In a couple of hours, barring the House GOP coming into unexpected good sense--I'm not holding my breath--the federal government's authorization to spend money will end, and most of the government's activities will cease. Certain critical functions will carry on, but the people who carry them out will not be paid (for a little while, anyway). Soldiers on duty, TSA agents, the FBI, etc.--those folks will still be working, but most government employees won't be. I'm told the federal courts will stay open--and it's a good thing; I have a hearing on Friday in Arizona and will be mighty unhappy if my trip there is wasted--and the mail will continue to get delivered, because those functions don't rely entirely on Congressional appropriations to function.
How did we get here?
In order for the government to spend money, Congress has to pass a law appropriating the money from the Treasury to some other purpose. No appropriations means no operations. Ordinarily, even though they have policy disagreements that keep them at
each other's throats, the Democrats and the Republicans both generally
agree that the government has to continue to operate at some level. If they don't pass an appropriations bill, the government can't spend, and it must therefore shut down.
This time, as the last appropriations bill winds down--they're always time-limited--the House GOP has decided that they want to use their ability to refuse to agree to keep the government open to extract concessions from the Democrats, who control the Senate and the White House. (All three must agree for a valid appropriations bill to become law, as a practical matter.)
This time, the hostage is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, often referred to as the ACA, but popularly known as "Obamacare." Starting tomorrow, state-run insurance exchanges can begin selling health insurance policies as part of the ramp-up to January 1, 2014, when all Americans will be required to carry health insurance or pay a penalty. The GOP is scared to death for that to happen. They are pretending that it's because Obamacare is a horrible, horrible program that will bankrupt us all, destroy our freedom, expose us to "death panels," and probably kill kittens and puppies.
In fact, that's pretty much the opposite of the truth, and when they claim they are protecting you, John Q. Public, from the evils of the Muslim socialist fascist communist bla---er, dictator, they are lying.
Right now, because they have been lying to you about what Obamacare actually does and what it will mean, a lot of people think they won't like it. Of course, when people are asked about the individual features--like kids being able to stay on their parents' insurance policies until they turn 26, or the end of pre-existing conditions as a means of excluding people from the insurance marketplace, or the end of lifetime caps, or the ability to buy health insurance in a competitive marketplace with minimum coverages, or no co-pays for birth control, and a whole bunch of other stuff--it turns out that Obamacare is pretty popular. As long as you don't call it Obamacare.
It's not a perfect program. In fact, it's a pretty disappointing compromise. I would have much preferred a more aggressive reform that included, at least, a "public option," where people could buy into Medicare if they wanted.
But the GOP is scared to death that Obamacare will get implemented, and that people will like it. Because all indications are that people are going to like the new options that the ACA opens up.
Now, let's not forget that Obamacare is the law of the land. It was duly passed by Congress and signed by the President several years ago. We've been waiting patiently for these reforms to take effect, and a lot of people are counting on these reforms to take place.
Rather than accept defeat, the House GOP caucus is acting like a bunch of petulant children.
Think about it: Rather than allowing all the good things that are going to happen when Obamacare takes full effect to take place as scheduled, they want to delay, to defund, and if they can't get that, they're just going to shut down the government until they get their way.
They are harming you and me, and they're doing it because they're scared that President Obama's signature program will succeed.
Is there any part of that cynical, terrible display that isn't absolutely disgusting?
But that's today's GOP.
Monday, September 30, 2013
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Affordable
I have, at various times, employed people other than myself. Because we have a stupidly inefficient way of paying for health care in this country--principally as an employee benefit--and because it has been virtually impossible for anyone other than young, healthy people to buy decent health insurance on the open market, I have always felt obligated to provide health insurance to my employees, although it was not always possible to do so.
In later years, we had a very generous health insurance plan (still do, in fact) that had low co-payments and a low deductible and paid 100% in-network after the deductible was met. It was expensive, but because we were eligible to be members of a health benefit trust set up by the bar association, it was less money than it might have been.
But I always thought it was stupid to tie health insurance to your job. That fact of American life makes indentured servants out of people who can't afford to give up their health coverage by quitting their jobs.
This has been in the news lately because the dawn of ObamaCare is on us. Starting October 1, you will begin to be able to shop for health insurance through public exchanges for coverage that begins at the beginning of next year. A couple of days ago, the Arkansas exchange released rate tables. We don't know precisely what these plans will cover yet--they will all provide 10 types of core coverage, but the details haven't been released yet. The rates depend on age and tobacco status alone. Applicants cannot be turned down for pre-existing conditions.
Currently, I write (or, rather, the business writes) a check for a bit more than $1,000 a month for coverage for Michelle and me. According to the rate tables I reviewed, the most expensive plan available on the exchange for our age bracket would save us about $250 a month. What I don't know is how that plan compares to what we currently buy, but that's before any subsidy that we might be eligible for (and some 85% of participants will be eligible for some subsidy). If the coverage isn't as good as what we have currently, we can keep what we have.
When the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2009, I was skeptical that it would do much good. I have long been an advocate for the "public option"--in fact, I was writing about it before anyone on the national scene was doing so--because I recognize that we're probably not quite ready for single-payer (a system like most of the rest of the world has). In the public option, the government would enter the insurance business as a private market participant. You could still buy private insurance if you like, but if you chose, you could buy a guaranteed-acceptance plan from the government that looks like Medicare. In fact, you could call it "Medicare Part E"--E for "everyone's eligible"--and administer it all through the same office. To me, this would give us the freedom of a market while allowing a very efficient provider who has no profit motive to service the market.
Such a system would be superior, I think, to the ACA, and it would eventually lead to a de facto single-payer system.
But that doesn't mean I don't like the ACA. In fact, a lot of the reforms the ACA has implemented have come at a tremendously beneficial time. From my perspective, guaranteed acceptance and the expense ratio rules are true game-changers. Insurance companies now must spend 80% of their collected premiums on actual care; before that rule, some insurance companies spent as little as 50% of the collected premiums on care. The lack of a minimum care-spend gave insurance companies a financial incentive to deny as many claims as possible. And the elimination of pre-existing conditions as a basis for denying coverage will make true mobility in the marketplace possible.
It's become clear that the ACA's reforms are going to have a huge impact. For that reason, the right wing is in a full-on panic. One of the Koch brothers' front groups has been desperately running cynical ads on college campuses, urging young people not to sign up for coverage (because it will allow GOVERNMENT into the health care equation). One ad shows a guy in a creepy Uncle Sam costume--think the King from the old Burger King ads--speculum in hand, about to do a pelvic exam on a twenty-something woman. Another shows the same character pulling on a glove from the "ObamaCare prostate exam."
I'm surprised that even the Koch brothers think kids are that stupid. The government's involvement in health care as a result of the ACA is mostly about (a) subsidizing private insurance premiums, (b) requiring that everyone has health insurance, and (c) subjecting private health insurers to rules that make coverage more available. It's true that more people will be eligible for Medicaid, of course. But Uncle Sam will not be doing anyone's pelvic exam, and the government certainly won't be making any decisions about them other than to make sure that they're available.
The Kochs, and Republicans generally, are desperate to make ObamaCare fail, because they know that if it succeeds, they're done. So their strategy has to involve keeping young, healthy people out of the insurance pool, in order to make insurance more expensive all around. That is, unless they can somehow repeal the ACA.
Even more cynically, the Republicans are trying either to shut down the government by not passing appropriations bills to keep the government running after October 1, or to make the U.S. default on its debt by refusing to raise the debt limit when it's reached sometime after that. The ransom they're demanding? Repeal ObamaCare--something the GOP-led House of Representatives has voted to do more than 40 times since it was passed--or, at least, defund it so that it cannot take effect.
They can't pass a jobs bill, or a farm bill, but they can certainly vote to stop abortion and repeal ObamaCare.
