Quote of the Day: Where Is America’s Partisan Political Ugliness Heading?
Our political Quote of the Day comes from Time’s Joe Klein, who attended a health care reform town hall in Arkansas and asks the question I’ve asked here at TMV many times: just where is America’s accelerating trend towards political ugliness headed?
Klein expresses shock at the number of people at the meeting who were convinced that President Barack Obama is a communist — he talked to one woman who insisted there were four Communists in the administration (she is a talk radio listener) and writes:
I was later told by a local observer that many of these vomitous, disgraceful notions were the fruit of Glenn Beck’s fruitful imagination. “We are living Glenn Beck’s fantasy life,” said this audience member. The amazing thing remains not only the unwillingness of responsible Republicans–a term that is in danger of becoming an oxymoron–to call bull– on this, but also the willingness of many prominent Republicans to join in the slinging of garbage. Michelle Cottle reports that there are Republican-sanctioned efforts afoot to have parents not send their children to school on September 8 because the President is scheduled to address the nation’s school-children that day and they are afraid that he will fill their little heads with socialist propaganda. That is somewhere well beyond disgraceful.
Could I just say that the intensity of this getting pretty scary…and dangerous? We are heading toward a cliff and the usual brakes of civil discourse are not working. Indeed, the Republicans have the pedal to the metal–rushing us toward a tragedy far greater than the California health care forum finger-biting Karen describes below. [See TMV's earlier post on this story about a health care reform supporter biting off the finger of a health care reform opponent.] I’m usually not one to panic or be overly worried about the state of our country–even when we do awful things like invade Iraq and torture people, we usually right our course before long–but I have a sinking feeling about where we’re headed now. I hope I’m wrong.
For instance, putting aside screaming and accusatory partisan old and new media writings and broadcasts, here is how the AP describes Obama’s speech to school kids:
The president will speak directly to students Tuesday about the need to work hard and stay in school. His address will be shown live on the White House Web site and on C-SPAN at noon EDT, a time when classrooms across the country will be able to tune in.
Schools don’t have to show it. But districts across the country have been inundated with phone calls from parents and are struggling to address the controversy that broke out after Education Secretary Arne Duncan sent a letter to principals urging schools to tune in.
And here is an AP quote that shows just have much hatred and demonziation of those who do not agree with you has taken hold of America — just as if the bodysnatchers have taken over the bodies of people who might once have raged over issues, rather than try to politically define and discredit someone who sees things differently:
“As far as I am concerned, this is not civics education — it gives the appearance of creating a cult of personality,” said Oklahoma Republican state Sen. Steve Russell. “This is something you’d expect to see in North Korea or in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.”
So far districts in six states are refraining from showing Obama’s speech due to conservative parent complaints.
But Presidents and first ladies have talked to kids before in classrooms or White House encounters about the importance of hard work, staying in school, and thinking about the country. What’s different is that Obama is simply using old and new media to offer his talk to a wider school audience. Yet, in other times when demonization wasn’t king, people belonging to a different political party didn’t make their kids to stay home if JFK, Ronald Reagan, Nancy Reagan, or George Bush (who was at a school on September 11) spoke at a school. It wasn’t “Let’s hide the kids because this President doesn’t agree with me on some policies and if he says hello or stay in school he’ll have a magical power to brainwash them!” There were limits to partisanship. [The LA Times notes -- see update below -- that Democrats criticized President George HW Bush for a 1981 speech televised from an 8th grade classroom. What is different here is the demonization. Ronald Reagan spoke to school kids also and mentioned Republican principles.]
What has changed? The country.
We are now seeing the triumph of the talk radio political culture — a politics that now is framed in terms of high-concept sound bites, trying to affix labels to those who disagree on an issue, trying to push emotional hot buttons so that the political target is hated enough to serve as a catalyst for a goal (in the case of talk shows to grow and maintain an outraged audience; in the case of politics, to mobilize one side).
And when people say they fear where this is headed, just what does that mean? The bottom line is that there are fears that someone will get killed — someone on one side or another, or a political figure — which does not mean only Obama — or that a large number of people could get hurt of killed in some kind of political nutcase act.
But it isn’t just that.
The present frenzy suggests that the seeds are now being sowed for a mega-polarized America that could be almost ungovernable in the 21st century if this trend continues unabated.
If Republicans and conservatives make the very legitimacy of Obama his patriotism — even the safety of allowing little kids listen to him tell them to stay in school and think about helping their community — the issue, and link his name to Hitler and/or Nazism, precisely how do they think Democrats and the left will respond next time a GOPer is in power? How will the next Republican President be treated in terms of legitimacy and doing what he/she feels is in the best interest of the country? The bar on discourse is being lowered and lower and right now it’s touching the soil.
It’s a question that should give thoughtful Republicans — and there still are many of them — pause.
But so far we’re not seeing a pause.
Just a country seemingly heading towards a cliff.
