Mission Statement

It occurs to me that perhaps I should talk a bit about why I post here every night.  I harbor no illusions of a future in punditry or that this blog will ever be read by more than a handful of good friends.  But I do occasionally think grandiose thoughts, to borrow a phrase from Newt, about the blog as a method of approaching political involvement.  Rather than passively absorbing talking points from The National Review or MSNBC, or only discussing politics with like-minded, unchallenging people, I get to discuss the issues of the day with (most frequently) a libertarian and a Christian minister and other friends with a variety of views.  Friendly conversation of politics provides a non-confrontational protection from the "ism schism game" of thinking one's own positions are always correct.  I try to get the same sort of thing by listening to Hannity and reading Drudge, but this is a much more constructive and pleasant approach.

Thanks to the interwebs, I think that the level of discourse in this kind of setting can be at a pretty high level despite being carried out among people who do other things for a living.  While we don't spend all day reviewing the latest reports from the RAND Corporation, we have the advantage of quick, easy access to whichever resource or column or clip might be germane.  So the interactivity of the format comes at a low cost in terms of quality.

I also think it's useful, not to mention kind of fun, to get on the record with where I stand on the issues of the day.  Sharing my thoughts hopefully at least on occasion encourages at least a few of you to think about something or other in a different way, even if it's rejected.  It'll also be fun down the road to find all the ridiculous predictions I've made over the years, such as my post positing an end to the Republican Party because the economy would certainly recover by the 2010 elections, which would the final nail in the coffin of the GOP.

Oops.

So I'm looking forward to the next four months worth of posts and discussion.  I'd of course be happy to discuss any political issue that might be on your mind.

Bad even for Drudge

Two bits of data which are important for you to know before getting to the main post:

1.  As some of you may be aware, I have recently moved back to Akron, Ohio.  We've been furniture shopping, and I've found myself frustrated by the lack of good reviews for couches.  Every review I've found on any non-seller website is negative, without exception.  Does every couch suck?

Of course, it wouldn't be reasonable for a person whose couch is doing just fine to go out of their way to go online and tell the world how well their couch keeps their ass off the floor.  It's only the people whose couches break in half six months after they buy them that type out a review on Amazon.

2.  I'm a physician, and I can personally attest that filling out paperwork is the bane of most doctors' existence.

With that in mind, on to the main post.


This evening, the Drudge Report's top headline was a link to this article, which discusses a survey performed by an organization called the Doctor Patient Medical Association.  The survey, per Drudge's headline, showed that "83% of doctors have considered quitting over Obamacare".  The article describes the DPMA as "a non-partisan association of doctors and patients".  Which is a strange claim to make, given that the DPMA has an "Affiliate Relationship" with the National Tea Party Federation.  As one might expect based on the study's origin, there are major flaws with the article.


The DPMA's description of the survey states that it was faxed to over 16,000 offices, with 699 respondents, meaning that 4.3% of doctors actually returned the survey, which is kind of a shitty response rate for a survey, but which might be expected given the method of contact, faxing.  Considering the two facts above (re: couch reviews and doctors filling out forms), it is reasonable to conclude that there would be a significant selection bias in the survey's sample.  Few would take time out of their busy day to fill out a survey to tell a faceless, generically-named organization that they think the medical system is, is just doing great, goshdarnit!  You're going to wind up with people looking to complain, so you'd expect a negative bias.


More importantly, I would totally answer "Yes!" if I were asked "Have you considered quitting medicine because of Obamacare?", and I'm more pro-Obama than most.  Obamacare represents a significant change in the system that allows me to provide food, clothing and shelter to my family.  It would be foolish to not consider if such changes would make my current set-up untenable.

So Drudge (and the Daily Caller, the referenced source) lie about the source of a survey which uses flawed methodology to rack up as many tallies as possible for one particular response which doesn't actually indicate anything other than a recognition that Obamacare's a big fucking deal to doctors, which is obvious to anyone at all paying attention.

Splitting the anti-Obama vote

Just as Romney emerged victorious in the Republican primaries thanks to no one candidate monopolizing the anti-Romney vote, Obama might win a second term thanks to splitting of the anti-Obama vote.  Romney's campaign has been heavily focused on trashing Obama's record, selling himself as a way to fight back against Obama.  But if there is more than one major candidate not named Obama, like Gary Johnson, Romney's approach fails.

It's an unfortunate effect of our two-party system that all a candidate has to do to win is make his opponent untenable.  This encourages negative attacks (like those Democrats unleashed on Romney today) instead of constructive debate.

Amazing dishonesty from George Will

George Will, a conservative columnist, wrote a widely-distributed column this week lamenting the possibility that new EPA rules might cause a Navajo-owned coal power plant to shut down.  He states (correctly) that new equipment to make the plant less polluting would cost $1.1 billion, possibly bankrupting the plant.  He goes on to claim that the benefit being sought by the EPA is to improve visibility at national parks near the plant.

$1.1 billion so a few treehuggers can see a little better seems ridiculous, right?  Will even throws in a good ol' tug at the heart strings by bringing up the "economic and social damage [of the EPA's decision] on Native Americans, who over the years have experienced quite enough of that at Washington’s hands."


