principle of governance.

This is not a new idea. What surprises me is that my conservative friends are willing to trust "big government" to torture suspects and listen to private phone conversations and not use the power to discredit political opponents but are not willing to trust the same government to run a program to provide affordable health care for everyone.

Labels: Al Qaeda, balance between liberty and security, Conservatism, warrantless wire taps

In a previous blog I displayed an exchange of e-mail between me and my conservative acquaintance R. I've never met R and I don't know much about him. He was introduced to me by an old friend from Graduate School at the University of Illinois. R has turned out to be a formidable debater for the conservative side of several issues. I will have to call R an acquaintance. My conservative opponents H and M I have to call friends. I know them and I worked with them at my last place of employment.

It bothers my conservative friend H that he is unable to convince me of his side or position on an argument. He was unable to persuade me that I should enthusiastically support the exploration and drilling for oil in ANWR. He couldn't understand why I would accept the proposition that we import a lot more petroleum than we should and pay a lot more for it than we should and yet would not support the proposition that we need to drill and extract petroleum from ANWR. He dismissed my argument that we should instead devote money and effort to developing and building new facilities for generating power that don't rely on fossil fuel and don't exhaust megatons of CO-2 into the atmosphere each year.

R was also bothered by my refusal to accept the argument for drilling in ANWR. Of course, to him, I am just another liberal that he sometimes converses with in internet chat rooms. He finds liberals to be persons who ignore facts and statistics. His positions on drilling in ANWR, on opposing universal (free) health care, etc., are, in his words, based on facts and statistics.

I don't know anything about R's chat room liberals. I know about three conservatives: R, H, and M. My opinion is that they tend to be short-sighted, looking to the immediate future (present shortage of petroleum, etc.) and not the more distant future (need for alternate energy sources because the world is running out of oil). On some issues I think they are completely unrealistic. They say the same thing about me on some of the same issues.

H tried to irritate me by quoting from the odious Ann Coulter who pronounced that liberalism was like a religion. Being a professional conservative, Ms Coulter has to bash and insult liberals and do it in a way that generates a wide audience for her work. Rather than express indignation at the presumed insult, I wrote H that I agreed that many of my liberal ideas are matters of faith. I believe that all members of a society, or of our society at least, are entitled to good medical care. There should not be a price on someone's life. I think that entitlement is just as solid as the right to police protection, fire protection, property title protection, a stable monetary supply, and protection against foreign terrorists. I can not justify any of these rights or entitlements on the basis of statistics. I believe that there are more important things than profit. A business is not only tolerated but supported by society because it provides a useful or necessary service, not because it makes a profit for some investors. I believe that the primary responsibility of a manager of a corporation or other business is to the public, including the employees and customers of the business. Responsibility to the investors is secondary. These are things that I believe. Some of them are heresy to conservatives. In that sense, I accept the verdict that liberalism is like a religion. So also is conservatism.

Labels: Ann Coulter, Conservatism, Drilling in ANWR, Liberalism, Universal health care

In my previous post I used e-mails between my convervative friend R and myself to construct a debate or discussion about the merits and demerits of universal health care. I am a proponent; R is an opponent. I resume the discussion here with my e-mail to H, another conservative friend:

I wrote to H as follows, with copy to R:

Dear H, R does indeed make some good points. He cites statistics. I don't have access to detailed statistics on the effects he writes about. However, I think that he chooses statistics to bolster his arguments. I can't challenge his claim that the reduced life expectancy in the United States is a result of more violent crimes being committed here than in England or Japan or Canada. I have the feeling, but can't prove it, that people who do have access to the statistics took that effect into account when comparing life expectancies in the various countries with UHC and without. Since I can't prove it, I will have to abandon, for the time being, any argument in favor of UHC that relies on increased life expectancy.

You like to repeat the claim or "sound bite" of the odious Ann Coulter that "liberalism is a religion without God." I will start from that point and assert that my first reason for supporting and advocating UHC is a moral one. It is moral and just that everyone in our society should enjoy access to the best health care, just as we all enjoy access to the best police system, the best fire protection system, a uniforn system of money, and so on. We have, or should have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Implicit in that is the right to good health and the right to good medical care.

I believe this. I will continue to believe this in the face of any statistics you or Roy can throw at me. I have values - liberal values.

My second reason for supporting UHC is that I believe that it works, and works well. I discount the anecdotes you Cons like to bring up about long waits for this and that. What I believe is that waiting times in hospital emergency rooms are shorter than in American hospitals because there is no problem of determining who is going to be able to pay and how, and of making sure that the paying patients are tended to first. I know that in countries with UHC the actual cost per resident of medical care is substantially less than it is in the US.

This is my response.

R then wrote:

I don't have access to detailed statistics on the effects he writes about.

Nearly everything I cite is obtained by using Google on the Internet. I am a compulsive reader, but I figure it is better to link things so people can get right to them. It is not too easy finding things on the Internet and so I don't really blame people too much for failing to do so. But access is available to anyone. If I find information contrary to my point, I think I am obliged to disclose that information. The trick is that I've been doing this for years, so I usually can avoid points I know are wrong!

I have the feeling, but can't prove it, that people who do have access to the
statistics took that effect into account when comparing life expectancies in the
various countries with UHC and without.

