the tindog coffeehouse

Yesterday I touched on the BCS in college football and whether its complicated system of bowl selection, which heavily favors six major conferences to the detriment of others, is fair. Of course it’s not. Meanwhile, this question of fairness is at the core of another more serious debate going on right now, that of health care reform.

President Obama and congressional Democrats are pushing hard to pass a massive overhaul of this nation’s health care system, instituting a government-run universal health care program that would provide medical coverage for every American. Proponents of the program criticize the high cost of private insurance and medical care and point out the millions of Americans who can’t afford it. And in fact, Texas has the highest rate of uninsured citizens in the country (about 25% of Texans have no insurance, including 40.5% of Hispanics). They argue that providing a government-backed program in addition to private plans is the only way to keep people from falling through the cracks.

Sounds fair, right? And fair is good, isn’t it? Well, no.

Here’s the problem with fairness: Fair is never really fair. In order to put everyone on an equal footing, you have to take from one group to give to the other. That means penalizing those who excel, those who have put forth the most effort, those who often have made the biggest sacrifices and taken the biggest risks, and rewarding those who have done the least. It sends the message that achievement will be punished while apathy will be praised. That’s hardly the spirit of innovation that built this nation, and it’s not the kind of attitude that will continue propelling it forward through the 21st century.

In complaining about the Mountain West Conference’s playoff proposal, Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe said that moving to such a system would be “communistic”, requiring conferences like the Big 12 who “produce more in the marketplace” to give up some of that production to others who don’t produce. That production, of course, is money. Why should the Big 12 or the SEC or the Pac-10 give up highly lucrative television contracts and major bowl bids to less-popular conferences like the Mountain West or Conference USA?

By the same token, why should Americans who work hard to pay for private health insurance and consequently enjoy a certain amount of freedom when choosing their doctors and level of care have to pay more in taxes and give up those freedoms in order to provide coverage for others? How exactly is that fair?

Fairness, at least as it’s defined by liberals, is not a matter of elevating those on the bottom to the same level as those on the top; it’s about bringing the ones on top down to the level of those on the bottom. We see that in tax reform (“soaking the rich” to help the poor), education (No Child Left Behind, which makes it harder for top students to excel), and cap-and-trade (which penalizes businesses and individuals for consuming energy while giving the poorest citizens another government handout to pay their electric bills). And we see it in the Democrats’ universal health care plan.

Does opposing universal health care mean I don’t care about uninsured Americans? Of course not. I think we can all agree that there’s plenty of room for improvement within the current system. But don’t pretend for one moment that “ObamaCare” is about fairness, because it’s not fair at all.

Listen, I’m a father of two young girls, and fairness is a big point of contention with them. If one gets slightly more than the other or even just something different, there are plenty of protests. But by taking something away from one girl to give to the other — especially something she worked for and paid for herself — what kind of lesson am I teaching them? Certainly not a good one. Instead, they’re learning to work hard for what they want without fear of penalty for their success.

I just wish Democrats in Washington could learn the same thing.

Previously:
The BCS: ‘Communistic’ or not?
The ‘savior-based economy’
$700 Billion bailout ‘letting’ the banks win?

This Peanuts comic strip from 1962 is a perfect example of how liberals think: Everything is somebody’s fault — even natural phenomena — and somebody’s bound to be punished for it.

If Lucy were old enough to vote, there’s no doubt she would support Cap-and-Trade.

A new study by the left-leaning organization Media Matters for America indicates that American voters are, well, leaning to the left. Among their findings:

• 62% of respondents agree with the statement that “government has become bigger because the problems we face have become bigger” (an increase of 3 points since 2004), while 37% say that “the main reason government has gotten bigger over the years is because it has gotten involved in things that people should do for themselves”.
• 66% say that “there are more things government should be doing” (an increase of 9 points since 2004), while 32% say that “less government is better”.
• 59% say that “business corporations make too much profit”.
• 54% say that “it is the responsibility of the federal government to make sure all Americans have health care coverage”.
• Over 40% say that abortion is “always a personal choice”, while about 15% say it should “never be permitted”.
• 61% support same-sex marriage or civil unions.
• 61% support embryonic stem cell research.

(Full report here – PDF)

Of course, it’s easy to dismiss such a report. After all, Media Matters isn’t exactly being “fair and balanced”. But honestly, these numbers don’t surprise me. It’s pretty clear there’s been a fundamental cultural shift over the last twenty years, and I think we’re now hitting a tipping point. If that’s true, we’ll see the above percentages continue to rise in the years to come.

It just proves the quote from John Wesley, “What one generation tolerates, the next generation will embrace.”

