Or anything else that contains the word "Obama." They voted, in the House today, to impose a delay on the individual mandate. The President ordered a one-year delay in the employer coverage requirement, right? So it's only fair to delay the individual mandate. Stands to reason.
Hearing a Republican appeal to Reason is richly comic, of course. There's not even a need to list the GOP's positions that defy science, facts, the best interests of the USA, fairness, compassion, even their favorite "common sense." So why not make a mockery of reasonableness?
The fact is, Obamacare (aka the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) is the law; and though the House may vote 40 more times, to go with the 40 previous attempts, to repeal it, the law won't be repealed. It is becoming clear that Obamacare may be the worst nightmare of the Republican Party: a federal program that works, and that involves more regulation, and that helps millions of people --and that was a Democratic initiative.
The insurance rates for various companies serving New York, released today, make it clear how far some premiums are likely to fall. Each new piece of evidence that the PPACA may be onto something, that it may actually achieve greater coverage at lower prices, must feel like a stake in the heart of the Tea Party. So it's understandable that the GOP just can't let go of the illusion that, somehow, they can eliminate it, ar, better yet, make it fail miserably. They have tried starving it of funds for implementation, They've held hostage virtually every Obama Administration appointment. They've spread misinformation far and wide, including the canard that Obamacare will bankrupt the government, that the deficit, already huge, will soar ...
... what's that? the deficit has fallen by half, and looks to continue heading down? In June the government actually ran a surplus?
Ignore the man behind the curtain! the facts, to paraphrase a famous Alan Greenspan lament, are misbehaving; and that tends to make people disregard what I am telling them.
That seems to be a particular affliction on the Right, these days. Better go over to the House floor and vote against something; it feels so good.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
... And Another Thing:
OK, I didn't go into the Race Thing when discussing Trayvon & George. So here goes.
Yes, Trayvon was probably "profiled" by George Zimmerman; it's likely that a similarly-attired, Skittles-carrying white kid would have passed by without notice. And that's a shame: it's just one more reason that the kid is dead.
Zimmerman, and you, can't help it: we "profile" every time we are out in public. Maybe it's girls: cute? ordinary? ugly? a "ten"? Or maybe it's people on LaSalle Street: Lawyer? Secretary? Messenger? Hustler?
These, and hundreds of others, are the categories into which we automatically sort people we encounter. It's based on our experience --some people are much better at it than others--; it saves time, just like when, in an unfamiliar store or other place, we look for the person we think can help us.
I am not saying that profiling by race or age or class or gender is okay; I'm just saying that we all do it, all the time. It can lead us to make mistakes. Some profiling is worse, by which I mean less helpful to us and more (potentially) unfair to the person being profiled. But every shampoo commercial in which the severe-looking woman suddenly removes her glasses and a few hairpins and, with a shake of the head, becomes someone else, is a tease based on our instinct to profile.
One reason skilled con men dress in suits and ties is that most people profile the suit-and-tie crowd as respectable (okay, maybe not exactly respectable: but, as Woody Guthrie sang, they may steal from you, but it will be with a fountain pen, not a pistol) and are willing to accept them --I almost wrote "at face value." And what does that phrase mean, except that we tend to judge by appearances? Had Trayvon Martin been wearing a suit and carrying a Bible, he could probably have knocked on dozens of doors without exciting alarm. No, it's not fair that a hoodie and jeans automatically produces a different reaction; but it's true. To take a more extreme example, it is perfectly possible that a steroid-enhanced biker with a head-scarf, bulging biceps in a cutoff leather vest, no shirt, boots, with a chain handing from his belt will elicit a sense of alarm, even if he's just a banker on his way to a costume party: the very point of his costume is to make us profile him, isn't it?
We should try to avoid profiling --sometimes. George Zimmerman apparently made a bad mistake, to the extent he was profiling Trayvon Martin, who evidently was a good kid. And I think we can say that people in positions of great power, such as cops and others authorized to walk around, armed, seeking out potential trouble in order to prevent or defuse it, should be extra careful about how and when they profile. But no one would give a second thought to a cop who, seeing a ten year-old on a bike, would, whistling, turn away to go about his business.
So, we should deplore the situation, and the habit of profiling that led to the killing of Mr. Martin. But we will never be able to control that habit, as long as we are meat-eaters. It's too useful.
