http://www.coffeepartyusa.com/
"MISSION: The Coffee Party Movement gives voice to Americans who want to see cooperation in
government. We recognize that the federal government is not the enemy of the people, but the
expression of our collective will, and that we must participate in the democratic process in
order to address the challenges that we face as Americans. As voters and grassroots
volunteers, we will support leaders who work toward positive solutions, and hold accountable
those who obstruct them."
Are these people saying that the people who we elect to political office and who work for Government are not trying to harm us? In other words, our fellow citizens, our friends, nieghbors, and family members who work in the Government are not working against our interests? Are they trying to say that the American electoral system is some sort of a democratic process that actually reflects the will of the voters?
Does this mean that we the people are allowed to use Government to solve the problems that the "free market" doesn't?
Not according to those 9% of us who are way over there on the extreme right.
They think that the "free market" should rule every aspect of our lives. They claim that Government intervention is tyrannical. I think that these people have it exactly backwards. The Government is elected by and is answerable to us, "the people". The "free market", on the other hand, is unelected and answers only to those with financial power. Therefore those with the most money have the most power. Those with the most power (money) almost always make decisions that are intended to increase their money (power). This is often done without regard to other considerations/consequences. (Witness our current financial/economic mess)
Am I saying that the free market is a bad thing? No.
That would be just as stupid as saying that Government is a bad thing.
Am I saying that Government is always a good thing? No, again.
Government is good when it results in good things happening.
Bad Government should be fixed or gotten rid of.
Is the only good Government small Government? No, that's nonsense.
A Government that just stands by and lets bad things happen can be just as bad as any other sized bad Government. It's not the size of Government that makes it good or bad, it's the quality.
Not allowing people to use Government because of a mindless devotion to an ideological bias is a bad thing.
The market works well most of the time because it allows individuals to pursue their self interest and greed. These are very powerful motivating forces. These forces provide the energy and incentives that drive the economy.
Greed, however, is a two edged sword. It is kept in check to a large degree because
it is usually in the self interest of the individual to please the consumers. But greed can motivate us to screw the consumers if we can get away with it.
Plus, an individual's self interest doesn't always coincide with the interests of society as a whole.
So the market doesn't always work in our best interests.
The "free market" restricts the freedom of those with less money.
Not being able to do things like insure your family for healthcare or move to places where you once could, or being forced to move from places where you had been living because you have been "priced out", are some examples of how the "free market" restricts freedom.
Often, when we have unmet interests in common, the market treats us only as individuals, nullifying the power of numbers.
Government can help to balance the will of the market with the will of society by restoring the power of numbers.
Those 9% on the far right are the real tyrants. They fight dirty. Their side loses an open and fair election, so they just declare the Government to be tyrannical. They distrupt town hall meetings, falsely accusing the other side of all sorts of treachery. They tell us that the "American people" believe what they believe, even though the American people are divided, and usually not in their favor. They dictate so much of what is heard today on all the issues. Government is bad, Liberals are bad, taxes are bad. We can't have Government run health insurance that would cover every American citizen because that would be paid for through taxes, and that's socialism. Never mind that the "free market" charges us TWICE AS MUCH and doesn't cover pre-existing illnesses, or cover you if you lose your job (even if you've been paying into it for years and never used it once) or can't afford it and will cheat you anytime they can get away with it.
That 9% has managed to cow Democratic members of Congress with accusations of an imaginary "Death Panel", while a real actual Republican sponsored, free market administered Death Panel has been allowing THOUSANDS of Americans to die every year, for many years, because of lack of health insurance. And that's not to mention the awful grief and anxiety that comes with being ill and uninsured, the terror of getting ill, losing your job, then losing your insurance. Or the bankruptcies which hurts the uninsured, the creditors and the economy.
How does this distortion occur?
Once again it's the free market.
A multi billion dollar industry has evolved which rewards individuals for demonizing their political opponents. And the Conservatives have managed to corner this market on radio and TV. These multi-millionaire talk show hosts twist and distort the truth in order to manipulate the emotions of their audiences and provoke anger and hatred, thus driving up their ratings. This "free market" doesn't reward fair mindedness. And other viewpoints don't get their fair share of airtime.
Ever since Reagan made government bashing popular with clever remarks like
"Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem."
"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help." (Yeah, good one Ronny),
few things have made me as angry as the way Conservatives have been allowed to get away
with the demonization of our Government.
These are the people who set themselves up as the only true American Patriots. They constantly tell us how great America is and how great they are because they are so damn patriotic. Anyone who disagrees with them hates America and deserves to be hated in return.
The irony of the situation is that the Government is the single greatest thing about the United States of America.
Throughout all of history mankind has been ruled by force. Kings, tyrants, thugs, despots, warlords, emperors, dictators, royalty, oligarchs, aristocrats, one party rule.
While ancient Greece may have invented Democracy, and the Roman Republic may have had a republican (small r) form of representative government, on which we base our own government, voting was restricted to free male landowners and officeholders were restricted to an aristocracy.
It wasn't until the Founding Fathers wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution that eventually ALL citizens had the right to vote AND the right to hold office. We eventually became what Abraham Lincoln called a "Government of, by and for the people."
And I say eventually because, of course, the Founding Fathers didn't live up to all the high minded words that they wrote, "All men are created equal". (Slavery, non landowners) And they didn't include women. But those words and the Government they instituted, allowing for amendments, paved the way for American born and bred Liberals to force society to live up to those ideals.
These Liberals are the true American Patriots. The true American heroes.
As great as the Founding Fathers were, they were hypocrites. Those words were, in a way, self serving, giving them the moral high ground from which they could justify independence from England. But they do deserve credit for establishing these principles. That alone is one of the greatest human achievements in all of history. We would eventually strive for and achieve most of these ideals.
Let me point out the full irony of the situation. Throughout American history, whether it be giving the right to vote to non landowners, freeing the slaves, women's suffrage, women's rights, children's rights, workers' rights, civil rights or desegragation, Conservatives have fought tooth and nail against change and for the status quo. They have cited everything from the Bible to Nature's laws to States Rights to the rights of business owners to defend their positions.
Liberals have fought, and died, to make this country the great country that it is. They changed society by changing people's minds, but they also used Government, the greatest tool that the Founding Fathers gave us. Without the Government, all those words in the Declaration, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution would be meaningless.
So the very people (liberals) and institutions (Government) that made this country great, that greatness which conservatives take the credit for, are the very same things they fought against back then and vilify today.
Am I saying that liberals are good and conservatives are bad? No.
We hear conservative pundits and loudmouths like Limbag, Hannity, Beck and Levin tell people every single day that the opposite is so. But neither assertion is true.
To their credit, the vast majority of conservatives eventually saw the unfairness of those societal conventions and overcame their own biases. Eventually, I believe that most conservatives will overcome their biases toward gay people. They have already come a long way towards that in just a few decades. Today's conservatives have a decent moral outlook on most things, in my opinion. But they have yesterday's liberals to thank for that. We have all been shaped by those liberal ideals.
