I fight with the weapons I have

Wanted to congratulate Erich--I thought that he expressed his views with great clarity and precision. Thank you.

I am looking for statistics on a few different things:

1) comparable survival rates on the top ten killer diseases in Industrialized countries.

2) Statistics on murder, suicide, and accidents in Industrialized countries before and after adopting UHC.

3) Stats on the amount of research funded by governments as opposed to private industry in Industrialized countries, including the U.S. Cross-referenced with the number of, say, medical oriented Nobel prizes for different countries, adjusted for GNP.

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I find it interesting that so many think that the murder, obesity, hypertension and other stats that are said to make up the difference in life stats between countries have nothing to do with the health care systems and social safety net. It is understandable that I would find this noxious considering that these factors so powerfully impact the black community. When people suggest that these factors are because people don't care, or don't want to be healthy, or are intrinsically inclined toward negative behaviors, it is impossible for me not to think that they are privately thinking that about the racial groups most affected by them. And while (most) people won't say that publicly, it sure seems to be driving their positions. I have, over the years, heard entirely too many Conservatives actually say "who cares, that's their choice" or imply that there is simply something...sub-standard. Countless times. And while I know that doesn't reflect the attitudes of all Conservatives (by any means) it is precisely these comments that drove me out of the fold.

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It is impossible for me (or anyone else) to completely separate my feelings from my thoughts, so I want to label today's rants clearly: I know I'm emotionalized, and while I won't apologize for it, I do want you to know I'm aware, and that I'm repeating some things I've already said. I just don't feel like editing myself this morning.

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A couple of days ago in Arizona, a dozen people brought weapons, including automatic weapons, outside a convention center where the President was making a pro-health care speech. Conservatives have been careful to point out that the guy carrying an automatic rifle was black. When asked why they showed up with weapons, one guy answered "because we can."

This is so transparent. Note: while one need not be racist to oppose ObamaCare (I actually don't completely mind that term), we can be pretty certain that the 10% of white racists would tend to come down against it. Or anything he has to say or do, based on a vague if not powerful sense that "this isn't my country any more." And of course if you start with that feeling, you are going to find plenty of evidence.

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Barnes' Law: any group of people large enough that the people cannot recognize each other by sight will begin to act like a living thing, with its own drives and needs. These drives and needs will not necessarily be in alignment with the values of any particular person in that group...or their conscious thoughts.

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In this case, the legitimate political opponents are, in typical political "Big Tent" fashion, aligning themselves with anyone who will vote their way...including racists and Wingnuts. And it has seemed to me for a while that what is happening with the Birthers and so forth is that the unconscious drive on the Whacko element of the Right is to troll for an assassin. Or for a fall guy, someone who could plausibly be believed to be a "Lone Gunman." And of course, the perfect "Lone Gunman" in this instance would be black.

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As you can see by the interview quoted at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/18/right-wing-radio-host-sta_n_262559.html

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The black guy, "Chris", was invited to the rally. And that was what I said to Tananarive yesterday: that I would bet that he was specifically asked to show up with his automatic rifle, with my interpretation being that they wanted his skin tone to provide cover for the ugly element within the opposition (note that I'm being careful not to suggest that the entire opposition is racist. I don't believe that. But the idea of a black man in the White House is driving racists crazy, and which side of the spectrum you YOU think they're settling on?)

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We're watching the collective unconscious of the ugliest elements in our culture crawling out from under their flat rock. It's going to get worse. When you say you bring weapons "because you can" you aren't answering the question. The question is: why now, and not at a Bush rally? Or a McCain rally? You had the right then, too. My conclusion: pure intimidation. Oh...and setting up a plausible pattern for a "Lone Assassin" scenario: overwhelming the Secret Service, providing distraction ("multipliers") to stress out the protective services and increase chances of a mistake.

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I'm aware that a consistent talking point now is that murder, obesity, smoking, suicide and other "lifestyle factors" are being pointed to as making up the difference in statistics between America and countries with UHC.

