Thoughts on Israel

Israel is one of those foreign debacles that makes me just ask “why?”. I have no clue why the U.S. cares so much about a country smaller than most of our States that is totally capable of taking care of it’s self. Indeed I often thought that U.S. involvement in this region causes more problems than anything else. I mean we turn our backs on most of Africa, the Balkans, South America, and so forth…but even suggesting the U.S. let the Israelis solve their own problems will get you ostracized.

Why is that? Is the Israeli lobby in this country really that good? They must employ the same group that lobby for the Cubans in Florida or something. How did it come to pass that we treat this foreign nation like it were a part of our country?

We armed and continue to arm them, train with them, do joint intelligence with them, run interference with their neighbors so they don’t really have to talk to them, vote their way in every international conference including the UN…it’s really very insane when you consider our relations with other allies. Do we go to bat like this for England?..Australia?..Canada?..Japan?..I think you get the point.

Most people respond with the ethnic side of the equation when confronted with these very legitimate questions. It certainly can’t be ignored, but at the same time how far should we allow it to carry water here in the U.S.? I get it that a lot of pro-Israel Jews here in this country donate lots of money to politicians to insure that Israel remains at the top of the agenda, but is that really ethnicity talking or just money? If ethnicity was that central to our reasoning why didn’t we work with Serbia sooner to stop the blight there, and what about Darfur? These are ethnic cleansing happening now, not 60+ years ago.

What about Darfur and other humanitarian crisis’s? Some countries want to get involved and some don’t. In many cases the U.S. has little to no interest in these issues and like most countries thats their right be it ethically sound or not. But Israel…I would expect them to be all over the fight for injustice when race, or religion is involved since that kind of persecution is so close to home and often comes up in conversations surrounding Israel.

I was rather shocked to learn that Israel had less involvement in the Serbian crisis than us. I was even more shocked to learn how they are treating refugees from Darfur a people that have under gone a similar journey that the founding families of Israel underwent all those centuries ago and certainly know what its like to be brutalized by an evil regime.

I am mad at my own country for having no compassion and not putting enough political pressure on real problems in the world…how can I not be mad at Israel for failing to learn from its own past?…and why should I want my country to support them so much? They certainly have the right to protect themselves, and I do think we should be allies. That said I really don’t see the point of our special relationship.

Why America is in Decay, A Call for Leadership

I know, its a terrible thing to say but in many ways it’s true. That said I’m not all doom and gloom, I do believe the trend is reversible. Three thing always mark the beginning of the end for a society: 1) Lack of investment in the core infrastructure 2) Stagnation of ideas resulting is a lack of social evolution, and 3) Expanding territorial influence beyond that which the state can logically control. Folks, the good ole U.S of A has all three. Lets go item by item shall we?.

1) Lack of investment in the core infrastructure:

This is an easy one: look at Katrina, the water shortage in the South East, Road quality in the North East, the energy crisis in the West, and lets not forget the debacle that is our boarders. Oh ya and of course the big one: 9/11. 9/11 illustrated perfectly our total incompetence and highlighted a total lack of infrastructural steam lining at every level; even the private sector. There is hope as we have had a Top Down Review and the 9/11 Commission Report as a road map….but with our ridiculous national debt we are going to be very limited with our response for years to come. It’s not impossible, but its also not a good outlook. Thats just the major stuff, there is plenty more where that came from.

2) Stagnation of ideas resulting is a lack of social evolution.

Every wonder why people look back to the 50’s and 60’s so much? Could it be that nothing even remotely as original has happened since? I think a really good argument could be made of that, indeed many of our “movements” today are simply hang-overs from that time period. Do to this lacking in the social department its no wonder support for the arts is at an all time low, and has been since the 70’s. In order to have a healthy society you need a powerful and progressive culture, something I haven’t seen in my life time. Sad but true.

Another element is our complete inability to make decisive, moderate, mature, and well balanced decisions on pretty much any issue of importance resulting in major problems continuing and getting worse over time while we sit on our hands. As a country we are of two minds on everything, most of our major democratic decisions come down to a percent or two. This happened once before in the history of our country and we survived; but it came with a terrible price tag…it was called the Civil War. Really at the rate we are going only three outcomes are possible 1) One group is able to subvert the other without physical conflict, 2) One group subverts the other WITH physical conflict, or 3) As a nation we wake up and realize our “two sides” are both wrong, counter productive, and that we need to really look at what is plaguing our society and come up with real solutions. It really is true that the only good decision is the one no one totally likes. Society is about consensus not winning a see saw match.