By the way, let's don't forget that if you tabulated all of the votes cast in Congressional elections in 2012, citizens pulled the Democratic lever more than 1 million times more than they pulled the Republican lever. Yet, because of aggressive gerrymandering designed to rob Democratic candidates of votes and the public of a meaningful voice in who represents them, the Republicans hold a slim majority in the House.
It will be interesting to see what happens next. Part of me is hoping that the GOP does jump off the cliff this time. Maybe then we can dispense with their nonsense and get down to fixing the actual problems we face.
In later years, we had a very generous health insurance plan (still do, in fact) that had low co-payments and a low deductible and paid 100% in-network after the deductible was met. It was expensive, but because we were eligible to be members of a health benefit trust set up by the bar association, it was less money than it might have been.
But I always thought it was stupid to tie health insurance to your job. That fact of American life makes indentured servants out of people who can't afford to give up their health coverage by quitting their jobs.
This has been in the news lately because the dawn of ObamaCare is on us. Starting October 1, you will begin to be able to shop for health insurance through public exchanges for coverage that begins at the beginning of next year. A couple of days ago, the Arkansas exchange released rate tables. We don't know precisely what these plans will cover yet--they will all provide 10 types of core coverage, but the details haven't been released yet. The rates depend on age and tobacco status alone. Applicants cannot be turned down for pre-existing conditions.
Currently, I write (or, rather, the business writes) a check for a bit more than $1,000 a month for coverage for Michelle and me. According to the rate tables I reviewed, the most expensive plan available on the exchange for our age bracket would save us about $250 a month. What I don't know is how that plan compares to what we currently buy, but that's before any subsidy that we might be eligible for (and some 85% of participants will be eligible for some subsidy). If the coverage isn't as good as what we have currently, we can keep what we have.
When the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2009, I was skeptical that it would do much good. I have long been an advocate for the "public option"--in fact, I was writing about it before anyone on the national scene was doing so--because I recognize that we're probably not quite ready for single-payer (a system like most of the rest of the world has). In the public option, the government would enter the insurance business as a private market participant. You could still buy private insurance if you like, but if you chose, you could buy a guaranteed-acceptance plan from the government that looks like Medicare. In fact, you could call it "Medicare Part E"--E for "everyone's eligible"--and administer it all through the same office. To me, this would give us the freedom of a market while allowing a very efficient provider who has no profit motive to service the market.
Such a system would be superior, I think, to the ACA, and it would eventually lead to a de facto single-payer system.
But that doesn't mean I don't like the ACA. In fact, a lot of the reforms the ACA has implemented have come at a tremendously beneficial time. From my perspective, guaranteed acceptance and the expense ratio rules are true game-changers. Insurance companies now must spend 80% of their collected premiums on actual care; before that rule, some insurance companies spent as little as 50% of the collected premiums on care. The lack of a minimum care-spend gave insurance companies a financial incentive to deny as many claims as possible. And the elimination of pre-existing conditions as a basis for denying coverage will make true mobility in the marketplace possible.
It's become clear that the ACA's reforms are going to have a huge impact. For that reason, the right wing is in a full-on panic. One of the Koch brothers' front groups has been desperately running cynical ads on college campuses, urging young people not to sign up for coverage (because it will allow GOVERNMENT into the health care equation). One ad shows a guy in a creepy Uncle Sam costume--think the King from the old Burger King ads--speculum in hand, about to do a pelvic exam on a twenty-something woman. Another shows the same character pulling on a glove from the "ObamaCare prostate exam."
I'm surprised that even the Koch brothers think kids are that stupid. The government's involvement in health care as a result of the ACA is mostly about (a) subsidizing private insurance premiums, (b) requiring that everyone has health insurance, and (c) subjecting private health insurers to rules that make coverage more available. It's true that more people will be eligible for Medicaid, of course. But Uncle Sam will not be doing anyone's pelvic exam, and the government certainly won't be making any decisions about them other than to make sure that they're available.
The Kochs, and Republicans generally, are desperate to make ObamaCare fail, because they know that if it succeeds, they're done. So their strategy has to involve keeping young, healthy people out of the insurance pool, in order to make insurance more expensive all around. That is, unless they can somehow repeal the ACA.
Even more cynically, the Republicans are trying either to shut down the government by not passing appropriations bills to keep the government running after October 1, or to make the U.S. default on its debt by refusing to raise the debt limit when it's reached sometime after that. The ransom they're demanding? Repeal ObamaCare--something the GOP-led House of Representatives has voted to do more than 40 times since it was passed--or, at least, defund it so that it cannot take effect.
They can't pass a jobs bill, or a farm bill, but they can certainly vote to stop abortion and repeal ObamaCare.
By the way, let's don't forget that if you tabulated all of the votes cast in Congressional elections in 2012, citizens pulled the Democratic lever more than 1 million times more than they pulled the Republican lever. Yet, because of aggressive gerrymandering designed to rob Democratic candidates of votes and the public of a meaningful voice in who represents them, the Republicans hold a slim majority in the House.
It will be interesting to see what happens next. Part of me is hoping that the GOP does jump off the cliff this time. Maybe then we can dispense with their nonsense and get down to fixing the actual problems we face.
Monday, September 23, 2013
To Have and Have Not
I have found that there are few topics that ruffle feathers more than the subject of the Haves and the Have-Nots. The Have-Nots feel constantly put-upon by the Haves. The Haves bristle at criticism from the Have-Nots. "If you were a Have," the Haves say, "you wouldn't be so cavalier about things."
I am, of course, talking about those people who have children, and those who don't.
The universal opinion of people who have children is that people who don't should keep their mouths shut when those children misbehave..
It's true. Michelle and I don't have kids. For various reasons, it just hasn't been in the cards. (For those who care, we're going to go the adoption route, hopefully sooner rather than later. And it will probably be older kids.)
Unsurprisingly, to people who have kids, that makes us unqualified to comment on others' parenting methods. I don't agree, but I do understand the rationale. Never judge a parent until you've walked a mile in their shoes, or at least stepped barefoot on one of their child's Legos.
Hey, I get it. Child-rearing is hard work, especially for parents who have mentally or physically taxing day jobs, who have children who need constant stimulation by electronic media, and who limit themselves to non-lethal punishments. If I am to tell the truth, I can barely get myself through shopping at Walmart without suffering a panic attack or the threat of divorce. I couldn't do it with a three-year-old who apparently runs on Cheerios, fruit sugars, and a fusion reactor.* At least not without stopping by the pharmacy for a child's dose of Unisom.
* - If only we could tap into the energy of 3-year-olds to run the planet. We could solve the oil crisis.
I like kids. I really do. I have been privileged to have friends and family members who have calm babies, bright toddlers, and interesting, well-adjusted children, and I like spending time with them.
But I try never to forget that at the end of the day, they usually go home. So even if I have a taste of the toddler experience, I'm not eating it for every meal.
Nobody likes having to be around a toddler in full meltdown mode, least of all that toddler's parents. You have my sympathy, Mom and Dad. From what I've seen, parents fall into one of three categories when their toddler is doing this:
(1) The parents who will do anything, anything, if you will just please, please, stop behaving this way in public. You want Goldfish crackers? Sure. You want a Mountain Dew? Please take a swig. Just please, please, stop this. These parents are hoping to just get through this so they can get home, where there is TV and wine.
(2) The parents who threaten a series of escalating punishments, hoping to reason with someone whose brain has about the same level of sophistication as that of an adult howler monkey. These parents are to be commended, because you should never negotiate with terrorists. Of course, not negotiating with terrorists means that sometimes stuff gets blown up.
(3) The parents who have simply become numb. They don't hear the tantrum. They just keep trudging through, shrugging off the increasingly potent glares from their fellow shoppers.
Category 3 reminds me of a man, Mr. Barnes, who was a neighbor of ours when I was a kid. He was partially deaf, and he wore an old-style hearing aid, the kind that you put in your shirt pocket, with a wire leading up to the ear. Younger readers will probably never have seen such a thing, but I assure you, they did exist.
