The rigid conventions of mainstream press reporting are nowhere more agonizingly evident than in the reports of President Obama's presidential memorandum on hospital visitation. You can watch the pseudostory deconstruct before your eyes in the LA Times report, which starts out by saying the directive gave same-sex couples a "victory" without having to pick a fight, then accurately but inconsistently reports that it grants no one any new rights or benefits, and goes on to state the truthful fact that even the Catholic Health Association "applauded the move."
This is all there is to the story: The President told hospitals that take Medicare and Medicaid dollars from the federal government (pretty much all of them) that they have to (1) follow existing federal rules that allow patients to designate visitors; and (2) comply with existing regulations that require hospitals to obey state laws about a patient's advance directives and any other legally binding documents the patient might have signed concerning health care matters. In addition, the memorandum (3) solicits "additional recommendations" about what the Department of Health and Human Services can do to respect the rights of gay and lesbian patients and their families. There's no need here to do any more than shoo you over to William Dyer's blog, which does a brilliant job of diagramming the play, doing everything but showing it to you on slow-motion film.
The only thing I'd disagree with Dyer about is his description of the President as a charlatan. Certainly this little saga shows how lazy and credulous the press is - no surprise to any of us who watch Jon Stewart. And it also shows how little it takes to constitute a "victory" for gay rights at the national level.
Nevertheless, there is something here, however minuscule. In fact, there have been cases where hospitals have ignored the legally binding documents that same-sex couples have entered into. I don't imagine this happens a lot any more, but every time it does, it is the most sickening, tangible kind of bigotry.
In a hospital, heterosexual relationships can be, and usually are taken on faith. In an emergency room, the statement, "I am her husband," will not require much, if any, proof. In less extreme settings, the relationship will almost certainly be part of the patient's ordinary medical records. A glance at the computer is all the confirmation anyone needs.
But while heterosexual couples can opt-in to the legal netherworld of the unmarried, same-sex couples get that as their default. The modern movement to allow a non-spouse legally binding power of medical decisionmaking disproportionately helps same-sex couples, but only to the extent they (a) have taken the appropriate steps, and (b) find themselves in a setting where someone will bother to acknowledge that legal power. None of this would be necessary if they were simply allowed the right any other couple has to get married in the first place.
The President's memorandum says that, yes, the federal government does mean it when it says that hospitals accepting government money must obey the law, both state and federal - and that includes giving proper effect to legal documents. That is one of the things a President can do. Among the hundreds of thousands, or millions of laws on the books that go unenforced or even unnoticed every blessed day, a President can focus in on a few that he views as significant in their invisibility.
The President's memorandum doesn't do much more than that. But it says a great deal that such a routine and bloodless action warrants headlines.
55 Comments for “Sweet Nothings”
posted by BobN on
Damn this stupid “security” stuff!!!
The memo is part of a larger strategy. ENDA is coming up soon and making America aware of this cruel discrimination we sometimes face in hospitals helps win us support, especially among the majority of Americans who think workplace discrimination is already illegal.
In addition, the memorandum (3) solicits âadditional recommendationsâ about what the Department of Health and Human Services can do to respect the rights of gay and lesbian patients and their families.
And the result of that review will be a report that says that DOMA hinders the ability of DHHS to provide equal protection and perpetuates discrimination.
It’s a slow chess match.
posted by BobN on
Damn this stupid “security” stuff!!! Losing the first version made me so rattled, I can’t even italicize correctly!!
The memo is part of a larger strategy. ENDA is coming up soon and making America aware of this cruel discrimination we sometimes face in hospitals helps win us support, especially among the majority of Americans who think workplace discrimination is already illegal.
In addition, the memorandum (3) solicits âadditional recommendationsâ about what the Department of Health and Human Services can do to respect the rights of gay and lesbian patients and their families.
And the result of that review will be a report that says that DOMA hinders the ability of DHHS to provide equal protection and perpetuates discrimination.
It’s a slow chess match.
posted by John on
Yeah right, BobN. Suuuuuuure ENDA is “coming up soon”. You mean like DADT repeal like the president promised in his State of the Union speech? I’ll believe it when I see it. Betcha ENDA gets torpedoed because of “sexual identity”. Perhaps another “study” that won’t be finished until after the election like with DADT? Even with 59 Senators the Democrats can’t do much except whine, complain and blame everything on the Republicans. Give me a break.
posted by Jimmy on
“Even with 59 Senators the Democrats can’t do much…”
59 is not 60, which has been the benchmark needed to get anything accomplished due to the obstructionist GOP senators. The egregious use of the filibuster has been one of the chief characteristics of the Republican minority in the Senate. Where is the Republican support for any of these measures in the Senate? Where was their action on those measures when they were in the majority?
Cue crickets.
posted by Lori Heine on
The private sector always seems to move a lot faster than the government. Unencumbered by politics, it simply wants to make money. And far from being as ignoble as that’s made to sound, it almost always works out better for us.
Why don’t we simply let the consumer drive social change? Hospitals in which bigoted employees insult the paying customer can sack the offending employees –which I can assure you, they will do if said customer raises enough of a stink about it. Most businesses want to avoid insulting us.
Every time the government hands down some edict from on high, people resent it. Now we’ll be hearing — yet again — about the dark and sinister plot to destroy religious conviction. If we simply let the free market work and let each hospital set its own policy, we’d see much greater and quicker progress, without all the controversy.