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And this, precisely, exactly, is an example of my position that a core difference between Left and Right is "where do you come down on the Nature/Nurture debate?" Because they very well may be right: but teasing out causality from correlation may turn out to be more difficult than one might think. This is why I want to see bunches of people examining the trend lines for these (and other lifestyle) factors in the pertinent countries BEFORE and AFTER UHC.

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My position, clearly stated: I believe that within a generation after such UHC programs were put into place, these factors decreased. I mean, once upon a time, we were near the top in terms of health care. And now we seem (if we include these factors) to be near the bottom. What happened? My sense is that those on the side of the just believe that something intrinsic within many Americans just suddenly began to command them to die young. Or that they wanted to die young. Or are just innately murderous and self-destructive. That these things have nothing to do with social context.

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All right--because these positions are ultimately based on arguments about the soul going back thousands of years, it is very unlikely to be resolved in this generation. Here's where it sticks in my craw: if you take that position, you would seem to be standing on the same side of the room as those who think that an entire group (say...black people) WANT to have more crime, be poor, and presumably be sick and die early. Black men die an average of five years earlier than whites. Many of these reasons are lifestyle factors. One can either (basically) conclude that this is due to a grotesquely unequal social environment stretching back 400 years (and FINALLY beginning to change perhaps 30-50 years ago) or one can conclude that there is something innately different about the group. Guess which side I come down on.

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So here's my belief: that America used to be among the best. Then these other countries put in place a stronger social safety net, lifting their citizens up while ours remained in a "dog eat dog" situation, with some of the dogs muzzled by law and centuries of programming. They got better, while we remained the same or got worse, creating a relative negative result: America WAY down there in terms of life expectancy, infant mortality and so forth.

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And those who think it is primarily "Nature" conclude that these statistics "prove" that America has the best health care--because if you just remove those pesky blacks and other groups who are disadvantaged, or remove the problems that are symptomatic of being crushed in the gears of a soulless machine (stress-triggered disease and obesity, isolation-induced suicide, sleep-deprivation accidents, rage-induced murder, etc.), why, middle-class whites are doing just fine! Why the hell should anything change? Why should the least capable in our society "drag down" the most capable? It's a scandal, I say!

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THAT is what I hear.

Politics makes strange bedfellows indeed.

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A reader recently said that, basically, women were intimidated by him. That's the first time I've heard a guy say that, but I've heard it from women for years: can't find a guy because all the men are intimidated. I especially used to hear this from women who, in the real world, would be thought average, but were Goddesses in science fiction fandom. And my reply is the same: you must be fishing in a very small pond indeed. The "Big Fish In A Small Pond" syndrome is common among the insecure. It just means that they wouldn't really be attracted to themselves. They don't really like or love themselves. Do you really think that the women married to Nobel Laureates, pro athletes, professional entertainers, multi-billionaires and so forth would be intimidated by you? What a joke. Grow up. Heal yourself and start producing the type of life results that will allow you to attract the truly brilliant and spectacular women available--to men of high accomplishment and proven worth. When I can Google you and be impressed, we'll have something to talk about.

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Of all the arguments against UHC I've heard, perhaps the most interesting is the assertion that if we had it, medical research would suffer because of loss of profit motive, and ultimately death rates would rise.

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That's really interesting, and I have to admit that I just don't have the data to refute it...and that under the right set of circumstances I could see how it could be true. While I search for information, though, it seems to me that for it to be true a number of different things would have to first be established:

1) That profit motive is stronger than fear of death, altruism, or intellectual curiosity in terms of producing valuable results (or at least that, in a situation with a reduced profit motive, these other factors would not compensate sufficiently)

2) That America produces more medical advances than countries with UHC, adjusted for GNP, population, etc.

3) That those advances are largely due to private sector profit-based investments as opposed to government or non-profit investments.

4) That for-profit companies are not primarily investing in medications that have a high profit margin or potential, thus affecting mortality statistics primarily among the rich, but not overall population mortality.

