Iran Before I Walked

So I've been perched at the top of the mountain behind Wheeling, WV at the TA truck stop for a few days, and been getting blasted by Faux News for the entire time. Aside from the usual questions about how many ulcers this is going to cause, I have a specific question raised by Glen O'Reilitty van Sustren.

Exactly what the hell do these people want from Obama, with regard to the current unrest in Iran? Quick review:

June 12th, 2009 saw elections for the Presidency of Iran. The challenger, Hossein Mousavi, called the whole thing a fraud, after incumbent President Ahmadinejad had claimed to have been re-elected by a margin of 11 million votes. The protesting began and Mousavi has been calling for the whole thing to be thrown out and a new election to be run, presumably one allowing outside observers, although I can't confirm that. Meanwhile, at Friday prayers on the 19th the supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a statement ruling out election fraud, condemning protesters, blaming foreign powers for causing the whole row and generally trying to tell everyone to shut up, sit down and get back to business.

That went over like a lead falafal and street show has carried on since, unabated, with Mousavi calling for marches and strikes. additionally, there have been protests and demonstrations here in the US and possibly elsewhere, I haven't been able to confirm that yet either.

Now with all that going on, we turn briefly to the White House and Fearless Leader, aka President Barack "Barry" Obama. This fellow has been talking about dialog and diplomacy, trying to use discourse and understanding to repair and maybe normalize relations with Tehran. in the face of the current situation, his response has been very measured and carefully worded.

On the 16th, he gave an interview with CNBC where he addressed the election, saying that while the whole thing bears scrutiny, our aims and our obstacles won't change substantially. On the 20th, he delivered more forceful remarks, but has maintained his stance that this is an internal affair of Iran. It would seem though, that isn't sufficient for the Foxists.

This whole weekend has been committed, almost exclusively, to A: saying Obama isn't supporting the American Ideal because he's not....I dunno, not saying mean enough things to Tehran? Not sending our armed forces to get involved in yet another foreign war? ...anyway, and then B: talking about how wrong Obama is for not doing those things I just said, especially since lots and lots of people in Washington (you know, those super-patriots the Republicans) are just tripping over each other to bash the Islamo-fascists. McCain's been all over this, in a nice, thinly veiled "Well if _I_ were to have won..." session, which is absolutely hilarious because he of all people should understand why getting involved in foreign wars is a bad idea which is a lesson that even old man Kissinger seems to have picked up on.

So again I ask, what exactly is it these people think they want? To continue the same tired old rhetoric that hasn't work for the last 40 years? To get involved in yet another foreign war? Seriously people, this game is just getting silly. The world has changed, the Cold War is over, we don't need to keep running in Us versus Them mode. Seriously people. The war is over.

A Pounding of Prevention, pt. 2

Let's take a moment to talk about communism, capitalism, humanity and health care. How does it all relate? Read on, True Believers!

First of all I want to address the accusations of socialism and the cries of rampant nationalization being leveled at Fearless Leader.

I favor the establishment of a Federally run health insurance or care option. Not a outright nationalization, but the providing of a baseline option. Now before anyone cries Trojan Horse, let me point out a little fact about a government provided service: the public school system. What exactly am I trying to point out? The fact that the existence of the public school system, which has been operated as a government institution for decades, has not caused the disappearance of private education. Same-same with the Post Office; we have FedEx, UPS and other private parcel shipping companies even though there is this thing called the USPS that is largely subsidized by federal tax dollars. So much for the Trojan Horse.

Now the next point I want to address is a bit convoluted, but bear with me.

I am a fan of the free market. I like Capitalism and have a healthy distrust of Communism, simply based on the track record. Specifically we have seen, through the Rise and Fall of The Soviet Union that Communism tends to commoditize human beings, essentially treating them like the property of the state. I don't think anyone would argue against that (except of course, genuine Communists). That being said however, we must keep firmly in mind that "The Market" is not a moral or ethical entity; "The Market" is a construct, a mechanism for distributing goods and services. Even in a liberal society, that is one that is largely free from governmental dictation, we must keep in mind that the sole concern of "The Market" is fulfilling its function as a mechanism and that the societal values we purport to hold dear are the work of the participants in our society, not the products of Capitalism.

The problem, Oh My Children, is that Capitalism cannot and does not make value decisions about anything other than profitability and when profit because the focus of a society, you get the exact same problem that you get under Communism. People become commodities, like raw material. Which brings me to my point.

My Sainted Mother (who will both deny and beat me for saying it again) likes to continue repeating to me that, "People are not things." Unfortunately, that is exactly what has happened in the current health care system.

