May 2024
To family
24/05/24 13:43
Wrote this to a family member, here for the record:
One last stab:
Let’s start where I think we agree.
This is off the top of my head, but, I think, a good starting point. I hope you find these acceptable.
Ok, now let’s briefly start where you begin:
I agree that the pharmaceutical industry is corrupt. When that idiot bought the company selling insulin, and raised the prices, that wasn’t fair. And he was rightly punished.
On the other hand, it is indisputable that vaccines have saved lives. Smallpox, measles, polio, the list goes on.
Now, we can disagree over whether Covid was legit or manufactured to benefit pharm companies. That, to me, is small potatoes.
There’s corruption in healthcare overall. Why was the Affordable Care Act necessary? Predatory insurance companies were raising rates and offering misleading policies. It created a floor for minimum coverage. And many more folks have been covered post-ACA than before. As an anecdote, it saved my family; as an independent my healthcare costs were rising precipitously, and Declan still wasn’t covered! After ACA, we got an affordable good plan that covered us all, and the rises were much less onerous.
This continues in other industries. There are government subsidies for fossil fuels, aviation, agriculture, and food. Yet people can’t afford rent, let alone a house. Despite fossil fuels and food notoriously misleading us (effects of climate change, fat versus sugar). Look at the tobacco industry about smoking!
By the way, climate change is real. When there’s a huge consensus across sectors and independent agents, and the only arguments are from the periphery with a lack of credibility, you can consider it to be known. In addition, it’s not getting better. We need to take drastic action now, because we’ve ignored it or dithered for too long. If you don’t want a world where the equator is uninhabitable, and the seas have risen to completely change the world’s geography, you need to work with others to help.
Overall, the problem really lies with our economic policies. Shareholders demand short-term returns and MBA-equipped execs are rewarded for agreeing. CEO vs worker pay inequities have escalated. We should be rewarding companies that do right by their people. (Others saw this decades ago, I remember reading The Japan that Can Say No while a grad student.) Unions have had their problems, but they arose for a reason, and led to major improvements in quality of life for many. The efforts to squelch them are misguided at best.
Regulation’s necessary to prevent these overreaches. Demonstrably, companies will try to exploit people for profits. And, the old ‘competition allows for improvement’ argument doesn’t work when there’s little real competition, collusion is continually demonstrated, and the power of money supersedes that of truth. Citizens United is a horrible example of that. Allowing companies to have unlimited money to influence elections and legislation is a sad outcome. And we’re paying the price.
For the record, it’s not the liberal presidencies that have had fiscal irresponsibility. Republicans regularly promote expensive programs that cut taxes and benefit big business. Then, when the pendulum swings to the other side, they decry the budget, and claim that they have to take out social security and medicare. Yet, social security is our money, which shouldn’t be available to anybody (which reminds me of those evil funds that bought companies and looted people’s retirement savings; the’s just heinous!). Medicare, btw, is great, and I love those who say that national healthcare is so difficult that only all but one of the world’s most civilized nations have managed to accomplish it. I lived it, it works.
Women’s health is another issue. I don’t like abortion; most people don’t. A majority also agree it’s at least currently necessary. No kid should be born into a home where they aren’t wanted and can’t be supported. If a child is a product of rape, or a mother’s life is threatened, or the child is going to be born with debilitating birth defects, it doesn’t make sense to force birth. The argument isn’t about children, of course, or there’s be much more support for, say, childcare. No, it’s about control.
Immigration, too, is being misconstrued. Yes, we have lots of people trying to get into the US. And, yes, maybe some have nefarious intentions. Yet, the evidence shows they’re less likely to commit crimes, they can’t vote, and they give more in taxes than they take in services. On the other hand, in many cases they’re escaping horrific home country situations (see Central America, China, Venezuela, etc) and looking for economic opportunity. It takes two things: efforts to help those home countries, and drying up the economic opportunities (read: the people who hire them). Recognize also that we need a number of these people who work in our restaurants and harvest our crops, amongst other jobs. What we need is a immigration policy that allows guest workers, and provides paths for legitimate asylum. NOT misinformation about a border invasion.