You are completely wrong about the health statistics, but you make a good point about Liberals putting feelings ahead of facts. The Liberal idea is that there must be facts somewhere to support whatever it is they feel, so there is no reason to be concerned much about facts. Imagine if science worked that way: all the data says "x is true", but but it can be rejected on grounds that that it contradicts the scientist's feelings. The truth should always found by examining the data, pro and con. It is moral and just that everyone in our society should enjoy access to the best health care, just as we all enjoy access to the best police system, the best fire protection system, a uniforn system of money, and so on.It is not true that we should all enjoy equal access to the best. If I choose to live in some remote area, I choose to give up access in favor of other preferences. Equality is only possible without choice.The problem with your moral argument is that it ignores the moral problem of stealing from one person to give to another. It is quite one thing to say that you wish to give all your money to achieving equality in health care. It is another think to say that you have a right to take all of my money and give it to the cause you espouse. In the case of health care, it could easily consume 100% of the resources of society -- if there is no consideration other than the moral argument.A second problem is that by Liberal argument, about 10-15% of the population needs additional health insurance. OK, so what is the moral argument for taking my money to impose a system that you want, and which I do not want, upon 100% of the population? Why would it not be a better moral decsion to just take give it to people who have the demonstrable need? I think the answer is that believe fairness is achieved only when every citizen is under equal subjugation of the federal government. How, after all, could it be fair if Big Brother orders "left face" and not everyone need comply?The third problem, is that your belief in the efficacy of the UHC system is solely an article of faith, or if you prefer feelings. In a separate e-mail, I cited an article comparing life expectancy in Costa Rica with that in the US. The facts are that Costa Ricans do about as well, but not due to any system of UHC, but rather due to a dramatically more healthy life style. This would be very important if facts were allowed into the discussion, which Liberals do not allow. So Libs are imposing a quasi-religious belief upon the whole population, at enormous expense, on grounds of their particular non-factual morality.

What I believe is that waiting times in hospital emergency rooms are
shorter than in American hospitals because there is no problem of determining
who is going to be able to pay and how, and of making sure that the paying
patients are tended to first.

Total nonsense, but of course you never have to prove anything you feel. Our local emergency room does not even ask about payment until after the patient is treated, and triage is strictly on medical grounds. I've been through it personally.Most countries have much less elaborate emergency facilities, because they do not have so many traffic accidents, drug OD's, etc.

I then wrote to R as follows:

Regarding UHC, I take it you are happy with the present situation in which some of us have good medical care (we can afford it or we are lucky enough to belong to a good insurance group) and others of us don't. In your letter (below) you respond to my moral argument in favor of UHC with your own arguments, as follows:

(1) To achieve UHC, it is necessary to have everybody pay. For people in very good health (who live like the Costa Ricans, for example) that means that they are paying more for health care than the value of the medical services they receive. In other words, and to quote you,

"The problem with your moral argument is that it ignores the moral problem of
stealing from one person to give to another."

To be logical, you must apply that same reasoning to paying taxes to support a police department, a fire department, etc.

(2) You then argue that since only 10 -15 percent of the population needs additional health insurance, why impose a single plan on everone? Why not just provide the additional insurance to the 10 to 15 percent who need it? My response is, who is going to pay for the additional insurance? The 10 to 15 percent who need the additional insurance can't afford it. You are trying to apply fire or flood insurance rules to health insurance. I have a choice to live or not to live in an area subject to floods and fires. I do not have a choice to need additional health care that a low-cost policy won't cover. It's not my choice to be badly injured in an auto accident; it's not my choice to have some unusual and debilitating medical condition. In view of your objection to having money "stolen" from you to benefit other persons, there seems to be no way in your world view to provide the necessary additional insurance.

(3) Regarding the efficacy of UHC, you ignore my argument about hospital emergency rooms. It is reported that many hospitals have closed their emergency rooms because they can not afford to take care of all the uninsured poor people who use these facilities as their only source of medical care. Unfortunately, closing the emergency rooms also denies needed help to patrons who are affluent, who have insurance, and who are stricken with real emergencies (e.g., heart attacks) and now must travel half an hour to reach the nearest available emergency room. In your world view, perhaps we should apply tattoos to people who are entitled to use emergency rooms. Anyone arriving without a tattoo is simply left outside in the street.

R wrote as follows:

I take it you are happy with the present situation in which some of us have good
medical care (we can afford it or we are lucky enough to belong to a good
insurance group) and others of us don't.

I think our health care system can be improved. Of the solutions I've heard, the most appealing is to establish a system of low-cost drop-in health clinics. One can suppose that they have to be government subsidized, although that might not be the case. The idea is to unburden emergency rooms from ordinary health care, and to provide services to people who could not otherwise afford it.I also advocate government-paid "health disaster" insurance to cover strange diseases and improbable occurrences. The fact is that people between about seven and fifty have very few health problems, on average, so such disaster insurance is actually not a major cost item.

To achieve UHC, it is necessary to have everybody pay.

That's like saying "To guarantee that everyone dress like Chairman Mao, it is necessary for everyone to comply with the dress code rules." The objective should not be to achieve uniformity, the objective should be to achieve a good health care system.

