No Br-Exit

Time for another modest proposal…

So Britons have Brexited, and all hell is breaking loose. My thoughts are with you 48% of UK voters who have had your EU citizenship canceled without your consent, with no way back in. What’s a person to do? But never fear, I have a modest proposal for you.

Of course, for some of you, there are actions to be taken. Scotland may vote its independence in order to join the EU on its own, finally achieving the lasting European alliance it has searched for after centuries of struggle against its long time foe to the south. And in Ireland the unthinkable may happen as the North re-unifies with the South to form a free and monolithic Irish state (within the EU) -- again, after centuries of struggle against the imperious English. This could be the biggest thing since the re-unification of Germany. I hear some of you in England are even trying to get Irish passports.

Dire consequences are being predicted for the remainder of poor old England (and poor old Wales, seemingly too wedded to the status quo to contemplate divorce). The pound crashes, poverty ensues, and the brain drain commences as the young and cosmopolitan intelligentsia flees for distant shores in search of greener pastures.

It’s easy to imagine a shift in public opinion if the worst occurs, but it will be too late. After causing all this disturbance, England will not be welcomed back to the EU fold in the imaginable future. Not to mention, if they have started a trend and the whole alliance unravels, there may not be an EU to come back to. Now what’s an entire country to do?

Here’s my proposal. One word: Statehood.

I know this might not sit well with some, including the Monarchy, but England has a big resource to fall back on in the form of its former colonies across the water. We’ve got money, a kick-ass army, a space program, Hollywood, the Internet, and -- if truth be told -- a global empire. Wouldn’t you love to be part of that?

True, you might have to give up a few things, such as socialized medicine. But according to us, that was bad for you anyway. You’ll just have to learn to pay up when you get sick. And there’s a language barrier to be overcome, but in time you might learn the proper distinction between football and soccer. We can agree on “fridge,” but “tele” is not negotiable. It’s clearly TV.

So, with these hurdles out of the way, the path is clear for England to apply for statehood in the US of A -- which brings us to one final obstacle. As with any merger between giant multinational corporations, there’s a name and identity crisis to deal with. What’s the new combined entity to be called?

I’ve got a modest proposal for that, too, and it comes from the mind of a great English author, so there should be no objection from that side of the negotiations. Henceforth, the United States of America, in recognition of the fact that it extends beyond the sphere of the Americas, will be known as “Oceania.” And the country formerly known as England will be renamed “Airstrip One,” in recognition of its role as an important airline hub on route to Europe and Russia. I realize George Orwell predicted this for 1984, but better late than never.

Of course, there’s one possible snag. The US could elect Donald Trump by a margin of 51% to 49%. In that case, all bets are off. We’ll have enough problems of our own. Canada, is that door still open?

In The Balance

Time to dig up another time capsule ...

Recently NPR gave some air time to considering a quaint tech gadget that was all the rage ten years ago at the start of the new decade, century, and millennium. What was it? The PDA, of course. The Personal Digital Assistant that was going to replace all our Daytimers with their annual paper refills. (Remember those?) Now we've just upgraded our mobile phones instead, and we're starting to wonder just how many more things they may be able to do for us until they're implanted at birth.

But there was a more pressing issue back at the turn of the millenium -- namely, who was the President going to be? We weren't sure, we were still counting and recounting the votes. Meanwhile the ball dropped in Times Square and the national juggernaut rolled headlong into the future. This is what I was thinking about it at the time:

“Don’t follow leaders ...”
- Bob Dylan


“Where are the people going? I am their leader, and I must follow them.”
-Ghandi


“Freedom of choice is what you’ve got ... freedom from choice is what you want.”
- Devo

November 8, 2000. I don’t have a President today.

This is an unusual situation. I have always had a President, my whole life. It’s a fact I have always taken for granted, like having air to breathe. Now, suddenly, the situation is uncertain. However temporary it may be (and it surely it will have been resolved by the time you read this), the absence of a leader has made me see things in a different light. I feel as if  the nation is running on autopilot. There’s still someone at the helm, but he’s packing his bags to leave and seems less interested than he did when he was first charging into the job with a sense of energy and excitement. This is the time when his successor should be getting ready to take over. He only has about two months to form a whole Executive Branch of bureaucrats from an assortment of friends and hangers-on and people-to-be-appointed-later. It’s barely enough time. But he can’t even get started (whoever he is) because he doesn’t know if he’s really going to be President yet. The election is still hanging in the balance.

