Iraq debate round 2

Daine:

Arguably the hardest part of debating someone about the war in Iraq is that its beginning was so shrouded in innuendo, half-assertions, scare-tactics, and secret information. Even in Tyler’s first speech, he alternately talks about American and Israeli interests, problems with the U.N., genocide in Iraq’s countryside, and even Democratic Peace Theory. Before I address the individual arguments Tyler has given, I will uncover the glaring and dangerous logical failings that led us into this disastrous war in the first place.

As I see it, Tyler essentially makes two broad arguments in his first speech: that Iraq has been a beneficial battlefield against international terrorism, and that the war in Iraq has brought a number of benefits, making America and her allies safer. Although I do plan on addressing all of his specific arguments individually, I would like to start by addressing the flawed notion that “we’re fighting the terrorists over there so we don’t have to fight them over here” that Tyler’s first speech is founded upon.

The argument that we can make America safer by killing people in Iraq rests upon 2 key assumptions: that those being killed would have otherwise posed a threat to America or Americans, and that fighting in Iraq imposes some opportunity cost on their operations, that killing Al Qaeda operatives in Iraq decreases Al Qaeda’s ability to perform other, more damaging operations in America.

These assumptions are verifiably and logically false for the following 7 reasons:

1. The overwhelming majority of potential terrorists (people who are committed to hurting Americans) are simply not in any position whatsoever to actually follow through on their desires. Even without any barriers of any kind, a potential terrorist would need to be able to afford a plane ticket and a weapon in order to do harm to an American in America. The more barriers that are in place (counter-intelligence operatives, visa requirements, background checks, law enforcement, etc.), the less likely it becomes for a terrorist to actually succeed in hurting an American.
2. Most, if not all of the people killed in Iraq were probably fighting for reasons other than an unquenchable hatred of American values. Other, more plausible reasons for wanting to kill American soldiers include, but are not limited to: wanting to evict imperialists, getting revenge for family members killed in either Gulf war (or by Blackwater Inc.), fighting against Christian hegemony in a Muslim nation, financial gain, or simply not believing that America was trying to be benevolent by invading. Those reasons were created by the war in Iraq. These people are not people we would have had anything to fear from in America, had we not invaded Iraq.
3. Those being killed in Iraq are largely monolingual, poor, and uneducated, all things which would make them practically incapable of striking America.
4. The Al Qaeda troops fighting in Iraq are doing so of their own-free will. Since Iraq is not their homeland, they, essentially, are “fighting the [infidel] over there, so that they don’t have to do it [in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the UAE, etc].
5. Any valuable Al Qaeda troops or leadership (Bin Laden, for example), or any troops capable of harming America are free to stay away from Iraq, leaving the fighting to the local Iraqis, the expendable troops, and the hired hands.
6. Chaos is easier to create than order. Relatively few Al Qaeda operatives could keep Iraq on the brink of chaos and civil war for decades. Guerrilla warriors always hold the trump cards.
7. We still saw numerous terrorist attacks in Europe, as well as major attempted attacks on America. These attacks happened or were attempted in spite of the war in Iraq. Excellent intelligence, coordination, and alertness on the part of Britain prevented further attacks against us, not a depletion on the part of Al Qaeda due to losses in Iraq.



On Tyler’s arguments briefly:

1) Saddam’s most egregious sins were a matter of history. Was he a war criminal? Yes. Were his sons psychotic? Probably, but there’s no reason to believe that they would have been any more of a problem than we let them be. Keep in mind, we’re not debating whether we should have allowed Saddam total free reign, just if it was necessary to invade and oust him.

2) I’m not displeased that Iraq is a nominal democracy now, but it’s important not to oversell its advantages. We’ve traded a despotic Iraq that was a useful enemy for a democratic friend that can’t check Iran, is probably little help in furthering our regional goals, and that will probably need hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds more American lives in continuing support to even have a chance of survival.

