Month: April 2011

Could there be any deeper indictment of what has happened to the Republican party?

Kevin Drum defends an explicitly political, rather than market, approach to healthcare rationing:

The fact that these debates are angry and heated is unsurprising, but it's also healthy. These tradeoffs should be explicit and difficult. The big difference here isn't in whether healthcare is rationed, but in how the rationing is done. Patients are rationing themselves in both systems, but a system that rations via taxes is relatively friendly to the poor while a system that rations on price is friendlier to the wealthy. Knowing that, you can take your pick.

I didn't mean to imply that "death panels" – to embrace the term positively – were not democratically accountable. Ultimately, they are. You can listen to raucous debates in the House of Commons about someone's need for an MRI, or the number of nurses in a local hospital, or the choice between a generic and a new drug with uncertain advantages. I guess I'm saying that what Kevin regards as healthy, I regard as an impossible, dismaying and gridlocking politicization of Sophie's choices. It's psychologically and socially easier to let the market take care of much of it above a certain level – because the market feels more neutral and, in America, almost a source of moral authority. So we do not have to decide another's life or death, we can let economics do it.

I know this sounds like a cop-out (and in some ways it is) but a core difference between conservatives and liberals is the way in which conservatives like their world as apolitical as possible (I use the term conservative here to describe classical conservatism, not the strange blend of Randianism and religious fundamentalism that is now gripping the GOP). What has happened with the issue of healthcare is that conservatives have had to accept – painfully – that we cannot quite duck this question entirely through the market any more, because the success of the market, in spawning more and more possibilities in healthcare, has forced us to be more callous than we really want to be and than we really are.

A reader writes:

My husband and I are childless by choice. What struck me about your post was the quote that childless-by-choice couples have certain personality traits of being introspective, who think before they act. It never occurred to me that this is maybe another influence on my choice. 

My reasons for not having kids are many, some of which are ideology-based; I believe in slowing down global population growth, and I also believe that if I wanted a kid there are lots of unwanted ones already on the planet who need parents. But the real reasons – and I think this is true for couples who want children – are emotional and experiential. Ever since I was a little girl, I didn't want kids. I just didn't. I didn't have the happiest childhood and became aware in my early 20s that I didn't want to perpetuate the dysfunctionality that I grew up with.

I have child-free friends who feel the same way, but I also have friends who had kids because they had a shitty upbringing and were determined to raise kids who would be happier than they were growing up.

As a woman, there is a pretty strong assumption that you want kids. When my husband and I started dating, he was 10 years younger than me, and I was in my supposed "ticking biological clock'"phase of mid-thirties. So I initiated a pretty uncomfortable conversation rather early on in our relationship to hash out the whole kids thing.

All that said, one of my most satisfying and amazing experiences as an adult is that of Auntie. We have five nieces between us, and we are the "fun" Auntie and Uncle, and we treasure all of the perks that this entails. You get to feel the attachment and the love from amazing tiny humans, plan fun things with them, let them eat junk food, and yes, give them back. 

I've always been a huge fan of Auntie Mame, and though we may never live in a NYC penthouse with parties and bathtub gin, as a girl I knew that Mame was my kind of lady.

Me too. It's great to be the uncle with the American accent whose name is printed in the Sunday paper. One of my nephews and my niece have come and visited me and Aaron in Ptown. I love the fact that, aside from a trip to Boston, Provincetown is what they think of as America. If they had been my own kids, that kind of magic – and illusion – would not be possible. They'd know me too well.

Which is not to say that their relationship with their parents isn't infinitely deeper. Just that there is a place in the world for the childless – and uncling and aunting is one of its perks.

Donald Trump is threatening to run as an independent if he doesn't win the GOP nomination. Ed Morrissey covers his eyes:

Trump has the money (at least for now) to mount a vanity campaign as a third-party alternative to the two major-party nominees.  This would end up splitting the anti-Obama vote and set the President up for an easy re-election through a popular-vote plurality that would translate into an overwhelming Electoral College majority.  Liberals are not going to flock to Trump’s side for any reason, which means whatever Trump draws will come directly from those who were already inclined to vote against Obama.  It would be a nightmare scenario for Republicans in this cycle, a sort of Charlie Crist on steroids and junk bonds but with a viable Democratic opponent in the mix.

Anchorage, Alaska, 8.20 pm

It's time for a qualified defense of Rand. A reader writes:

Ayn Rand was Russian.  Her family lost everything in the revolution.  She was well aware of what happened under forced collectivism.  So I think that those experiences freaked her out a bit.  She was a very determined, confident woman who probably wasn't nearly as bright or well educated as she believed herself to be.  But I think she came by her nutty opinions honestly.

That's right; and why, like many popular but misguided thinkers, she endures. I grew up in a culture where socialistic values were endemic. Personal achievements, success, wealth … were all regarded by the ruling elites – socialist, liberal and high Tory – as vulgar or products of luck or things to be quietly ashamed of or embarrassed by. Rand is a kind of gut-level response to this, an assertion that some people are actually better at some things than others, and need not feel ashamed or guilty when their own abilities and talents are rewarded. There is a little Rand in my referring to the income-rich as the "successful" rather than as the wealthy – because I don't hold that personal achievement is morally suspect.

