Morality and Rights

Although I am not a citizen of this country, living here for almost thirteen years has given me some perspective on it. Sometimes I am amazed that it has functioned for the past two hundred and thirty eight years. Recently though, at times, I don't think it has functioned at all. Minorities of Neoconservatives have loudly tried to take control of the national agenda under the guise of Conservatism and of Christianity. In reality they are neither! The overriding aim of these groups is not one that the founders of this country had in mind. Rather than a land of freedom they are trying to recreate this land under a narrow ideology of their own making. This is a most dangerous path to follow. I am a person of faith but I cannot agree with the path taken by these movements or groups, usually under the guise of the Church. Historically any time the Church has gotten involved in politics the resulting consequences have not been good. Freedoms for the people have always been curtailed not increased. If people want to see the changes in society that increase freedoms for all they need to really look at the life and example of the man they claim to be followers of, Jesus of Nazareth. No where in scripture was Jesus involved with politics. No where did he attempt to lobby government. Nowhere did he call for political revolution. The only revolution he offered was an individual one, a revolution within the human heart. He never asked his followers to be involved in politics on a corporate level. He only told them to give unto Caesar what is Caesar's. In other words, pay the taxes they are requested of them and obey the laws of the land that do not violate the laws of God. From the standpoint of science , philosophy, art and literature the Greek and Roman ages were periods of enlightenment and progress. Once Rome fell the Church came in to fill the central power vacuum and the results were a dark age where only those in the Church and their loyal nobles were allowed to have higher education and knowledge. I see this elitism creeping its way into this recent conservative movement, trying to limit what children can and cannot be taught in schools. It can also be seen in their attempts to guide the government agenda down a very narrow path back to a very dark past. In this case the danger is not the Church taking over so much as it is the corporations using the Church as cover. Those who think that they are being "good Christians" by following these so called conservative groups have been duped because they do not understand their faith at its core. In his time Jesus was a radical liberal. He did not preach against the government or against individuals. His revolution was one of the human heart and not the government. He did not call upon his followers to protest on mass against anything. He only asked that they allow the Holy Spirit be allowed to changes their hearts and to make the examples of their individual lives to bring change to others around them. To legislate these changes and bring about some kind of "Christian Nation" is not what the Gospel is or what ever was about. Laws are needed to govern societies and to provide structure. Laws can be and are often constructed on a moral basis but those laws cannot create a morality for the individual. What is moral for the true Christian must come from within and cannot be legislated or forced upon another individual or society. To do so is a violation of the individual freedoms that these "conservatives" claim to uphold. Any denial of "rights" to one individual or group undermines the rights of all. Health care should be a right for all mankind. There is no scriptural basis to deny this. The scriptures do not even speak to the political rights that this country supports. Is the pursuit of happiness mentioned in the Declaration of Independence a right? I could make the case that it is a basic human right although it is not codified in this country's bill of rights. How can one be happy if the right to be healthy is denied? All forms of healthcare should be permitted. We can legislate behavior but not morality. If someone wants or needs birth control it should be available to them. Those who have a moral objection to it don't have to use it but their moral objection must not be forced upon others who do not share that conviction. Besides, chemical birth control serves medical purposes other than just preventing pregnancies. Any OBGYN will tell you that D&C procedures also serve purposes other than abortions. Should a medical procedure as a whole be banned for one reason only or not covered by health insurance for the same reason if it can be used to serve other valid medical purposes? As I said before, moral convictions must come from the heart not the law. For those who call themselves "Christian", your calling is to change the hearts of man form the inside. You cannot accomplish this through the useless attempt to legislate it. You must learn to differentiate your man given rights from those that are God given. The right to bear arms is not given by God and I wish those in the Church would drop that false claim. I find the entire "God and Guns" mind set to be highly offensive. The right to have your life and person respected is the only real right. All other so called "rights" come from this. To deny any person any right which reduces or diminishes the respect they are due as a Human being is to deny all their attributed rights. It's all or nothing, either all of humanity has the same rights to be happy, or miserable as the case may be, or they have none. Whether you agree with a person or not on individual issues or not, if you do not give the respect that they deserve as right then you do not deserve that respect in return.

