Facebook and Politics

I've noticed somthing about Facebook that I think illustrates the way people think in light of their politics. It's election season, and that means a lot of Facebook statuses talking about it. I have friends -- both real friends and the Facebook kind -- on both ends of the political spectrum. Which means that, by definition, my friends and I all don't agree on politics.

But I've noticed that when it comes to Facebook friends, who they plan to vote for informs how they react to others' politics. There's been a solid uptick in statuses lately that hew to some variant of the following: "I can't wait for this election to be over. Some people spend way too much time on Facebook talking about their candidate. Does anyone really think they're going to change anyone's mind in regards to how they vote? Can we all just agree to stop talking about politics and stick to posts about kids, gardens, vacations, and things like that? You know -- important things?"

I've seen some version of that post by four different poeple in the last month and half, by my recollection. That in itself isn't all that interesting. What's interesting is that, based on other posts they've either made, liked, or commented on, it's pretty clear who exactly they'll be voting for in November. In every case I think it is safe to say they'll be pulling the lever for the status quo. Which is fine, of course. Everyone who is eligible to vote has a right to cast the vote for whomever they wish -- even if they're completely wrong.

No, what makes this interesting is not who they're voting for, but rather their preferred reaction to reading -- or presumably becoming aware of the gist of, since I don't think there's a law that says you have to read everything a Facebook friend posts -- political statements that don't gibe with their own views. Let's take a look at the options available to a Facebook user.

When you see that someone has posted a status or link on Facebook that you don't agree with and/or don't want to read, you can:

(A) Read it anyway; since if they're your friend and took the time to post something the least you can do is take the time to read it.

(B) Skip over it and look for more posts about waterskiing cats and lists of reasons why music today sucks.

(C) Wonder why you were ever Facebook friends with that person in the first place and unfriend them.

(D) Attempt to influence what other people feel comfortable posting on Facebook by calling for moratoriums on certain subjects.


Now, I don't think anyone in history has ever chosen option (A), and that's okay. Option (B) is what I usually do, though there are times I will read it if it looks like a useful link (i.e. not say, the Daily Kos or Democratic Underground. I may be an occasionally incredulous reader of Salon, Slate, and the Huffington Post in an effort to keep my horizons broadened, but I'm not crazy). And I will admit there are times when option (C) is sorely tempting.

At no time have I ever seen option (D) taken by a conservative friend though, and I think that's telling. There's a certain air to liberalism that seems to imbue adherents with the feeling that their cause is so just, their ideology so pure and self-evidently right, that it's only natural to try and shut other points of view down. We see it on a large scale when there are concerted efforts by leftwing groups to get Rush Limbaugh off the air. We see it when companies don't have the right viewpoint. And we see it at perhaps its most repugnant point when people don't vote the way people of their ethnic group are expected.

Back on Facebook, this tendency to argue that politics should just be left out of the sphere of acceptable topics is undercut by a simple search of the authors' timelines. In my personal experience, it's not hard to find examples of those same people liking and commenting on statuses and links from people who share their leanings. And hey, that's fine. But it's pretty disingenuous to turn around and play the "can't we just talk about kittehs?" card.

I talked about liberals being imbued with a feeling earlier, and I think that inadvertently got to the heart of the difference between liberals and conservatives. Liberals feel. They see inequality in the world and think, that's not fair. If people would just work together and sacrifice, we could get rid of hunger/poverty/homelessness/want/need/lack of iPhones for all. The problem is that that deep feeling is always steeped in the same foundation: but not me.

Occupy protesters marched around (then later, when they got tired, camped) shouting out poorly metered slogans about all sorts of injustices: the war in Afghanistan, Wall Street, the bottoming housing market, the inability of people with masters degrees in puppetry to find work. Among the homeless, the criminals and the people with nothing better to do were a lot of people who were spending a lot of time complaining that they wanted more and other people had it and why doesn't somebody make them give it to us? Take a look at this vignette from Occupy Wall Street that aired on the Daily Show. Watch the whole thing, as it's both funny and enlightening. But pay close attention to the 4:15 mark, when a man goes to great lengths to espouse the idea that everyone should have access to all the goodies life has to offer. Private property is evidently wrong because it deprives people of access to "the goods of life". Not his iPad though, because that's his. As he says, "I'm more against private property than personal property." In other words, "my stuff is mine, but other people's stuff should be made available to everyone".

That's not to say that convervatives don't feel, and it certainly shouldn't be taken as gospel that conservatives don't care about the poor or the homeless or the hungry. We just don't think government is the best way to address it, and that in that capacity to which government involvement is necessary, the goal should be to reduce the number of people dependent on aid. Instead, we seem intent on seeing how far the balance between those dependent on government handouts and those expected to pay for them can tilt until the whole thing collapses. The eminent sage Homer Simpson once declared that alcohol was "the cause of -- and solution to -- all of life's problems. Right and Left split that dichotomy when it comes to statism. The Right sees government as the cause, the Left as the solution.

So, to any Facebook friends who might be reading this, let me say, no.

No, I won't stop writing about politics, or posting statuses that make clear in no uncertain terms that I think our current president is far, far worse than George W. Bush on his worst day -- and W. doesn't exactly stand next to Reagan in my personal pantheon.

No, I won't stop posting links that point out all the ugly, horrible, racist things that liberals say and do. Precisely because your side regards it as self-evident that conservatives are racist by definition, as though proclaiming your support for Obama magically cloaks you from racism charges while simultaneously calling Stacey Dash an Uncle Tom (and far, far worse).

No, I won't stop posting links to malfeasence on the part of a press that frets over funding for Big Bird but can't quite bring itself to dig into Benghazi, Eric Holder, or the deliberate attempt to destroy a functioning energy base (coal and oil) for one that doesn't work no matter how much money we flush down the toilet.

If that means we can't be Facebook friends, I understand. I'll just have to figure out a way to overcome the loss of hearing about kids I've never met and cats I don't like (seriously, I don't see the upside to cats). I'll have to muddle through without your invitations to install Facebook apps that invariably infect my computer with viruses. Some of you I would genuinely miss, so I hope you don't dismiss me. But as for others, I'll take solace in the fact that I'll have one less "friend" telling me what is and is not acceptable to post.

The Most Offensive Thing I've Ever Read

It suddenly got cold in North Dakota today, with wind chills near zero this morning. So I guess it's as good a time as any to read something to make your blood boil. This article in the New York Times claims that the U.S. Constitution is losing its influence.

In 1987, on the Constitution’s bicentennial, Time magazine calculated that “of the 170 countries that exist today, more than 160 have written charters modeled directly or indirectly on the U.S. version.”

A quarter-century later, the picture looks very different. “The U.S. Constitution appears to be losing its appeal as a model for constitutional drafters elsewhere,” according to a new study by David S. Law of Washington University in St. Louis and Mila Versteeg of the University of Virginia.

No, that isn't so galling. After all, what difference does it make what constitutional model burgeoning democracies use? No, what's galling are the critiques of our Constitution contained within that supposedly show "what's wrong with it".

The United States Constitution is terse and old, and it guarantees relatively few rights.

Funny, we always hear how young America is, especially compared to our societal betters in Europe's old democracies. Now suddenly, we're too old. And, "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" doesn't seem small to me.

In an interview, Professor Law identified a central reason for the trend: the availability of newer, sexier and more powerful operating systems in the constitutional marketplace. “Nobody wants to copy Windows 3.1,” he said.

The implication here is that our constitution doesn't work anymore and should be replaced. After all, that's what you do with an old operating system, right? Our constitution is more like a poem by a laureate or a painting by a master. It endures. It's still around because it works so well. It hasn't been replaced because frankly, there isn't anything better.

