How Low Can They Go ?

There's been a lot of misinformation flung about RE: health care reform, but this really takes the cake:

In a "poll" mailed to supporters, the RNC is actually suggesting that health insurance reform is a Democratic plot to deny health care to Republicans using voter registration data: Documents Obtained Show GOP Tricks

Geez Louise! And the sad thing is, there are people out there who'll believe this and start shouting about it at Congressional "town hall" meetings :P

What's it gonna take to get a rational discussion of health care reform started ?!

Everyone Rations Health Care

If we have any hope of a rational discussion on health care reform in the U.S., we need to get past the lies and the spin being flung about with such great abandon. Here's a big one: "Socialized" medicine, a misnomer in its own right applied to current attempts at reform in the U.S., will cause health care rationing.

Here's the truth - every country rations health care. Every. one. The difference is that the U.S. uses a criteria different from every, other First World country. We don't base it on medical effectiveness, or any, other sort of good science.

No, we de facto ration based on how wealthy you are. If you can afford it, the sky's the limit. If not, well....you get rationing. And the poorer you are, the more your access is rationed.

So can we please ditch the "rationing" shibboleth ? and have both a rational and heartfelt discussion about whether this is the direction in which we want our society to evolve ?

The One We Feed

One day an old Native American grandfather was talking to his grandson. He said, “There are two wolves fighting inside all of us – the wolf of fear and hate, and the wolf of love and peace.”

The grandson listened, then looked up at his grandfather and asked, “Which one will win?”

The grandfather replied, “The one we feed.”

From a comment on the excellent blog The Mudflats.

QotD for 20 Aug., 2009

This debate over health care goes to the heart of who we are as a people. I believe that nobody in America should be denied basic health care because he or she lacks health insurance. --- Pres. Barack Obama

Further in his appeal to faith-based groups to spread the truth about health care reform, the President urged listeners to reject misinformation about his plans, noting, "There are some folks out there who are, frankly, bearing false witness."

And yet self-professed Christians continue to lie about "death panels" and other outrageous nonsense. To say nothing about ignoring our Lord's injunction to care for the sick (and the hungry, and the orphans, and the needy,...).

Hey conservatives, news flash - "I got mine, screw you" can in no way be justified as a Biblical stance.

Update: When confronted by yet another ridiculous claim at a townhall meeting from a right-wing shill, Rep. Allen Boyd (D-Florida) responded, "When someone sends you something on the Internet that sounds crazy, how about just checking it a little bit?" Golly, ya think ?!

CNN's Health Care Fact Check site.

QotD for 19 Aug., 2009

Without somehow destroying me in the process, how could God reveal himself in a way that would leave no room for doubt? If there were no room for doubt, there would be no room for me. --- Frederick Buechner

[shamelessly stolen from the charming Stephy of Stuff Christian Culture Likes fame]

Sullivan Rounds Up Palin's Lies

Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish compiles all the various lies of Sarah Palin in one helpful place: The Odd Lies Of Sarah Palin: A Round-Up.

I asked an intern to re-fact-check all of them to make sure new details hadn't emerged that might debunk some. And I also asked to get any subsequent statements by Palin that acknowledged that she had erred in any of these statements that are easily rebuttable by facts in the public record and apologized and corrected. She has not.

Just think - this fruitbat, bless her heart, could have been one stroke away from being sworn in as President of the United States...

The only way towards a liberal anarchy

You know what my main objection is to Libertarianism ? It's that I don't trust enough people to be egalitarian and, well... just plain good in a moral sense. Given human nature, a completely free, laissez-faire system would rapidly devolve into an oligarchy of the rich.

"But, but...we'd protect individual freedom!" Uh, yeah...right. When your values are primarily materialistic, power concentrates where material wealth does - in the hands of the (rich) elite.

But what if we lived in a post-scarcity society, like The Culture of Scottish SF writer Iain M. Banks ? Where society is governed by extremely powerful AI "Minds" that administer this affluence for the benefit of all and maintain an almost totally egalitarian, stable society without the use of any form of force or compulsion, except where necessary to protect others.

"In vesting all power in his individualistic, sometime eccentric, but always benign, AI Minds, Banks knew what he was doing; this is the only way a liberal anarchy could be achieved, by taking what is best in humans and placing it beyond corruption, which means out of human control." --- Chris Brown, Journal of International Studies, 2001

Indeed, Banks does know what he is doing, and apparently knows human nature pretty well, too. But until we can place "what is best in humans" outside of any chance of corruption, well...you'll have to forgive me if I don't get too excited by the more fringey forms of anarcho-capitalism.