If it seems that easy, you are doing it wrong

As the debate over healthcare reform nears the final rounds-- the last desperate punches are being thrown, the threat of a government shutdown looms in the near future, another debt-ceiling debacle lurks around the corner, patiently waiting to take another bite out of the country's credit rating and the economy-- the airwaves have been flooded by pundits, talking heads and various experts who just happen to have great media skills.

All of them are ready with a simple headline, talking point or summary that encapsulates a sentiment which amounts to this: this is an easy problem to fix/avoid, the country just needs to do X.

Whether the answer is to stop mandating how Americans choose to live (healthcare, abortion), or stop doing things that hurt the middle class (cutting education funding, food stamps) the answer, according to these sages of the airwaves is so simple that anyone who does not do it must be an idiot.

I wonder why these problems haven't been fixed yet? The solutions are so simple.

Part of the answer as to why it seems that the country is caught in a deep ideological divide that cannot be bridged is because everyone has a simple answer.

The challenges that we are trying to deal with at the national level aren't simple problems, ergo they don't have simple answers.

Ideologies are simple, that is why they are popular and easy to sell on the airwaves.

Big government: bad. Big Business: bad

It is generally that easy.

A Luddite might say the answer is to stop relying on technology. A Capitalist might say the answer is to let the market sort it out. A Utopian might say we all need to share and live off of the earth.

End of story, stop X behavior, or take X singular action and poof there go all of the problems. Why won't people just listen?

The Free-Market Fix: Doing Nothing, Solves Nothing

Again, complex problems generally can't be sorted out with simple actions. And-- this part is important--even simple actions have complex consequences in a complex, heterogeneous society.

Why doesn't the government simply get out of the business world, except for moderately taxing profits, and let the market self-correct? Isn't that what laissez-faire economics says? The Invisible
Hand will correct the market.

Invoking Adam Smith's Invisible Hand is the magic formula for getting government out of business. It is simple, an oscillation of self-correction like the classic wolves and rabbits poulation example from Biology 101: More wolves makes less rabbits, less rabbits leads to less wolves, which leads to more rabbits and so forth.

Simple. And wrong. (Also, if you believe in that as a format for commerce, you are encouraging anarchy-like, to-the-death business practices)

There are two major issues (well, actually it is not that simple either, but bear with me) with the laissez-faire model that have led to modern economists ditching the laissez-faire model (the real ones, not the ones who make a paycheck for spouting what someone wants them to say). First, businesses are out to make a profit, not to make things better for the consumer. Which plays into the second factor, pure competition is not a great way to make profit.

Sure, if monopolies are broken up, they can't drive up prices because there is more competition. But, just because multiple companies have to compete for market share, does not mean that they cannot draw their battle lines in a way to minimize risk--and maximize profits across the board.

That means that just because Apple and Samsung or Pepsi and Coke are competing doesn't mean that the price is going to go down dramatically.

Companies realize that even an incomplete market share can generate tidy profits as long as the margin is big enough. Simply put, they tacitly agree not to start a price war. They offer incentives that include sale prices, but neither company will drastically undercut the other because they both would rather take guaranteed profits over the risk associated with trying to win a true competition.

It gets worse. "Competitors" can outright agree to simultaneously raise prices to increase profits for both, ensuring that neither loses significant market share (well, depending on the price-elasticity of the product and pain point of the consumer--I did warn you that it is not simple).

So that is why the government needs to be involved in regulating business. The government's job is to level the playing field between buyers and sellers. How much government should be involved is another complex question.

If you don't believe me, watch this clip from the film A Beautiful Mind. It is about a real economist, John Nash, who made Adam Smith's model obsolete.

The healthcare reform plan draws on this understanding of leveling playing fields. The consumer pain point for healthcare is pretty high (if you don't pay, you could die--are you going to refuse treatment because of cost?)

That is why there is health insurance. Of course, some people are more expensive to insure-- they have more costly medical conditions. Insurance companies realized that healthy people are more profitable to insure. If one company accepts all of the higher risk patients (riskier to profits) then they are out of business.

Government to the Rescue or Invading Our Freedoms?

By mandating that everyone purchase health insurance, more healthy people are in the system. This allows insurance companies to function with a reasonable risk and accept higher cost patients. As long as the pool of the insured is large, insurance companies can afford to offer coverage to those with preexisting conditions and still make a reasonable profit. Simply put, the government mandate balances the sicker patients higher costs with the insurance companies ability to make a profit.

Is the plan perfect? No. Are there problems associated with it that will need to be addressed in the future? Almost guaranteed.  Should the country scrap it and go back to the old way with sick cancer patients losing health coverage because their treatments are too costly?