The rights guaranteed by the American Constitution are parsimonious by international standards, and they are frozen in amber. As Sanford Levinson wrote in 2006 in “Our Undemocratic Constitution,” “the U.S. Constitution is the most difficult to amend of any constitution currently existing in the world today.”

To keep the computer analogy alive, that's a feature, not a bug. If a constitution can be changed at a whim by whatever group manages to get power, it ceases to be a document that enumerates the powers and rights of a citizenry and becomes just another tool for those in power.

Americans recognize rights not widely protected, including ones to a speedy and public trial, and are outliers in prohibiting government establishment of religion. But the Constitution is out of step with the rest of the world in failing to protect, at least in so many words, a right to travel, the presumption of innocence and entitlement to food, education and health care.

We don't protect the presumption of innocence? That statement is so utterly false that there's really nothing else to say. Well, except this. The Constitution may not say "in so many words" that the accused is innocent until proven guilty. The law does say that however. And, as we'll see shortly, the author is very enamored with the idea of a judiciary expanding rights that aren't explicitly spelled out in a constitution, at least when Canadians do it.

The rest of that quote gets to the heart of some people's problem with the constitution. It doesn't list things like food, education and healthcare as rights. Well, that's because they're not. To borrow my own words: we have laws to define acceptable behavior in a society and to convey privileges (or restrict said privileges). Rights are things we can never envision or support being taken away.

There's a good reason the our constitution doesn't list every possible right. It's because the framers knew that was an impossible task. The very reason so many "newer" contitutions are easier to amend is because they attempt this impossible task. Just when they think it's perfect, along comes some new technology and, boom! New "right" coming through. Notice that even the NYT article uses the word "entitlement" to describe food, education, and healthcare.

It has its idiosyncrasies. Only 2 percent of the world’s constitutions protect, as the Second Amendment does, a right to bear arms.

I love that something so fundamental as a right to defend yourself through force of arms is labeled an "idiosyncracy". Guess we know where the author stands on gun control.

The author however, does love the Canadian Charter:

The Canadian Charter is both more expansive and less absolute. It guarantees equal rights for women and disabled people, allows affirmative action and requires that those arrested be informed of their rights. On the other hand, it balances those rights against “such reasonable limits” as “can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”

"We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal." Sounds pretty expansive (the use of the royal "men" notwithstanding) to me. Also, the author is being disingenuous with the phrase "more expansive and less absolute". What that really means is that the Charter puts far more limitations on things like freedom of speech, religion and assembly than the U.S Constitution and relies on the courts to broaden those rights, which was somehow a problem with the U.S. Constitution.

It should also be noted that the Times author is conflating the Charter with a constitution. The Charter is actually analogous to our Bill of Rights, which makes the next bit especially confusing.

There are, of course, limits to empirical research based on coding and counting, and there is more to a constitution than its words, as Justice Antonin Scalia told the Senate Judiciary Committee in October. “Every banana republic in the world has a bill of rights,” he said.

“The bill of rights of the former evil empire, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was much better than ours,” he said, adding: “We guarantee freedom of speech and of the press. Big deal. They guaranteed freedom of speech, of the press, of street demonstrations and protests, and anyone who is caught trying to suppress criticism of the government will be called to account. Whoa, that is wonderful stuff!”

The author wants this passage to read as though the Bill of Rights is somehow lessened by the actions of totalitarians in other countries. "Oh, the Bill of Rights," he seems to be saying, "the Soviet Union had one of those!" The Bill of Rights may be just paper, but so is the Canadian Charter. So is every constitution, everywhere.

It's a bit disengenous to try and tie the Bill of Rights' worth to that of the old Soviet Union. Is there really any comparison to how those rights were treated under the U.S.S.R. and the United States?

And, if as the author asserts, these are just pieces of paper, then what purpose does his article serve? Besides making my blood boil, that is.

Oh No, That Evil Republican Is Paying Exactly As Much In Taxes As He Is Legally Obligated To!

In the latest installment of The Media Is Trying To Make Me Like Someone Despite My Best Efforts (see previously: Sarah Palin), the gnashing and fainting surrounding the "revelation" that Mitt Romney's tax burden hovers near the 15% range is making me defend the guy behind the inspiration for some of the worst legislation of my lifetime.

Note that no one is claiming that Romney is a tax cheat (which, apparently is not a big deal these days). No, the complaints revolve around the nebulous rallying cry from 2011 that refused to die: he's not paying his fair share! A quick aside: who gets to determine what is fair? Will you be comfortable with that answer when the person or entity wielding the power doesn't share your political views?

Romney pays around 15% in income tax because most of his income is derived from sources that are taxed in the tax code at 15%. So what is the problem with that? Is it that capital gains should be taxed at a high rate? If you immediately answered yes, I bet you don't own any stock. That's too bad; when the economy is tanking it's generally a good time to invest, assuming you can stay in for the long haul. But enthusiastically wanting to raise taxes as long as they don't affect you personally is just so selfish. I can't believe a good liberal would ever be for it. And no self-respecting conservative would push for higher capital gains taxes, so...

Is the problem that Romney has too much money? To which I respond, how much money you make is irrelevant. The only way the amount of a person's wealth could be relevant is if wealth is a zero-sum game. Which frankly, I think a lot of people on the left seem to think. I have bad news for your worldview: this guy having more money doesn't mean that guy has to have less. This should be obvious, but for many it is not. Look at it this way: if wealth was a zero-sum game it would be a true statement that the world is exactly as wealthy now as it was 1000 years ago. Do you think that is a true statement? No, you don’t. So why would anyone make the argument that someone else has too much money? (Note: I could have just as easily used 100 years ago above, but I wanted to invoke that image of civilization at a point where the hot new invention was a bar of soap.)

Okay then, is the problem that Romney is "gaming the system", deliberately structuring his income so that his tax burden is as small as possible? Raise your hand if you don't do the same thing. That's what I thought. I have yet to meet anyone go out of their way to structure their finances with the goal of paying more taxes. That includes Warren Buffett.

Another aside: you should read the whole article at that link. One, because it hilariously talks about Buffet being ready to "take the Republicans tax challenge" by matching any checks Republicans write to the treasury while simultaneously ignoring the fact that the challenge was for Buffet to write his own check. The article tries to twist things around and make it seem like Republicans -- who don't want taxes raised -- should voluntarily write a check in order to not seem like hypocrites while Buffett -- who wants taxes raised -- is a hero for not writing one. The other reason you should read the article is that it's Time, and your last chance to read it could come any day now. (Sorry Canada, you had your chance.)

Back to the whole tax avoidance thing: do people have a duty to pay as much in taxes as they can, or does this moral burden only fall on certain people? People who, say, make "too much money"? If you believe that, then you should be all over people like Warren Buffet, who as we already know, is outraged -- outraged! -- about how little he pays in taxes. Not outraged enough to write that check to the treasury, but you know, outraged!

So, just to be clear: Romney hasn't done anything illegal. He hasn't done anything morally wrong. So just what is the problem here? Besides, you know, Romney having an 'R' after his name.

You Realize, Of Course, That Today's Environmental Movement Would Kill The Computer Revolution

Glenn Reynolds had a link this morning to a deal on a 32GB flash card and reader. Along with the link he did some reminiscing about days gone by. He later updated the post with a reader comment:

"Heck, I remember when punch cards were hi tech. It would take a stack of cards 47 miles high to store 32GB. That’s a lot of trees.”