3) Al Qaeda turned the Arab world against them without our help. Although I’ll acknowledge that regional victory in Anbar came only with local help against Al Qaeda, it’s still not enough. This effect in Iraq, by the way, has not done anything to help against terrorists in Pakistan or Afghanistan, nor has it won us “The War on Terror.”

4) Israel can take care of itself (Tyler cited 1981). Furthermore, the power vacuum has only increased Iran’s influence, which poses a much greater risk to Israel than Saddam ever did.

5) Is Tyler really saying that we did trade blood for oil? Even still, it wasn’t worth it. Maybe if they give us the first $700 billion worth of oil we’ll talk parity.

6) Libya had essentially zero chance of attaining a nuke. Even if it did, they would not have posed a threat to America or our allies.

7) The war may have exposed corruption in the U.N., but it did nothing to actually solve it. Fine, I’ll agree that the French, Germans, and Russians are pricks. Happy?

I realize that the point of this debate is to show that the war in Iraq has, in hindsight, not been worth it. I never would have debated this topic, however, simply to point out that we’ve largely failed, or that Al Qaeda has irreparably damaged America’s reputation and power. I love America, and I want it to be a powerful force for good. Before this war started, I was fairly consistently harangued as being “anti-American” for questioning the rationale and wisdom of invading Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein. Rather than addressing the facts, gauging the danger of inaction, or looking for more realistic alternatives, we collectively allowed a small faction of Neo-Conservatives to question our patriotism, scare us with unrealistic threats of mushroom clouds, and rush the decision and execution of a war that has been immeasurably costly to American troops and families. In addition to showing you all that Iraq has cost us more than it’s been worth, I hope to convince all of you that this mistake could and should have been avoided. In setting the terms for this debate, I offer the following criteria: if I have failed to show you that Iraq has cost more than it was worth AND that our government could have and should have known better before hand, I urge you to vote for Tyler.

Finally, in accordance with debate tradition, I would like to extend my arguments from my first speech and bring them to your attention once more.

1. America started the Iraq war under the shockingly naïve assumptions that we would be greeted as liberators, that building a democracy in Iraq would be simple, that no significant planning had to be done, that no precautions for security needed to be taken for after the Iraqi regime was toppled, and that Saddam Hussein’s supposed WMDs would be easily found and secured. We as a public were also fooled into believing that Iraq posed a threat to America and her interests, without any credible evidence backing such assertions up. The evidence (both a close reading of the then-available evidence, as well as the more accurate evidence that exists now) shows that Iraq had essentially nothing to do with international terrorism against the United States. The fact that Tyler framed his arguments around the fear and angst we all felt on 9/12 only emphasizes the degree to which the legitimate war on terror has been (and please excuse this pun) hijacked by those who argued for an Iraqi invasion.
2. The costs of this war have been tremendous. We probably all know someone who has fought or died in Iraq. For this heroism and sacrifice, however, we have collectively paid them back by ignoring the psychological costs they’ve paid and continue to pay. The immense burden and responsibility of the war in Iraq was a blank check written to the future, on the gamble and hope that it would pay for itself eventually. For now, our expenditure represents a cost of $30,000 for each Iraqi man, woman, and child. Maybe next time we’ll just consider writing them a check?
3. The unintended consequences of the Iraq war far outweigh the possible effects of having another democratic partner in the Middle East. Iraq, if it does survive as a democracy, is much more likely to follow the democratic model of Palestine or Iran than it is Israel (as if even that were a good model!). Many in the Arab world have, for the time being, turned against Al Qaeda and its allies. To presume that our foray into the Middle East has built any bridges or made any friends, however, is simply foolish.



Tyler:

Daine makes a lot of interesting arguments, but he also concedes a number of powerful benefits to the Iraq war that I mentioned in my first “speech.” I think these benefits will definitively prove the value of the Iraq war.

