We Demand Our Snow!

A few people have posted that they dislike Washington DC taking their tax dollars for things like social welfare programs or health care.    However, the Obama Administration has reached a new level of federal intervention that quite frankly has me angry and alarmed.

Apparently, this administration has figured out how to control weather, and has diverted snow from Maine down to the District of Columbia.   This has hurt ski resorts, snow mobilers (and the businesses which serve them), and the entire winter tourism industry.   Luckily it’s cold enough that the snow we have is sticking — and our local ski mountain remains in decent condition (icy in spots, but overall good).   Still, the total blanket of snow on the ground is on average only a few inches.   In the last three years we’ve gotten over 100 of inches of snow each year, with mounds of snow piled high.

Dirty snow in other years would soon be covered with clean snow; now there are huge chunks of ugly dirty snow on the edges of roads and sidewalks.   Sledding is very difficult, and if the temperature should climb above freezing, we’d risk a premature spring.   Some would welcome that, but most of us love our winter!

The alarming aspect of this is the fact that this shows that the Obama Administration now has control of the weather.   It is unclear why it is being diverted to DC.  Is it an effort to punish Collins and Snow for their refusal to back health care reform?   Or is geopolitics involved?

It could be that since most foreign embassies are located in Washington, this is a way to show the ambassadors and their staff the power at the finger tips of the Administration.   Sure, Iraq and Afghanistan have made our military might seem a bit tarnished, but hey — what would Beijing do if buried in snow?   Floods to Iran, and perhaps an opium-killing drought to Afghanistan?

I suspect that the technology to create ICWDs (Inter-contintenal Weather Devices) is still under development.   Or, perhaps worrying about various international treaties, the Obama Administration hopes that simply demonstrating the power will be enough to get other countries to change their behavior.  Look, our economy is shot, our military power appears useless in shaping world events, and our nuclear weapons are defensive.   Countries really have no reason to worry about what the US wants.   China, in fact, knows that if it dumps dollars and US bonds our currency could collapse — they have us by the economic short hairs.   It appeared to all that the US is the second superpower to bite the dust in two decades.   Until now.   Now that we have weather control.

This would all be well and good if the Obama Administration could be trusted to use it wisely.   However, by depriving northern New England of needed snow, it shows a both a lack of judgment and a limit to the efficacy of the device.   The lack of judgment is to punish two “blue” states by denying them a good winter.   I suspect this was not the intent.   The soft bureaucratic pansies on the Potomac probably think nobody likes snow, and believed they were doing us a favor.  This is an example of what Friedrich Hayek meant about the danger of centralized planning and the need for diffuse knowledge!    And if they meant to punish Collins and Snowe for not supporting health care reform, with this you can forget about Olympia.   She takes it personally when Maine is denied its snow(e).

This also demonstrates troubling unintended consequences.  To cause a drought in one place, you need to send the rain someplace else.    Now, flooding Tehran to dry up opium fields in Afghanistan may be feasible, but what would it do to Mongolia, a country we have good relations with, if we sent their winter to Beijing?    A bureaucrat, a member of that effete corps of impudent snobs, may think Thailand won’t miss some of its monsoon rains to flood parts of Burma, but it might actually deny rice to a whole section of the country.  A pusillanimous pussyfooter might decide to send Darfur drought to other parts of Sudan to punish the regime, and thereby ignite new civil wars and perhaps an energy crisis if oil production is cut.

So while I appreciate that this might save our superpower status, the implications of its use are dangerous.  Washington DC needs to stop stealing our snow, and let us have a winter again!   We don’t need ski lifts on Capitol Hill.   Fine, develop ICWDs as a deterrent to, say, China causing our currency to collapse and render us the equivalent of a third world state.   It would be a bummer if they did that.   But tell the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history, those nattering nabobs of negativity, elite pencil pushers who can’t park their bikes to STOP STEALING OUR SNOW!   You don’t need it.  You’ve had your snow storm.  I’ve been in many of them and to some extent I would have to say this; if you’ve seen one snow storm you’ve seen them all.

The Obama Recovery?

I had not yet heard that term, but Rawstory links to a blog titled “Antipartisan” by Sahil Kapur which has now thrown the phrase “Obama Recovery” into the political lexicon.   He also posts a pretty impressive chart:

This chart shows that the US economy hit rock bottom in January 2009, and since then has been slowly moving upward.   Note that this is not a chart showing economic growth — that’s been even more impressive, though driven by the stimulus funds.   Rather, this is something more important: jobs lost.

When an economy bleeds jobs, things don’t turn around on a dime.   Every job lost can lead to more jobs lost, as fewer have income and thus there is less consumption and demand.   This can spiral in on itself with no clear method of how to get out of it – that happened during the Great Depression.   Markets aren’t magic, they can get stuck.   The goal of a stimulus package is to turn that around, to start creating jobs again so that hiring begins and spirals the other way — to go from bust to boom.

The thing that people often don’t understand is that you can’t go from losing 800,000 jobs a month to creating new jobs right away.  The stimulus money at first can only stop more jobs from being lost to “turn around” the trajectory.   That’s good in that it works against a negative spiral, and starts upward movement.   But it also means that jobs are the most lagging indicator of when you leave a recession.   Jobs return last.   As I noted a couple of posts ago, Ronald Reagan’s job approval rating hit 38% in mid-1983.   Job losses had been going on throughout his administration, and thus he appeared early on to be failing as President.  Once jobs started coming back, so did his numbers.

If job creation starts later this year, even at a slow pace, the Democrats might find their prospects in November to be much better than they looked in February.   The Republicans are likely peaking too early.   Moreover, many on the right vastly misread the public mood.   They believe that the public is in line with the ‘tea party’ movement, disgusted with Obama and wanting small government and lower taxes.   But the public voted overwhelmingly Democratic just a year ago; the public is not ideological, they just want results.  The public wants the country to be on the right track, and the opposition party is always the ‘voice of change.’   The GOP could mix to rabid a campaign with a recovering economy to find that 2010 won’t be the comeback they’d been hoping for.   They’ll certainly make gains, but talk of regaining the House or taking the Senate is at best pre-mature, and most likely fantasy.

Still, even if the jobs picture picks up, the next task is to deal with the debt and deficit in a way which doesn’t spark a double dip recession.    The fact that the dollar is now at $1.36 a Euro, much stronger than just a month ago, even as the new budget with a $1.3 trillion deficit is released, is heartening.   It makes me think that perhaps economists like Paul Krugman are right in saying we need not worry about a collapsing dollar, and perhaps my analysis which has been pretty alarmist about that prospect is wrong.   Believe me, I hope my analysis has been wrong on that issue!