This man's hearing aid apparently hummed, because he ended every sentence with a verbal tic: He would hum to match the frequency of the hearing aid's hum. So a conversation with him would go like this: "Nice weather we're having, huh? HmmmmmmmMMMMMMM." "Sure is, Mr. Barnes." "They say it's going to rain Thursday, though. HmmmmmmmmMMMMMMM."
He must have heard that hum constantly. And it must have been nerve-wracking, so much that he had to imitate it just to get the noise to quit for just a second. Eventually it got to the point where he couldn't hear himself doing it.
And so I think it must be for the parents of toddlers. There are just so many instances of antisocial conduct by toddlers that they simply have to tune most of it out for their own sanity; otherwise, they would be constantly reprimanding their howler monkeys simply for doing what howler monkeys do.
I'd like to say that the Category 3 parents are the most frustrating. But the reality is that there is no solution to this problem. Toddlers are going to melt down no matter how good their parents are at parenting, no matter what their parents do to stop them. Bribery, punishment, ignorance--all are the same, and all are equally ineffective. They are going to run around stores, knocking over things, falling down and bloodying a lip, making everything...sticky, and screaming and crying and yelling "Why?" like Kirstie Alley being stood up for a date. That is what they do. We should be grateful that they don't do worse things.
A few years ago, the brilliant David Foster Wallace gave a graduation speech at Kenyon College, which he later turned into an essay, that was essentially about choosing to live as an adult by making small choices that cost nothing but that vastly improve your outlook on the world. An excerpt of that speech, "This Is Water," was made into a short film that illustrated the concepts Wallace was talking about. Stupidly, the filmmakers failed to get the necessary copyright permissions to ensure it could stay published. Here is a link that works as of this publication, but I'm sure it will be taken down at some point. If you can find it, it's worth watching.
(It's a shame that Wallace decided one day that he'd said and done enough for the world and ended it all.)
Non-parents, it's time to stop expecting better. This is the world in which we live. You can choose to accept it and make the best of it by cutting people some slack. Or you can choose to reject it and avoid places where toddlers congregate by doing all of your shopping online (or at Sam's; I rarely see misbehaving toddlers in Sam's Club for some reason--maybe it's the giant quantities that keep them engaged) and avoiding McDonald's and casual-dining restaurants. Or when you see a toddler in full meltdown mode and you can't do anything to help (and who can, really?), instead of expecting the parent to remove the toddler from your presence, just remove yourself.
You can't force it to change. There will always be toddlers, and until they develop a reliable robot babysitter, parents are going to continue to bring their little terrorists to public places.
But don't worry. These kids will eventually grow up to be sullen teenagers. And at least then their parents can leave them at home.
EDITED to remove an overenthusiastic number of carriage returns and a bit of word salad in the fifth-from-last paragraph.
I am, of course, talking about those people who have children, and those who don't.
The universal opinion of people who have children is that people who don't should keep their mouths shut when those children misbehave..
It's true. Michelle and I don't have kids. For various reasons, it just hasn't been in the cards. (For those who care, we're going to go the adoption route, hopefully sooner rather than later. And it will probably be older kids.)
Unsurprisingly, to people who have kids, that makes us unqualified to comment on others' parenting methods. I don't agree, but I do understand the rationale. Never judge a parent until you've walked a mile in their shoes, or at least stepped barefoot on one of their child's Legos.
Hey, I get it. Child-rearing is hard work, especially for parents who have mentally or physically taxing day jobs, who have children who need constant stimulation by electronic media, and who limit themselves to non-lethal punishments. If I am to tell the truth, I can barely get myself through shopping at Walmart without suffering a panic attack or the threat of divorce. I couldn't do it with a three-year-old who apparently runs on Cheerios, fruit sugars, and a fusion reactor.* At least not without stopping by the pharmacy for a child's dose of Unisom.
* - If only we could tap into the energy of 3-year-olds to run the planet. We could solve the oil crisis.
I like kids. I really do. I have been privileged to have friends and family members who have calm babies, bright toddlers, and interesting, well-adjusted children, and I like spending time with them.
But I try never to forget that at the end of the day, they usually go home. So even if I have a taste of the toddler experience, I'm not eating it for every meal.
Nobody likes having to be around a toddler in full meltdown mode, least of all that toddler's parents. You have my sympathy, Mom and Dad. From what I've seen, parents fall into one of three categories when their toddler is doing this:
(1) The parents who will do anything, anything, if you will just please, please, stop behaving this way in public. You want Goldfish crackers? Sure. You want a Mountain Dew? Please take a swig. Just please, please, stop this. These parents are hoping to just get through this so they can get home, where there is TV and wine.
(2) The parents who threaten a series of escalating punishments, hoping to reason with someone whose brain has about the same level of sophistication as that of an adult howler monkey. These parents are to be commended, because you should never negotiate with terrorists. Of course, not negotiating with terrorists means that sometimes stuff gets blown up.
(3) The parents who have simply become numb. They don't hear the tantrum. They just keep trudging through, shrugging off the increasingly potent glares from their fellow shoppers.
Category 3 reminds me of a man, Mr. Barnes, who was a neighbor of ours when I was a kid. He was partially deaf, and he wore an old-style hearing aid, the kind that you put in your shirt pocket, with a wire leading up to the ear. Younger readers will probably never have seen such a thing, but I assure you, they did exist.
This man's hearing aid apparently hummed, because he ended every sentence with a verbal tic: He would hum to match the frequency of the hearing aid's hum. So a conversation with him would go like this: "Nice weather we're having, huh? HmmmmmmmMMMMMMM." "Sure is, Mr. Barnes." "They say it's going to rain Thursday, though. HmmmmmmmmMMMMMMM."
He must have heard that hum constantly. And it must have been nerve-wracking, so much that he had to imitate it just to get the noise to quit for just a second. Eventually it got to the point where he couldn't hear himself doing it.
And so I think it must be for the parents of toddlers. There are just so many instances of antisocial conduct by toddlers that they simply have to tune most of it out for their own sanity; otherwise, they would be constantly reprimanding their howler monkeys simply for doing what howler monkeys do.
I'd like to say that the Category 3 parents are the most frustrating. But the reality is that there is no solution to this problem. Toddlers are going to melt down no matter how good their parents are at parenting, no matter what their parents do to stop them. Bribery, punishment, ignorance--all are the same, and all are equally ineffective. They are going to run around stores, knocking over things, falling down and bloodying a lip, making everything...sticky, and screaming and crying and yelling "Why?" like Kirstie Alley being stood up for a date. That is what they do. We should be grateful that they don't do worse things.
A few years ago, the brilliant David Foster Wallace gave a graduation speech at Kenyon College, which he later turned into an essay, that was essentially about choosing to live as an adult by making small choices that cost nothing but that vastly improve your outlook on the world. An excerpt of that speech, "This Is Water," was made into a short film that illustrated the concepts Wallace was talking about. Stupidly, the filmmakers failed to get the necessary copyright permissions to ensure it could stay published. Here is a link that works as of this publication, but I'm sure it will be taken down at some point. If you can find it, it's worth watching.
(It's a shame that Wallace decided one day that he'd said and done enough for the world and ended it all.)
Non-parents, it's time to stop expecting better. This is the world in which we live. You can choose to accept it and make the best of it by cutting people some slack. Or you can choose to reject it and avoid places where toddlers congregate by doing all of your shopping online (or at Sam's; I rarely see misbehaving toddlers in Sam's Club for some reason--maybe it's the giant quantities that keep them engaged) and avoiding McDonald's and casual-dining restaurants. Or when you see a toddler in full meltdown mode and you can't do anything to help (and who can, really?), instead of expecting the parent to remove the toddler from your presence, just remove yourself.
You can't force it to change. There will always be toddlers, and until they develop a reliable robot babysitter, parents are going to continue to bring their little terrorists to public places.
But don't worry. These kids will eventually grow up to be sullen teenagers. And at least then their parents can leave them at home.