Let’s address the underlying assumptions of the conflict:

There is no question that the beginnings of the Iraq conflict are a difficult discussion to have. The intelligence information presented to us was incomplete and incorrect. Many have alleged malfeasance by the Bush administration. The classified nature of the documents and dishonesty (by both sides) make it difficult for us to determine what actually happened or determine fault.

For this reason, I suggested to Daine that our debate be purely based upon a cost-benefit analysis of the Iraq war from what we know now. I appreciate that he has given himself an added burden, and I will grant that he meets it. There were flawed assumptions in the run-up to the war.

Please extend my analysis that this argument is irrelevant to the debate at hand. We are evaluating the costs and benefits of the war. There is no specific cost that Daine has identified in our false assumptions so there is no reason to evaluate this is making a decision about the debate.

Now to the benefit of changing the battlefield. Daine makes some good arguments here, but he misunderstands my point. In addition, he asserts that my rhetoric was inappropriate; however, if I demonstrate that the War in Iraq has benefited us in the war on terror, then my rhetoric is totally justified and appropriate. If not, please disregard it. Let’s get to the subject.

Al Qaeda sent a number of its top lieutenants to fight us in Iraq. Had they not come to Iraq, they would have probably fought us in Afghanistan or may have come to the United States. Which of those two options they picked is irrelevant. In either case, they would be attacking Americans (soldiers or civilians) in a setting that was more difficult for the Americans to defend themselves. Please extend my analysis that explains how Afghanistan is a more difficult terrain to fight in than Iraq. Any move to Iraq (from Afghanistan or America) is better for us because it means our troops or civilians are in a safer environment.

Daine also concedes the Arab world turned against Al Qaeda because of terrorist bombings in Iraq. Had we not invaded, this clearly would not have happened. It is hard to overstate the importance of this event. The Arab world has been the prime financier of Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremist organizations. Without that money, Al Qaeda will eventually die. Seriously, they have been reduced to hiding out in the caves of Afghanistan and Pakistan. With Arab support, they would always have been able to rebuild and fight us. Without it, it is just a matter of time until they are destroyed.

Let me briefly address Daine’s 7 points:

1. This argument actually works for me. Back when Al Qaeda was able to recruit and get financing in the Arab world, Al Qaeda would provide the ability (visa, flights, etc.) for would-be terrorists to attack us. Since we’ve already demonstrated that their money supply and ability to recruit in the Arab world has been severely limited, this actually becomes an additional advantage for me.

2. Fine. Some of the people fighting us in Iraq would not have fought us in Afghanistan or in America. However, many would have. The leaders who inspired them mostly would have. The Sunni insurgency really ended long before catastrophic violence happened during 2005 and 2006.

The advantage gained against existing terrorists, the limiting of their fundraising, and the other benefits I will discuss severely outweigh any cost Daine can get from this.

3. See 1 & 2

4. This is exactly my point. It was easier for us to fight them in Iraq than it would have been in Afghanistan or in other places.

5. We have captured a number of Al Qaeda leaders in Iraq including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. They were moved in to fight that battle. Bin Laden himself called it critical to their success. While the leaders don’t strap explosives to themselves, they do need to be on the ground to direct activities. This has helped us capture them.

6. It is well acknowledged that Iraq is looking more and more stable every day. Iraq’s police have begun taking control of cities and handling things relatively well. Very few, if any, experts are saying Iraq will be chaotic decades into the future. As such, we have no reason to assume it will.

7. We don’t know what would have happened to other attacks had the Iraqi invasion not occurred. We do know that many Al Qaeda leaders were killed in Iraq. We can deduce they would have been fighting elsewhere had the invasion not occurred. Where that was is a matter of speculation, though it is doubtful that an Arab populace would have been helping us to fight them.

Next, let’s review some of the additional benefits of the invasion that I previously mentioned.

1. Saddam’s war crimes: Daine concedes that they occurred and that Saddam’s sons were crazy. There was a tangible cost for us controlling him. We frequently flew planes over Iraq, based many troops in Kuwait and were bombing Iraq every few years.

