Remove the Political Rhetoric

I’m a political moderate and I’m annoyed. I’ve been paying attention to the debate about the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare, or Nationalized Romneycare) and noticed that everyone has an opinion. It’s been frustrating to hear. These opinions for the most part fall in line with party talking points presented by some affiliate fervently yakking on a news program that happens to be more about opinions than actual news. Dropping the political auspices and moving into an actual discussion requires work. I think many people who are for and against the ACA are more for or against the political side from which the idea matriculated then about the ACA itself. In fact when we remove the political subtext of who presented this idea and actually start to focus on the issue itself I find that there are a few fundamental large solutions to our healthcare issues. Ultimately though, I think the entire conversation about individual mandate, specifically, boils down to one main question and how you answer that question.

Do you think that healthcare is a right to which every person is entitled?

If you say, “No, Healthcare is not a fundamental right to every person.” then you should rightfully disagree with the individual mandate. However, you must also then support legislation that allows hospitals to turn away people at the door because as it stands now a hospital cannot deny care to an individual at the point of entry. In other words if a homeless guy is dying, he goes to the hospital, the hospital takes him in and you pay his tab through your insurance premium increasing.

One article, in Forbes, recommended a return to a completely free-market system and a completely free-market system would need to be allowed to deny care to those who can’t afford that care. I don’t see anyway for insurance premiums to go down while medical offices cannot deny care. The hard sell, politically, for this idea is that a politician cannot truly win while telling people that they can be denied care at a hospital. Chances are one of your neighbors, coworkers, or even family members may not have insurance and hence while you are sick and go to the hospital, they cannot. When a little boy and girl get denied care because they or their parents don’t have the means to cover the bill the idea of allowing hospitals to deny care to the uninsured seems a bit harsh and politically unwinnable.

The second option, is to say something along the lines of, “I don’t believe it is a right for every person but I couldn’t see denying care as a reasonable solution” or simply, "Yes." This leaves us in a position where if hospitals can’t deny care then they have to accept patients regardless of insurance or no insurance. This is part of our current predicament. We like to say that health is the responsibility of the individual and therefore should be the individual’s responsibility to get health coverage and incur the cost of his or her own health expenses, up until it is inconvenient for us to hold such a belief. That is, up until it puts us in a position where we have to be the bad guy and say, "No" or until it impacts us negatively on an individual level.

Essentially if we can’t hold the line and allow hospitals to deny care to those who cannot pay, then we are saying in some manner that every person is entitled to some sort of care. If we say that it would be unethical or unchristian or just unallowable for hospitals to deny care to a person in need then we are saying that every person is entitled to have care. This means that every person needs to help cover the cost of that care and that those who do not help to cover the cost of their care are taking advantage of the system. They are using the system with the knowledge that they cannot pay and passing that cost to someone else that can pay.

There are two ways to address this issue, one is to make everyone pay and have the government provide a standard of services to every person. This is essentially the Universal Healthcare idea, otherwise known as a “Single-Payer” system. Everyone pays through taxes for the same care and those who want better care can pay a price to have higher insurance coverage above the standard care.

The second option is to make sure that everyone pays into the system, so that there are no free-riders, but that they pay into the system by buying from the private sector. While on one hand people don’t like being told they have to buy something, on the other hand people also don’t like having any control over whether or not they pay for other people. So it follows, that it is better to ensure that everyone pays something so that some are not paying everything. Granted this does not fully control costs but it does make it so that the insurance base is widened, which means private insurers have a larger pool of applicants to charge. This is the individual mandate. The government is not in charge of service, but is playing the referee by asserting that since we can’t deny service at point of entry we need to pay for service in some way, either by buying from a private company or paying a penalty (whether you consider that a fine or a tax) that can then go back into the nation.

If the Supreme Court had struck down the individual mandate, the only two options left would have been a single-payer system or completely rely on the free-market to decide who gets service and who does not. The individual mandate strikes a balance between completely government funded and completely private sector or free-market funded healthcare. While people may not like being forced to pay for something, in the end it is better than the current system of allowing some to pay nothing while still receiving service and better than the alternative of having the government run the entire system. 

