I’m Sitting Out This Debate

Political junkie confession time: I have no interest in watching the debate this evening.

This primary season has been utterly disheartening, as has the political environment in general over the last 3 (or more!) years.

The debates are promoted like sporting events, with splashy graphics and pre- and post-game analysis, because apparently someone has determined that sports is the only thing that Americans can understand. The moderators and the networks are more interested in ratings than they are in helping voters understand the issues. Honestly, how much has anyone learned about any of the candidates in the previous two events? Close to absolute zero, I’d estimate.

A Primer on Primaries

It’s primary season. Yay! The Democratic debates have begun. Woo hoo! And the Democrats are in the process of determining who their candidate for the 2020 presidential election will be. Gulp.

Of course, we know that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee. But who will be the Democratic nominee? Twenty-five people are vying for that title, and the primary process will whittle that number all the way down to one, who will oppose Trump in the general election. What is there to know about the process? After all, primaries are just like any other election: all the same rules apply to primary elections and general elections. Right?

Wrong.

Majority Rule: Is It Always Best?

Is “majority rule” the gold standard of decision-making? Is it always best for us to be governed by the 51%, or should there be some consideration given to the opinions and rights of the minority? That’s a question nobody is asking as political attention

We’re Talking About the Wrong College Admissions Scandal

The college admission bribery scandal is all my friends are talking about the last few days, but I really don’t understand why they all have their knickers in a bunch. Maybe the scandal did involve dozens of seemingly “respectable” families and millions of dollars and did temporarily sully the reputations of some of our nation’s best universities, but the only question that’s of interest to me is why on earth those cheating parents took such extraordinary, blatantly illegal, and frankly stupid measures to get their kids into college instead of using the perfectly acceptable methods like writing big checks and inviting the Dean of Admissions for a weekend at their beach house like everyone else does.

Virginia: A Possible Spoiler for the Dems

There’s an important debate going on in the Democratic party right now. The careers of three men in Virginia hang in the balance. And even if you don’t live in Virginia, it matters. Let me explain why.

People often liken politics to sports. There’s a certain appeal in that analogy for

Help! I Don’t Know How to Write About What’s On My Mind

Rather than being a wonderful opportunity for me to share ideas and discuss alternate viewpoints on important topics, I’m finding this blog to be one giant frustration. There are so many topics I want to discuss, but I can’t seem to figure out how to write about any of them in a way

Men: Let’s Talk About Your Birth Control

You know it’s not just slutty liberal college women who are having sex.

Non-slutty women in monogamous relationships have sex too.

In fact, I have it on good authority that there are plenty of perfectly respectable, married, conservative, Christian women out there engaging in the act, many of them with their own husbands. And though I’m sure that most of them don’t enjoy it, some of them actually might. But that’s beside the point.

Aneurin Bevan

“No society can legitimately call itself civilized if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means.”

Aneurin Bevan, 1952
Former UK Secretary of State for Health

Louis Brandeis: on Democracy

 “We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.”

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
1856-1941

I Fear Insurance Companies More Than a “Government Takeover”

I worry a lot about the state of health care in the US. The system we have now is unsatisfactory and unsustainable. And access to health care is so vital. But I don’t see a solution coming any time soon.

The most common argument offered against the US moving to a system of universal health care (whether it is “Medicare For All” or whatever) is that it will be a “government takeover” of our health care. It will “give the power and control over health care decisions to the bureaucrats in Washington DC.”

The idea that “The Government” is going to be making your medical decisions is supposed to scare the hell out of you. It’s supposed to conjure up images of some bureaucrat in a cheap suit sitting in a nondescript office in Washington writing prescriptions and deciding whether or not Grandpa gets to have his chemotherapy this week. OMG “Death Panels!” The Democrats want to turn us into Venezuela! This is a typical scare tactic by conservatives and the CEOs of multinational corporations who think that our money works better when its in their bank accounts. “The Government is the enemy! Be afraid!” We’ve heard it all before: in the 90s they wanted to privatize Social Security. Then it was Charter Schools. And then privatizing roads and bridges all over the country. In the US, we’ve been trained over the last 40 years to believe that the Free Market is our friend and that The Government is our enemy. And we’re convinced. Because a fear of The Government plays nicely off of our historical enmity of Communism and fear of its “political twin” Socialism.