UPDATE: The New Republic’s The Plank on the school boycott:
Tammy Bruce has gone so far as to encourage parents to keep their kids home that day. “Make September 8 Parentally Approved Skip Day. You are your child’s moral tutor, not that shady lawyer from Chicago,” she tweeted.
This is disgraceful. For starters, Obama’s message, as described in a press release from Ed Sec Arne Duncan, will stick to anodyne topics like the need to work hard and take responsibility for one’s own success (which once upon a time were values Republicans could cheer.) Admittedly, I don’t have an advance text, but I’ll bet a year’s supply of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey that Obama will not be lecturing America’s youth about the joys of bank bailouts, universal health care, or cash-for-clunkers–just as I am confident George W. Bush would never have used school children to hawk the Iraq war, the Medicare drug program, or “enhanced interrogation” techniques. Dick Cheney, maybe. But not Bush.
More broadly, Obama is the leader of this entire nation. It doesn’t matter if you voted for him–or even if your head threatens to explode every time you think about him. He is the president, and, as such, it’s a big deal that he’s speaking directly to students about the importance of education. (Not teachers unions, you hysterics.) And, whatever one’s party registration, the idea that any child should be kept home from class purely so their parents can make a political statement about an apolitical speech is appalling. Is the idea that we should shelter children from any contact with or knowledge of any president we personally dislike? Maybe, during the years our preferred party is out of power, we should just pretend that the president doesn’t exist. That’s a healthy way to run a democracy.
UPDATE II: Some other reaction (these are only excerpts so go to the links and read these posts in full to get a variety of opinions on this issue):
–Political scientist Steven Taylor:
I have two basic reactions. First, what is so controversial (or, for that matter, all that unusual) for a president to extol the youth of America to take education seriously? Second, I have to admit that given all that a given president has to do, that perhaps these kinds of symbolic acts are perhaps not the most efficient usage of time (although I acknowledge that symbolic acts of this type do go along with the president’s role as head of state and the much vaunted “bully pulpit.”)….One can argue whether a back to school speech is the best use of either the president’s or the children’s time. However, it is hardly a prelude to totalitarianism.
I actually agree with every word of that. Granted, “stay in school” is such an innocuous message that it’s hard to object to its being presented. But do we really need to add to the already inflated sense of the president of the United States as our national daddy? The man’s in charge of one branch of the federal government; he’s not king.
Still, as Doug Mataconis points out, this is hardly new. Why, Ronald Reagan himself gave such as speech. So did both Presidents Bush. Indeed, Reagan went to far as to answer questions from the kiddies on federal budget priorities and gun control!
I’ve ignored the furor over Obama’s address to the nation’s schoolchildren about working hard in school because it’s a fake story fueled by misguided outrage.
We eagerly await Mr.Gandelman’s return to our Solar System.
When (if) he returns, perhaps he will contemplate an alternative scenario – Joe Klein and the media on the left are highlighting the zaniest Obama critics they can find with the goal of discrediting all Obama critics. It’s an old, old game and I am surprised that Mr. Gandelman can’t recognize it.
…Again, a challenge, but for those who remember all the way back to 2004, try to think back to the prominent Democrats in attendance at the Fahrenheit 9/11 premieres, and Michael Moore’s guest-of-honor appearance at the Democratic Convention.
In the wake of the uproar, the Department of Education decided to alter its language about one of its activities.
The original version suggested students “write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president.” The updated version asks students to “write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short-term and long-term education goals.”
Individual school districts in at least half a dozen states have indicated they will not show the speech.
Monique Bond, a spokeswoman for Chicago Public Schools, which Duncan headed before joining Obama’s Cabinet, said that no school would be required to participate in the activities surrounding the president’s address. She added that teachers could offer alternative activities for students whose parents elect for them not to participate.
Wayde Byard, public information officer for Loudon County Public Schools in Virginia, said the speech “just doesn’t fit in with the first day of activities.”
In October 1991, President George H.W. Bush delivered a speech from an eighth-grade classroom in Washington, D.C., that was broadcast nationwide. The move was criticized by Democrats at the time.
In 1988, then-President Reagan spoke to students nationwide via C-SPAN telecast. Among other things, he talked about his positions on political issues of the day. Three years later, then-President Bush addressed school kids in a speech broadcast live to school classrooms nationwide. Among other things, he promoted his own administration’s education policies.
President Obama wants to deliver a message to students next week emphasizing hard work, encouraging young people to do their best in school. The temper tantrum the right is throwing in response only helps reinforce how far gone 21st-century conservatives really are.
This is no small, isolated fit, thrown by random nutjobs. The New York Times, Washington Post,LA Times, AP, and others all ran stories this morning about the coordinated national effort to either keep children at home so they can’t hear their president’s pro-education message, or demanding that local schools block the message altogether.
…The administration not only edited the supplementary materials, but has offered to make the text of the address available in advance, just so everyone can see how innocuous it is. It’s made no difference. Conservatives don’t want school kids to hear a message from their president. Those who claim superiority on American patriotism have decided to throw yet another tantrum over the idea that the president of the United States might encourage young people to do well in schools.