This is an uncomfortable situation for us. As a people, we hate ties. We invented extra innings, playoffs and “sudden-death overtime” to eliminate stalemate from our sports. Probably the Founding Fathers thought they were doing the same thing when they invented the Electoral College, placing the decision in the hands of a smaller group of people who were expected to be intelligent and practical enough to come to a clear decision.  And of course they thought of everything, as they always did, spelling out a series of steps to follow in case of a split decision, ending up (if I remember correctly) with the Speaker of the House stepping into the job in a worst-case scenario that would leave all other contenders out in the cold. But of course, they didn’t anticipate that our politics would come to be dominated by two massive and equally matched parties who would grow accustomed to thinking of 52% of the vote as a “clear mandate” from the electorate. They didn’t anticipate how often the vote might be this close.

As far as we can tell with our evidently inaccurate counting methods (more on that anon), one candidate is ahead nationally by fewer than 200,000 votes out of nearly 100 million, or about two-tenths of a percent.  The other candidate is ahead in the last remaining state he needs to win the electoral ballot by fewer than 2,000 votes out of about 6 million, or only three one-hundredths of a percent. If the entire electorate were reduced to only ten thousand voters, this would represent a single one of them -- a wishy-washy individual who was unable to come to a firm decision -- having a change of mood, or perhaps sneezing at the moment of punching the ballot and inadvertantly making the wrong choice.

Think that could never happen? I heard something worse reported on National Public Radio, an example of someone who was deprived of her vote by a combination of confusion and a poorly trained polling-place worker. A young woman voting for the first time was confronted by the confusing ballot. Suspecting that she had made a mistake, she asked the (poorly trained) polling-place worker to tell her who she had voted for. When the worker confirmed she had voted for the wrong candidate, the young woman asked for a new ballot, as she was told she could do by instructions printed right on the ballot itself. But the (poorly trained) election official told her she could not change it once it was punched, took it from her, and put it in the ballot box! Not fair! Everyone knows that they’re supposed to hand it back to you and let you put it in the box with your own hand, or tear it up if you want to -- at least, everyone except this particular (poorly trained) polling-place worker.

Does an isolated incident like this make a difference? Maybe not, by itself. Maybe not, assuming that a number of such errors might tend to be made in different directions, cancelling each other out. But other things are coming to light as the recount proceeds. Twenty-nine thousand votes were nearly lost from a computer disk. Someone was accused of attempting to take a ballot box home with them. A courier showed up a day late with a package of ballots that he forgot to deliver on election day. No doubt as the process continues other such incidents will come to light, variously amusing and appalling. We will begin to ask ourselves how accurate it is possible to be in any undertaking of this size, with so many opportunites for human error, and with the result wavering at four decimal places. If the recount comes up different, will we do it again? If we do it again, will it give us the same result or a still different one?

I suspect we could get a different answer every time, which is why we won’t do it more than once. Such a level of uncertainty would threaten our confidence too much. We depend on ourselves to have opinions and express them. We rely on the idea that the best candidate will win out in a contest. We trust ourselves to support the best, and to make our decisions clearly.  All this fuzziness, this gray area in between, is too disconcerting. It’s as if our mechanistic concept of a quantifiable vote has been replaced by a new quantum theory in which results, like those of the pre-election polls, are qualified by “plus or minus two percent.” Like the location of an electron, which can be predicted only statistically, our votes have become a trend or tendency rather than a firm quantity. Like the photon, sometimes wave and other times particle, some people managed to vote for an indeterminate candidate, or to vote for two candidates at the same time.