That is a lot of trees. Which made me realize something:

If computers didn't exist in 2012, would they ever? If an inventor (a latent Charles Babbage, say) came along now and proposed a machine that could do calculations at a heretofore unheard of speed and all that was needed was lots and lots of wood to make punch cards, would environmentalists sit still for it? Would a president as firmly in the pocket of those same environmentalists support it?

Let's See the Pictures Already

There is a lot of handwringing going on over whether releasing images of Osama bin Laden's corpse would be too inflammatory. Apparently, confirmation that he's dead could cause "certain elements" of the Muslim world to react negatively. One the one hand, I can see this. After all, if a cartoon can be used to incite riots and murder, certainly a picture of an actual event could be used for that same purpose.On the other hand, here are a list of things that invoked no handwringing:

Pictures of prisoners at Abu Ghraib

Pictures of the coffins of American soldiers

Reports of Korans being flushed down toilets (though this apparently never actually happened)

Allowing a government with which we were at war to censor news reports by American journalists in exchange for "access" (Bing 'Eason Jordan' if you've forgotten)

Witholding pictures of a dead bin Laden isn't going to calm anybody down.

(Crossposted at Say Anything)

Time For South Park To Move On

[WARNING: this post contains strong language and depicts scenes some closeminded, uptight, sensitive people are likely to find offensive. Trust me though: they're really really funny.]

In the wake of the latest French Maneuver by South Park network Comedy Central, creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have shown none of the willingness to forgive that they did after their first controversial episode in which the Muslim prophet Muhammed was censored by executive decree.

“In the 14 years we’ve been doing South Park we have never done a show that we couldn’t stand behind. We delivered our version of the show to Comedy Central and they made a determination to alter the episode. It wasn’t some meta-joke on our part. Comedy Central added the bleeps. In fact, Kyle’s customary final speech was about intimidation and fear. It didn’t mention Muhammad at all but it got bleeped too. We’ll be back next week with a whole new show about something completely different and we’ll see what happens to it.”

What was all the fuss about? Well, if you're unfamiliar with South Park consider yourself a poorer person now than you were when you started this sentence. It's a show that uses crude animation to tell the adventures of four young boys in South Park, Colorado. They are crude, rude, profane and endlessly funny. It's the type of show you either love or hate, depending on your ability to laugh at sacred cows. In a world where shows like Fox and Friends and The Daily Show claim to be equal opportunity offenders but are really ideological shills, Parker and Stone truly go out of their way to offend every sacred cow on every side of every aisle.

You like watching Republicans get lampooned? One episode referred to a conservative talk show guest on The O'Reilly Factor as a "pissed-off white-trash redneck conservative". If you're the type that thinks making fun of the Right is funny, but the Left isn't to be mocked, you wouldn't like South Park. The other guest was identified only by "aging hippie liberal douche".

South Park makes fun of the handicapped. It has not one but two handicapped characters. The first, named Timmy, can only communicate by saying his name in different cadences and volumes. The second, Jimmy, needs crutches to walk and has a severe stutter. Naturally, Jimmy was introduced in an episode where he challenges Timmy's status as primary crippled character in an episode called "Cripple Fight". The halves of a two-part episode were titled, "Do The Handicapped Go To Hell" and "Probably".

Celebrities have taken more than their share of punishment from Rob Reiner (anti-smoking crusader who constantly has a cheeseburger in his hand) to Sally Struthers (African adoption advocate who looks and talks like Jabba the Hutt) to Barbra Streisand (depicted as a 100-foot-tall mechanized Godzilla-like creature who tries to destroy the town). Tom Cruise-bashing is practically a subplot on the show. Originally questioning his sexuality in an episode called "Trapped In The Closet", in which the actor literally spent almost the entire episode in a closet, refusing to come out, the show fired shots in his direction sporadically, culminating in the show's 200th episode (titled "200") in which Cruise leads all the celebrities lampooned over the years first in an effort to sue the town and later in a plot that set off the latest controversy.

Cruise realizes that there's one person who is absolutely untouchable when it comes to satire -- the prophet Muhammed. He agrees to drop the lawsuit against the town if the citizens will deliver Muhammed to him. His plan is to use a device (built by Rob Reiner) to steal Muhammed's "goo", a magical substance that will make Tom Cruise untouchable.

While you may think the plot is silly (and it is -- that Parker and Stone can make such a ridiculous plot not only funny but expected is part of their peculiar genius), it doesn't sound like anything to get up in arms about. You would be wrong. After "200" aired, a Muslim group made a statement warning the creators that they were walking a dangerous path.

"We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show," Al-Amrikee wrote. "This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them."

I especially like the covering statement at the end. Hey we're not threatening you. We're just saying that if you keep doing what you're doing, you're likely to end up shot and stabbed to death in the street. Just telling it like it is, man. Riiiiight.

The singular saving grace that keeps South Park relevant and fresh is the fact that they skewer every religion (as well as everything else). Not equally. Truth be told, Christianity has taken by far the most abuse. From a town priest that's been caught "giving a blessing" to a nun in the confessional to depicting the Pope as a dessicated old man who can only speak in grunts, the show has been absolutely brutal to the sensibilites of Christians of more delicate constitutions. In one episode ("Bloody Mary"), a bleeding statue of the Virgin Mary is originally identified as miraculous but is later disavowed when a visiting Cardinal realizes it is bleeding from its, um, ladyparts, declaring "A chick bleeding out her vagina is no miracle. Chicks bleed out their vaginas all the time." If you like your Christian satire to be more Ned Flanders and less a show where Satan's boyfriend is Sadam Hussein, than you're likely to be offended by South Park.

And that's okay. You don't have to like it. But you should support it's right to exist and to "do what it does". Because the show doesn't just skewer Christianity. One of the shows regular characters, Chef (voiced by Shaft signer Isaac Hayes) was killed off after the actor voiced displeasure with the show's treatment of his religion, Scientology. Mormons, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, Christians -- poking fun with the sharpest stick possible didn't present a problem. When the stick got pointed at his own sacred cow, Hayes got mad. Parker and Stone got their "revenge" with the biggest "f--k you" episode in television history. The point they were trying to make was obvious: this show makes fun of everything. If anything is off the table, then it all has to be off the table. And with one exception, Comedy Central has laughed at protesters, threats and boycotts all the way to the bank.

Comedy Central's cowardice was excused by Parker and Stone the first time around, because, the network was honest about their motivation -- they were "scared of getting blown up". In that episode, the creators wanted to depict Muhammed in a non-satirical manner. He was to be shown handing a football helmet to Family Guy's Peter Griffin. That's it. When the scene was supposed to air, viewers instead saw a black screen with the words, "Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Mohammed on their network". To show just how cowardly the network was and how willing they were to kowtow to any group who threatened violence (as opposed to boycotts and protests), the end of the episode depicted Jesus Christ and then-President George Bush defecating all over each other and an American flag. It was a disgusting image. The only thing more disgusting was the rank hypocrisy Comedy Central displayed in greenlighting it while censoring a cartoon image of Muhammed holding a football helmet. Let me be clear here: the network had a choice, allow both the Muhammed depiction and the Christ/Bush scene, or allow neither. I personally would vote for "allow both". The more squeamish among us might say "allow neither". Comedy Central chose the most cowardly path: greenlighting angering groups they knew would pose no physical threat while caving in to a group from whom they feared violence.