3) Expanding territorial influence beyond that which the state can logically control.

Well lets see…Germany, Japan, South Korea, Poland, The Caribbean, Several Pacific Islands, Nigeria, Cuba, Jordan, Kuwait, and of course Iraq and Afghanistan. The Best part? Those are just the places I can think of off the top of my head, and doesnt include any of Rumsfeld’s “lily pad” bases.

Now some of these places are modern commitments and may also pose a legitimate security risk to us, but certainly not all of them. We are like the seal balancing 8 balls on its nose at once: If we don’t put some of the balls down intentionally they will all fall and it wont be pretty.

I wrote this to lead into my next post entitled “Third Party Rant” (Which is on the way), which is my response to a comment I received on my “Why Do People Think I Care About the Primaries?” post.

The Wars

Normally I try to avoid writing about the various conflicts the U.S. (my wonderful country) is involved with because it seems like everything that could be covered about them pretty much has. Indeed, I’ve become numb to the war coverage. That said its not because wars don’t matter to me it has more to do with the fact that the press just seems to rehash the same five stories over and over.

Since the beginning I have not necessarily been against the war, but rather I’ve been critical of the tactics. Anyone that honestly thinks the world isn’t better off without Saddam and the Taliban really has rocks for brains. That said our government seems totally inept in managing a successful war.

I keep seeing the price tag going up an up with little to no results. Our solders can’t do it alone, we learned that in Somalia. There needs to be a political solution, mediation, and UN involvement. We can’t deliver chaos to stability without a stable government in Iraq and a strong Afghani military so they can fend for themselves.

So much focus has been put on the price tag and the loss of life, this is to be expected after all these are wars. Wars are never cheap, just be glad we are not rationing needed supplies like fuel and rubber. As for the loss of life unfortunately solders die and put their lives on the line all the time. This is why we have holidays like Veterans Day and build monuments to them, and they deserve it and more for having the courage to fight for all of us.

This aside I consider myself a tactician and from that viewpoint things look bad. We have an all volunteer military that hasn’t achieved recruiting goals in I don’t know how long despite a lowering of standards on the ASVAB (thats the military entrance test). Furthermore with the 9/11 commissions findings being instated as well as new boarder security measures it is clear the National Guard is needed at home to fight the onslaught of illegal immigration, never mind the wider “War on Terror” like trying to shut down Osama Bin Laden. Tactically speaking fighting a war on multiple fronts is just plain stupid. With this half hazard management it is no wonder Army desertion is up 42% in the past year. Without strong leaders for our people and troops to follow things seem more hopeless then they really are. We are not quite to Vietnam levels yet…yet, but we are getting there quick.

In a prefect world we would have followed the Constitution when we decided to invade two sovereign nations. We would have declared war and with it all the check and balances of waging war would have come with it. Things like a Secretary of War and a War Cabinet, special tactical analysis’s which would have included stated goals, measures of success, and an exit strategy. Of course most of all a declaration of war would have given much needed oversight and many rights and benefits to the solders that they haven’t seen since WWII. But we didn’t do that because we have a megalomaniac for a President and a bunch of yellow cowards in Congress. The question now is “what do we do now?”.

We’ve been dealt a pretty bad hand and I am very concerned that the people in charge in both the White House and Congress are more concerned with an election a year away then our problems today, but Ill keep hanging on to hope.

The bottom line is we need to prioritize our goals, its triage time. There needs to be multilateral talks mediated by the UN on Iraq, and we need to come up with realistic and attainable goals for that conflict. Pulling out would be irresponsible but we do need say a two year time line. Afghanistan needs to commit to defending it’s self and we need to commit to keeping them well supplied, further we need to double our covert efforts in the mountainous region that the Taliban and others are hiding in.