It’s easy to imagine how things will turn out. Even though the recount comes up with a new answer, it will still lean in the same direction. However obvious it is by then that the result is within the margin of error of our ability to count the votes, the losing candidate will say, What the heck, and bow to the decision of the people.  Never mind that nationally he received more votes. Never mind that the winning candidate only has a 48% plurality, due to the effect of pesky upstart rival political parties. It may be wrong, but it’s the way the system works. And above all, we want to believe that the system works.

Meanwhile we proceed, full steam ahead, running on inertia and our innate lack of need for leadership.  Blind, rudderless, a juggernaut, the ship of state sails on. While this situation persists, I for one am enjoying the ambiguity. It’s a sense of freedom I haven’t felt for a long time, and may never feel again. An anarchistic moment of hiatus in the political continuum. A time to  explore new possibilities -- bigger chunks of the vote going to other parties, run-off elections, coalitions between minor parties to dominate major ones ... the possibilities are unlimited. Enjoy it while you can.

Another Modest Proposal

My very own solution to the health care dilemma ...

One of the most bizarre spectacles I've ever seen in American politics was in the runup to our recent midterm election when crowds of protesters could be seen waving signs demanding "Repeal Healthcare!"

Huh? You mean you don't want any healthcare? No, of course that's not really what they meant. It's just that in our quest for soundbite brevity two words are better than three. What they really meant to say was "Repeal Healthcare Reform."

What? You mean you want healthcare to stay the way it is now? Unaffordable for many, unobtainable for some, easily lost for millions more? You mean insurance companies should continue to drop people as soon as they get sick? You mean people should continue to be required to bankrupt themselves before they can get any public assistance for medical issues?

Well, to be fair, I don't believe that's really what they want either. Mostly what they object to is the idea that they might be required by law to buy health insurance. It doesn't matter that we are already required by law to buy car insurance and required by banks to buy home insurance, and that our employers are required to purchase workers compensation insurance even though medical insurance is optional.

And it doesn't matter that a poll showed that 39% of the voters agreed with the statement, "The government should keep its hands off of Medicare." (True story!) It doesn't even matter that if those voters squinted carefully at their paycheck stubs they would see that they are paying the government for Medicare.

No, all they want is choice. And let's give them the benefit of the doubt and assume this is not just a case of deep pocketed lobbyists managing to influence the electorate to vote against its own interests. No, these people are simply independent. They want to be able to buy insurance if they feel like it, and take their chances if they don't. Or, as many people below a certain income level do already, they might simply continue to report to the nearest emergency room whenever they get sick, relying on the public mandate that assures them of getting healthcare delivered in the most expensive way possible, and letting the rest of us pay for them.

My modest proposal is simply to add a provision allowing people to opt out of healthcare altogether. Don't want to buy coverage? Don't want to be taxed for it either? Fine. Just sign a release and you're on your own. But you don't get to change your mind when you get sick. And don't worry -- there won't be any government "death panels" advising euthenasia. That would be an unnecessary expense. There's already a place for you to go away and die. It's called "the street," and has been successfully tested nationwide for many years.

With this provision in place to remove any objections, the rest of us can proceed to join the other nations of the developed world in enjoying the benefits of assured, reliable medical treatment throughout our lives. The emergency rooms will be empty except for, um, emergencies, hospitals will not be overburdened with treating those who can't pay, and doctors will have time to talk to us again.

Here, I'll make it easy for you. Just clip this out and mail it in:




I, the undersigned, wish to exercise my freedom of choice to opt out of the hateful government mandated socialist Obamacare plan. I promise to purchase my medications __online / __ in Canada / __ in Mexico / __ at Walmart (choose one) or to do without them. I will find my own doctor and make my own arrangements to pay, thank you very much. In the choice between death and taxes my mind is made up.

I further waive my right to coverage under any current medical plan for preexisting conditions prior to the signing of this agreement. I'm mad as hell and I'm not taking it any more.


Signature: _____________________________
Effective Date: _____________

Giving Feedback

Well, they asked, so I gave it to them ...

Some years ago I got on a Republican mailing list. It happened like this: The first time John McCain ran for President he was facing off in the primaries against G. W. Bush. Remember? This was the primary eventually won by Dubya, leading to the stolen election of 1999 -- not that we're bitter about it or anything. At any rate, convinced that McCain would be a superior choice if we HAD to end up with a Republican in the White House, my former wife bit the bullet and registered as a Republican so she could cast her vote for him in the primary, fully intending to then vote for the Democratic candidate, WHOEVER it turned out to be, in the general election.