Still, I don’t think we can continue building debt and regain economic stability.  We have to produce more at home, keep our current account and trade deficit down, and explore new technologies, especially in the areas of energy and environment.   Maybe I’ll go back to my gloom and doom posts of the past year, and someday chalk this up to a mid-winter bout of optimism.   But with the dollar gaining value, job growth on the horizon, and the economy growing again, there is a sense that maybe, just maybe there is cause for optimism.

We cannot go back to the bubble economy, and a repeat of the consumerism craze of the mid 00’s isn’t on the horizon.  Rather, a sustainable economy built on investment, production, work, and a realistic assessment of risk is necessary.  We need a better regulatory structure, and most importantly, as a culture we need to have learned from the mistakes of the past decades.   As I noted last week, we’re not out of the woods yet, but there are rays of hope I didn’t expect to see shining forth.

Obama’s Patriotism Speech

The biggest line in President Obama’s State of the Union message was that he would not accept the US coming in second to China in economic innovation.   Vice President Biden echoed the refrain in an interview, saying he was sick of hearing that the US was inevitably in decline, and people already writing us off.

Obama should listen to his Vice President, and recast the national debate.   There are many reasons why Obama could embrace patriotism and one-up the Republicans.   First, it’s an old adage in politics that you turn a weakness into an advantage.  With all the talk about the birthers and Obama being too “internationalist,” a turn towards overt patriotism would dampen and perhaps even drown out that talk.   Moreover, Obama need not worry about sounding like a Bush or Palin.   He can talk up the US and not sound like a mindless nationalist, even foreigners would understand.   And there is gold in that strategy.

The reason the public elected Obama, and now feel less certain about him, is not ideological.   Most Americans don’t buy into the progressive agenda or the tea party movement.   Instead, they are worried about the state of the nation, and how the next generation is going to deal with unprecedented problems.   They see ballooning deficits, failed war efforts, a consumption oriented shallow culture, and wonder “what went wrong — how did we end up here?”    Republican or Democrat, there is a real fear that we’re losing our edge, and have perhaps already lost our way.   After the burst bubbles of the last decade, there is a gnawing sense of unease about tomorrow.

That is Obama’s entry point – patriotism, not ideology.   Here, Mr. President, is some text you can borrow as you see fit, a “patriotism” speech I believe you should deliver:

“Fellow Americans, a new century brings us new challenges.   Our economy is riddled with record debt, both public and private, while in recent years we’ve been consuming far more than we produced.   Bubble economies created an illusion of easy money, and it became easy to believe we could have ’something for nothing.’   The politicians cut taxes, yet approved more spending.   We hurled ourselves into wars believing victory would be inevitable and quick, only to find it fleeting and hard to define.  And now China’s economy is on the rise, we’ve fallen behind in green technology, and much of the world looks at the US as a power in decline.   The 20th Century, they say, belonged to the United States.  The 21st will belong to Asia, or some other set of powers.

“I do not accept that.   I believe we have the will, the spirit of initiative and innovation, and the national character to show the naysayers that America is not about to fade in the sunset, and we are going to make the 21st century our best yet.   It is time for us to rise to the challenge, stop playing political games, and actively do something to fix what’s wrong, and put ourselves on the right path forward.

“I have challenged the Republicans to work with me on this, because they face a choice: patriotism, or ideology.   We Democrats face that choice as well.  Patriotism means that we’re in this together, as Americans, and we need to work together to solve the severe problems facing the country.   That’s how we’ve handled crises in the past.  Ideology is the narrow claim that there is only one “right” way to govern, and that’s according to how one particular person or party defines it.   Ideologies, however, always fail.  They oversimplify, constrain creative thought, and yield ivory tower solutions to real world problems.   When the two parties argue about ideology, they do the public a great disservice.   Rather than working as Americans to solve problems, we become partisans shilling different world views, so caught up in our own narratives that we forget the country and its people.   That has happened far too often in recent years.   It must stop now if we are to truly move forward as a nation.

“We need to embrace optimism, recognizing that Americans respond best when things look bleak.   So to those who say that our economy has nowhere to go but down, that the dollar will somehow lose its value, that our children will lack jobs or health care, that we will be unable to support the boomers as they retire, or that the future is certain to have energy shortages and environmental crises , we need to say, we’re ready. We’ve seen it all before.   Slavery.   Depression.   Major world war.  Fear of nuclear holocaust.   We’ve faced energy crises, we’ve had a President resign in disgrace, we’ve had riots in our cities, and we’ve had civil war.   At those times we pull together and come out stronger.  We will do it again, and I will lay out a plan of action on how to do so, inviting the Republicans to join.   The full plan will unveiled soon, with considerable room for compromise and debate, but the core components are:  1) Get Americans back to work by investing our infrastructure and capacity to create high technology jobs; 2) Balance our budget through rethinking all spending, and embracing a cost-saving health care reform act; 3) Reassert our role in world affairs by focusing on principle over power, and on cooperation over unilateralism; and 4) deal effectively with the problems caused by globalization, such as terrorism, oil crises, and international tensions.   In all of these there is a key method:  get rid of fear and embrace a confident ‘we can do this’ attitude.   We need not fear economic problems, fear terrorism, or fear climate change.   We can solve problems and move forward, with confidence.

“Now, some may say this call sounds arrogant.   In a world of 200 countries, why should the US demand to be leading, why not give China or India its turn?  I’d answer that in two ways.   First, unleashing our potential and doing all we can to improve our future does not require tearing anyone down.   Our main competition is with our ideals and aspirations, to achieve that which we set out to achieve for ourselves.    Second, we truly believe that freedom and democracy are effective, and as quaint as it might sound, the United States can still be that shining city on a hill, an example of what good, honest, hard working people can do if they respect each other’s individual rights, limit the role of government, work together to solve problems, and put belief in the core values of the country ahead of partisanship and ideology.

“So let’s put aside the crass materialism of recent years, the emphasis on what we have over who we are, the idea that consumption is the core meaning for life in America.   To solve our problems we don’t need to go out and shop, we need to go and work to fix what’s wrong and build a future grander than what we right now can imagine.   We’re up to that task, if we can work together as Americans first, compromising and putting problem solving ahead of sloganeering.   Thank you, and God bless America.”