This time though, Parker and Stone are genuinely mad. They're getting tired of the network standing behind them on every controversy that comes along except for this one thing. It's clear that Comedy Central is too skittish to do what's right. I'm not privy to the inner workings of their contract with the network. I do know that South Park is too dedicated to free speech to remain on a cowardly network like Comedy Central. I think Parker and Stone should look for a new home. Free speech isn't easy to live with. It requires you to put up with hearing things you don't like. I'll let this exchange from the episode "Cartoon Wars (part 1)", in which the townspeople mull over how to repsond to the threat of Muslim violence, serve as the last word:

Professor Thomas: "We bury our heads. In sand. We take twenty to twenty-five dump trucks, fill them with sand from Monarch Lake, and then dump the sand along South Park Avenue. By using approximately eighteen dozen shovels, we can each dig a hole in the sand, stick our heads in the holes, and then have the person to our left bury them. If we can manage to get every person's head buried deep, deep in sand before the Muhammad episode airs, we could avoid looking like we're responsible for any part of this at all."

Stephen: "No, no, wait a minute, it's ridiculous. What we need to do is just the opposite. Freedom of speech is at stake here, don't you all see? If anything, we should ALL make cartoons of Muhammad, and show the terrorists and the extremists that we are all united in the belief that every person has a right to say what they want! Look, people, it's... been real easy for us to stand up for free speech lately. For the past few decades we haven't had to risk anything to defend it. But those times are going to come! And one of those times is right now. And if we aren't willing to risk what we have, then we just believe in free speech, but we don't defend it.

And then you're Canada. Nobody wants that.

Wealth Is Not A Zero Sum Game

Senator Max Baucus spewed ignorance all over a bunch of reporters. While taking questions about the passage of the healtcare abomination bill, the Senator had this to say:

"This is also an income shift, a levelling, to help lower income and middle income Americans... The maldistribution of income in America has gone up way too much. The wealthy are getting way, way too wealthy."

Think about what those statements imply. Time's up. Here's what those statements imply:

• An American can be said to be "too wealthy".


• It is the function of government to decide when a person is too wealthy.


• Wealth is a zero-sum game; that is, the only way for one person to get wealthier is for another person to get poorer.


• It is the function of government to redistribute wealth from those deemed "too wealthy" to those deemed "needy".

Each of the above statements can be taken to be positions supported by Senator Baucus. In each of these positions, Senator Baucus is dead wrong.

The idea that a person can be deemed "too wealthy" is absurd on its face. We tell people that they need to be productive members of society. That they need to go to college, get a job, earn a salary and pay their taxes. Senator Baucus is amending that plea: don't get too wealthy, or you'll be ostracized. Don't be too successful, or we'll have to punish you.

Further, who would trust the government to decide who fit the definition? Going back to the campaign trail, the current definition of wealth is already set by the President at an absurdly low figure of $250,000. Ask yourself, do you know anybody who is worth that much? Do you think they're "too wealthy"? If you found out tomorrow that you were worth that much, would you consider yourself "too wealthy"?

The above beliefs depend on the idea that there is a static amount of wealth in the world and everyone is fighting to increase their piece of the pie at the expense of others. If you believe that this is true, I hope you don't own a business. Otherwise, every dollar you make is actually serving to move your customers closer to poverty. You have to believe that a company like Microsoft or Nike or Target has consigned millions (if not billions) of people to poverty by growing so large.

I'm sure you see the folly of this belief. But it serves as the basis for wealth distribution in America; the idea that government needs to be the arbiter of wealth, taking it from those who are deemed to have too much and giving it to those deemed to have too little. If this sounds suspiciously like the old Communist saw "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need", that's only because it is that saw, dressed in 21st century American liberal thought.

Let me clear: I don't think Max Baucus is a Communist. I'm saying that if he believes these things, he is economically ignorant.

That a Senator of the United States could subscribe to these beliefs should be a wake up call to voters not just in Montana, but everywhere. Listen to what your representatives in Washington say. If they spout this sort of nonsense, at the very least do yourself and everyone else in your state a favor and vote them out. Unlike wealth, Congressional seats are a zero-sum game. The only way to increase our wealth is to trade people like Max Baucus for people who think building wealth is a good thing.

Thinking About The Iraqi Elections

(Note: This post first appeared in a slightly altered form on Say Anything. Click here to read the post in it's original form.)

The Iraqi elections are coming up tomorrow, and I've been thinking for a couple days about writing a post about it. It hasn't been easy, as I've read numerous blogs and newspaper articles about it, and I wasn't sure if there was anything that hadn't already been said: this is an important election for Iraqis; it will determine whether Iraq continues down the path towards democracy or slides back towards religious sectarianism; Sunnis are restless because so many of their candidates were blacklisted by the election council. It's not that I don't think the election is newsworthy; quite the opposite.

So as I struggled with what to say it occurred to me how things have changed in the past seven years. Whatever happens in this election, we know Saddam Hussein (remember him?) won't lead the balloting. A bloodthirsty, murdering tyrant won't be at the helm. The fretting over whether a secular or religious slate will win pales in comparison to the Iraq of seven years ago. No slate will garner 95% of the vote the way Saddam did in the dark days of his reign, and that's a good thing.

In the aftermath of the invasion, when sectarian violence threatened to tear Iraq apart and the media was breathlessly waiting (some would say hoping) for civil war to break out, it looked like the grand aspirations for the country were misplaced. That for all our good intentions, nothing would really change.

Contrast that with today: Sunni leaders are calling for calm and restraint tomorrow. More, they are calling for Sunnis to vote tomorrow, arguing that by refusing to participate they will only be weakening themselves more. The candidate slates made up of hardline Islamicists are expected to fare poorly. The promises being made by the candidates fall under the aegis of running government more efficently, providing more jobs and improving security. In the last election it revolved around rebuilding the country, finding ways to get the power back on and battling a strong and deeply rooted insurgency. That is progress.

There have been rumblings that violence will ensue in the aftermath of the voting, fueled by supporters of losing candidates and disgruntled Sunnis who feel they are being squeezed out of the power structure. Incidents may very well happen, and that will be a shame. Hopefully those incidents are few in number and small in scope. Those incidents, if they occur, should not overshadow the changes that have taken place in Iraq in the last seven years.

This is not to say the journey from totalitarian state to democratic stronghold is complete, or even nearly over. There is still a long way to go. Corruption and sectarianism still prevail in many quarters. Violence still erupts. Outside influences still work to derail the effort. But none of those issues have succeeded yet, and with each day that passes their ability to do so wanes a little bit more.

I remember how the purple finger came to be a point of pride in Iraqis and a symbol of the hope they had in their new democratic experiment. Purple fingers will appear in large numbers tomorrow (and indeed already have; police and the military have already voted in order to provide security for polling places). While those stained appendages still represent the possibility of the future, we, as outsiders watching from afar, should stop and realize that they also represent how far the Iraqis have come.

Some other takes on the election:

• Iraqi elections should give a hint of democracy's chances


• Iraqis Abroad Begin Voting in Homeland's Election


• Hope in Iraq's elections

The Problem With In-Your-Face Politics

The Obama administration has announced that its response to a Coakley loss in the Massachussetts senate race, which would end the Democrats' fillibuster-proof majority, would be to forge ahead with pushing healthcare reform on the American people.

This sort of response speaks of an arrogance unbecoming the office of the President. Poll after poll has shown that a majority of Americans do not support the administration's goals in healthcare. The attitude is one that smacks of, "we know better than you what you need. Don't concern yourself; adults are talking."

The problem with this approach is that someday the Democrats are going to be the minority in Congress and a Republican will be back in the White House. The tactics being employed now are going to be used by the opposition. Of course when that happens, the Democrats will decry the secrecy and the pushing of unpopular legislation and the lack of a "mandate". The Republicans will plug their ears and get their payback.