It is a form of injustice to deny individuals this success, or to denigrate and disdain it. But for me, the drop shadow to this truth is Christianity. And so I see no reason why someone should feel guilty for being talented or hard-working, but still believe that this kind of success is not the highest value. I do not mistake material worth for moral achievement. And it is that philosophical move – to give worldly success and achievement ultimate moral standing – that leads Rand astray.

Which is why, of course, Rand held religion and Christianity in such contempt. Which is why the current Republican coalition – between self-described Christians and Randian objectivists – is so inherently unstable and incoherent. It seems clear to me that objectivism got the better of the deal. You had to transform Christianity into Christianism or American exceptionalism to make sense of this fusionism at all.

Another reader defends Rand:

It really bothers me when people call Objectivism a cult (or compare it to Scientology), or disparage its ideas on the simple basis of its most ardent practitioners, as if every other system of thought is devoid of the same.  That Muslims are separated from Islamists, Christians from Christianists, as a means of justifying the more moderate (and sensible) practitioners' sense of faith and grounding in reality, while all Objectivists are lumped together as emotionally stunted, seems to me rather unfair. For example, this quote from one of your links strikes me as particularly idiotic:

Our objectivist education, however, was not confined to lectures and books. One time, at dinner, I complained that my brother was hogging all the food. “He’s being selfish!” I whined to my father. “Being selfish is a good thing,” he said. “To be selfless is to deny one’s self. To be selfish is to embrace the self, and accept your wants and needs.

This is idiotic not only on the part of the father, but of the author for citing it.  In Objectivism, all things are earned through one's work.  We get no sense that either the daughter or son earned any part of that meal, so what the father is teaching is that his son is being rightfully selfish for hoarding unearned goods, which is exactly the opposite of Objectivism. 

These are the Islamists of Objectivism, who cling most dearly to their "faith" while understanding the heart of it the least, and who are unfortunately cited the most.

Maggie Koerth-Baker highlights a rarely discussed benefit of marijuana legalization:

Cases of marijuana allergy are rare in the medical literature, but a recent study suggests that they're a lot more common in real life. Reactions range from the annoying (runny noses) to dangerous (anaphylactic shock), but if patients and doctors can't speak freely to one another then patients miss out on treatment and medicine loses valuable information.

I see marijuana legalization as a core matter of human freedom, but it's definitely a plus to be able to have scientists, doctors, and patients honestly and without fear figure out how best to use the plant for various medical needs. When something is hidden and suppressed, it's impossible to know its true costs and benefits. And there are obviously some costs for some. Right now, we can't address them. Some day soon, we will.

(Photo by Flickr user themadpothead)

Keith Hennessey isn't sure. Jon Cohn gulps. Pete Davis weighs the risks:

Normally, presidents don't take on such risks going into a tough reelection fight .  Even if Mr. Obama is secure, there are plenty of Senate Democrats who fear losing their seats and their majority to the Republicans next year.  The last thing vulnerable Senate Democrats want to do is to cut Medicare benefits, or cut defense, or raise taxes. … I can assure you that raising the debt limit is going to be a lot harder than keeping the government from shutting down. Pushing big deficit reduction now is very risky politically, but if this effort gets traction, the market will like it a lot.

This in many ways is what Obama was made for. And by refusing to take the bait to demagogue the issue, he has more support in the center from which to negotiate.

Steve Kornacki thinks conservative elites have caused Palin's polling decline:

Conservative voters, it seems, began to get the message: It was OK to like Palin and to believe she was a victim of the left and its allies and to still conclude that she wasn't presidential material. By the end of December, polls began registering a marked uptick in Palin's unfavorable scores, even among Republicans.

I really don't think that's the real cause, although it would flatter many in Washington to think so. My own view is that the reality show did real damage. It put Palin in a different context than politics, and revealed her phoniness in ways even she couldn't spin. Weigel sees how that led up to the coup de grace:

When does the unfavorable number spike? Right after January 8, 2011 — the day Jared Loughner went on his shooting spree. Palin was unfairly dragged into that story because Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, shot by Loughner, was on Palin's "target map." (There's no evidence that Loughner cared about this.) But she made the story worse for her by recording a video, right when interest in the Palin/political rhetoric was starting to wane, attacking the media for the "blood libel" it had engaged in. That may have been it for Palin.

I still think her raw political talent shouldn't be under-estimated given the truly underwhelming character of the current GOP race. But on this question, I truly would love to be proven wrong. My entire issue with Palin from the get-go has not been that she is somehow nuttier than many others (though she is). It is that no one that nuts should ever be able to get so close to such power at such short notice. Mercifully, we escaped that. But it was touch-and-go there for a while.

(The "definitely real" screenshot via HuffPo)