In the end even if you don’t agree with this assessment of solely the individual mandate, when you remove the political subtext of what party pushed for what, the individual mandate stands as the more conservative of the two solutions for allowing everyone care. It seems the outrage against the individual mandate can be described by a quote from a great Patrick Swayze movie, “Nobody puts Baby in the corner.” We don’t like to be forced to pay for something regardless of where the idea originates or how we are impacted by one of the solutions.  We also don’t like being forced to recognize that without government assistance we have to allow those conducting services to deny services to those who can’t pay.

Gallup has some great surveys they have put out. Here is one that breaks down American's views on Healthcare and here is another survey from the New York Times that shows how people don't like the mandate, but like the individual ideas that the ACA actually provides. 

The Secret Life of Zombies

Zombies are largely misunderstood. Based on your popular culture from the early 1900s and so on you would think we are nothing but flesh starved cannibalistic maniacs. This is not the case. I, for instance, have been residing in Appalachia for the past ten years. living in a radio free zone with people who are more worried about Electromagnetic pollution than having their faces eaten off by some crazed "zombie". And when I eat someone, it's usually the old or sick (and the occasional lost hiker) and since no one has computers or cell phones I just forge a note saying that old grandma went to die in the woods. They morn and accept it, moving on. I have a test for flesh, but I assert that it's no different than your taste for cow (but I digress and my point is not to freak you out but simply express my point of view).

You see, I am a peace-loving, flesh-eating zombie and I feel that in America I have a right to be heard. I read your message boards on Fox News and MSNBC, some of you deserve to get eaten with your spiteful comments, but as irascible as I am I could not live without defending us, Zombies. We do communicate with each other, there are several Zombie support groups, all online, however. We are alone and often sad. We even watch your zombie movies, while I am ingratiated for the toughness with which I am portrayed I am ultimately saddened by the savage you must think me to be. In your movies I cannot talk and yet you see here I can communicate quite well (Although I am using my creation to translate my speak to your speak as my words are quite unintelligible to homosapiens, of which I no longer consider myself a part). 

I suppose at this point I should introduce myself, my name is Dr. Morto and I was a biologist who studied micro-bacteria which could control dead ants in the rainforests of South America. It is not so odd that this work infected me or several of my compatriots, but it is odd how we have each reacted to this, should I say, gift. Some of my compatriots would like to attack, creating the very post apocalyptic world with your movies so portray. Much like your own preppers, they have been amassing a growing number of, how do we put this gently?, converts?. Forgive me if that is not the right word, in any case, I do not want a war and my food is quite abundant in this part of America, so I feel no need to fight. 

Anyways, It is getting late and my limp and discolored loose-fleshed face is best disguised at night, so I must tend to my sheep and possibly find a stray person wondering around the trail, but I hope to discuss my secret life with you more, in an effort to explain the truly misunderstood and secret life of Zombies, or as I like to simply say Bacterially Enhanced Humanoids, in order to prevent impending doom to us all.

Sincerely

DM. 

Freedoms and Opinions

Maybe it’s us. We refuse to make the hard choices. We too often exchange clever rhetoric for critical thinking. We often adapt a political party mantra without internal debate. At some point we, as people of the US, have to take responsibility.

We are lazy with our politics. We are lazy in general. At some point we have to recognize that black and white solutions do not always exist. At some point we have to sit down and have a real conversation about where we are going and why we are going there. We have to be willing to admit when we write opinion as law, and sacrifice freedoms in exchange for comfort. And then not.

We have shifted our political focus to social grievances that are a matter of personal or religious opinion, while ignoring simple freedoms of which we all have a stake. We would rather argue about the laws of who can marry who, over when it is okay for a domestic partnership and when it is not, over the constitutional amendments denying equal rights to all people with whom we may or may not agree; than to agree that every person regardless or religion, color, or creed has certain freedoms that no majority can take away. We seem to forget that while we may not agree with what someone says or the style in which one lives our country was founded on their right to say such things and live in such ways, especially when they are no harm to us, or our community. In essence, we have shifted our focus to talking about small government while suggesting laws that create the opposite.

We have allowed ourselves to be held hostage to political parties. Forcing us to choose wholly what side to be on. We have chosen to ignore facts and in exchange only accept those opinions to which we already hold. We accuse anyone who has the gull to disagree of using lies to prod our impenetrable walls of shaky truth. We hold so tightly in our arrogance and ego of being correct that we are unwilling to recognize viable solutions that meet in the middle.