Conservatives should realize that the very qualities they despise (sometimes justifiably) in liberals are the same ones that were needed to change society for the better and to make us who we are today.
Conservatives have an important role to play, in that liberals can often go too far and need to be reigned in at times.
Conservatives also have honest arguments that deserve to be made and heard.
But conservatives have to fight fair (that goes for liberals too) because fighting dirty does a disservice to society.
How can you trust decisions that are based on false and distorted information?
One final irony. The Government is us. We are the Government. So when conservatives demonize the Government, they are demonizing the American people. How unpatriotic!
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck: Super Geniuses
With intellectual giants such as Limbaugh, Hannity and Beck leading and directing the right, one can easily see the disadvantage that this puts liberals at when it comes to the battle of ideas. The ease with which these powerful minds can penetrate the most difficult problems that face society is something to behold.
Most of us struggle with the difficulties that these complex questions present. Not so these right wing Titans of punditry.
On a daily basis listeners are privileged to hear just about every problem imaginable solved instantly with deep analyses that always reach the core of the matter. Rush is not using hyperbole when he tells his audience that he has "talent on loan from God".
What is the key to this ability, this talent?
Quite simply it comes down to the application of a severe, ultra right wing interpretation of the Bible to everything we can think of.
Is it any wonder that conservative Republican politicians repeat this wisdom word for word like a goddam parrot? As a liberal I can only say that if I had a Socrates, Plato or Aristotle telling me what to think, I would have no shame whatsoever in stealing their lines, and I would do so without the slightest fear that I might be saying something stupid. After all, it's Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
But who do we liberals have to guide us? Barbra Streisand? Shirley MacLaine? The guy who invented the Internet?
It's pathetic.
At no time has this mastery of logic and rational thinking been more evident than during the recent commentary following the two snow storms in the Washington/Baltimore area.
OK, I'm finished with the irony and sarcasm.
Have you heard what these jack-asses had to say?
Rush Limbaugh called the east coast blizzard the "nail in the coffin to the whole global warming thing" and asked: "Where's Al Gore?
On his Fox News show, Sean Hannity claimed that the recent spate of winter snow storms in the Washington, D.C. region clearly means that the planet isn’t warming. He then attacked Vice President Gore, calling his anti-global warming advocacy “hysterical”.
Glenn Beck said "Well, the snow is hammering Washington D.C. again. I believe God is just saying, "I got your global warming here, eh? You want a piece of global warming?"
The whole right wing world has followed the lead of their heroes, laughing at and ridiculing the very notion of global warming, claiming that the snow is proof that global warming is a fraud.
I love it when obnoxious jerks like these really go out on a limb and say things like this with such absolute certitude, when the risk of them being so badly wrong and looking like complete assholes is so high.
Let me see if I can explain how bad their reasoning is. They are using the technique of extrapolation.
Here's the dictionary def.:
"to project, extend, or expand (known data or experience) into an area not known or experienced so as to arrive at a usually conjectural knowledge of the unknown area - ∼s present trends to construct an image of the future b. to predict by projecting past experience or known data -"
Climate scientists use this technique too.
When scientists extrapolate they use data accumulated from decades and centuries from all over the entire planet.
But if you are a right wing radio/tv host that would take too much work and research. And the outcome may not support the idea that you are trying to convince your audience of.
So it's a lot easier to extrapolate from the data of one week in one part of the country. Especially when you can pick the particular week and place that supports your claim and ignore all the other weeks and places that don't fit.
See, that's the difference between those ivory tower, Harvard educated, liberal elite climate scientists and the right wing talk show hosts.
Some in the media have done a good job in pointing this out. They have also reminded us that climate scientists' models have predicted more extreme weather conditions as a result of global warming.
But the truth telling right wingers have responded with a devastating rebuttal.
They state that it's already been proven that all climate scientists who predict warming are lying frauds, so anything they say is a lie and a fraud.
What proof do they have that all climate scientists who predict warming are fraudulent liars, thus making everything they say a complete lie?
The emails, that's what. Those emails between a handful of scientists. Plus a few questionable methods used by a few other scientists.
Do you see a pattern here? Extrapolating from a small, selective set of data, while ignoring the vast amount of data that doesn't support your accusation?
But there is an even stupider bit of fallacious reasoning going on here that I haven't heard anyone in the media point out.
Apparently these shit-for-brains talk show hosts don't know the difference between precipitation and temperature.
precipitation : something precipitated: as a deposit on the earth of hail, mist, rain, sleet, or snow also the quantity of water deposited.
temperature : degree of hotness or coldness measured on a definite scale.
See the difference? Rush Dimbulb doesn't. Neither does Hannity or Beck.
I figure their reasoning must go like this;
If it snows, that means it's cold, therefore if it snows a lot, that means it's very cold.
But all that is required for snow is a temperature of 32 degrees. And being that Washington D.C. is in the middle of fucking winter where the average temperature is about 36 degrees, you can see that snow wouldn't be the most shocking thing to expect. Yes there was an unusually large amount of snow, but, then again, that's precipitation.
I know that the temp. for one of those days it snowed was 28 degrees. Again, not a shocking difference from the average. If it was 28 degrees below zero, then I would say you had an interesting argument.
So the other day I'm watching the "Fair And Balanced" network, you know, Fox News.
The show I was watching is hosted by a conservative, just like all the other shows on Fox.
But you can rest assured that just because the host is conservative doesn't mean that he's not "Fair And Balanced".
As a matter of fact, this host has a well known and deserved reputation for being "Fair And Balanced".
His name is Sean Hannity.
Do you know what I like about Sean? Even though he feels very strongly about his opinions he never resorts to exaggeration or hyperbole when making a point. Nor does he ever distort the facts or take things out of context. And if he ever makes a terrible accusation that turns out to be an honest mistake, he always acknowledges it and will never repeat that accusation again, even though the "mistake" has been pointed out to him on his own show, right to his face.
And also, above all, he always holds himself and other conservatives to the same standards that he applies to Democrats and liberals.
He's truly "Fair And Balanced".
So anyway, Sean has his "Fair And Balanced" panel on to discuss the D.C. snow storms.
The people on the panel change from day to day but a few things always remain constant. There are always three or four conservatives vs. one or two liberals. The conservatives are almost always aggressive and way over there on the extreme right, while the liberals are usually mild, much closer to the center, careful not to say anything that would offend Fox viewers, and seem to allow the conservatives to interrupt them and talk over them whenever they start to make a good point.
Also, whenever they have a female on the panel, it seems that she's often very attractive, under thirty five and preferably blonde. And when I say often, I mean that if you took this data set and tried to extrapolate it to the general population you would think that average looking to ugly, middle aged to old, dark haired females are as rare as a D.C. snow storm.
It's almost as if the Fox executives asked themselves "what would make 18 to 49 year old white males with short attention spans, in other words our core audience, less likely to change channels?"
So Sean has two conservatives on; Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, and this guy Greg Gutfeld, the host of Red Eye, a late night Fox news/comedy show.