Yes, Trayvon was probably "profiled" by George Zimmerman; it's likely that a similarly-attired, Skittles-carrying white kid would have passed by without notice. And that's a shame: it's just one more reason that the kid is dead.
Zimmerman, and you, can't help it: we "profile" every time we are out in public. Maybe it's girls: cute? ordinary? ugly? a "ten"? Or maybe it's people on LaSalle Street: Lawyer? Secretary? Messenger? Hustler?
These, and hundreds of others, are the categories into which we automatically sort people we encounter. It's based on our experience --some people are much better at it than others--; it saves time, just like when, in an unfamiliar store or other place, we look for the person we think can help us.
I am not saying that profiling by race or age or class or gender is okay; I'm just saying that we all do it, all the time. It can lead us to make mistakes. Some profiling is worse, by which I mean less helpful to us and more (potentially) unfair to the person being profiled. But every shampoo commercial in which the severe-looking woman suddenly removes her glasses and a few hairpins and, with a shake of the head, becomes someone else, is a tease based on our instinct to profile.
One reason skilled con men dress in suits and ties is that most people profile the suit-and-tie crowd as respectable (okay, maybe not exactly respectable: but, as Woody Guthrie sang, they may steal from you, but it will be with a fountain pen, not a pistol) and are willing to accept them --I almost wrote "at face value." And what does that phrase mean, except that we tend to judge by appearances? Had Trayvon Martin been wearing a suit and carrying a Bible, he could probably have knocked on dozens of doors without exciting alarm. No, it's not fair that a hoodie and jeans automatically produces a different reaction; but it's true. To take a more extreme example, it is perfectly possible that a steroid-enhanced biker with a head-scarf, bulging biceps in a cutoff leather vest, no shirt, boots, with a chain handing from his belt will elicit a sense of alarm, even if he's just a banker on his way to a costume party: the very point of his costume is to make us profile him, isn't it?
We should try to avoid profiling --sometimes. George Zimmerman apparently made a bad mistake, to the extent he was profiling Trayvon Martin, who evidently was a good kid. And I think we can say that people in positions of great power, such as cops and others authorized to walk around, armed, seeking out potential trouble in order to prevent or defuse it, should be extra careful about how and when they profile. But no one would give a second thought to a cop who, seeing a ten year-old on a bike, would, whistling, turn away to go about his business.
So, we should deplore the situation, and the habit of profiling that led to the killing of Mr. Martin. But we will never be able to control that habit, as long as we are meat-eaters. It's too useful.
Monday, July 15, 2013
Not Guilty
Trayvon Martin is dead. George Zimmerman, his killer, has been found Not Guilty.
This verdict does not mean that he didn't do it; he agrees that he shot the kid. It does not mean "Innocent" --or, as his attorney would have it, "Completely Innocent." It does not even mean that he bears no responsibility for Martin's death. It just means that, under the applicable law, he could not be proven legally culpable; he could not be found to have committed Second-Degree Murder, or Manslaughter.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, a few stone lighter than when he boldly took up the case of Tawana Brawley a couple of decades ago, disgracing himself in the process, of course has to step forward and demand a federal investigation. The Justice Department must assure one and all that it is looking into the matter. There must be demonstrations. All this is routine; it's fine.
And most reasonable people can pooh-pooh the defense attorney's assertion that Martin was, in fact armed, because there was a concrete sidewalk available to him. Which of us is not so armed?
We can almost certainly agree that, had Zimmerman not had a gun, there would probably have been no confrontation. We can wonder why a neighborhood "volunteer" --in a gated community, no less!-- has a need to carry a gun. Maybe it's because, without one, he would not have pursued so diligently the "ground" that Florida law allows him to "stand."
This was a sad, unnecessary affair. Zimmerman, if he has a conscience, will carry a burden to his own grave. Florida's (and, evidently, a couple dozen other states') "Stand Your Ground" laws are retrograde acknowledgements of a certain American macho mindset, best relegated to fat guys in Barca-Loungers on a Football Sunday, that asserts physical dominance as the emblem of manliness. Every society has its knuckle-draggers; only a few, such as our own, spends time and resources catering to them.
But I am tired of the growing tendency in this country to not let things be. Zimmerman was found Not Guilty. That should be an end of it. We can lament the verdict; but unless we heard all the evidence that was presented in court (not teed up for a good long Big Bertha drive by one "side" or the other in the press), we really have no right to an opinion. That's why we have juries. And to say that the verdict represented a miscarriage of justice is to say that the jurors were biased to the point of being willing to let a murderer go free. Not only is there no evidence of this; it's highly unlikely.