Congresspeople are elected to do the will of their constituents, not the will of the party leaders. That goes for both sides. Unfortunately, the in-your-face end run on healthcare reform is likely to be the blueprint for future administrations, and that's not good for anybody.

Teach Your Children Well

One of the most important things you can teach a child is how to read critically. That many adults I know can't do this is disheartening, but it doesn't diminish its importance as a skill. Kids are bombarded with opinions from television ^[1], books ^[2], and their parents ^[3].

The most insidious of these however, are news sources. Kids are taught from a young age that newspapers and news anchors are sources of fact, with opinions clearly marked as such (but backed up with supporting facts).

The world described in the above paragraph has not been my experience.

I don't know if things have really changed or if I've only slowly come to pay attention, but news articles today increasingly remind me of opinion pieces sprinkled liberally with "facts" designed to sway a reader's thinking, rather than the reporting of Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How.

All people have biases. Reporters are people. Therefore all reporters have biases. My understanding of the job of a journalist is to present the facts by doing one's best to set aside those biases. I don't see a lot of that lately. Instead, I see "news" pieces riddled with language meant to tell the reader how to feel about the piece's subject.

This isn't exactly news, of course. But now the slippery slope of opinion journalism masquerading as news has given way to an avalanche of activist news in which the writer attempts to steer the reader around to the correct way of thinking ("correct" being equivalent to how the writer thinks) about a news story. It's all about ideology now.

Take this piece ^[4] in which a Pulitzer Prize winner effectively makes up a backstory in order to paint a picture. That the actual facts paint the exact opposite picture is of no consequence; there is a battle to be won! In this case, the battle is over healthcare. But that's not the only battle being fought in print.

That many readers are okay with this sort of manipulation (as evidenced by the comments section of the article, in which the defense amounts to claiming the author is creating an archehtypical case study in support of government healthcare) is sad; you'd hope that people would value truth over the lie. (Of course, it also begs the question: if the made up version of events in the story are so typical, why couldn't the author have found a story which didn't require making up facts to fit the narrative?)

The fact that the linked article is an opinion piece only reinforces my point: straight opinion backed with supporting facts is not enough any more; the reader must be swayed at all costs. If that means making things up, inventing backstory where none exists (or is the opposite of reality), so be it. Being "right" on the issue is more important than truth.

If opinion journalism has slid so far down that inventing facts is okay, how far down has straight news sunk? The answer should be "not at all", but if straight news contains more and more opinion, and opinion can use falsehoods to make its point...

I intend to teach Macy to read the news with a critical eye. The days of taking a news anchor or Pulitzer Prize winner at his word are over.

-------------------------------------------------------
^{[1] "Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs are an important part of a balanced breakfast!"
[2] "Republicans are evil!"
[3] "That plaid jumper makes you look so grown up!"
[4] Yeah, I know. Extreme right-wing pundit alert. It was the best article that both sourced the original article and had first-person accounts of the investigation into the patient's actual circumstances.}

Online Education Can't Come Fast Enough

I put college money away for my daughter in a 529 plan because I want her to be able to get the type of education she's going to need in order to compete in the job market come 2023 or so. I do this even though I secretly believe that by the time 2019 gets here she will be able to take all her classes from home online. That's assuming the earth isn't destroyed by Mayans or whatever in 2012.

I hope this comes to pass (online college, not the Mayan thing) despite my feeling that colleges will fight it tooth and nail. Why? Money, of course. While there would be money to be made in online classes, there would be less:

• No (physical) textbooks. They would all be online. Cheap to generate. Cheap to revise. No more changing some punctuation, calling it a "new edition" and charging $150 for it. This practice is one of the most egregious rip offs ever devised by bureaucrats.


• Less teachers. Lesson plans, syllabi, etc. could come from more centralized sources. Right now there are thousands of English Lit 101 classes being held, and each one has its own professor, who creates a syllabus, conducts the class, has office time, etc. With the internet, syllabi could be condensed and standardized to the point that there are a few hundred (or dozen) to choose from. There would of course be a need to update them, but this could be done by far fewer people. Office hours could be replaced with more of a help desk model. Hopefully not outsourced to India.


• Cheaper college credits. Since all colleges would be online, you could easily bargain shop. The more colleges to which you are accepted, the more choices you have. College A wants to charge you $200/credit while College B charges $150? If other factors (equivalence of degrees, prestige, etc.) are comparable you can save. Colleges will have to compete on price, something they've never had to do before. Imagine being a high school senior and being bombarded by emails offering 20% coupons to Harvard.


• Travel and housing costs eliminated. Of course, not all college-age people want to live at home but it becomes an option. Sorry, mom and dad.

Why should you be hoping for this future as well? Because of this. College tuition is the one thing that is absolutely guaranteed to rise in price regardless of economic conditions. Economy in a recession? Tuition rises. Cost of most consumer goods declining? Tuition rises. Enrollment falling? Tuition rises. Enrollment climbing? Tution rises.

It rises faster than inflation. It rises when colleges promise not to raise it. It should be a t-shirt: Tuiton: It Rises.

The excuse right now is that colleges are being forced to pass on "their own financial problems". That sounds plausible, except that tuition rose when colleges didn't have financial problems. It rose when Harvard and Yale's endowments were $36 billion and $23 billion, respectively. It's risen now that those endowments are at $26 billion and $16 billion. It's true that their big cash piles have had several shovelfulls removed. But "we have to raise tuition: we've only got $23 billion in the bank!" just doesn't sound right to me.

When you consider that tution rises outstrip inflation, it sounds really bad:

"The price increases came despite painful cost-cutting by colleges on everything from faculty to cafeterias and sports travel. And as usual, the rise in tuition outstripped the overall inflation rate. In fact, during the period covered by the report, consumer prices declined 2.1 percent. So the latest tuition increase at public colleges was closer to 9 percent in real terms."

Think about that for a minute. Can you think of another business (and let's be honest, that's exactly what a private university is) that would look at declining demand for it's product (declining enrollment), a deflationary dollar (the dollar is worth more) and an economy in which people are having to make hard choices on where to spend their money, and conclude that raising the price is the way to go?

How do they get away with this? I see it as three-fold problem: First, bargain shopping doesn't apply to colleges. Little Suzy wants to go to Harvard. Or maybe Yale. If she can get in that's where she's going. If she can't get in (or can't afford it) she's probably going to Mystate U., the local school.

Second, a college education is looked at the same way as gasoline: it's a must-have commodity regardless of price. We may bellyache about the cost when it goes up but we pay it anyway.

Third, the role of subsidies. Financial aid isn't called that, but that's exactly what it is:

"The estimated net price – what the average student actually pays after financial aid is taken into account – is still much lower than the list price, at about $1,620 at public four-year colleges, and under $12,000 at private ones. Both figures are up slightly from last year but still lower than five years ago."

The dirty little not-so-secret of universities is that they tend to tie tution increases to the available pool of federal and state tuition grant money available each year.

So, cheaper education from the comfort of your own home and lower taxes (that's where grant money comes from, after all) all thanks to the internet. The only thing opposing it is a monolithic higher education entity that relies on increasing tuition, text book sales and housing payments to increase an already-giant pile of cash.

I'm going to keep up those 529 payments.

Every Woman Is Going As A Hooker For Halloween

So Macy, Donna and I headed out in search of Halloween costumes this weekend. The guys' section took up one very long wall, and I quickly identified a few potentials. I showed them to Donna, we picked out two, and headed to the womens' section to look for something for her.