Liberals think like little children. They want Big Daddy to wave a magic wand and instantly make it all better. But there is no “instantly” when social change is pursued in this way.
posted by Jimmy on
Lori-
There are many ares in this country where there may be only one hospital that is reasonably available, especially if there is a need for specific treatment that a small, rural, county hospital can’t handle. When patients are medevaced into metro area hospitals, in life or death situations, time is of the essence and the expectation of fair and equitable treatment is what constitutionally guaranteed equal protection is all about.
posted by Tom on
Lori: “Why don’t we simply let the consumer drive social change?”
That, essentially, is what the administration is doing. Medicare is a huge consumer of hospital services.
In rural areas, as Jimmy pointed out, decent hospitals are few and far between. Our county has one. The county to the east has one. The county to the south has one. The county to the north has none.
The hospital in our county refuses to honor BC/BS because negotiations between the hospital and BC/BS failed about two years ago. As a result, when BC/BS customers need hospital services other than emergency services, we have to travel at least one county away to get services — a minimum of an hour trip rather than a twenty minute trip. When I had cataract surgery done last fall, I had to use a hospital an hour and a half away despite the fact that the hospital in our county has an excellent cataract surgery program, using the same doctor I used, who is at the local hospital one day per week. Stupid, stupid.
If our hospital is willing to ignore the needs of a rather large base of BC/BS consumers, what chance do you suppose the eleven registered domestic partner couples in our county would be likely to have?
Wisconsin’s domestic partnership law requires hospitals and other medical care providers to treat domestic partners as spouses, so domestic partner recognition isn’t an issue in this state any more. But it was until last August, when the domestic partnership law went into effect, and I personally know two couples who ran into problems with the hospital in our county.
You’ve got to keep in mind that in rural areas, there is often no meaningful competition between hospitals — the reality is de facto monopoly.
posted by Lori Heine on
Tom and Jimmy, I respect what you’re saying. But I connect everything this president does back to the government-mandated healthcare monstrosity he and his Democratic cohorts are forcing on us. How does driving providers out of the market help give us more choices?
Pretty soon nobody who isn’t supported by the government will still be in business. Then we’ll need Emperor O to hand down edicts from on high on matters of how hospitals must treat people.
Oh…wait a minute…that’s exactly what the emperor has in mind.
posted by Jimmy on
Lori-
How are providers being driven from the market when they are finding 30 million new customers dropped in their laps? And, as risk pools go, providers benefit from having more young, healthy customers offsetting the sick ones. An embarrassment of riches, I would say.
Your hyperboles are quaint, though.
posted by Tom on
Lori: “But I connect everything this president does back to the government-mandated health care monstrosity …”
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, Lori.
posted by BobN on
The memo does nothing but instruct hospitals to respect private, legal contracts like Powers of Attorney and Medical Directives enacted by the state legislatures. I thought right-leaning folks supported private contracts and the rule of law.
I guess everything falls by the wayside when you don’t like the messenger.
posted by Lori Heine on
“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, Lori.”
…And sometimes it isn’t. I’m speaking as someone who worked in the insurance industry (health insurance, for the most part) for thirty years, so I know a thing or two about what I’m saying. My livelihood in the insurance field is now virtually gone because of the “embarrassment of riches” Obamacare has brought us.
“How are providers being driven from the market when they are finding 30 million new customers dropped in their laps?”
A provider is not an insurance company. A provider is a hospital, a clinic or a medical practice. If providers are gleeful because they’re having all these new customers “dropped in their laps,” how come so many are now threatening to stop practicing or warning they may go out of business?
There are a great variety of contexts in which we must live in this world, and our sexual orientation is but one of them. Government-mandated everything only generates more of the problems it purports to fix.
Sometimes the Wizard of O, with his magic wand, really IS just a little man behind a screen.
posted by Lori Heine on
Incidentally, to finish the thought I started above, if insurance companies are doing so well now, why are they dumping so many of their employees? If they thought they were in for a bonanza, they’d be hiring like crazy.
They are only hiring salespeople. Somebody may be benefitting from all this, but I suspect it’s going to end up being the very “evil rich executives” all the “progressives” claim they want to punish.
The “little people” never end up sharing any of the prosperity they are promised by their self-appointed saviors.
posted by Jimmy on
And yet, healthcare and health insurance stocks rose after HCR passed and investors continue to invest, not divest.
And, this same trend is occurring in Europe. Cranks come and go, but they are seldom right.
posted by BobN on
why are they dumping so many of their employees?
Outsourcing and automation, like other industries.
Actually, the health insurance workforce is expected to grow in the next decade, but some job categories will be cut while others outpace the loss.
I suppose you can find a way to blame Obama and liberals for how American corporations operate, so have at it!
http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/cgs028.htm
posted by Jimmy on
Exactly, BobN. And of course, it’s the fault of liberals that health insurance companies are invested in the top five fast food companies to the tune of nearly $2 billion, then turn around and raise premiums, or cancel policies all together, on people at the margins who have diabetes, heart disease, or other diseases directly attributable to eating too much fast food.
posted by Lori Heine on
I notice no one dealt with the fact that many providers may close their doors. Of course not.
Typical tone-deafness toward the lives of actual people. Compassionate liberalism at its finest.
“You lost your job? Sucks to be you…now go screw yourself.”
I voted for Obama last time. I even worked for his campaign. Was a Democrat from the age of eighteen until a couple of months ago.