I'm told that once upon a time, hospitals and health insurance were strictly no-profit agencies. Then at some point in the 1970's certain parties lobbied, successfully, to be allowed to run for profit set-ups, on the theory that profit motive and market force competition would improve the quality of health care and many good things have come from the competition for the next big breakthrough or advance. Unfortunately what has been gained has come at enormous cost, in terms of health care for the vast majority of people.

In the first case we have the dark side of profit motive currently afflicting health care operations: Greed. In the continuing search for more money, patients are being rammed through as fast as possible. Doctors spend something like fifteen minutes with a patient in a given visitation and then move on to the next as quickly as possible. The rule is to push as many people through the doors as fast as possible in order to rack up as many sales as possible. This is not good medicine, which like any scientific discipline should be handled in a careful, deliberate manner with an eye for accuracy. We're talking about people and their health, not ticket sales for an amusement park.

Secondly is the matter of individual practitioners. There are now fewer general practice physicians than ever entering practice while the ranks of the highest paid specialists swell, particular in fields such as cosmetic surgery. It isn't hard to understand why; that's where the money is to be made. So now we can compound the production line health care policy with a paucity of GP's, which both increases the strain on those GP's and decreases the number of patients which can be seen at a given time.

Third on the list, we need to have a long, hard look at the pharmo-corps manufacturing the medications vital to our health care. Now I don't think anyone cold possibly argue that the drug companies have every right to make a profit on the discoveries they make. Nor can anyone legitimately argue that they shouldn't try to match supply with demand. At what point however, was it decided that non-therapeutic modifications of existing drugs constituted a legitimate reason to exploit patent laws in order to create a monopoly? Furthermore, current direct to consumer marketing has created a situation where individual patients are coming to their doctors and screaming for drugs they don't need for conditions they either don't have or whose legitimacy is at best questionable; we're talking about convenience drugging. Dammit people, we're talking about pharmaceuticals not bloody soft-drinks!

Point the fourth is the shameless profiteering of the insurance companies. I can almost give these people a certain amount of sympathy; they have a mandate, as profit companies, to maximize shareholder value. How do they do that? Simple, only insure people who are the least likely to actually need health care and charge the highest possible rate you can. In other words maximise revenues and minimize expenses, which is basic econ. The problem here is that the people who most need health care are the exact same ones that the for-profit insurers do their bloody best to drop from the rolls as fast as possible, assuming they ever sign them to begin with! Worse yet, if you do happen to need to use your coverage (assuming you have any) and further assuming they can't get rid of you afterwards then you can reasonably expect your rates to double or even triple, as the insurer does its level best to extract the money they spent out of you.

There's more but there you have the single biggest, most obvious problems. What does it amount to? In short, in the business of health care, health care has taken a back seat to profitability. Patients have become commodities to be shuffled about and traded, like little potted money trees.

Finally, there is the problem of rampant, frivolous lawsuits and abuses of laws enacted to protect the rights of patients from slipshod medical practice. Vast amount of time and money are wasted in the practice of defensive medicine.

I don't know, maybe I'm more sensitive to the situation than most having worked in the medical field, in the production end. Having worked, furthermore, as part of the DoD health network. I can honestly say that I've seen the system work, at least in my own experience. Admittedly it isn't perfect and I know personally of a truly spectacular case of bad judgement, but that was a matter of a human being making a piss-poor decision. The decision wasn't the result of a system failure, other than failing to sufficiently impress on the individual in question the importance of correct medical judgement. That sort of thing can be dealt with through proper training. In any case, setting the issue of federal health care aside, lets just take a minute to consider a proposal.

Why is it a good idea to pay doctors on the basis of volume? Should they be judged on the quality of their work, rather than the quantity? Some hospitals bring in doctors and pay them salary. I think that this, combined with returning hospitals to their non-profit orientation, would produce a good net result. How, you ask? Because the way to improve health care is to put the focus back on patients instead of profits. It is possible to do this without completely stripping out competition or individual motivation. Converting hospitals back to nonprofits doesn't eliminate their ability to hire and pay health care workers on a competitive, salaried basis. Hospitals that want the best physicians will compete with each other for those physicians, in terms of salaries and spending on R&D, equipment and the myriad of ancillary services that the best health care demands. Physicians will be competing with each other for entry to the best hospitals with access to all the above.

Additional measures should include:

Reform of drug patent laws which allow a handful of companies to monopolize drug production and prevent the availability of inexpensive generic medicines

Reform of medication marketing laws which allow these major manufacturers to by-pass the trained medical community and push drugs directly on the public.

Reform of medical lawsuits, to protect health care workers from frivolous suits and end the practice of "defensive medicine".

Finally, health insurance agencies need to be restructured as non-profit organizations, with regulations specifically tailored to protect patients' rights to treatment and guarantee the ability of providers to focus on treating patients instead of maximizing monetary gains for the insurer.

The Tyranny of Democracy

So where to begin? Logically, the basic question.