So, when exactly did all female halloween costumes become hooker dress? Donna's choices boiled down to vampire hooker, nurse hooker, nun hooker, pregnant nun hooker, viking hooker, zombie hooker, policewoman hooker, businesswoman hooker, ballerina hooker, or pirate hooker. The only costume that covered anything was, ironically, the hooker costume.

Knowing what a prude I am, Donna was looking for something a little more Halloweenish and a little less reality TV slut. Luckily, we found a different store that was stocked with something other than stripper outfits.

Inspiration hit us when we found a certain prop. From there it was an easy time to create a backstory, find the appropriate costumes and props and get out of there. Our costumes are almost ready; we've got a couple of minor touches to add. But they're awesome and you're going to be so jealous that you'll want to puke.

If you're local to the Fargo area you can see them live the night before Halloween. Otherwise, you'll have to wait for pictures.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Scientifc Method

If you ask a religious person if the existence of God is a theory, you're going to get an emphatic "no" as an answer. You should: the existence of an omnipotent creator doesn't meet the criteria for a theory. A theory is an idea based on empirical data that attempts to explain what we see. There's a famous quip that says, "gravity: it's not just a theory, it's the law." Strictly speaking, though, gravity isn't a law. It's a theory. It's stood up for over four centuries now, but there are still a few nagging doubts that keep it from being "the law". As far as theories go, though, gravity is a good one.

Why is it a good theory? Because it fits closely with what we see in the universe. It's been tested and retested again and again. That's the essence of science: come up with a theory that fits what we know, then figure out ways to tear it down, prove it false. Tests are repeated again and again to either replicate the results or invalidate the experiment. The longer the theory survives, the closer to "law" it becomes.

This is why the realm of religion and belief in a creator isn't an exercise in science, but rather one of faith. There's no test to show that God doesn't exist. God isn't a theory; he's either a fact or a myth depending on which side of the question you fall.

Which brings me to my favorite secular religion: global warming climate change. Whoa, you say. There's hard science to prove that. It's way beyond theory. It's accepted scientific fact. I agree, now that we're calling it "climate change". The climate has changed, gotten warmer and colder, since the Earth was formed (though of course it was strictly cooling way back then). But what if I told you that the climate data used as the basis for the global warming climate change movement was not being made available?

Read this, and try to imagine Newton saying this when contemporaries wanted to see his notes on gravity:

“We have 25 years or so invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”

That's the response an Australian scientist got when he asked for the climate data gathered by Drs. Phil Jones and Tom Wigley, the authors of the first history of surface temperature, which served as the primary reference standard for the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Using this data, the IPCC declared human action had a significant impact on climate change.

Since that request, several other scientists from around the world have asked for the data and been refused. Think about that. The authors don't want anyone to try and replicate their work. That's pretty much the opposite of the scientific method.

I don't doubt that the climate is changing. I'm open to the idea that humans have a measurable effect on the climate. I remain skeptical though (ed. note: like a scientist? Yes, exactly.) For global warming climate change (and humankind's contribution) to become scientific law, it first has to pay its dues as a theory. That means scientists dispassionately trying to tear it down. When and if it stands the test of time it gets to start flirting with the honorific "law". As of now, its in its infancy as a theory. How it's presented is as fact or myth depending on which side of the question you're on, which makes it more like religion than science.

I Think The President Hates Me And I Deserve It

I didn't vote for Barack Obama. The reasons are myriad, but to condense it into a single bullet point: I didn't believe him. I didn't believe he was a moderate. I didn't believe he would "usher in a new era of bipartisanship". I didn't believe he would be a friend to small business. I didn't believe he would only raise taxes for the rich (not that I thought that was a good thing anyway).

I also didn't believe he would pull all our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan. That was actually a plus, because I think a total and immediate pullout would have been a mistake. But it was very different from what he let people think. Did he ever say he would institute a pullout immediately upon taking office? He did not. He did call for a rethinking of the entire mideast strategy. He then announced timetables for withdrawal that matched up nicely with what the Bush administration had already announced.

Despite all this, I respect the office of the President of the United States. You won't see me show disrespect for that office in this space or anywhere else. As long as Barack Obama holds that office, I will show repect for him as well. He's the president of the United States and he deserves respect.

I have to admit however that I have gotten the feeling almost constantly that the administration, and, by extension, the Democratic Party don't have a lot of respect for me. How could they? After all, I am apparently:

• a racist, because I didn't vote for Obama.
• a bitter, gun-toting, God-clinging imbecile.
• a mindless drone who doesn't understand taxes are a good thing.
• a political terrorist who hates the uninsured.
• a big enough threat to warrant being turned in by my neighbors.
• a dimwit who can't see that quadrupling the deficit is the only way to fix the problems caused by doubling it.
• Unpatriotic.
• a dandy.
• a slob.
• a Nazi.
• a double Nazi.
• a peer of al Qaeda.
• an evil-monger.
• a bad parent that can't keep my daughter from eating lead without government help.
• a demagogue.
• so blind that I can't tell the difference between hope -n- change and more of the same.

Considering all my faults, is it any wonder the president doesn't want to have a beer with me?

Double Standards Are Fun

Remember James von Brunn? This was a huge story for weeks. It had all sorts of important lessons on tolerance and race to teach us[*]. How about the Gates affair? That also had much to tell us about intolerance and America, and a big chunk of the internet was reserved to tell us about it. That one is still in the news (albeit tenuously at this point).

How about this story? Is this the first you're hearing about it? Are you wondering how the story of a white mob kicking the living crap out of a black man never managed to make it into the same white-hot spotlight as the above incidents? Yeah, me too.

One theory: a black man protesting for a conservative cause doesn't rate the same handwringing over race. On second thought that couldn't be true. Otherwise, a double standard would have to exist in the media establishment. One that assigned value to a story based on the ideological perspectives of the players. One that selectively covered stories in order to promote a mindset over fact reporting. That's. Just. Crazy.


[*] Meanwhile, this story? Not so important, even though it happened the day before. And it certainly had nothing to say about race.

NEWSFLASH: College Kids Like To Drink

North Dakota State University is in the midst of rolling out its latest effort to combat a problem that plagues the school, oh, pretty much once a year judging by the clockwork-efficiency with which the Forum publishes breathless articles about it.

Yes, it's handwringing-about-binge-drinking season again. It seems college kids have a high prediliction for getting drunk and NDSU is working feverishly to reverse that. Good luck. College kids are going to drink no matter what. If the campus is dry they'll drink in their dorms and the greek houses. If it isn't, they'll drink in the yards in front of the dorms and greek houses.

The university is planning an all-out educational blitz to inform students about the dangers of alcohol overindulgence. The problem with this is that students already know what can happen. That overconsumption of alcohol can cause problems mild (hangovers) and severe (kidney and liver damage, death) is something every kid knows. But it doesn't stop them from drinking. Why not? Well, does it stop you? Raise you hand if you've never done the lampshade dance before going to St. John's Church of the Porcelein Altar. Put your hand down, you liar.

Here's another thing every kid knows: alcohol is forbidden fruit. Kids who are 18 today grew up watching their parents enjoy beers at the lake or cocktails with friends. Even if their own parents were teetotalers, they undoubtedly had friends who weren't. In other words, kids grow up around alcohol but aren't allowed to touch it. It's bad, we tell them. You better not touch this stuff or I'll kill you. If you ever come home drunk I'll kick you out of the house. Now go get me a beer. If there's a better example of 'do as I say not as I do' than alcohol, I haven't seen it. It's no wonder kids want to go out and get drunk as soon as possible. It's a rebellious act, and if there's anything teenagers love more than stores that blast crappy music on eleven and forming cliques, it's rebelling.