Comments like those here, who would peg me as a typical wingnut just because my experience has taught me something different than their has taught them, are exactly why I’m no longer a Democrat.
Your compassion is phoney baloney. If you want to do your team a favor, you’ll probably shut your mouths and let somebody who can at least pretend to give a shit about humanity do the talking for you.
posted by BobN on
Lori, it’s bad when anyone loses a job, especially in this economy, but if you think passing health care has anything to do with it, you’re just being irrational.
Sure, there are folks claiming they’ll quit being doctors because 1) they won’t be able to handle the load and/or 2) they won’t be able to make enough money. Here’s a hint: they politically opposed to Obama, so they’ll say anything.
The only folks I know who’ve been driven out of health care were doctors who couldn’t afford malpractice insurance.
posted by Jimmy on
“I notice no one dealt with the fact that many providers may close their doors. Of course not.”
That some are threatening to “go out of business” or “close their doors is just that – threats. Lets revisit this a couple of years from now.
“My livelihood in the insurance field is now virtually gone because of the “embarrassment of riches” Obamacare has brought us.”
How? No provisions have gone into place. Maybe you should go into sales.
Whatever your experience is, Lori, it is not universal.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
How are providers being driven from the market when they are finding 30 million new customers dropped in their laps?
Easy. When you are forced to provide services that cost $60 but can only charge $40 in premiums, it doesn’t matter how many new customers you have. Indeed, it increases the problem because you now are having to serve MORE people at a loss.
This is why providers like the Mayo Clinic are phasing out Medicare.
Mayo says it lost $840 million last year treating Medicare patients, the result of the program’s low reimbursement rates. Its hospital and four clinics in Arizonaâincluding the Glendale facilityâlost $120 million. Providers like Mayo swallow some of these Medicare losses, while also shifting the cost by charging more to private patients and insurers.
And of course, the liberals invoke Europe without noting what is actually going on in Europe.
Tens of thousands of NHS workers would be sacked, hospital units closed and patients denied treatments under secret plans for £20 billion of health cuts.
Yes, that ought to work wonderfully when applied in the United States.
posted by Lori Heine on
“…but if you think passing health care has anything to do with it, you’re just being irrational.”
Yes, anyone who disagrees with Obamacare is clearly “irrational.” They can’t simply have a different opinion — there must be something wrong with them.
“Maybe you should go into sales.” Yeah. There’s the “sucks to be you…go screw yourself.” What a surprise.
“Whatever your experience is, Lori, it is not universal.” Translation: It doesn’t fit neatly into your belief-system, so it’s not important.
“Progressives” just oozing compassion — not to mention tolerance for opposing points of view. How heart-warming.
“When you are forced to provide services that cost $60 but can only charge $40 in premiums, it doesn’t matter how many new customers you have. Indeed, it increases the problem because you now are having to serve MORE people at a loss.”
NDT has obviously spent some time living in the real world. But of course, his views do tend to reflect that.
Toadying to the Democrats doesn’t seem to have gotten “the community” anywhere — mutually-supportive and open-minded to a variety of views as it purports to be.
Obama will (as Clinton did) lie to us and screw us again and again, and still many in “the community” will savage anyone in their ranks who disagrees with them. But hey, why wait for those awful, icky fundamentalist Republicans to do that, when we can do it for them?
This former Democrat and ex-Obama supporter has turned away from the toadyism with well-earned disgust.
Some others will go right on meeting the fondest hopes and expectations not only of the “progressives” who want to keep them on the reservation, but of the actual bigots on the Right whose interests are served by our staying there, too.
posted by Tom on
Lori: “Lori: “But I connect everything this president does back to the government-mandated health care monstrosity …”
Tom: ““Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, Lori.”
Lori: “ And sometimes it isn’t. I’m speaking as someone who worked in the insurance industry (health insurance, for the most part) for thirty years, so I know a thing or two about what I’m saying.”
So would you explain, then, how President Obama’s directive, which requires hospitals that receive Medicare and Medicaid funds to allow a patient to designate a person not a relative to have the same visiting privileges as those enjoyed by immediate family members (a) is going to result in “driving providers out of the market” or (b) is tied into the recent health care act?
The idea that the directive will drive any health care provider out of the market just doesn’t make sense to me. Wisconsin granted registered domestic partners full spousal rights with respect to hospital visitation, medical and end-of-life decisions and so on last August. Not a single Wisconsin health care provider that I know of has closed or threatened to close. The administration’s recent directive is more limited than Wisconsin law, and I would be surprised if health care providers closed down over the administration’s directive.
And it seems to me that the directive is quite different, qualitatively, that the recent health care law, in that the latter does make a major change in our health care system while the former does not.
Lori: “Now we’ll be hearing — yet again — about the dark and sinister plot to destroy religious conviction.”
The response from the religious conservative mouthpieces — FRC, CWA, FoF — has been muted so far, complaining about “Emperor Obama” issuing the directive from “on high” rather than the content of the directive itself, no doubt because hospital visitation rights are supported by the vast majority of Americans, even religiously conservative Americans who are a step or two this side of the nuthouse.
I don’t think that there will be any significant blow back on the directive. Even the FRC, CWA and FoF have sufficient low animal cunning not to take the issue of hospital visitation to the mat.
posted by Lori Heine on
“The idea that the directive will drive any health care provider out of the market just doesn’t make sense to me.”