To be logical, you must apply that same reasoning to paying taxes to support a
police department, a fire department, etc.

Of course, and I do apply the same standard across the board. That basically means that we should make decisions democratically with the goal of minimum intrusion upon peoples lives and pocket books. Your concept, I gather, is that (a) liberals decide what is moral and (b) then there is an unlimited license for liberals to take my money and spend it as they like. So, for example, if 10 or 15% of the population needs more health care, there is no problem imposing an expensive system on 100% of the population for no reason other than imposing authoritarian uniformity.In areas such as police and fire, localities get to decide how fancy, elaborate, and complete a system the people want. Liberals cannot tolerate non-uniformity. They insist on imposing expensive and ineffective systems on everyone.

For the record, I'll mention that there is a list of federal government functions that must be provided. These include the military and the Post Office. So there is no opting out of those. Health care is not on the list.

Why not just provide the additional insurance to the 10 to 15 percent who need
it? My response is, who is going to pay for the additional insurance?

I have no objection to the citizens voting to pay for the additional health care. My preferred mechanism is through walk-in clinics, but it would be OK to provide insurance upon establishing proof of need. There is a moral obligation, I believe, to minimize public expense and government intrusion upon taxpayers.

In view of your objection to having money "stolen" from you to benefit other
persons, there seems to be no way in your world view to provide the necessary
additional insurance.

No, citizens can vote to provide benefits. The binding constraints are minimum cost and minimum government control. Please clarify your theory about how it is moral for liberals to take unlimited sums of money from taxpayers and spend that money without any limitations or constraints.

Regarding the efficacy of UHC, you ignore my argument about hospital emergency
rooms. It is reported that many hospitals have closed their emergency
rooms because they can not afford to take care of all the uninsured poor people
who use these facilities as their only source of medical care.

I refuted the false assertions you made. To my knowledge, the only places where emergency rooms have been shut down are in cities near the Mexican border flooded by millions of illegal aliens. This is a consequence of our immoral federal government refusing to provide any assistance to localities, even though the problem is caused by a refusal of the government to enforce immigration laws on the books. The uninsured poor people are illegal, and however we want to treat them, it should be a federal, not a local problem.Throughout, you seem to maintain the notion that UHC would have some effect on life expectancy or infant mortality or some other health metric. There is no evidence of that. Such statistics are dominated by lifestyle factors, not the health care system. Researchers predict that in the US, life expectancy will be reduced in the future due to rising obesity. The effect of forcing everyone to conform to Big Brother's health care system will not be a measurable improvement in health.

I then wrote that I had a few comments on R’s recent e-letter. Excerpting from my letter, here are the comments:

R: I think our health care system can be improved. Of the solutions I've heard, the most appealing is to establish a system of low-cost drop-in health clinics. One can suppose that they have to be government subsidized, although that might not be the case. The idea is to unburden emergency rooms from ordinary health care, and to provide services to people who could not otherwise afford it.

Al: A generation or two ago we had such clinics here in Los Angeles. My wife and I visited such a clinic to obtain flu shots. It was about 30 or more years ago. The "taxpayer rebellion" and Proposition 13 reduced the funds available to the County to fund these clinics and they were closed. I think they were good and I wish they could be created again.

R: I also advocate government-paid "health disaster" insurance to cover strange diseases and improbable occurrences. The fact is that people between about seven and fifty have very few health problems, on average, so such disaster insurance is actually not a major cost item.

Al: In a previous letter, I wrote that “to achieve UHC, it is necessary to have everybody pay.”

R: That's like saying "To guarantee that everyone dress like Chairman Mao, it is necessary for everyone to comply with the dress code rules." The objective should not be to achieve uniformity, the objective should be to achieve a good health care system.

Al: I don't advocate that everyone dress like Chairman Mao. I seem to be unable to make it clear that a UHC system should cover everyone, not merely the sickest or those most in need of special medical care. My idea of UHC is that everyone would receive needed care regardless of ability to pay. I don't see that a "one size fits all" criticism applies. If not everyone is covered, what will happen is that private insurers will pick off the healthiest individuals and offer them insurance at rates that are less than what the UHC system is forced to charge. As a result, we would then have two systems: a private for-profit system that covers healthy individuals and a government system that covers the sicker. It wouldn't take long for the public to lose confidence in the "expensive" government system. We'd be back where we are now.

R: For the record, I'll mention that there is a list of federal government functions that must be provided. These include the military and the Post Office. So there is no opting out of those. Health care is not on the list.

A: Right here is our basic disagreement. I think that health care should be on the list. Whether provided by the federal, state, or local government is a matter for discussion and disagreeement.

R: I refuted the false assertions you made. To my knowledge, the only places where emergency rooms have been shut down are in cities near the Mexican border flooded by millions of illegal aliens. This is a consequence of our immoral federal government refusing to provide any assistance to localities, even though the problem is caused by a refusal of the government to enforce immigration laws on the books. The uninsured poor people are illegal, and however we want to treat them, it should be a federal, not a local problem.

A: Emergency rooms have been closed here in Los Angeles. We are a considerable distance from Mexico. There are many people in Los Angeles who don't have and can't afford medical insurance. Not all of them are illegal aliens.