So then for Republicans, what should the response be? Should the GOP move to the center, soften its stance on abortion, same-sex marriage, and other social issues typically dominated by Democrats? Should it be the “big tent” party that moderates such as Sen. Olympia Snowe say it should be?

No.

The worst thing the GOP can do is abandon its traditionally core conservative values in order to win elections. Yes, of course that means that they’re going to continue to lose many elections at the state and federal level for the foreseeable future, but in my opinion, it’s better to lose an election than compromise your beliefs.

Despite the above numbers, there are still many Americans who would characterize themselves as political and social conservatives. The tide might be shifting, but that simply underscores the necessity for standing firm and refusing to compromise for the sake of popularity.

Does having a complex economy make a modern nation such as the United States more likely to collapse?

Yes, at least according to ultraconservative columnist and radio talk show host Jeffrey Nyquist, who argues that the fall of the Roman Empire in the fourth century could easily foretell a similar fate for the American Empire:

What led to Rome’s weakening? In describing the city of Rome in the middle of the fourth century, Ammianus Marcellinus wrote of the vanity and materialism of his contemporaries. Rome became great through virtue, he argued, and virtue had given way to vice. Decades before the barbarians broke into the empire, causing the economy to unravel, the Romans were focused on entertainment and self-gratification. “In this state of things,” wrote Marcellinus, “the few houses which once had the reputation of being centers of serious culture are now given over to the trivial pursuits of passive idleness…. Men put themselves to school to the singer instead of the philosopher, to the theatrical producer rather than the teacher of oratory. The libraries are like tombs, permanently shut; men manufacture water-organs and lutes the size of carriages and flutes and heavy properties for theatrical performances.”

To borrow a phrase from Neil Postman, the Romans were “entertaining themselves to death.” … The Roman Empire lost the ability, the willpower and the inner toughness to confront the shabby little barbarian tribes that collapsed its delicate economic mechanism.

He goes on to further echo the arguments of historian Bryan Ward-Perkins that the more specialized and complex a nation’s economy is, the more fragile it is. Such was the case with Rome, and therefore such is the case with America.

But is it?

Surely our society engages in plenty of vice, and we focus way too much on entertainment and self-gratification. No question about that. But just how vulnerable does that make us to attack from modern-day barbarians? I would say we are extremely vulnerable, but not necessarily because we watch too much television or have a complex, specialized economy.

In fact, the only reason we have so much leisure time is because our economy is complex and specialized. Through changes in technology, we have become much more efficient in producing goods and services. And with the rise of the global economy, we can use comparative advantage to benefit not only our nation, but other nations we trade with.

Does global economic trading make us weaker and more susceptible to collapse? I don’t think so. Sure, we’re much more dependent on China and India and OPEC, but they’re also dependent on us. After all, any trade involves both a buyer and a seller.

That’s not to say we aren’t invincible because clearly we’re not. There is always a risk in opening up your borders to trade and immigration. It might be lead-tainted toys from China, disease-harboring produce from South America, or Islamic terrorists from the Middle East.

But the benefits of economic interdependency far outweigh the risks, even during a global crisis like the one we’re facing now.

A lot has changed in the 1700 years since the Roman Empire collapsed. Yes, many of the underlying causes for their collapse should serve as lessons for us. But we also face a number of challenges the Romans could never have imagined. What those challenges will ultimately mean for future generations remains to be seen.

Previously:
‘Information overload’ vs. ‘cognitive surplus’
Long live capitalism

Oh, snap!

Not only did South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford point out the glaringly obvious about the massive “stimulus” bill being hurried through Congress right now, he took a swipe at the Cult of Obama just for good measure (emphasis mine):

“A problem that was created by building up of too much debt will not be solved with yet more debt,” Gov. Mark Sanford said Sunday, making a reference to the federal deficit spending that will likely finance the federal stimulus package.

“We’re moving precipitously close to what I would call a savior-based economy,” Sanford also said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union.

The South Carolina Republican said such an economy is “what you see in Russia or Venezuela or Zimbabwe or places like that where it matters not how good your product is to the consumer but what your political connection is to those in power.”

“That is quite different than a market-based economy where some rise and some fall but there’s a consequence to making a stupid decision,” Sanford said after pointing to the powers granted to the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve to help deal with the current economic crisis.

“A lot of people who’ve made some very stupid decisions are being bailed out by the population at large,” he added.

I probably would’ve rephrased that as, “A lot of people who’ve made some very stupid decisions are being bailed out by a lot of stupid voters.” But then, that’s why I would never win any elections.