One side says simply: Yes.
They want their profits back without all of these tedious regulations. So they are running this ad:

Of course, this debate is not as simple as a gloved, governmental finger in the rear.  And it has been argued many times, and will be argued many more. But anyone who tries to tell you that the answer is simple, is simply full of it --and I don't mean full of Creepy Anti-Obamacare Uncle Sam.


Bonus: Daily Show compares Creepy Uncle Sam to Burger King Mascot and more.

More from the ‘Merica Machine: Egypt, do you know what your problem is? You aren’t ‘Merican enough.

Congresspersons Michele Bachmann, Steve King and Louie Gohmert traveled to Egypt and held a press conference. It turns out that they have all of the solutions to Egypt’s problems. Egypt simply needs to be more, well, more American. 

In this truly bizarre conference the Representatives of the United States Congress seemed to lose sight of the fact that, in Egypt, their audience isn’t full of fundamentalist, conservative Americans.  Seriously, watch the video from The Daily Show below.
 

Jon Stewart and Co’s befuddlement is orders below what I imagine the Egyptian peoples’ was. (The full video of the press conference can be found here ).

True to form, they were condescing from the get-go, like they were talking to children. Michele Bachmann's introduction set the tone: "My name is Michele Bachmann and I am a member United States Congress of the United  States of America." This preceded a bizarre parade of references to the American Founding Fathers and their infallible wisdom (from their silence, we are to assume the Founding Fathers agree with everything that is said about them).

 Let me clarify this: Egypt isn’t America.

I am sure most Americans would not take it kindly if someone from Russia or Germany came to tell America that we should act more like them and less like us.

Being American has a lot of benefits—children aren’t forced to work in sweatshop factories, we aren’t subject to an autocratic theological regime--unless these three actually get their way and make the US a “Christian” nation in which loving thy neighbor means telling them exactly what to do and how to live.

In Egypt, the people revolted and overthrew the rule of a dictator. In the elections that followed, the Muslim brotherhood took control of the government. The government then started to enact legislation that forced the entire country to live by the strict fundamentalist religious guidelines of their particular interpretation of Islam.

The funny thing about the three Congresspersons giving the press conference in Egypt is that they are very anti-autocratic Muslim law.  If it was Christian law that was being forced on to the people—in Egypt or in America—then those three start to sing a very different tune:

Steve King thinks that it is okay for a Christian to run over dogs as long as he apologizes.

Louie Gohmert thinks that not forcing members of the military to be Christian is infringing on their First Amendment rights, and that the Aurora shootings are a direct result of attacks on Christianity. 

And Michele Bachmann—there are far too many examples to quote. 

One of the benefits of being American that I personally forget to take advantage of on a regular basis is the right to be completely condescending to every other person in the world who isn’t American or Christian. 

Like Stewart says, someday Egypt might just figure it out and leave something that lasts. Something iconic that will be in people’s minds whenever they think of Egypt. Learn from America’s history because we are America and in American we have things that were built over 200 years ago.

It is a good thing that these three were there to guide the way.

In all of the turmoil of Egypt’s revolution-- and resultant election and then subsequent military overthrow of the government-- at least there is one thing in which the Egyptian people can take comfort: at least these there aren’t part of their government.

A rose by any other name...could kill you

GMOs, (Not-so)Deadly Apple juice and the most dangerous chemical in the world.

The most dangerous chemical in the world is found in almost every type of food, but the government won’t ban it, or even require it to be labeled.  Dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO) is a major part of acid rain and it can be deadly to inhale. DHMO inhalation on average kills two children aged 14 years or younger every day (CDC). But, the major media outlets and their corporate sponsors run propaganda campaigns touting the benefit of DHMO.

DHMO really is the most deadly and destructive chemical in the world. Damage caused by DHMO costs the government and insurance companies billions of dollars every year. DHMO has been a major cause of death and destruction in some of the worst disasters in recent memory.

Hopefully, something about this doesn’t smell quite right to you, although I am telling the complete 100% percent, factual, sourced truth.

Well, mostly.

I did however omit the common name of DHMO in favor of its sinister sounding chemical name. There are also a few benefits of DHMO I haven’t mentioned. Like the fact that it improves athletic performance, it is essential to functioning ecosystems, and the fact that there would be no life on this planet without DHMO.

That’s right, dihydrogen monoxide is an odorless, colorless killer, but humanity has no choice but to live in fear of the dangers posed by DHMO.

Alright, so DHMO is really the long-form chemical name for the chemical formula H₂0.

Water. It is deadly. 