Of course, his entire premise is complete bullshit.  Yes, it's true that $1.1 billion for clearer sight lines is silly.  But that's far from the only benefit to be had from tighter pollution controls.  An article linked to in the body of Will's own column states that an EPA study shows that every dollar of spending on pollution controls generates $30 to $86 in benefits.  Will neglects to mention that the same pollution controls would improve health (and therefore save medical dollars and worker productivity and such) in addition to maintaining clear visibility.

I would love to ask Mr. Will, who claims to stand for personal responsibility and property rights, why he thinks this power plant should be allowed to pump out pollution that causes economic harm to others.  If he thinks the science is flawed, he should argue against it, not just try to sweep it under the rug.

Liberalism and mean girls

(I have no empirical evidence to back this up, but...) When I was a dweeby high school kid in Academic Challenge and chess club and band, I would occasionally find myself on the receiving end of some teasing.  Whether it was rational or not, I would occasionally get moments of existential anxiety, convincing myself that I would die penniless and alone.  If people don't like me now, then they probably won't like me in the future, and boom, I'm dying of some otherwise-preventable cause.

Our system of life is based in no small part on existential fear of death from want.  Grade school kids are told if they don't learn to write cursive then they'll never do well in middle school, which means they won't get into honors classes in high school, which means they won't get into a college or get a good job, and they're pretty much doomed.  How fucked up is that?  Even I, as a doctor with a doctor spouse, face the realistic possibility of losing enough economic power that poverty could happen.

People in a society with sufficient public and/or private guarantees of the basics of life don't have to deal with such fears.  People in Canada can be assured that as long as the government of the nation exists, they will have state of the art medical care.  The concept of dying because you don't have the economic power to get yourself some lipitor is completely off the table, just like foreign invasion is completely off the table for the Swiss.

True security is a powerful thing.  It makes all those little daily anxieties go away to know that your basic needs will always be cared for no matter what.

Romney's fundraising in perspective

The Romney campaign announced today that it had taken in $100 million in June.  It seems like a lot of money.  But it's barely half of what Pixar took in with Brave in just the last two weeks.

It's not the money that's ruining politics; it's that we sell our votes so cheaply.

Safety first

We spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year in the name of security, with soldiers stationed in 150 countries around the world.  We have also spent 6,440 lives in the past decade toward this goal.  We have been involved in (by my count) 9 major foreign wars since 1815, in which time Switzerland has been involved in exactly 0.  Instead of spending money of aircraft carriers and nuclear weapons, they devote their defense resources to nuclear shelters and the ability to turn their country into a fortress.  They have their bridges and tunnels wired to be destroyed in the event of invasion, and much of their populace is trained and armed for military combat.

But in 200 years, they haven't had to use these capabilities.  On the one hand, the tremendous defense capabilities of the Swiss makes them an unappealing target for potential invaders.   More importantly, their strong traditions of neutrality and non-aggression have successfully kept anyone from really wanting to invade them in the first place.

These two factors are related.  If your people are confident they will never be taken over and make that security real by giving them a weapon and plenty of access to fallout shelters, it's tough to get them riled up enough to attack someone else.  And it's hard to find people willing to launch terrorist attacks on a neutral nation.

It is sometimes claimed that our economic position in the world would be endangered if we took a more isolationist approach to our military endeavors.  Switzerland's almost-identical record on GDP per capita puts that argument to bed.

We are currently killing people in several countries and creating new enemies every time we do it, whether or not those killed needed to be for some objective reason.  We wind up more fearful and less secure than we would be if the Department of Defense used its massive budget for actual defense.

Why are we so afraid?

In one day just about 10 years ago, 19 guys managed to kill a number of Americans comparable the number of Americans killed by heart attack, stroke and cancer on that very same day. Since then, we have, collectively, freaked out over our very survival, convinced that an American caliphate is imminent if we don't ban Sharia Law immediately. Despite spending huge sums and thousands of lives in pursuit of security, we are just as afraid as ever. We have tremendous advantages when it comes to national defense. With two huge oceans between us and most of the world, it is exceedingly unlikely that we would ever be invaded. If it really came down to it, we could at least defend the borders no matter what. And yet we overreact to every threat as if it's an existential peril. The next few posts will look at ways to achieve true security and the benefits that would come from that security.

Homework assignment

Brief post tonight. Just an assignment to read about the Swiss military, particularly the part about their shelters and fortifications. It will be the basis for several upcoming posts. To hopefully pique your interest, it's a military model I possibly would actually sign up for.

The Personal Responsibility Plan

Turns out Mitt Romney offered a great branding suggestion to the President.  In 2010, Romney said:

Right now people who can afford to buy insurance make the decision, ‘I’m not going to buy insurance. I’m going to be a free rider.’ And if I get sick or get in a serious accident, then government’s going to pay for me. That, in my view is the big-government solution we have right now. The alternative – there are a couple of alternatives – one is to say to employers you must give insurance to every one of your employees. I said, ‘No, I don’t want to do that. That’s going to kill jobs.’ And the other alternative is to say to people if you can afford to get insurance, you ought to buy insurance. And if you don’t buy it you’re going to get penalized with a higher tax rate for not having gotten insurance. Now you tell me which of those is the big-government plan and which is the personal responsibility plan.

"Personal responsibility plan" has a much better ring to in than "individual mandate".