Now, don't misunderstand me: I am not advocating the overthrow of the government, I am not advocating the change in system from the Representative Democracy (read: "Republic") we now have, and I still think America is the "last, best hope of the world."
But, some changes have to be made in The Noble Experiment. The Founders weren't stupid men - they did a good job. But, mind Lord Acton's (Unfinished) Dictum - "Power Corrupts. Absolute power Corrupts absolutely."
Unfinished? Yeah - he left off one more key point. "Power attracts the corruptible."
Let's throw out a few potential changes to the way we're doing things now - since what we're still doing is what's getting us into trouble (I think voter apathy and ignorance also have a lot to do with it, as well as a constitutional inability of the average member of the public to think farther into the future than the end of his own nose. WAKE UP! I can't do this all myself...)
OVERALL CHANGE: Retirement packages for "elected officials" - self-funded or no - go away entirely. Put them all on Social Security and Medicare. Hell, put them all on Medicare while they're in office. That should get those systems fixed!
Basic Change #1: We don't elect our representatives and officials anymore. Instead, they are selected by lottery from the rolls of registered voters and prior servicemen.
How would this help? It's been said that, "The idea man to wield political power is the man who oes not want it." No more running for election - you get selected at random. It takes a genuine hardship to become exempted from this - nowhere near as easy as it is to get out of jury duty.
How many people have said they could do better, given a chance? This makes it more likely that they get their chance.
CAVEAT: Once you have finished a term in office, you are disqualified for a like period of time from holding "elective" office at any level. If you spend six years in the Senate, you can't even get elected City Dog Catcher for the next six years. The two-term limit on President still stands.
This disqualification works up the chain as well - if you serve a four-year term as, say, Mayor; you are thereby summarily disqualified from holding office at any higher level until four years have passed.
The only real "professional" exemption I can think of offhand would be to medical practitioners - they have to stay in practise and have to deal with too much Continuing Medical Education as is. No, I'm not going to exempt lawyers - the CLE is there because Congress passes laws on altogether too regular a basis, and maybe we can slow them down this way...
Basic Change #2: Hard term limits. Two terms in any one office. I am unsure if they should still be allowed to ascend the ladder - but elimination of retirement benefits should make that a much more carefully-considered decision.
Basic Change #3:
A) Officials are still elected, but are disqualified from holding office for a like term after having served a term in office - AT ANY LEVEL. The two-term limit for POTUS still applies.
B) Retirement packages are, naturally, revoked.
C) (And this one is the kicker!) The party that previously held the office is summarily disqualified from posting a candidate for the following term! Democrats have a Senate seat for six years, then they have to give it up. Ditto Republicans. This should make the "third parties" rather more viable, and should (I hope) break up the "40/40 voting bloc" that helps to screw everything up.
(C) is going to be the one that sticks in everyone's craw the most, but I honestly think it would be a useful and progressive change, meant to turn over personnel and keep things from getting entirely too entrenched in Washington. It should also help to force a "Party balance" in the two Houses.
Basic Change #4: Candidates for President may no longer have running mates. Return to the way things were before - the man who got the most votes became President, the one right behind him became Vice President. This was a good idea - it helped to make the Parties work together (I'm not sure why they're called "parties" - they're not that damned much fun.)
Basic Change #5: Someone may only run for elected office if he has previously served in a military capacity - for a term or a career, and has not been dishonourably discharged. This shows a dedication to the betterment and protection of the Nation - something the current crop of pols seems to neither have nor want.
Now, some basic changes to the legislative process:
#1 - No Riders. Period. The bill is about what it's about, and if you want to pass something else, write another bill. I'm tired of all of the stuff getting tucked into bills - you expect me to believe that anything that is 1500-2000 pages is just about one subject? I remember the "heathcare bill" being bandied about as 1900-odd pages. No way is was all about healthcare - and I seem to have been right about that.
#2 - Fifty-Page Limit. If it can't be written out in fifty pages and fully summarised (skipping nothing) on the front and back of a single page, it goes back for a rewrite. "Page" referring to the common letter-size page, or 8-1/2"x11" sheets.
#3 - Constitutiuonal Review. If the law as written would fly in the face of the Constitution, it gets scrapped in committee. It has long been held that the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land, and that "any measure repugnant to it is null and void of Law." When did we forget this? And, any laws currently in effect are to be reviewed against the Constitution, and any law that violates it is to be scrapped. Anyone prosecuted under a scrapped law shall have their case reviewed - the review board may release the individual and/or expunge the record as indicated.
#4 - Static Growth. In order to pass a new law, an old law must be rescinded. We have a number of measures still on the books that just don't apply anymore - at all levels! - but you can still be prosecuted for them (ex: I grew up in Indiana. Every time I shaved my own face, I was guilty of a misdemeanour - under law, I had to go to a barber for a shave. Not enforced anymore, but it damned well could have been.) Most of these laws are hangers-on from 100-150 years ago, and circumstances have changed drastically.
#5 - Common Sense. "I'm sorry sir, that doesn't pass the Common Sense test." If you've done a term in service, it's a good chance you heard a senior non-com saying this to some lieutenant. If you did a career as an enlisted man, you probably said this to some lieutenant at some later point in your career. A similar measure should apply in the Senate and House chambers - catch stupid laws before they become "problem laws." If it doesn't pass the Common Sense test, it gets killed on the floor. Problem solved. This should take care of the various "unenforceable laws" out there - the Electronic Communications Protection Act of 1986 leaps irresistably to mind.
That should be enough to prime you into thinking for now. Let me know what you think.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Friday, May 7, 2010
I was talking with my wife at the store the other day...
And she had an interesting realisation (I love that woman. Nice to have someone to talk to whose mind works in a similar direction to my own - and in a similar capacity - but diverges just enough to make conversations interesting,) which is simply:
"Generation X, Generation Y, and those coming up actually LIKE and ENJOY being told what to do."
This explains much - for instance, it explains why there isn't anywhere near as much popular outcry over the regulations that have been getting passed in the last year or so, regs that not so much "guide" activity as try to "force" it.
I recall noting with dismay a front page (above the fold) news item on New Year's Day this year that mentioned "Forty Thousand New Laws Go Into Effect Nationwide Today." (emphasis mine)
Yes, there have been certain rare occasions where I think a law is necessary to get people to stop doing something that is dangerous in and of itself (DWY - Driving While Yakking - comes to mind. Hands-free or holding the handset to your ear, DWY is distracting. It's been shown to be at least as incapacitating as a BAC of 0.08%. But, when CA passed the law to prevent it, the fine for the first couple of offenses wasn't even enough to outstrip the cellphone bill for a month! Ergo, I still see people doing it all of the time.)
But, 40,000 new laws, at all levels? What? Why do we have even 40,000 laws on the books in the first place, much less enough that 40,000 new laws is merely noteworthy?
And, have you ever tried to read these things? I once audited a course in Logic years back (I wish I'd taken it for credit - it was fun,) and logic doesn't have a lot of bearing on how these laws are structured. That, and you're constantly cross-referencing back and forth; just looking up one law and its effects can end up with you going through eight or ten thick books just to get the full impact of the thing.
And there are more coming all the time. And the younger generation likes it!
We've forgotten our history. The United States exists, as a nation, simply because we got tired of being told what to do by an "absentee landlord" (read: the Throne of England.) The fact that our Nation's capital - and our State capitals - are on the same continent doesn't make them any less "absentee landlords" - frankly, I'm tired of being told what's best for me by someone who doesn't know me from Adam's off ox.
As much as it pains me to admit it, I must go on record as saying the following: "Yes, we do (unfortunately) need laws to guide behaviour. They are necessary because we, quite simply, aren't grown-up enough (as a people) to govern ourselves." I'd like to see us get there - but putting more laws on people isn't the way to go about it.
The "elected representatives" aren't any help - they've convinced themselves (and most of us) that they're our elected masters, not our elected servants. Until we can finally remind them that they work for us (not the other way about,) it's going to keep getting worse.
"Power attracts the corruptible." I'd mentioned that in my last post, and I'm thinking of calling it Lord Acton's Corollary (in fact, I think I'll start doing that now. "Acton's Law" and "Acton's Corollary" are now a part of my vocabulary.) As long as we keep getting corruptible people elected to office, the system will not improve - in fact, it will continue to get a good deal worse.
There are those of you who may read this who end up thinking, "So?" Hey - you may enjoy being told what to do, but I don't. I've got an independent, functioning brain, and I'd like to be able to use it. I can think for myself, y'know?
But, if we're going to keep getting saddled with laws and regs, what do we have to look forward to? You might want to watch Demolition Man - for all of its appearance, the society shown in that movie is actually rather dystopian. Read _1984_ and _Brave New World_ (George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, repsectively) for more examples of dystopian societies.
Then come back and tell me that's where you really want to go. Me? If we head the direction of Demolition Man, I'm going to be rather more like Denis Leary's character (Edgar Friendly, as I recall,) in my outlook. "I wanna run naked down the street, reading Playboy magazine, with lime Jell-O smeared all over my body. Why? Because I might suddenly get the urge to, OK?"
