Seeing Red

Well, I have to succumb and write something political. Everyday I look at the Yahoo! Political Dashboard and run my mouse over the "red" states to discover just how red we are here in Utah. Today: 62.7% red, 26.3% blue. No other state is even close. No one else is even in the 60% range. Utah is completely out of touch with what is going on in the rest of the country.

We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.

Oh those Mormons do love to be subject, serfs to the establishment. Subject me, dominate me, make me see red.

I do revel in the ancient rebel Mormon past of telling the federal government to stick it, but most importantly we are clannish. We stick together even when it doesn't make any sense. Take Harry Reid. I can almost guarantee you that the Mormons in Nevada voting for McCain, also voted for Harry Reid. It makes no sense (other than Reid is a political genius for being Mormon and Democrat in Nevada). It would also explain Utah's love affair with Mitt Romney, the former governor of the gay state of Massachusetts.

That said, what follows below is a slightly modified version of a letter I sent to my McCain voting family members (some of whom reside in Nevada).

The Nature of Political Discourse

The nature of political discourse discourages me greatly. Vague end results (with no discussion of the means) and ideological preferences trump thoughtful analysis. Fundamental and foundational questions are not addressed and are primarily avoided. I'm sounding like a professor.

Here is an example:

Issue: Health Care

What is the foundational question on health care? Obama and the Democrats are accused of wanting to socialize health care. McCain and the Republicans argue that the free market should control. This is an age old conflict of free market vs. government involvment that is as old as the Republic. Unless you address the underlying question, however, you are stuck in the "spin" cycle, spinning aimlessly.

The underlying question isn't should we socialize health care, but rather how do we do a better job of it? Once you get past the fact that our health care system is heavily socialized and subsidized already (Medicare, medicaid, even insurance is a free market form of socialized coverage) then the discussion becomes much more productive.

Both McCain and Obama's health care plans offer government solutions to the problem. Neither one does much to address the most critical problem in health care -- the massive health insurance middleman that has to take their share of the medical profits. (I break my arm. I go to the hospital. The hospital charges me. My insurance company pays the bill. Both the hospital and insurance are trying to make money, but only the hospital fixes my arm.) The most logical conclusion to solve this problem is to put the squeeze on the insurance companies. Anyone who has attempted to buy insurance for themselves knows that a group policy is the only way to go, since it makes for smaller premiums. Right now just my insurance premium is close to $10,000 a year. McCain's plan is frankly a pander to the insurance companies by offering tax credits for the purchase of individual insurance plans and doesn't address the underlying problem and as I said before, the insurance company doesn't fix my broken arm or my pocket book. Obama's solution is to create a "national exchange" that essentially allows any one to buy the same insurance as the federal government. At least it attempts to put the squeeze on the insurance companies. Even Utah has actually looked at a similar system for the state and it solves a host of institutional ills (pre-existing conditions, uninsured individuals, bankruptcy, etc.)

I find Obama's argument more compelling obviously, although he probably doesn't go far enough.

THE AMERICAN WAY

As I have been working on this email, I thought a lot about what I believe as far as America is concerned. I think this goes back to the fundamentals and foundational questions that need to be asked. More of our discussions should start from premises that we can all agree on, say "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal." A nice sentiment and an ideal honored more in its breach than its observance, but I think it is one that we should all strive towards.

Take a typical Mormon housewife statement, "the thought of my husband and I sacrificing through years of school and hard times, to see my husband bust his butt and work like crazy, always trying to do better and be punished by having our taxes raised." I frankly agree with everything in quotes. I think this goes back to the idea of all of us being created equal. Despite the genuine attempts to create a society where each person is rewarded according to their efforts, we are in a constant struggle to avoid a collapse back into feudalism. Feudalism, aristocracy or its modern version, corproatocracy, is the disease that needs to be feared -- not socialism. Socialism is about equality and fairness.

Frankly Obama needs to get a little better speech writer, because this isn't about spreading the wealth, but preventing the wealth from coagulating at the top. The lazy butts and those that don't have to work are the extreme wealthy, not the poor. This is the historical stuff of revolution. The American ideal is to promote equality by having the reward equate to the effort. This is not the ideal of the extreme wealthy. The ideal of the extreme wealthy is to not work and to have property available to their progeny for inheritance and to be able to live off the proceeds of their property, never dipping into principal and never doing anything but owning. Personally, I prefer the American ideal and am willing to pass laws and maintain taxation policies that prevent the formation of corporate fuedal estate of which most of us are serfs. Now, we may disagree on the best way to accomplish this goal, but that is a completely different discussion and one that is less hopefully less heated, since we both want to accomplish the same thing.

Priorities in how tax money should be spent are certainly open for discussion. $700 billion is approximately one quarter of the federal budget and both candidates just endorsed a proposal to allocate that amount for the government to buy commercial paper that the "free market" doesn't deem worthy of its dollar, yet they are willing to spend your tax dollars on it. I'm skeptical that this is a welfare package for the most wealthy and powerful. I looked at our federal budget and apparently in 2006 (the latest year with actual data) , we spent 1,100 billion on the military and 32 billion on foreign aid, helping people in other countries. Call me silly, but that seems like a misallocation of funds. Dropping bombs on foreign countries is much more likely to upset them, than say, helping them eat. To our credit and in case you didn't believe my footnote that we are a socialist country over half the US Budget or 1,688 billion dollars was spent on social programs in 2006. Shouldn't the argument be about how this should best be allocated, reduced when possible and increased where necessary?

A FINAL THOUGHT

While most of us worry about what is happening on a national level, the real battles are in the communities and the states. Get active. Do something close to home. Try and make the world a slightly better place than it was yesterday.