It is clear we need troops, and we need to do it without a draft. The logical course is to pull out of Japan and other European locations dating back to WWII, also we need to be more conservative about where we send peace keeping troops. Once Japan has taken the reigns for its military they should take a partnership role with South Korea and we should pull out of the 38th parallel. That would probably free up another 50-70 thousand troops. Recruitment wise we need better incentives for joining the full-time military not the Guard, things like debt forgiveness or grants for purchasing houses (both have been done in the past). Another good recruiting tactic that this country has used in pretty much every previous was is to offer non-violent criminals a option of military service instead of jail time. Since we are so tough on drugs i bet there are a bunch of people caught with an ounce or two that are doing 7 to 10 that would rather do 5 in the military. Besides it would be a good way for some individuals to turn their lives around.

War involves tough choices, and to remain realistic. Our government hasn’t been good at either lately. Whats more concerning is that many people both in the government and on the civilian side are pushing for a strait up pull out, but they forget the reason things are so bad now is because we made promises and pulled out once before. Pulling out now would make Iran the regional leader which is certainly not preferable. I agree with Ron Paul that we need a noninterventionalist foreign policy but only in the future. We’ve made commitments and promises and we need to honor them and be smarter about what we commit to in the future.

Health Care Needs an Uniquely American Solution Not Socialization

The following is my take on health care as a social problem:

A lot of talk has hovered around the notion of health care being a right, which I totally agree with. However, my view point is drastically different than those spinning around right now. People should have a universal right to ACCESS affordable health care, that said just because people have the right it doesn’t make it an entitlement nor does it mean that the individual has no responsibility to the health care system.

Specific Reforms

Having access to affordable health care is simple, tell the government to stop messing with it. I put forth the notion that we repeal ALL of the government red tape to health care (including those that created the horrid HMO’s in the first place) and instead replace it with a clear cut patient bill of rights that all health care agents must adhere to. Instead of trying to control every aspect of the industry we should simply try to dictate what everyone should have access to at a minimum and protect civil liberties.

The FDA should be simplified as much as possible, and have very narrow responsibilities. It’s only major responsibility should be to find if a treatment is safe (i.e. will not cause harm to most patents) beyond that it should be left to the researchers and doctors to decide what is good for individual patents. I also believe that the FDA should be in parody with other 1st world nations; that is if a treatment is widely used in say England than it is automatically ok for our markets. This will allow for the widest amount of treatments available. Of course this includes herbal, and other “alternative” forms of treatment as well.

When it comes to health care the industry needs to be shifted away from monopolization of services and profit mongering and be redirected toward competition based on innovation. The best way to do this is patent reform. Right now companies can patent life saving treatments and monopolize them for more than a decade and in some cases and even longer. More over, they delay in releasing updated treatments until the older ones have been milked totally for every dollar. Medical patents are not light bulbs, and should not be treated as such. Medical patents should be good for no more than 2 or 3 years to allow for R&D to be recouped, after that generics can be widely made. Further more, “non-life saving drugs and treatments” (think Viagra) should not be patented at all. This will make them less profitable which will shift the R&D focus back to saving lives instead of getting off. Lastly treatments developed at any intuition of higher education (Like Carnegie Melon) must exist in the public domain. The whole point of higher education is promote enlightenment beyond the institution’s walls through its research and graduates not sold to the highest bidder or taken to a private lab if it is deemed profitable. It’s fine for colleges to have partnerships with private health care firms and hospitals but that doesn’t make the college an extension of the firm.

One of the major problems we face is a lack of medical professionals. Community, Technical, and State schools need to reach out to the people to enter the medical field. As a country we need a new focus in primary education on the sciences. Interest free loans, and tax breaks need to be offered to those who choose to get their advanced education in health care. But most of all, the artificial glass ceiling on doctorate degrees needs to be lifted. The number of advanced degrees in health care needs to be doubled at a minimum. Also we need to work harder to be sure that doctors and professionals that choose to come here from other countries can continue to participate in our system once here.

Drug corporations should not be allowed to direct market. Drugs are drugs whether it be nicotine or Valtrex. Only health professionals have the ability to diagnose and treat illness. If a patient has already decided what their treatment course should be based on a 30 second commercial or an ad in Playboy it only serves to make the medical practitioners job of isolating what is actually wrong with the patient much harder. Issue ads are great, but not marketing.
A shift from treatment to preventive care is a must. The best way to stop illness is to not get sick in the first place. The health care industry, society, and the government must recognize this and take steps to reinforce it.