I don't need other people trying to think for me, I don't want other people governing my every action. We don't have much farther to go before we get to "What is not Forbidden is Mandatory, what is not Mandatory is Forbidden."
And then where will we be?
"Generation X, Generation Y, and those coming up actually LIKE and ENJOY being told what to do."
This explains much - for instance, it explains why there isn't anywhere near as much popular outcry over the regulations that have been getting passed in the last year or so, regs that not so much "guide" activity as try to "force" it.
I recall noting with dismay a front page (above the fold) news item on New Year's Day this year that mentioned "Forty Thousand New Laws Go Into Effect Nationwide Today." (emphasis mine)
Yes, there have been certain rare occasions where I think a law is necessary to get people to stop doing something that is dangerous in and of itself (DWY - Driving While Yakking - comes to mind. Hands-free or holding the handset to your ear, DWY is distracting. It's been shown to be at least as incapacitating as a BAC of 0.08%. But, when CA passed the law to prevent it, the fine for the first couple of offenses wasn't even enough to outstrip the cellphone bill for a month! Ergo, I still see people doing it all of the time.)
But, 40,000 new laws, at all levels? What? Why do we have even 40,000 laws on the books in the first place, much less enough that 40,000 new laws is merely noteworthy?
And, have you ever tried to read these things? I once audited a course in Logic years back (I wish I'd taken it for credit - it was fun,) and logic doesn't have a lot of bearing on how these laws are structured. That, and you're constantly cross-referencing back and forth; just looking up one law and its effects can end up with you going through eight or ten thick books just to get the full impact of the thing.
And there are more coming all the time. And the younger generation likes it!
We've forgotten our history. The United States exists, as a nation, simply because we got tired of being told what to do by an "absentee landlord" (read: the Throne of England.) The fact that our Nation's capital - and our State capitals - are on the same continent doesn't make them any less "absentee landlords" - frankly, I'm tired of being told what's best for me by someone who doesn't know me from Adam's off ox.
As much as it pains me to admit it, I must go on record as saying the following: "Yes, we do (unfortunately) need laws to guide behaviour. They are necessary because we, quite simply, aren't grown-up enough (as a people) to govern ourselves." I'd like to see us get there - but putting more laws on people isn't the way to go about it.
The "elected representatives" aren't any help - they've convinced themselves (and most of us) that they're our elected masters, not our elected servants. Until we can finally remind them that they work for us (not the other way about,) it's going to keep getting worse.
"Power attracts the corruptible." I'd mentioned that in my last post, and I'm thinking of calling it Lord Acton's Corollary (in fact, I think I'll start doing that now. "Acton's Law" and "Acton's Corollary" are now a part of my vocabulary.) As long as we keep getting corruptible people elected to office, the system will not improve - in fact, it will continue to get a good deal worse.
There are those of you who may read this who end up thinking, "So?" Hey - you may enjoy being told what to do, but I don't. I've got an independent, functioning brain, and I'd like to be able to use it. I can think for myself, y'know?
But, if we're going to keep getting saddled with laws and regs, what do we have to look forward to? You might want to watch Demolition Man - for all of its appearance, the society shown in that movie is actually rather dystopian. Read _1984_ and _Brave New World_ (George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, repsectively) for more examples of dystopian societies.
Then come back and tell me that's where you really want to go. Me? If we head the direction of Demolition Man, I'm going to be rather more like Denis Leary's character (Edgar Friendly, as I recall,) in my outlook. "I wanna run naked down the street, reading Playboy magazine, with lime Jell-O smeared all over my body. Why? Because I might suddenly get the urge to, OK?"
I don't need other people trying to think for me, I don't want other people governing my every action. We don't have much farther to go before we get to "What is not Forbidden is Mandatory, what is not Mandatory is Forbidden."
And then where will we be?
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Oh, FFS. Don't you people learn anything?
Just saw on the news where incumbents are winning primary elections all over.
What? No, really. What?
What are you people thinking?
From what I've seen, popular opinion sez:
- You're not happy with the Healthcare bill as passed. PASSED BY CURRENT HOLDERS OF OFFICE.
- You're not happy with the economy as it's running. AFFECTED BY CURRENT HOLDERS OF OFFICE.
- You think the "economic recovery" isn't working, the "economic stimulus" programme isn't doing anything useful, and the whole TARP (Troubled Asset Recovery Programme) was a silly notion. PASSED BY CURRENT HOLDERS OF OFFICE.
- You think that banks that were about to fail should have just been allowed to fall over - and we emerge from the other side "leaner and meaner." You don't see that Federal funds (essentially, OUR money - NOT the government'!) should have been used to bail out these outfits. But, TARP and the stimulus passed. PASSED BY CURRENT HOLDERS OF OFFICE.
Granted, these weren't derived from any scientific polling - just my day-to-day interactions with people all over. I talk fairly regularly with people all over the nation - and, in fact, all over the world (God bless the Internet.) I tend to keep track of what people are thinking - and the people I talk to overseas think that the TARP/stimulus programme is even sillier and more useless than we think here!
Now, recall your high school Civics class. What is an "incumbent?" It is an individual who holds a particular office, that is seeking re-election for that office.
What did I call out in ALL CAPS for each point above.
Now, could someone tell me please how keeping the same jackasses in office will actually help? Flush 'em out and start over!
The. Incumbents. Are. The. Problem. I don't know how to say it any plainer than that.
I don't want to overthrow the government - I want to fire them! Terminate with prejudice, and don't let them have retirement benefits, either (they shouldn't be in office long enough to get them.)
I'm tired of elections proving the short memory of the American voting public. I'd like to propose an alternate system (it's not really my idea - but I think it's a good one. Kevin, if you're reading this, your idea is getting exposure... I'm adding my own twist, but the basic idea is still yours.)
According to Lord Acton, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." What the estimable Lord Acton failed to mention was that, "Power attracts the corruptible."
What does this mean? Simple - the ideal individual to wield anything like supreme political power at any particular level is the man who does not want it. Easy.
So, let's eliminate the idea of voting. Let's get rid of the Electoral College entirely. Retain the current qualifications for holding office - but I'd like to add one: In order to hold political office, an individual must have: 1) Become a stable journey-level tradesman, 2) Completed a term or a career of military service satisfactorily, 3) Raised children to adulthood without accepting any sort of public assistance, or 4) as a reinstatement of the "Pauper's Oath," he may not be on any sort of public assistance. Further, if he had accepted public assistance, he must have been off of it for the five years prior to being selected.
"Being selected?" Yeah - we're not voting for people anymore. All elected offices will still serve their terms as before, with the singular exception that they are selected by lottery, without regard for political opinion or views, entirely at random. Service of a term of office renders you ineligible for another term of office for a like period of years (if you get a six-year Senate term, say, you now may not hold office at any level for the next six years.)
President and Vice-President, or Governor and Lieutenant Governor, or any other "Primary/Secondary" office level, are to be selected separately. This is a nod to the "good old days" - when the President was the man who got the most votes, and the Vice President was the first runner-up in election (none of this "running mate" crap anymore. If you know that your second-in-command doesn't share your viewpoints on various issues, it makes you more likely to temper your own opinions.)
Further, sitting judges at all levels will be instructed to include the precept of "Jury Nullification" when they instruct juries prior to deliberation. This is something else that's fallen by the wayside - you've probably never heard of it.
What is "Jury Nullification?" In the event that someone is being tried, it's possible for the jury to render a verdict of "Guilty" (yep, you did it!) "Not Guilty" (it wasn't proven to us satisfactorily that you did it,) or "Annulled" (the law you're being tried under is stupid, and we're getting rid of it.) While this shouldn't apply in all cases - anything that is considered malum in se shouldn't be stricken - it would give us the opportunity to handle so many of these asinine malum prohibitum laws that keep getting thrown at us. Jury Nullification was meant to be the "final check and balance" on governments - an opportunity for direct involvement by the People to put the brakes on the legislative process.
Of course, something else will have to happen - the entire process of jury service will have to be revised so that people quit trying to get out of it (if you don't take part in the system, you don't get to complain. If you are legally able to vote, do so. If you are legally able to serve on a jury, do so. Quit trying to dodge your responsibility!)
Lemme give ya a f'r instance:
As it stands now, when you get a jury summons in CA, you essentially have to put your life on hold while you're finding out whether or not you're even going to be called. And they wonder why people dodge it so much! You call in back and forth for the whole damned week, just trying to find out if you have to actually show up. If you show up, you end up sitting around waiting to find out what's going on next (I've been through this a couple of times. Didn't get selected tho - they didn't like my opinions.)
Let's shift things around a bit. There are forty working hours in a week. Select, say, four hundred people for that week. Divide into tens - 1-10 shows up at 0900 on Monday, 11-20 at 1000, 21-30 at 1100, ... You can shift it up a bit - but it still results in ten people showing up an hour. You can call in on Sunday night to find out which hour you show up for - this simplifies your planning.