The idea that ANY government directive will determine how decisions should be made by private business ought to be troubling. Even if you don’t see them as all of a piece, you can be sure they do.
Now I’ll hear that they get government money, so they need to let government pipe their tune. I don’t know how a Republican would answer this question — many of them were perfectly willing to get into the sack with big government when they thought they could get something out of it. As a Libertarian, I believe all plans such as Medicare and Social Security should be privately run and privately funded so the American people actually get a sound investment out of it — instead of being run by embezzling politicians.
As a Libertarian, I also believe that any “business executive” who can’t make it without government charity ought to be standing on a streetcorner begging with a tin cup.
As far as the religious element is concerned, what many of the conservatives are angry about is, indeed, that the government is handing down edicts on matters that simply aren’t its business.
They think it’s perfectly okay when THEY do that, I know. We’ve got this nifty thing called the Constitution that we ALL really ought to go back to reading and allowing to guide our conduct.
posted by BobN on
Lori, the idea that you lost your job NOW because Obamacare will be phased in over the next five years is what is irrational. Businesses, even those faced with certain failure in future, don’t preemptively stop operating NOW while they are still making money hand over fist because of what might happen later. Been there. Certainly didn’t quit ahead of time.
posted by Jimmy on
“As far as the religious element is concerned, what many of the conservatives are angry about is, indeed, that the government is handing down edicts on matters that simply aren’t its business.”
It is the business of the federal government to ensure the equal protection of all of its citizens. As a secular institution, the fact that this comes into conflict with the religious concerns of SOME people (most assuredly a choice) is of no consequence. They have the same option to take their business elsewhere, in this case, medical facilities that don’t accept federal dollars.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Lori, the idea that you lost your job NOW because Obamacare will be phased in over the next five years is what is irrational.
Funny, it’s already had a massive business impact.
Now we know what you’re going to say, BobN; those businesses all hate Obama, it’s all a political ploy, they’re in league with the “teabaggers”, etc.
Yeah, turns out your party lied to you on that one.
Now BobN, had you actually been in business, you might be aware of a basic fact: if expenses in one area increase, businesses have to either increase revenue or cut expenses.
Increasing revenues is not an option, because the Obama Party is imposing punitive taxes on revenue for health insurers and other companies that, in their opinion, make too much money.
That leaves expenses. In the vast majority of cases, businesses have very little flexibility to negotiate down expenses, thanks to Obama Party regulations that drive up the cost of goods and services and new things like the value-added tax that the Obama Party is planning to impose shortly.
That leaves only one expense over which businesses have significant control — labor expenses.
So as a result, if you’re going to control costs and build up a cash cushion for years in the future when your business model is going to be significantly impaired, you cut people now.
The problem is, BobN, that you simply don’t understand the private sector. In the public sector, decreasing employment means fewer kickbacks and campaign contributions to politicians, who can then simply force an increase in revenues by raising tax rates. But the missing link of which Obama Party members seem to be completely unaware is that raising taxes siphons money away from private businesses and individuals, who thus are able to purchase less and must cut expenses, resulting in less demand and fewer jobs.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Furthermore, I might add: since the Obama Party is now going to mandate that businesses take on the expense of health coverage for all their employees at a stipulated level or pay a penalty, the primary means by which businesses can reduce their health coverage costs is to reduce the number of employees. Not to mention that that also reduces the vast new payroll tax levies and other things that Obamacare is planning to impose on employers; the fewer employees you have, the lower your payroll tax expense.
This was all immediately apparent to anyone with any experience in the private sector. But when you consider how Obama’s inner circle has virtually no private-sector experience and is stuffed to the gills with people who don’t pay their taxes like Charles Rangel, Tim Geithner, and Kathleen Sebelius, you can understand why they would come up with such an inane decision. They’ve never had to run a business or actually pay the tax increases they put on other people. Even Obama, who says it’s shameful that rich people don’t pay enough taxes, didn’t pay the mandated 50% that he and his Obama Party want to levy on people at his income level.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Meanwhile, if that wasn’t enough, look what happens to those patients who dare to see providers privately.
posted by Tom on
Tom: “The idea that the directive will drive any health care provider out of the market just doesn’t make sense to me.”
Lori: “The idea that ANY government directive will determine how decisions should be made by private business ought to be troubling.”
Maybe so, but it is 2010, after all, and the fact is that hospital visitation remains an issue. Why?
Allowing domestic partner visitation is costless to the hospitals, I would think, and yet, despite uproar after uproar over the last decade, cases like Langbein keep cropping up all over the country. At what point is enough irrational discrimination enough to warrant government intervention, particularly when the government is a major consumer of services?
I think that Wisconsin’s domestic partnership law, which grants registered domestic partners spousal rights with respect to hospital visitation, is appropriate, even thought the “determine how decisions should be made by private business” in the case of hospital visitation.
I also think that President Obama’s directive, which tells hospitals who want Medicare and Medicaid patients as consumers to straighten up and get right with Jesus on hospital visitation, is appropriate government intervention on behalf of the Americans it insures, particularly since market forces have not been effective change agents.
posted by Lymis on
Any medical provider who will have to close their doors because they choose not to let the partners and spouses of gay people visit them in the hospital absolutely deserves to, along with any provider who won’t serve racial or religious minorities.
Period.
posted by Lori Heine on
Tom, using the great, big stick of government to knock people around and get what we want may feel good, but it is shortsighted and stupid. As we are still and always will be a tiny minority, it will also ultimately come around to bite us in the ass.