Even your concerns about weapons manufacturing are not completely on target. Yes, I don’t like that we’re the arms manufacturer to the world. That’s not what the progressives want, by the way, that’s purely a ‘let business be business’ issue. A conservative issue. BTW, how many arms manufacturers are being supported by illicit unregulated sales to be smuggled to cartels below the border and to gangs? I don’t want to take your guns, but I bloody well do want gun control. Remember the bit about “well-regulated”? The NRA has prevented even collecting data, but folks have worked around it and demonstrated that handguns are more trouble than they’re worth. Even that noted liberal band (#sarcasm) Lynyrd Skynyrd wrote about it!
As to funding wars, we’re not in Ukraine. Yes, we’re funding support. For a simple reason, Russia invaded. We have to fight against Putin’s aggression. And authoritarianism in general (see Xi, Un, etc). We have an obligation to ourselves and the rest of the world to join them in resisting aggression. You have to stand up to bullies, together, or they’ll band together and oppress you. The path to peace is to maintain deterrents until others are no longer belligerent, and we can negotiate shared reductions to everyone’s benefit. We’ve done it before, and we can do it again.
Finally, I’ll weigh in on voting rights. It’s been empirically demonstrated that there’s little voter fraud. So why the grandstanding and efforts to limit opportunities to vote? It’s about securing the rights of the wealthy, under the guise of protecting rights of (white) voters. Gerrymandering, throwing people off rolls, and more is about restricting voting to allow a the few to continue to oppress the many.
Look, people are generally good, but can be coerced or corrupted. We’re not formally logical beings. We have to use our minds and our means to fight for what’s right. We need to look to evidence-based practices, and continue to experiment to get it right. We need to fight against those who use misinformation to distract us for political or financial ends.
That’s what I do, using methods I’ve studied. And I have; I’ve studied how we think and learn. I’ve researched and debunked myths. And I’ve looked at why myths persist. I use methods to validate what I believe, and also to look for the possibility I’m wrong. I’ve mentioned what works, and what doesn’t.
It’s up to you how you want to proceed. I just suggest that science and journalism are not the enemies, and that there’s not a progressive conspiracy to ruin America. We live here! We don’t want to ruin it, we want to make it better. To become what it used to be, where folks can, on one reasonable salary, afford a house, and college for their kids, in a clean and peaceful world. That’s what I’m working for.
One last stab:
Let’s start where I think we agree.
- We want a good world for our offspring. Healthy, balanced. This, of course, applies to all.
- We want peace. As ELO sang “he should walk with no care in the world”. For us, and everyone.
- We went equity. No one should be suffering for the sake of others.
- If someone is unfairly rendering inquiry onto others, we want justice. If someone’s wronged, there should be accountability.
This is off the top of my head, but, I think, a good starting point. I hope you find these acceptable.
Ok, now let’s briefly start where you begin:
I agree that the pharmaceutical industry is corrupt. When that idiot bought the company selling insulin, and raised the prices, that wasn’t fair. And he was rightly punished.
On the other hand, it is indisputable that vaccines have saved lives. Smallpox, measles, polio, the list goes on.
Now, we can disagree over whether Covid was legit or manufactured to benefit pharm companies. That, to me, is small potatoes.
There’s corruption in healthcare overall. Why was the Affordable Care Act necessary? Predatory insurance companies were raising rates and offering misleading policies. It created a floor for minimum coverage. And many more folks have been covered post-ACA than before. As an anecdote, it saved my family; as an independent my healthcare costs were rising precipitously, and Declan still wasn’t covered! After ACA, we got an affordable good plan that covered us all, and the rises were much less onerous.
This continues in other industries. There are government subsidies for fossil fuels, aviation, agriculture, and food. Yet people can’t afford rent, let alone a house. Despite fossil fuels and food notoriously misleading us (effects of climate change, fat versus sugar). Look at the tobacco industry about smoking!
By the way, climate change is real. When there’s a huge consensus across sectors and independent agents, and the only arguments are from the periphery with a lack of credibility, you can consider it to be known. In addition, it’s not getting better. We need to take drastic action now, because we’ve ignored it or dithered for too long. If you don’t want a world where the equator is uninhabitable, and the seas have risen to completely change the world’s geography, you need to work with others to help.
Overall, the problem really lies with our economic policies. Shareholders demand short-term returns and MBA-equipped execs are rewarded for agreeing. CEO vs worker pay inequities have escalated. We should be rewarding companies that do right by their people. (Others saw this decades ago, I remember reading The Japan that Can Say No while a grad student.) Unions have had their problems, but they arose for a reason, and led to major improvements in quality of life for many. The efforts to squelch them are misguided at best.