Presidential approval

Many Republicans are pleased that President Obama’s approval rating has fallen to just 50%, a major drop from nearly 70% when he took office.   Historical comparisons might, however, put this in context.   (Approval rating data from the Wall Street Journal)

Ronald Reagan began his Presidency at about 60% approval, which went up a bit after the failed assassination attempt on March 31, 1981.    Due to what were seen by many as extremist policies undertaken by Reagan along with a Republican majority in the Senate and an alliance of the GOP and southern Democrats in the South, Reagan’s numbers began to tank.  The economy continued in a tailspin too — electing the golden voiced orator who espoused optimism did not elicit the magic people had expected.    By the start of 1982 his numbers were falling and nearing 50%, comparable to where Obama is at this point.   Reagan was seen to be a poor leader, out of touch, and too polarizing.  By mid-1983 his approval rating was under 40%.

At that point, Democrats were enthused.   Reagan was elected because of his charm and oratory.   Now that the public saw what he was really like, only 38% approved of the job he was doing.   No President that unpopular can be re-elected, Democrats looked towards 1984 with excitement.   However, the economy started to perk again, and with it Reagan’s numbers rose.    As 1984 started he was still below 50%, but then as the campaign moved forward, he bounced up to around 57% as he defeated Democratic nominee Walter Mondale.   The Republican majority in the Senate also remained in tact.   Soon Reagan was over 60%, though he would fall below 50% for much of this second term due to the Iran-Contra arms scandal.   He finished on an up note, leaving office with about 57% approval.

Bill Clinton entered office at about 55% approval, but within months he was down in the low forties, below where Obama is now.  He did push that back up to 50% by the start of 1994, but as his health care plan was defeated he hit 40% approval by late 1994.   The Republicans took back the House and Senate that year, and Clinton looked as weak a President as Reagan had seemed in 1982.    The economy started to pick up, however, and by 1996 he was at about 57% when he defeated Bob Dole for re-election.   From then on he stayed mostly in the low sixties, even as scandal and intrigue swirled around him.   The House impeached him, he survived a trial in the Senate, and his poll numbers stayed high.   Like Reagan, he left office considered as a hero to his party, the low early poll numbers forgotten.

George H.W. Bush, however, had no such problems.  He started out in the fifties, and zoomed into the sixties and early seventies during his first two years.   He did not lose popularity like Reagan had, he continually went up.   In 1991 he went over 80% after the Iraq war, and seemed poised for an easy re-election the next year.   Then the economy started to sputter.   By late summer 1991 he was in the low forties.  When he lost to Bill Clinton he had fallen to about 35% approval, though he did bounce back to near 50% by the time he left office.

George W. Bush started high, and peaked after 9-11.  He then had a steady drop to near 50% when he was re-elected, followed by an ongoing drop to ratings in the high twenties by the end of his term.

The bottom line in all of this is that Presidential approval ratings at this point are a poor indicator of anything, except perhaps the off year elections.   The Republicans should do very well this fall if Obama’s numbers go lower, though if he can hold at 50% it may not be as good as the Republicans hope for.   Obama, like Clinton and Reagan, are suffering less from any lack of performance on their part then the state of the economy.   To be sure, Clinton’s failed effort to reform health care drove down his numbers, and Obama may be experiencing a similar fate.   And, like Clinton, Obama is a target of a conspiracy theory minded right wing attack.   Obama is a socialist born in Kenya with radical ideas hidden behind a pragmatic veneer, if you buy the conspirators’ line.  Clinton had been a draft dodging radical who had people murdered and ran the White House like a mafia clan.   But while those conspiracy stories can inflame the far right, they don’t reach much into the general public, and often create a false sense by the extremists that the President is less popular than he really is.

Moreover, as the example of President Bush the Elder shows, high early numbers by no means guarantees a positive result.   Economic problems in late 1991 did President Bush, and erased approval highs that no other President had reached.   Only Bush the Younger approached such levels, and he left office with the lowest approval ratings ever.

Reagan and Clinton had their political obituaries written in 1983 and 1993 respectively.   They were failed Presidents, elected because of charm and offering “something new” — each espoused change — but were not up to the job.   Each proved that the reports of their political deaths were premature.    Bush the Elder was a sure thing for re-election, only to plummet dramatically to the ground.

So as one takes stock of the current state of affairs, trying to judge the future by the political winds of today is impossible.    It’s also too early to assume that Obama will bounce back like Reagan and Clinton — that might happen, but there is no guarantee.   Although Bush the Younger did manage to get re-elected, his poll numbers never bounced back once they started slipping.   Finally, it’s pretty clear that the President’s approval reflects less a response to the President’s actual job performance, and more a feeling people have about the state of the nation.  If things seem to be going well, and perhaps if the President has clear public successes, people will judge more favorably.   If things seem to be going poorly, and the President seems either invisible or under fire, they will judge less favorably.

So, Republicans can enjoy Obama’s current relatively low approval ratings, and maybe hope that like Clinton and Reagan, he continues to fall, perhaps to the 38% experienced by Reagan.   Democrats can take heart in the fact that 50% historically isn’t so bad, and he could fall farther and still have strong reason to believe things will get better.   But most of us can see the number as a short term sense of the mood of the country, subject to dramatic changes if conditions change.

Pictures in our Heads

I have just read Public Opinion, a 1922 book by Walter Lippmann, the philosopher-journalist extraordinaire of the 20th century.  It strikes me how so much of what he wrote then still applies today, and how he was consciously exploring what it meant to be in a new, modern era, when mass media would break down the barriers of distance and tradition.  Yet Lippmann may also be on to one of the dangers of democracy, reminiscent of Montesquieu’s idea of the “troglodytes.”

Lippmann notes that we make judgments about reality by creating “pictures in our heads,” simplifications of the complexity of the real world, often shaped by external forces who give us narratives and visions already pre-packaged and interpreted.   We then lose sight of the fact that these are just interpretations, and start believing that we are understanding reality “as it is,” certain we have the facts correct, and that our judgments are crystal clear.   This is never the case, and we delude ourselves into false certainty by putting such faith in our biased and stereotyped images.   Perhaps with education and the capacity to engage in understanding multiple perspectives we can at the very least recognize the problem and work against bias, but we are always limited.

