“Rights, Obligations, And Ignorant Libertarians”: If You Define Yourself By A Philosophy, At Least Have An Idea Of What It Implies
Oh, Rand Paul. What are we going to do with you?
I’ll tell you in a moment what I’m referring to. But first: One of the principal functions parties serve is that they act as a heuristic, or cognitive shortcut, for voters. If you have to vote for someone to serve on your city council and you know nothing about the candidates, you can use party as a proxy and you’ll be right almost all the time. You can also look to your party to see where you should come down on issues. It doesn’t necessarily make you lazy; sometimes it’s just efficient to look to others with values similar to yours for cues about what policies are worthwhile. We can’t all be experts on everything. In a similar way, parties give people who run for office a set of policy positions they can adopt without having to know everything about anything a lawmaker might have to address.
But if you call yourself a libertarian, you’re saying that parties aren’t enough for you, even if you’re a Republican. Instead, you’re motivated by a philosophical perspective to which you’ve given some serious thought. Every libertarian in politics, including Rand Paul, presents themselves this way. They’re concerned with ideas. So if you’re going to define yourself by a philosophy, isn’t it incumbent upon you to at least have an idea of what that philosophy implies, and a grasp of some basic philosophical concepts—for instance, like what a right is—so that you can talk about them with some modicum of sense when they come up, as they inevitably will?
Apparently not. Here’s Paul in a new National Review article:
“There’s a philosophic debate which often gets me in trouble, you know, on whether health care’s a right or not,” Paul, in a red tie, white button-down shirt, and khakis, tells the students from the stage. “I think we as physicians have an obligation. As Christians, we have an obligation. . . . I really believe that, and it’s a deep-held belief,” he says of helping others.
“But I don’t think you have a right to my labor,” he continues. “You don’t have a right to anyone else’s labor. Food’s pretty important, do you have a right to the labor of the farmer?”
Paul then asks, rhetorically, if students have a right to food and water. “As humans, yeah, we do have an obligation to give people water, to give people food, to give people health care,” Paul muses. “But it’s not a right because once you conscript people and say, ‘Oh, it’s a right,’ then really you’re in charge, it’s servitude, you’re in charge of me and I’m supposed to do whatever you tell me to do. . . . It really shouldn’t be seen that way.”
Oh dear. Paul is obviously unaware of this, but saying that health care is a right doesn’t mean that doctors have to treat people without being paid, any more than saying that education is a right means that public school teachers have to work for free. Because we all agree that education is a right, we set up a system where every child can be educated, whether their families could afford to pay for it themselves or not. It doesn’t mean that any kid can walk up to a teacher in the street and say, “I command you to teach me trigonometry for free. Be at my house at 9 tomorrow. You must do this, because I have a right to education and that means I am in charge of you and you’re supposed to do whatever I tell you to do.”
All this talk of “servitude” and “conscription” is just baffling. The only way I can interpret it is that libertarianism is something Paul picked up from his dad, and it seems to go over well with Republicans when he mentions it, but he hasn’t spent any time thinking about it.
I don’t know if the 2016 Republican presidential contest is going to be quite the nincompoop parade that 2012 was. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Rand Paul presents himself as the candidate with the big ideas. Make of that what you will.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, August 27, 2013
“The Character Of The Caucus”: Thanks To Republican Intrasigence, It’s All About 2016 Now
It wasn’t the House Republicans’ refusal to take up the president’s jobs plan before the last election. Or their reckless games with the debt ceiling when Paul Ryan’s budget called for trillions in fresh debt itself. Or House intransigence when it comes to the Senate’s bipartisan immigration fix. Or even its recent call to nix high, common school standards.
Not that these steps weren’t awful. But somehow they could be put down to “normal” petty politics. The “out” party never wants the jobs picture to improve before an election. The debt ceiling is one of a handful of “forcing devices” that pols of all stripes seize on in a town where nothing really has to happen. One can argue that immigration reform isn’t as urgent as, say, jobs. And stoking phony fears of a federal school takeover is the oldest slander in the book (never mind that these “common core” standards were adopted by states voluntarily, and that the world’s top-performing school systems all have something like them).
No, what finally made me lose it was House Republicans’ warped obsession with Obamacare. This fixation showcases so many noxious traits simultaneously that it reveals the ultimate character of the caucus.
At bottom, Obamacare is a moral assertion that it is wrong when a wealthy nation has 50 million people without health insurance, when medical bills are a leading cause of bankruptcy for families and when millions of luckless souls are unable to get coverage because they have preexisting conditions. The House GOP today says these are not real problems.
Obamacare addressed these problems with precisely the mechanism that conservative thinkers and Republican policymakers favored (subsidies to buy insurance from competing private carriers with a requirement that everyone be in the insurance pool). Yet the House GOP effectively has said: Even if you adopt the approach our party favors for a problem we used to say was real — a problem that our presidential nominee addressed successfully in his state — we still can’t be with you. We have to damn you as un-American. We have to deceive the public about your aims and methods. We have to do everything in our power to stop you from using our preferred approach to bring a measure of security to the middle class.