Regulation’s necessary to prevent these overreaches. Demonstrably, companies will try to exploit people for profits. And, the old ‘competition allows for improvement’ argument doesn’t work when there’s little real competition, collusion is continually demonstrated, and the power of money supersedes that of truth. Citizens United is a horrible example of that. Allowing companies to have unlimited money to influence elections and legislation is a sad outcome. And we’re paying the price.
For the record, it’s not the liberal presidencies that have had fiscal irresponsibility. Republicans regularly promote expensive programs that cut taxes and benefit big business. Then, when the pendulum swings to the other side, they decry the budget, and claim that they have to take out social security and medicare. Yet, social security is our money, which shouldn’t be available to anybody (which reminds me of those evil funds that bought companies and looted people’s retirement savings; the’s just heinous!). Medicare, btw, is great, and I love those who say that national healthcare is so difficult that only all but one of the world’s most civilized nations have managed to accomplish it. I lived it, it works.
Women’s health is another issue. I don’t like abortion; most people don’t. A majority also agree it’s at least currently necessary. No kid should be born into a home where they aren’t wanted and can’t be supported. If a child is a product of rape, or a mother’s life is threatened, or the child is going to be born with debilitating birth defects, it doesn’t make sense to force birth. The argument isn’t about children, of course, or there’s be much more support for, say, childcare. No, it’s about control.
Immigration, too, is being misconstrued. Yes, we have lots of people trying to get into the US. And, yes, maybe some have nefarious intentions. Yet, the evidence shows they’re less likely to commit crimes, they can’t vote, and they give more in taxes than they take in services. On the other hand, in many cases they’re escaping horrific home country situations (see Central America, China, Venezuela, etc) and looking for economic opportunity. It takes two things: efforts to help those home countries, and drying up the economic opportunities (read: the people who hire them). Recognize also that we need a number of these people who work in our restaurants and harvest our crops, amongst other jobs. What we need is a immigration policy that allows guest workers, and provides paths for legitimate asylum. NOT misinformation about a border invasion.
Even your concerns about weapons manufacturing are not completely on target. Yes, I don’t like that we’re the arms manufacturer to the world. That’s not what the progressives want, by the way, that’s purely a ‘let business be business’ issue. A conservative issue. BTW, how many arms manufacturers are being supported by illicit unregulated sales to be smuggled to cartels below the border and to gangs? I don’t want to take your guns, but I bloody well do want gun control. Remember the bit about “well-regulated”? The NRA has prevented even collecting data, but folks have worked around it and demonstrated that handguns are more trouble than they’re worth. Even that noted liberal band (#sarcasm) Lynyrd Skynyrd wrote about it!
As to funding wars, we’re not in Ukraine. Yes, we’re funding support. For a simple reason, Russia invaded. We have to fight against Putin’s aggression. And authoritarianism in general (see Xi, Un, etc). We have an obligation to ourselves and the rest of the world to join them in resisting aggression. You have to stand up to bullies, together, or they’ll band together and oppress you. The path to peace is to maintain deterrents until others are no longer belligerent, and we can negotiate shared reductions to everyone’s benefit. We’ve done it before, and we can do it again.
Finally, I’ll weigh in on voting rights. It’s been empirically demonstrated that there’s little voter fraud. So why the grandstanding and efforts to limit opportunities to vote? It’s about securing the rights of the wealthy, under the guise of protecting rights of (white) voters. Gerrymandering, throwing people off rolls, and more is about restricting voting to allow a the few to continue to oppress the many.
Look, people are generally good, but can be coerced or corrupted. We’re not formally logical beings. We have to use our minds and our means to fight for what’s right. We need to look to evidence-based practices, and continue to experiment to get it right. We need to fight against those who use misinformation to distract us for political or financial ends.
That’s what I do, using methods I’ve studied. And I have; I’ve studied how we think and learn. I’ve researched and debunked myths. And I’ve looked at why myths persist. I use methods to validate what I believe, and also to look for the possibility I’m wrong. I’ve mentioned what works, and what doesn’t.
It’s up to you how you want to proceed. I just suggest that science and journalism are not the enemies, and that there’s not a progressive conspiracy to ruin America. We live here! We don’t want to ruin it, we want to make it better. To become what it used to be, where folks can, on one reasonable salary, afford a house, and college for their kids, in a clean and peaceful world. That’s what I’m working for.