A few quotes from Lippmann’s classic (the MacMillian 1957 printing):

“For the real environment is altogether too big, too complex and too fleeting for direct acquaintance.  We are not equipped to deal with so much subtlety, so much variety, so many permutations and combinations.  And although we have to act in that environment, we have to reconstruct it on a simpler model before we can manage it.” (page 16)

“The subtlest and most pervasive of all influences are those which create and maintain the repertory of stereotypes.   We are told about the world before we see it.  We imagine most things before we experience them.  And those preconceptions, unless education has made us acutely aware, govern deeply the whole process of perception.” (page 90)

“We do not see what our eyes are not accustomed to take into account.  Sometimes consciously, more often without knowing it, we are impressed by those facts which fit our philosophy.” (page 119)

“So where two factions see vividly each its own aspect, and contrive their own explanations of what they see, it is almost impossible for them to credit each other with honesty.  If the pattern fits their experience at a crucial point, they no longer look upon it as an interpretation.  They look upon it as ‘reality.’  It may not resemble the reality, except that it culminates in a conclusion which fits real experience.”  (page 126-27)

“Generally, it all culminates in the fabrication of a system of all evil, and of another which is the system of all good.  Then our love of absolutes shows itself.   For we do not like qualifying adverbs.  They clutter up sentences, and interfere with irresistible feeling…Real space, real time, real numbers, real connections, real weights are lost.  The perspective and the background and the dimensions of action are clipped and frozen in the stereotype.” (page 156)

“Most of this naïve view of self-interest leaves out of account.  It forgets that self and interest are both conceived somehow, and that for the most part they are conventionally conceived.  The ordinary doctrine of self-interest usually omits altogether the cognitive function.  So insistent is it on the fact that human beings finally refer all things to themselves that it does not stop to notice that men’s ideas of all things and of themselves are not instinctive.  They are acquired.” (Page 180)

“But for the political thinkers who have counted, from Plato and Aristotle through Machiavelli and Hobbes to the democratic theorists, speculation has revolved around the self-centered man who had to see the whole world by means of a few pictures in his head.” (Page 262)

“We misunderstand the limited nature of news, the illimitable complexity of society; we overestimate our own endurance, public spirit and all around competence.  We suppose an appetite for uninteresting truths which is not discovered by any honest analysis of our own tastes.” (Page 362)

“The press is no substitute for institutions.  It is like the beam of a search light that moves restlessly about it, bringing one episode and then another out of the darkness into vision.  Men cannot do the work of the world by this light alone.  They cannot govern society by episodes, incidents and eruptions.  It is only when they work by a steady light of their own, that the press, when it is turned upon them, reveals a situation intelligible enough for a popular decision.   The trouble lies deeper than the press, and so does the remedy.  It lies in social organization based on a system of analysis and record, and in all the corollaries of that principle; in the abandonment of the theory of the omnicompetent citizen, in the decentralization of decision, in the coordination of decision by comparable record and analysis.” (page 364)

“It is because they are compelled to act without a reliable picture of the world, that governments, schools, newspapers and churches make such small headway against the more obvious failings of democracy, against violent prejudice, apathy, preference for the curious trivial as against the dull important, and the hunger for sideshows and three legged calves.  This is the primary defect of popular government, a defect inherent in its tradition, and all its other defects can, I believe, be traced to this one.” (Page 365)

These snippets, which represent part of the theory behind my current research, challenge democracy.    The public cannot be wise, because the public is so easily misled, and through emotion responds to “pictures in our heads” that give a warped and overly simplified vision of reality.   Especially with globalization, it’s hard for the “self-contained society” (as Lippmann puts it) to understand the diverse perspectives out there.  It’s easier to see ones’ own culture as common sensically best and superior.  People believe that their self-interest comes from inside them, rather than recognizing how it is often given to them by the culture and discourse in which they find themselves.

Perhaps the militarism of the past decades, the “something for nothing” mentality of both the rich and poor in our society, the wild consumerism, and the demand that the government spend more and tax less simply reflects public demands shaped by marketers and the media.   The politicians react to this and are caught up in it, believing their own “pictures in their heads.”   Few question their own narratives or, as Lippmann also noted, truly listen to the “indispensable opposition.”   Perhaps our current crisis is as much a crisis of modern democracy as it is a creation of either governments or markets (the left blames the latter, the right blames the former).

As this research project develops, I’ll reflect more on this.  For today, I thought I’d list a few quotes from Lippmann’s classic which people may or may not find insightful.

The Stakes are High

President Obama’s had a good week, going from a well received State of the Union address, to a widely disseminated talk with the House GOP caucus (which by most accounts made Obama look very good), and an appearance at an NCAA game.    With economic growth increasing last quarter, and the White House becoming more assertive, one gets the sense that the political winds are shifting again, this time back towards Obama.   It’ll depend on whether or not jobs follow economic growth, but Democrats are feeling a bit more optimistic this week for the first time in quite awhile.

Yet there is something unnerving in the shifting political winds, the inside the beltway games, and the emphasis on a few speeches or issues.   President Obama was elected because the public sensed that the country was going the wrong way and they wanted a change.   Within a year, the public still overwhelming thinks that the country is going the wrong way, and are generally disappointed by the lack of change brought forth.  The left is angry about the lack of a health care bill, and the compromises made to even get close to passing something.   The right is angry about budget increases, and has launched an all out assault on Obama’s leadership.    The two sides are fiddling while the Republic burns.

The United States is in the midst of a series crisis, one which will determine the kind of world we leave our children and grandchildren.   I’ve noted many times how thirty years of economic mismanagement and growing public and private debt have left our economy extremely vulnerable to even slight jolts.   It could be China deciding to shift currency holdings away from dollars and US bonds, a spike in oil prices, renewed war in the Mideast, a natural disaster, or more likely a series of small things, and we could spiral back into recession and not be able to spend our way out of it without a real risk of currency collapse.

The rest of the world knows this.   The US is neither respected nor feared on the global stage any more.   The fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan have greatly reduced the fear of US military action.  The world has seen how difficult it is for even the best trained and equipped military to project power and shape political outcomes, and it’s clear the US public has no stomach (or money) for future military engagement.    With our economy vulnerable and in deep debt, countries are looking for alternatives to the dollar, and shifting focus away from the US.   Nowhere is this more true than in China; the Chinese don’t want to be dependent on American markets, and are making pretty dramatic moves to diversify and actually bring some consumption home.

The Chinese also have passed the US as the top producer of clean energy.   In fact, as the US dithers over whether or not global warming is happening, the rest of the world has taken the attitude “happening or not, we’re going to prepare the energy sources of the future.”   The EU, China and other states are investing large amounts on new energy technologies, making the US a follower where we used to be a leader.    It’s conceivable that US export capacity could be hurt if other countries signed treaties limiting the trade of goods produced with a large carbon footprint.   As the rest of the world moves into a 21st century economy, we’re trying to keep alive the old fossil fuel based production system, covering our ears and going “nanananana” to people who talk about the decline of oil supplies or climate change.