Single Payer Health Care

When it comes to choices in healthcare in this country, why should we have to make a choice about what we pay to have covered and what we don’t? Why can’t a proper single payer system cover all necessary costs? Why are people forced to pick and choose their health benefits like they are optioning out a car? Why should a better quality of treatment and therefore one’s resulting quality of health be lessened or improved solely due their financial status? Why should billions be spent on advertising year round when open enrollment is for a brief time once a year? Why do insurance companies have different claim forms and codes when a universal system would save billions each year?

I can see certain luxuries such as private rooms costing extra but are they really necessary? No! Do they have anything to do with the quality of care a person receives? No!

Personal options such as these can and should be left to the supplementary private insurance market as should all the extra luxuries not critical to the needs of quality health care.

Current Republican proposals for any type over voucher system for medicare fail to address the differing needs of medicare users. In my experience, most people do not understand the details of their health insurance now. How are they expected to be able to make an informed decision about what to purchase if they can’t understand the intricacies of the system they have now? Can we really trust a bunch of agents trying to make commissions to really explain all the options to millions of new customers and do what is truly best for the consumers? After working in that industry several years ago, I would say no. While most agents may be honest, the few who are not could bring the whole system down. Face it, insurance agents are trusted about as much as used car salesmen.

A true single payer system is called socialist by many but it really is not. If Doctors and Hospital staff become state employees it is but if they remain in private practice and the Hospitals are run privately it cannot be socialist. All who work should pay and all employers should pay the same amount per employee. No exemptions for small businesses can be allowed. For all to receive, all have to contribute and should contribute equally if able to do so.

What would it do for the competitiveness of business if healthcare cost were effectively taken out of the equation because the cost per employee was a fixed and know quantity? The result would be an even playing field for all. Small business could more easily compete with large and grow. Is that not what fair enterprise is about? Doesn’t a truly level playing field result in more competition, not less? Would this not fuel growth? And would not healthier workers be more productive also leading to better business competition?

I keep hearing people complaining that they don’t want to pay for someone else’s healthcare. Guess what? They are anyway. If you pay and never get sick and file a claim but your neighbor does, guess what? You’re paying for him! It’s called shared risk. It is the principal behind all insurance. If you pay car insurance for your whole life and never make a claim you don’t get your money back. The money pays others who do make a claim. Health insurance is no different. You pay and hope you don’t need it for any major health issues because what the insurance company has to pay out will by far exceed anything you have ever paid in.

If everyone pays equally then the risk is shared equally. Why should you pay more because of some possible risk factor and never have an issue related to that factor? Human lives are not property. They cannot and must not have a dollar value assigned to the as is done in the current private market system. Human life should never be valued in this manner.

A government which proclaims that all men are created equal should never allow the type of devaluing of human life that the present system promotes.

Conservatives say that everyone should look after themselves and work to meet their own needs. If that is the case why do we even have governments? Any government which is truly for the people, by the people, and of the people is by necessity a definition of people looking after themselves and looking after their neighbor. To provide proper single payer healthcare, this principle must be understood. The government cannot be viewed as something apart from each of us. It must be considered to be inclusive of us, a part of us, and we a part of it. Good health and therefore healthcare should be a right that we guarantee to ourselves through our government in order to allow all of us to realize the founding fathers’ dream of the “pursuit of happiness”.

More Hypocrisy?

Republicans are supposedly all for small government, states rights and free enterprise yet one republican senator seems to be asking for the opposite. He wants more federal control over the smart grid and a slowing down of its implementation by private sector energy companies. I don't get it! Read this article and let me know what you think.
http://www.intelligentutility.com/article/11/05/us-senator-richard-burr-slow-down-smart-grid-technology-deployment?utm_source=2011_05_10&utm_medium=eNL&utm_campaign=IU_DAILY&utm_term=Original-Member

Xenophobia

Xenophobia is defined as the "hatred or fear of foreigners or strangers or of their politics or culture". (Wikipedia)

“Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself”(Franklin D. Roosevelt 1932)

Why is it that the conservatives of this country seem to become more xenophobic by the day? They seem to have a constant yearning for the America of their youth? What exactly does that mean? Do they wish to return to the days of McCarthyism and its paranoid searches for a communist under every rock? Do they want a return to segregation and its terrible human rights violations? Why do they preach fear of immigrants, different economics philosophies and different cultures and religions? Are they so insecure in their own beliefs that the feel that they must impose those beliefs upon everyone else through legislation? They speak of individual rights but seek to deny those rights to those who do not believe as they do. They preach freedom yet they are trying to repress those freedoms at an alarming rate.