Labels: Conservatism, effect of illegal immigrants, hospital emergency rooms, Liberalism, Statistics, Universal health care

Occasionally in this blog I present opinions of my friends whom I identify only with their initials. S is a Democrat who doesn't consider himself a liberal, but compared with my conservative friends, he is rather liberal. H is a conservative who tries sincerely to get me to agree with him. R is a conservative who likes to debate because it hones his skills. He knows that it is hopeless to try to convert me to conservative ideas and so he contents himself with trying to undermine my liberal ideas. M is a conservative who tries to play "gotcha" by interpreting my ideas as helpful to mortal enemies of our country.

Here is a series of e-mails between S, R, and myself. My friends all have access to this blog and they can judge for themselves whether I have faithfully presented their arguments and opinions in these e-mails. The series starts with an e-mail from S to R and others:

S wrote:

What does Socialized medicine buy Canada versus our patch work of medical coverage?
It buys a lot if you look or compare two statistics.

1. Canada infant mortality rate within 24 hours is 4.6 per 1000 live births and the U.S is 6.4.
   
2. Mean life expectancy is 80.3 years for Canada and 78.7 for the U.S.
   

How to fix this for the least amount of dollars? Yes, it costs to fix anything, even your car, house and an appliance.

I came up not with socialized medicine but a public health plan. This thought occurred to me while sitting in the waiting room at a woman's clinic. Jean was sent there to see a gynecologist. Poor Jean, she was by far the oldest and the only one positively diagnosed as not pregnant.

Attempting to study the group indicated most were by far much over weight. If overweight and lack of prenatal care were publicly available, could this reduce infant deaths? Not much there as training is very important in prenatal care. Trained nurses could handle this. The Red Cross offers classes to train parents for the new born in the home. Jean and I took the course and poor Jean was out of place as we were adopting and in our thirties.

Now on to longevity. Most people get some training in health in high school. However only something like 85% graduate by eighteen. Adult school does not cover health very much. I think this area would be another boost to senior's longevity.

My mother spent a huge number of volunteer hours with the county health department. She knew what it took to provide clinics of various types and some of her greatest friends were public health nurses. The nurses keep my Typhoid shots current as I was often drinking water out of North Georgia springs. nutrition was a big thing with the prenatal and post natal clinics. Doctor's cost was very little and often was a donation.

So conservatives, what is wrong with such a start towards some UHC by this method? Will it not help the most in need? I do not want to hear an answer about how one can not purchase batteries for a hearing aid in Canada.

R wrote:
Liberals, I have come to understand, have a protective shell that keeps out facts no matter how over repeated or how well documented. Facts are not just lamely refuted, they are totally ignored.

1.0 Canada infant mortality rate within 24 hours is 4.6 per 1000 live births and
the U.S is 6.4.

The reason infant mortality rates are higher in the US has nothing to do with the health care system, it is due to social problems. We have a huge population of drug-addicted mothers that Canada, nor any other country, cannot match. This is certainly a major problem, but it is not going to be cured by health insurance.

2.0 Mean life expectancy is 80.3 years for Canada and 78.7 for the U.S.

The lower life expectancy in the US, compared to other first-world nations, is due to the much greater number of deaths in the age group from about 15-45. These deaths are due to traffic accidents, violence (e.g. gang shootings), drug overdoses, and suicides. If you make it to 50 in the US, life expectancy is the longest in the world. Quite obviously, changes in health care insurance will have no effect whatsoever on traffic accidents, violence, drugs, and suicides.You point out correctly, that American high-fat high-sugar diets and lack of exercise are major problems. More can be done with educational programs, but changes in health insurance are not going to have any effect. Note, for example, that countries with a lot of mass transit involve their population in a great deal of walking. The US has too low a population density to support much mass transit outside of a few city centers. Health insurance is not going to change that. I have a profit-making health insurance plan. They contact me regularly by phone and by mail with all sorts of suggestions about a healthier lifestyle. They have an incentive to improve my health. Why would a non-profit care?Medicare lowers their administrative costs by never checking bills for error or fraud. They spend zero on that. Profit-making insurance plans comb hospital bills and dispute overcharges. I have little doubt that more than pays for itself. Why would a non-profit care?

Finally, note that countries like Canada can get away with imposing price controls on drugs. Since it is a small market, the drug companies do not cut them off. But try it in the the US, and you will drive drug companies offshore and refusing to ship. But facts are just to be ignored.

S wrote:
I specifically looked those figures up. Does that make me a Liberal?

At least we agree on one thing. Education helps. When I started volunteer tutoring years ago, the school was overrun with pregnant teens. Lots of effort of education was put forth by the school about protection with respect to aids. They had a guard who worked for the local prison talk on how he had contracted aids in a fight with a prisoner. We now have very few pregnant girls and a much larger coed enrollment.

I am proposing more health centers where teens can learn more about prenatal care plus child care. Schools hardly can afford full time medical trained faculty members.

Your point about the age group 15-45 has much merit. Canada has a much lower speed limit. You seldom even see a 100 KM speed limit which is close to 60 MPH in this country. I do not remember ever seeing a higher speed limit there. Their speed limit enforcement is well in place too.

I am not sure about the mass transit argument. Does this mean that our death rate is less in the bigger cities like San Francisco? I thought that most centenarians live in rural Midwest. Am I wrong?