Using force to exert your will is a child’s fantasy. It’s why we like John Wayne movies so much. Who hasn’t daydreamed of being the Duke, and beating the crap out of some bully who once menaced us?
The problem is that, as the old proverb says, if we live by the sword we will die by the sword. We can only trust indefinitely in power and brute force to carry us along if we are the biggest and the strongest.
We are not.
If this country does not return to the rule of law, allow private property to be private and let free enterprise operate, eventually all our freedoms will be gone.
Including the freedom to visit our partner in the hospital, or to give a doctor a directive that may save his or her life.
We need to stop thinking like children and start thinking like grownups again.
posted by Jimmy on
“It’s why we like John Wayne movies so much. Who hasn’t daydreamed of being the Duke, and beating the crap out of some bully who once menaced us?”
I love John Wayne movies, too. I really like the ones where he is an agent of the government, i.e., member of law enforcement (U.S. Marshall) or a Marine.
posted by BobN on
The problem is, BobN, that you simply don’t understand the private sector.
I’ve built, operated, and sold more businesses than you have, ND30, I’d wager.
And are you seriously arguing that health insurance companies will have to let go of employees because they will charge themselves more for coverage?
posted by Tom on
Lori, you are certainly mixing your metaphors — big sticks, swords, childrens’ fantasies, beating the crap out of bullies, and so on. I hope you are having fun with it. It is entertaining to read, certainly.
But you are missing the point. You seem to be looking at the directive as a mandate. That’s not quite what it is. The government is letting a contract for medical goods and services to a hospital. The government can set minimum terms for performance, and the private company can make a decision about whether or not it wants to accept the contract.
Nothing in the directive is a mandate; there are no fines or penalties to the hospital for opting out of Medicare or Medicaid.
If the government cannot set minimum performance terms in its contracts, private companies could accept government money for goods and services, fail to provide them, and laugh all the way to the bank. While that would, no doubt be good for the private companies, even the most extreme Libertarians don’t believe that makes any sense, as I understand it.
We can debate the wisdom of the government using its contracts to further its social policies — non-discriminatory hiring practices and so on. We can also debate the wisdom of the government regulating industry — mine safety, anti-trust, pension funding and so on. A legitimate argument can be made, it seems to me, that the government should not use its contracts to further social policies, and a legitimate argument can be made that government should not regulate businesses or business practices at all. I don’t agree entirely with those arguments, but they can be made.
But, whether or not the government is wise to include social policy performance standards in its contract, the government has a legitimate interest in getting the goods and services it bargains for — including delivery of services in accord with the government’s social policies, if that is what it chooses to put in the contract — when it lets a contract. I think that is without question.
posted by Lori Heine on
Tom, I am not debating whether businesses — once they have sold their souls to the devil — should not deliver when the bill is paid. Hospitals that take government money will be told, by government, how to operate. I get that, and I understand that it will be that way.
I can’t say I’m sorry if people will now be able to be at their loved ones’ bedside in life-or-death situations. That was never my point.
Government involvement in private enterprise always creates a huge, hairy mess that only gets worse and worse over time. For minorities such as gays and lesbians, it may not work out well for us. Those in power will usually be members of the majority.
We need to remember the principles upon which this country was founded and return to them. Are there people out there screaming about that who don’t get what it means? Of course there are. They may have to be reminded — repeatedly. But the rule of law and the protection of the individual provide the best possible social climate in which the rights of minorities, like gays, may be protected.
And Jimmy, I like John Wayne’s marshal movies, too. Notice that his characters usually don’t abuse their power.
posted by Jimmy on
“And Jimmy, I like John Wayne’s marshal movies, too. Notice that his characters usually don’t abuse their power.’
Please. Abuse of power was Rooster Cogburn’s whole lietmotiv.
posted by Lori Heine on
“Please. Abuse of power was Rooster Cogburn’s whole lietmotiv.”
I am aware that I made an analogy some time ago, and that it’s now functioning very well as a happy little distraction.
No one has yet explained to be why the path of contesting for power might be the smartest strategy for a minority like gays and lesbians.
I don’t think Rooster Cogburn is really germane to that question, but if Jimmy can find a cute way to work him in there, perhaps he can further delay giving an answer to my question.
I do not believe that we’re going to win a struggle for power. I believe that the rule of law, and that a baseline level of respect and protection for each human individual, would serve our cause far better. But these conditions can only be met in a society in which individuals can own property and freely contract with others.
Those conditions are rapidly being destroyed by collectivism. But hey, let’s talk some more about Rooster Cogburn…
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
And are you seriously arguing that health insurance companies will have to let go of employees because they will charge themselves more for coverage?
Of course.
Even if you are an insurance provider, it still costs you money to provide insurance to your employees. It’s like owning a grocery store and providing free groceries to your employees; they don’t have to pay, but that doesn’t mean that you have zero cost for doing so. You still have to pay the suppliers, the light bill, and all the other costs of doing business — and for no profit or gain. Add to that the massive acceleration in health care costs, which you take as a direct hit, and it’s a large financial impact.
posted by Jimmy on
“I believe that the rule of law, and that a baseline level of respect and protection for each human individual, would serve our cause far better. But these conditions can only be met in a society in which individuals can own property and freely contract with others.