It’s the most perverse, irredeemable bait-and-switch since Lucy pulled the football away from Charlie Brown. Even Lucy didn’t do it 39 times.
I’ve long been a critic of the House GOP. But something in their poisonous Obamacare stance has made me snap. It’s one thing to think you can’t do business with these people. It’s another to realize these people aren’t operating in the same moral and economic universe.
So here we are. The only question for those seeking American renewal is what will break this gridlock. The only certain answer is that the president’s speech Wednesday will not. Obama is calling for an economy built from the “middle out” (hats off to progressive activists Nick Hanauer and Eric Liu, who pushed this smart messaging so relentlessly for two years that it’s become the official Democratic creed).
By: Matt Miller, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, July 24, 2013
“Hatred Overwhelming Judgment”: The “Refuse To Enroll” Campaign Gets To Work Against Obamacare
When Reuters reported last week that Republicans and their allies “are mobilizing … to dissuade uninsured Americans from obtaining health coverage,” it caused a bit of a stir. After all, what kind of people would invest time and energy into convincing struggling families to turn down access to affordable health care? Who would be so callous as to put partisan spite over the basic health care needs of their community?
Well, now we know. The Dayton Daily News has hidden the story behind a paywall, but the paper reported yesterday on groups like the “Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom,” which is rallying behind the “Refuse to Enroll” campaign.
With time running out, opponents of the Affordable Care Act have taken to the airwaves in Ohio and elsewhere with ad campaigns not only attacking the bill’s merits but also actively encouraging uninsured Americans not to sign up for coverage under the health care law.
The Obama administration has acknowledged the success of the law, commonly referred to as Obamacare, depends in large part on broad-based participation in federal and state-run health exchanges that will begin selling government-subsidized health plans to the uninsured on Oct. 1.
The anti-enrollment campaigns reflect the resignation and desperation of many Obamacare opponents who have given up hope of a government repeal or court-ordered injunction to stop full implementation of the law beginning next year.
This is clearly an important stage in the larger fight. Desperate right-wing activists know the law won’t be repealed; they know it can’t be stopped in the courts; and they know there’s a limit to Republican efforts to sabotage the federal health care system. So they’ve been reduced to one last-ditch effort: convince people with no health care coverage to voluntarily turn down affordable insurance so as to advance their ideological cause.
And why do conservative activists want this? It’s not altogether clear, exactly, but apparently their hatred for President Obama has overwhelmed their judgment and basic sense of morality to a degree that can only be considered alarming.
Twila Brase, for example, is putting the “Refuse to Enroll” campaign on her radio show, which is “broadcast on more than 350 stations nationwide, including the American Family Radio Network with stations throughout Ohio.” And she’ll have lots of company, including support from her Koch brothers allies.
The conservative group Americans for Prosperity, which has a chapter in Ohio, has launched another campaign attacking Obamacare with television and online ads that began airing in Ohio last week.
Joan McCarter summarized this nicely: conservatives “have to convince people that either paying through the nose for insurance or going without, all to make a political point, makes sense. Because ‘Freedom’ means never being able to go to the doctor. Seriously. They are spending millions of dollars to try to con people out of getting affordable health insurance.”
To reiterate what we discussed last week, I hope folks will pause to let this sink in for a moment. Unlike every other industrialized democracy on the planet, the United States — easily the wealthiest nation on earth — has tolerated a significant chunk of its population going without basic health care coverage. These Americans and their families can’t afford to see a doctor and are one serious illness from financial ruin. Many have died because they live in a country that allows people to go without access to basic care.
After nearly a century of politicians talking about the problem, President Obama actually signed the Affordable Care Act into law three years ago, giving working families a level of health-care security they’ve never had before, and throwing a life preserver to the uninsured. Now, Republicans aren’t just actively trying to sabotage the law, they’re telling struggling Americans it’s better to drown than accept the life preserver.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, July 30, 2013
“Getting Mad For All The Wrong Reasons”: Madness Is Simply The Status Quo For Republicans
Nearly a week later, the Affordable Care Act’s opponents are still furious that the employer-mandate provision that conservatives opposed won’t be implemented on schedule. But there’s a reason that sentence might seem unusual to you — if Republicans don’t like the employer mandate, why are they outraged that the mandate won’t exist until 2015 at the earliest?
The answer is simple, but unsatisfying: Republicans are mad for all the wrong reasons. Brian Beutler had a good piece on this the other day, noting that Obamacare’s detractors are, ironically, disappointed that “a problematic provision won’t be taking effect right away.” Republicans don’t want a health care system that works effectively; they want a system that doesn’t work effectively so they can complain about it. The White House’s decision last week satisfies GOP policy goals, such as they are, but interferes with the GOP’s rhetorical goals, which the right obviously sees as more important.
[I]t doesn’t take much reading between the lines to recognize what’s really going on. Republicans are still committed to the far-fetched objective of repealing Obamacare, and as such have effectively vowed not to work with the administration to fix any of its dysfunctional provisions. To the contrary, the GOP is committed to creating implementation problems where they can, and to making sure existing problems are never fixed, to make the whole program a liability for Democrats.