Thanks to DHMO.org for this image

Every week it seems that there is a VNR on the local or national news. A daytime talk show host has someone on their show with a doctor title (although they don’t always tell you what the doctorate is in) who tells the audience in a concerned and sympathetic voice why they should be afraid of what is in their food.

Enter “Frankenfoods”  like the so-called Golden Rice. Be afraid- be very afraid. They are not natural. They are made by mad scientists or some type of alchemists. Of course, keeping things the way they are found in nature is always better, right?  (See, natural fallacy). So stop drinking your artificially purified water (including bottled “spring” water, it has to be purified before it can be sold).

Facebook activists, documentary film makers and others have brought the anti-GMO debate onto the national stage.

Wait, I think I’ve heard this before…

Two summers ago, it was Dr. Oz, the white-toothed TV doctor who could easily find work as a used car salesman, who made American audiences aware of the danger of drinking apple juice in his segment “Arsenic in Apple Juice.”

America's response: “What?! Arsenic is a deadly chemical used in terror attacks and it is in our apple juice! I give that to my kids.”

And that is just the type of sensational headline and reaction the Dr. Oz and his writers –or, more to the point, the companies that advertise in his time slot –love.

What an important thing to bring to light: an everyday substance that can cause real danger to vulnerable, innocent children. Pictures of little Suzy in pigtails drinking a bottle of drain cleaner springs to mind.

And we can’t have that. Poisoning kids is wrong.

End of story.

These companies should be flogged, drawn and quartered and run out of America. This isn’t some third-world country where companies can just exploit the health of children for corporate gain. Mom blogs and Facebook groups took action in outrage, forcing the FDA to announce that it was reevaluating its arsenic standards.

Well, I am glad that the good Doctor saved our children from “Arsenic in Apple Juice.”

On second thought, I call Bull*&%t.

People have been drinking apple juice for decades, and we are just finding out about it know. So where are the lines of victims carrying their children to Emergency Rooms? Where are the insurance forms that ask:

Please Check Yes or No for the following:

Are You a Smoker:

Do You drink Apple Juice:

Subsequent reports found that Dr. Oz’s claims had several faults. First, not all arsenic is toxic. There is the inorganic chemical variety, which is what was put in the terrorist letters. Then there is the organic variety, which is benign. Then, there is the fact that every test that tried to replicate Dr. Oz’s results (including the FDA) could only find levels that were six time lower than Dr. Oz’s. In fact, arsenic is generally always present in the human body. So, as long as apple juice is not the only thing that one eats or drinks, there is nothing to worry about (and likely not even then).

Franken-Food for Vitamins?

There might also be arsenic in rice, according to several more scientific studies. Although the levels are not likely to be a risk to any Americans.

However, in many parts of the world, hundreds of millions of people can only afford to eat rice for almost every meal.  Arsenic is only one of the chemicals that someone who eats rice for almost every meal needs to worry about.  Pesticides, which contain chemicals that make arsenic look like a candy cane,  have to be sprayed on rice to keep insects from eating the crop. Oh, and the fact that a rice-only diet doesn’t have a lot of those vitamin things.

Genetically-modified "Golden" rice is resistant to insects, so it doesn’t require pesticide sprays and it has increased levels of beta-keratin which helps with the human body synthesize and absorb vitamins. So, Golden Rice is a short term solution to keeping the poor healthy and pesticide-free. What a terrible thing these mad scientists are doing.

But, Monsanto…, say the activists. Well, Monsanto may be the epitome of shitty, big-businesses -pardon my French. If one wants to protest their business practices, fine. But just because I don’t trust Fords, doesn’t mean that I will give up driving altogether.

Hundreds of companies use bad business practices. The only time they really change is when one of two things happens:

One, the government takes legal action against a company to the extent that it hurts the bottom-line – but lobbying paying companies don’t see that extensive action very often.

Or, public opinion creates enough of a controversy that it hurts a company’s bottom line.

That is just the problem. Like Monsanto or not, like GMOs or not they outrage being created isn't about what the TV, or Facebook, or other  actvists sources tell us.

Creating a public scare, or public outrage is just a way to get things done. Public opinion generally still relies on what used to be the fourth estate the (press/media) of American freedom to put a check on the government and shady businesses. Big businesses now mostly control the media, which have a large stake in swaying politicians through their checkbooks.

So, the point is that the media, Dr Oz and the anti-X activists are selling something. Which makes them completely trustworthy.

Because ...- "'Murica!"

Let me tell you why, Freedom - that's why.

One of the things that’s frustrates me the most when I am watching or reading the news is that the “discussions” don’t include reasons and evidence to support a position. Reasons and evidence can be put in context and argued, parallels can be drawn, and lessons from history can be applied to contemporary choices.