For those of you not familiar with Red Eye, it's obviously Fox News' answer to The Daily Show, with Gutfeld being their Jon Stewart.
Fox has tried the news/comedy format before with an amazing piece of crap called "The 1/2 Hour Comedy Hour". If you want me to give you an idea how lame this show was, let me ask you a question. Do you think the title of the show is funny? Well that's by far the funniest thing that ever came out of that show.
As a matter of fact, take the funniness of that title, divide it by 6 and that's how funny the next funniest thing they ever did was.
This show was so bad that I loved it. I just couldn't help the giddy satisfaction I felt seeing Fox News fail so miserably, knowing how badly they must have wanted to put something out there to counter liberal comedians like Al Franken, Bill Maher, Stewart and Colbert.
I think the Germans have a word for that feeling, but I don't know how to spell it.
Well even the loyal Fox audience couldn't stomach that shit, because the show was canceled after a few weeks. I was very disappointed. Not that I could ever sit through more than 5 minutes of the 1/2 hour hour myself. It was just nice to know that Fox was airing something so embarrassingly bad, repeatedly.
But one part of that show was definitely worth going out of my way for:
"Presidential Addresses — Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh had a recurring cameo role as the President, with conservative pundit Ann Coulter as his Vice President." (Wikipedia)
Oh baby, was this great. In that it was really, really, really bad. Before I first watched it, I wanted it to be bad, I expected it to be bad, but it turned out to be worse than my wildest expectations. It was so bad it made my skin crawl, paradoxically causing me great pleasure.
Just the sight of the emaciated, anorexic stick figure of Ann Coulter next to the Orson Welles sized Rush Limbag was worth the price of admission. But then to witness them humiliate themselves by reading the god-awful script... well, it was like a jolt of champagne, reorienting the day, reassuring me that right wing bullshit had not disturbed the essential movements of the planets.
Anyway, getting back to Hannity's show, it's Sean, two other conservative hard-ons and, just to make it "Fair And Balanced", one liberal, a female who just happened to be attractive, under 35 and, believe it or not, blonde haired.
The three conservative pricks are going on and on about the snow storms, laughing and mocking the whole idea of global warming, "we told you it was all a fraud"...that kind of crap.
Finally the liberal female get's her 30 seconds to speak, and she says, "Well Sean, you know there's a difference between weather and temperature".
I'm stunned! Yes, yes, go on!
But then she pauses.
Go ahead, finish your point! Please let the audience know what a colossal bunch of dick holes they are. For the love of God, please let them know!
She continues..."You know me, I'm not a nut about the environment, you know, I'm 'drill, baby, drill.'"
Wait, what the hell are you doing? A complete segue? What about the difference between weather and temperature?
She never gets back to that point. God Damn it. She must have remembered the prime directive at Fox News! Never let the conservatives lose an argument! Fuck!
Most of us struggle with the difficulties that these complex questions present. Not so these right wing Titans of punditry.
On a daily basis listeners are privileged to hear just about every problem imaginable solved instantly with deep analyses that always reach the core of the matter. Rush is not using hyperbole when he tells his audience that he has "talent on loan from God".
What is the key to this ability, this talent?
Quite simply it comes down to the application of a severe, ultra right wing interpretation of the Bible to everything we can think of.
Is it any wonder that conservative Republican politicians repeat this wisdom word for word like a goddam parrot? As a liberal I can only say that if I had a Socrates, Plato or Aristotle telling me what to think, I would have no shame whatsoever in stealing their lines, and I would do so without the slightest fear that I might be saying something stupid. After all, it's Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
But who do we liberals have to guide us? Barbra Streisand? Shirley MacLaine? The guy who invented the Internet?
It's pathetic.
At no time has this mastery of logic and rational thinking been more evident than during the recent commentary following the two snow storms in the Washington/Baltimore area.
OK, I'm finished with the irony and sarcasm.
Have you heard what these jack-asses had to say?
Rush Limbaugh called the east coast blizzard the "nail in the coffin to the whole global warming thing" and asked: "Where's Al Gore?
On his Fox News show, Sean Hannity claimed that the recent spate of winter snow storms in the Washington, D.C. region clearly means that the planet isn’t warming. He then attacked Vice President Gore, calling his anti-global warming advocacy “hysterical”.
Glenn Beck said "Well, the snow is hammering Washington D.C. again. I believe God is just saying, "I got your global warming here, eh? You want a piece of global warming?"
The whole right wing world has followed the lead of their heroes, laughing at and ridiculing the very notion of global warming, claiming that the snow is proof that global warming is a fraud.
I love it when obnoxious jerks like these really go out on a limb and say things like this with such absolute certitude, when the risk of them being so badly wrong and looking like complete assholes is so high.
Let me see if I can explain how bad their reasoning is. They are using the technique of extrapolation.
Here's the dictionary def.:
"to project, extend, or expand (known data or experience) into an area not known or experienced so as to arrive at a usually conjectural knowledge of the unknown area - ∼s present trends to construct an image of the future b. to predict by projecting past experience or known data -"
Climate scientists use this technique too.
When scientists extrapolate they use data accumulated from decades and centuries from all over the entire planet.
But if you are a right wing radio/tv host that would take too much work and research. And the outcome may not support the idea that you are trying to convince your audience of.
So it's a lot easier to extrapolate from the data of one week in one part of the country. Especially when you can pick the particular week and place that supports your claim and ignore all the other weeks and places that don't fit.
See, that's the difference between those ivory tower, Harvard educated, liberal elite climate scientists and the right wing talk show hosts.
Some in the media have done a good job in pointing this out. They have also reminded us that climate scientists' models have predicted more extreme weather conditions as a result of global warming.
But the truth telling right wingers have responded with a devastating rebuttal.
They state that it's already been proven that all climate scientists who predict warming are lying frauds, so anything they say is a lie and a fraud.
What proof do they have that all climate scientists who predict warming are fraudulent liars, thus making everything they say a complete lie?
The emails, that's what. Those emails between a handful of scientists. Plus a few questionable methods used by a few other scientists.
Do you see a pattern here? Extrapolating from a small, selective set of data, while ignoring the vast amount of data that doesn't support your accusation?
But there is an even stupider bit of fallacious reasoning going on here that I haven't heard anyone in the media point out.
Apparently these shit-for-brains talk show hosts don't know the difference between precipitation and temperature.
precipitation : something precipitated: as a deposit on the earth of hail, mist, rain, sleet, or snow also the quantity of water deposited.
temperature : degree of hotness or coldness measured on a definite scale.
See the difference? Rush Dimbulb doesn't. Neither does Hannity or Beck.
I figure their reasoning must go like this;
If it snows, that means it's cold, therefore if it snows a lot, that means it's very cold.
But all that is required for snow is a temperature of 32 degrees. And being that Washington D.C. is in the middle of fucking winter where the average temperature is about 36 degrees, you can see that snow wouldn't be the most shocking thing to expect. Yes there was an unusually large amount of snow, but, then again, that's precipitation.