On the off chance that they manage to empanel all of the juries for that timeframe, you just put up a message at the end of the day that says, "Thank you for your service, you are no longer required." You call at the end of each day (sometime after, say, 1730 - give 'em time to record the message) and see if the whole show has been called off. If it has, get on with your life. If it has not, your reporting time hasn't changed - if you were on for 1100 Thursday morning, you plan on showing up at 1100 Thursday morning unless you are cancelled.
Isn't that much easier? Of course, there are still reasons to be excused (primarily for reasons of hardship,) but we can raise the bar a bit on those to make sure that jury service would cause a genuine hardship (how many people lie to get out of it?) Medical excuses can be readily checked - just give them your doctor's card.
Who was it that said a jury trial isn't any good because "your fate will be decided by twelve people who were too stupid to get out of jury duty?" Change the system - we can get intelligent jurists.
Juries would be selected from the same pools as statesmen, under the lottery system. Could make for interesting reactions to the summons - "They want me to be President again! Dammit..." (but you don't get out of political service. Since it's a "job" at that point, you'd continue to make the same money - up to a certain point - just that your paycheques now come from the US Treasury.
NB: Under the lottery system, anyone who would actually want to run for office would be automatically disqualified. Anyone who has been previously elected to political office would be automatically disqualified (and no-one get "retirement benefits" from political service anymore. This includes those who had been previously elected. If all you've got to sell is jawbone, you'd damned well better get trained in something productive... Pushing an idiot stick or working as a gandy-dancer comes to mind.)
Something I've often said - I don't want to hold office, despite the number of people who would like to see me in the Oval Office. I really don't. I'd probably have to kick my own ass on a daily basis just to keep myself honest.
However, if it was given to me, I'm not going to turn it down. I still don't want it, but I'm more and more inclined to think I can do a better job than most of the others have of late. Just get used to seeing me in working clothes or issue fatigues - it's to remind myself (and anyone else around me) that I'm there to work. I don't want to hold office, but I want even less to be one of those pols that creates problems and then "solves" them to show how useful I am - I want to solve the problems that my predecessors left, since they're the bigger issues.
If elected, I'm not going to campaign for a second term. If you think I'm still needed, you can re-elect me. If you want to save my second term for later, fine. I've got other things I'd rather be doing than book tours (at least for my memiors. I'm working on technical books - and I enjoy doing that more...) and speaking engagements. I hate politics, I despise the political process, and I'd likely drill the whole political system a new arsehole from the inside out, given half a chance.
Things I'd like to do, if I could?
- Rescind 26CFR.
- Eliminate the "Progressive income tax."
- Institute a "flat tax."
- Eliminate many of the fees and taxes we pay for no good reason.
- Streamline the government.
- Get rid of the annual trade deficit with the Pacific Rim (not by using tariffs - but by balancing trade. "You want us to buy from you? You've got to buy from us in return.")
- Rescind the National Firearms Act of 1934 in its entirety.
- Rescind the Gun Control Act of 1968 (and other "Crime Bills" that have followed/augmented it.)
- Rescind the "Crime Bills" that don't have anything to do with crime.
- Decriminalise marijuana (it wasn't made illegal because it's a drug - it was made illegal about the time DuPont Chemical released Nylon, because it was competition. The lobbyists simply played up the narcotic aspects of the plant - through history, it was used more for fibres than narcotic purposes anyhow.)
Given a chance, I'm sure I could find plenty of other things that will want doing. The primary thrust of all of this would be to make America - and Americans - more self-sufficient. Knowing that the government has no duty to protect the population as individuals, I wish to restore their ability (and the choice!) to secure themselves effectively. Knowing that the economic health of a nation is critical to its security, I wish to reduce or eliminate the annual deficit we're all saddled with. Knowing that some level of social welfare is necessary for the economic health of the body politic, I wish to adopt much more closely the model posited by Thomas Paine when he wrote Common Sense. You get the idea.
There are going to be those (primarily Gen-X, Gen-Y, and assorted Yuppies) who will have a huge issue with this sort of thing - simply out of a misplaced sense of entitlement. Allow me to borrow from Samuel Clemens (bonus points if you can give the pen name of this author...) "The world does not owe you a living. It doesn't owe you a damned thing, it was here first."
This should tell you just how long this sort of thing has been going on.
What? No, really. What?
What are you people thinking?
From what I've seen, popular opinion sez:
- You're not happy with the Healthcare bill as passed. PASSED BY CURRENT HOLDERS OF OFFICE.
- You're not happy with the economy as it's running. AFFECTED BY CURRENT HOLDERS OF OFFICE.
- You think the "economic recovery" isn't working, the "economic stimulus" programme isn't doing anything useful, and the whole TARP (Troubled Asset Recovery Programme) was a silly notion. PASSED BY CURRENT HOLDERS OF OFFICE.
- You think that banks that were about to fail should have just been allowed to fall over - and we emerge from the other side "leaner and meaner." You don't see that Federal funds (essentially, OUR money - NOT the government'!) should have been used to bail out these outfits. But, TARP and the stimulus passed. PASSED BY CURRENT HOLDERS OF OFFICE.
Granted, these weren't derived from any scientific polling - just my day-to-day interactions with people all over. I talk fairly regularly with people all over the nation - and, in fact, all over the world (God bless the Internet.) I tend to keep track of what people are thinking - and the people I talk to overseas think that the TARP/stimulus programme is even sillier and more useless than we think here!
Now, recall your high school Civics class. What is an "incumbent?" It is an individual who holds a particular office, that is seeking re-election for that office.
What did I call out in ALL CAPS for each point above.
Now, could someone tell me please how keeping the same jackasses in office will actually help? Flush 'em out and start over!
The. Incumbents. Are. The. Problem. I don't know how to say it any plainer than that.
I don't want to overthrow the government - I want to fire them! Terminate with prejudice, and don't let them have retirement benefits, either (they shouldn't be in office long enough to get them.)
I'm tired of elections proving the short memory of the American voting public. I'd like to propose an alternate system (it's not really my idea - but I think it's a good one. Kevin, if you're reading this, your idea is getting exposure... I'm adding my own twist, but the basic idea is still yours.)
According to Lord Acton, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." What the estimable Lord Acton failed to mention was that, "Power attracts the corruptible."
What does this mean? Simple - the ideal individual to wield anything like supreme political power at any particular level is the man who does not want it. Easy.
So, let's eliminate the idea of voting. Let's get rid of the Electoral College entirely. Retain the current qualifications for holding office - but I'd like to add one: In order to hold political office, an individual must have: 1) Become a stable journey-level tradesman, 2) Completed a term or a career of military service satisfactorily, 3) Raised children to adulthood without accepting any sort of public assistance, or 4) as a reinstatement of the "Pauper's Oath," he may not be on any sort of public assistance. Further, if he had accepted public assistance, he must have been off of it for the five years prior to being selected.
"Being selected?" Yeah - we're not voting for people anymore. All elected offices will still serve their terms as before, with the singular exception that they are selected by lottery, without regard for political opinion or views, entirely at random. Service of a term of office renders you ineligible for another term of office for a like period of years (if you get a six-year Senate term, say, you now may not hold office at any level for the next six years.)
President and Vice-President, or Governor and Lieutenant Governor, or any other "Primary/Secondary" office level, are to be selected separately. This is a nod to the "good old days" - when the President was the man who got the most votes, and the Vice President was the first runner-up in election (none of this "running mate" crap anymore. If you know that your second-in-command doesn't share your viewpoints on various issues, it makes you more likely to temper your own opinions.)
Further, sitting judges at all levels will be instructed to include the precept of "Jury Nullification" when they instruct juries prior to deliberation. This is something else that's fallen by the wayside - you've probably never heard of it.
What is "Jury Nullification?" In the event that someone is being tried, it's possible for the jury to render a verdict of "Guilty" (yep, you did it!) "Not Guilty" (it wasn't proven to us satisfactorily that you did it,) or "Annulled" (the law you're being tried under is stupid, and we're getting rid of it.) While this shouldn't apply in all cases - anything that is considered malum in se shouldn't be stricken - it would give us the opportunity to handle so many of these asinine malum prohibitum laws that keep getting thrown at us. Jury Nullification was meant to be the "final check and balance" on governments - an opportunity for direct involvement by the People to put the brakes on the legislative process.
Of course, something else will have to happen - the entire process of jury service will have to be revised so that people quit trying to get out of it (if you don't take part in the system, you don't get to complain. If you are legally able to vote, do so. If you are legally able to serve on a jury, do so. Quit trying to dodge your responsibility!)
Lemme give ya a f'r instance:
As it stands now, when you get a jury summons in CA, you essentially have to put your life on hold while you're finding out whether or not you're even going to be called. And they wonder why people dodge it so much! You call in back and forth for the whole damned week, just trying to find out if you have to actually show up. If you show up, you end up sitting around waiting to find out what's going on next (I've been through this a couple of times. Didn't get selected tho - they didn't like my opinions.)
