We are now in the season of Lent, which is a traditional 40-day period before Easter in which people make sacrifices to understand the importance of Easter. While Lent still has a very Catholic connotation, especially with Catholics giving up meat on Fridays or wearing ashes on their foreheads, many Protestant churches also encourage giving something up for Lent.
I began celebrating Lent in high school because a Catholic friend was. After sitting down and thinking hard about what a fast was and why this is an appropriate way to become closer to Jesus, I decided to join in the fun. That year I gave up pop. In subsequent years I gave up chocolate and TV, etc.
In college a Protestant Bible Study leader encouraged us to delve deeper into Lent and give something up that was more meaningful. Giving up chocolate is a fake fallback because it makes us healthier anyways. We should give up something that is standing in our way of God. This led to more serious contemplation and the giving up of time in order to grow closer to God (more prayer, going to daily church, etc.)
Since then, I have heard that we should give up something that is "intrinsically good." Something that is not a problem for us. This goes back to not giving up something that will actually make you a healthier or better person just by giving it up. If that were the case, you should be doing it already anyways, or at least practicing moderation. Perhaps a good example, using this philosophy, is giving up listening to music on the way to work. Now you have more time to pray to God. In addition, if you are not somehow addicted to music, this is an example of giving something up that is intrinsically good (if the music isn't dirty) and not a problem for you.
This Lent I was struck by the power of the season itself. It had never hit me before that much of the Christian world spends 40 days preparing for Easter. That's about 1/9th of the year! We already give up 1/7th of the year on Sundays to go to church.
The power of what Jesus did on the cross, by dying and rising again, restoring us all to life and forgiving us of all our sins, is so great, we think of it time and time again. During Lent, we prepare and contemplate, pray, and fast our hearts out, so that when Easter comes we can actually understand what is being placed before us. But even with all that prepration, we can never fully know.
40 days to think and pray. 40 days to consider your worth in the eyese of God. 40 days to try to wrap your mind around the crucifiction and why it had to happen and what it did. 40 days to learn about this great man. 40 days to draw close to God and attempt to become a better Christian.
This is truly a great season!
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
The Love Approach Part II
I've been posting a lot of political blogs recently, and the main reason is that at lunchtime at my new job I scan through all the news websites (and MSN for its quirky stories) and then spend the rest of the day thinking about the news. I cannot promise that future posts will be either funny or political. However, I want to wrap my thoughts together.
My political views, shaped by my dad by the time I was eight and furthered through logic as I grew, tend to be of a minimalist government and capitalist society. I love history and acknowledge the advances we have made. There were gross abuses of the capitalist system, however, I cannot see that government regulation has made much of a positive impact since the middle of the 20th century. Once workers were being treated fairly and safely and laws were in place to protect consumers, capitalism pretty much had everything it needed.
I recently discussed my views with a friend over lunch. I mentioned abuses to capitalist systems - such as fraud, intent to deceive buyers, and so on. She made an excellent point - even these abuses, under a truly capitalist society, get discovered and rectified. Think about Enron. The people who committed fraud at Enron today are not rich, many are in jail, and the company is gone. The unfortunate side effect is that the hundreds of innocent people involved in that scandal also saw financial ruin.
In a way, this is a fairly black and white view.
That brings me to my other point. I believe in pure capitalism, but I also believe in charity. Sometimes people, whether due to situations in their control or not, cannot rise to the advantages of a capitalist society. When that happens, those of us who can should aid them. America is great because no one need go without a home or food because there is always a homeless shelter or food kitchen to provide for needs. (Of course, we still have homeless for many reasons, but most efforts to help these people off the streets end in failure, as this lifestyle is of their choosing). There are programs for education and self betterment as well, and still plenty left over to help other countries.
Even in charity, capitalism is a helpful tool. It is better to teach a man to fish, they say. And ultimately, we all want to have jobs and to feel usefully employed. Think about the early Christians - they shared everything, and no one was rich or poor (which is essentially communism), but they also made a point that everyone work to their ability.
Capitalism is a good system for a good economy, but charity is a good system for a good society. Unfortunately, when charity gets written into the economy through government intervention, the opposite of what is intended can happen. I have heard that some people believe their taxes are too low. In their human sympathy, they feel guilt about their well-off position and wish to spread the wealth. However, because they have come to rely on the government to spread the wealth, they don't even think to actually spend their own take-home pay on charitable works. Others spend the money but do not get involved. Every election year, the media reports charitable giving by candidates. It always seems the candiate who is most anxious to institute government social programs is the one who spends the lowest percentage of his income on charity.
I could go on and on in different directions that I may take in future blogs. However, I want to give an example of why it is so important that changes in society be brought about by love and not government intervention. Because I am a woman, I feel the following is an appropriate example.
