Different Slants

The September 6, 2007 Wall Street Journal had an insightful article on the health care system in Holland. The system’s goals are universal coverage and consumer choice - a combination that is hard to argue against.

Since in 2006, all adults in Holland are required to purchase their own health insurance. There are penalties for failure to do so. Before jumping on that as another government invasion of individual rights, consider the precedents. If you drive a car, you are probably required to buy liability insurance. In most places, the government does not tell you who to buy it from, just that you must buy it or pay a penalty.

Next, insurance companies must accept all applicants, regardless of medical history or pre-existing conditions. (Read on …)

In his comments to my previous post, a good friend, Don Larson, got me thinking about the changing nature of war and about how the use of the word itself has been broadened. Wikipedia has much interesting material on war.

When I was young (and Rome was invading Carthage), war seemed a simple concept and when one heard the word its meaning was generally understood. Now it can mean so many things. Lets look at a few.

Conventional war. Like World War II, conventional war is fought by nation states. Each has a military. In (Read on …)

The U.S. wars in Iraq and Viet Nam bear little resemblance in my opinion. The North Vietnamese were fighting for reunification and were supported by two world powers, China and the Soviet Union. The Iraqis seem to be fighting to settle old scores. But since President Bush made the analogy, lets think about it.

Why were these wars started?

In the case of Viet Nam, the war was started by the French to protect French economic interests and taken over by the U.S. for idealogical reasons, to fight the spread of communism. In the case of Iraq, the reasons given keep changing. The only one not mentioned, to protect U.S. oil supplies, seems the most likely. We may never know the real reasons behind this war.

How were the wars sold to the American public? (Read on …)

I got a call yesterday from the DNC asking for a contribution. I said no and explained why.

Nearly every communication I have receive from the Democratic party since the last election has begun by reminding me how bad the Republicans are. Half of what the Democrats are doing in Congress, it seems, is only an exercise in making the Republicans look bad. I think the Republicans are doing a fine job of making themselves look bad. They don’t need any help from the Democrats.

This is 2007. It may be hard to tell but, it is not an election year. It is time to stop campaigning and start solving the nations problems. We still have to find a way out of Iraq. Our educational system is not competitive. Health care is broken. Social Security is headed for a train wreck. Both parties, and part of the problem is we effectively have only two, need to stop their bickering and get to work.

Since the one thing both parties seem to pay the most attention to is campaign money, I am withholding my contributions to the DNC until I see the party start to live up to their promise of changing the tone in Congress. I have always withheld money from the Republicans so I can’t really change do much there.

The highest priority role of the U.S. federal government should be defense. We could have a very long debate indeed on the difference between defense and military adventurism but, we won’t. Not here. Not now. Maybe later.

The second highest priority should be education. In the U.S., the job of education falls to the states. Thats a good idea except it is not working for most of the nation. Some of the states have created good universities but, we have to look to other countries to find students qualified to attend them. Although we still have many of the top universities in the world, our K-12 educational system is continuing it long decline.

So why is this important? (Read on …)

On June 25th, 2007, the US Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 that a key portion of the McCain-Feingold law had been unconstitutionally applied to the Wisconsin Right to Life group. The ruling is regarded as opening the door to political ads that circumvent campaign finance restrictions.

This is not a surprising outcome. Any attempt to limit election campaign funding is liable to be view as a restriction of free speech. The reformation of our electoral campaign system requires more free speech, not less. That is to say, the root of the problem is the high cost of free speech.

(Read on …)