I know that the temp. for one of those days it snowed was 28 degrees. Again, not a shocking difference from the average. If it was 28 degrees below zero, then I would say you had an interesting argument.
So the other day I'm watching the "Fair And Balanced" network, you know, Fox News.
The show I was watching is hosted by a conservative, just like all the other shows on Fox.
But you can rest assured that just because the host is conservative doesn't mean that he's not "Fair And Balanced".
As a matter of fact, this host has a well known and deserved reputation for being "Fair And Balanced".
His name is Sean Hannity.
Do you know what I like about Sean? Even though he feels very strongly about his opinions he never resorts to exaggeration or hyperbole when making a point. Nor does he ever distort the facts or take things out of context. And if he ever makes a terrible accusation that turns out to be an honest mistake, he always acknowledges it and will never repeat that accusation again, even though the "mistake" has been pointed out to him on his own show, right to his face.
And also, above all, he always holds himself and other conservatives to the same standards that he applies to Democrats and liberals.
He's truly "Fair And Balanced".
So anyway, Sean has his "Fair And Balanced" panel on to discuss the D.C. snow storms.
The people on the panel change from day to day but a few things always remain constant. There are always three or four conservatives vs. one or two liberals. The conservatives are almost always aggressive and way over there on the extreme right, while the liberals are usually mild, much closer to the center, careful not to say anything that would offend Fox viewers, and seem to allow the conservatives to interrupt them and talk over them whenever they start to make a good point.
Also, whenever they have a female on the panel, it seems that she's often very attractive, under thirty five and preferably blonde. And when I say often, I mean that if you took this data set and tried to extrapolate it to the general population you would think that average looking to ugly, middle aged to old, dark haired females are as rare as a D.C. snow storm.
It's almost as if the Fox executives asked themselves "what would make 18 to 49 year old white males with short attention spans, in other words our core audience, less likely to change channels?"
So Sean has two conservatives on; Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, and this guy Greg Gutfeld, the host of Red Eye, a late night Fox news/comedy show.
For those of you not familiar with Red Eye, it's obviously Fox News' answer to The Daily Show, with Gutfeld being their Jon Stewart.
Fox has tried the news/comedy format before with an amazing piece of crap called "The 1/2 Hour Comedy Hour". If you want me to give you an idea how lame this show was, let me ask you a question. Do you think the title of the show is funny? Well that's by far the funniest thing that ever came out of that show.
As a matter of fact, take the funniness of that title, divide it by 6 and that's how funny the next funniest thing they ever did was.
This show was so bad that I loved it. I just couldn't help the giddy satisfaction I felt seeing Fox News fail so miserably, knowing how badly they must have wanted to put something out there to counter liberal comedians like Al Franken, Bill Maher, Stewart and Colbert.
I think the Germans have a word for that feeling, but I don't know how to spell it.
Well even the loyal Fox audience couldn't stomach that shit, because the show was canceled after a few weeks. I was very disappointed. Not that I could ever sit through more than 5 minutes of the 1/2 hour hour myself. It was just nice to know that Fox was airing something so embarrassingly bad, repeatedly.
But one part of that show was definitely worth going out of my way for:
"Presidential Addresses — Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh had a recurring cameo role as the President, with conservative pundit Ann Coulter as his Vice President." (Wikipedia)
Oh baby, was this great. In that it was really, really, really bad. Before I first watched it, I wanted it to be bad, I expected it to be bad, but it turned out to be worse than my wildest expectations. It was so bad it made my skin crawl, paradoxically causing me great pleasure.
Just the sight of the emaciated, anorexic stick figure of Ann Coulter next to the Orson Welles sized Rush Limbag was worth the price of admission. But then to witness them humiliate themselves by reading the god-awful script... well, it was like a jolt of champagne, reorienting the day, reassuring me that right wing bullshit had not disturbed the essential movements of the planets.
Anyway, getting back to Hannity's show, it's Sean, two other conservative hard-ons and, just to make it "Fair And Balanced", one liberal, a female who just happened to be attractive, under 35 and, believe it or not, blonde haired.
The three conservative pricks are going on and on about the snow storms, laughing and mocking the whole idea of global warming, "we told you it was all a fraud"...that kind of crap.
Finally the liberal female get's her 30 seconds to speak, and she says, "Well Sean, you know there's a difference between weather and temperature".
I'm stunned! Yes, yes, go on!
But then she pauses.
Go ahead, finish your point! Please let the audience know what a colossal bunch of dick holes they are. For the love of God, please let them know!
She continues..."You know me, I'm not a nut about the environment, you know, I'm 'drill, baby, drill.'"
Wait, what the hell are you doing? A complete segue? What about the difference between weather and temperature?
She never gets back to that point. God Damn it. She must have remembered the prime directive at Fox News! Never let the conservatives lose an argument! Fuck!
Monday, January 11, 2010
A Lost Decade for U.S. Economy, Workers
Common Dreams.org posted an article by The Washington Post, written on Jan. 2 which is titled "Aughts Were a Lost Decade for U.S. Economy, Workers" | CommonDreams.org
Someone in the alleged "liberal media" finally reported on something that I've been pointing to, repeatedly, for years:
The economic expansion after Bush's tax cuts was the worst all around performance of all post WWII expansions.
How is it that conservatives are allowed to repeat things, over and over again, that are demonstrably false, without being challenged?
How many times have we heard conservatives present tax cuts as a magical cure for everything from cancer to hoarseness?
Here's the key point of the article:
"There has been zero net job creation since December 1999. No previous decade going back to the 1940s had job growth of less than 20 percent. Economic output rose at its slowest rate of any decade since the 1930s as well."
This article made some brief news the day it was published but I haven't heard any mention of it since. And even this article doesn't point out the connection between the massive Bush tax cuts and the failure to produce a robust economy. Not only did those tax cuts fail to produce the robust economy the supply-siders promised, but they also contributed to the huge deficits that we are facing. Don't you think that's important news, especially considering that the Republicans base their whole ideological belief system on the idea of the infallibility of tax cuts?
You would expect not to hear a peep about this from the right wing pontificators like Rush Limbag, but what about the rest of the media? What about the "Fair And Balanced" Network, Fox News?
Why haven't I heard Chris Wallace asking any loud mouthed Republican supply-sider to explain what happened?
Wait! I know the answer!
Because Chris Wallace is a very biased conservative who only reports the news that his audience wants to hear, in order to make it fit with what they have already decided the truth is.
And that truth is exactly what their right wing heroes (like Limbag, Hannity and Beck) and their emotional biases tell them it is.
By contrast, the tax rates under Clinton corresponded with the longest, most consistently high and sustained post WWII economic expansion, even though conservatives said his tax hike would cause a recession.
Am I saying that the Clinton and Bush tax rates caused their contemporaneous economic performances?
No. If I did that I would be committing the fallacy of correlation = causation. Notice that I used the word corresponded, not caused. I would have to present more evidence than a mere correlation in order to make that claim. However, right-wing tax-cut fanatics commit that fallacy every time they say things like
"tax cuts always make the economy grow!".