Those conditions are rapidly being destroyed by collectivism. But hey, let’s talk some more about Rooster Cogburn…”
Where do laws come from other than the people, save those written by every corporatist lobby one can name?
Lori, you ooze victimization and self-righteousness like a conjunctive eye oozes puss.
posted by Lori Heine on
“Lori, you ooze victimization and self-righteousness like a conjunctive eye oozes puss.”
Oooh, how fun! “Victimization!” Jimmy, I prithee…explain!
You have hung around here long enough to pick up certain terms, like “victimization.” Pity you don’t know what they mean, or how to use them.
In what way am I claiming to be victimized? This is quite amusing, and I’m genuinely curious as to what you’re going to come up with for this.
It began as a discussion of the best way for us in what is so euphemistically called “the community” to deal with hospitals that might not honor same-sex partners’ commitments to each other. Along the way, we bantered about all sorts of fun subjects, like Rooster Cogburn. Now, I am “oozing victimization!” How so?
The “self-righteous” charge is easier to figure out. That is always the accusation leveled against the one winning an argument. It’s only very slightly more sophisticated than saying, “Oh, you just think you’re SO smart!”
This is really getting very entertaining. Please do, by all means, explain how anything I’ve said on this thread has anything to do with “victimization.”
posted by Lori Heine on
Oh, I think I just got it. I related a real-life account of what’s going on for me — that I (like many others in the insurance industry) am without a job because of the turmoil going on in insurance today.
When a “progressive” does this, all the self-appointed advocates of “social justice” bite their lower lips, a la Bill Clinton, and feel the pain. But when a libertarian or a conservative does it, they are “wallowing in victimization.”
Got it. Double-standards are always a necessity for “progressives.” Compassion has nothing to do with principle — and everything with power.
I don’t give a damn for the “compassion” of someone like Jimmy, phony-baloney as it so obviously is. I just find it hugely enjoyable to watch people like him splutter and squirm.
posted by Jimmy on
Lori-
The libertarian mantra is “That something bad happened to you because of changing markets is really too bad, but it has no impact on me, so, sucks to be you.”
And you wonder about a perceived lack of compassion on my part?
posted by Lori Heine on
Thanks, Jimmy, for showing not only what a phony piece of work you are, but a liar besides.
Please go actually read up on libertarianism before repeating lies about it. Your characterization of what libertarians supposedly believe is standard, boilerplate “progressive” misinformation.
Amazing. You people think all you have to do is keeping repeating that sort of crap and that eventually people will believe it.
Please keep spewing bullshit on this site, Jimmy. You are a textbook example of the dishonesty and intellectual bankruptcy of the “progressive” movement.
posted by Jimmy on
Takes one to know one, Toots.
posted by Lori Heine on
“Takes one to know one, Toots.”
Textbook “progressive” childishness. Anyone who wonders how Obama and the Dems could have scored such impressive gains in ’08 — only to go down in flames (as they will) in’10 — need only read the rambling, typewritten rhetorical farts of someone like Jimmy.
I hope he continues, because this is priceless. We couldn’t make this stuff up.
posted by Jimmy on
“I hope he continues, because this is priceless. We couldn’t make this stuff up.”
Pipe down – I’m watching baseball, and quaffing cabernet (just for effect).
posted by Lori Heine on
“Pipe down – I’m watching baseball, and quaffing cabernet (just for effect).”
Don’t forget the brie, babe.
And to think Marie Antoinette got pilloried for (supposedly) saying “Let them eat cake.”
Progressives just LURRRRVE themselves some “humanity.” It’s actual human beings they cannot stand.
posted by Tom on
Lori: “We need to remember the principles upon which this country was founded and return to them.”
I think that it is fair to say that “the principles upon which this country was founded” were, to a considerable extent, a messy and incomplete compromise between competing philosophies of government and regional interests.
The founders were not omniscient; Marshall v. Madison and the many bitter conflicts that emerged during the first few decades after founding — conflict which emerged by Jefferson’s presidency and have continued since then — are more than sufficient evidence of that fact.
If there were overarching principles, they were, in my view:
(1) Distrust of centralized power. You can see the distrust in the separation of powers, the distribution of power between federal and state governments, and other similar checks, balances and limitations up on government power at all levels.
(2) Distrust of “popular” democracy. You can see the distrust in the limited electoral franchise, the term differences between Senate and House, the Electoral College, appointment rather than election of Senators and other similar limitations on “popular” rule.
(3) Determination to keep limit the power of government over citizens. You can see this in the Bill of Rights, primarily, and in the enumeration clause of the Constitution.
(4) Distrust of religion (although this is disputed of late by conservative Christians), evidenced by the refusal of the founders to allow religion to invade the secular realm of government.
I’m think that the founders did a good job, given the compromises that they had to make to get the states to sign on to the Constitution. The Constitution has stood the test of time, although many of the rights and freedoms enjoyed by modern Americans were not articulated, or even foreseen, by the founders.
It is for the later reason that I tend to view appeals to “original principles” with a jaundiced eye. More often than not, the appeal is to return to a particular view of the “original principles”, a view, at best, at odds with reality.
posted by Lori Heine on
“It is for the later reason that I tend to view appeals to ‘original principles’ with a jaundiced eye. More often than not, the appeal is to return to a particular view of the “original principles”, a view, at best, at odds with reality.”
Tom, you seem like a very nice man. I’m not trying to make fun of you. When I speak of “original principles,” I’m speaking at a very basic level. Nor am I implying that our ancestors perfectly modeled these principles. They are, however, worth aspiring to — and I don’t think the “progressives” have anything better to offer.