EDITED to remove an overenthusiastic number of carriage returns and a bit of word salad in the fifth-from-last paragraph.
Friday, September 20, 2013
Passing fancy
I travel a lot. When I'm driving, it's not unusual to encounter a construction zone where one lane is closed. When a lane is closing, otherwise skillful drivers begin to exhibit some bizarre behavior.
I'm talking about attempts to get into a slow, single-file line before the "choke point" of the lane closing--sometimes miles before.
This behavior is wrong, inefficient, and frustrating.
It's our Puritan heritage at work. I have, over the last few years, come to realize that much of the opposition to social progress in this country is rooted in the idea that NO ONE should get ANYTHING to which they are not entitled. That's kept us from getting a single-payer health care system (unlike the rest of the civilized world, much of which enjoys greater efficiency and substantially healthier outcomes overall). It's what causes some people consternation in the supermarket checkout line when someone pays with food stamps for something that's just a little bit too extravagant for someone who's getting help.
And it is extraordinarily frustrating to people who are "being good," sitting in a long single-file line of cars waiting for a lane to close, to see another car--usually a fancy low-slung sports car with a middle-aged driver--whizzing by to jump ahead in line. I've even seen some extremely anti-social behavior, like when two 18-wheeler trucks collude to block both lanes so that line-jumpers can't pass, or drivers who refuse to let the line-jumper in at the merge point.
Some states have even made line-jumping a citable offense.
This is madness. And here's why:
I offer you two propositions that I think you'll agree with in the abstract, plus one that you may have a little bit of trouble with. First, the flow of traffic through any given point is affected by the number of lanes that are available. An eight-lane (in one direction) superhighway in L.A. can carry more cars per unit of time than a single-lane (in one direction) country road. It's just a matter of physics.
Second, without changing lanes, you can only move as fast as the slowest car that's ahead of you in your lane.
These two propositions combine to tell us that the more lanes there are to choose from, the faster the cars can go, and the fewer lanes there are, the slower they can go.
Now, the third proposition: When the number of lanes is being reduced, the fastest way to get cars through the merge point is to have a car immediately ready to go through the merge point as soon as the preceding car is ready.
Think of it like marbles in a bottle with a neck that's a bit larger than the diameter of the marbles. The marbles obviously fit through the bottle neck (they got in somehow). When we turn the bottle over, the marbles will generally fall out one-by-one. Each time a marble clears the neck, the marble that is closest to the opening will fall out next.
But notice that the marbles spread out across the widest part of the bottle. They don't line up single-file. That's because marbles pack in more efficiently when they are not lined up.
Cars are sort of the same. Even when traffic is slow, or stopped, you're still keeping at least a few feet, maybe most of a car length, between you and the next car, just in case they stop suddenly. You need time to react to stop. Traffic studies have shown that people (thank goodness!) tend to leave more space than they actually need to leave.
The consequence of this is something interesting. Other traffic studies have shown that the most efficient way to move from two lanes to one is something called "alternate merge," or the "zipper method." Just like a zipper, which knits one prong from the left, one prong from the right, left, right, etc., the zipper method involves one car from the left moving forward, then one from the right, and so forth. This is efficient because it allows us to use the "extra" space that people leave. People intuitively feel more comfortable about this because traffic moves in a very predictable pattern.
It's also intrinsically and obviously and scrupulously fair: One for you, one for me, one for you...it's a method of divvying that everyone understands from a small age is fair.
The problem with the anti-line-jumping crowd is that when you force people too early into a single-file line, the efficiencies of the zipper method are impossible to realize because of the lack of predictability. For the zipper method to work most efficiently, it has to take place at the point where everyone knows exactly what's going to happen--and that only happens at the point where the "extra" lane is ending.
I suppose that it feels like the line-jumpers are cheating. And yes, I used to feel that way, too. But the line-jumpers are the smart ones. If we all waited until the merge point to merge, then no one would feel like someone else was getting an unfair advantage. Line-jumpers are only taking the advantages that the cars ahead of them have voluntarily given up by getting over too early.
Now, I would never advocate that you do something that's against the law--although, to be perfectly fair, I don't think I've ever seen anyone pulled over for line-jumping. But this is yet another example of one of those rules, whether it's an actual law or just some sense of collective morality, that just needs to change. If we can all get on the same, efficient page, we can save ourselves a lot of time and a lot of heartache.
I'm talking about attempts to get into a slow, single-file line before the "choke point" of the lane closing--sometimes miles before.
This behavior is wrong, inefficient, and frustrating.
It's our Puritan heritage at work. I have, over the last few years, come to realize that much of the opposition to social progress in this country is rooted in the idea that NO ONE should get ANYTHING to which they are not entitled. That's kept us from getting a single-payer health care system (unlike the rest of the civilized world, much of which enjoys greater efficiency and substantially healthier outcomes overall). It's what causes some people consternation in the supermarket checkout line when someone pays with food stamps for something that's just a little bit too extravagant for someone who's getting help.
And it is extraordinarily frustrating to people who are "being good," sitting in a long single-file line of cars waiting for a lane to close, to see another car--usually a fancy low-slung sports car with a middle-aged driver--whizzing by to jump ahead in line. I've even seen some extremely anti-social behavior, like when two 18-wheeler trucks collude to block both lanes so that line-jumpers can't pass, or drivers who refuse to let the line-jumper in at the merge point.
Some states have even made line-jumping a citable offense.
This is madness. And here's why:
I offer you two propositions that I think you'll agree with in the abstract, plus one that you may have a little bit of trouble with. First, the flow of traffic through any given point is affected by the number of lanes that are available. An eight-lane (in one direction) superhighway in L.A. can carry more cars per unit of time than a single-lane (in one direction) country road. It's just a matter of physics.
Second, without changing lanes, you can only move as fast as the slowest car that's ahead of you in your lane.
These two propositions combine to tell us that the more lanes there are to choose from, the faster the cars can go, and the fewer lanes there are, the slower they can go.
Now, the third proposition: When the number of lanes is being reduced, the fastest way to get cars through the merge point is to have a car immediately ready to go through the merge point as soon as the preceding car is ready.
Think of it like marbles in a bottle with a neck that's a bit larger than the diameter of the marbles. The marbles obviously fit through the bottle neck (they got in somehow). When we turn the bottle over, the marbles will generally fall out one-by-one. Each time a marble clears the neck, the marble that is closest to the opening will fall out next.
But notice that the marbles spread out across the widest part of the bottle. They don't line up single-file. That's because marbles pack in more efficiently when they are not lined up.
Cars are sort of the same. Even when traffic is slow, or stopped, you're still keeping at least a few feet, maybe most of a car length, between you and the next car, just in case they stop suddenly. You need time to react to stop. Traffic studies have shown that people (thank goodness!) tend to leave more space than they actually need to leave.
The consequence of this is something interesting. Other traffic studies have shown that the most efficient way to move from two lanes to one is something called "alternate merge," or the "zipper method." Just like a zipper, which knits one prong from the left, one prong from the right, left, right, etc., the zipper method involves one car from the left moving forward, then one from the right, and so forth. This is efficient because it allows us to use the "extra" space that people leave. People intuitively feel more comfortable about this because traffic moves in a very predictable pattern.
It's also intrinsically and obviously and scrupulously fair: One for you, one for me, one for you...it's a method of divvying that everyone understands from a small age is fair.
The problem with the anti-line-jumping crowd is that when you force people too early into a single-file line, the efficiencies of the zipper method are impossible to realize because of the lack of predictability. For the zipper method to work most efficiently, it has to take place at the point where everyone knows exactly what's going to happen--and that only happens at the point where the "extra" lane is ending.
I suppose that it feels like the line-jumpers are cheating. And yes, I used to feel that way, too. But the line-jumpers are the smart ones. If we all waited until the merge point to merge, then no one would feel like someone else was getting an unfair advantage. Line-jumpers are only taking the advantages that the cars ahead of them have voluntarily given up by getting over too early.