It’s not Just About Corporate or Government Responsibility:

As I said before just because something is a right does not make it a free entitlement. Americans have a responsibility to be healthy, and to take their own wellbeing seriously. If you are over weight, a smoker, drug addict, take unnecessary risks, or are just plain irresponsible why on earth should you have access to the same health care for free or for even the same price as others? You shouldn’t, you should pay more. People are allowed to make choices in this country with great freedom, but to think they won’t have a price down the line is down right delusional.

Yes education is poor in this country and there fore people make uneducated decisions and I do feel sorry for these people, but that doesn’t make it ok nor should it be reinforced. In our society we constantly get the message “this is not ok,…but if you do it you wont be punished for it” this is a terrible message and it should be replaced with “you are free to do whatever you wish after all this is your life, but you have to live with the sum of your actions.”. We expect this of convicts, why do we have to wait for a crime to be committed to take this attitude?

At some point people DO lose control of their actions like for say drug addiction. When that happens the community must step up to help people back to the strait and narrow (provided they want help) but for the most part people have total control of their health. You chose to start smoking, to eat at McDonalds, and to not exercise there fore you must take responsibility for you actions rather than blaming where you get you poison pill from. I feel that most of the lawsuits that site anything other than gross misinterpretation of the facts in regards to suing for health reasons as totally illogical. It’s not McDonald’s fault that your fat or the cigarette company’s if you get cancer, its your fault for not educating yourself and you should pay for it; not them. Baring gross misinterpretation of the facts suits should not be allowed to be brought against companies. So if you were dumb enough to believe smoking was good for you back the 50’s and 60’s because the TV told you so you might have a case, today you don’t because of general awareness.

One way to encourage health care in this country is to limit lawsuits, however this can’t be done with tort reform alone. Bush’s tort reform only served to limit peoples rights and provided no way for citizens to protect themselves from gross malpractice. The tort reforms need to be tightened more, but also coupled with the introduction of non-death related life insurance. This type of insurance would help people with lost wages, bills, counseling, long term care, and other expenses associated with under going a procedure which has an on foreseen outcome. Likewise accountably needs to be increased on physicians, bad doctors should not be allowed to practice medicine.

The Truth, Some More Reform, and a Quick Q&A

The “500 dollar toilet seat” is real. Every time government begins to regulate an industry government funds (your tax dollars) and tax loop holes for the businesses in an industry follow. If we strip away the regulation and with it the funding, the tax breaks connected to it, hold health care providers to their tax bills, and enforce a patients bill of rights there is only one place these companies can turn to in order to remain successful: patients. They will have to offer coverage that is progressive, affordable, and competitive with other providers. With less regulation tax breaks for the average American will be possible, couple these tax breaks with patent reform and an “employer insurance fee” we have the makings of a truly robust American health care system based on innovation, individuals responsibility, self empowerment, competition, and varying coverage for varying needs.

Wait Mr. Rambler! What the heck is a “ employer insurance fee”?! It is my belief that with these changes prices would deflate quickly across the board in health care, which means the reasons for employers to not help with health care costs would shrink. Instead of employers going through the daunting task of offering health care they should simply give employees a stipend to help with cost and let them go select the health care that best fits there NEEDS. This fee can be negotiated as part of salary when hired or when salary changes, during union negotiations, or through an office co-op (an unorganized union). It would eliminate the high costs of maintaining a health care package, and allow employees to actually use more of the money the firms spends on health care on health care.

Wait, if we just give the people the money to buy their health care directly what happens if they don’t use the money for health care? It is true this system puts the responsibility on the individual but it is in societies best interest to insure that its being used for what its intended. Part of the law requiring employers to pay the fee to employees would also include a provision that all Americans MUST purchase health coverage, if they don’t they could incur fines or possible be charged with crimes like endangering a minor if children are in the equation.

Closing Thoughts

This is part one of two since Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid also feed our problems. Those topics are for future posts though. The bottom line is much can be done just within the private insurance industry to repair our insurance woes without even jumping into the public system.