I'm not advocating giving your kid a Jack and Coke when you sit down to watch Spongebob together. But if your kid asks you what you're drinking, tell them what it is. Not that "it's a grown up drink" crap. Tell them it's alcohol. When she wants to know why she can't have one, don't say it's because she won't like it (she won't) or because only grownups get to have those kinds of drinks. That's going to come back to haunt you when she turns 15 and (like all 15-year-olds) thinks she is a grownup. Don't tell her alcohol is dangerous and try to scare her with stories about drunk drivers and power hours gone wrong. She'll give you a look that says, I wonder, are you an alcoholic or just a hypocrite.

Tell her alcohol is something she has to learn to enjoy responsibly. Explain to her that's it's illegal for her to drink beacuse of the effects that alchol have on the developing bodies of children. Tell her how drinking can be a fun way to celebrate, but that being drunk has drawbacks, then explain them.

In other words, talk to your kids about alcohol in a way they can understand. Remove the mystique. When they're older, this won't keep them from drinking. Peer pressure and the sense of invulnerability all teens have are way too powerful for you, a mere mortal, to overcome. But they won't go to their first kegger thinking that moment is the one in which they became adults.

Riot In The Kitchen

Word out of MS Fargo's cafeteria cartel is that Kathy won't be asked to work in the new common dining area that opens next month. For those of you not in the know, Kathy is by far the best cook ever to grace Eurest's dining halls. People routinely came from the Horizon building (which has its own cafeteria) just to get her hashbrowns. Understand, this was in the winters before we had the Broken Fibula Memorial Covered Walkway between the Horizon and Vista buildings.

On top of being a fine cook, she was also a friendly lady with a smile on her face and a kind word as her constant companion. In short, she's the kind of person our cafeteria overlords should be hiring more of, not less.

Word on the street is (to channel Huggy Bear for a moment) she had clashes with management. I don't know the extent or nature of these dustups, but unless they involved kitchen knives it seems like there should be a way to resolve the issues at, uh, issue.

This post is a companion piece to the Kathy Must Make Hashbrowns At The New MS Fargo Dining Facility Facebook group. If you can find time to join causes to bring back Barney Miller, create a mocha flavor of Doritos, and suppport Boom Boom Pow as the greatest song of the 21st century, surely you can use your joiner predeliction for good for once and join this worthy cause.

But It's My Right!

A brief Simpsons interlude:

Milhouse: You're lucky. You only joined the Junior Campers. I got a dirty word shaved into the back of my head.

(Skinner walks by and stops when he sees the unseen "dirty word" in the back of Milhouse's head)

Principal Skinner: What is it with you kids and that word? (grabs Milhouse) I'm going to shave you bald, young man, until you learn that hair is not a right, it's a privilege!

Buried in the incredibly long post I used to explain my opposition to government-run healthcare was a line about free healthcare not being a right. This got me thinking about the proliferation of rights in this country. Everything is being described as a right, usually in order to elevate a privilege or to sway voters.

My admittedly inadequate research failed to define a precise point in time when this phenomenon started, but I feel confident that if I could find that point, it would lay a lot farther back along the time continuum than I would guess right now. For the record, my current guess is 8:14 pm on October 26th, 1997.

What is the difference between a privilege and a right? In the context of the Constitution, I would argue that a privilege is something that can be taken away, while a right is something that cannot. The Constitution is a handy document, but one that is commonly misunderstood by people who quote it. Many people think that the Constitution lists the rights of individual citizens of the United States. That's sort of true, but it does it from the angle of limiting the rights of the federal government.

Take the right to free speech. People commonly misread the First Amendment, usually to argue that not allowing a speaker time on the air is a violation of free speech, or that not allowing a permit to this or that group to walk in this or that parade is censorship.

The First Amendment reads thusly:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Too many people think that means they have a right to say whatever they want, whenever they want and use any medium to say it, without consequences. It doesn't really work that way. The government can't limit your right to speak out, but that doesn't immunize you from the consequences visited upon you by your employer, the private business where you exercised your right, or the public at large.

I say all this to throw contrast on some other things that people claim are "rights" when they really should be saying "privilege". Things like:

* Internet access (skip ahead to the 4:45 mark)

* Clean air

* Peace

* Quiet

* Milk

* Power usage statistics

* Nutritional information on menus

I could go on (and on and on). I'm not arguing that any of those bulleted privileges above are inherently undesirable. But when you elevate something to the status of a right by virtue of the item in question being a nice idea and something you really really want, you demean the word "right" in its greater context.

If a study came out tomorrow that milk causes cancer, most people would be fine with limiting access to milk. Does your "right" to quiet trump my "right" to host band practice in my garage? Do I have to pay out of my own pocket so that someone else's "right" to internet access isn't infringed upon? Define clean air. What if I don't like your definition?

On the other hand, I can't think of a situation in which a person in his or her right mind would agree that free speech should be revoked, that religion should be outlawed, or that there's no such thing as unlawful search and seizure. See the difference? We have laws to define acceptable behavior in a society and to convey privileges (or restrict said privileges). Rights are things we can never envision or support being taken away.

Another Socialized Medicine Rant (Now With More Words!)

I am 100% against turning over American health care to the government. I have this opinion for several reasons, but the biggest (by far) is that I don't trust the government not to screw it up royally. Because that's what governments do. Amtrak. The U.S. Postal Service (which seems to have retained many of the inefficiencies from its time as a governement entity). The IRS. The Veterans Administration. Is there anyone who believes the government can do a good job running a business?

The above paragraph serves as enough of an argument for me personally, as I see it as the common sense argument against government healthcare. That's not to say there aren't a lot more arguments against it.

Proponents don't like the term "government-run healthcare" or "socialized medicince" because of the negative connotation they (rightfully) believe people associate with them. Many proponents like to refer to it as simply "universal healthcare" and (my favorite) "free healthcare". Simply put, nothing the government ever does is free. The government runs on tax money, and everybody pays taxes. I know a common refrain from the right is that taxes fall disproportionately on the producers (i.e. the rich and the middle class) while those lazy poor people get everything free. That's true to a point; income taxes do fall disproportionately on income earners. The disparity widens as one earns more; that's why it's called a progressive income tax system.

The truth however, is that everyone pays taxes in one form or another. Sales taxes, property taxes, hotel taxes, capital gains taxes. Of course there's all kinds of things out there that we don't call taxes but have the same effect. We might call them procesing fees or registration fees or whatever, but they amount to money we pay to the government to get a building permit or license our cars or a million other things.

The upshot: there's nothing free about socialized medicine. Taxes will be used to pay for all this coverage, which means everybody is paying for it. It's all sleight-of-hand: you don't pay as you go, you pay well in advance. What happens when costs go up and the system needs more money? I'm sure you can guess, but we'll explore it anyway a bit later.

Another argument in favor is the inherent unfairness a private system gives us. The quality of care is dependent on how much coverage you can afford. Insurance companies deny claims to reduce costs. This leads to 45 million Americans not having health insurance (though there seems to be some dispute as to whether that number is rising or falling). I grant that all of the above is true (except I don't know which of the two articles linked in the previous sentence is more accurate). I still wouldn't advocate switching to a socialized model.

That some can afford better quality is something we accept in every other facet of our lives. Yes, I can afford better health coverage than my unemployed (and completely fictional) cousin Jimmy who picks up construction work whenever he needs beer money or the next Halo game comes out. I can afford a nicer car, a nicer house, nicer clothes and a bigger tv than him too. So I have a personal doctor and get biannual physicals while Jimmy goes to the walk-in clinic only when he thinks he might be dying.