--Thoughts of a Conservative Christian:
While it appears the President’s speech will focus on the value of education and personal responsibility, federally-directed lesson plans set a concerning precedent for the government’s role in education. Education analyst Frederick Hess writes at the American Enterprise blog that the lesson plans “were developed with federal funds, devised on taxpayer time, and made available on the Department of Education’s website” and “might be construed as an invitation to engage in advocacy rather than instruction”.
The President, however, clearly wants his own children to be off limits to such classroom politicization. Upon moving to Washington, he chose to enroll his children in the private Sidwell Friends School.
But children in many of the country’s public schools will not be off limits on Tuesday. It is one thing to teach about the historical relevance and accomplishments of past administrations. It is another thing entirely to encourage children to implement a sitting president’s political agenda.
Now even school officials are kowtowing to the right-wing radio loudmouths and their zombie followers. No longer in America can the president give a speech to schoolchildren about the importance of taking education seriously and having aspirations.
Can you imagine this happening if John Kennedy or Ronald Reagan had given this speech? Schools would have devoted the whole day to social studies and patriotic pageants. Now, Obama haters fear he might try to indoctrinate their children. Mark Steyn, substituting for Rush Limbaugh on his show yesterday, accused the president of trying to create a personality cult like Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong-il.
…Florida’s Republican Party chairman, Jim Greer, said he “was appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology.”
–Michael Landauer’s Dallas Morning News blog post must be read in FULL. Here is just the beginning:
A few very reasonable people I know have said that there are valid reasons why people worry about the speech the president is giving to schoolchildren. Here’s my best attempt at understanding the three informed lines of reasoning (I just don’t have time to deal with the myriad uninformed opinions on this subject):
1. You’re libertarian to the Nth degree. If you really think this is too much power for the president, then certainly you also think it’s wrong to have the kids say the Pledge of Allegiance every day, too. And you may not even think public education is a great idea. It’s not in the Constitution, after all. Fine. I disagree, but I respect that. And it’s hard to believe when you’re someone who has never done anything but criticize the president. But I’ll just have to take your word for it that you have a pure libertarian point of view.
Read it in full.
–JBS.org:
I wouldn’t send my child to school on September 8, unless I had a strong death wish for America. On September 8, President Obama will be broadcasting a prepared speech to every school child, grades K-12, in America. On September 8, Obama the Change Agent begins his takeover of the schools…but not with my child, and hopefully not with yours.
Consider the implications of his grand plan. In a style typical of dictators, he is preempting the communications into every school in the nation. He has not sought the permission of parents or local school boards. He will not sign in at the office to get clearance and a visitor badge as everyone else must do.
As a parent, I expect the schools to notify me in writing if a controversial person or group would be making any kind of presentation. I could then decide whether to keep my child home, or ask that he be sent to the library to read during that time. But Barack Obama, with one huge broadcast, will dismiss the rights of everyone, ignore laws, and kick dust on the Constitution……The problem with the usurpation of nationwide instructional time on September 8 is not so much the message, but the manner. What gives Obama the legal right to trod upon the Constitution in this, and other matters
On September 8th at 1pm EST, President Obama will be the first U.S. president to speak to America’s school children in an address that is directed specifically to them. I would not agree with this even if it were President Ronald Reagan delivering the speech. It is highly offensive for our children and our schools to be used by the President to push a political agenda. [EDITOR's NOTE: Read above post and links. Other Presidents have talked to schoolkids also..] The U.S. Department of Education event put out an activity package for students to use before, during, and after the speech including making posters that will hang on the walls for several days. I read the activity sheets and I noticed that the questions students were being asked assumed that they would agree with whatever the President’s agenda might be. The questions were written in such a way as to discourage dissent and to seek group consensus on the President’s agenda.
Parents from all political parties should be offended and outraged by this disrespect of parental authority and personal family values and should reveal their disapproval by removing their child from any class period that will broadcast this speech. Take your child or children to lunch and then return them to school when the propaganda program has ended.
Obama is planning to speak with our kiddies live from the White House Sept. 8th at 12:00 Eastern time. Secretary Arne Duncan sent a letter to School Principals announcing the 20-minute speech by the President and offering questions and suggestions for discussion. All of us can apparently watch this socialist, manipulative speech to our children. The address will be streamed live.
The Dept. of Education is expecting our kids to read books on Barack Obama and his special life. This is supposed to happen before the speech. One of these books is Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope. Let’s have a moment of silence. In reading excerpts from this book you would think you were reading about Abraham or Jesus Christ. It is the story of a disenfranchised, almost hopeless black man who miraculously rose up through the ranks with the motto “Yes! We can!” You can read a few of the Messiah set up excerpts at the PUMA site taken from the official publisher.