We have allowed ourselves to be blinded into a quick fix mentality when success takes time, dedication, and hard work. Our need for instant gratification at the expense of time has caused us to backtrack on progress and ignore our future. We refuse to recognize that if we can only see one side of an issue than we are ignoring the flaws in our own argument. If we think that we are always right than our own arrogance sets its self as a trap upon which we will be ensnared.

We have become cynical. And as such we have surrendered our choices, thinking that we can make no difference. If congress is at a 9% approval rating it is because we have ignored our responsibility to keep congress honest. In a country so large it is hard to remember that it is one vote multiplied thousands of times by our neighbors, our colleagues, our friends, and our family which makes millions.

We were founded on being a country of multiple groups of people who were willing to work for freedom. And indeed, freedom takes work. We have a flawed system consisting of flawed people voted upon by flawed people. Freedom does not occur overnight and neither does failure.

I truly believe that in politics, as in life, moderation and balance is a necessity and the definition of reason. By attaching ourselves to one specific political party we only trap ourselves to accepting one way of thinking and therefore blind ourselves to alternative solutions. I implore you to vote for you, vote for your family, vote for your neighbors, vote for your co-workers, vote for your state, and vote for your country. Do not solely vote for your party.

Frontiers

In late August of 2011 Jake Rigby passed away in Glacier National Park. In March, my good friend Brandon, flew to Portland, OR and we drove to the park. We wanted to take in the beauty and commemorate Jake. We knew that climbing a mountain in the area of the park he passed was the best way to say our thanks and wave our goodbye. The following is what I wrote while reflecting on our trip.:


To The Frontiersman:

There is an overlook thousands of feet high under the vastness of a big sky and a view of endless green firs boarding outcropped windswept cliffs where the beginning thaw of spring melt drips off the trees creating visible trails and audible sounds of pure crystal-like water cutting through the mountain side. The overlook becomes the amalgamation of unconquerable frontier that is nature. We stand as a guest, a casual observer at the mercy of astounding beauty. It is here that we pay our respects with silent thoughts, taking in the view and the memory of a life lost.

I used to think that there were no more frontiers. One could no longer saddle a horse, hitch a wagon and push west. There are roads through the mountains and boats built for the oceans. There are spaceships for the moon and rovers for mars. And I wondered where is left for the adventures? What untapped beauty is there left for those who wish to push past the normal, the mundane? What untold stories are they left to share?

The singing of the wind, howling through the treetops hushing the falling, swirling snow, obstructing the trail and covering the mountaintops alleviated the fear that wilderness could ever be conquered. My friend, Brandon, and I sat on a clearing, looking out at the view, knowing that he had been here before. He had possibly pruned the trees and marked the lost trail. He had likely been on top of this mountain; he could have seen it from the top of his mountain. I wanted to wave and give my thanks.

“Thank you for bringing us here. This beauty is real. You pushed to conquer this frontier.”

The drive toward the pacific is worth the time and even though the roads are smooth and the air travel easy, the wilderness is real and serene and peaceful. The hike is not overly difficult, unless you do it in the snow. If you go, say your thanks because my guess is that you would not have otherwise come. Stand as a guest, a casual observer of the true beauty that lies on the top of the mountains out west.

Less is often, surprisingly, More

Sitting in the pale white office of the local Carmax was an interesting experience. The people dutifully did their work, calling the bank, checking the title, taking the key, inspecting the car. Not understanding how we would function without the standard two cars.

We on the other hand were excited. Sitting, waiting, and hoping that everything would work out. Our goal is simple, we don't need two cars. Yes, we work full time, in two different parts of our city. Yes, we recognize that it will not always be convenient to go down to one car. Yet we recognize there is no need for two cars in current day to day lives. We recognize that the money spent on gas, insurance, and car payments could be better used to purchase more experiences, put into savings, and even an occasional romantic dinner.

We've opted for teamwork over convenience, in essence finding that less is more. I am determined, no matter what circumstances arise, no matter what financial successes we encounter, that the sum of our relationship is not what we have. Our relationship is more determined by what we do, both together as a couple, and independently as individuals. Getting rid of one car actually makes us a little happier. We find that our errands still get run, we both still get to work, in the end everything we need still gets done.