If Daine wants to assume we could control him, that is fine. But there is a cost for that in troops and finances. President Clinton nearly invaded at the end of his presidency. This cost would be an indefinite commitment of the United States, and would probably get worse when his sons took power. Also, there is a very real chance one of his descendants would be crazy enough to launch an attack on the United States. Please extend my analysis on this point.

2. Middle East Democracy: Establishing Iraq as a democracy has costs, but let’s look at the value. The last two nations we have done this with (Germany and Japan) are now two of our closest allies. Even if we don’t become this close to Iraq, it still isn’t likely to turn into the enemy that Saddam was. In addition, Iraq provides another democracy in the midst of a very totalitarian Middle East. This can be an example for other Arab nations.

This is not like Iran. The people there are voting and participating. Iran is a fake democracy with a dictator. Iraq’s government has the support of the tribal leaders and will inevitably be successful. Iraq is far more likely to look like Turkey in 10 years than it is to look like Iran. Please extend my previous analysis on this point.

3. Al Qaeda Funding: As mentioned above, Al Qaeda is now an enemy of the Arab world, which will cause its inevitable destruction. Al Qaeda is responsible for more American deaths than we have seen in Iraq. This is in addition to the huge cost of fighting a war on terror indefinitely. This, in and of itself, makes the Iraq war worth fighting.

4. Israel: There is a contradiction here. First Daine tells us that Saddam was more powerful than Iran and kept them in check; however, he then states that Iran is a bigger threat than Saddam was to Israel and the United States. But fine, I’ll drop any potential benefit to Israel discussed here because, as Daine said, they can take care of themselves.

5. Greenspan: Daine completely concedes Greenspan’s assertion that fighting the Iraq war was worth it if the only benefit we received was preventing Saddam from disrupting the oil supply. (He notes, as well, that this was not Bush’s intention.)

Our economy is incredibly dependent upon foreign oil. Saddam’s ability to cut us off from his oil could seriously shock the economy. Greenspan, probably the most respected economist in the United States by both political parties, says this alone would have made Iraq worth it. Daine concedes this benefit, which a leading expert says was worth the cost.

6. Libya: The presence of a nuclear Libya cannot have been good. They were trying, and they were certainly funding terrorism--something they stopped after our invasion.

7. UN: The corruption at the UN is a big deal because it removed the only weapon (short of war) that the world has in dealing with rogue nations. We’re currently dealing with Iran, North Korea, and Cuba. In each of these cases, we would be more likely to go to war had Chirac and Kofi Annan been trading around the sanctions.

There are many benefits of the invasion of Iraq. Whether or not you agree with President Bush or think he was correct to invade at the time is NOT the subject of this debate. Our agreed-upon criteria is a cost-benefit analysis to America based upon what we know now. Please evaluate these serious benefits and recognize that what you may believe started as a blunder has turned out to be a beneficial move for the United States.

Daine: How many American troops died between the Gulf Wars, when we were keeping Saddam in check?

Tyler: None of which I am aware. I meant this purely in terms of the financial cost, and the eventual cost if his successors became more violent.

Iraq debate round 3

Daine:

Tyler’s entire case rests on a few patently illogical and amazingly naïve assumptions. It would be wonderful to assume that what happened in Anbar province is going happen everywhere, but it’s just not real world. Even if it were, Tyler’s internal logic doesn’t show how this result would have justified our war, since neither Iraq’s government nor its civilians had anything to do with 9/11. Any theoretical reduction in terrorism relies upon believing in a threat for which there is neither proof nor precedent. It would be wonderful to believe that Iraq will be just like Japan in 20 years, and that the entire Middle East would follow suit, but we simply don’t see democracy spreading from Palestine, Israel, or Iran in any appreciable way. If all a country needed for stability were democracy, what is wrong with Palestine, Iran, and Afghanistan? If democracy wasn’t spreading before, why should we trust that it will happen now? Perhaps it’s just a bit overly-optimistic to believe that democracy alone will be enough? Finally, and most offensively, Tyler claims that waging a war to prevent Saddam from disrupting the oil supply was a good idea because Greenspan said it would be. Even if Greenspan were right, his plan didn’t work. Or was I the only schmo paying $4 for a gallon of gas last year? More importantly, the question still remains about how many barrels of oil are equal to one American troop. Did we at least get fair market value for them? All of Tyler’s benefits are specifically refuted by the continuing problems in the status quo. We still have Al Qaeda and attempted terrorist attacks, we still have conflicts with democratic countries, and we still have oil instability.