Ever since Barack Obama was young, Hope has lived inside him. From he beaches of Hawaii to the streets of Chicago, from the jungles of Indonesia to the plains of Kenya, he has held on to Hope. Even as a boy, Barack knew he wasn’t quite like anybody else, but through his journeys he found the ability to listen to Hope and become what he was meant to be: a bridge to bring people together.
His mama, white as whipped cream; his daddy, black as ink…
I never imagined the outbreak of right-wing crazy that Obama’s gesture would provoke, and this time it’s hard not to see racism behind the hysteria. The message is “Obama’s coming for our children!” the standard cry against scary boogeymen in every culture. I mean, really, what besides Obama’s race could make him so scary to these people? That he’s a Marxist socialist fascist Nazi? I’d argue that the only reason those extreme epithets have taken hold goes back to reason No. 1: Our first black president is provoking some outsize and irrational reactions.
Especially since, as has now been well-documented, President George H.W. Bush addressed American students in 1991, and Ronald Reagan did so via C-SPAN in 1988. (Bush talked mainly about the importance of education, while Reagan hailed the benefits of low taxes and the line-item veto.) President George W. Bush appealed to “the children of the country” to back the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, to no public criticism. Admittedly, some Democrats accused his father of playing politics in ’91, while Newt Gingrich ardently defended him. (Waiting for Gingrich to defend Obama. Still waiting.)
But there was nothing like the frenzied reaction to Obama’s planned speech (which school principals are free to ignore if they so choose) to any of the other presidents’ statements to students. The Florida Republican Party went into full-tilt crazy against Obama’s plan to spread his “socialist ideology,” claiming “schoolchildren across our nation will be forced to watch the president justify his plans for government-run health care, banks, and automobile companies, increasing taxes on those who create jobs, and racking up more debt than any other president.”
Where the…are the Democrats?
Democrats should be all over this. Republicans have just lobbed the most perfect softball their way – telling kids to study in school is a message Republicans don’t want schoolchildren to hear??? Democrats should let them have it with both barrels. And the counter-attack should come at exactly the same level – state leadership, if not higher.
If you’re serious about 21st Century American politics, you don’t let the insane charge that the President of the United States is trying to corrupt the Youth of America go unanswered when it’s being made at the highest levels of the Republican party. Why?
Because if you refuse to fight back, it creates the distinct impression that there’s some truth to it. These aren’t merely deranged talkshow hosts accusing the President of fomenting subversion; these are leaders of a major political party. They cannot be ignored.
–Daily Kos gives this long excerpt of Ronald Reagan’s talk to school kids. Here is part of the Reagan quote:
Because you see, the taxes can be such a penalty on people that there’s no incentive for them to prosper and to earn more and so forth because they have to give so much to the government …
There was talk about having a gun ban in California. It didn’t go through. But I got a letter from a man in San Quentin Prison. And from the prison he wrote me the letter to tell me he was in there for burglary, he was a burglar. And he said, “I just want you to know that if that law goes through, here in San Quentin there will be celebrating throughout the day and night by all the burglars who are in prison.”
Because going over the heads of your own party, government institutions, and public opinion, directly to
the peopleschool children is such an unlikely strategy, it’s utterly devious.Genius, that Obama, securing the second grade vote like this.
President Obama announced that he will give a speech welcoming America’s young students into the new school year. Conservatives, happy to fight about anything this man does, came out swinging against the President’s “socialist” intentions. And they’re winning!
Basically, the speech amounts to nothing more than our nation’s Commander-in-Chief urging kids to stay in school, for, if they do, perhaps one day they’ll be president. Floridian Republican Jim Greer was one of the first to seize up over the news, and called Obama’s September 8th an attempt to “spread” his “socialist ideology.” Greer then got into nitty-gritty politics, and warned that the President would simply be indoctrinating guppies with his liberal politics.
Conservatives are easily swayed, almost collective organism, so their calls for prohibition only grew more voracious. They took particular offense over the announcement that students would be encouraged to “write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president.”
Rush Limbaugh was soon on board. So was Glenn Beck. And then Greer reared his head on Hardball this evening. Though he and his knows Presidents often address students, this is different, because Obama’s a proselytizer of anti-American madness.
–Economist.com’s Democracy in America:
The opposition to Mr Obama’s speech is fundamentally an attempt to deny the legitimacy of the president. It should be resisted. No liberal parents pulled their kindergardeners out of class to avoid having George W. Bush indoctrinate them with the esoteric neoconservative messages embedded in the text of “The Pet Goat”. (No wonder he was so insistent on finishing the reading!) But it’s also part of a broader atmosphere of paranoia that has taken root in American child-rearing in recent decades. In 1969, 50% of American children walked to school; that is down to less than 15%, in part due to fears that their children will be kidnapped, even though violent crime against children hasn’t grown at all. Those parents are increasingly reluctant to vaccinate their kids, for fear that vaccines are secretly harmful—i.e., that the entire edifice of modern scientific medicine is an elaborate conspiracy to harm their children. Teachers have their licenses revoked for letting kids climb up hills. And so forth.