Many states are seeking to remove the collective bargaining rights of public workers. They also seek to weaken or eliminate many long held labor laws and want to overturn years of progress in environmental legislation and policy simply in order to help their corporate campaign donors increase their already grossly inflated profits and executive salaries.

I have no problem with someone accumulating wealth. What I do have is a problem with the questionable practices by which many have made their fortunes. When a hedge fund manager makes billions of dollars per year I have to ask several questions. Does a person really need to make more money than they can ever spend in a lifetime? How much more could the investors have made if the CEO’s salary was more reasonable? How much more could this abundance of cash accomplish if it remained in the economy instead of a bank account? Granted, there a few of these very wealthy who give back to society in amazing ways but I fear that they are in the minority.

With freedom comes great responsibility! The greatest of those responsibilities is to care for those less fortunate. Conservative philosophy says that individuals and not government should provide for the poor and the ill. In an ideal world this would be wonderful but this is far from an ideal world. Given that this is true, only the resources of the people as a whole, through their government, can provide properly for the needs of those in real need. Yes this is a “socialist” concept but in light of the imperfections and flaws of our capitalist and increasingly corporatist system, some forms of social welfare are needed and must be embraced.

The only way progress into the future is to embrace our fears and conquer them. FDR had it right. So many seem to be captive to their fear of change and that they will never allow the progress to come into their own lives let alone their country.

Remember, if you are not progressing, you are regressing. You have nothing to fear.

What Industrial Policy?

There is an expression that I have heard repeated ad infinitum in the business community that says if you do not set a goal you are bound to hit it. If this concept is so central to business success why is it that the government is so reluctant to establish environmental, energy and industrial policies with measurable goals to provide guidance and direction to private industry?

If the lead is left solely to the private sector will the outcome not be a fractured hodgepodge of differing and maybe incompatible standards and philosophies with no clear goals? How do we measure success without goals to guide us?

In the 1960’s President Kennedy set a goal for the nation of sending a man to the moon and returning him safely to earth by the end of that decade. That one goal set in motion a chain of events in technological development that has not been seen since. Without that goal we might not have the computer technology that enables me to write this piece today. Think about it, my little netbook has more computing power and memory than the Apollo spacecraft that went to the moon and back.

Other countries such as India, China, the European Union and to some extent Canada, have policies regarding energy production, transportation and manufacturing that are giving them the lead in environmental goals and projects.

We need national and international projects that push technology to that extent. We need goals and time targets for clean energy development and implementation. We need to set goals for sustainable manufacturing that minimizes effects to our industrial supply chain from natural disasters such as Japan’s recent earthquake. Public transport in urban areas must be better developed to cut pollution and travel costs for citizens.

Politicians in this country usually want private industry to take the lead in these areas but that philosophy has one glaring fault that never seems to be mentioned in public. Private interests will not invest on a large scale if there is not reasonable profit to be made within a date certain period of time. American business interests seldom seem to look much beyond the next year if not the next quarter and governments fail to look past the next election cycle. Both industry and government must coordinate on long term goals that will not be derailed by the fickle winds of party politics. Only long term stable policies can provide the solutions that this country needs to become the true world leader in the technologies of the future.

Governments must provide the policy goals and environments to guide private industry into a better future for all and to establish and maintain world leadership in these endeavors. The private sector lacks the inherent focus and coordination to provide the necessary vision and leadership to establish and meet the greater goals that our country and our world needs.

Thoughts on Clean Energy

The future of energy will have to become “greener” as will the rest of the world’s economy. However, this will not happen overnight. Many people want to see an immediate end to traditional sources of power generation such as coal and many other fossil fuels but that is not a reasonable position to take. Others want “green” energy ideas to slow down or go away. This position is not tenable either.

The coal industry sings the praises of “clean coal” and decries the idea of cap and trade to limit harmful emissions. First, clean coal, as a technology, is still on the drawing board and no plants have been built yet. Second, they maintain that cap and trade will kill jobs in their industry. This too is speculation as they ignore the fact that many new jobs will be created by the new technologies that cap and trade will require to be developed. Clean coal technology may create a few jobs in time but with no time table for implementation of these technologies who knows when these jobs would ever come into being. Cap and trade would impose timetables that the industry does not want. They would rather play with clean coal as a marketing term than be forced to develop and install it for the good of the environment.