Now, I would never advocate that you do something that's against the law--although, to be perfectly fair, I don't think I've ever seen anyone pulled over for line-jumping. But this is yet another example of one of those rules, whether it's an actual law or just some sense of collective morality, that just needs to change. If we can all get on the same, efficient page, we can save ourselves a lot of time and a lot of heartache.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
The Rules
When I was in college, The Rules: Time-tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right, a book of dating advice for women, was published and became a runaway bestseller. Being a man, I haven't actually read the book, although I have read a synopsis and, as a man, I believe that qualifies me to have an opinion on the book.
I don't like it. My theory of human relationships is that people should be open and honest with prospective partners (and themselves!) about who they are, what their goals and interests are, and what makes them happy and unhappy. Any dating advice that is predicated upon following a set of rules that may or may not comport with those things is, in my view, artificial. And I can speak with authority; I've been married for 16 years, we're happy and in love, and we've never given any serious consideration to breaking up.
But I do understand that not everybody can get it right without practice. There are lots of people who have self-destructive habits and who need strong guidance to help them make the right decisions. So The Rules isn't entirely unhelpful. Fine by me.
By now, you might be wondering, hey, Jim, why are you bringing up a two-decade-old self-help book, only to criticize it, then ultimately acknowledge its value?
I'm not really talking about The Rules, but I did want to talk a little bit today about rules in general, and more specifically about disregarding them.
Pope Francis has been making headlines over the past six months with some pronouncements about the Christian religion that, well, raise some eyebrows. Il Papa has been on an iconoclastic tear lately, announcing that the focus of the Church over the last, say, 2,000 years has been sort of wrong, that even atheists can go to heaven, that maybe Christians have spent a little too much time worrying about abortion and homosexuals and birth control lately and not enough time comforting the afflicted and feeding the hungry.
I'm not a Catholic and never have been, so I don't really recognize the authority of the Pope, especially not at this point in my life, having made some public declarations that I made recently. But a lot of people do, and lots more may not recognize Francis as their spiritual leader but certainly regard his opinion as important, or at least worthy of consideration.
But I do sort of have to respect the kind of man that Francis is, seeing as how he's apparently going to drive his own (used) car, he lives in simple quarters instead of the usual palace, and he views himself with more humility than one would expect the winner of perhaps the world's most extremely political election to have. We don't have to agree about spiritual matters--and by "agree about spiritual matters," I mean "agree that there are such things as spiritual matters"--for me to tip my cap.
I am reminded of one of the most famous, if apocryphal, quotes of Mohandas K. Gandhi, bestowed by his people with the title "Mahatma," meaning "Great One." Gandhi was asked by a Christian missionary why he rejected Christ, despite quoting the words of Jesus so often. He replied, "I do not reject Christ. I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
If I have any criticism of the popes of my lifetime, it is that one--they have laid their focus far from the teachings of Christ. Except this one. I admire that.
But it is coming at the cost of some grumbling from those who view Catholic doctrine as "the Rules" and from those who prefer to focus their Christianity on Paul rather than Jesus, or at least want to focus on codifying in law what they view as instructions from God, particularly on social issues. As to the first group, Francis can change the rules if he wants. He is, according to Catholic doctrine, infallible.
But I suspect others will not be so easily swayed. They view Francis's iconoclasm as heresy, or treason against the cause of conservative Christianity.
And they sort of have a point. If there is a rule, and it is willfully broken without apparent consequence, that set of circumstances tends to undermine rules in general.
To provide a less charged example, consider taxes. The truth is that almost everyone tells the truth about their income when filing tax returns, even when it would be difficult for the IRS to prove they were lying. That's a good thing, because it would be difficult and frustrating to live under a system where the IRS had to expend a lot more effort to get people to pay their taxes. But there is a widespread belief that cheating on taxes is an American tradition, and that most people fudge things at least a little bit. That belief undermines the tax system by encouraging cheating by people who view the perceived state of affairs as permission.
Early last year, I had to drive several times between Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona. The distance is about 112 miles. The posted speed limit on that stretch is 75 mph. It is desolate, with little evidence of human activity along the route. There is a small city, Casa Grande, between the two, and one must generally slow down a bit there. But in the many times I have driven that stretch, I have never seen a police car, and I have certainly never seen anyone pulled over. Traffic frequently moves in excess of 90 mph.
I admit that in Arizona I don't mind breaking that rule, the 75-mph limit, by so great a margin. But I do speed on rural stretches in other states, generally keeping it to 9 over. Figuratively knocking on wood, I have never been pulled over for anything less than 10 over. (When I was 22, I was victimized by an unfamiliar speed limit change while on a late-night Taco Bell run, which resulted in my being cited for 71 in a 60 by a trooper who obviously needed to write some tickets, since he had the ticket written out before I even gave him my license.)
But I've noticed that few people follow the speed limit. Worse still, people who don't follow the limit get frustrated by those who do. I will admit to being in that category.
The unenforced 75-mph limit is dumb in that area because it only breeds contempt for the law. Whether you are a public safety officer, or a tax policy wonk, or a Pope, or a self-help guru, or anyone else charged with setting rules, if there is one principle for you to serve, it ought to be that rules that command no one's respect are worse than the absence of rules.
I don't like it. My theory of human relationships is that people should be open and honest with prospective partners (and themselves!) about who they are, what their goals and interests are, and what makes them happy and unhappy. Any dating advice that is predicated upon following a set of rules that may or may not comport with those things is, in my view, artificial. And I can speak with authority; I've been married for 16 years, we're happy and in love, and we've never given any serious consideration to breaking up.
But I do understand that not everybody can get it right without practice. There are lots of people who have self-destructive habits and who need strong guidance to help them make the right decisions. So The Rules isn't entirely unhelpful. Fine by me.
By now, you might be wondering, hey, Jim, why are you bringing up a two-decade-old self-help book, only to criticize it, then ultimately acknowledge its value?
I'm not really talking about The Rules, but I did want to talk a little bit today about rules in general, and more specifically about disregarding them.
Pope Francis has been making headlines over the past six months with some pronouncements about the Christian religion that, well, raise some eyebrows. Il Papa has been on an iconoclastic tear lately, announcing that the focus of the Church over the last, say, 2,000 years has been sort of wrong, that even atheists can go to heaven, that maybe Christians have spent a little too much time worrying about abortion and homosexuals and birth control lately and not enough time comforting the afflicted and feeding the hungry.
I'm not a Catholic and never have been, so I don't really recognize the authority of the Pope, especially not at this point in my life, having made some public declarations that I made recently. But a lot of people do, and lots more may not recognize Francis as their spiritual leader but certainly regard his opinion as important, or at least worthy of consideration.
But I do sort of have to respect the kind of man that Francis is, seeing as how he's apparently going to drive his own (used) car, he lives in simple quarters instead of the usual palace, and he views himself with more humility than one would expect the winner of perhaps the world's most extremely political election to have. We don't have to agree about spiritual matters--and by "agree about spiritual matters," I mean "agree that there are such things as spiritual matters"--for me to tip my cap.
I am reminded of one of the most famous, if apocryphal, quotes of Mohandas K. Gandhi, bestowed by his people with the title "Mahatma," meaning "Great One." Gandhi was asked by a Christian missionary why he rejected Christ, despite quoting the words of Jesus so often. He replied, "I do not reject Christ. I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
If I have any criticism of the popes of my lifetime, it is that one--they have laid their focus far from the teachings of Christ. Except this one. I admire that.
But it is coming at the cost of some grumbling from those who view Catholic doctrine as "the Rules" and from those who prefer to focus their Christianity on Paul rather than Jesus, or at least want to focus on codifying in law what they view as instructions from God, particularly on social issues. As to the first group, Francis can change the rules if he wants. He is, according to Catholic doctrine, infallible.
But I suspect others will not be so easily swayed. They view Francis's iconoclasm as heresy, or treason against the cause of conservative Christianity.