Lastly, our schools now sell machine soft drinks and chips through machines. Not much help there if the student body has a number of pregnant girls.

I have no idea about the life expectancy over 50. Do you have a reference? IRS bulletin 590 has lots of longevity tables for IRA distributions. If this is so, our life insurance costs for those over 50 would be higher. Moreover, the other countries with a SS type plan would be more solvent too would it not?

The data you quoted is more elaborate then mine. Does this mean Conservatives have a better source. Who is using more statistics?

Pessimistic and Liberal, S

R wrote:

I specifically looked those figures up. Does that make me a Liberal?

Too soon to tell. If in a week or two you claim that life expectancy numbers prove the US health care system is inferior, then you are a certified Liberal.

At least we agree on one thing. Education helps.

We do agree on that.

Canada has a much lower speed limit. You seldom even see a 100 KM speed
limit which is close to 60 MPH in this country.

I don't think speed limits are the main problem. In this country, if a person has his driver's license suspended for DUI or whatever, he usually drives out of the courthouse parking lot -- ignoring the court completely. In Japan, by contrast, first DUI means you lose your license forever, second offense is a year in jail. Their tradition is that the youngest person in every group will be the driver, and will be served nothing but coke that evening.

I am not sure about the mass transit argument. Does this mean that our
death rate is less in the bigger cities like San Francisco? I thought that
most centenarians live in rural Midwest. Am I wrong?

I don't know. I was just observing that exercise is one factor in a healthy lifestyle, a factor often missing in the US. I lived in Tokyo for a while, and found mass transit to be quite a workout. One can easily climb 20 flights of stairs and walk four or five miles every day making connections. If the Japanese did not drink so much and eat so much salt, they would live forever.The broader point is that the quality of health care is not the only factor in health. It also depends upon the health habits of the population. The increase in obesity, for example, is expected to lower life expectancy in the US over the next few decades.

I have no idea about the life expectancy over 50. Do you have a reference?

From MIT course notes on Public Health Policy:
"Significant improvements in life expectancy lies not in cures for chronic disease—heart, cancer---but in reducing accidents, suicide, homicide, AIDS, the big causes of premature death."

Posted here "First, it would be great if people would recognize the limits to health care, even high-tech health care. Diet and exercise matter more to your quality of life than treatment does. For example, you could stop treating cancer completely and only drop the overall life expectancy by a couple of years. If this seems ridiculous to you, do the math. ...." [he does]http://www.oftwominds.com/journal/goodfellow5b.html

"... The United States spends roughly $4,500 per person on health care each year. Costa Rica spends just $273. That small Central American country also has half as many doctors per capita as the United States. Yet the life expectancy of the average Costa Rican is virtually the same as the average American's: 76.1 years."

How can that be? According to public health researchers, the biggest reasons are behavior and environment. Costa Ricans consume about half as many cigarettes per person as we do. Not surprisingly, they are four times less likely to die of lung cancer. The car ownership rate in Costa Rica is a fraction of what it is in the United States. That not only means that fewer Costa Ricans die in auto accidents, but that they do a lot more walking, and hence they get more exercise. Thanks to a much lower McDonald's-to-citizen ratio, the average Costa Rican thrives on a traditional diet of rice, beans, fruits, vegetables, and a moderate amount of fried food--and therefore enjoys one of the world's lowest rates of heart disease and other stress-related illnesses." http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0304.longman.html

Lastly, our schools now sell machine soft drinks and chips through machines.

I am all in favor of parents exerting control over the diets of their children.some places are banning the soft drinks. Do you think Libs still have superstitious fears about dangers of artificial sweeteners?

Moreover, the other countries with a SS type plan would be more solvent too
would it not?

No. SS is a Ponzi scheme whose solvency depends upon the ratio of the number of active contributing workers to the number of recipients.The data you quoted is more elaborate then mine. Does this mean Conservatives have a better source. Who is using more statistics?I have been repeatedly criticized by Libs on message boards for citing facts. They tell me that facts are unreliable, whereas feelings are reliable. Therefore, they tell me, one should develop policy positions by cultivating sensitive feelings, and then reject statistics that contradict those feelings.
R

[The discussion is continued in my next post. - AJS]

Labels: Canada, Conservatism, effects of life style on longevity, Liberalism, Ponzi Scheme, social security, Statistics, Universal health care

The recent decisions of the Supreme Court exhibit a mixture of pure "movement conservative" and "pro-authority" beliefs. The pro-authority beliefs are shown in the decision about the "Bong hits" sign and the "right" of a manufacturer to set a minimum price for its product sold by an independent distributor. The movement conservative belief is shown in the two school desegregation cases.

I've been having a running discussion, argument, or debate with some conservative friends, one of whom I would call a movement conservative. He argues, for example, that there is nothing about our health care system that government ought to change. The overload in emergency facilities in cities that have high concentrations of illegal immigrants is not a consequence of any government action regarding the health care system; hence, government should not undertake to modify the system. Instead, government should take steps to get rid of the illegal immigrants who are causing the problem and who are present because government hasn't enforced the existing laws regarding immigrants and their employment. I would summarize the movement conservative belief as including the theorem that government is not responsible for problems that government did not create. The storm that damaged New Orleans was not caused by government; hence, government has no responsibility to repair the city or do anything for its dispossessed citizens. Schools that happen to be segregated as a result of residential segregation should not be desegregated by government because government was not responsible for the segregation.