It’s nuts. Walking to school is safe. Vaccines are good for you. Climbing hills is healthy. And if conservatives are worried that Obama will beam his mind-rays through the television screens and turn their children into…pro-business moderate liberals, or something, they should chill out: the mind-rays don’t work. In 1988, Ronald Reagan addressed the nation’s schoolchildren via television, and in 1991, George H.W. Bush did the same. And in 2008, those kids, now aged roughly 24 to 38, voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama. If, on the other hand, conservatives make the president’s speech seem like something forbidden and cool, that they’re not allowed to watch…that just might ensure those kids vote Democratic when they get the chance.
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239 Responses to “Quote of the Day: Where Is America’s Partisan Political Ugliness Heading?”
[...] The Conservatives can keep their kids home…put them at a disadvantage for the whole school year and perhaps set them up to be less than the Obama kids. With such Conservative values as 6,000 year old Earth, anti-evolution and the belief of the end of the world you cannot believe they are serious about knowledge anyway. So what does it matter? Story is here [...]
Kathy, in reply to this comment and the last one that you directed toward me, I can only say that you aren't correctly understanding my views on the politics and the reactions that have resulted from actions of this president and the last one.
I know that Bush did not get a majority of the popular vote. In that light, it's perfectly understandable that the people who did not vote for him took issue with a number of his policies right from the start, such as the list that Davebo gave. However, in overall scope, those were not transformative policies. At most, I'd grant him (her?) that a number of the complaints involve environmental policies and represented an incremental erosion of previous pro-environmental policies. Still though, in that first year, we weren't seeing an overall lurch in policy.
After 9/11, as Dr. J aptly points out, there was a general feeling of unity and goodwill which allowed Bush to implement some sweeping changes, with a compliant Congress. I've said before here at TMV (probably before you were around) that I think the unity feeling was a mirage- I think that most people did 'feel' unified but as soon as it came down to crafting legislation in response to the terrorist attacks, people's divisions quickly became apparent again. That's because our 'partisanship' isn't just based on team mentality and tribalism, but also is rooted in actual philosophical differences.
In that sense, the backlash against Bush is completely understandable, and if he'd wanted to avoid it he'd have had to build consensus for the new security measures based on a more thorough debate and not passing things through quickly before the 'unity' feel died down.
I see Obama now acting similarly. The economic crisis starting last year at this time, coupled with his personal popularity, are being used as the selling points for sweeping legislative changes- again, instead of taking the harder route of really convincing opponents of how this legislation is the best option to deal with a problem. And that's part of the problem that some independents and moderates have with him now- I think they believed that a better legislative package would come from a process with a pragmatic Obama at the helm.
So with Bush after the 9/11 unity faded, we saw the same thing that we're now seeing with Obama. Then, it was the >50% who didn't vote for him who became polarized against his policies, and now, it's the <50% plus some additional people who did vote for Obama but expected something different. (As a side note, I certainly don't understand why those people expected different- after he was elected I hoped that he wouldn't be as liberal and as divisive as I believed he'd be, but I definitely didn't think the odds were in favor of that outcome.)
As for the part about not listening to rude, boorish, or physically threatening people, I pretty much agree but just as conservatives previously felt that way about GWB's opponents, you (and many other people) are similarly painting Obama's opponents with that broad brush. And the reason I keep harping on this is because in hindsight, I realized that I was ignoring some legitimate complaints with GWB's policies when I ignored all of the rude, boorish, and physically threatening people on the left who were making those complaints.
Maybe you could take a cue from Ezra Klein, who explains the real reasons that the president/Congressional healthcare reform plans are floundering, instead of blaming it on the conservative opposition.
Right, that is exactly what he DID say, that the Dems were going to take heat from their constituents. Taking heat means listening to people who aren't happy with you, and who may express themselves with anger, which is exactly what has happened. It's a large leap from that to the Watts riots, and even the most extreme townhalls this summer haven't reached those levels of disorder and violence (nor was there anything in Boehner's statement to suggest that he wanted that to happen.)
And I still maintain your explanation made no sense. You agreed that you were characterizing his statement as a dog whistle, and then explained that people like yourself were the only ones who would understand the context to 'hear' the whistle. But dog whistles are comments that are meant to be understood by some people but not heard by others- so it makes no sense for someone to purposely make a statement that is not understood by the people that would need to understand it, in order for this to have been a call to violent action by opponents of HR 3200.
Not to belabor the long, hot summer thing – b/c if you need to believe that it was some crypto-call to violence, nothing will disabuse you of the notion – but there were at least two movies with the title The Long, Hot Summer, and if you Google the phrase – in quotation marks, of course – you get pages and pages of hits related to weather, sports, summer activities for children, and lots of other things unrelated to riots.
It's not a dog whistle, it's not a call to arms, it's not a reminder of racial discord. It's an overused cliche.
AR:
Thanks. I did read your great news about five days ago and I believe I commented then. I just wanted to know if there had been any more developments since then.
Dorian
The fact is that over half the country didn't vote for Bush.