And so in summary, I give you the actual benefits of the war in Iraq. We toppled the government of maybe the 5th worst dictator in the world, even though he was already pretty well prevented from doing any real harm. We killed some of the troops that Al Qaeda sent to fight against us in Iraq. Finally, now that we’ve exposed the corruption and perfected the U.N., we’re only a baby step away from World Peace.

All of these benefits came at the cost of 3,477 American troops, 31,571 wounded, rampant untreated PTSD, the highest suicide rate among our troops ever recorded, almost a trillion dollars, tens of thousands of dead Iraqis, and chaos in the Middle East that led to an ascendant Iran and Hamas.

Is oil stability really worth sending our troops to die? I believe that our troops deserve better than to be sent on foolish mission trips for democracy. Whether out of incompetence, irrationality, or naïve optimism, George W. Bush sent our troops into a country that had no WMDs (that we captured, at least) and that posed extremely little, if any threat to Americans. Whether we’ve crippled Al Qaeda by fighting them in Iraq is something that only time will prove. What we do know, however, is that Al Qaeda was able to fight us by hiring unemployed Iraqis, angering local partisans, and inciting a civil war in Iraq that made our job harder and exposed our troops to unnecessary dangers; we gave Al Qaeda every advantage possible by fighting them in Iraq. We also know that Al Qaeda is still strong enough to keep Usama Bin Laden safe, carry out attacks in Europe, and attempt further attacks on America. On 9/11, 2,671 Americans died. In the war in Iraq, 3,477 Americans have died. All of these deaths are tragedies. All of these deaths were preventable. If we are to trust the evidence, very few, if any of these deaths has made any of us at all safer. If you believe that Iraq posed a threat to American security, you believe it on faith alone, since no evidence has ever surfaced to convince you otherwise. I urge you all to agree with me that the war in Iraq has cost us far more than it has been worth.

Tyler:

Daine set the parameters for this debate in his first speech; however, he has repeatedly gone off topic. This debate is to be judged by a cost-benefit analysis of the war. As such, his arguments about our assumptions going in are completely irrelevant. We are debating how the war has influenced our country, whether for better or worse.

Simply put, there are 2 reasons, each strong enough on its own, to justify a the Iraq war based on a cost-benefit analysis.

Daine conceded that Alan Greenspan, the United States’ most respected economist, has argued that the war was necessary to secure our oil supply. Daine finally addressed this in his rebuttal after previously conceding it. His argument; however, actually makes my position stronger.

Our $4 per gallon gasoline last year was the result of India and China increasing demand, as the Middle East (Iraq included) was pumping out oil as fast as it could. Imagine if Saddam had decided to stick it to the world by cutting off his oil for a month or two. We could have faced much higher prices. We are still feeling the ripple effects from $4. Any higher and we could have faced dire consequences. Greenspan feared this and tells us the invasion was imperative for this reason.

Next, we shifted the battlefield from Afghanistan to Iraq. Al Qaeda sent a number of lieutenants to Iraq. Zarqawi is a prime example as he fought in Afghanistan against us and then moved to Iraq after the Taliban was overthrown. There are a number who were like him. In moving the battlefield to the deserts of Iraq, we found a better battlefield for our troops to fight Al Qaeda. Zarqawi could have hidden forever in Afghanistan (like Bin Laden has), and killed many of our soldiers. The shift to Iraq’s deserts and stability-minded populace made him vulnerable. The same has been true for a number of Al Qaeda operatives. Bin Laden shifted his focus to Iraq and repeatedly called it a must-win. There we were able to fight and we have won. (If you buy his Anbar comment, read a newspaper dated later than 2007--we’ve won the country.)