Which takes precedence, personal liberty or majority rule? That is the dilemma presented by a democratic society. The ideal behind democracy is self determination but any society requires individuals to surrender at least some freedoms in order to coexist peacefully. OK, fair enough, but where is the line between cooperation and coercion?

Just to avoid an confusion, let me state specifically that yes, I'm talking about California and that farce called Prop 8. The basis of the argument is simple; a majority of voters in California have said that the state of "marriage" is specifically and exclusively a condition between one male and one female. So, being democratic, they won the vote and that's it right? Majority rule.

Well, actually no. You see there is this thing called a tyranny of the majority. It means that the majority uses its power to marginalize or exploit the minority. Its been a fact of life in every, even nominally democratic nation in history, starting in ancient Greece and running up to the modern era. Probably the most blatant form is the outright enslavement of a segment of a population, and the most obvious, recent historical instance within these United States has got to be the "separate but equal" tripe promulgated under Jim Crow and the Black Codes.

Today we are seeing the old struggle again with a new segment of the population, sparked by a particular issue, as is usual. The point of contention this time is marriage and the group in question are homosexuals. The group of people who are trying to keep the discrimination in place are, no surprise, religious types with a superstitious ax to grind. Sound unfair and inflammatory? Well, a quick Google search for "Argument against gay marriage" turns up as its first link, the "Ten Arguments Page" for NoGayMarriage.com.

A quick read demonstrates that this particular community uses its personal religious convictions as the core of its "arguments", most of which are obvious fear-mongering.

A perusal of "Focus on the Family" reveals that what seems like a rational and benevolent organization is simply a less inflammatory forum for the exact same primitive superstitions. The chief argument against gay marriage (and indeed any kind of 'sexual deviance') is that it/they "are not part of God's will". This is backed up by many opinion pieces which attempt to make connections such as, "Childhood Sexual Abuse and Male Homosexuality". The piece is laughable; the authors and the publishers don't seem to understand that correlation is not the same thing as causation. Or it may be that they simply don't care, so long as they can paint a graphic and negative mental picture fr their audience. They certainly don't seem concerned with such trivialities as putting an end to bullying by more aggressive, more physical boys. Perhaps they see it as the victim's fault, for not being sufficiently "manly".

In any case, the arguments are essentially the same as those put forward a century ago when we were discussing race. Either its "ungodly" or "unnatural" or "socially unhealthy". What it really comes down to though, is "I don't understand this, it makes me uncomfortable and I don't want to have to deal with it." If it were somehow possible for people to not have to explain sex to their kids, I expect this wouldn't be so much an issue; they would be able to simply ignore the entire thing. So that's the whole issue, really, and it rings hollow in any case.

There is no escaping the fact of homosexuality and these people are doing their precious children (whom we're all apparently supposed to be thinking of) a tremendous disservice by not dealing with it. The fact is, the kids are going to encounter it at some point and the only responsible thing to do is address it, just like you are supposed to explain hetero sex to them.

None of that matter much to the likes of those mentioned above; read the language of their rhetoric and you can easily discern that what they really want is for all of these uncomfortable issues to just go away. Whether because they just find it all icky and confusing or because they are genuine "true believers" who thinks its offensive to their imaginary friend in the sky, they all think the world would be a much better place if the homosexuals would just go away. So they are bound and determined to make life as unequal and intolerable and uncivil as possible for this particular minority. All for no better reason than the accident of their birth.

Taken from a different angle, this irrational behavior on the part of the Prop 8 crowd is blatant sexism. They aren't upset that two particular people are in a relationship, they're upset because one of them isn't the right gender!

"That person is male/female, how dare you, a male/female, want to be their partner?!"

This is no different than:

"That person is white/black, how dare you, a black/white, want to be their partner?!"

In both cases we're talking about a physiological trait that the subject was born with. How is the one anymore acceptable a form of discrimination than another?

Of course these same protectors of public morality are willing to extend an olive branch; homosexuals can have something else, we'll call it a civil union, that can be equal to marriage, only separate.

Separate but equal. Should sound familiar to a great many people, but in case it isn't, let me remind you of Brown v. Board of Education, where we were supposed to have learned that separate is inherently unequal.

Ironically, those voices which are the loudest in declaiming their support for the rights of individuals in more modern battles are the ones demanding that rights be withheld from others. The Becks, Hannitys, O'Reillys and Limbaughs all like to tell us how much they value personal liberty, how sacred is individual freedom. They also proceed to tell us that apparently a significant chuck of society needs to have those liberties and freedoms denied to them, for the benefit of all. Of course the benefit they're talking about usually refers to either A: the freedom of the majority to marginalize a minority or B: the supposed need to comply with the demands of the imaginary friend that lives in the sky.