I see Obama now acting similarly. The economic crisis starting last year at this time, coupled with his personal popularity, are being used as the selling points for sweeping legislative changes- again, instead of taking the harder route of really convincing opponents of how this legislation is the best option to deal with a problem.
Except that he is not acting similarly. Pres. Bush implemented sweeping legislative changes affecting civil liberties and other constitutional protections as the result of a catastrophic event that happened eight months after he took office. He had not campaigned on making these kinds of changes. He had not proposed or discussed or called for rewriting (in effect) whole sections of the Constitution. We now know (and have known for some time) that a group of individuals within the Bush admin who had served together in several Republican administrations — Dick Cheney most notable among them — had wanted to implement these changes for many, many years, and 9/11 gave them the cover to do so.
That is why Democrats, liberals, and other supporters of the Bill of Rights were so angry with Bush's sweeping legislative changes. There is simply no legitimate or logical comparison to be made between that, and Pres. Obama's health care reform agenda. As I've written here innumerable times (or it feels like it!), Barack Obama actively, explicitly, and openly campaigned on the health care reform issue. That was one of the centerpiece issues of his entire run for the presidency. The argument that there was no, or not enough, discussion, is totally w/o merit. Obviously, that is not to say that some people (the entire Republican membership of Congress?) do not agree with Obama's concept of health care reform. These are people who will never agree, because they are fundamentally opposed to any health care reform that actually changes the status quo in any meaningful way. That's not hyperbole; it's truth. And if that's the case, then fine — Republicans are doing their job, being the opposition party. The opposition party's job is to oppose. They're doing that. But don't come and tell us lies about how Obama is trying to ram through health care reform with no discussion, because that's just purely the stuff you find walking near the cow pasture.
I see Obama now acting similarly. The economic crisis starting last year at this time, coupled with his personal popularity, are being used as the selling points for sweeping legislative changes- again, instead of taking the harder route of really convincing opponents of how this legislation is the best option to deal with a problem.
Except that he is not acting similarly. Pres. Bush implemented sweeping legislative changes affecting civil liberties and other constitutional protections as the result of a catastrophic event that happened eight months after he took office. He had not campaigned on making these kinds of changes. He had not proposed or discussed or called for rewriting (in effect) whole sections of the Constitution. We now know (and have known for some time) that a group of individuals within the Bush admin who had served together in several Republican administrations — Dick Cheney most notable among them — had wanted to implement these changes for many, many years, and 9/11 gave them the cover to do so.
That is why Democrats, liberals, and other supporters of the Bill of Rights were so angry with Bush's sweeping legislative changes. There is simply no legitimate or logical comparison to be made between that, and Pres. Obama's health care reform agenda. As I've written here innumerable times (or it feels like it!), Barack Obama actively, explicitly, and openly campaigned on the health care reform issue. That was one of the centerpiece issues of his entire run for the presidency. The argument that there was no, or not enough, discussion, is totally w/o merit. Obviously, that is not to say that some people (the entire Republican membership of Congress?) do not agree with Obama's concept of health care reform. These are people who will never agree, because they are fundamentally opposed to any health care reform that actually changes the status quo in any meaningful way. That's not hyperbole; it's truth. And if that's the case, then fine — Republicans are doing their job, being the opposition party. The opposition party's job is to oppose. They're doing that. But don't come and tell us lies about how Obama is trying to ram through health care reform with no discussion, because that's just purely the stuff you find walking near the cow pasture.
“Barack Obama actively, explicitly, and openly campaigned on the health care reform issue.”
He did indeed. And he promised very sensible things like reducing costs. He's not delivering.
LOL, Dr_J. The best way to control costs is single-payer. Obama took that option off the table before Congress even started working on hcr legislation, because he was trying to please Republicans. So the next best cost-cutter is the public option, but Republicans have rejected that, too. Nonprofit co-ops are a third option that has a lot of question marks as to how well it would work, but that is a moot point, because the Republicans have rjected the co-op option as well.
“The best way to control costs is single-payer.”
That makes no sense in theory and is repeatedly disproved in practice. Medicare isn't controlling costs (and doesn't even appear to be trying). European health care costs are rising just as steadily as ours.
The best way to control costs is the way we do it in every other industry: competition.
I don't know what to say. Your statement is straightforwardly false. There's just no rational argument to be made that U.S.-style free market health care delivery is better at controlling costs than single-payer. The U.S. spends hugely, massively more per person for health care than any of the countries that have universal coverage, even the ones that are not 100 percent single-payer. European health care costs rising just as steadily as ours, even if it's true, is not relevant to which system is best at controlling costs overall. The U.S. system fails to deliver health care to tens of millions of its citizens, and it still costs more per person than any other country with universal coverage. Even the least effective universal coverage system in the world delivers basic preventive health care to all its citizens at a lower per capita cost (much lower) than the U.S. does.
So I don't know what I can say to you, Dr J. I don't think more links are going to help.
