Posts Tagged Politics

I had a couple of things I want to address today, so I’m going to be jumping around in topic just a bit.

First of all, I’d like to thank Admiral Mike Mullen and Secretary Robert Gates for their recommendations regarding the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. It is a heartening sign of progress when it comes to the acceptance of homosexuality and bisexuality. Unfortunately, I don’t think the repeal process will be easy, and will likely take longer than the gay rights community would like, even with the support of high-ranking officers.  Even so, hope given is a wonderful thing.

On the new budget, I keep hearing all over the mainstream media about how NASA’s budget was cut. What they don’t say is that the NASA programs that were cut (specifically NASA’s Constellation program) were backwards-looking cost-hogs. Instead, that money has been put toward more innovative R&D, education, and the privatizing of space exploration. Already, we have seen private corporations doing much more effective work with much less money.  Rather than the new budget striking against science and research, it shifts the focus toward the sort of innovation and creativity in which good science can thrive.

Also, there’s been a great victory for fact over celebrity-fads this week, as the medical journal Lancet has retracted the faulty research  linking autism with the MMR vaccine, apparently finally realizing the fact that scientists and logically thinking people the world over have always known: Correlation Does Not Equal Causation.  At the same time, Meryl Dorey has stepped down as leader of the Australian ["anti"] Vaccination Network in the wake of the blame placed on her shoulders for the death of a 4 week old child infected with pertussis because there was no blanket immunity in her community thanks to the anti-vax movement. It looks like she may even be prosecuted for dispensing medical advice without any medical training. (Because, apparently, a lot of people don’t realize that taking medical advice from celebrities who have no medical training is a bad idea.)

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I didn’t post yesterday because Senator Baucus released his proposal for healthcare reform, and I wanted to have a good chance to look it over before posting any remarks, since I’d prefer my opinions to be formed based on the actual document rather than what people tell me it contains.

The Chairman’s Mark  (a vernacular version of the bill) is available for download as a PDF file here: Baucus Proposal PDF

It’s a 223 page document comparing the provisions of the law as it stands now with the reforms proposed by Senator Baucus. It’s intended to be a starting point, a first draft, of sorts, for the new healthcare legislation.

It does not include a public option.  After reading through it I decided the best way to form a good opinion on the matter was to classify what it said in terms of pros and cons, the things I liked vs. the things I didn’t, so I made some lists.

Here’s a quick summary of the main points after the more tag. (This is going to be long!):

(more…)

Writing my post on the inflammatory lies being spread in attempts to kill healthcare reform and reading an interesting article at Slate on the best way to kill those lies got me to thinking about the nature of truth.

Truth tends to be relative. I’m not talking about cold, hard, indisputable fact, but truth.  That is, what people believe to be the truth, which quite often, these days, has only the broadest and most unsubstantial link to actual fact.

People will believe the truth is what they want the truth to be. Period. Whether that truth has a basis in fact has little to no effect on if it will be believed.  This is why we can end up with people who believe, absolutely, in things like the death panels.  People believe that it is true because people they trust said it is true, and everywhere that they choose to go (on the internet, on the news channels they choose to watch on television) also say that it is true.  Therefore, it becomes a truth, though a truth not at all centered in factual information.

They do not bother to look to a source that might dispute the validity of such a statement, and if anyone does dispute the validity of such statements, well, the disputer’s facts must be faulty in some manner, because we all know that the truth is the truth, right?

Like seeks like, so we as human beings tend to seek out those who share our opinions.  And by seeking out only those sources and communities that share our opinions, the only truths we come across are those which we most want to be true, and so when confronted with facts that run in opposition to that which we’ve heard within those communities and sources is true, those facts must be either wrong or outright lies.

This is why some otherwise intelligent people can believe, in no uncertain terms, that all Muslims are terrorists, Obama wasn’t born an American, and the Democrats are conspiring to kill our grandmas.  Every news source they choose to use to find out these things is telling them this, every community they partake in agrees with them on this, and so opinions and lies somehow gain an aura of truth, because dissenting opinions are never sought.

It’s an interesting paradox.  Today, thanks to the internet, we have access to as many points of view as there are people, and yet, we only seek out those points of view which agree with our own.  Shouldn’t we be using this resource as a way to broaden our minds?  Shouldn’t we learn how to filter through the spin and the politics to find the actual facts regardless of how different those facts might be from what we believe?

The tactics and outright lies regarding the healthcare debate these days just have to make me boggle, first at the thought that the people spreading such outright lies think they can get away with it and that other people are believing it and eating it up like pie.

There’s a good site that I recommend to anyone trying to filter the spin out of politics, the Pulitzer award site “PolitiFact“, which is entirely non-partisan and takes the statements of our politicians and puts them to the fact-checking test.

Here are some of the more ridiculous lies going about these days, in attempts to scare people away from health reform:

They’re going to force gramma to submit to euthanasia when she gets too old and expensive to take care of!

Um. No. Honestly, how can anyone believe something like that and call themselves a rational and intelligent human being?  The plan does require that elderly meet with counselors to help plan what they want for end-of-life care while they are still able to make those decisions, to encourage people to actually be responsible and lay out what they choose for how they want to be cared for while their still able, so that their caregivers and doctors don’t have to guess about it once their ability to make those decisions is gone.

A living will is a good thing to have, I have one, and I’m young and healthy. I like knowing that if something happens to me, if I were in a car accident or something, that my family will know what I want done, what sort of care I do or do not desire, but the options I chose in that living will are my choice alone, as they will be for any of the seniors who may fill one out with their counselors under this provision.  If, however, they wait until something does happen, and they’re unable to fill out those forms or make those decisions, well, then it is left in the hands of their children and next-of-kin to decide what is to be done, with no guidance whatsoever as to what the ill person might actually wish.