Well, you can only make the claim that, eventually, after a tax cut, the economy always grows, so far.
Because the economy, so far, after recessions, always grows, eventually, whether taxes are cut, raised or left alone. So you can say the same thing about tax hikes. Allow me:
"Tax hikes will always make the economy grow!"...eventually.
Just as tax cuts are always followed by recessions, eventually.
So why aren't they saying "Tax cuts always cause recessions"?
The truth is supply-siders are hard pressed to produce any evidence whatsoever that tax cuts produce extra economic growth.* I first heard this some years ago from an economist who was being interviewed on the radio. This economist had a lot of credibility with me because she supported some of the conservatives' claims and refuted some liberal claims.
But when asked if she agreed with Bush's claims that his tax cuts were responsible for a supposed great growth in the economy, she replied that she couldn't find any evidence for this and that the economy was actually performing below par in almost every area for that stage in the recovery.**
She went on to say that when she studied tax rates she didn't find any evidence of tax rates helping or hurting economic performance. (I have since found strong evidence that supports her findings.) The interviewer didn't ask her to explain why, like I would have, but I would say that it is because all the other economic factors far outweigh any effects that tax rates might have.
Let's not forget that we had economic booms in the 40's and 50's with a top marginal tax rate of 91%!
And you know how conservatives like to brag about the boom that followed Kennedy's tax cuts in the sixties? Yeah, he cut the top marginal rate from 91% to 70% during a recession, and the recession ended like it always does, and it was followed by a boom. That's right, we had a boom with a top marginal tax rate of 70%!
So while I wouldn't say that Clinton's tax rates caused the economic performance of the 90's, I would say that it didn't hurt it. Plus, it did produce a record surplus.
Another thing that the conservatives have loved to point to during the last several years is the lowered tax rate in Ireland and the subsequent "Irish economic miracle".
"They cut their tax rates and it caused the economic boom!" they would assert as a matter of fact while neglecting to control for all the other variables in the economy.
Well guess what? The Irish tax rates were almost identical to the Clinton era tax rates. Except that the top marginal rate was slightly higher and the bottom rate was lower.
So with evidence much less flimsy than what the Republicans offer for tax cuts, the Dems could claim that the Clinton era tax rates found the Laffer Curve.
*I'm talking about personal income taxes here.
** Including job growth, capital investment and GDP growth.
Someone in the alleged "liberal media" finally reported on something that I've been pointing to, repeatedly, for years:
The economic expansion after Bush's tax cuts was the worst all around performance of all post WWII expansions.
How is it that conservatives are allowed to repeat things, over and over again, that are demonstrably false, without being challenged?
How many times have we heard conservatives present tax cuts as a magical cure for everything from cancer to hoarseness?
Here's the key point of the article:
"There has been zero net job creation since December 1999. No previous decade going back to the 1940s had job growth of less than 20 percent. Economic output rose at its slowest rate of any decade since the 1930s as well."
This article made some brief news the day it was published but I haven't heard any mention of it since. And even this article doesn't point out the connection between the massive Bush tax cuts and the failure to produce a robust economy. Not only did those tax cuts fail to produce the robust economy the supply-siders promised, but they also contributed to the huge deficits that we are facing. Don't you think that's important news, especially considering that the Republicans base their whole ideological belief system on the idea of the infallibility of tax cuts?
You would expect not to hear a peep about this from the right wing pontificators like Rush Limbag, but what about the rest of the media? What about the "Fair And Balanced" Network, Fox News?
Why haven't I heard Chris Wallace asking any loud mouthed Republican supply-sider to explain what happened?
Wait! I know the answer!
Because Chris Wallace is a very biased conservative who only reports the news that his audience wants to hear, in order to make it fit with what they have already decided the truth is.
And that truth is exactly what their right wing heroes (like Limbag, Hannity and Beck) and their emotional biases tell them it is.
By contrast, the tax rates under Clinton corresponded with the longest, most consistently high and sustained post WWII economic expansion, even though conservatives said his tax hike would cause a recession.
Am I saying that the Clinton and Bush tax rates caused their contemporaneous economic performances?
No. If I did that I would be committing the fallacy of correlation = causation. Notice that I used the word corresponded, not caused. I would have to present more evidence than a mere correlation in order to make that claim. However, right-wing tax-cut fanatics commit that fallacy every time they say things like
"tax cuts always make the economy grow!".
Well, you can only make the claim that, eventually, after a tax cut, the economy always grows, so far.
Because the economy, so far, after recessions, always grows, eventually, whether taxes are cut, raised or left alone. So you can say the same thing about tax hikes. Allow me:
"Tax hikes will always make the economy grow!"...eventually.
Just as tax cuts are always followed by recessions, eventually.
So why aren't they saying "Tax cuts always cause recessions"?
The truth is supply-siders are hard pressed to produce any evidence whatsoever that tax cuts produce extra economic growth.* I first heard this some years ago from an economist who was being interviewed on the radio. This economist had a lot of credibility with me because she supported some of the conservatives' claims and refuted some liberal claims.
But when asked if she agreed with Bush's claims that his tax cuts were responsible for a supposed great growth in the economy, she replied that she couldn't find any evidence for this and that the economy was actually performing below par in almost every area for that stage in the recovery.**
She went on to say that when she studied tax rates she didn't find any evidence of tax rates helping or hurting economic performance. (I have since found strong evidence that supports her findings.) The interviewer didn't ask her to explain why, like I would have, but I would say that it is because all the other economic factors far outweigh any effects that tax rates might have.
Let's not forget that we had economic booms in the 40's and 50's with a top marginal tax rate of 91%!
And you know how conservatives like to brag about the boom that followed Kennedy's tax cuts in the sixties? Yeah, he cut the top marginal rate from 91% to 70% during a recession, and the recession ended like it always does, and it was followed by a boom. That's right, we had a boom with a top marginal tax rate of 70%!
So while I wouldn't say that Clinton's tax rates caused the economic performance of the 90's, I would say that it didn't hurt it. Plus, it did produce a record surplus.
Another thing that the conservatives have loved to point to during the last several years is the lowered tax rate in Ireland and the subsequent "Irish economic miracle".
"They cut their tax rates and it caused the economic boom!" they would assert as a matter of fact while neglecting to control for all the other variables in the economy.
Well guess what? The Irish tax rates were almost identical to the Clinton era tax rates. Except that the top marginal rate was slightly higher and the bottom rate was lower.
So with evidence much less flimsy than what the Republicans offer for tax cuts, the Dems could claim that the Clinton era tax rates found the Laffer Curve.
*I'm talking about personal income taxes here.
** Including job growth, capital investment and GDP growth.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Universal Healthcare
So, the other day I'm in a public library when I noticed a book on the New Arrivals bookshelf by Glenn Beck. It's titled "Arguing With Idiots", subtitled "How to Stop Small Minds And Big Government".
I was compelled to check this book out and take it home so I could absorb the brilliant wisdom of this tireless money-making machine.
"Irony" is a word that often comes to my mind when observing the world of right-wing social and political rhetoric.