And they sort of have a point. If there is a rule, and it is willfully broken without apparent consequence, that set of circumstances tends to undermine rules in general.
To provide a less charged example, consider taxes. The truth is that almost everyone tells the truth about their income when filing tax returns, even when it would be difficult for the IRS to prove they were lying. That's a good thing, because it would be difficult and frustrating to live under a system where the IRS had to expend a lot more effort to get people to pay their taxes. But there is a widespread belief that cheating on taxes is an American tradition, and that most people fudge things at least a little bit. That belief undermines the tax system by encouraging cheating by people who view the perceived state of affairs as permission.
Early last year, I had to drive several times between Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona. The distance is about 112 miles. The posted speed limit on that stretch is 75 mph. It is desolate, with little evidence of human activity along the route. There is a small city, Casa Grande, between the two, and one must generally slow down a bit there. But in the many times I have driven that stretch, I have never seen a police car, and I have certainly never seen anyone pulled over. Traffic frequently moves in excess of 90 mph.
I admit that in Arizona I don't mind breaking that rule, the 75-mph limit, by so great a margin. But I do speed on rural stretches in other states, generally keeping it to 9 over. Figuratively knocking on wood, I have never been pulled over for anything less than 10 over. (When I was 22, I was victimized by an unfamiliar speed limit change while on a late-night Taco Bell run, which resulted in my being cited for 71 in a 60 by a trooper who obviously needed to write some tickets, since he had the ticket written out before I even gave him my license.)
But I've noticed that few people follow the speed limit. Worse still, people who don't follow the limit get frustrated by those who do. I will admit to being in that category.
The unenforced 75-mph limit is dumb in that area because it only breeds contempt for the law. Whether you are a public safety officer, or a tax policy wonk, or a Pope, or a self-help guru, or anyone else charged with setting rules, if there is one principle for you to serve, it ought to be that rules that command no one's respect are worse than the absence of rules.
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Exceptional
American exceptionalism has been in the news lately in the context of the Syrian crisis.
In his address from the East Room, President Obama attempted to justify action in Syria on the basis of a reference to American exceptionalism:
I agree with Vladimir Putin that Obama's reasoning is flawed, perhaps deeply so, but I disagree that it is dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional.
The United States of America is an exceptional nation. I have recently written on what makes us exceptional. Unlike most if not all other nations, we are highly diverse on racial, ethnic, and religious grounds. We are united instead by a belief in a political philosophy. One becomes English, or Russian, or French, or German by birth and parentage alone. No amount of time will make someone who is born French into an Englishman.
But we make new Americans of those who were born elsewhere, and they are no less American than those whose ancestors came here on the Mayflower. Their children are largely indistinguishable from the children of those who were born here.
The concept is summarized in the Latin phrase, e pluribus unum, "out of many, one."
We are the exception to the general rule of homogeneity, yet we have created homogeneity through general freedom of the individual, equality before the law, and due process of law. Our way of life, being so based, is in combination more productive and more fair than any other system yet devised, because literally anyone can come here and succeed.
That is not to say we did not have advantages or that we lack problems. We have advantages over other nations, enormous natural resources being the most obvious example--but other nations have resources, too. We have problems, but we have a mechanism for solving them in an organic fashion, by relying on our first principles and allowing natural politics to produce consensus. Because the law is subject to change through democratic processes, and because every citizen may access the levers of democracy, our politics and policies have a tendency toward self-correction.
(I worry at times that we are beginning to step away from those principles, as money and moneyed interests take control of our politics, but I view that as a problem that we can solve.)
Stated another way, the best America is yet to come.
Our model commends itself to the world. Most Western nations have adopted our models to some extent, though the degree to which they respect them is the subject of some debate. Even China has taken furtive steps toward the American system.
Where I depart from the modern American exceptionalists--the neoconservatives, the chickenhawks, the proponents of the Project for the New American Century--is in what I think our exceptionalism means.
To them, our exceptionalism gives us the right to intervene in the affairs of other nations; to impose our choices upon them; to use our political, economic, and military advantages to control the process of affairs both global and local, and to turn them to our advantage.
Putin is right: That kind of thinking is indeed dangerous. It runs contrary to our highest principles of equality and justice.
To me, our exceptionalism is a blessing and a burden. We enjoy the fruits of the labors of our ancestors, both economic and political. We lead a rich life as Americans--richest of all, in the sense of the luxury of self-determination that so many non-Americans lack. But we must take care to use our power to promote only the very best of our ideas to the world; we must never adhere to the idea that our might makes us right, regardless of merit; we must never act to create an unfair advantage over others simply because we can. To do so violates our first principles.
If we believe in the strength of our ideas, if we believe in the righteousness of the American Experiment, then we have no need of force to impose them on others. If we seek to impose by force ideas that could not win on merit, then no amount of force will bring merit to those ideas.
It is dangerous to teach people that their exceptionality makes them more entitled to a say in how things go than others who are not exceptional.
We don't award votes to people based on IQ points or bank account balances.
Where we do have an obligation to act is where those without power are unreasonably endangered by those with power.
We have a moral obligation to stop genocide if we can do so without worsening the situation.
We have a moral obligation to use our power for the common good of the world, where that common good is clear, and where doing so promotes our core principles.
It is hard to know where the line is.
I have long believed that the efficacy and genius of the United Nations as an organization lay in its core premise: That there is a community of nations, all different, all equal, dedicated to the peaceful resolution of their grievances; a body to which all peace-loving nations may subscribe, and be heard on equal footing. In my view, the international luster of the United Nations has faded because rather than remaining committed to this concept, the United States has spent much of the last thirty years denigrating the democratic aspects of the UN and concentrating its use of the UN upon an oligarchy of five nations, the permanent members of the Security Council.
Regardless, it ought to be enough for us to know that we are first among equals. It ought to be enough for the rest of the world to know that while we could act alone, our principles dictate that our actions be subject to consultation with others and a modicum of consensus.
That Obama resorted to an American exceptionalism argument to bolster his position was, in my view, a cheap trick that fooled no one. It was designed, it appears, to get a political leg up on conservatives who take our exceptionalism as an article of faith and who do believe it justifies our actions, whatever those actions are.
I suspect that Obama's words rang hollow because he doesn't really believe in them. Our ability to have an impact does not make us exceptional; incorrectly applied, it merely makes us a bully. I have to believe that Barack Obama did not mean what he said.
If he did mean it, he is wrong. I have never believed in the principle of "my country, right or wrong." I support my country when it is right by advocating for it. But I support my country when it is wrong by opposing it. I love this great nation, and I have hope for its future. I have many times sworn an oath upon my honor to defend the Constitution, and to me, that means defending its principles at all times, even if the government does not. That is the solemn obligation of us all.
In his address from the East Room, President Obama attempted to justify action in Syria on the basis of a reference to American exceptionalism:
America is not the world’s policeman. Terrible things happen across the globe, and it is beyond our means to right every wrong. But when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death, and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act. That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional. With humility, but with resolve, let us never lose sight of that essential truth.In response, Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, wrote in a column published in the New York Times:
My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.” It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.I agree with Barack Obama that the United States is an exceptional nation, but I disagree with what the President apparently thinks our exceptionality means.
I agree with Vladimir Putin that Obama's reasoning is flawed, perhaps deeply so, but I disagree that it is dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional.
The United States of America is an exceptional nation. I have recently written on what makes us exceptional. Unlike most if not all other nations, we are highly diverse on racial, ethnic, and religious grounds. We are united instead by a belief in a political philosophy. One becomes English, or Russian, or French, or German by birth and parentage alone. No amount of time will make someone who is born French into an Englishman.
But we make new Americans of those who were born elsewhere, and they are no less American than those whose ancestors came here on the Mayflower. Their children are largely indistinguishable from the children of those who were born here.
The concept is summarized in the Latin phrase, e pluribus unum, "out of many, one."