  

Instead, they appeal to a moral authority that can’t disagree. Some of these justifications hold a definite persuasive power, but some are just plain funny when the  person in question gets so used to making this argument that they forgot these were actual people with real, factual histories – see Michele Bachman's hysterical quote on slavery.

Is this what the Founding Fathers would have wanted?  Or: This is what Jesus would do. Or my favorite: Because we are America –‘Murica!

Which means that a real discussion would happen; thereby causing one- or both- sides to have to compromise or change their stance.  As a politician or a pundit, you job is not to foster discussion, but to sell your point of view.

The reasoning they sell us goes like this: We all know that America is the ­­­­_____ (Insert superlative: greatest, most free, richest, best beacon of democracy), therefore it is our (Sometimes, God-given) duty or right to do X.

Image Courtesy of memegenerator.net

In this segment, Bill O’Reilly makes the case for intervention in Syria. His case is that America has freed people since WWII and should continue to be noble. No discussion of what has happened to the “freed” people after we intervened or talk about the cost from someone who is normally a deficit hawk. No, the reasons he provides are America’s nobility and because—America.

Of course, we all want to think we are the best at something. As Americans, we can include ourselves as part of the best, most rightest, awesome, flag-waving, bald eagle scream of freedom and democracy, and therefore we should: 

• Restrict guns
• Not restrict guns 
• Bomb Syria
• Fund education 
• Reduce the deficit 
• Increase military spending 
• Stand Your Ground
• Repeal Stand Your Ground 
• Share the American Dream who whoever wants 
• Keep America free for Americans 
• Keep the freeloaders away from our hard-earned tax dollars 
• Care for the sick and poor and less fortunate

Image Courtesy of quickmeme.com

Whatever the cause, it sure beats all of that tiresome research. And since no other country is America, whatever they do, we can’t learn from them. Why would we want to learn from other countries who have universal health care, or gun reform laws, or repeal the same? Whatever the lessons that they may hold, they don’t apply to us, ‘cause we are ‘Murica!

A Crow’s Murder – About the blog and the author.

                This blog has been a spark floating somewhere in my consciousness, behind the random clutter of deadlines, work, schooling, etc until it was forced in existence in the ephemeral world that is known as the blogosphere by an assignment for an English class. So, A Crow’s Murder moved from the realm of speculation in my cluttered consciousness, where it probably should have stayed into the realm of the pseudo-existence, the internet. 

Is the author advocating the cruel and unusual treatment of avian species? 

The obsidian-winged members of the family corvidae have been used as a metaphor , portent, omen and harbinger ad nauseum.  The crow was the portent of death and retribution in the film named after the bird which claimed the life of Brandon Lee. The crow had its name sullied by racism and discrimination when the forename Jim preceded it. A crow is considered a harbinger of the devil because they feast on dead flesh, removing the potential for spreading bacterial disease and noxious fumes that accompany roadkill on a hot day. 

The crow is in the same family as blue jays and magpies, but the crow has been the one chosen by society to represent a manifestation of death and ill tidings instead of its singing, carrion cousin the magpie or the azure-winged aggressor, the blue jay. And as such the group noun for crows was chosen with its arbitrarily assigned anthropomorphic attributes in mind. Thus in North America one may observe a herd of deer, a flock of sheep, a gaggle of geese and murder of crows. 

The word “crow” has another meaning: “crow, v: to make the loud shrill sound characteristic of a cock,” or to “to exult gloatingly especially over the distress of another; to brag exultantly or blatantly.” And thus in this sense I will use the verb “to crow” to use back-formation and create an alternate noun meaning for “crow:”

Crow: one who makes the loud, shrill sound of a cock, while gloating exultantly over the distress of another and brags exultantly. See also: The mass media.

The crows in the mass media, especially those charged with representing and reporting current, factual events, have become enamored of the ratings-creating spectacle. While entertainment is a valid form of recreation, the spectacle that so engrosses the glazed-eye, drooling public is removing itself more and more from facts, relying instead on logically inconsistent methods and fallacious reasoning. Not to mention a gross lack of reputable sourcing. (Don’t believe me? Listen to a 24-hour news network for an hour an count the number of times a story is lead with words to the effect of “Some say.” or watch it here).

 With that definition in mind, “A Crow’s Murder” is my homage to how logic, reason and the basics of the English language can be used to sift through din of the crows. I promise the reader that I will attempt to keep updates regular and relevant. I hope that you find the posts entertaining and informative. I will post about any material that I find, and if you are offended by my critique of something dear to your personal beliefs, that is fine. I am not trying to force my beliefs on anyone, but I am trying to foster a discussion of media and rhetorical techniques that are more about pathos and less about logos.