It's interesting because the average American has more of everything. In fact in a recent book I finished, The Progress Paradox by Gregg Easterbrook, points out that in almost every aspect, life has consistently gotten better over the past few decades, yet people feel worse now than in past decades. And despite Easterbrook's book being written in 2004, before the Great Recession, the facts all hold true today. Things have gotten better. Despite what our media says, the facts, the actual statistics show that things are better now then they have been throughout our history. Yet we, collectively, feel worse.

The book points out that we have more, and that's hard to deny. Think about how we now have so much stuff, that a whole industry has been created specializing in storing the stuff we don't use frequently. At the same time the storage industry has been created the size of houses and apartments have nearly doubled. Not only do we have more space to store our stuff, but we can't fit all of our stuff in our more space. The standard of living in the US has increased even more, to the point where what we want often gets confused with what we need and it's no longer about "keeping up with the Jones" but "catching and surpassing the Jones". All the while the general "Westerner" is becoming less engaged with the world in a civic capacity, more unhappy, more obese, and more worried about the future.

This is not to say that one should give up basic necessities or that money is not a good thing. But even those who have money, or those who think that having money, equates to happiness should be cautious. One study cited in Easterbrook's book points out money and happiness are correlated up to a certain point, that point being $60,000. After $60,000 on average, more money again often equates to less happiness (now that changes based on where you live and family, the study does address such things but comes to the same results, obscene amounts of money does not make one happy and often leaves one more unhappy).

In giving up a car, Anne and I have found that less convenience doesn't mean more headaches. It means more quality time together, more teamwork, and in a very real sense more happiness. We have begun to find that it isn't about what we have, and yes, it is nice to have certain luxuries, but it is about what we do with what we have.

The Old Men and The Road

There once was a young man who sat starring at the long road laid out before him. He starred at the road from behind the counter of the last gas station on the edge of a small town. The small town where he had been born, where he had his first kiss from a beautiful girl who begged him to adventure with her as she left on a train. He enjoyed his life well enough. He had all he needed in his steady job. He had even saved enough to buy a car, which could take him from his small town to the nearby city. He had a TV and had seen movies. He was educated through high school and community college.

He had a look of contentment on his average face. Indeed, he was the type of man who while you tarried in his story you would like and, in fact, may even enjoy a pleasant conversation filled with pleasantries. Yet, should you be asked miles down the road about this particular young man you would not be able to remember his features, his contented look or his neatly cropped hair. You would not remember his ethnicity, for he could pass for a few. He was a man who tended the road. A road the man knew about, yet did not know.

Years would pass, money would be saved and the man would grow older. The gas station was his and he would sit watching the road fill with ever newer cars and ever different people. He sat. The road changed. His look would change from that of a contented man to that of an old passerby. He had few stories and they were mostly of things he had been told by travelers who visited his station.

As this old man sat he noticed a similar old man filling a beat up old car, dented and with stickers. The man entered the station, cherry and full of life. He struck up a conversation, while staring at a road map. The man asked why he never drove down the road. The owner gave a thousand reasons why. All were valid reasons to stay. After all, he figured he might as well work at a gas station before the gas ran out, and then business was good so he couldn't leave because he was making money. Then he got older and thought the world would end soon anyways, for there were wars and rumors of wars, just had there had always been so he thought there was no point in traveling ("Might as well be comfortable while I can." he would say) and stayed. He always reasoned that another year or two and things would change; gas would run out, the economy would tank, the world would end, and he wouldn't have missed anything anyway. So he stayed, adding a little extra to his security, accumulating a little more of what he did not need. Life happened to him, but he didn't make life happen.

My Thoughts:
Life happens to us, but few of us make life happen. We find a thousands reasons to worry and a thousand reasons to embrace our current circumstance. All of our reasons seem valid. We worry. We worry about things outside of our control. We worry about the economy, we worry about tomorrow, we worry about today. In essence I think many of us sacrifice the greatness of a single moment for the fear of an inconsequential and nonexistent future moment. We exchange what is happening now for fear of what is not yet determined to happen.

It seems to me that many of us have got caught up in the idea of having more and living less. We seem to spend more time watching TV and less time with others, more time worrying about the economy and how much money we have, in effect leaving us less time to play a cheap board game with family and friends. We seem to be so worried about our values and freedoms being taken away that we almost forget to actually practice those freedoms.

My opinion is that many of us have become the old man at a young age. We have sacrificed the freedom to travel and experience life for the paycheck that accumulates more stuff. We have bought into the concept that the more you own, the nicer car you drive, your status is better than your experience.