The Republicans got wind of the fact that lots of people were having the same idea, and accused the Democrats of deliberately and maliciously trying to poison their chances by seeing to it that the GOP would run a loser as their candidate. (How's that sound as a way to welcome new registrants to your party?) I insist, however, that our intentions were pure, and we were only expressing our Constitutional preference for the lesser of two evils -- I mean, for our choice of who should serve as our leader for the next four years.

In fact, I would argue that the country would be better served by allowing everyone to vote in all primary races regardless of their party affiliation. This would seem to insure that lesser or fringe candidates would garner more votes and be able to keep their campaigns alive longer, thus continuing to present diverse points of view and keeping the field open closer to the actual election. We might even find independents or third party candidates winning some State and Federal seats, which could break the perpetual stalemate in the legislature.

Anyway, that's how I ended up on this Red State mailing list, and why I was selected to receive a "2010 Congressional District Census" (and appeal for funds) from said Republican Party. Rather than send it to the landfill, I decided to fill it out to let them know how I think they're doing. But, like all multiple choice tests, it left me feeling the need to express things more fully, to "attach extra pages if necessary," which they did not invite me to do. Here then are a few explanations and amplifications:

"Do you identify yourself as a:" Well, I'm glad there was an "other" box with a place to fill in the party of my choice. I didn't know that the recognized parties were called Conservative Republican, Moderate Republican, Liberal Republican, and Independent-voter-who-leans-Republican. Thanks for providing a line long enough to contain the word Democrat, even if it might not have been big enough for something like Socialist Workers.

"From what media source do you regularly receive your political views?" First let me say that my views are my own, I don't receive them from anyone else. I am, however, interested to hear other points of view. I found it very interesting that while NBC/CBS/ABC were lumped together there were separate check boxes for both CNN/MSNBC and Fox (subliminal: dummy shill for the radical right ventriloquist). I had always harbored paranoid suspicions about this, but it is good to have them confirmed. The omission of PBS altogether speaks volumes. Just please note that when I say "Radio" I am not alluding to the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson, and Oliver North. Instad I'm thinking NPR and the BBC. And what more delightful way is there of reviewing the week's events than Wait--Wait--Don't Tell Me! on Saturday mornings?

When you ask "How much does it concern you that the Democrats have total control of the federal government?" I am really non-plussed. Does it seem that anyone has any control up there? I am concerned that they don't know what to do with power when they have it and continue to wander around in a daze, but at least they are not deliberately breaking everything and canceling the Constitution like some other parties we could mention.

You will note that I put check marks in the Democrat column for nearly all categories under "which political party do you feel is best able to handle the following issues?" The single exception is "protecting traditional values." That's because I don't know what those are, and wonder, if they are so traditional, why they need to be protected. Also, I note that the Republicans are not protecting our tradition of Constitutional freedom, except the ability to carry guns, and I wonder what's up with that. So on this subject I selected "No Opinion," even though that is not really correct because as you see I have lots of them.

Finally the one that really stumped me: "Do you believe the Republican Party should continue to embrace social issues?" This is like the question, Have you stopped beating your wife yet? If I say Yes it implies that I agree the Republicans are "embracing social issues," and that I approve of what they are doing and want them to keep it up. If I say No it still implies that I think they are "embracing social issues" but that I think they should cut it out. If I say Undecided (the third and final option) it still implies that I think they are "embracing social issues" but I'm so wishy washy that I don't know if I like what they're doing or not.

However, I noticed the follow up question that could only be filled out if I answered Yes, so I changed my choice from Undecided to Yes so that I could register opposition to the following:

• school prayer
• a ban on burning the flag
• a ban on human cloning
• a ban on all abortions
• prohibition of same-sex marriage

I went along with "faith based initiatives" because they're not all bad. Concerning the others I'd like to point out that there is no rash of flag burnings at present, so I don't know what all the fuss is about, and that human cloning is still in the science fiction stage, so we may as well ban Unauthorized Commerce With Alien Civilizations while we're at it. At least this list clarifies what was meant by "embracing social issues." Silly me to think of things like health care, education, drug treatment programs, feeding the hungry, and finding homes for the homeless.