Let's shift things around a bit. There are forty working hours in a week. Select, say, four hundred people for that week. Divide into tens - 1-10 shows up at 0900 on Monday, 11-20 at 1000, 21-30 at 1100, ... You can shift it up a bit - but it still results in ten people showing up an hour. You can call in on Sunday night to find out which hour you show up for - this simplifies your planning.
On the off chance that they manage to empanel all of the juries for that timeframe, you just put up a message at the end of the day that says, "Thank you for your service, you are no longer required." You call at the end of each day (sometime after, say, 1730 - give 'em time to record the message) and see if the whole show has been called off. If it has, get on with your life. If it has not, your reporting time hasn't changed - if you were on for 1100 Thursday morning, you plan on showing up at 1100 Thursday morning unless you are cancelled.
Isn't that much easier? Of course, there are still reasons to be excused (primarily for reasons of hardship,) but we can raise the bar a bit on those to make sure that jury service would cause a genuine hardship (how many people lie to get out of it?) Medical excuses can be readily checked - just give them your doctor's card.
Who was it that said a jury trial isn't any good because "your fate will be decided by twelve people who were too stupid to get out of jury duty?" Change the system - we can get intelligent jurists.
Juries would be selected from the same pools as statesmen, under the lottery system. Could make for interesting reactions to the summons - "They want me to be President again! Dammit..." (but you don't get out of political service. Since it's a "job" at that point, you'd continue to make the same money - up to a certain point - just that your paycheques now come from the US Treasury.
NB: Under the lottery system, anyone who would actually want to run for office would be automatically disqualified. Anyone who has been previously elected to political office would be automatically disqualified (and no-one get "retirement benefits" from political service anymore. This includes those who had been previously elected. If all you've got to sell is jawbone, you'd damned well better get trained in something productive... Pushing an idiot stick or working as a gandy-dancer comes to mind.)
Something I've often said - I don't want to hold office, despite the number of people who would like to see me in the Oval Office. I really don't. I'd probably have to kick my own ass on a daily basis just to keep myself honest.
However, if it was given to me, I'm not going to turn it down. I still don't want it, but I'm more and more inclined to think I can do a better job than most of the others have of late. Just get used to seeing me in working clothes or issue fatigues - it's to remind myself (and anyone else around me) that I'm there to work. I don't want to hold office, but I want even less to be one of those pols that creates problems and then "solves" them to show how useful I am - I want to solve the problems that my predecessors left, since they're the bigger issues.
If elected, I'm not going to campaign for a second term. If you think I'm still needed, you can re-elect me. If you want to save my second term for later, fine. I've got other things I'd rather be doing than book tours (at least for my memiors. I'm working on technical books - and I enjoy doing that more...) and speaking engagements. I hate politics, I despise the political process, and I'd likely drill the whole political system a new arsehole from the inside out, given half a chance.
Things I'd like to do, if I could?
- Rescind 26CFR.
- Eliminate the "Progressive income tax."
- Institute a "flat tax."
- Eliminate many of the fees and taxes we pay for no good reason.
- Streamline the government.
- Get rid of the annual trade deficit with the Pacific Rim (not by using tariffs - but by balancing trade. "You want us to buy from you? You've got to buy from us in return.")
- Rescind the National Firearms Act of 1934 in its entirety.
- Rescind the Gun Control Act of 1968 (and other "Crime Bills" that have followed/augmented it.)
- Rescind the "Crime Bills" that don't have anything to do with crime.
- Decriminalise marijuana (it wasn't made illegal because it's a drug - it was made illegal about the time DuPont Chemical released Nylon, because it was competition. The lobbyists simply played up the narcotic aspects of the plant - through history, it was used more for fibres than narcotic purposes anyhow.)
Given a chance, I'm sure I could find plenty of other things that will want doing. The primary thrust of all of this would be to make America - and Americans - more self-sufficient. Knowing that the government has no duty to protect the population as individuals, I wish to restore their ability (and the choice!) to secure themselves effectively. Knowing that the economic health of a nation is critical to its security, I wish to reduce or eliminate the annual deficit we're all saddled with. Knowing that some level of social welfare is necessary for the economic health of the body politic, I wish to adopt much more closely the model posited by Thomas Paine when he wrote Common Sense. You get the idea.
There are going to be those (primarily Gen-X, Gen-Y, and assorted Yuppies) who will have a huge issue with this sort of thing - simply out of a misplaced sense of entitlement. Allow me to borrow from Samuel Clemens (bonus points if you can give the pen name of this author...) "The world does not owe you a living. It doesn't owe you a damned thing, it was here first."
This should tell you just how long this sort of thing has been going on.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
The Beginnings of Discussion...
Unlike Pelosi, Boxer, and Feinstein (I'd posted my letter to Pelosi - see "Universal Health Care", 24SEP2009) I actually got a response from Lofgren! (posted 19MAR2010)
Here is her response - my second letter will follow...
----- SNIP -----
Dear Mr. Kelley:
(Representative Lofgren: Just on the off chance you end up reading this blog - ! - you're probably going to wonder why I do this. So, I'll tell you here.
(While I've long said that there is no public "Right to know," and that I have long defied anyone to prove me wrong in the entire body of American Law, there are some things that the people deserve to know. For instance, they deserve to know what their representatives are up to, and it seems that there's a good deal going on in Washington that gets kept under wraps - "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!" - until it has the force of Law.
(The people deserve to know what their - and other! - representatives are thinking. We sent you there to do a job, and we deserve to know how you are doing that job. This is how we decide on our performance reviews - and whether or not you will continue to have a job...
(Thank you.)
And now, my return post. If she answers again, I'll be sure to let everyone know.
----- SNIP -----
Representative Lofgren -
I would like to take a moment to thank you for at least replying to my message (email of 27APR2010) - as it is certainly more than I'd gotten from Representative Pelosi, or Senators Feinstein or Boxer!
I am not now, nor was I ever, arguing that the current helathcare financial model was sustainable in the long term. My primary issue was that the problem we now face had grown by accretion over the last 20-30 years (I can remember when an hour in the doctor's office, with a full physical, cost about what a /copay/ does currently!) and a sweeping fix was the wrong approach.
All I was trying to do was to get people to slow down; identify facets of the problem, prioritise, and then repair them in priority order. Repairing facets of the problem would probably have been ultimately more productive, since it often happens that correcting a core issue will tangentially correct a number of issues at the surface as well (as any medical practitioner - who picked the career for the /right/ /reason/ - could tell you.)
I was also hoping to open discussion between Washington and the constituency on this issue, and perhaps help you to get more information on what the problem actually was /from/ /people/ /who/ /deal/ /with/ /the/ /system/ /regularly/, and not from "consultants" who haven't had to worry about "regular" healthcare coverage for the last 15-20 years.
Have premiums gone up? Certainly.
Have copays gone up? Yep.
Have costs gone up? Yah, but;
- The cost of an office visit has gone up, I am sure, in response to economic factors, fighting with the coverage companies to get paid, and the increase in Federal overhead and oversight (not to mention the increase in malpractise lawsuits. I know a /psychologist/ - not allowed to actually prescribe anything - who must carry malpractise insurance to the tune of $250k/year in premiums. Again, this man may not prescribe /any/ medication, nor may he /issue/ any medication in his office.)
- The increased cost of DME (Durable Medical Equipement) would be due to the increase in costs of materials more than anything else (China keeps buying up our scrap metal. Good news for the scrap vendors - but Chinese metallurgy just isn't up to scratch.)
- I'm not sure what has caused the increased cost of diagnostic equipment (chemical analysers, CT, MRI, X-Ray,) but much of that is just the same as it was fifty years ago. Maybe finer resolution, and maybe more sensitive reagents used for chemical tests, but chemical tests, I know, aren't terribly different from the ones I learned when I took Organic Chemistry - twenty-five years ago.
- Increased pharmaceutical costs? Herein lies much of the problem! I used to shoot rifles (informally) with a couple of research chemists at Roche Pharmaceuticals - and I know they don't make that much money. I can't see the materials for R&D or production costing anywhere near as much as they're made out to. Where does it all go? And, as if developing a new drug doesn't have an excessive price tag (primarily due to FDA oversight and over-regulation,) why does the /entire/ process need to be repeated to make a generic copy of the drug when it goes off-patent? Why is it that Canada can bring the costs of drugs down, but we can't?
As I said before (and shall continue to tell anyone who will listen!) this is a problem that has grown incrementally, through accretion. It isn't something that can be solved at one fell swoop - except, possibly, by setting up to scrap the system and starting over with a clean sheet of paper (write the new system beforehand, then set a transition period and a drop-dead date for compliance.)
If a total rewrite isn't going to be done, then an incremental solution is /necessary/ (note my previous comment regarding solutions to medical problems. As a mechanic and general repairman, I have also seen this same principal at work in various appliances and vehicles.) Speaking as someone who has family that isn't covered by anything (pre-extant condition: post-surgical complications due to having had a calcified meningioma removed several years ago...) I am certainly not going to argue that reform isn't needed! However, I can't help but think that we've made things eventually worse, rather than better.