Now I do not want to come across as an advocate to say that you do not need to plan ahead or treat your valuable resources of time and money with frivolity. No, you need to treat your finite resources with wisdom. But we tend to live so far outside the means of our resources that we trap ourselves into things we think we need, instead of things we actually need. The reality is that we do not need a ton of money to experience life and build relationships, we do not need a nice car to garner respect or a boat to appreciate the ocean, or a movie to appreciate a story.

Maybe if we took a moment to appreciate the current moment we wouldn't be so worried about tomorrow because we had today. Maybe if we take a second to be thankful for modern medicine, health, friends, family, the air we breath we would realize we have a lot more than we thought. Maybe if we take a second to give of ourselves to the neighboring shelter, to say a kind word to a friend going through a hard time, to give a cup of coffee, or send out a job opening we just heard about we would show others that all is not hopeless and that people do actually care. Maybe in the midst of struggles, when we are living in the moment with wisdom and creativity we in turn create a better future. Maybe means its uncertain, but it's clear to me that the alternative of fear and worry isn't really working. Maybe we won't become the old man spending our lives holding off traveling down the road.

Reflections of Us

There are days when I don't have much to say. It's days like these where I like to read. Lately, I've been reading a lot. From books on math (I must shamelessly plug my previous blog entry about The Drunkards Walk) to books on social issues, such as Losing My Cool, I've been gaining more understanding and seeking new perspectives. As I sit and listen, reading Facebook posts or hearing various debates, I find that new perspectives and gaining more understanding is something woefully forgotten.

Please hear me out, I do not wish to engage in a politically philosophical conversation where words are dissected to create division. It is simply that we, as a group of people, seem to be drawn to the edges of arguments by those who are already at the edge of the argument. While most of the American mainstream are somewhere in the middle all too many of us choose sides based solely on political loyalty, in doing so we exchange our personal opinions for parroting other's thoughts.

It seems to be that we have become ingrained in saying one side is wrong, while ours is right. What benefit is this pride that we have in our own political ideology's opinion? It is of no consequence, after all our political party, for most of us, is not going to be offended by our agreement or lack of agreement with them.  Ultimately it comes down to us. We want it our way, after all we like to be "right", and in selfish frivolity we refuse to understand or hear another point of view, which could prove us "wrong". Worst yet, we as a group of individuals, have failed to read and research our own view. We no longer are concerned with the information out there, unless it comes from a source supporting our point of view. We ingest "facts" only if those "facts" come from a source already proven to support our political party. This does not benefit us. This is the epitome of pride and ego.

This all or nothing view we hold does not serve us as individuals or as a country. We have become dominated by extremes, beckoning us to join them. We have been pushed to say we are one or the other, either a democrat or a republican, and this is rarely the case. We are people. And if we are rational, and even aware of our emotions, about those issues most important to us we can agree that there are no easy answers. No side is right, this is not about being right, because ultimately any solution is not going to be perfect when crafted by imperfect people.

The thought of "I think am I right and therefore I am right." does not make you right any more than thinking you are a millionaire makes you a millionaire. Yet, this is what we have boiled our opinions, and the views held by our political party, down to.  The reality is that government, just like us, is flawed and run by human individuals. Even when the constitution was crafted, those individuals we places as the idols of the past were imperfect and  disagreed with the elements included or left off of the constitution. George Mason, an individual mostly forgotten and only remembered by sports fans for the university with his name's sports team, refused to sign the US Constitution because, in part, of the issue of slavery.

Perhaps we need to reinvestigate where we stand, perhaps we need to read more and actually do the work it takes to become knowledgeable about our beliefs. Perhaps we need to read the opposing view point, not with a slant of hatred, but with a slant of trying to understand both sides of an argument. Maybe when we realize that our side is not infallibly right and the other side is not always inextricably wrong we can began to have a real conversation about where to go and what to do, without the threats of government shutdowns and drastic language such as "draconian" and "extreme".

After all the real truth is that our government reflects us. The more we learn to be knowledgeable, the more the commonalities will show through  and the less the edge's screams will divide. My encouragement is to break out of your self imposed boxes and put some work into understanding both sides of the argument. Ask questions, seek answers, wade through all of the rhetorical garbage into the issues and stop clinging to your own party's opinion. Live in freedom knowing that you, with a little work, can have your own imperfect thoughts and opinions.