Consciencebound

Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

Yesterday I caught the tail end of a show on NPR’s Marketplace on health care reform. There is of course lots of talk about this right now with all the potential changes coming down the pike from the American Congress and President Obama. I found this interview particularly interesting because it was with George Halvorson who is the CEO of Kaiser Permanente. I always like to hear what people who are in the health care industry think about the nationalization of health care so my ears perked right up when I heard what they were talking about.

I am usually against nationalizing health care but I want to remain open minded and rethink things as much as possible. My main interest is more pragmatic and I would like to be able to have a health care system that is capable of giving the highest quality of care to the most people. I realize that in any system there are going to be downfalls and problems but we need to think of which is the best system which gives us the most upside and the least amount of downsides.

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The Conscience of a Liberal by Paul  Krugman

I will be blogging my way through this book as I read it. This is part 1.

A friend of mine who voted for Barack Obama ( I did not) gave me this book to read that espouses the economic policies of some of the current democratic party.  I try to be open to different opinions that I do not agree with and so i am happy to read this book.  This is also an exercise for me to practice what I preach.  I push people to question their beliefs on a regular basis on this blog.  Now I get to see how honest I am in questioning a long held belief of mine in smaller government and lower taxes.  My hope is that I can take a serious look at my reasons for thinking what I do about how government should operate and have a thoughtful discussion with the person who gave me the book.  

Chapter 1

The Way We Were

The biggest thing that hits me in this first chapter is that Krugman has a few premises that are clear he will be working from as he moves on in this book:

1. Economic inequality is a moral problem.

2. It is the responsibility of government to correct this problem.

3. Republican (conservative) policy causes economic inequality.

4. Democratic policies(the New Deal) decrease economic inequality.

My initial response is that economic inequality is not a morally bad thing at all.  Read the rest of this entry »

People often look back to the Leave it to Beaver 1950’s as if it was the ideal moral family setting. As if the 1950’s society was the pure expression of God’s family values. But was it? This lecture which I found through my learnoutloud.com daily email, challenges this notion. The lecture is titled The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap which is the same title as the speaker’s book.

“Scholar and author Stephanie Coontz explores the myths of traditional marriage. Coontz is a faculty member at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., and the director of research and public education for the Council on Contemporary Families. She has published extensively on the topic of marriage and family life and is the author of several highly praised books, such as The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap and Marriage, A History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage.”

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Ok, I admit it, I like to argue.  I like to debate and discuss important issues and ideas.  But in my discussions with other people about important issues and ideas I have come upon an interesting psychological phenomenon.  Have you ever been talking to someone, debating maybe, and you had a realization that you weren’t truly as sure about what you were saying as you would like the other person to think?  Maybe it was over politics, religion, philosophy or why enchiladas ARE better than tacos.  You were steadfast in your position and felt that for some reason, you could not let on that you had doubts about your belief/position.  In your own mind you might have been thinking something like, “Hm, that is a good point and I really don’t have an answer for it but I am going to look into it more since I obviously and not as sure as i thought”.  But do you say this out loud?  No.  In the mean time, you argued and argued your position as if you were not swayed one bit. Read the rest of this entry »

My thoughts on the bailout of the american auto makers was largely that their loss of profitability was due to their mismanaged operations and poor quality cars.  I was just having a conversation with a friend of mine yesterday about this and then last night I heard on a radio station someone going over the following article pointing out 7 myths which I found I had believed almost every one of them.  I need to personally look into this more but found it interesting as it relates to the current bailout consideration.  You can find the original article here or you can read the article below in full. Read the rest of this entry »

This is from steynonline.com

“Give me liberty or give me death!”

“Live free or die!”

What’s that? Oh, don’t mind me. I’m just trying out slogans for the 2012 campaign and seeing which one would get the biggest laughs.

My Republican friends are now saying, oh, not to worry, look at the exit polls, this is still a “center-right” country. Americans didn’t vote to go left, they voted to go cool. It was a “Dancing With The Stars” election: Obama’s a star, and everyone wants to dance with him. It doesn’t mean they’re suddenly gung-ho for left-wingery.

Up to a point. Read the rest of this entry »

‘If you don’t read the newspaper
you are uninformed, if you do
read the newspaper you are
misinformed.’
-Mark Twain

Suppose you were an idiot.
And suppose you were a member of Congress….
But then I repeat myself.
-Mark Twain Read the rest of this entry »

After a long and tedious election process Barrack Obama is now elected as the 44th president of the United States of America.  It is truly historic in the sense that he is the first African-American to hold the highest office in the land and for that I am glad.  I did not vote for Obama but I have been thinking about what the next four years might entail and what my response will be to them.  The question of his policies and how he is going to actually govern this great country are now what we have to discuss and deal with.  It will be an interesting next 4 years for sure and so I wanted to pose some questions for both those who voted for Obama and for those who did not before these next four years begins:

For those who Voted AGAINST Obama, What if…

- What if the economy actually turns around in the next few years under Obama’s leadership of higher taxes for the “rich”, “job producing” members of our society?

- What if we actually end up having better health care as a result of Obama’s policies, not worse? Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to Netflix.com, I was finally able to finally watch the documentary by Ben Stein called  Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed with their watch online feature(which is getting better each month by the way).  If you have not seen this movie you should see it if for no other reason than for the value of understanding what is being said by some “Intelligent Design” proponents.  I have heard many many religious people that I know ask me if I have seen Expelled and it was apparent that they thought the movie was great and so I wanted to take the time to watch it and interact with it.  Although my own personal religious views have changed dramatically over the years, I still try to remain as open as possible to differing positions and do not want to close myself off to the possibility that I am wrong. Read the rest of this entry »

The issue of gay marriage is one that seems to be sharply dividing down party lines.  In general, Democrats are for it and in general Republicans are against it.  Conservative Republicans fear that allowing a redefinition of marriage at the state level will undermine their beliefs about marriage being between a man and a woman only.  On a web site called nogaymarriage.com, I read a synopsis of James Dobson’s book, Marriage Under Fire where the writer points out ten reasons why gay marriage should not be legalized.  My point in this post is that the reasons that conservatives have against gay marriage are entirely missing the point and in fact they are a betrayal of some core conservative (and Constitutional) values which I don’t think they want to be against. Read the rest of this entry »