You'd think that I, after 84 years on this planet, would have learned by now what conservatism is all about. Yet, the mind set of the movement conservative still astonishes me.

Labels: Conservatism, hospital emergency rooms, housing problem, immigration, price fixing

I tend to get all worked up about some of the things that I write about in this blog. For example, my previous post was an expression of my deep pessimism about whether we could ever achieve a society in which everyone has enough to eat, has adequate housing, has work that is useful and provides a reward to the worker, and so on. I concluded that a pure, unregulated market economy would never provide such a society and that there would always be a class of people who work for starvation wages.

My wife and I have a caregiver. She is a lady from the Philippines. She and her husband both take care of elderly people. I've found that the best caregivers are Filipinos and Filipinas. They like the work and are not in the least bothered by the fact that caregiving does not provide upward mobility. They are happy to be able to work for decent wages and to send money home to their families in the Philippines.

I started expressing my skepticism about our economic system, but the caregiver interrupted me. She insisted that there is plenty of work in this country and that anyone who is willing to work at the jobs that are available can earn enough money to support a good life.

I've reflected on what she said. There is truth in it. She sees the economic system from the point of view of an individual who looks for work, finds it, and works and earns money. She sees no reason to doubt that anyone can do as she and her husband have done.

I realized that this particular way of looking at society, of seeing how it specifically affects the observer, rather than looking at society as a whole and seeing how many people are left in poverty is characteristic of many conservative Republicans. I don't know whether our caregiver will vote for Republicans if she ever becomes an American citizen. Filipinos tend to become Democrats when they vote. Perhaps looking at society from the viewpoint of your own best interest is not necessarily a defining mark of a conservative. Many conservatives also look at the distribution of incomes and regret the existence of a permanent class of poor people. Their solutions tend to be self-help for young people, to encourage them to follow the example of our caregivers and not give up to discouragement. They tend to distrust attempts by government to provide jobs and support for the poor.

Labels: caregiver, Conservatism, Filipinos, pessimism

My friends H, M, R, S, and I have a lively and continuing debate or discussion going by e-mail. Recently R and M started using the term "liberal elite." They are Conservatives and to them the term refers to "liberal" elected officials in the federal government (e.g., Ted Kennedy) who, they say, impose restrictions on the use of federal land. In particular, the "liberal elite" are opposed to drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR). They, the Conservatives (specifically H, M, and R) are eager to have drilling proceed so that the oil will be available to us Americans who otherwise must buy petroleum from the Arab sheiks and emirs and the Persian ayatollahs.

R in particular has recently pointed out that local people in Alaska are very much in favor of drilling. I am concerned about possible damage to the delicate ecosystem of northern Alaska. Besides, I believe that we Americans should turn our attention to expanding renewable and not-carbon sources of energy, such as geothermal, solar, and wind power rather than searching for and exploiting new sources of petroleum. However, I recognize that we do need other sources of petroleum in the immediate future and I don't have any strong objections to drilling for oil in ANWR. It's not a life-or-death matter for me. My indifference to the project seems to annoy H and R, who seem particularly eager to let the drilling begin.

However, drilling or not drilling in ANWR is not the point of this essay. I am more interested in teasing out what R, H, and M really mean by "liberal elitel." I had an interesting exchange with R on the subject.

R is disturbed by government reglations and limitations that impose a burden on local people and about which local people have no say. These limitations are, according to R, part of the "liberal agenda," which involves imposing rules on people that are supposedly good for them even though they are not popular. He argued that local people ought to have a vote on these rules and regulations.

It is no surprise that I agree with him. I think that preserving the environment is something that has to have support of the local people affected. If logging is to be prevented or limited in Montana, the people of Montana who make their livings by logging must, in the long run, support the limiting rules. Otherwise, some different administration in Washington will change the rules to gain a few thousand votes in Montana. I argue that we can not depend on the federal government to be a permanent protector of the environment. The Bush Administration has taught us that much. I wrote as much in my e-mail reply to R.

I went on to give an example of local control that is stymied by a State or federal limit: rent control. Local voters in, say, Santa Monica, impose rent control on apartments. The State associations that look out for the interests of landlords and others who obtain revenue from the use of land try to persuade either the State legislature or the public at large to enact a law or an amendment to the State constitution to prevent local voters from imposing rent control.

R and M went ballistic at my example of local control. R's response was that rent control is "unethical." It took a couple of e-mails back and forth to find out what he meant. Finally he and M wrote that it doesn't work. Rent control puts landlords in such a bind that they may have to burn down their apartments and build new ones to get out from under a rent control ordinance that forces them to rent their apartments at below market rates. M cited his own experience as a landlord and concluded that only an idiot would seek to own and rent apartments if rent control is imposed.

My response was to concede that rent control alone doesn't solve the housing problem. The problem is that in cities such as Los Angeles the inflation in housing prices have pushed rents to a level that many people who work in the city can not afford to live in it. Many of our policemen live outside the city, or even outside the county where they can find affordable housing. The problem is more severe for poorer workers, those that can't afford cars with which to make the long commutes between home and workplace. We Angelinos need to create a program that will provide housing for low-income people that they can afford. I asked my Conservative friends to suggest some things that might be done.