And I am tired of hearing, every time someone disagrees with a verdict, that now we should have another trial, based on substantially the same facts, to find a slightly different crime, such as a civil rights violation. That smacks of double jeopardy to me; and if there was a time in our history when it was necessary because of the systemic racism that ruled the law-enforcement system of some of our states, that time is past. What ever happened to the notion that we'd rather let a hundred criminals go free than convict one innocent man? A rational view would have to take into account that, absent a confession or some overwhelming eyewitness testimony --there was, clearly, neither--, a jury would have little choice but to entertain a reasonable doubt.
I don't like the fact that Trayvon Martin was killed. I don't like the gun laws. I don't like the notion of a citizen "deputized" by --who? someone or other-- to carry a weapon and be given the feeling that he's an important cog in the law-enforcement system. There are a lot of things I don't like; and I am sure that there are daily miscarriages of justice in the land, for lots of reasons.
And if I don't like these things, really, really a lot, then I am free to protest, to organize, to try and pass better laws or repeal bad ones. There's a process, folks. We've gone through it. Not Guilty means It's Over.
What's for dinner?
This verdict does not mean that he didn't do it; he agrees that he shot the kid. It does not mean "Innocent" --or, as his attorney would have it, "Completely Innocent." It does not even mean that he bears no responsibility for Martin's death. It just means that, under the applicable law, he could not be proven legally culpable; he could not be found to have committed Second-Degree Murder, or Manslaughter.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, a few stone lighter than when he boldly took up the case of Tawana Brawley a couple of decades ago, disgracing himself in the process, of course has to step forward and demand a federal investigation. The Justice Department must assure one and all that it is looking into the matter. There must be demonstrations. All this is routine; it's fine.
And most reasonable people can pooh-pooh the defense attorney's assertion that Martin was, in fact armed, because there was a concrete sidewalk available to him. Which of us is not so armed?
We can almost certainly agree that, had Zimmerman not had a gun, there would probably have been no confrontation. We can wonder why a neighborhood "volunteer" --in a gated community, no less!-- has a need to carry a gun. Maybe it's because, without one, he would not have pursued so diligently the "ground" that Florida law allows him to "stand."
This was a sad, unnecessary affair. Zimmerman, if he has a conscience, will carry a burden to his own grave. Florida's (and, evidently, a couple dozen other states') "Stand Your Ground" laws are retrograde acknowledgements of a certain American macho mindset, best relegated to fat guys in Barca-Loungers on a Football Sunday, that asserts physical dominance as the emblem of manliness. Every society has its knuckle-draggers; only a few, such as our own, spends time and resources catering to them.
But I am tired of the growing tendency in this country to not let things be. Zimmerman was found Not Guilty. That should be an end of it. We can lament the verdict; but unless we heard all the evidence that was presented in court (not teed up for a good long Big Bertha drive by one "side" or the other in the press), we really have no right to an opinion. That's why we have juries. And to say that the verdict represented a miscarriage of justice is to say that the jurors were biased to the point of being willing to let a murderer go free. Not only is there no evidence of this; it's highly unlikely.
And I am tired of hearing, every time someone disagrees with a verdict, that now we should have another trial, based on substantially the same facts, to find a slightly different crime, such as a civil rights violation. That smacks of double jeopardy to me; and if there was a time in our history when it was necessary because of the systemic racism that ruled the law-enforcement system of some of our states, that time is past. What ever happened to the notion that we'd rather let a hundred criminals go free than convict one innocent man? A rational view would have to take into account that, absent a confession or some overwhelming eyewitness testimony --there was, clearly, neither--, a jury would have little choice but to entertain a reasonable doubt.
I don't like the fact that Trayvon Martin was killed. I don't like the gun laws. I don't like the notion of a citizen "deputized" by --who? someone or other-- to carry a weapon and be given the feeling that he's an important cog in the law-enforcement system. There are a lot of things I don't like; and I am sure that there are daily miscarriages of justice in the land, for lots of reasons.
And if I don't like these things, really, really a lot, then I am free to protest, to organize, to try and pass better laws or repeal bad ones. There's a process, folks. We've gone through it. Not Guilty means It's Over.
What's for dinner?
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