We are the exception to the general rule of homogeneity, yet we have created homogeneity through general freedom of the individual, equality before the law, and due process of law. Our way of life, being so based, is in combination more productive and more fair than any other system yet devised, because literally anyone can come here and succeed.
That is not to say we did not have advantages or that we lack problems. We have advantages over other nations, enormous natural resources being the most obvious example--but other nations have resources, too. We have problems, but we have a mechanism for solving them in an organic fashion, by relying on our first principles and allowing natural politics to produce consensus. Because the law is subject to change through democratic processes, and because every citizen may access the levers of democracy, our politics and policies have a tendency toward self-correction.
(I worry at times that we are beginning to step away from those principles, as money and moneyed interests take control of our politics, but I view that as a problem that we can solve.)
Stated another way, the best America is yet to come.
Our model commends itself to the world. Most Western nations have adopted our models to some extent, though the degree to which they respect them is the subject of some debate. Even China has taken furtive steps toward the American system.
Where I depart from the modern American exceptionalists--the neoconservatives, the chickenhawks, the proponents of the Project for the New American Century--is in what I think our exceptionalism means.
To them, our exceptionalism gives us the right to intervene in the affairs of other nations; to impose our choices upon them; to use our political, economic, and military advantages to control the process of affairs both global and local, and to turn them to our advantage.
Putin is right: That kind of thinking is indeed dangerous. It runs contrary to our highest principles of equality and justice.
To me, our exceptionalism is a blessing and a burden. We enjoy the fruits of the labors of our ancestors, both economic and political. We lead a rich life as Americans--richest of all, in the sense of the luxury of self-determination that so many non-Americans lack. But we must take care to use our power to promote only the very best of our ideas to the world; we must never adhere to the idea that our might makes us right, regardless of merit; we must never act to create an unfair advantage over others simply because we can. To do so violates our first principles.
If we believe in the strength of our ideas, if we believe in the righteousness of the American Experiment, then we have no need of force to impose them on others. If we seek to impose by force ideas that could not win on merit, then no amount of force will bring merit to those ideas.
It is dangerous to teach people that their exceptionality makes them more entitled to a say in how things go than others who are not exceptional.
We don't award votes to people based on IQ points or bank account balances.
Where we do have an obligation to act is where those without power are unreasonably endangered by those with power.
We have a moral obligation to stop genocide if we can do so without worsening the situation.
We have a moral obligation to use our power for the common good of the world, where that common good is clear, and where doing so promotes our core principles.
It is hard to know where the line is.
I have long believed that the efficacy and genius of the United Nations as an organization lay in its core premise: That there is a community of nations, all different, all equal, dedicated to the peaceful resolution of their grievances; a body to which all peace-loving nations may subscribe, and be heard on equal footing. In my view, the international luster of the United Nations has faded because rather than remaining committed to this concept, the United States has spent much of the last thirty years denigrating the democratic aspects of the UN and concentrating its use of the UN upon an oligarchy of five nations, the permanent members of the Security Council.
Regardless, it ought to be enough for us to know that we are first among equals. It ought to be enough for the rest of the world to know that while we could act alone, our principles dictate that our actions be subject to consultation with others and a modicum of consensus.
That Obama resorted to an American exceptionalism argument to bolster his position was, in my view, a cheap trick that fooled no one. It was designed, it appears, to get a political leg up on conservatives who take our exceptionalism as an article of faith and who do believe it justifies our actions, whatever those actions are.
I suspect that Obama's words rang hollow because he doesn't really believe in them. Our ability to have an impact does not make us exceptional; incorrectly applied, it merely makes us a bully. I have to believe that Barack Obama did not mean what he said.
If he did mean it, he is wrong. I have never believed in the principle of "my country, right or wrong." I support my country when it is right by advocating for it. But I support my country when it is wrong by opposing it. I love this great nation, and I have hope for its future. I have many times sworn an oath upon my honor to defend the Constitution, and to me, that means defending its principles at all times, even if the government does not. That is the solemn obligation of us all.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Freakout
I graduated from Sheridan High School in 1993. My parents still live near Sheridan, and my mother is a teacher in the district. I have many friends who live in the district. Many of them have children who attend school there.
Sheridan was in the news yesterday for what I can only term a bizarre reason. Some teachers thought that yesterday, the 12th anniversary of the 9/11/01 terrorist attack, would be a good day for their students to get some perspective on what happened that day, and what happened before and since with respect to the Muslim world, from someone who is a practicing Muslim--an Arkansan, an American, who adheres to Islam, and who happens to be the neighbor of one of the teachers.
This particular person, whose identity has not been revealed to me, reportedly planned to offer his perspective as a Muslim who abhors violence and terrorism. That's not news in any real sense. His position is the same as that of almost all American Muslims. The Muslims I know strongly condemned the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks and were sickened by the death and destruction carried out in the name of their religion. (It appears that a lot of people, ignorant people, believe that all Muslims hate Americans and want Americans to die.)
Notably, the guest speaker was not there to proselytize anyone to Islam, or to advocate for Islam, or to compare Islam to other religions, or even to speak for all Muslims.
He was there to offer his own opinions on the subject of terrorism.
Judging from the reaction to his proposed presence, his presence was sorely needed yesterday.
Dr. Brenda Haynes is the superintendent of the Sheridan School District. Dr. Haynes put out a press release [PDF] yesterday in which she announced that the guest speaker's appearance had been canceled and may be rescheduled for another day. As she noted:
In the interest of full disclosure, I have known Dr. Haynes for nearly 25 years, from the time when I was a seventh grader at Sheridan Junior High School. I once served on a committee with her. She and my mother have been employed by the district for a long time. She is my mother's "superboss," to use a phrase I have heard other teachers use to describe their relationship to the superintendent. Neither my mother's employment nor her opinions influence what I write here, and I am not certain that she even reads it or knows how to find it, nor do I care.
That being said, I have unqualified confidence in Dr. Haynes's leadership on this issue, both in the decision to cancel the speaker's appearance and in her explanation of the situation. Her statement on this point is smart, even-handed, respectful, and confident. I expect and hope that she is able to convert this controversy into a greater opportunity to educate.
I am also bitterly disappointed, though not surprised, that this was even controversial.
In the reaction to these developments, I have seen the worst aspects of ignorance and hatred and hypocrisy and pretended martyrdom on proud display. I have never been one to withhold my opinion, but I am confounded by people whom I know are smarter than this who nevertheless display these qualities. It is an emotional reaction, but it is out of control.
Sheridan schools are some of the best in the state. They are led by able, student-focused, principled administrators who are educators first. The teaching corps is solid from top to bottom. In the quiet moments of my reflection, I am proud to have been a product of these schools.
In the louder moments such as these, when unimpeded, half-cocked hate fills the air, I wonder sometimes if my Sheridan education is something I have overcome rather than something that set me on the path to where I am today. It is, however, a waste of time to wish to have had better origins.
I am, as most of you know, an admirer of the intellect of Louis Brandeis, a U.S. Supreme Court justice from the first half of the 20th century. His words gave this blog its name. Perhaps his most famous quote is below:
"Brandeis," Justice William O. Douglas, who replaced him on the Supreme Court, wrote, "was a militant crusader for social justice whoever his opponent might be. He was dangerous not only because of his brilliance, his arithmetic, his courage. He was dangerous because he was incorruptible."
Brandeis knew, and overcame, prejudice in his own time. He was a Jew, the first to be nominated to the Court; though non-religious, he suffered through the anti-Semitism common at the time. His 1916 nomination to the Supreme Court was bitterly contested by conservatives who deemed him a "muckraker" and "unfit," and who derisively dismissed his supporters as "a bunch of Hebrew uplifters." For the first time in its history, the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings before voting on his confirmation. At a time when the judicial nominating process usually took days at most, his confirmation took four months and was split along ideological lines. Yet he is today one of the most admired and often-cited Justices in our history.
I do not understand the people who want so much to hold onto their hate, and to pass it on to their children, that the mere possibility that an opinion contrary to that hate will be expressed is enough to send them into wild tangents of rage.