From Wikipedia:
"Irony (from the Ancient Greek εἰρωνεία eirōneía, meaning hypocrisy, deception, or feigned ignorance) is a situation, literary technique or rhetorical device, in which there is an incongruity, discordance or unintended connection that goes beyond the most evident meaning. It is the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite."
Stephen Colbert uses irony brilliantly to expose conservatives' hypocrisies, deceptions and illogic. I was using irony when I referred to Beck's "brilliant wisdom." However, the voluminous irony produced by Beck and those other right-wing blowhards is unintentional.
Take the title of Beck's book, for instance. It's obvious that he intends the word "Idiots" to refer to liberals. However, even a cursory reading of this (unintentionally) hysterical (in more ways than one) book will reveal who the true idiot is.
Beck expounds on everything from the Second Amendment to education to illegal immigration to the "nanny state."
I'd like to share my thoughts on his chapter on "universal healthcare."
In this chapter he attempts to knock down all the liberal arguments for "universal healthcare."
He first takes on the notion that as the richest country in the world, it is unacceptable that 46 million Americans are uninsured.
He points out that we are in deep debt and can't afford universal health care.
When conservatives make this argument they ignore the money that would be saved with a universal system. From Wikipedia:
"The UK government's National Audit Office in 2003 published an international comparison of ten different health care systems in ten developed countries, nine universal systems against one non-universal system (the U.S.), and their relative costs and key health outcomes.[3] "
This study shows that the nine country average health expenditure per head is slightly less than half of what the U.S. spends.
This is an astonishing figure. Let me repeat that. The other countries are spending HALF as much as the U.S., plus they cover everyone, regardless of pre-existing illness or whether they've lost their job. That is fucking HUGE! How can the Dems and libs be so casual about that fact?
Why in the world aren't the Dems and libs using this fact as a sledge hammer by constantly emphasizing and repeating it and forcing the conservatives to address it?
So we could SAVE money by switching. A lot of money. Think about it. We could budget a national health insurance system at 75% of what we are already spending, which would give us 50% more coverage than the other countries and STILL save 25%!
He then claims that the number "46 million" is over inflated, a distortion perpetrated by the left in order to misguide the citizenry.
Beck then proceeds to whittle this number down to "3% of the population."
This is how he does it:
10 million of the uninsured are non citizens. (Down to 36 million!)
18 million have annual household incomes over $50,000, with half of those over $75,000.
(Wow, already Beck has the number down to 18 million!)
Beck then engages in some interesting illogic.
He says that these people could afford health insurance if they wanted it and if "we" give "them" "free" health care "we" will be, in effect, paying for "their" cell phones, satellite t.v.'s and high-speed internet connections.
But, wait a second. If we had universal health care it would be paid for through taxes. So those people would be paying for our health care as much as we would be paying for theirs.
Did you ever think of that, Stephen Hawking?
If there is any freeloading going on it is happening now under the current system, the one Beck says works great and doesn't need to be changed.
Beck says that these people are choosing how to manage their own risk.
"Close to two-thirds of uninsured... are between... 18 and 34. They're overwhelmingly young, healthy people who have consciously decided that it's worth the relatively small risk that they get very sick."
Here's where the freeloading comes in:
One of the reasons they are able to take that risk is that the Republicans have not yet removed the safety net. We still live in a society that does not allow destitute people to die in the street.
So if that young uninsured person has a catastrophic illness or accident and cannot pay their medical bills, they file for bankruptcy and Medicaid. The creditors take a hit (which is bad for the economy) and the medical bills are paid by the tax payers (which raises the deficit. If these millions of young, healthy "high" income people paid into a universal healthcare system, it would CUT the deficit).
And bankruptcy would not be such a bad thing for these people because this demographic is the most debt-ridden in society.
So their debt is wiped out, their medical bills are paid and they're still young enough to start over, with a clean slate, courtesy of the taxpayers.
Beck gives another reason why we shouldn't care about these young uninsured:
"Many also figure... that they have their parents to back them up in case [of a] worse-case scenario..."
What Robert Oppenheimer doesn't explain is how shifting Jr.'s medical burdens onto his parents makes things any better. Someone still pays for lack of insurance.
Of course, not every uninsured person is young and healthy. Those who aren't can be forced to endure all kinds of hardships if they get sick. Unfortunately, Beck offers nothing to allay their grief and anxieties.
So next, Beck attempts to whittle the number down by another 14 million (which would bring the total down to 4 million).
He says that "14 million of America's 'uninsured' already qualify for government insurance; they just haven't applied for it yet."
Beck has citations listed in the back of his book and this one comes from Blue Cross/Blue Shield and Reuters, for what that's worth. That could be Reuters reporting on the study done by Blue Cross. And Blue Cross has an interest in keeping things the way they are. But let's assume it's accurate.
I've heard this argument used by everyone from Limbaugh to Hannity, "we don't need to change anything because all these people could be covered anyway."
Let me take this opportunity to say that, every single argument I've ever heard made by right wingers against "universal healthcare" is riddled with contradictions.
This one is a perfect example. There are contradictions on many levels with this one.
First of all, let me say that the Republicans/conservatives have been fighting tooth and nail to keep the status quo on healthcare ever since they lost the fight on Medicare. And they will continue to fight for the status quo until they have convinced enough fools that the U.S. Government (you know, the one of, by and for the people) is evil. Then they will abolish Medicare and Medicaid and turn healthcare completely over to the free market.
What about those who can't afford or get health insurance?
Just get your neighbors to help. That's what Republican Senators Grassley and Coburn suggested recently.
There's a foolproof plan if I've ever heard one.
Just check out the insidious irony here.
Do you think that the Republicans/conservatives want these eligible people to sign up? Would they be for the massive government sponsored drive it would take to do this?
Of course not. They want to keep the status quo.
They must love that 14 million Americans haven't applied for gov't insurance.
Because this means that we are not paying for their healthcare.
Plus, they can continue to use the fact that these people "already qualify for government insurance" as an argument to keep the status quo, thus keeping those 14 million uninsured, uninsured.
The Republicans/conservatives would hate it if these 14 million Americans applied for gov't insurance. They would be totally against it. Because it would require more tax money.
Beck next works on the remaining 4 million.
"More than half of those who are considered to be "uninsured" are in that state for less than a year as they move between jobs or deal with temporary changes in their lives."
What Enrico Fermi here didn't ever think of is that for every person who gets off the uninsured list, there is another person who comes on. That is why the number remains constant. And the net result is the same.
Also, think of this scenario:
Someone gets sick with a cronic disease like hepatitis, misses days at work, loses his job as a result, loses his insurance, loses his house.
Eventually he gets a new job and if he's lucky enough that that job offers health insurance, he is now in the "pre-existing illness" category with no coverage for his hepatitis. Nice, huh?
Next he takes on the liberal lie that insurance is too expensive to buy on your own.
He talks about insurers who offer basic youth-oriented health-insurance for a mere $50 a month.
I've heard other right wingers like Mark Levin talk about plans that are only $1,200 a year.