A final question - how much of the bill had you - personally - read and understood before you voted on it? Every time I tried to read through it, a new version was passed and I had to dig it up and download it - and there were often times I would wonder, "Where did THAT come from?" when I read something. A bill that reads /two/ /thousand/ /pages/ in pretty much any version is entirely too long to be an effective fix to /anything/ - and is worrisome in and of itself. If you were asked, would you be able to explain sections or provisions of the bill offhand, or even to be able to produce, say, a fifty-page summary that any of your constituents could read? Part of me doubts that /anyone/ in Washington - from the newest freshman legislator to President Obama himself - would be able to do so. This is also something that worries me...
Jon D. Kelley
San Jose, CA
----- SNIP -----
Here's hoping that we can get these people to start thinking again, hm?
(And no, I'm not blanking out any names - not even my own. If you've gotten here, you know my name already. I'm probably on so many Federal watchlists by now - just for trying to keep these people honest - that they know who I am. Hell, I was once escorted off of the tarmac at SJC while trying to work on a GPU because President Clinton was landing, and the USSS recognised me and I was on their watchlist. Why? Because I wrote letters disagreeing with Clinton's policies - and he probably put me there. I don't know how, specifically, I ended up on the list - but it did screw up my trying to get that damned GPU working...
(So, I'm going to continue to name names. Why? Because that's just the kind of guy I am. Deal.)
Here is her response - my second letter will follow...
----- SNIP -----
Dear Mr. Kelley:
Thank you for contacting me to express your concerns about the health insurance reform bills that passed the House with my support on March 21st. While the bills aren't perfect, I strongly believe that the status quo was unsustainable and that change will be beneficial.
In the past ten years, Americans with insurance provided by their employers saw premiums more than double. Small business premiums increased by 129%, and the cost of providing health care for the uninsured rose to over $100 billion annually. Without action, these costs would continue to skyrocket, burdening individuals and families, businesses, and the government.
The health insurance reform bills passed by Congress will make health insurance affordable for middle class families and small businesses, hold insurance companies accountable for the quality of their coverage, and increase competition. According to the independent Congressional Budget Office, this reform effort will also reduce the deficit by $143 billion over the next ten years, and $1.2 trillion in 20 years, while significantly controlling waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare.
Locally, this legislation will provide eligibility for the 43,000 residents of my district that are currently uninsured, will allow 55,000 young adults to remain on their parents' coverage during these difficult economic times, and will help nearly 15,000 small businesses provide coverage to their employees. Moreover, 11,200 residents in the 16th District with pre-existing conditions will be able to obtain insurance coverage; 71,000 Medicare beneficiaries will benefit from program improvements, including the closing of the donut hole; and will protect 800 families from being bankrupted by crushing health care costs.
Though we may not agree entirely on this issue, I do appreciate hearing your opinion. I have heard, also, from a very large number of constituents who urged support for this bill. This recent reform effort was only one part of our continuing efforts to improve health care for Americans, and I encourage you to stay engaged in the debate as we monitor the implementation of these reforms and look at other ways to enact meaningful changes.
Again, thank you for contacting me. Please feel to contact me regarding this or any other matter of importance to you or your family.
SincerelyZoe Lofgren
Member of Congress
----- SNIP -----(Representative Lofgren: Just on the off chance you end up reading this blog - ! - you're probably going to wonder why I do this. So, I'll tell you here.
(While I've long said that there is no public "Right to know," and that I have long defied anyone to prove me wrong in the entire body of American Law, there are some things that the people deserve to know. For instance, they deserve to know what their representatives are up to, and it seems that there's a good deal going on in Washington that gets kept under wraps - "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!" - until it has the force of Law.
(The people deserve to know what their - and other! - representatives are thinking. We sent you there to do a job, and we deserve to know how you are doing that job. This is how we decide on our performance reviews - and whether or not you will continue to have a job...
(Thank you.)
And now, my return post. If she answers again, I'll be sure to let everyone know.
----- SNIP -----
Representative Lofgren -
I would like to take a moment to thank you for at least replying to my message (email of 27APR2010) - as it is certainly more than I'd gotten from Representative Pelosi, or Senators Feinstein or Boxer!
I am not now, nor was I ever, arguing that the current helathcare financial model was sustainable in the long term. My primary issue was that the problem we now face had grown by accretion over the last 20-30 years (I can remember when an hour in the doctor's office, with a full physical, cost about what a /copay/ does currently!) and a sweeping fix was the wrong approach.
All I was trying to do was to get people to slow down; identify facets of the problem, prioritise, and then repair them in priority order. Repairing facets of the problem would probably have been ultimately more productive, since it often happens that correcting a core issue will tangentially correct a number of issues at the surface as well (as any medical practitioner - who picked the career for the /right/ /reason/ - could tell you.)
I was also hoping to open discussion between Washington and the constituency on this issue, and perhaps help you to get more information on what the problem actually was /from/ /people/ /who/ /deal/ /with/ /the/ /system/ /regularly/, and not from "consultants" who haven't had to worry about "regular" healthcare coverage for the last 15-20 years.
Have premiums gone up? Certainly.
Have copays gone up? Yep.
Have costs gone up? Yah, but;
- The cost of an office visit has gone up, I am sure, in response to economic factors, fighting with the coverage companies to get paid, and the increase in Federal overhead and oversight (not to mention the increase in malpractise lawsuits. I know a /psychologist/ - not allowed to actually prescribe anything - who must carry malpractise insurance to the tune of $250k/year in premiums. Again, this man may not prescribe /any/ medication, nor may he /issue/ any medication in his office.)
- The increased cost of DME (Durable Medical Equipement) would be due to the increase in costs of materials more than anything else (China keeps buying up our scrap metal. Good news for the scrap vendors - but Chinese metallurgy just isn't up to scratch.)
- I'm not sure what has caused the increased cost of diagnostic equipment (chemical analysers, CT, MRI, X-Ray,) but much of that is just the same as it was fifty years ago. Maybe finer resolution, and maybe more sensitive reagents used for chemical tests, but chemical tests, I know, aren't terribly different from the ones I learned when I took Organic Chemistry - twenty-five years ago.
- Increased pharmaceutical costs? Herein lies much of the problem! I used to shoot rifles (informally) with a couple of research chemists at Roche Pharmaceuticals - and I know they don't make that much money. I can't see the materials for R&D or production costing anywhere near as much as they're made out to. Where does it all go? And, as if developing a new drug doesn't have an excessive price tag (primarily due to FDA oversight and over-regulation,) why does the /entire/ process need to be repeated to make a generic copy of the drug when it goes off-patent? Why is it that Canada can bring the costs of drugs down, but we can't?
As I said before (and shall continue to tell anyone who will listen!) this is a problem that has grown incrementally, through accretion. It isn't something that can be solved at one fell swoop - except, possibly, by setting up to scrap the system and starting over with a clean sheet of paper (write the new system beforehand, then set a transition period and a drop-dead date for compliance.)
If a total rewrite isn't going to be done, then an incremental solution is /necessary/ (note my previous comment regarding solutions to medical problems. As a mechanic and general repairman, I have also seen this same principal at work in various appliances and vehicles.) Speaking as someone who has family that isn't covered by anything (pre-extant condition: post-surgical complications due to having had a calcified meningioma removed several years ago...) I am certainly not going to argue that reform isn't needed! However, I can't help but think that we've made things eventually worse, rather than better.
A final question - how much of the bill had you - personally - read and understood before you voted on it? Every time I tried to read through it, a new version was passed and I had to dig it up and download it - and there were often times I would wonder, "Where did THAT come from?" when I read something. A bill that reads /two/ /thousand/ /pages/ in pretty much any version is entirely too long to be an effective fix to /anything/ - and is worrisome in and of itself. If you were asked, would you be able to explain sections or provisions of the bill offhand, or even to be able to produce, say, a fifty-page summary that any of your constituents could read? Part of me doubts that /anyone/ in Washington - from the newest freshman legislator to President Obama himself - would be able to do so. This is also something that worries me...
Jon D. Kelley
San Jose, CA
----- SNIP -----
Here's hoping that we can get these people to start thinking again, hm?
(And no, I'm not blanking out any names - not even my own. If you've gotten here, you know my name already. I'm probably on so many Federal watchlists by now - just for trying to keep these people honest - that they know who I am. Hell, I was once escorted off of the tarmac at SJC while trying to work on a GPU because President Clinton was landing, and the USSS recognised me and I was on their watchlist. Why? Because I wrote letters disagreeing with Clinton's policies - and he probably put me there. I don't know how, specifically, I ended up on the list - but it did screw up my trying to get that damned GPU working...
(So, I'm going to continue to name names. Why? Because that's just the kind of guy I am. Deal.)
Friday, March 19, 2010
An Open Letter to Representative Zoe Lofgren (D - CA 16)
Representative Lofgren -
I understand that you consider health insurance reform an issue near and dear to your heart - I'm sure many Americans share that view.
However, from what I've read of the various bills being tossed back and forth between the Senate and the House, I'm not entirely sure it's being gone about in the right manner. Furthermore; I can't, in good conscience, support a bill that requires a half-box of paper to print and seems to be thoroughly laden with catering to various special interests and contains "privileges" for various districts about the country - city, county, or state level.