But I do understand that hate hides in the shadows. It cannot survive scrutiny, because hate is irrational. Hate is contrary to our nature as humans. The more information we receive, the more experience we gain, the less we can hold onto the hate we have.
I also understand that the source of hate is fear, and the source of fear is ignorance.
In my lifetime there have been two great human cultural changes. One is the end of the Cold War. The other is the recognition of equal rights for homosexuals. The end of the Cold War came about not because of an overt victory, not because of a triumph of our philosophy over theirs. It came about because of cultural exchange that allowed each side to recognize the other as humans. Hate cannot survive the light of understanding.
And no one has been more surprised than I am by the rapid acceptance of homosexuals as equal citizens in our Republic, with equal rights and privileges. But that came about first through cultural exchange; in the 1980s, gays were seen as promiscuous, lascivious spreaders of a dread disease. But it's hard to hate Ellen DeGeneres. It's hard to hate that which makes you laugh and feel good. Soon, gays began to be seen as ordinary people with different preferences. Then one state, and another, started recognizing gay marriages, and the world didn't end, and soon I expect it will be the law of the land everywhere.
And we are better for it.
I hope beyond hope that Dr. Haynes uses this opportunity to teach us all a far more important lesson than what one Muslim might think about a horrific act. The lesson that needs learning is that exposure to ideas is the entirety of education. When you prevent your children from being exposed to ideas, you make them less intelligent. This is something she hinted at in her statement:
I can't think of a better way to describe what needs to happen, or to express what education is all about.
Sheridan was in the news yesterday for what I can only term a bizarre reason. Some teachers thought that yesterday, the 12th anniversary of the 9/11/01 terrorist attack, would be a good day for their students to get some perspective on what happened that day, and what happened before and since with respect to the Muslim world, from someone who is a practicing Muslim--an Arkansan, an American, who adheres to Islam, and who happens to be the neighbor of one of the teachers.
This particular person, whose identity has not been revealed to me, reportedly planned to offer his perspective as a Muslim who abhors violence and terrorism. That's not news in any real sense. His position is the same as that of almost all American Muslims. The Muslims I know strongly condemned the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks and were sickened by the death and destruction carried out in the name of their religion. (It appears that a lot of people, ignorant people, believe that all Muslims hate Americans and want Americans to die.)
Notably, the guest speaker was not there to proselytize anyone to Islam, or to advocate for Islam, or to compare Islam to other religions, or even to speak for all Muslims.
He was there to offer his own opinions on the subject of terrorism.
Judging from the reaction to his proposed presence, his presence was sorely needed yesterday.
Dr. Brenda Haynes is the superintendent of the Sheridan School District. Dr. Haynes put out a press release [PDF] yesterday in which she announced that the guest speaker's appearance had been canceled and may be rescheduled for another day. As she noted:
The purpose of the invitation was to have a member of that faith inform our students that Muslims are not identical in their beliefs with regard to the use of terror; that, on the contrary, some, probably most, strongly disapprove of it. There was no thought of having this person address the classes to paint Islam as "a religion of peace." Rather; it was to give him an opportunity to state his personal point of view in strong opposition to terrorism in general and the events of September 11, 2001, in particular. The teachers considered it instructive to the students to hear a different viewpoint.I understand the reasons why the district canceled the speaker's appearance. This is a controversial subject. Parents have the right to be involved in their children's educational experience. The district is a public institution, and therefore a politically controlled one. While teachers and administrators must put the education of children as their highest priority, it is also necessary that the schools have the confidence of the public and of the people who are most heavily invested in the schools' success at their mission.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have known Dr. Haynes for nearly 25 years, from the time when I was a seventh grader at Sheridan Junior High School. I once served on a committee with her. She and my mother have been employed by the district for a long time. She is my mother's "superboss," to use a phrase I have heard other teachers use to describe their relationship to the superintendent. Neither my mother's employment nor her opinions influence what I write here, and I am not certain that she even reads it or knows how to find it, nor do I care.
That being said, I have unqualified confidence in Dr. Haynes's leadership on this issue, both in the decision to cancel the speaker's appearance and in her explanation of the situation. Her statement on this point is smart, even-handed, respectful, and confident. I expect and hope that she is able to convert this controversy into a greater opportunity to educate.
I am also bitterly disappointed, though not surprised, that this was even controversial.
In the reaction to these developments, I have seen the worst aspects of ignorance and hatred and hypocrisy and pretended martyrdom on proud display. I have never been one to withhold my opinion, but I am confounded by people whom I know are smarter than this who nevertheless display these qualities. It is an emotional reaction, but it is out of control.
Sheridan schools are some of the best in the state. They are led by able, student-focused, principled administrators who are educators first. The teaching corps is solid from top to bottom. In the quiet moments of my reflection, I am proud to have been a product of these schools.
In the louder moments such as these, when unimpeded, half-cocked hate fills the air, I wonder sometimes if my Sheridan education is something I have overcome rather than something that set me on the path to where I am today. It is, however, a waste of time to wish to have had better origins.
I am, as most of you know, an admirer of the intellect of Louis Brandeis, a U.S. Supreme Court justice from the first half of the 20th century. His words gave this blog its name. Perhaps his most famous quote is below:
Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.Brandeis meant, of course, that the best way to determine the value of something is to get it out in the open, for free examination, comment, and criticism. He was talking about a marketplace of ideas.
"Brandeis," Justice William O. Douglas, who replaced him on the Supreme Court, wrote, "was a militant crusader for social justice whoever his opponent might be. He was dangerous not only because of his brilliance, his arithmetic, his courage. He was dangerous because he was incorruptible."
Brandeis knew, and overcame, prejudice in his own time. He was a Jew, the first to be nominated to the Court; though non-religious, he suffered through the anti-Semitism common at the time. His 1916 nomination to the Supreme Court was bitterly contested by conservatives who deemed him a "muckraker" and "unfit," and who derisively dismissed his supporters as "a bunch of Hebrew uplifters." For the first time in its history, the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings before voting on his confirmation. At a time when the judicial nominating process usually took days at most, his confirmation took four months and was split along ideological lines. Yet he is today one of the most admired and often-cited Justices in our history.
I do not understand the people who want so much to hold onto their hate, and to pass it on to their children, that the mere possibility that an opinion contrary to that hate will be expressed is enough to send them into wild tangents of rage.
But I do understand that hate hides in the shadows. It cannot survive scrutiny, because hate is irrational. Hate is contrary to our nature as humans. The more information we receive, the more experience we gain, the less we can hold onto the hate we have.
I also understand that the source of hate is fear, and the source of fear is ignorance.
In my lifetime there have been two great human cultural changes. One is the end of the Cold War. The other is the recognition of equal rights for homosexuals. The end of the Cold War came about not because of an overt victory, not because of a triumph of our philosophy over theirs. It came about because of cultural exchange that allowed each side to recognize the other as humans. Hate cannot survive the light of understanding.
And no one has been more surprised than I am by the rapid acceptance of homosexuals as equal citizens in our Republic, with equal rights and privileges. But that came about first through cultural exchange; in the 1980s, gays were seen as promiscuous, lascivious spreaders of a dread disease. But it's hard to hate Ellen DeGeneres. It's hard to hate that which makes you laugh and feel good. Soon, gays began to be seen as ordinary people with different preferences. Then one state, and another, started recognizing gay marriages, and the world didn't end, and soon I expect it will be the law of the land everywhere.
And we are better for it.
I hope beyond hope that Dr. Haynes uses this opportunity to teach us all a far more important lesson than what one Muslim might think about a horrific act. The lesson that needs learning is that exposure to ideas is the entirety of education. When you prevent your children from being exposed to ideas, you make them less intelligent. This is something she hinted at in her statement:
We know that our students are intelligent enough to make up their own minds about world events and the causes of those events, but that requires that they have as much information as can be made available to them.
I can't think of a better way to describe what needs to happen, or to express what education is all about.
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