Taxpayer money will go to fund abortions!

Again, no.  Abortions will not be funded under any government healthcare plan, nor will independent  insurance companies be required to fund them.  You don’t have to worry about anyone spending your tax money on Evil Baby Murder via abortion…no, that tax money is going to kill other people in other countries, because we all know that sort of murder is right as rain. (/sarcasm).

So, poor teenage girls unable to support their accidental pregnancy will still either have to pay out of pocket for their abortion, or will go on welfare once the baby is born, which means you’ll be spending exponentially more of your taxpayer dollars to feed and clothe that baby, because no taxpayer dollars will go to pay for abortions. Do you feel better now?

Taxpayer money will go to pay for sex-change operations for all those weird gay people and we can’t have that!

Um…no, this one ranks right up there with the Obama-wants-to-kill-gramma one.  I just don’t know what sort of answer to give.  This is still, essentially, a cosmetic and voluntary surgery regardless of the psychological benefit it may provide to the people who undergo it, so don’t worry, you don’t have to worry about your taxpayer money being spent to support an “immoral” lifestyle…unless you count all those philandering politicians you’re paying the paychecks for.

I don’t make any secret as to where my sympathies or politics lie, but if you want to have a look at the non-partisan analysis of the political commentary on healthcare, take a look at the chart at PolitiFact – it is rather interesting to see who is telling the truth, who is outright lying, and who is telling the truth, but telling it slant.  It might make you think.

Hold the people in politics accountable, regardless of what side of the fence they sit on, and make them tell the truth, for once. We’re the only ones that can.

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There was a series for a while on NPR that always caught my attention called “This I Believe.” People of all circumstances and backgrounds would write in essays about what their core beliefs were, whether religious or secular, realistic or idealistic.  It’s an essay I always wanted to write, but somehow couldn’t.  I couldn’t boil everything I believe down to one all-encompassing statement, and so much of what I believed was so contradictory that, to me, it didn’t make sense that I could believe both things at once.

But finally, now, I think I’m at a point where I can write that essay. . .  so here goes:

I believe that a single individual’s beliefs can contradict without invalidating each other.  Like Samantha Black Crow in Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, “I can believe that things are true and I can believe things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not.”

I have a deep, spiritual respect and belief in the Earth and Nature. I believe that She suffers because of our actions and I believe that by changing those actions we can end that suffering. I believe in all that She can give us and all that we are obligated to give Her so that we all can survive.

I believe in magic and miracles, and I believe in dreams.  I believe that there are faeries dancing in the shadows and ghosts in the attic and that I believe that I can believe these things while maintaining a deep respect and belief in the fundamentals of science and hard fact.

I believe that fiction is truth and that the worlds contained within books are as real and as tangible and as alive as this world that is built of atoms and molecules.  I  believe that dwarves were carved from stone, that white mice are superintelligent interdimensional beings,  and I  believe in natural selection and evolution and that humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor.

I believe that women are in every way equal to men, and that a man should hold open doors for his lady.  I believe that I live in one of the most narrow-minded, bigoted areas of the nation, which I don’t like,  but I also believe that it is also one of the few places where formal courtesy and manners are still expected and where people still go out of their way to help their neighbor,  no matter who they are, and I like that.

I believe firmly in the fundamental values of my country, and I believe that dissenting against politics contrary to those values is one of the most patriotic things a citizen can do.  I believe in supporting our soldiers when they put their lives on the line and I believe that the wars they are fighting in are unnecessary and over-costly.

Finally, I  believe that believing all of this is not a contradiction at all.

I’ve written on this before, but one of Neil Gaiman‘s latest blog posts brought the issue to mind again, and I very nearly missed the deadline to add my own thoughts to the open forum discussion on this topic.

You see, my grandmother has Alzheimer’s disease. She is at a very late, advanced stage. She is no longer easily able to form entire words, much less sentences, she does not recognize her daughters, grandchildren, or husband. She has to be fed, or she forgets to eat any food placed in front of her, and she has to wear diapers, for she has forgotten how to use a toilet or clean herself.  And yet, her body, such as it is, remains fairly healthy. She exists lost in a mind that has become so twisted and tangled that she cannot find her way out.

There is no hope that she will ever regain her memory, that she will ever be able to function normally again, that she will ever regain the dignity she has lost.

But Alzheimers is a hereditary disease. She was not the first in our family to have it, all of her sisters had it.  It’s probable that my aunt, my mother, my cousins, or myself will one day face this same thing.

Stem-cell research is the only research avenue offering hope for a real result, perhaps not a cure, perhaps only a stay-of-execution….but of a far better and more successful result than any of the current medicines can offer.

If you have anything to say on this topic, whatsoever…please visit the links mentioned here: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd5vs2xt_0hkwp6xd8 and let your voice be heard.

I just got finished watching Obama’s speech, and it’s safe to say that we have someone in office that I can say I’m proud to have as our president. He’s an amazing and charismatic orator, and the speech as a whole was a hopeful one, though he recognized and did not make light of the problems he’s facing. He stressed working together and being inclusive, which is exactly what we need right now, but also taking responsibility for our actions and working together to rebuild.

“Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions – that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America . . . . . For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies.”

He wants to build infrastructure and upgrade technologies. It seems he’ll be very much technology and science oriented. We’re in a spot now where the new technologies, well implemented, are so much cheaper and more efficient than the old…the problem is setting them in place, and better to rely on science than “dogma.”

“We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do . “

Hope. I’m feeling so much more optimistic about so many things lately, and this just adds to it.

Links: Transcript of Full Speech