The responses were telling. My Conservative friends have no interest in discussing a low-cost housing program. M suggests that I, who have a fairly large house in Woodland Hills, should invite several poor people to live with me, rent free. My previous suggestions about subsidies for builders to build low-cost housing and for landlords to charge rents below market rates went past him like a whiff of air. We are talking past each other. Conservatives look at the situation in terms of its effects on them personally. In addition, they tend to identify with the landlord. Their advice to the tenants who are faced with high rents and low-paying jobs seems to be like that of President Coolidge: work hard and save your money.

How does all of this relate to the title of this essay? Liberals and conservatives both look at how a situation affects individuals. In the example above, conservatives look at how the landlord is affected; liberals look at how the tenant is affected. Conservatives think of solutions to such problems in terms of what individuals can do for themselves. Poor tenants should find cheaper housing or better-paying jobs or go somewhere else to live. Liberals think of collective action by society, acting through a representative government, to deal with the problem of an inadequate supply of housing that low-income people can afford.

This is not to say that conservatives are greedy and heartless. Many of them would urge churches and other non-governmental organizations (e.g., Habitat for Humanity) to undertake projects to help people find affordable housing. They don't like the idea of government doing it and forcing them to pay taxes to pay for it. They may be willing to contribute generously to their churches and their benevolent organizations, but they are not willing to pay higher taxes. It is also not to say that liberals are altruistic and generous. They believe that history has shown that private charities have not been able to do all the things that should be done to improve the living conditions of the poor. They are willing to have government try, to experiment, to fail and try again. They don't believe that private charities will be completely free of bias or prejudice. Private charities may be more willing to undertake projects that benefit "white" people (people of European extraction) than "colored" people. Government should be free of such bias.

When I write "liberal" I am, of course, writing for myself. I do not attend any church regularly and I do not make generous contributions to any religious or fraternal or benevolent organization. I favor public welfare rather than private charity. I regard Habitat for Humanity as a useful private organization, one whose projects should be emulated by government.

My friend, the late John Crowe, would tell me, if he were still alive, that the differences between me and my Conservative friends depend on whose ox is gored. If I owned a string of rental houses, I might share M's distaste for rent control. Since John is not here to respond to my argument, I have to concede that he may be right.

Labels: Conservatism, Habitat for Humanity, Liberalism, Non-governmental organizations, Public Housing, Rent Control

My friends H, M, R, and S argue with me and each other about political, ecnomic, and social matters. Often S and I are on one side and H, M, and R are on the other side. Sometimes the division is more complicated. However, I classify H, M, and R, according to their expressed opinions, as "conservatives." S and I are the "liberals" or "anti-conservatives." S and I occasionally disagree. R tends to be more libertarian and less religious than H and M. For example, R favors funding for any and all stem cell research, including federal funding. H and M oppose federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. In fact, they would prefer that embryos not be used for research at all.

In a recent exchange, R asserted that "liberal elites" do not trust the public to vote for or choose programs or policies that these "elites" favor. For example, "liberal elites" oppose drilling for oil in the ANWR in Alaska, while the people of Alaska are very much in favor of the drilling. The "liberal elites" do not trust the public.

My first response to this rant was to declare my support of local democracy. I argued that both local government units and the federal government can make mistakes, but that local units are more flexible and can recognize and correct mistakes quicker than the federal government can. I can go on (although I didn't in my e-mail to R, H, M, and S) to cite the federal government's long-running "war" on drugs as an example of a mistake that the feceral government is slow to recognize and correct. Local governments, for example the people of California, recognize that the inclusion of marijuana or hemp or cannabis in the list of dangerous drugs that ought not to be available to the public is a mistake. Even if the federal government won't recognize it, local voters know that the "legal" drug ethanol, the active ingredient in whisky and brandy and wine, is more "dangerous" than the "illegal" drug that is the active ingredient of marijuana.

But getting back to the emotional term "liberal elite," I now understand that the phrase is used simply to "frame" the argument. It is a way of showing scorn and contempt for a particular point of view without having to justify the opposition to it. I myself am opposed to drilling for oil in ANWR. My argument is that any oil discovered there (I concede that there is probably a lot of oil there) isn't going to affect the price of oil today, nor for several years. It will take that long to build the equipment to extract the oil and transport it to an all-weather port, such as Valdez. I believe that the money spent to drill and exploit the oil field there would be better spent developing and building plants that use new, renewable, and non-polluting sources of energy. My view is dismissed by my conservative friends as simply "elitist."