Simply, we are in serious decline as a world power.   The rest of the world now believes it’s OK to ignore us or go against our interests — there is little we can do in response, especially when we need the world to buy our bonds and finance our rising debt.   Rather than trying to figure out how to profit from American consumers, states and companies are looking for safe alternatives to relying on US consumption.   To many, it appears our best days are behind us.   We’re going the route of the old USSR, though more slowly.   Rather than collapse, we have internal gridlock, with no real capacity to act to break out of this rut.  The left blocks the right, and the right blocks the left.   People tune in to political theater on FOX, MSNBC, or their favorite talk radio shock jock.    Obama is hoped to be a savior or condemned as a socialist.  The idea that he’s just a pragmatic President looking to solve problems is boring, it doesn’t provide political drama.

When the President called on Republicans to take responsibility for governing as well, promising to listen to them and work with him, I hope he was being sincere.   So far, the Republicans have resisted this.   Compromise means giving up things you really like so that the other side gives something up.   When you’re in opposition, there are more votes and better rhetoric if you don’t give anything up and avoid compromise.   You won’t be accused of softness by the true believers in your own party, and the other side looks feeble, unable to bring effective change.   Yet what’s good for the Republican party alone, or the Democratic party alone, isn’t good for America.

It really is time for the two parties to put ideology aside and work together to solve huge problems.   The problems are obvious: a large budget deficit and debt, lack of regulation over banks and financial speculation (especially things like derivatives), the coming retirement of the baby boomers, a gap between our commitments abroad and our capacity to fulfill them, and a public used to ’something for nothing:’ the consumption generation who wants it now, wants it all, and wants it fast.   We have a health system likely to implode in coming years if nothing is done, and an economy that needs to produce more goods and retool the infrastructure if it is to compete in the 21st century.

There is little debate about the nature of these problems, just how to handle them.   OK, that’s an obstacle, and perhaps on some issues that’s an insurmountable obstacle.  But at this point, many on each side aren’t even trying.   In fact, those who do try to do what is responsible, like Senator Snowe, get targeted as a “RINO” by the hard right.   In their eyes loyalty to the party and party line is required, otherwise you’re a traitor.   Many Democrats want to just dump trying to work with the GOP and ram through whatever they can, annoyed that Obama is unwilling to support that.

Well, the country faces a pivotal point in our history.  The two sides can continue this “politics as bloodsport” approach, and the country will continue to spiral downward, inevitably experiencing a crisis that will force change, probably painful.   Or the politicians can wake up and see that the stakes are high, and the quality of life of our children and grandchildren depend on solving the problems we face today.    These are very interesting times.

Out of the Woods?

Last quarter the economy grew at 5.7%, one of the highest rates of growth in six years.  With inflation nearing 3%, it appears to many that the economy is starting to move forward again.   Moreover, the dollar is showing surprising strength, going under the $1.40 per Euro rate for the first time in a long time.   The current account deficit has stabilized at 3.0% of GDP, a vast improvement on the 7% of GDP figure reached in 2006.   New jobless claims, a lagging indicator, are starting to fall.  Could we be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel?

In a word: No.   But a qualified no.   President Obama had a bad hand dealt to him when he took the oath of office.  The US economy faced collapse in September 2008, saved only by a massive bailout.   For all its downsides, that bailout probably prevented a catastrophic seizing of the credit markets.  As unemployment was rapidly climbing and the US sinking fast into recession, Obama gambled.   He used political capital to rush through an emergency stimulus package designed to push the US into economic growth by the end of 2009.   It appears the stimulus has worked, and the US economy has turned around.

All other things being equal, one could expect this growth to take and the economy to start another cycle.   However, all other things are not equal, structural problems that both existed before and in part caused this current crisis need to be addressed before we can say we’ve accomplished a sustainable economy.

The biggest problem, of course, is the debt.   There is no easy way to cut spending, but already US debt and deficits are at the border of what can be financed without risking a steep decline in the value of the dollar.   Increasing the debt was the stimulus gamble — the idea that we have to spur growth again before structural reform of the economy can begin.   If there is economic growth, it should be possible to start significantly trimming deficits to get the budget back at a sustainable level.   However, there is a risk: the spending cuts and tax increases needed to balance the budget (or at least limit deficits) could stifle growth.

Politically the problem is made worse by the fact that tax increases have less of a harmful effect on growth than spending cuts.  Spending injects money directly into the economy, and thus economists tend to see government spending as a much more effective stimulus than a tax cut.  Conversely, tax increases are less likely to slow economic growth than spending cuts.   Spending cuts are easier to sell politically than tax increases, however, so Obama will have to find a politically acceptable balance.   And, while it is expected that these priorities might cause Republicans to howl (if military spending is cut and taxes increased), it’s likely liberals who will be most put off by cuts in government programs moving forward.   Obama will have the continuing attacks from the right to fend off, while trying to keep together his Democratic coalition — all of this in an election year which is likely to see Republican gains.

One thing Obama can’t do is simply take the Reagan approach — continue to increase the debt and not worry about deficits.   Right now Obama is experiencing a situation similar to Reagan in 1982 — increased debt is helping stimulate the economy, creating short term unpopularity (Reagan’s approval numbers were in the 40’s in his first term) but setting up a rebound — something Reagan called “Morning in America.”   But while Reagan had a country with relatively low debt and a low current account deficit, Obama starts with staggering debts.   While Reagan was governing as the baby boomers were heading into their most productive and prosperous years, Obama is governing as they start to retire, and pull money out of the system rather than put it in.  Obama does not have the luxury of simply continuing to borrow and spend, unlike Reagan’s second term.

It will take bold leadership to pull this off, and it’s not yet clear Obama is up to the task, if anyone is.   I have more faith in his capacity to make these tough decisions than I’ve had for any recent President, however, so there is hope.  First, Obama has to finish the job of ending US involvement in Iraq, get Afghanistan to a point that we can cut commitments there, and then start downsizing the US military.   It’s a fallacy that we need to spend half the world’s military budget for our own defense – our interventionism probably does more to make us a target than keep us safe.    Bases need to close,  Congress has to stop funding projects the Pentagon doesn’t want, and the US has to accept that we can’t afford to try to be a dominant super power.