And, reforming only coverage (I hesitate to call it "health insurance" - it doesn't follow the same model) isn't the best answer - it's the business model of healthcare itself that needs to be revised, with coverage revision secondary.
You're going to extend coverage to some thirty million currently uncovered Americans - not a bad idea. But, what provision is being made to allow them to have effective coverage in a system that is clearly overburdened as it is? While this may not result in de facto healthcare rationing due to regulation, it's very likely to happen as a matter of course, in response to increased workload and no concurrent increase in available resources.
Where is the money going to come from? We've printed quite enough - the economy is going to take an awful long time to recover (no matter what CBO tries to tell you.) From the taxpayers? That's the last thing we need - let's not place additional burden on the people who can least afford it. On businesses? That's going to eventually come from the taxpayers - where do you think that businesses get their money?
Further, what is being done about the other side of the problem, to wit: any or all of the following:
And, to throw in another factor - what about billing by the hospitals and such? I had a four-day stay (trauma case) about four and a half years ago, where I was essentially "under observation" in the neurological ward for massive CNS trauma - I shall spare you the details for the moment. That four days in hospital - no surgery; merely observation, board & care, and a morphine drip - was billed at a cost of forty-eight thousand dollars and some change to the coverage plan we had then. While I know that hospital staff are not inexpensive, I have a difficult time believing they cost that much (particularly when the hospital accepted somewhat less than twenty thousand dollars in payment from the coverage plan, and then came after us for further payment - until I referred them back to the coverage plan.) Something seems amiss, there...
So, what do I finally think?
1) It is not merely coverage that needs to be overhauled. There is a significant disparity between what facilities (in particular) charge and what they get paid, so a better negotiation process really needs to happen there. The industry as a whole could probably stand to have its processes revised.
2) The structuring of the healthcare industry could stand a few changes - adding a "ready care/urgent care" clinic for a certain per capital population or for a certain geographical area would have a few net beneficial effects - reduction of healthcare costs (anything involving an Emergency Room gets expensive quickly!) reduction of ER workload (minor cases can go to the clinic, reserving the ER for majors or trauma,) the reduced cost makes it more likely that the bill would get paid (which would reduce costs all around, once it gets properly seen to,) workload would be reduced on private general practitioners (which would be drastically needed!) and the hospitals, private general practitioners, and private specialists could then focus on the people who really do require help (instead of the people who are generally healthy, and require little more than annual physicals.)
3) Improved negotiations between providers and coverers. Reduce the disparity between requested and paid amounts, and reduce the losses on hospitals (so they don't close up) and coverers (so premiums could then drop.)
4) It may be necessary to change the business model of the coverers. A 'corporation' as long been defined as an essentially sociopathic legal entity whose sole and only responsibility has been to the shareholders, and this has been upheld in court. While I don't enjoy that idea in general, for a healthcare facility, provider, or coverer to take such an attitude is definitely detrimental to the general health and well-being of the American public.
Madam Representative, I'm sure you'd like to see this bill pass. I know that President Obama wants to see this bill pass. Further, I know that I would like to see 'effective reform' pass - but I also know that this bill is not 'effective reform'. Truly effective reform will be balanced coverage across the Nation (with no preferential treatment for anyone anywhere,) will have a net positive effect on the people first and the industry second, and won't result in heavily overworked providers or "rationed care" - either in fact or by regulation. Yes, we as Americans do need to quit going in to the doctor or ER so much - but that needs to be done by individual Americans and not by regulation. "Rationing by regulation" will benefit no-one, and "rationing in fact" will likewise benefit no-one.
I have offered up a two-sided solution to the matter to Speaker Pelosi in the past - this may be readily reconciled without so much verbiage to wade through. Either put the entire American citizenship on the plan that you all enjoy, as elected officials; or put the entire American citizenship - including elected officials such as yourself - on MediCare and sort the problems out afterwards. This should also take care of the growing concern over having to assess taxes against "Cadillac healthcare plans."
I have decided to make a response necessary simply because I recieved /no/ response of any sort from Speaker Pelosi, and that shows a lack of concern for the wishes of the body politic - which is who you and your colleagues are supposed to be there to represent. I didn't even get a form letter with a stamped signature at the bottom, or a "boilerplate" email.
Not wanting to talk to your constituents is a mistake - not only does it show a lack of regard for the people who put you in that job, but you'll miss a great deal (many of us are intelligent people, and we see these problems firsthand. You'd be more likely to get a good solution - or a good start on a solution - from polling us than you would from the "experts" you tend to rely on - who breathe air just as rarefied as you yourselves, and are just as out of touch as you and your lot seem to be. Come out of your offices and talk to us and with us, not at us...)
Failing all of the above; should I find you have cast an "Aye" vote on this bill, I shall make it a personal priority to unseat you (and anyone else voting "Aye," for that matter) at this coming mid-term election. Madam Representative, it's time to clean the House. Will you pick up a broom and help us, or be swept away?
Jon D. Kelley
San Jose, CA; Sixteenth District
I understand that you consider health insurance reform an issue near and dear to your heart - I'm sure many Americans share that view.
However, from what I've read of the various bills being tossed back and forth between the Senate and the House, I'm not entirely sure it's being gone about in the right manner. Furthermore; I can't, in good conscience, support a bill that requires a half-box of paper to print and seems to be thoroughly laden with catering to various special interests and contains "privileges" for various districts about the country - city, county, or state level.
And, reforming only coverage (I hesitate to call it "health insurance" - it doesn't follow the same model) isn't the best answer - it's the business model of healthcare itself that needs to be revised, with coverage revision secondary.
You're going to extend coverage to some thirty million currently uncovered Americans - not a bad idea. But, what provision is being made to allow them to have effective coverage in a system that is clearly overburdened as it is? While this may not result in de facto healthcare rationing due to regulation, it's very likely to happen as a matter of course, in response to increased workload and no concurrent increase in available resources.
Where is the money going to come from? We've printed quite enough - the economy is going to take an awful long time to recover (no matter what CBO tries to tell you.) From the taxpayers? That's the last thing we need - let's not place additional burden on the people who can least afford it. On businesses? That's going to eventually come from the taxpayers - where do you think that businesses get their money?
Further, what is being done about the other side of the problem, to wit: any or all of the following:
- People don't have coverage, and go to the ER for a sniffle - because there is no clinic available, and they know they can get the bill met by the taxpayer or written off by the hospital if they can't pay?
- People have coverage, and think that entitles them to head to the ER for minor issues (as someone recently relieved of the burden of giving care to a chronically ill elderly family member, I've seen plenty of people in the ER who really shouldn't have gone.)
- There are no "urgent care" or "ready care" clinics readily availble - which would reduce the load on the ER considerably. Go /there/ for a sniffle, and save the ER for major cases and trauma cases. Patients with minor ailments will be seen more quickly at a neighbourhood clinic, and triage at the ER will be simplified greatly.
And, to throw in another factor - what about billing by the hospitals and such? I had a four-day stay (trauma case) about four and a half years ago, where I was essentially "under observation" in the neurological ward for massive CNS trauma - I shall spare you the details for the moment. That four days in hospital - no surgery; merely observation, board & care, and a morphine drip - was billed at a cost of forty-eight thousand dollars and some change to the coverage plan we had then. While I know that hospital staff are not inexpensive, I have a difficult time believing they cost that much (particularly when the hospital accepted somewhat less than twenty thousand dollars in payment from the coverage plan, and then came after us for further payment - until I referred them back to the coverage plan.) Something seems amiss, there...
So, what do I finally think?
1) It is not merely coverage that needs to be overhauled. There is a significant disparity between what facilities (in particular) charge and what they get paid, so a better negotiation process really needs to happen there. The industry as a whole could probably stand to have its processes revised.
2) The structuring of the healthcare industry could stand a few changes - adding a "ready care/urgent care" clinic for a certain per capital population or for a certain geographical area would have a few net beneficial effects - reduction of healthcare costs (anything involving an Emergency Room gets expensive quickly!) reduction of ER workload (minor cases can go to the clinic, reserving the ER for majors or trauma,) the reduced cost makes it more likely that the bill would get paid (which would reduce costs all around, once it gets properly seen to,) workload would be reduced on private general practitioners (which would be drastically needed!) and the hospitals, private general practitioners, and private specialists could then focus on the people who really do require help (instead of the people who are generally healthy, and require little more than annual physicals.)
3) Improved negotiations between providers and coverers. Reduce the disparity between requested and paid amounts, and reduce the losses on hospitals (so they don't close up) and coverers (so premiums could then drop.)
4) It may be necessary to change the business model of the coverers. A 'corporation' as long been defined as an essentially sociopathic legal entity whose sole and only responsibility has been to the shareholders, and this has been upheld in court. While I don't enjoy that idea in general, for a healthcare facility, provider, or coverer to take such an attitude is definitely detrimental to the general health and well-being of the American public.