“Your statement is straightforwardly false. There's just no rational argument to be made that U.S.-style free market health care delivery is better at controlling costs than single-payer.”
Which was not quite my statement. I said *if* we had a truly competitive system, it would be better at controlling costs than single-payer. Today our system is scoring the same zero as everyone else.
“European health care costs rising just as steadily as ours, even if it's true, is not relevant to which system is best at controlling costs overall.”
Not relevant? Rising costs are the entire issue, Kathy. This the whole reason we have millions of uninsured: the rising tide of costs has been putting more and more people underwater.
What's not relevant is that the water level is a bit lower in Europe today. The fact is we're wealthier than Europeans, so we spend more on many things. When it comes to health care we have bigger problems and higher expectations, for example about how much we're entitled to and our freedom to sue if we don't like it. Even if we could adopt Sweden's system wholesale and it worked as well for us as it does for them, we would buy ourselves only a few years before we'd be as deep underwater as we are today.
We need serious structural reform.
Yes, rising costs are the entire issue, Dr J, and given the fact that rising costs are the issue, one would think a system that delivered universal health care coverage at one-third the cost per person of another system would be the preferable one — particularly since the overall cost of health care is rising everywhere. But as I like to say sometimes, YMMV.
We need serious structural reform.
Oh, goody. Five words out of 222 I can agree with.
“One would think a system that delivered universal health care coverage at one-third the cost per person of another system would be the preferable one.”
One third?? You're a wild spendthrift, Kathy. Cuba spends per capita less than 1/20th what we do and enjoys comparable life expectancy and other broad measures of health.
If those are the only things that matter, why is Europe so insanely expensive?
After reading this three times, the only reply I can come up with is “Huh”?
Seems like a simple question. Health care outcomes are similar in Cuba and Europe. Why is it more expensive in Europe?
Ummm, because Cuba equals unbearable year-round heat and more strange insects than you thought existed?
You're saying maybe strange insects have driven down the cost of their health care? Then perhaps you should be calling for reform based around importing Cuba's insects than importing Europe's payment schemes, since the former seems to work so much better.
Dorian -
Yes, I went back and realized you did. I wasn't sure at the moment as I received a lot of very nice comments, yours included, and a simple check on my part would have found yours.
Thanks again, and this Thursday is going to be a wonderful day at the Roth household.
btw – on an interesting side note, Vicki found out that while they are flying her back to Texas, they will not provide her transport to the airport! She is on her own for that.
You asked why Europe is more expensive than Cuba. I assumed you were asking me why Europe is considered a more desirable place to live than Cuba is (since I couldn't, and still can't, figure out any other point behind the question) — hence my answer. Cuba: unbearable heat and scary insects. Europe: Normal, civilized four-season weather and just the insects I'm used to (and grudgingly accept the existence of).
AR, I just saw this and obviusly it refers to some personal good news, but I don't know what it is. You must have posted a comment that I didn't see. Anyway, I don't want you to think I'm ignoring the good news, whatever it is. I just hadn't heard about it.
Does it have something to do with your daughter? Is she coming home?
I meant to ask why is health care more expensive in Europe than in Cuba, and why you're advocating that we adopt the European model rather than the Cuban one?
Thank you for the clarification. With the caveat that I would have to do the research to answer your question more substantively (I don't take your statements about comparative health outcomes and costs between Europe and Cuba on faith, for example), my first thought would be that the comparison is less relevant for health care reform in the United States than is the fact that Europeans still pay much less for health care than Americans do, even if it's correct that Cubans pay less for health care and have European-style outcomes (which I doubt, frankly).
I'm still not sure if this answers your question, but I'm trying.
The World Health Organization's site has a searchable database of all manner of figures on health care availability, spending, outcomes and so on, by country and by year. That made me an instant expert on Cuba
and can do the same for you.
I'm merely reapplying the same reasoning I keep hearing from you and others: Health care in Europe costs less than America for outcomes that are at least as good, therefore there's no rational argument for not adopting their system. By those standards, Cuba looks not only a little better than Europe but a lot better. So why shouldn't we adopt their system wholesale, whatever it is?
Health care in Europe costs less than America for outcomes that are at least as good, therefore there's no rational argument for not adopting their system. By those standards, Cuba looks not only a little better than Europe but a lot better. So why shouldn't we adopt their system wholesale, whatever it is?
Their health care system looks better, not their political system. I really and truly am not understanding your logic here, Dr J, and even though I could not disagree more with your worldview, I have never understood you to be silly, or a crackpot.
Kathy -
Yes, she is coming home Thursday!!
YEAH!!
And If you didn't catch the initial update from a few days ago (the one I referenced to Dorian) here it is – Victoria update.
BTW – when does your new doggie come home?
AR,
Read the update, I definitely had not seen that before. And it's such great news. If I'm remembering correctly, this is much more and faster progress than you had dared to hope for initially. I'm very happy for all of you.