So there you have it. Tomorrow it will be winging its way to Michael Steele and the Republican National Committee. I feel a lot better for having taken the trouble.

A World That Works

You could call it a coronation, yet there was no crown. The power bestowed on a common man elevated him to an exalted position, but only for a measured term of years. When taking the oath he promised to support the Constitution, placing himself under the rule of law, and tacitly agreeing to relinquish power even before he had assumed it.

We have been celebrating this cornerstone of our republic every four years since George Washington was sworn in over two centuries ago. Back then, one observer witnessing the pomp and ceremony was moved to quip, "I fear we have exchanged George the Third for George the First." Yet Washington limited himself to only two terms in office -- a tradition that was respected, with the single exception of Franklin Roosevelt, until it was written into the Constitution in 1947.

Which brings us to that feature of our society that has -- so far, at least -- kept it not only relatively stable but alive and thriving through a period of time that has seen more change and upheaval than any in human history. That feature is the way change itself has been anticipated, accommodated, and codified into law. The Constitution incorporates a mechanism for its own transformation, and was changed almost immediately by the first ten amendments.

Since then a progression of further refinements have been added from time to time as the citizens and their legislators have seen fit. Sometimes they are laudable and overdue, as with the abolition of slavery and the insurance of civil rights, including the right to vote. At least once a memorable mistake was made -- when the attempted eradication of alcohol resulted in a short-lived period of social chaos. But the mistake was undone, and the ship of state sailed on.

The genius of the Founders was that they did not attempt to solve all problems at once, and never claimed to have invented a perfect system of government. Unlike the Marxists, who believed their system would be the final result of social evolution, the authors of the Constitution instead began a system of evolution that was intended from the start to be endlessly improved.

In his wonderful book, The Metaphysical Club (2001), Louis Menand discusses how Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes applied the principle of pragmatism to the law, with influential results. Holmes viewed the law not as a compendium of hard-coded rulings, but as an ongoing search for fairness and balance between opposing, and often contradictory, principles.

For example, everyone has a right to privacy. At the same time, police have a right to search if they have adequate reason. There is no hard rule that determines which party is in the right -- only a continuing list of examples of how those contradictory rights were resolved in unique cases. Over time, these examples become precedents that serve as guideposts in future cases. Also over time, one or the other rights may become more important.

Thus in the wake of civil rights abuses in the 1960's those rights came to seem more important than the rights of investigative agencies, which needed to be curtailed. Then in 2001 the opposite view became so urgent that many people were willing to sacrifice personal liberties in the name of security. The long range view is that these are both swings of the same pendulum, guaranteeing that overall a balance will be found.

The other night one news commentator, David Brooks, speaking about President Obama, said that so far his agenda is "less a collection of proposals than a way of making decisions based upon information, intelligence, and pragmatism." In his inaugural address Obama put it this way: "We do not ask whether our government is too large or too small, but whether it works."

The development of this prototypically American attitude is the underlying theme of Menand's book. It had its roots in the Transcendentalists and came of age when John Dewey founded an educational system on it. Pragmatism was seen to be at work in Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. This is often oversimplified as "the survival of the fittest," which to most people implies that the organisms that can destroy their rivals will prosper. But it takes many other forms. Organisms also succeed if they have immunity to disease, are more adaptable, can learn to avoid accidents, take better care of their young, form social alliances with others -- even if they are willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of others.

The argument can even be made in the realm of quantum physics, which takes the view that a ball following a parabola does so by trying to move simultaneously in all possible directions, and following the solution of least resistance. Taking it to the extreme, at any moment the state of the whole universe is the best solution to a wildly complex and contradictory chaos of opposing forces.

If it is true that our new regime led by a new President has reconnected to this wellspring of common sense (and it seems no accident that Thomas Paine used those words as a title), then we can be optimistic about the result. Imagine using scientific data to make decisions instead of deciding in advance to ignore and refute them. Imagine choosing the best from among all possible ideas, rather than sticking to one idea, however wrong, come what may.