Second, somehow Republicans and Democrats have to set up a sustainable set of priorities for budget cuts and tax increases.   Both sides will have to swallow some bitter poison they’ve avoided in the past.   I do not know if this is possible.   Until recently the “compromise” was that Republicans would accept spending increases in exchange for tax cuts.   Each side gets something, even as the country drifts further into debt.   Now they have to find a way to share pain and avoid economic populism.  If Obama can facilitate that happening, he would right there become one of the greats.

Third, the US has to make a real shift in economic policies to support new technologies that will position us for the inevitable shift away from oil towards solar and other alternative energy sources.   The EU has already marched ahead of us on that, thanks to their implementation of the Kyoto accords.   The US complained that agreement would hurt the economy, but clearly in the EU it actually boosted new economic activity.   We can’t be left behind.   Real productive capacities in new technology needs to be a core of US economic activity — real production, not just consumption and wealth ‘on the cheap.’

Finally, the US has to avoid slipping back into ‘bubble’ economies where speculators bought the “something for nothing” mentality that you can get rich quick if only you invest in the hot market of the day.   People have been trying to get rich by being clever — investing in stocks, flipping real estate, etc. — rather than actually producing.   Investment has its role, but it cannot alone produce mass amounts of prosperity without increases in productive capacity.   The bubble economy hid the structural imbalances that have been building the last thirty years, and contributes to our current problem of massive public and private debt, and unsustainable budgetary practices.  The US needs tough financial regulations, closer monitoring of markets (especially things like derivatives) and transparency in the banking sector.

If Obama and the Congress can move on these fronts, we may start solving these problems.  But even if we make all the right moves, the challenges ahead are so deep that it may take more crises to truly force the changes that need to take place.  Obama has made a good first step, but it was the easiest step.   The path forward will be very difficult.

Hypnotized Humanity?

We underestimate the power of suggestion.  If you’ve ever been to a performance by a hypnotist, it is obvious just how much power suggestions can have over our experience of reality.    People can be convinced they have snakes crawling over them, are in danger, take on very different personas, and do things that they would otherwise not choose to do.   It can be a bit creepy.

Yet you do not need to be in an hypnotic trance for suggestions to be powerful.   Advertisers know this.  That is why McDonalds spends less time talking about its food than creating a mood.  “You deserve a break today.”  Cute scenes of kids, friends, people laughing, “lovin’ it”!   These are meant to place suggestions in your mind about how to feel when you see a McDonalds, making you more likely to think, “gee, let’s go eat at McDonalds.”   You haven’t really compared dining possibilities, you just feel like having McDonalds.   You feel loyalty to a particular brand.   Mountain Dew seems to be a more exciting soft drink than Sierra Mist.  It used to be that advertisers would place subliminal messages in ads, brief bits with words or suggestions that went by too fast to be consciously perceived, but expected to have a subconscious impact.   Suggestions.

In life we are constantly bombarded by suggestions.  Politicians making statements, cultural biases and fads, claims on the news, in the media, within a sub culture.   What has value?   What is common sense?   What will make me happy?   For example, for a long time our culture was convinced that blacks should be treated differently than whites, and the races should not mix in marriage.   That’s the way the world was, that’s what people grew up with.    All customs, beliefs, political justifications and the like reinforced the suggestion that this is how the world should be.

Those with the power (usually whites) had little reason to resist these suggestions.  This made it seem like there was something better about their race, rationalized unequal treatment, and gave a nice narrative to why conditions in the US were as they were.  Even progressives found it hard to break through the programing.   Blacks more easily rejected the suggestions because they were the ones hurt by the social structure, and its injustices were felt more keenly by blacks.  Even then, the power of these suggestions made it hard to mount a serious challenge to the existing social structure.

Martin Luther King’s “Letter to a Birmingham Prison,” wherein he expressed disappointment that white clergy and liberals were saying “slow down” or “don’t demand too much,” was really a shout to “wake up!”  You’ve been hypnotized into accepting as normal a state of affairs that should enrage you.   In fact, if we look back at history we see slavery, sexism, and an atrocious state of human rights as normal throughout most of human history.   If we could go back to Savannah, Georgia in 1824 and yell “wake up, slavery is evil,” we’d be marginalized as radical abolitionists — dangerous and misguided.

Political struggles are often efforts to yell “wake up” loud enough to shake people into questioning the suggestions being fed them, and get them to see things from a different perspective.  Yet it is always easier to stick with the world we’ve become accustomed to.  The suggestions that define how we interpret reality are comfortable, we’re used to them, and as we get older it becomes ever more difficult to truly question the world view we hold, especially if it has been rather stable.  Alternative suggestions sound weird, radical, dangerous or contrary to all we hold true.   That is one reason why change tends to be generational — a new generation may be open to new suggestions in a way older folk are not.

How do we break this hypnosis?   I think first and foremost is to recognize it exists — to recognize that every political, religious, social and cultural perspective we hold is in part shaped by the world around us.   Once we recognize that, then we can start reflecting on those beliefs and perspectives.   Second is to acknowledge the capacity of those with power and money to make and reinforce suggestions about how to think.  Whether political propaganda, advertising, or media messages that stick within narrow narratives (even if you can have the diversity between, say, Fox and MSNBC) all have enormous power to shape how people understand their world.  It creates a pervasive discourse, a set of ‘normal’ meanings and understandings through which reality is interpreted.

All of this means we have to don some humility.   Each of us may think ourselves clever, smart, critical and independent, but we are all to some extent products of our culture.   If we were born in Cairo or Tehran we’d think differently about the world than we do now; if we lived in the 1700’s our world view would be fundamentally changed.  Much of who we are depends on where and when we are.   Yet, I do think we can wake up.

Once we recognize that we’ve been subjected to massive suggestions about the world from our culture, friends, family and media, we can start the reflective process which gives humans the capacity to be ourselves and claim our own identity.   It’s not that we can completely come up with a totally autonomous worldview — the impact of culture and the suggestions that we “listen to” every day is always there, and always a part of us.   But we can resist their ability to shape us, and learn to question those suggestions being thrown our way.

In advertising: as we pull into McDonalds we can say, “do I really want this, why do I feel I want this, is it due to advertising, is this what I want,” and start thinking of alternatives.  At least make the decision consciously.    It can also be useful in thinking of politics.   In recent debates on this site about taxes and the role of government, I think it’s important for all sides to think seriously about the other’s perspective.   By that I don’t just mean entertain the arguments, but really listen and try to comprehend how a perspective can be different than ones’ own.   The more we do that in all issues, the more likely we are to have a clearer view of the world, and how suggestions may be leading us to embrace things we actually don’t believe in.