As for doggie, it'll be a while, still. I'm being extremely careful about my choice this time, because I made some hasty, heart-overrules-head decisions in the past. Of course, I was on the rebound then, but still, I want to be cautious and realistic about what dog qualities and characteristics will fit my lifestyle and physical limitations.
I talked to Maggie (my daughter) about it, she is still leery, but here is one funny comment she made: “Mommy, what are you going to do when it's icy outside? You know how much trouble you have keeping your balance on the ice even w/o a dog!”
The sad part is, she's right.
I just have to find a small dog, gentle, walks well on leash, and gets along with cats. It is surprisingly hard to find all of those in one dog. But here is a leading candidate:
http://www.petfinder.com/petnote/displaypet.cgi…
I have now read the initial update, and that is great news, AR. I'm sure your whole family must be over the moon.
As for doggie, I don't have one yet, but here is a leading candidate:
http://www.petfinder.com/petnote/displaypet.cgi…
Kathy, we're talking about health care systems, not political systems. I've seen you advocate importing European health care, but I haven't seen you suggest we drag their parliamentary governments (or monarchies) along too. We can copy the health care and leave the politics.
And in terms of health care systems, Cuba's has much to recommend it. Government pays 90.7% of all health care costs, more than any country in Europe (though Luxembourg at 90.6% is a close second). The mortality rate due to cancer is 129 per 100,000 people, compared to 134 in the US, 141 in Germany, 143 in Spain. Life expectancy at birth is 68, only 7% behind Sweden. Their infant mortality rate is the same as the UK's. They have 59 doctors per 10,000 people, more than twice the US's 26. Yet they spend only 7.1% of GDP on health care, less than any western European country and only half as much as the US.
Cuba's system isn't perfect, but the outcome numbers look pretty good, and the cost numbers look phenomenal. These numbers say it's a great position for us to build from–especially since we have so many more resources to apply to the job.
Yet whereas you regard importing a European system based on cost and outcome numbers to be the only rational choice, importing the Cuban one based on the same analysis is silly and crackpot? There's a stark contradiction here. What's making you balk at the Cuban option?
Dr J,
I have no inclination or disinclination for the Cuban system. I have not studied the Cuban system, know nothing about the Cuban system, and never thought about the Cuban system. I'm not balking at it, I'm not jumping at it. What I know is that you are trying to play some kind of game with me here about Cuba's health care system or political system or social system or economic system or SOMETHING. And I still don't know exactly what it is, but I'm getting tired of it. Stop trying to maneuver me and manipulate me into giving you some answer that you have in mind which you can then use to prove whatever point it is that you have in mind, if indeed you do have one.
I don't have the patience of a saint, Dr J, and you are starting to SERIOUSLY annoy me. As my father used to say, piss.or.get.off.the.pot.If you have something to say, SAY.IT.
Kathy, you're not suggesting my desire to hire Fidel and Raul to overhaul our health care system is less than sincere, are you?
You are right, of course, but my rhetorical hope is to establish some common ground between us.
It's perfectly reasonable for you to eye Cuba warily–it's a third-world country with 1/300th of our GDP, a completely different culture, and a totalitarian government that engineers its own weird reality. Though it musters some surprisingly good health outcomes, you're right that importing their system is a crackpot idea. Behind each of those nice-sounding stats probably lurks 10 drawbacks we don't know about. And we are so different from Cuba in so many ways that it's virtually guaranteed that programs that work in Cuba wouldn't scale up to our giant, multicultural, non-totalitarian country.
What I've been hoping you'll say is “maybe there's more to it than just these outcome and cost stats” because that would establish our common ground. I balk at importing Europe's health care system on the basis of those stats, for similar reasons. Quick summaries of outcome statistics don't do justice to what I'm sure is a complex reality, and to be frank I haven't seen any single-payer champions go much deeper than “Europe is better! At half the cost!” European countries are much smaller than ours–more comparable to one of our states. They're poorer, and they're more culturally homogeneous. Though governments don't tend to be totalitarian, citizens have a different history and different relationship with the government than we do.
I suspect the extra money we spend on health care buys us benefits that don't show up in simple life expectancy stats–such as freedom to sue, for example. And I suspect that solutions that work well in small, homogeneous European countries wouldn't scale up well to ours. Is that sounding more rational?
iIt's perfectly reasonable for you to eye Cuba warily-
Nice try, Dr J. I don't eye Cuba warily. I eye YOU warily. And clearly with good reason.
I suspect the extra money we spend on health care buys us benefits that don't show up in simple life expectancy stats–such as freedom to sue, for example. And I suspect that solutions that work well in small, homogeneous European countries wouldn't scale up well to ours. Is that sounding more rational?
No. It sounds more honest — a straightforward statement of your beliefs as opposed to trying to trap me into giving an answer when I don't know the question — but it does not sound more rational.
Kathy, I've given you many straightforward statements of my beliefs, and it has generally been my experience that what you hear is not what I thought I said. I took a different approach this time, and I'm sorry if it left you feeling trapped.
No problem. It's all part of the mix.
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