Now can you imagine what kind of coverage you'll get for that amount of money? Let's not forget, this is capitalism we're talking about. You only get what you pay for... minus profits for the company, plus advertising, administrative and lobbying costs.
He then presents the Republican/conservative panacea for reducing the cost of insurance.
Untie the hands of the free market and remove the restrictions on buying across state lines!
What these scientists working on the Manhattan Project didn't ever think of is what I heard an economist say about this. If you allowed buying across state lines it would raise the price of the lower plans.
Why? Because, for example, if millions of New Yorkers would buy into a cheap plan in, say, Utah, it would drastically change the demographics, in other words, everything insurance companies use to estimate costs, thus raising the price of the plan.
The current problem isn't lack of competition.
There is plenty of that, even within states. Every Nov. my job would have an "open season", when you are allowed to change your insurance company if you want. There would be about a half dozen or more companies in the cafeteria offering their services. The differences among the companies was like six of one, half a dozen of another. Do I pay a higher deductable for lower premiums, or higher premiums for a lower deductable? No matter which one I choose, I'm still out of luck if I lose my job and can't make my payments, which is exactly the situation I found myself in a few years ago.
The current problem is the inherent flaws of the free market system.
Right wingers have been demonizing the government for decades. At just about every opportunity they will tell us how bad the government is, how the government can't do anything right. The government isn't just inept and incompetent but downright evil. (At a later time I will present a defense of "the government.")
Beck takes a swipe at government in an attempt to discredit the idea of universal healthcare.
"You don't want the same people who run the post office cutting your chest open for an angioplasty" (page 237).
Wow. Beck has a powerful argument here. I sure as hell wouldn't want a Post Master cutting my chest open for an angioplasty, not least of all being that angioplasties do not require cutting someone's chest open.
Taking this into consideration, I would have to say that anyone who would present this idea as the way to run a universal healthcare program would have to be an idiot of the first order.
And the only person I know of to have done that is... Glenn Beck.
I was listening to Mark Levin railing against universal healthcare.
(For those of you not familiar with this radio host, he is a vile right wing hatemonger who, when he isn't plugging his own books and products, spends what remains of his daily three hour radio show spewing vituperative insults at Democrats and liberals in an angry, snarling tone of voice, which he obviously ripped off from Bob Grant).
"This idea of taking money from some people and giving it to others has got to go!", he yelled at his audience as he defended the free market system of private insurance against the tyranny of "socialized " medicine.
Taking money from some people and giving it to others? That's exactly what private health insurance does. It takes money from people who don't get sick and gives it to people who do.
Did you ever think of that, Sir Isaac Newton?
For some reason creeps like Beck and Levin have managed to convince a lot of people that they make sense.
But I have to admit that on page 243 of his book Beck finally does make some sense:
"We all know by now that just one person who can't get access to health care is too many, but, outside of a complete government takeover, there is no way to get everyone covered---"
But just when you think Beck might have cleared his mind from his right-wing ideological stupor he adds:
"---it's just not practical."
In my next post I will explain the inherent flaws of the free market system and how they contribute to "a market failure" with regard to health insurance.
Then I will demonstrate how government is the MOST practical way to administer health insurance.
I will also take on the second half of Beck's chapter where he reports on the "nightmare of socialized medicine" abroad. You know, waiting lists, government rationing, death panels!
In the meantime, while you're "arguing with idiots", tell them about this blog. I really want to give conservatives something to think about.
I was compelled to check this book out and take it home so I could absorb the brilliant wisdom of this tireless money-making machine.
"Irony" is a word that often comes to my mind when observing the world of right-wing social and political rhetoric.
From Wikipedia:
"Irony (from the Ancient Greek εἰρωνεία eirōneía, meaning hypocrisy, deception, or feigned ignorance) is a situation, literary technique or rhetorical device, in which there is an incongruity, discordance or unintended connection that goes beyond the most evident meaning. It is the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite."
Stephen Colbert uses irony brilliantly to expose conservatives' hypocrisies, deceptions and illogic. I was using irony when I referred to Beck's "brilliant wisdom." However, the voluminous irony produced by Beck and those other right-wing blowhards is unintentional.
Take the title of Beck's book, for instance. It's obvious that he intends the word "Idiots" to refer to liberals. However, even a cursory reading of this (unintentionally) hysterical (in more ways than one) book will reveal who the true idiot is.
Beck expounds on everything from the Second Amendment to education to illegal immigration to the "nanny state."
I'd like to share my thoughts on his chapter on "universal healthcare."
In this chapter he attempts to knock down all the liberal arguments for "universal healthcare."
He first takes on the notion that as the richest country in the world, it is unacceptable that 46 million Americans are uninsured.
He points out that we are in deep debt and can't afford universal health care.
When conservatives make this argument they ignore the money that would be saved with a universal system. From Wikipedia:
"The UK government's National Audit Office in 2003 published an international comparison of ten different health care systems in ten developed countries, nine universal systems against one non-universal system (the U.S.), and their relative costs and key health outcomes.[3] "
This study shows that the nine country average health expenditure per head is slightly less than half of what the U.S. spends.
This is an astonishing figure. Let me repeat that. The other countries are spending HALF as much as the U.S., plus they cover everyone, regardless of pre-existing illness or whether they've lost their job. That is fucking HUGE! How can the Dems and libs be so casual about that fact?
Why in the world aren't the Dems and libs using this fact as a sledge hammer by constantly emphasizing and repeating it and forcing the conservatives to address it?
So we could SAVE money by switching. A lot of money. Think about it. We could budget a national health insurance system at 75% of what we are already spending, which would give us 50% more coverage than the other countries and STILL save 25%!
He then claims that the number "46 million" is over inflated, a distortion perpetrated by the left in order to misguide the citizenry.
Beck then proceeds to whittle this number down to "3% of the population."
This is how he does it:
10 million of the uninsured are non citizens. (Down to 36 million!)
18 million have annual household incomes over $50,000, with half of those over $75,000.
(Wow, already Beck has the number down to 18 million!)
Beck then engages in some interesting illogic.
He says that these people could afford health insurance if they wanted it and if "we" give "them" "free" health care "we" will be, in effect, paying for "their" cell phones, satellite t.v.'s and high-speed internet connections.
But, wait a second. If we had universal health care it would be paid for through taxes. So those people would be paying for our health care as much as we would be paying for theirs.
Did you ever think of that, Stephen Hawking?
If there is any freeloading going on it is happening now under the current system, the one Beck says works great and doesn't need to be changed.
Beck says that these people are choosing how to manage their own risk.
"Close to two-thirds of uninsured... are between... 18 and 34. They're overwhelmingly young, healthy people who have consciously decided that it's worth the relatively small risk that they get very sick."
Here's where the freeloading comes in:
One of the reasons they are able to take that risk is that the Republicans have not yet removed the safety net. We still live in a society that does not allow destitute people to die in the street.