The move to Iraq caused Al Qaeda to lose its funding and recruiting pool. Al Qaeda relies upon money and recruitment from the Arab world. Prior to 2006, the Arab world was happy to quietly provide support. However, Al Qaeda became desperate and tried to start a civil war by attacking mosques. This alienated the Arab world and has limited Al Qaeda’s funding and recruitment opportunities.

An organization like Al Qaeda would always have been able to regroup since guerrilla operations only require popular support and funding to be successful. When they alienated the Arabs, they signaled their own downfall. This never would have happened had the war stayed in Afghanistan. We would have been perpetually fighting a guerrilla force with regular funding and recruits arriving from the Middle East. This sounds remarkably similar to the Russians in Afghanistan and our involvement in Vietnam. It was a no-win situation.

The invasion of Iraq moved the battlefield and showed Arab nations the costs of Al Qaeda. This has saved large numbers of American lives going into the future, and allowed an indefinite war in Afghanistan to be won.

I don’t care much for the politics of our invasion, but I do know that the United States is better off for the above reasons. We have saved lives by changing the battlefield and our economy by securing the oil supply. I urge you to vote accordingly.

Coming soon...

Friends,

I am just finishing up an e-mail debate with my friend Tyler about the war in Iraq. I will be posting it here on this blog, as well as on my facebook account as a note. If any of you do read it, I would ask two favors of you: that you read the debate in the proper order (I'll post round 3 first, so that it's last on your Google Reader), and that you weigh in with who you thought won the debate.

I'm not asking you to leave your biases behind; if you already believed that the war in Iraq was worthwhile and I failed to convince you otherwise, that's still a legitimate vote for Tyler. If any of you have arguments or critiques with anything either of us (or a fellow commenter said), I also welcome any corrections or criticisms. That being said, I would appreciate it greatly if you would cast your vote before you read any other comments.

Thanks in advance.

On Snake Oil

For as little as I blog, I absolutely love reading other people’s ideas and blogs. Given that the work I do with my research is so solitary, and that I have almost 4 hours of commuting every day, I have the liberty of listening to much more media than at any time in my life. I try and get a balanced dose of many different opinions and viewpoints and think that I have a decently broad view of what is being said at any given time on the most important issues. I’ve noticed a growing trend among many news outlets, blogs, and even facebook notes I read. Simply put, I’ve been noticing a lot of hypocrisy.

I should probably start off by mentioning that I’m not intrinsically opposed to any particular viewpoint or idea. I realize that there are great arguments to be made on almost any given argument, from veganism on the left to the benefits of torture on the far right. Furthermore, I don’t believe that there is anything wrong with interpreting the world through one’s own beliefs and opinions, even when I disagree with that worldview or those opinions.

Truly, the real danger in democracies, and the trend that I have been noticing more and more, is that people are completely reversing their opinions now that a new political party is in power. Pundits who were opposed to rendition when President Bush was allowing it are suddenly actively for it now that President Obama makes the same decision. My conservative friends who wanted tax cuts and increasing deficits between the years of 2000 and 2008 are coming down hard with a convenient case of newfound fiscal conservatism since January.

Hypocrisy carries with it the exact same dangers as any other form of dishonesty. People who indulge enough in wanton paradigm shifts and partisan flip-flops are bound to either be given their own show on FOX /MSNBC or the people around them will realize that their allegiances are not to any ideals or truths, but to their own warped sense of what their political party expects them to tout.

Many people, especially the youth (and Jesus, I would point out), have a special hatred in their hearts for those they see as hypocrites and traitors; every American knows who Benedict Arnold is, but very few probably know the British generals who openly fought against the American Revolution.