Ah, you say, but cars and tv's and clothes are niceties. Healthcare coverage is a right. To that I say, no, it's not. Wherever did you get that idea? Politcal posturing and rhetoric aside, I can't find anything in the U.S. Constitution or Supreme Court case law that would convey a right to free healthcare. And I should point out that in every hospital in this country, if my cousin Jimmy stumbled into an emergency room and was about to die, U.S. law requires the hospital to treat him even if he stumbles in screaming, "I'm dying and I have no money or insurance!" Note that this law doesn't mean healthcare or insurance are rights; if Jimmy walks into said clinic with a sprained ankle and announced his inability to pay, the hospital would probably work out a payment plan, but they would not be outside their rights to tell Jimmy to hobble on out of there.

As to the propensity of private insurers to deny claims in order to keep costs down (or, if you prefer, increase profits), what makes you think government wouldn't do the same thing? As the population ages and healthcare costs rise, government will have to control costs. How can they do this? Well as I alluded to earlier, they can raise taxes. The other option is to ration care. Sounds like denying claims to me. Factor in government's endemic bureaucratic inefficiency and pretty soon we'll be Massachusetts. Or Norway. Or Canada. Or Britain. The linked articles add a lot to the already bloated word count of this rant. The short version is this: governments aren't good at controlling costs and so have high tax rates and ration care in order to make up for their fiscal irresponsibility. Whee!

What about those 45 million uninsured? Well, when you take out those that are eligble for Medicare but haven't applied, those who can afford insurance but choose not to buy it, and illiegal immigrants, it turns out the number shrinks significantly.

Now, you may be thinking, "I can't believe I wasted all this time reading this. It'd be nice if he had an idea to fix healthcare rather than just bashing everyone else's ideas." Touche. My only response to that is, here is what I would do. Oh snap.

First, end employer-based healthcare as it currently exists. I say this as the recipient of what may be the best employer health plan in America. I don't pay for jack. My daughter was on antibiotics for almost two years as an infant due to a medical condition that couldn't be corrected until she was two. I never paid a dime. Pharmacists used to run my insurance information multiple times because they thought it was a mistake that the amount due kept coming back zero. No co-pay, no deductible. My daughter ended up needing two week-long hospital stays, one of which included the surgery. Out of pocket I paid zero. I tell you this not to brag, but to show you that what I am advocating would cost me some kick-ass coverage.

The downside to this is that I am disconnected from the cost of healthcare. My decision to go to the doctor is not based on whether I really need to go. My employer picks up the tab, so why not go? Maybe I'll score some percodan for my acute back pain! In all seriousness, I don't go to the doctor for every little thing. However, it's more a function of stubborness and having better things to do with my time. The reason I don't go unless I really need to should be that I don't want to waste money or file an insurance claim that could negatively affect my rate for something trivial.

Right now companies use healthcare as a benefit. The coverage comes in lieu of more pay. I advocate companies paying more in direct compensation, allowing the employee to use that money to purchase their own coverage. This has the benefit of letting the individual make decisions about their healthcare based on direct knowledge of the cost. No more going to the emergency room because you have the snifles. Now you would have to decide for yourself if you want to spend the money on elective visits. You'd pay your own premiums and make decisions accordingly. Right now people with coverage like mine go to the doctor for all sorts of minor things that normally would handled through rest and over the counter medicines. Why not? The company's paying for it. When healthcare is "free" for everyone you can expect the same mindset on a national scale.

This would also address another problem. Right now, insurance companies bend over backwards to make companies happy. They work with hospitals to get reduced rates on procedures, office visits, and prescriptions because the company represents huge numbers of insured. Think of it like a bulk discount on health care. Those costs get made up somewhere. In this case, "somewhere" is a town populated by individuals who buy health insurance without the benefit of a corporation negotiating on their behalf. If health insurers were competing for individuals instead of companies, the same forces that exist virtually everywhere else in the marketplace would take hold.

The other action I recommend is overhauling Medicare and Medicaid by eliminating the waste inherent in the system. Prosecute fraud and abuse of the system and fund it as the safety net it was meant to be. These programs have a place. I believe it is society's duty to take care of those who can't take care of themselves. I also believe that it is society's duty to make sure the definition of "can't take care of themselves" is as narrow as possible and to keep the number of people who meet that definition small.

There. I fixed healthcare, right? Of course not. Not even my tremendous and well-deserved ego is that big. But I believe in the idea that the free market, even with its inherent problems (primarily, that profit is the primary driver, sometimes at the expense of the customer) is infinitely better than a government-run alternative. The government hasn't given me any reason to think they can balance a checkbook. How could they possibly run a business?

No Thanks, I Don't Need Saving From Myself

When I was a kid, my dad used to make a big deal out of the Fourth of July. He's cross over into Phenix City, Alabama and buy about $40,000 worth of explosives (fireworks were illegal in Georgia) and we'd have fun making the rest of the neighborhood think the goddamned Russkies had finally started the Big One.

Now, kids get weird ideas when (1) they are largely left to their own devices, as we were during summer vacation, and (2) there are large amounts of fireworks laying around and no one is guarding them.

I don't remember whose idea it was, but one day we got into the stash and grabbed handfuls of bottle rockets. My dad installed satellite dishes back then; the big ten-foot aluminum jobs, not those little dinner plates they have now. Back in those days having satellite television meant your house looked like a cog in the DEW line. Being in that business meant burying a lot of cabling, and cabling meant PVC pipe. Here's a math lesson for you:

PVC + Bottle Rocket = Bazooka

This can be shortened to PVC + BR = !!!.

A four-foot length of PVC pipe greatly increased the accuracy with which we could assault each other with bottle rockets. There still weren't that many hits, but there were a couple. And they hurt like a rejection letter. Assuming the rejection letter is wrapped around a bottle rocket which is exploding in close proximity to your body.

You can question our sanity, our intelligence and our parent's fitness to raise children. But keep in mind that while we were stupid, these are the pertinent facts:

* Our parents were blissfully unaware of what we were doing, and would not have approved had they known.

* We were using the fireworks in a way not encouraged in any way by their manufacturer.

* No one was actually hurt.

* Had one of us lost an eye, our parents' reaction would have been, "you idiots, what did you think would happen?" Their reaction would not have been, "these things are dangerous and should be outlawed."

That last however, is the reaction of something called the United States Eye Injury Registry. By their numbers, many, many eye injuries are caused by bottle rockets. And since people should never be held responisble for their own stupidity, and nothing is ever really an accident, bottle rockets need to be banned.

That's exactly what has happened, as bottle rockets can no longer be sold in North Dakota after August 1st. That's right; I can buy m-80s, roman candles (a smaller version of the PVC bazooka), frogbusters, fishbombs, catchasers and those big volcano things that spew fire twenty feet in the air. But no bottle rockets. Because we need to be protected for ourselves.

I hesitate to jump on the bandwagon that bears the rightwing buzzwords nanny state, but it kinds fits, doesn't it? We can't have bottle rockets because some of us are too stupid to use them. We won't stop eating junk food and drinking non-diet cola, so we need to be coerced into doing it for our own good. We like SUVs, but what's really best is if we all drive hybrids. Maybe your child doesn't eat books, bicycle frames or sippy cups. But don't you see? What if they did? Then you'll be glad for an otherwise seemingly asinine law like the CPSIA.

Some people probably do need someone to tell them what to eat, wear, drive and think. Some people do need to be told how to raise their children. I don't happen to believe I'm one of them. I am almost convinced that shooting bottle rockets at your brother through a piece of PVC is a bad idea, after all.