So if that young uninsured person has a catastrophic illness or accident and cannot pay their medical bills, they file for bankruptcy and Medicaid. The creditors take a hit (which is bad for the economy) and the medical bills are paid by the tax payers (which raises the deficit. If these millions of young, healthy "high" income people paid into a universal healthcare system, it would CUT the deficit).
And bankruptcy would not be such a bad thing for these people because this demographic is the most debt-ridden in society.
So their debt is wiped out, their medical bills are paid and they're still young enough to start over, with a clean slate, courtesy of the taxpayers.
Beck gives another reason why we shouldn't care about these young uninsured:
"Many also figure... that they have their parents to back them up in case [of a] worse-case scenario..."
What Robert Oppenheimer doesn't explain is how shifting Jr.'s medical burdens onto his parents makes things any better. Someone still pays for lack of insurance.
Of course, not every uninsured person is young and healthy. Those who aren't can be forced to endure all kinds of hardships if they get sick. Unfortunately, Beck offers nothing to allay their grief and anxieties.
So next, Beck attempts to whittle the number down by another 14 million (which would bring the total down to 4 million).
He says that "14 million of America's 'uninsured' already qualify for government insurance; they just haven't applied for it yet."
Beck has citations listed in the back of his book and this one comes from Blue Cross/Blue Shield and Reuters, for what that's worth. That could be Reuters reporting on the study done by Blue Cross. And Blue Cross has an interest in keeping things the way they are. But let's assume it's accurate.
I've heard this argument used by everyone from Limbaugh to Hannity, "we don't need to change anything because all these people could be covered anyway."
Let me take this opportunity to say that, every single argument I've ever heard made by right wingers against "universal healthcare" is riddled with contradictions.
This one is a perfect example. There are contradictions on many levels with this one.
First of all, let me say that the Republicans/conservatives have been fighting tooth and nail to keep the status quo on healthcare ever since they lost the fight on Medicare. And they will continue to fight for the status quo until they have convinced enough fools that the U.S. Government (you know, the one of, by and for the people) is evil. Then they will abolish Medicare and Medicaid and turn healthcare completely over to the free market.
What about those who can't afford or get health insurance?
Just get your neighbors to help. That's what Republican Senators Grassley and Coburn suggested recently.
There's a foolproof plan if I've ever heard one.
Just check out the insidious irony here.
Do you think that the Republicans/conservatives want these eligible people to sign up? Would they be for the massive government sponsored drive it would take to do this?
Of course not. They want to keep the status quo.
They must love that 14 million Americans haven't applied for gov't insurance.
Because this means that we are not paying for their healthcare.
Plus, they can continue to use the fact that these people "already qualify for government insurance" as an argument to keep the status quo, thus keeping those 14 million uninsured, uninsured.
The Republicans/conservatives would hate it if these 14 million Americans applied for gov't insurance. They would be totally against it. Because it would require more tax money.
Beck next works on the remaining 4 million.
"More than half of those who are considered to be "uninsured" are in that state for less than a year as they move between jobs or deal with temporary changes in their lives."
What Enrico Fermi here didn't ever think of is that for every person who gets off the uninsured list, there is another person who comes on. That is why the number remains constant. And the net result is the same.
Also, think of this scenario:
Someone gets sick with a cronic disease like hepatitis, misses days at work, loses his job as a result, loses his insurance, loses his house.
Eventually he gets a new job and if he's lucky enough that that job offers health insurance, he is now in the "pre-existing illness" category with no coverage for his hepatitis. Nice, huh?
Next he takes on the liberal lie that insurance is too expensive to buy on your own.
He talks about insurers who offer basic youth-oriented health-insurance for a mere $50 a month.
I've heard other right wingers like Mark Levin talk about plans that are only $1,200 a year.
Now can you imagine what kind of coverage you'll get for that amount of money? Let's not forget, this is capitalism we're talking about. You only get what you pay for... minus profits for the company, plus advertising, administrative and lobbying costs.
He then presents the Republican/conservative panacea for reducing the cost of insurance.
Untie the hands of the free market and remove the restrictions on buying across state lines!
What these scientists working on the Manhattan Project didn't ever think of is what I heard an economist say about this. If you allowed buying across state lines it would raise the price of the lower plans.
Why? Because, for example, if millions of New Yorkers would buy into a cheap plan in, say, Utah, it would drastically change the demographics, in other words, everything insurance companies use to estimate costs, thus raising the price of the plan.
The current problem isn't lack of competition.
There is plenty of that, even within states. Every Nov. my job would have an "open season", when you are allowed to change your insurance company if you want. There would be about a half dozen or more companies in the cafeteria offering their services. The differences among the companies was like six of one, half a dozen of another. Do I pay a higher deductable for lower premiums, or higher premiums for a lower deductable? No matter which one I choose, I'm still out of luck if I lose my job and can't make my payments, which is exactly the situation I found myself in a few years ago.
The current problem is the inherent flaws of the free market system.
Right wingers have been demonizing the government for decades. At just about every opportunity they will tell us how bad the government is, how the government can't do anything right. The government isn't just inept and incompetent but downright evil. (At a later time I will present a defense of "the government.")
Beck takes a swipe at government in an attempt to discredit the idea of universal healthcare.
"You don't want the same people who run the post office cutting your chest open for an angioplasty" (page 237).
Wow. Beck has a powerful argument here. I sure as hell wouldn't want a Post Master cutting my chest open for an angioplasty, not least of all being that angioplasties do not require cutting someone's chest open.
Taking this into consideration, I would have to say that anyone who would present this idea as the way to run a universal healthcare program would have to be an idiot of the first order.
And the only person I know of to have done that is... Glenn Beck.
I was listening to Mark Levin railing against universal healthcare.
(For those of you not familiar with this radio host, he is a vile right wing hatemonger who, when he isn't plugging his own books and products, spends what remains of his daily three hour radio show spewing vituperative insults at Democrats and liberals in an angry, snarling tone of voice, which he obviously ripped off from Bob Grant).
"This idea of taking money from some people and giving it to others has got to go!", he yelled at his audience as he defended the free market system of private insurance against the tyranny of "socialized " medicine.
Taking money from some people and giving it to others? That's exactly what private health insurance does. It takes money from people who don't get sick and gives it to people who do.
Did you ever think of that, Sir Isaac Newton?
For some reason creeps like Beck and Levin have managed to convince a lot of people that they make sense.
But I have to admit that on page 243 of his book Beck finally does make some sense:
"We all know by now that just one person who can't get access to health care is too many, but, outside of a complete government takeover, there is no way to get everyone covered---"
But just when you think Beck might have cleared his mind from his right-wing ideological stupor he adds:
"---it's just not practical."
In my next post I will explain the inherent flaws of the free market system and how they contribute to "a market failure" with regard to health insurance.
Then I will demonstrate how government is the MOST practical way to administer health insurance.
I will also take on the second half of Beck's chapter where he reports on the "nightmare of socialized medicine" abroad. You know, waiting lists, government rationing, death panels!
In the meantime, while you're "arguing with idiots", tell them about this blog. I really want to give conservatives something to think about.
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