Madam Representative, I'm sure you'd like to see this bill pass. I know that President Obama wants to see this bill pass. Further, I know that I would like to see 'effective reform' pass - but I also know that this bill is not 'effective reform'. Truly effective reform will be balanced coverage across the Nation (with no preferential treatment for anyone anywhere,) will have a net positive effect on the people first and the industry second, and won't result in heavily overworked providers or "rationed care" - either in fact or by regulation. Yes, we as Americans do need to quit going in to the doctor or ER so much - but that needs to be done by individual Americans and not by regulation. "Rationing by regulation" will benefit no-one, and "rationing in fact" will likewise benefit no-one.
I have offered up a two-sided solution to the matter to Speaker Pelosi in the past - this may be readily reconciled without so much verbiage to wade through. Either put the entire American citizenship on the plan that you all enjoy, as elected officials; or put the entire American citizenship - including elected officials such as yourself - on MediCare and sort the problems out afterwards. This should also take care of the growing concern over having to assess taxes against "Cadillac healthcare plans."
I have decided to make a response necessary simply because I recieved /no/ response of any sort from Speaker Pelosi, and that shows a lack of concern for the wishes of the body politic - which is who you and your colleagues are supposed to be there to represent. I didn't even get a form letter with a stamped signature at the bottom, or a "boilerplate" email.
Not wanting to talk to your constituents is a mistake - not only does it show a lack of regard for the people who put you in that job, but you'll miss a great deal (many of us are intelligent people, and we see these problems firsthand. You'd be more likely to get a good solution - or a good start on a solution - from polling us than you would from the "experts" you tend to rely on - who breathe air just as rarefied as you yourselves, and are just as out of touch as you and your lot seem to be. Come out of your offices and talk to us and with us, not at us...)
Failing all of the above; should I find you have cast an "Aye" vote on this bill, I shall make it a personal priority to unseat you (and anyone else voting "Aye," for that matter) at this coming mid-term election. Madam Representative, it's time to clean the House. Will you pick up a broom and help us, or be swept away?
Jon D. Kelley
San Jose, CA; Sixteenth District
Monday, December 28, 2009
Something I've just GOT to know...
Could someone tell me, please, just how difficult it is to leave a proper telephone message? I've never found it difficult - and, if you're using an automated calling system, there's NO excuse whatever for not Doing It Right.
To leave a proper telephone message, include the following as a minimum:
- Your name
- The organisation you're calling from (if applicable)
- Who you are calling for
- Why you are calling
- Your callback number
- Date and time you called
- Times you are available to receive calls
Easy, right? I learned this stuff in middle school - if not in grammar school! - and it's served me well over the years.
So, I am forced to wonder. Laziness, or lack of education? Both?
Oh - and if a significant portion of your work duties includes interacting on the telephone with the public, might I suggest you work on thinning your accent? I really don't mind hearing English with an accent (there are even some I find quite enjoyable with certain - granted, usually female - voices!) but if I have to have you say everything twice and I still have to decipher what you're saying on my end, it needs work. I don't care where you're from, I don't care what other languages you speak. I really don't. I just need you to speak intelligible English while you're here, so we can communicate. I do my best to make sure you can understand me when I'm speaking - I merely ask the same courtesy of anyone who is talking to me in return. If this marks me as "hopelessly provincial," so be it. I don't see any reason to change - and if I were in another country, they'd expect the same thing of me. If it can be turned around and still seen as a fair deal, it's a fair deal, right?
To leave a proper telephone message, include the following as a minimum:
- Your name
- The organisation you're calling from (if applicable)
- Who you are calling for
- Why you are calling
- Your callback number
- Date and time you called
- Times you are available to receive calls
Easy, right? I learned this stuff in middle school - if not in grammar school! - and it's served me well over the years.
So, I am forced to wonder. Laziness, or lack of education? Both?
Oh - and if a significant portion of your work duties includes interacting on the telephone with the public, might I suggest you work on thinning your accent? I really don't mind hearing English with an accent (there are even some I find quite enjoyable with certain - granted, usually female - voices!) but if I have to have you say everything twice and I still have to decipher what you're saying on my end, it needs work. I don't care where you're from, I don't care what other languages you speak. I really don't. I just need you to speak intelligible English while you're here, so we can communicate. I do my best to make sure you can understand me when I'm speaking - I merely ask the same courtesy of anyone who is talking to me in return. If this marks me as "hopelessly provincial," so be it. I don't see any reason to change - and if I were in another country, they'd expect the same thing of me. If it can be turned around and still seen as a fair deal, it's a fair deal, right?
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Non-Traditional Marriages
With all of the banter going on about gay marriage, why don't we take a few minutes to explore the idea of "non-traditional" marriages much more fully? After all, I would think that allowing homosexual couples to officially marry (a concept with which I have NO trouble at all, to be perfectly honest. I know a few monogamous gay couples that have been together longer than many "straight" couples I've knows - married in everything but name...) should open the door for pretty much any sort of marriage.
And, I'm not particularly religious. Leaving the Bible aside, I view marriage as a socioeconomic arrangement allowing for the mutual support of the adults involved, and for the creation of a stable and nurturing home for any children involved. There's no reason why a simple "one man and one woman" is the only arrangement that will work for those purposes, nor is there any real reason to think so. And, plenty of reason why non-traditional arrangements will work rather better.
Yes, I'm going to throw out some ideas that most would consider "odd." I am also going to make a couple of assumptions:
1) All participants are willing to enter into such arrangements.
2) Sex is /not/ a prerequisite of marriage. It's a nice fringe benefit, but it's not the primary reason one should marry. "Why buy a cow when milk is cheap?" may sound cynical, but there is a large measure of truth in it.
3) The government does /not/ get involved and screw things up. Methinks the principal reason they screw things up now is because they don't want to recreate tax forms and tax code wholesale (which is what really needs to happen - but in order to rid ourselves of the current "progressive" system where people can actually get back /more/ /than/ /they/ /pay/ /in/ at the end of the year. Something amiss there...)
So, let's begin:
- Heterosexual monogamy. This is the so-called "traditional" marriage that the Religious Right want to "preserve the sanctity of" and that Hollyweird has diluted sharply ("Been married nine times; Hell, maybe it's /you/." There's something wrong with someone younger than I am having a half-dozen marriages and divorces behind them. Seems that this is what should be addressed if one wants to "preserve the sanctity of marriage.") One man, one woman - theoretically for life.
- Amoandry (homosexual male marriage. From roots "amor-" for love and "andro-" for man. My own construction - haven't seen it anywhere.) One form of "gay marriage" that people want to get going, and I honestly don't have any trouble with it. Divorce should be just as much of a nuisance as for heterosexual marriages.
- Amogyny (homosexual female marriage. Changed root "gyno-" for woman. Another new word...) See 'amoandry.'
- Polygyny (multiple women.) This need not be a "harem" approach, but that's usually what comes to mind first.
- Polyandry (multiple men.) Reverse of polygyny - one woman, many men.
- Polyamory. This is multiple men and multiple women in pretty much any combination.
The three "poly-" marriages would have all partners on an equal footing, with perhaps the eldest partner having any "veto power" on group decisions or "tiebreaker" status, if there is an even number of partners.
And now, the really odd situation:
- "Line Marriage." An example of this can be found in Heinlein's _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_. The typical "line" started with a couple (who become the "senior couple" or "patriarch and matriarch,") and then individuals can "marry into" the line at intervals. Individuals would be allowed to "marry in" at fairly regular intervals, and the gender would typically alternate (although exceptions could be made for logistical reasons, addition of a particular desired trait, trade, or skillset, "going off to war," or suchlike - usually at the discretion of the patriarch and matriarch.) The interesting bit about this would be that the marriage itself would /never/ dissolve due to the deaths of the members, since new members are always on the way in. This would require a contract of sorts to guide the successive members (enforceable by various means,) and the "line" could end up with couples who pair off regularly - again, the idea here is mutual support of the adults and a stable and nurturing home for the children. Considering a line could be allowed to continue for a couple of centuries, and you can see just how stable it could truly be!
The advantage to polyandry, polygyny, polyamory, and line marriage (for the adults) is quite simple - there are going to be a large number of adults avaialable to help with child-rearing. The adults are going to have various skills and various advantages - while someone may not be "baby people," someone else is likely to be. They can handle the child as a baby - when the child gets older and can now be taught complex concepts, this is probably when the person who isn't "baby people" will come to the fore. Therefore, most (if not all) stages of childhood and adolescence would be covered by the person(s) most capable of dealing with the children at that stage in their lives.
Also, an oddity of line marriages would be that the children could "marry back into" the line. Since people from outside the marriage would enter into the line at various intervals, the gene pool could be kept varied - and minimal reinforcable defects brought about - while allowing children to have the continued support of the people they know, only the children are now adults (and the family is still a known quantity to them.)