I believe that LGBT folks are better off in a country in which the individual person is valued. Individual responsibility — though it has gotten a bad name from bogus conservatives who talked about it incessantly but behaved as if they really believed it applied to everyone else besides themselves — is still vastly superior to the whole group-grievance mentality of the Left.
Many of the most unattractive behaviors we’ve seen from the “Right” over the past decade or more have come about not as a result of their conservatism, but because they began to act like the very Leftists they claim to oppose. They got whiny and victimmy and started bitching about how oppressed they were.
If it isn’t attractive in them, it probably doesn’t look too good in us, either.
I never hesitate to ask my Tea Party friends where the hell they were when Bush was shredding the Constitution. I am impressed that many of them have been willing to admit they were AWOL. They did as much to elect Obama as any Leftist, and to their credit a lot of them now realize that.
But “Where were you for eight years…nyaah!” is starting to get rather old. They’re basically, for the most part, in the right place now. The Leftists, who talked a very good game about liberty when Bush was president, now toady to Obama as if he were God Almighty.
I haven’t seen much in the way of individual responsibility from many of them.
They seem to think very much like the very religious fundamentalists to whom they affect such superiority. It’s all about correct belief — which automatically imparts virtue. I have many good leftist friends, but even they tend to think that way. They don’t seem to realize that they’re good people because of the choices they make in their individual lives, and how they treat others, rather than because of their “correct beliefs.”
I no longer trust Leftists in general. And when I try to talk to them about returning to the principles that made this country great, I usually get a lot of rot about how Jefferson owned slaves — as if this settles the question.
At least you didn’t do that; you attempted to take the idea seriously.
Individual responsibility, the value of each person as an individual, a government not of men but of laws, the right to private property and to free contract, limitations on government that allow it to do what it is able to do well and keep it from doing what it cannot do well or should not do — these are the principles of which I speak.
I agree with you that the founders did a pretty good job. What any single generation can do is limited. The sad thing is that so much of what they did has been reversed. I’m convinced that “progressivism” will lead us back into the Dark Ages.
posted by Tom on
Lori: “Individual responsibility, the value of each person as an individual, a government not of men but of laws, the right to private property and to free contract, limitations on government that allow it to do what it is able to do well and keep it from doing what it cannot do well or should not do — these are the principles of which I speak.”
I generally agree with your posts, as you know, although I think you are often caustic and too quick to characterize others with a broad but inaccurate brush — the capitalized “Leftist” comes to mind, which seems to me to be used inaccurately in many cases — and too quick to dismiss the value of political philosophies other than your own.
I describe my political outlook as a mix of Barry Goldwater’s constitutional conservatism coupled with Bobby Kennedy’s thirst for social justice, recognizing that the two are often at odds.
I agree with the statement quoted above. I think, though, that it is a good statement of a political philosophy based on Enlightenment principles, and I believe that it underlay the actual “original principles” that worked themselves out in the Constitution, rather than a statement of the “original principles” themselves.
I think it important, though, to recognize that the founders reflected a wide spectrum of political philosophies and were often in conflict with one another, and that the brighter of them, like Jefferson, often espoused political philosophies that were at points inherently self-conflicting.
I think that it is important, too, to remember that the underlying principles you articulate have, themselves, morphed in meaning over time, and I think that it is important to keep in mind that the founders, in various ways depending on their particular political philosophies, believed in limited application of those principles. The “right to private property and free contract”, for example, was limited by centuries of common law, restricting the right to use private property and to contract for goods and services, and the founders thought about those rights within the context of the limitations imposed by common law. The concepts articulated above were not, in the context within which the founders thought and acted were not unfettered in the way that the more extreme modern exponents of those principles seem to think.
I do not agree with the idea, by the way, that the Tea Party folks espouse the principles you articulate. I listen to them, and I am appalled at the level of misplaced anger and lack of historical understanding. The Tea Party folks read our country’s history like fundamentalists read the Bible, as a self-selected series of unconnected sound bytes that, in the end, make no sense whatsoever. I would no sooner turn the future of our country over to them than I would let my dog drive my truck.
Lori: “Many of the most unattractive behaviors we’ve seen from the “Right” over the past decade or more have come about not as a result of their conservatism, but because they began to act like the very Leftists they claim to oppose.”
Yes, they have, in the sense that social conservatives are as much into social engineering as the worst of the liberals, and the theocratic philosophy of far-right religious conservatives is directly at odds with the Constitution. The idea that “God’s Law” should supersede the Constitution in governing our affairs stands in direct opposition to the founding principles, in my opinion anyway, and is very dangerous.
How these people got effective control of the Republican Party is beyond my ken, although I know the history of how it happened. What I can’t fathom is why moderate and sensible Republicans let it happen, particularly after Buchanan’s “Culture Wars” diatribe. The best I can piece together is that the sensible Republicans — the moderate Republicans, the “business” Republicans and the libertarian Republicans — didn’t understand the folk tale about riding the tiger.
It is not the “leftists” that led to the rise of the Tea Party movement so much as the collapse of the Republican Party under the weight of the social conservatives, in my view.