5) That the majority of changes leading to more favorable mortality statistics are not simple low-cost changes: prostate exams cost a hell of a lot less (how much is a rubber glove?) than late-stage emergency cancer treatments.

6) That Universal Health Care doesn't impact lifestyle problems (obesity, smoking, suicide, stress illness, fatigue-related accidents etc.) or social problems caused by alienation (murder, etc.). My guess is that some of these factors are NOT directly impacted by UHC, but ARE impacted by the kind of humane society that says that every member has intrinsic worth. Correlation, but not causality.

7) That billion-dollar compensation for Insurance executives somehow benefits the insured. That, in other words, such men and women provide services THOUSANDS of times superior to bureaucrats earning, say 250,000 dollars a year. Because otherwise, that's just flushed down the drain.

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I have a vested interest here. My belief is that 400 years of abuse has done fantastic damage to the black community, from which it is just now beginning to emerge. That in our population are a minimum of 10% of white people who believe that the inequality is due to innate differences, and for that reason (as well as basic tribalism) fight against anything that would even the social playing field. That few of them will be honest about this, and hide in the ranks of those who talk about "reverse racism", embracing anecdotal stories of oppressed whites above statistical evidence of gigantic, lethal effects on blacks. Because of them, it is almost impossible to pass any legislation that might directly benefit blacks. I've said for years that I'll know when things have changed when a few things like infant mortality rate, life expectancy, incarceration rates and inherited wealth are equal.

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If nothing can be done that is specifically targeted at blacks, then the only option is to raise the social safety net for all. To allow those who have benefitted most from the system (yes, I'm aware that Libertarians would probably say that the wealthiest have GIVEN most to the system) to pay more taxes, which I believe to be a stabilizing influence (to a point: as I've said, I suspect that there is an ideal range of wealth disparity. I don't know what it is, but I'm sure that a statistical analysis would show what multiples of income between poorest and wealthiest are safe for a society. In my opinion Communism doesn't work -- we're just not wired that way. But limited Socialization of "the commons" does. The only valid argument is: what should be included in the Commons? We have many examples of Industrialized Countries who are healthier than we are and provide health services to their people without bankrupting themselves. Hell--we're the greatest debtor Nation in history right now. And the countries above us seem to all have UHC. To me, unless beneath it all you believe the Soul enters the world already formed, the conclusion is obvious.

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Rant ended. I've made it clear that I have a raw nerve here: the countless times I've heard Conservatives either directly or indirectly accuse the poor and sick of being that because on some level they want it, or have no capacity to do better.

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Whether dealing with people on an individual or group level, I reject this clearly, stating my position in Mile-High letters. Most people who are getting brutal results in the arena of finance, relationships, or their bodies are running seriously screwed-up programs. Few of those programs were self-inflicted. People who are NOT balanced in all three arenas often lie to themselves about why they are not, and project those lies out into the culture they see.

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Most (but certainly not all) of the people who ARE balanced in all three areas have, to my experience, huge empathy for the work it takes to get there. They tend to be compassionate toward the human condition because they have done the work, faced their demons, fought past their fears, or been the recipient of high-level teaching without which they might have foundered. They look at those who are less successful with a deep sense of connection.

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If the poor, and the sick, and the lonely are these things primarily due to confusion (and yes, even in the best world, we would stil have unequal results. But there is little innate reason for as much sickness, despair, loneliness, and grinding poverty as we have). So I fight for YOUR health in the belief that in facing the reality of how your body was shaped by fears, beliefs and emotional anchors you never put in place, you will start grasping what shaped others as well. I fight for YOUR success because embracing it means leaving behind the preconceived notions of hierarchy that kept racist beliefs in place for so long. I fight for YOUR right to love and intimacy because love and fear compete for the same place in your heart, and when you reduce fear, you begin to feel the connection to all other living things, and all other human beings, and the mythologies that have kept us isolated in separate tribes begins to fall away.

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I fight for YOU because it is the only way to create a better world for my own children. I fight with the weapons I have.

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