So, what's the problem here? Primarily twofold:
1) The Religious Right, and their "one man and one woman" rubbish. Yes, it's rubbish - there are plenty of different approaches to raising children effectively, and being able to pool numerous adults and their energy would be greatly effective. I'm sure we've all heard that "it takes a village to raise a child," no? Well, let's put the village in a large home! We used to have the "extended family" living within easy range of each other, until high-speed travel became first a reality, then commonplace - and now related adults are scattered from Hell to breakfast and can't really support each other anymore. My family is /literally/ spread from coast-to-coast, and that makes things difficult. Why not have several adults near to hand in support of each other?
2) Government. More specifically - how are they going to tax polyamorous marriages under the current "progressive" system? That's an easy one - they can't, and they're not. If they were smart, they'd go to something like a "consumption tax" or a "national retail sales tax" (I'll go into that idea in a future posting,) eliminate the entire progressive system (I'll go into the reasons for that as well, when I go into taxation,) and that would take care of the problem. Sure, it would lose the government some revenue - but that can be made up for by simply reducing the number of people in "civil service" (most of which is a sinecure for the incompetent anyhow,) paying elected representatives less (or nothing at all,) eliminating elected retirement and medical coverage (or put them on Medicare - and eliminate retirement entirely,) and the like. Hell, we'd be able to disband the IRS almost entirely once the forms and such go away - since it would be far simpler to administer the NRST than FITW anyhow! THAT should result in a significant savings...
This is a topic that should really be discussed. The rules for comments:
1) Leave out any religious or governmental intonations - they have no real bearing. Government can catch up with the times, and the churches need to understand that they're not necessary to encouraging "moral" behaviour in the populace. I'm looking more for practical discussion here.
2) Practical advantages and disadvantages. It's probably about time for society to swing back over to the idea of an "extended family" like we had in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There were many benefits to the "extended family" - primarily in logistical and personal support - and with nuclear family units being as far-flung as they are (mine, for instance, is scattered from coast to coast!) we've lost the mutual support of the extended family. Polyamory and line marriage in particular would offer a great advantage - considering the support we've lost, some of it should be regained. The intimacy of an extended marriage can also help - while "meddling relatives" can be intolerable after a bit (because they're not intimates,) co-spouses can be both intimate and mutually supportive.
3) Bear in mind the primary socioeconomic reasons for marriage - the support, education, and rearing of children; provision of a stable home to encourage children; and mutual support for the adults involved. "Mutual support" doesn't necessarily mean "sex" - it simply means that there are more parents available for the children than the normal issue of two. If one of the parents should fall ill, another one can take care of them while the remainder see to the children and the household. Also, having a larger number of parents available means a more complementary skillset, and therefore a more effective teaching environment for the children.
Discuss.
And, I'm not particularly religious. Leaving the Bible aside, I view marriage as a socioeconomic arrangement allowing for the mutual support of the adults involved, and for the creation of a stable and nurturing home for any children involved. There's no reason why a simple "one man and one woman" is the only arrangement that will work for those purposes, nor is there any real reason to think so. And, plenty of reason why non-traditional arrangements will work rather better.
Yes, I'm going to throw out some ideas that most would consider "odd." I am also going to make a couple of assumptions:
1) All participants are willing to enter into such arrangements.
2) Sex is /not/ a prerequisite of marriage. It's a nice fringe benefit, but it's not the primary reason one should marry. "Why buy a cow when milk is cheap?" may sound cynical, but there is a large measure of truth in it.
3) The government does /not/ get involved and screw things up. Methinks the principal reason they screw things up now is because they don't want to recreate tax forms and tax code wholesale (which is what really needs to happen - but in order to rid ourselves of the current "progressive" system where people can actually get back /more/ /than/ /they/ /pay/ /in/ at the end of the year. Something amiss there...)
So, let's begin:
- Heterosexual monogamy. This is the so-called "traditional" marriage that the Religious Right want to "preserve the sanctity of" and that Hollyweird has diluted sharply ("Been married nine times; Hell, maybe it's /you/." There's something wrong with someone younger than I am having a half-dozen marriages and divorces behind them. Seems that this is what should be addressed if one wants to "preserve the sanctity of marriage.") One man, one woman - theoretically for life.
- Amoandry (homosexual male marriage. From roots "amor-" for love and "andro-" for man. My own construction - haven't seen it anywhere.) One form of "gay marriage" that people want to get going, and I honestly don't have any trouble with it. Divorce should be just as much of a nuisance as for heterosexual marriages.
- Amogyny (homosexual female marriage. Changed root "gyno-" for woman. Another new word...) See 'amoandry.'
- Polygyny (multiple women.) This need not be a "harem" approach, but that's usually what comes to mind first.
- Polyandry (multiple men.) Reverse of polygyny - one woman, many men.
- Polyamory. This is multiple men and multiple women in pretty much any combination.
The three "poly-" marriages would have all partners on an equal footing, with perhaps the eldest partner having any "veto power" on group decisions or "tiebreaker" status, if there is an even number of partners.
And now, the really odd situation:
- "Line Marriage." An example of this can be found in Heinlein's _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_. The typical "line" started with a couple (who become the "senior couple" or "patriarch and matriarch,") and then individuals can "marry into" the line at intervals. Individuals would be allowed to "marry in" at fairly regular intervals, and the gender would typically alternate (although exceptions could be made for logistical reasons, addition of a particular desired trait, trade, or skillset, "going off to war," or suchlike - usually at the discretion of the patriarch and matriarch.) The interesting bit about this would be that the marriage itself would /never/ dissolve due to the deaths of the members, since new members are always on the way in. This would require a contract of sorts to guide the successive members (enforceable by various means,) and the "line" could end up with couples who pair off regularly - again, the idea here is mutual support of the adults and a stable and nurturing home for the children. Considering a line could be allowed to continue for a couple of centuries, and you can see just how stable it could truly be!
The advantage to polyandry, polygyny, polyamory, and line marriage (for the adults) is quite simple - there are going to be a large number of adults avaialable to help with child-rearing. The adults are going to have various skills and various advantages - while someone may not be "baby people," someone else is likely to be. They can handle the child as a baby - when the child gets older and can now be taught complex concepts, this is probably when the person who isn't "baby people" will come to the fore. Therefore, most (if not all) stages of childhood and adolescence would be covered by the person(s) most capable of dealing with the children at that stage in their lives.
Also, an oddity of line marriages would be that the children could "marry back into" the line. Since people from outside the marriage would enter into the line at various intervals, the gene pool could be kept varied - and minimal reinforcable defects brought about - while allowing children to have the continued support of the people they know, only the children are now adults (and the family is still a known quantity to them.)
So, what's the problem here? Primarily twofold:
1) The Religious Right, and their "one man and one woman" rubbish. Yes, it's rubbish - there are plenty of different approaches to raising children effectively, and being able to pool numerous adults and their energy would be greatly effective. I'm sure we've all heard that "it takes a village to raise a child," no? Well, let's put the village in a large home! We used to have the "extended family" living within easy range of each other, until high-speed travel became first a reality, then commonplace - and now related adults are scattered from Hell to breakfast and can't really support each other anymore. My family is /literally/ spread from coast-to-coast, and that makes things difficult. Why not have several adults near to hand in support of each other?
2) Government. More specifically - how are they going to tax polyamorous marriages under the current "progressive" system? That's an easy one - they can't, and they're not. If they were smart, they'd go to something like a "consumption tax" or a "national retail sales tax" (I'll go into that idea in a future posting,) eliminate the entire progressive system (I'll go into the reasons for that as well, when I go into taxation,) and that would take care of the problem. Sure, it would lose the government some revenue - but that can be made up for by simply reducing the number of people in "civil service" (most of which is a sinecure for the incompetent anyhow,) paying elected representatives less (or nothing at all,) eliminating elected retirement and medical coverage (or put them on Medicare - and eliminate retirement entirely,) and the like. Hell, we'd be able to disband the IRS almost entirely once the forms and such go away - since it would be far simpler to administer the NRST than FITW anyhow! THAT should result in a significant savings...
This is a topic that should really be discussed. The rules for comments:
1) Leave out any religious or governmental intonations - they have no real bearing. Government can catch up with the times, and the churches need to understand that they're not necessary to encouraging "moral" behaviour in the populace. I'm looking more for practical discussion here.
2) Practical advantages and disadvantages. It's probably about time for society to swing back over to the idea of an "extended family" like we had in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There were many benefits to the "extended family" - primarily in logistical and personal support - and with nuclear family units being as far-flung as they are (mine, for instance, is scattered from coast to coast!) we've lost the mutual support of the extended family. Polyamory and line marriage in particular would offer a great advantage - considering the support we've lost, some of it should be regained. The intimacy of an extended marriage can also help - while "meddling relatives" can be intolerable after a bit (because they're not intimates,) co-spouses can be both intimate and mutually supportive.
3) Bear in mind the primary socioeconomic reasons for marriage - the support, education, and rearing of children; provision of a stable home to encourage children; and mutual support for the adults involved. "Mutual support" doesn't necessarily mean "sex" - it simply means that there are more parents available for the children than the normal issue of two. If one of the parents should fall ill, another one can take care of them while the remainder see to the children and the household. Also, having a larger number of parents available means a more complementary skillset, and therefore a more effective teaching environment for the children.
Discuss.
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