This also explains the importance of both art and satire.   Art can reflect creativity, the ability to explore aspects of life beyond conventional thought and the status quo.   It can be an impetus for “waking up” from a series of comfortable suggestions.   Since the Roman Empire and satirists like Juvenal, satire has had as its core method a refusal to accept conventional norms and rules of the discourse, and play with strange takes and perspectives on things.  Sometimes that allows the satirist to see reality more clearly than the serious pundit.

It may be comfortable to live hypnotized by the world around us, being programmed to want certain things, define success a certain way, and go with the flow.  But when we do that, we give up living an autonomous life, and soon feel alienated from life.   That emptiness can come out as depression, anxiety, hopelessness, or a desire for thrill, something to make us feel alive.   And, though we can never be completely outside our culture and the suggestions it provides, I do think it’s possible to resist and reflect.   Learning to view things from diverse perspectives, taking seriously the world views of those who think differently, and never being too settled in ones’ own beliefs and ideas about the world is one way to do that.   Living “awake” may be the key to a really satisfying life.

This Time, This Place

Commenting on the last post, Jim Sullivan expresses his frustration with being coerced to pay taxes and have his property taken from him — a form of theft, he claims.   When I respond that it is a kind of fee for the numerous services that create stability and prosperity, he can correctly point to the lack of an opt out.  Even if he is much better off because of government, he never had a choice in the matter.

Others on all parts of the political spectrum will point to numerous other social ills: poverty, starvation, genocide, wars throughout the third world, first world imperialism (funded through taxes), and all sorts of conditions and actions that are intolerable.   When there is an industry worth over $60 billion a year turning young girls into sex slaves and destroying their lives (sometimes they are sold in to it by their parents), torture, and human rights violations across the globe, one has to wonder what is going on in this world.  Compared to much of the evil on the planet, I find taxation not to be so bad.  I live in material comfort and security — most of us in the US are in the top 1 or 2% of the planet in material well being.   Clearly, it’s not so bad.

Or is it?  Are we in a gilded cage, living lives guided by trend and advertising fashion — the ‘culture industry’ — in a way that dulls our desire for achievement and meaning?   Do we medicate ourselves (whether in alcohol, legal or illegal drugs) and indulge in various distractions simply because the world around us seems to have a lot of toys, but little of substance?    And what about Jim’s objection to the lack of choice — he’s born in a world where taxation is mandatory, and none of us can do much about it, like it or not.

Ever since we left our hunter-gatherer roots and started to form communities, the problem of individual interests vs. collective interests has been there.  Traditional societies used tradition, norms, and religious rule to coerce people to adhere to the rules of the community.   These were pervasive and often people were simply indoctrinated to follow them.   But it worked — for the most part people freely chose to do things that benefited the community, often at their own expense, ranging from providing labor to sacrificing ones’ life to the gods.

Moreover, in smaller communities people see directly the negative effects of looking out for only oneself and not others in the community.   So people often choose to pull together to provide for the common good our of a clear self-interest as well.   That creates a sense of security and meaning — we’re there for each other, we are stronger as a community than as individuals.   When the polity grows in size, and when factory life alienates workers from the products of their labor, there is a de-personalization of the community.  It is too big and diffuse to really identify with.  You don’t know who made the chair you’re sitting on, who grew the apple you’ve just eaten, or even who drove the plow that just cleared the road outside your house.

This de-personalization makes it harder to find incentives to contribute or participate.   If you bought apples from the orchard down the road, and the family had a severe problem, you’d be tempted to help out — you know these folk, they provide you food!   But if a big corporation employs large numbers of apple pickers at low wages, there is no connection.   Thus the collective action problem grows — the community needs support from citizens to survive and thrive, but the old ways of providing it (voluntary, through church, or communities pulling together) becomes sparse, as people no longer have those connections.   The result is a series of needs for the community to maintain itself, while people have no incentive to respond to those needs, they don’t see the connection.   The leaders of the community (now a large sovereign state) turn to force and taxation as a necessary evil to prevent collapse.

Yet this de-personalization also means that it becomes very easy for both politicians and citizens to separate out their actions from the consquences of those actions.  Cut taxes while raising spending?   Sure, that will get votes, and we can find ways to manipulate monetary and fiscal policies to put off having to actually deal with the imbalances this leaves behind.   This also makes war easier to support — it’s abstract, you can construct a caricatured enemy, and it’s a media show.  Only when the reality becomes hard to avoid due to consequences that can be felt and seen (as happened with the Iraq war by 2006) does the public start asking hard questions.  Hyper-consumption is embraced without concern for the environment.

In short, de-personalization creates abstraction, and abstraction allows people to replace real human concerns with concepts that can be rationalized through arguments which appear reasonable and common-sensical.    Within this framework, politics can be easily manipulated by the powerful (big business and big government), and average folk get increasingly alienated from the “big” decisions.  Politics becomes spectacle and entertainment at best, delusion and subterfuge at worst.

So within this framework there are a host of injustices that vary in seriousness, yet each have validity.  It isn’t right to sell women into sex slavery, genocide is wrong, war for oil or ethnic conquest is wrong, taking other peoples’ property is wrong, having some live in abject poverty while others live in opulence is wrong, and destroying our environment is just plain stupid, since it will limit the ability of future generations to have a quality life.

We can focus on which of these “evils” to combat, and that will cause political division.  To combat poverty and human rights violations, government power and taxation is often a means to that end.   To combat the ability of powerful actors (government, supported by big money) to take one’s property would require an inability to act on many other problems.   Those of us who accept government power and taxation do so as the ‘lesser of two evils,’ not allowing this means no action to protect others and work against serious problems.

At this time and place in history, that’s where we’re at.   Sovereign states are the form of government which exists, and while someday they will be replaced by something else, that won’t be anytime soon.  Poverty will exist, warfare will continue to exist, people will be sold into slavery and often forced prostitution, lives will be destroyed, and children violated and exploited.   People will be taxed, and will not be free to choose how they want to organize their lives.   Pragmatically, the best we can hope for is to keep those with power accountable to both the public and rule of law.   Unfortunately, that’s an imperfect solution and more often than not governments become corrupt and in the hands of elites.   It’s a nexus of big money and big government, with the irony that the right often ignores the misdeeds of big money, while the left excuses the misdeeds of big government.  Yet the two are in this together, complicit in driving the world we have.