They do have an argument. After implying that I am a contemptible "liberal elitist," R goes on to point out that even though the oil from ANWR won't be available for several years, we in the United States will continue to use petroleum for fuel. When the oil from ANWR does come on line, it will represent oil that we no longer have to buy from sources in Arabia, Iran, Africa, and South America. The money that would have gone to the sheiks and emirs and ayatollahs and crazy South American leaders would instead stay within the United States. That is a valid argument. However, R and M go on to argue that the saved money would be spent in the United States in such a manner as to create 700,000 new jobs. That part of the argument I dismiss as being an unprovable, highly optimistic prediction. Whether the oil comes from ANWR or Iraq or Nigeria or Iran, the money to pay for it will come from Americans who buy gasoline for their cars and fuel oil for their furnaces and from American industries who directly or indirectly use petroleum to generate the power needed to produce their products. In one case the money will go to the sheiks and emirs and ayatollahs. In the other case, it will go to the stockholders of American Big Oil (Exxon-Mobile, Union, etc.). I have asked my conservative friends to explain to slow-witted me how the money that goes to American Big Oil is going to create any more jobs than the money that goes to the emirs and their ilk.

The argument "money-at-home = jobs" seems to me to be a variant of supply-side economics. Make it and people will buy. Build it and people will use it. My belief is that the decision of whether to start a new enterprise starts with the question of whether there is a market for a particular service or product. One has to prove that a potential market exists before a prudent investor will be willing to risk some of his money in the enterprise. One doesn't start the enterprise and then hope that customers will materialize.

My friend M argued that the extra money would be in American pockets, not in the pockets of the emirs, etc. It takes money to buy the services and products of a new enterprise. With this extra money, there would be extra demand, etc. I will let you, the reader of this blog, meditate for a while on this argument and decide for yourself whether it makes any sense.

It has been discussed elsewhere that conservatives have been more adept at using framing to force a desired conclusion to a debate or argument than liberals. I don't expect liberals to improve their "framing" skills. However, they must learn to recognize a frame when they see it and call it by its name. Terms like "liberal elite," "tax-and-spend Democrats," and "soft on crime" are well-worn frames that have had some influence on elections. The last liberal that I can recall that used frames effectively to counter his conservative opponents was Franklin Roosevelt. "Economic Royalist" was an effective frame in his day. We liberals need a man like FDR today.

Labels: Conservatism, Drilling in ANWR, drug policy, FDR, Framing an argument, Liberalism, Libertarian, Nineteenth Amendment, Tax and Spend Democrats

My Conservative friends H, M, and R have charged me with having opinions that are not based on fact but are as firmly held as those of a devout follower of one of the great religions of the world. They quote Ann Coulter, who wrote something along that line about Democrats. Conservatives, or at least my three friends H, M, and R, believe that Liberal Democrats are so wrong about nearly everything that they must be members of some religion.

My first reaction to this charge was that it was just the usual prejudiced nonsense that Conservatives like to write and say about Liberals. Actually, it is Conservatives that seem to have opinions that are not supported by facts but instead are based on their ideas of what a just and fair society should be and how it should treat its members.

I thought some more. Then I realized that both Liberals and Conservatives base their ideas of a just, fair, and proper society on a set of moral and ethical values. Both Conservatives and Liberals have values. Values are moral ideas or ideals that don’t seem to be based on considerations of cost, efficiency, and proper allocation of scarce resources. They are based on tradition and on our notions of history. Some people assert that they are given to us by God.

Without going into a long discourse on the subject, I believe that morality and the ideas of how people in a society, whether it be a nation, a tribe, a family, or a working group, treat each other are very ancient and were firmly fixed in the minds of our distant ancestors before they decided to unite morality with religion. The most widely recognized moral or ethical rule is called the “golden rule:” Treat others as you wish to be treated. This rule covers a wide spread of moral rules, such as abstaining from stealing, murder, impregnating another man’s wife, and coveting. Liberals and Conservatives alike believe in this rule and try to follow it most of the time.

There is another moral rule that is a bit controversial. This rule states that the society, tribe, or group has to take care of its members. An injured member must not be abandoned. (Actually, this rule can be thought of as an example of the Golden Rule: if you are injured or in trouble, you would like the group to help you.) The controversy arises when this rule is extended to members of society who are poor, old, or disabled. Especially if the society exists in a region of scarcity, it is important that every member of the society pull his or her weight in the effort to provide food, shelter, clothing, and other necessities for everyone. Such a society may decide collectively that it can’t support those who can not work. Non-productive individuals are abandoned.

I think the application of this second rule forms part of the divide between Conservatives and Liberals. Liberals like me argue in favor of universal health care for all members of society. We argue that society should and can provide good medical care for everyone. Conservatives argue that the ideal of universal health care is unattainable. If medical care is freely available at no cost to the individual, many individuals will overuse it and the whole system will break down. Besides, individuals should learn to take care of themselves and live lives in which they avoid medical problems. Self-discipline to retain good health rather than free medical care for the sick is their approach.

So, back to the original charge: am I, a Liberal, following a set of beliefs like those of a religion or am I following logic, reason, and proven facts? Well, yes, I am. I believe in a society that nurtures and takes care of all its members. A certain amount of competition is good for people, but excessive competition leads to a rather ugly society in which a few winners dominate everyone else. At least that’s what I believe. Conservatives believe that too much nurturing, too much taking care of everyone leads to dependence and weakness. A society should be strong and its strength must come from strong, self-reliant members.

In my calmer moments, that’s how I see the difference between Liberals and Conservatives. Both have beliefs that they cling to. Both Liberalism and Conservatism are somewhat like religions.

Labels: Conservatism, golden rule, Liberalism, nurturing society, tough love