As he steers the course, neither too far to the right nor to the left, avoiding icebergs all the way, let's hope "whether it works" will continue to be the guiding principle. It's right there in the Constitution, not to mention living in our DNA.

Knowing When

Could the secret of our survival be something so simple?

Something amazing happened right before my eyes recently. It started normally enough, while I was driving home from work. There's a complicated intersection I have to go through to get onto US-1. Just before I got there my lane was blocked by a man in a large SUV who insisted on parking across it so he could push his way into the left-turn lane, which was totally packed. Frustrated, all I could do was stop and watch my opportunity to make the green light slip away.

I was not alone in my frustration. Another driver in the left-turn lane felt so strongly about the lack of consideration that he opened his door, got out, and began a shouting match with the SUV guy over the roof of his car. SUV guy in turn got out of his car so he could make his own points. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but it was pretty clear from their gestures that SUV guy insisted on his right to a left turn, no matter how inconvenient, while the other driver was not about to let him cut in line.

Perfect, I thought. Now it would take even longer for this guy to get out of the way. And besides that I would probably have to witness a violent crime, wait for the police and TV news crews to take down my report, and lose days of work while testifying in a criminal case. Getting home late would be the least of my worries.

That's when the incredible thing happened. Both drivers had got back into their cars, presumably still fuming. Then suddenly, with no warning or explanation, the SUV guy simply ... backed up. Yes, backed up and started waving people through the intersection, myself included.

What a wonderful and unexpected outcome! I felt as if the sun had just come out. Everything was light and breezy again as I smiled and waved my way along. Now, instead of feeling resentment at the anonymous driver, I felt gratitude and admiration. He had accomplished all this by just letting go of his position and doing the right thing for all concerned, including himself.

An interesting lesson. I found myself thinking about another time this happened, during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Kennedy and Khrushchev were going head to head over Cuba with World War III a hair trigger away. But when it came down to it, they both found it was better to give up what they wanted, or at least some of it, and work a compromise. Two generations later, we still owe our survival to their joint act of standing down.

Would that more of us, including our current President, could find it in us to make that small sacrifice of self that produces the greater good. If we want to continue surviving, we will have to learn to do that time and time again.

Maybe we can start in small ways, by knowing when it's time to back up.

Open Letter to My Representatives

To: Senators Bill Nelson and Mel Martinez,
Representative Illeana Ros-Lehtinen

I am writing to express my concern over the recent news that some members of a Quaker meeting in South Florida have been listed as a "threat" as a result of a domestic investigation by the military. (Story online at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10454316/.)

For several years now I have attended the Quaker meeting in Miami. During that time I have met and got to know many Quakers. I can tell you that it would be hard to find, and almost impossible to imagine, any group whose members are more honest, kind, well intentioned, and --above all--open about their activities.

These are people who make a point of opening all their proceedings to the general public. The sign on the door always says, "All Are Welcome." Ironically, I am sure that even government investigators, had their identities been made known, would have been equally welcome to attend, listen, and participate in whatever discussions took place regarding military enlistment or other topics.

If there is any "threat" from such people, it is nothing other than the threat that truth always poses to lies and deceit. To subject any American citizens to covert investigation, and to stigmatize them for doing no more than exercising their Constitutional freedoms, would be shameful enough; but to do so to such a group of exemplary citizens, of exemplary human beings, goes beyond questions of legality, and should cause us to question the motives and intentions of those perpetrating the investigation.

I sincerely hope that, as our elected representative in Congress, you will investigate what has taken place and make every effort to see to it that our freedoms are not infinged by the ill-advised and overreaching actions of any governmental agency, and especially of the military, which has no Constitutional jurisdiction in domestic law enforcement.

We look to you to make the laws we live by, and likewise to see that they are upheld.

In accordance with the open nature of Quaker meetings, this letter is being published online at nortspews.blogspot.com so that nothing in it can be considered to be concealed. I would welcome the opportunity to publish your reply in the same spirit.