Hypocrisy fundamentally comes from dishonesty about one’s actual motivations. In one of my favorite examples, John Stewart points out when Bill O’Reilly criticized Jamie Lynn Spears for having a baby out of wedlock, yet defended Bristol Palin’s pregnancy, claiming that it was nobody’s business but the family’s, since the society wouldn’t have to pay for Bristol’s baby. Now even ignoring that Jamie Lynn Spears and her family could buy and sell 100 Bristol Palins, and that that Mr. O’Reilly’s stated concerns are verifiably untrue, the important part of the coverage is that Mr. O’Reilly accomplished his goals during both shows: he raised the hackles of his largely conservative, religious audience against a safe punching bag with Ms. Spears, and stroked that same audience’s sense of forgiveness with Ms. Palin. In both cases, O’Reilly sold his audience something easy that they already wanted to feel, giving them something pleasant and boosting his own ratings in the bargain. It’s not that Bill O’Reilly is the king of the hypocrites, he’s just an entertainer and a snake-oil salesman masquerading as an intelligent person and a good citizen. Back when I considered myself a conservative (during high school) I used to watch The No Spin Zone every night. It wasn’t until I knew how to debate well that I was able to clearly see how and when Bill O’Reilly is selling what he actually believes, and when he’s simply saying what he thinks his audience wants to hear.

In the age of the internet, where archival footage and fact checking is the new standard, and where fewer and fewer people in America are willing to accept things simply because they’ve always been done that way, I’m frankly a little shocked and disgusted to see so many pundits (and even people I know) trying to pass themselves off as something they were the opposite of only 18 months ago. People can still change their minds, repenting of previous, youthful indiscretions and ignorant opinions. They are also more than welcome to see a fine distinction between the profligate spending (as I saw it) that went on during Bush’s tenure as being qualitatively different or more justified than the spending that President Obama isdoing (I think it’s a foolish proposition to lump all spending together in one category, criticizing spending on the FDA with the same brush that one would criticize spending on a bridge to nowhere). Please tell me if I’m just over-reacting or missing all of these complexities, but from where I’m sitting, the criticisms I have been hearing and reading from the poles seem rather half-baked and hypocritical. I hope that all of us can leave the asinine drivel that’s spewed on MSNBC and FOX and simply stop watching/listening to people who are not interested in building our society. Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck are not racists or demons, as they’re often portrayed in the mainstream media, they’re simply entertainers who make their money by selling uncritical people outmoded and obsolete ideologies. The same could be said of Bill Maher and Keith Olbermann.

Those who criticize Obama for the same things that they lauded Bush for doing (and vice versa) are the suicide bombers of the marketplace of ideas. Such inconsistency and partisan wrangling is always harmful and should not be tolerated by thinking people anywhere. I, of all people, see the value in having two sides to any debate. When so many voices in our media sell out their ideologies, simply to play the profitable role of devil’s advocate, however, the national debate is debased and all of us are made less capable of engaging with our democracy. Building a society, much like a building, requires a lot of energy and shared consensus. From my perspective, all that pundits like Mr. Limbaugh give us, however, is a hatred of gravity.

G.O.B.

Here's G.O.B. and his brother Dex. G.O.B. is on the right.

I don't think there was anything G.O.B. was looking at necessarily, he was probably just contemplating the universe.



This is all of us after the Holloween party we went to. I'm on the right wearing Amanda's old modern dance uniform. We went as Sigfried and Roy and G.O.B. went as the tiger who attacked Roy. Amanda drew a bite mark on her neck and applied copious amounts of blood.


G.O.B. hated his hood. We had to give him lots of treats to get him to keep it on for any amount of time.

The Boys

Change I believe in

I recently contacted two of my friends, some of the fiercest and smartest debaters I know, and challenged them to debate me on health care and a topic of their choice. I wrote the following starting essay as a beginning of our debate, but life has gotten hectic and I'm not sure if the whole debate will ever take place. If they finish a complete rebuttal, or if any of you have any thoughts, I will be glad to post them on this blog or have a public debate on things you feel strongly about. In case they never get back to me with a full rebuttal, however, I wanted my thoughts to be public as soon as possible, so that we, as Americans, can start to have the national discussion about what, if anything, needs to be done with health care.