Perhaps there is no “right” political answer to this dilemma, just a constant balancing of pragmatic concerns, with a goal of over time moving closer to an ideal of real liberty for all — liberty from government intrusion, as well as from poverty caused by class difference, exploitation, and the abuse of power by either government or big money.   We have a long way to go.  Sometimes I think we live in the pre-history of humankind, a dark, violent and dangerous era.   Sometime in the future humans will look back at our era and be thankful they did not endure this time and this place.

Yet, despite that all, I love life and enjoy every day, and see beauty all around me.  I do not let myself get burdened psychologically by the political and social ills of this world — I cannot change the whole, I can only live my life in a way that can try to spread a little love and kindness.  Somehow, the big issues will take care of themselves over time.  We can vote, participate, and contribute — but most importantly, if we live right, we can have a good life in this time and place, and perhaps make small steps towards a better future.

Rights and Privileges

Perhaps one of the most bizarre aspects of the debate on health care reform is about whether or not health care should be considered a “right.”    The whole concept of “rights” and the difference between “rights” and “privileges” is tricky.   There are various ways to approach the issue.

Natural rights theory: Natural rights theory, dating back to Locke, seeks to find rights inherent in nature.   To be human, you need to eat, have shelter from the elements, and be able to fend for yourself.  From that Locke deduces a natural right to life (you need to be alive to be human), liberty (freedom to take care of your needs), and property (the ability to have stuff needed to survive).    This theory seems persuasive, though it ultimately rests on certain unfalsifiable assumptions and cultural specific interpretations.

First, of course, is the fact that despite a claim to be natural, this is a normative view on rights.  It is not a theory that posits rights as transcending human volition or action.   Compare rights with gravity.   Gravity affects you no matter what, you cannot get around its pull.   “Natural” rights have been violated throughout history, and there is no force leading people to respect those rights.  Therefore, claims on natural rights are normative “ought” claims rather than testable “is” claims.  Often such claims rely on appeal to emotion for support   If someone asks “don’t you think everyone has a right to live?” with the idea that saying ‘no’ seems weird or cruel, that’s not a true philosophical argument.    Other times people put weird linguistic tricks in this.  One person once asked “don’t you think you own your own body,” suggesting that if I didn’t, then that means someone else has the right to ownership.   Of course, ownership is a construct of a culture with private property, where all objects can be owned.  Since I am a subject, and my body simply is, I do not own it, I simply exist.   No one “owns” it, it is not property.

Positive rights theory: The initial response to the weaknesses in natural rights theory is to put forth positivism — rights are whatever the legal authorities say they are.   If the Constitution and the government declare a right to health care, then ipso facto, it is a right.  It need not rest on nature, religion, or any other transcendent condition.  The problem here, of course, is that this seems to shed legitimacy on all sorts of questionable practices (slavery, Jews in Nazi Germany, etc.)   The problem, bluntly, is that positivism takes rights from being a normative statement about what we think “ought” to be, to instead be a descriptive statement about what “is.”   What “is” almost always is a creation of the most powerful and often corrupt forces in a polity.  Do we really want to sacrifice the normative power of human rights arguments for a cold descriptive “is” statement?

Democratic theory: Another view of rights is overtly political — the only valid rights are those that allow a democratic polity to continue.  You need freedom of speech, of religion, of assembly, equal rights to vote, and all sorts of things to assure a participatory democracy.   Usually these folk are overt about the normative aspect of their project — they believe in democracy, defend that belief, and argue that it makes sense to tie a concept of normative rights to the goal of having a functional democratic polity.   But how far do you take this?   Since the wealthy can buy more lobbyists and political influence, does a democracy require limits on free speech, or perhaps income redistribution?   Must universal health care be a right so that all are able to be healthy enough to participate democratically?   And what about social democracy as opposed to liberal democracy?  The former focuses more on economic conditions, the latter on political freedoms.

Perhaps the most persuasive theory is Rawl’s notion of a veil of ignorance.  If you would be ignorant of what place in society you will find yourself — the beggar, the laborer, the wealthy, the powerful — what kind of rights would you support?   The idea here is that people would want to have optimum rights and policies for everyone in society, since theoretically each individual could end up in any social role.   I find this approach quite compelling, but it is subjective.  And, of course, it’s hard for people to really think as if they had a veil of ignorance.

Social Constructivist theories: This approach looks at rights as human concepts, not grounded in anything but human choice, yet differs from positivism in embracing a strong critical component.    Consider:  In objective or “natural” reality rights do not exist.   That reality simply is — actions have consequences, people have to deal with those consequences, and fate can ehand out wealth or devastation regardless of how one has lived.   Subjective understandings of rights, on the other hand, is an individual’s personal point of view — what normative rights he or she thinks should exist.  One might be a positivist, a natural rights proponent, a Rawlsean or simply go from the gut.   One’s subjective ideals are fine so long as one is alone, once you deal with others who have different beliefs, you have to compromise or compete; a society or community cannot reflect any one person’s specific subjective beliefs, and a society where everyone thinks the same is likely impossible and undesirable.

In the realm of social reality, therefore, people build sets of rights that they want to guarantee for their people.  This can include life, liberty and property.  It can also include a right to education or a right to health care.   It might include a right to paid vacation, or a right to shoot people of another race, deeming them subhuman.  Since any social construct is a contingent human creation, all conceptions of rights must first be created, then they can be either reproduced or transformed.   The right to own slaves was transformed into a right for all to be free in 19th century America.  Unlike positivism, social constructivist notions of rights do not take a given set of rights as legitimate just because it exists.  In fact, it calls on people to critique, try to change, and if driven, violate existing rights in order to transform what they see as wrong (or defend what they see as right).    There is no finally measure as to what rights are “best” or ultimately “should” exist, only human freedom to create normative rights, and then change our minds about what we’ve created.

Individuals are the players in this drama by having to make a choice to reproduce or try to transform rights.   But no individual can do this alone, you need to convince others to think differently if there is to be a cultural shift in the notion of what is a right or not.

So in the health care debate the question should not be “is health care a right or privilege?”   Rather, it should be “do we want a right to health care, and if so, what does that right mean?”   Does it mean absolute equal treatment, a right to basic health care (with the healthy able to have better access), access to ‘affordable’ care, or what?   Does it mean a single payer government system?   Those are questions we are free to answer however we want as individuals, and if we can convince others to agree, then we can construct or transform existing systems of rights.   Sometimes we’ll make things worse by doing so, sometimes better.   But I like to think that over time we humans generally learn from our mistakes.