Natural gas is a good alternative, although more expensive alternative to coal, however its methods of extraction are environmentally questionable. A new report released today also questions its "clean" status as far as green house gas emissions are concerned. Many countries are converting coal generation to natural gas. Time will tell if it's really cleaner than other carbon based fuels or not.

Nuclear power also has its challenges. Although it emits no greenhouse gases, its waste presents a problem for disposal. American reactors all or nearly all use refined or concentrated uranium as a primary fuel source. Fission of this fuel source results in highly radioactive waste. On the other hand, Canadian reactors use unrefined or raw uranium which produces a much less dangerous waste product. They also can burn the spent fuel that US and other reactors can no longer use. Perhaps we should contract with Canada to dispose of our spent fuels in their reactors? That could help the U.S. with a portion of its waste problem and provide Canada with a possibly cheaper source of nuclear fuel.

Wind and Solar are supplements but neither is reliable in and of itself for base load generation needs. Solar works find if each home has battery storage but it is not practical for grid applications. Wind may work at night when solar won't but it doesn't function in high winds or no wind. If wind and solar electrical generation does have one major advantage it would be found in the security of what is called distributed generation. A city full of small wind turbines and solar PV panels will always produce some power whereas the failure of one large base load generating station presents problems on a huge scale. An attack could take out a power station but not a city full of small solar and wind generators.

How much biological waste does this country produce? How much power could be generated by burning this waste instead of coal? Biofuels will be an answer for the future but they are still in their relative infancy. Corn does not produce enough sugar to make corn ethanol a good long term solution but naturally growing plants such as switchgrass have a high sugar content while needing very little artificial fertilizer like corn does. Being cheaper to grow, higher sugar content and not part of the food crop market like corn makes this a real alternative for ethanol production that is also just beginning to be exploited.

The real problem with developing these alternate and greener sources of energy is that the large energy companies seem resistant to change from what they know. Energy producers are more interested in the short term profits of the next quarter than they are with their long term success and the success of the planet.

American Exceptionalism

There is a concept within American culture known as exceptionalism. It is a belief that, as a country, the United States has a unique and “ordained” role and place in the world order. If this is true or not I neither know nor care. What I do see is that this philosophy breeds an arrogance that is both unearned and repulsive to other cultures in the world.

This arrogance leads to huge problems in international relations. One of those issues is present in today’s situation in Libya. U.S. politicians do not want any U.S. troops under the command of any other “foreign” military command. In a coalition such as NATO this is an extremely arrogant position to take considering that they want the sovereign forces of other countries to be subject to American command.

This my way or the highway attitude seems to pervade American culture to the core. It’s as if no ideas or products that originate outside of the country are considered to be of any value. Are American cars really better than those from outside of the country? Definitely not! Are American nuclear reactor designs superior to those of other countries? No! Is the American standard of living or quality of life the best in the world? Not even close.

This country needs a reality check.

There is a bumper sticker that says “Are you out of a job yet? Keep buying foreign.” I agree that too much manufacturing has been moved off shore and weakened the American economy but I challenge anyone who reads this to go to your local car dealers and read the content origin labels on the new cars. The so called American brands have less domestic content than many of the “imports.” One of Ford’s best selling models, the Fusion, is built in Mexico and has far less domestic (U.S. or Canadian) content than does the Honda Accord, Civic and many of the Toyotas manufactured and sold in this country.

The reality of the auto origin concept is really one of the cars being union made or not. Even that argument is not completely true. Many of the cars of the “foreign” manufacturer Mazda are union made in the Auto Union plant in Flat Rock, Michigan. If the “American” cars were truly domestic they would not but subject to the current supply chain problems due to the Japanese earthquake and Tsunami.

This is now a global world and there is no place in it for the concept of American exceptionalism. As the largest economy in the world and the strongest military power the United States must use its position in the world with humility and not arrogance. Leadership and ideas from the rest of the world must not be so quickly dismissed by the U.S. The Government and culture of this country must be more willing to listen to and accept the leadership of other governments and peoples to truly become a great power and the “greatest” country in the world.