By delaying the employer mandate, the Obama administration unilaterally sidestepped the GOP’s strategy. And Republicans aren’t happy about it.
Keep in mind, Republican policymakers could, right now, sit down with Democrats to explore scrapping the employer mandate and replacing it with some other policy alternative. But that would require governing, and post-policy nihilists that dominate Republican politics in 2013 aren’t even open to that possibility.
We’re left with a dynamic that the political establishment still finds difficult to fully grasp: GOP officials could make the federal health care system better and more to their liking, but they see no value in that. They’d rather sabotage it, regardless of the real-world consequences. They could help get rid of a mandate they oppose, but they’d rather keep the policy they hate in the hopes it won’t work, people will feel adverse consequences, and there will be new fodder for 30-second attack ads a year from now.
Some people pursue public service to build things, and some pursue public service because they just want to watch the things burn.
This dovetails nicely with news that Republican leaders have urged the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, PGA, and NASCAR not to partner with Washington on informing the public about health care benefits Americans are legally entitled to. Kevin Drum had a terrific rant on this.
But not. Conservatives remain so spittle-flecked angry about [Obamacare] that they can’t even abide the thought of a sports league helping to run a public education campaign that reduces confusion about who’s entitled to what. Even now, they desperately want it to fail. And they’re going to do everything they can to help it fail, even if that means screwing over their own constituents. It’s a temper tantrum possibly unequalled in American political history.
And it’s revolting.
I’ve made a conscious effort to read conservative commentary on this, trying to understand their rationale for such callousness and recklessness. Their argument, in effect, seems to be this: Republicans hate the law, so of course they want it to fail and will continue to do whatever they can to ensure their preferred outcome. If there are elements of Obamacare that need fixing, why should the GOP agree to help clean up the mess? Families may suffer if the system collapses, but it’ll clear the way, eventually, for a superior Republican reform plan.
I don’t doubt that the right finds this line of thought coherent and persuasive, but their sincerity doesn’t make it any less ridiculous. First, there is no precedent for elected federal American officials acting to deliberately sabotage federal law, hurting millions of people on purpose out of partisan spite. That’s just madness, but it’s currently the status quo.
Second, if GOP policymakers were even remotely serious about governing, they could — get this — achieve policy goals they like. This employer mandate is a terrific example of the sort of provision Democrats would gladly trade away, if only they had someone to trade with. Republicans could, in other words, score policy victories if they just try.
People forget this, but shortly before Obamacare became law, several GOP leaders said they agreed with “80 percent” of the Democratic plan — and that was before the public option was scuttled, which means in the end, Republicans agreed with more than 80 percent of the law. GOP officials could move it even closer to their preferred vision if they’d only take public policy seriously for a short while.
As for someday replacing the Affordable Care Act with a far-right, Republican-friendly alternative, we’ve been waiting for years for a half-way-credible GOP plan, and there’s a good reason one has never materialized: they really don’t give a darn. They saw the old, dysfunctional mess — the one the public demanded be reformed; the one that cost too much and covered too few — and said it was good enough to leave in place indefinitely.
The most generous thing I can say about their approach is that it’s fundamentally unserious about helping anyone. The least generous thing I can say is probably inappropriate for a family-friendly blog.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, July 8, 2013
“Under Obamacare, Millions Will Die”: The Coming Campaign Against The Affordable Care Act
I have questions. For instance, are Charles and David Koch aliens from the planet Fnerzblax 6, come here to feast on the entrails of Earth humans to give them strength for their coming war with the barbarians of Fnerzblax 4? We don’t know, and that’s what has me so concerned.
I ask because Americans for Prosperity, the group through which the Kochs channel much of their political activism, is initiating a new television campaign to get people afraid of and angry about Obamacare, and this seems to be the method of the campaign. The first ad, called “Questions,” asks whether Obamacare is going to take money from a worried-looking young mother and deprive her sick child of the care he needs to survive. Not that it would truly do these things, but hey, she’s just asking: http://youtu.be/XOMAuo4C8kk
Beyond the just-asking format, there’s a preview here of something else we’ll be seeing as Obamacare gets implemented over the next couple of years. Every problem that anyone has with anything related to health care will be characterized as a consequence of Obamacare, which in some tortured sense might be almost true. The ad mentions not being able to choose your doctor, which would be bad. If you chose an insurance plan in an exchange established by Obamacare, that plan will probably have a network of doctors from which you have to choose if you want your care paid for, and if your doctor isn’t on it, then you’ve been prevented from choosing your own doctor.
Of course, that isn’t because of Obamacare, it’s because of the way insurance works in America; it’s how it worked before Obamacare, and it’s how it’ll work after Obamacare. But it’s a lot simpler to say, “Now that we’re under Obamacare, I didn’t get to choose my doctor!” And did you know that under Obamacare, medications could come with dangerous side effects? Or that under Obamacare, kids who get shots will cry? Not only that, under Obamacare, you could get cancer and die—even if your doctor wanted to save you. In fact, under Obamacare, we’re all going to die one day. Thanks for all the misery, pain, and death, Obama.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, July 8, 2013
Share This Blog
Unknown Feed- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
mykeystrokes.com 