I believe that we should pass the health care reforms that President Obama outlined in his address to Congress.

Although there are many things that could be written for or against this plan (and I have conscripted a friend to help me elucidate the other side to my arguments), I will show that overall, passing the plan advocated by President Obama would bring about substantially more benefits than costs.

When proposing a plan (or a debate platitude), the most important first step is showing that there is a problem with the status quo.

The second most insidious lie surrounding health care (behind the whole 'death panels' thing) is that “we have the best medical system in the world.” This is a pretty standard deflection in debate, make a verifiably true, but also totally unrelated point in order to support your claim. It is true that America leads the world in medical advances, new drug developments, and quality of top-tier doctors, the problem that needs addressing, however, is that a significant portion of Americans are outside the medical care system. Warren Buffett and rich foreign nationals may be able to get the best medical care in the world here in America, but their good fortune is poor reason to continue with a horribly flawed medical system, in which 46 million people have no insurance.

This leads to the question: are the 46 million uninsured going completely without health care? In point of fact, many of the uninsured in America are still getting health care when they need it. The 46 million number, although fun and effective to throw around (as I myself do all the time), does not tell the whole story. When an uninsured person gets critically sick and needs to go to the hospital they do so. Very few people, it seems, are willing to endure a gunshot wound or broken arm, simply because they don’t have the money to pay a doctor. If we were living in a purely capitalistic society, the sick poor would be kicked to the curb, made to soothe their lacerations only with the knowledge that capitalism has justly condemned them. Surely only a few generations will go by before the poor wise up, recognize that they have incentive to escape the soul-crushing poverty which they so enjoy, and get a good job which gives them health insurance.

As with any externalities, this free health care that we’re dispensing in emergency rooms all over the country needs to be paid by someone. It shouldn’t take a PhD in economics to realize that we are all paying that cost, either directly through the government, who needs to bail out failing hospitals, or in the form of higher hospital and insurance costs; just like retailers needs to raise their prices to compensate for losses to shoplifters, we are already paying for the uninsured in the status quo.

The real losers in the current system are not the uninsured poor, who can fairly easily get access to free clinics or Medicaid, or who can simply discharge their debts through bankruptcy (my plan, should I ever get seriously ill while I don’t have insurance), but the under-insured members of the middle class and those who can no longer get insurance in the market. When a middle class person gets in a serious accident or comes down with a life-threatening illness, their assets are in danger. A significant portion of bankruptcies are a direct consequence of medical bills.

We’re in the worst possible middle-ground with American health care. We’re socialist enough that there is very little incentive for people to take care of themselves or avoid expensive medical costs, since society will pay them one way or another. This is at least partially why there are so many uninsured in America. On the other hand, we’re capitalist enough to have private insurance companies in the marketplace as well. Those companies provide a service to their customers, but are free to pick and choose whom they want to cover (even sometimes utilizing recision to retroactively revoke the health care policies of customers who should have been covered), sucking the marrow from the bones, as it were, but leaving the ill to be covered by public moneys. There is a good argument to be made that we’d be better off either competing for the fees from the healthy to subsidize the risks of the poor (this is the purpose of insurance, I would point out) in a government program, or dropping government involvement in health care at all, leaving the market to solve our problems if it can make a profit, allowing the sick and aged to die off and “reduce the surplus population.”

For those of you who believe that there are better tweaks to Obama’s plan in the vapor or in the hands of the Republicans, I would ask where those ideas have been for the last decade. During the whole time that the Republicans had control of the congress and the White House, the changes made to the American health care system probably did more harm than good, funneling public money to private insurance companies without really giving benefits to their consumers. It is time to acknowledge that the market system is not only failing to fix the problems in our health care system, they are likely the very root of the problems.