You started out a Democrat, I gather from your writing, and are now a Libertarian. I started out where I remain — trying to make a workable compromise between Goldwater’s constitutional conservatism and Bobby Kennedy’s concern for social justice — and am now a conservative Democrat for lack of anywhere else to go.
posted by Lori Heine on
Tom, I appreciate your post because it was very thoughtful and gave me — maybe a lot of people — a lot to chew on.
One thing I think you are a trifle unjust about, however, is accusing me of “being too quick to characterize others with a broad brush” — and then turning right around and…well…characterizing Tea Party people with a broad brush.
It may not be right, but it sure is easy to do, isn’t it?
In my experience (and I’ve had quite a bit of it), there is no one mind that all Tea Party people think with, nor do they all have a single background, personality type or set of beliefs. They are just about as diverse as everybody else.
Are there crazy people in the movement? I’ve got a better question for you — how on earth could they really be kept out of it? What would you have the organizers do, post signs that say “NO CRAZIES ALLOWED?” Since crazy people generally don’t realize that they’re crazy, they probably wouldn’t recognize that we meant those signs for them.
This is America, Tom. And the Tea Party movement is a diverse one. Much more diverse than its critics are willing to give it credit for being. Do I like everybody in the movement? No, but this isn’t junior high. Adults need to get along even with the people they wouldn’t want to sit next to in the cafeteria.
When are the “progressives” going to disavow those at anti-war rallies who brandish signs saying things like “SPAY AND NEUTER THE FILTHY JEWS?” I’m not saying you would carry one of those, but if I’m responsible for everybody who shows up at a Tea Party rally, then turnabout is surely fair play. Don’t forget, I’ve also been to quite a number of anti-war rallies, and I’ve seen some of thoss signs.
I don’t need to be told how unattractive, clueless and totally irresponsible some people on the right still are. That is, not insignificantly, why I am not a Republican.
What gay conservatives, and gay Republicans, are saying is that they think it makes more sense for them to work within a party whose basic beliefs they share, rather than getting all thin-skinned about “what some people say.”
I applaud their maturity. I think they’re right. If I agreed with more of the Republican Party’s platform, I’d not hesitate to become a member of the GOP myself.
posted by Tom on
Lori: When are the “progressives” going to disavow those at anti-war rallies who brandish signs saying things like “SPAY AND NEUTER THE FILTHY JEWS?” I’m not saying you would carry one of those, but if I’m responsible for everybody who shows up at a Tea Party rally, then turnabout is surely fair play. Don’t forget, I’ve also been to quite a number of anti-war rallies, and I’ve seen some of those signs.
No, but you are suggesting, I think, that I’m a “progressive”, whatever that is supposed to mean, or would feel the need to explain or defend them. As for anti-Semitism, I do not tolerate it, whether of the hard-core or soft-core variety. Let me simply say that I am well aware that virulent anti-Semitism is alive and well in American society, on both the left and the right, and leave it at that.
Lori: This is America, Tom. And the Tea Party movement is a diverse one. Much more diverse than its critics are willing to give it credit for being. Do I like everybody in the movement? No, but this isn’t junior high. Adults need to get along even with the people they wouldn’t want to sit next to in the cafeteria.
I am primarily familiar with the Tea Party in central Wisconsin, where I live. The tax day gatherings in our area headlined a speaker who was so unsavory — racist, secessionist — that other speakers refused to go on the platform with him. There may be Tea Party people with a balanced, in depth understanding American history, but they are not evident in the movement here; most of the Tea Party folks in this area make Michele Bachmann sound like a well-tempered clavier. And that’s tough to do.
Lori: What gay conservatives, and gay Republicans, are saying is that they think it makes more sense for them to work within a party whose basic beliefs they share, rather than getting all thin-skinned about “what some people say.”
I’m glad that gay conservatives are working in the Republican party to bring it around to half-sensible positions on gay and lesbian issues. I frankly think that if more conservative gays and lesbians got active in their local parties — as open gays and lesbians — it would do a world of good for the party.
I get off the boat when Stephen Miller and others criticize those of us who are not Republicans for failing to support “gay-friendly” Republicans, as if there is something so precious about the Republican party that the rest of us have a responsibility to turn it around. That’s nonsense, in my view.
Lori: Do I like everybody in the [Tea Party] movement? No, but this isn’t junior high. Adults need to get along even with the people they wouldn’t want to sit next to in the cafeteria.
In rural areas, we generally do, if for no other reason than that we know we will be seeing each other the next day, and most of us are related, on way or another, to half the people who live around us.
I personally like the half-dozen people I know who are in the Tea Party movement in this area. We work together on community projects and volunteer together in local organizations. That doesn’t stop me from arguing with them about politics or pointing out that many of the things they say are half-baked, at best.
posted by Lori Heine on
“That doesn’t stop me from arguing with them about politics or pointing out that many of the things they say are half-baked, at best.”
And that’s a good thing. The fact that you know each other is helpful — it’s always easier to come to an understanding when you see the faces and know the names.
Some of the more partisan portions of the media — on both right and left — distort people’s views and lie about them. It’s always a positive development when people can actually meet and overcome the prejudices that form because of that.
posted by BobN on
I get off the boat when Stephen Miller and others criticize those of us who are not Republicans for failing to support “gay-friendly” Republicans, as if there is something so precious about the Republican party that the rest of us have a responsibility to turn it around. That’s nonsense, in my view.
And especially when he chastises Democrats and national gay-rights groups for failing to support moderate Republicans when the gay Republicans group he says we should work with opposes the candidate we’re supposed to donate to.
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