The historical picture for women has been mostly negative. For thousands of years, culture and laws did not allow us to vote, hold well paying or respecatble jobs, or escape from abusive marriages. However, thorughout history there have been shining stars of women who achieved great things. Many times, I look upon these women only to discover that there was a man who believed in them. A father or husband taught her his trade, encouraged her to get an education, or so on. This does not mean that women could not succeed on their own (many did) but only is an example of how the love and care of a man was often pivotal for success.
So it was with gaining the right to vote. How do you "gain" the right to vote? You can't vote yourself the right. Someone else has to vote it for you. The first state to allow women to vote had to do so on the urging of men. The first woman elected to congress was voted for by men and women. But how do you get men to allow women to vote? Because the men who know women and love women see that they need to have a voice. Because men realize that the system as it stands is unfair to women and unethical on a human rights level.
Essentially, love only, not government mandates, allowed women to reach equal voting ground with men.
Throughout the first half of the century, women gained grounds professionally and educationally. Once again, male institutions had to open up their doors to women out of love and compassion. Women took over in the workforce during the wars and men, gratefully, worked together with them when they came back. Men loved women. Women loved men. Real change happened.
However, in the 1960's and 1970's, the attitude changed. Women started to resent men for various reasons, forgetting that it was men who put them in their position of voting and working. They started demanding more and more "rights," and trying to gain equality. These women are still trying to gain equality, because to them, nothing will ever be enough. They stopped celebrating the beauty of being female and the love and companionship of men, and they started celebrating themselves and their own perceived achievements.
Rules enacted during this time did not serve to help the environment of men and women. It started to become common for companies to feel obligated to hire and promote women, which led to resentment among male employees. Women were given scholarships to colleges that men could not apply to. Women forced their way into all-male organizations. Any given remark was subject to be called sexist. And so on.
Men stopped feeling the need to love women into a position of respect because women were pushing their way in - sometimes causing resentment. So, compare the changes in the first half of the century to the second half. In the first half, women gained the right to vote and to work to support themselves. These concepts have become so embedded in our culture because they work. They are based on love. In the second half, women complained about nearly everything, elbowed their way in to what they could, and complained some more. If anything, although women have the same rights as men, it is possible that they have eroded some of the respect men used to have for them.
This is what I mean when I say that change has to be brought about by love. Once we won the right to vote and work, it was only a matter of time before other equalities fell into place. Hard working women would eventually be rewarded by their bosses with promotions and raises. This may have taken time, just as the voting process took over 100 years, but it would have happened. And then we would live in a world where we are truly equal. Instead, both sexes seem to be constantly looking over their shoulders, always suspecting the other of trying to keep them down. It truly became a battle of the sexes.
This same pattern continues in any venue in which one group of people or the government try to force something upon someone else. To put it another way, all Christians are taught the virtue of charity, but very few give up everything they have for the sake of others. Through our own growth in Christ and love for others we can also help change the world and make it a better place, but any kind of forced response diminishes the physical and spiritual returns of the good it attempted to do.
My political views, shaped by my dad by the time I was eight and furthered through logic as I grew, tend to be of a minimalist government and capitalist society. I love history and acknowledge the advances we have made. There were gross abuses of the capitalist system, however, I cannot see that government regulation has made much of a positive impact since the middle of the 20th century. Once workers were being treated fairly and safely and laws were in place to protect consumers, capitalism pretty much had everything it needed.
I recently discussed my views with a friend over lunch. I mentioned abuses to capitalist systems - such as fraud, intent to deceive buyers, and so on. She made an excellent point - even these abuses, under a truly capitalist society, get discovered and rectified. Think about Enron. The people who committed fraud at Enron today are not rich, many are in jail, and the company is gone. The unfortunate side effect is that the hundreds of innocent people involved in that scandal also saw financial ruin.
In a way, this is a fairly black and white view.
That brings me to my other point. I believe in pure capitalism, but I also believe in charity. Sometimes people, whether due to situations in their control or not, cannot rise to the advantages of a capitalist society. When that happens, those of us who can should aid them. America is great because no one need go without a home or food because there is always a homeless shelter or food kitchen to provide for needs. (Of course, we still have homeless for many reasons, but most efforts to help these people off the streets end in failure, as this lifestyle is of their choosing). There are programs for education and self betterment as well, and still plenty left over to help other countries.
Even in charity, capitalism is a helpful tool. It is better to teach a man to fish, they say. And ultimately, we all want to have jobs and to feel usefully employed. Think about the early Christians - they shared everything, and no one was rich or poor (which is essentially communism), but they also made a point that everyone work to their ability.
Capitalism is a good system for a good economy, but charity is a good system for a good society. Unfortunately, when charity gets written into the economy through government intervention, the opposite of what is intended can happen. I have heard that some people believe their taxes are too low. In their human sympathy, they feel guilt about their well-off position and wish to spread the wealth. However, because they have come to rely on the government to spread the wealth, they don't even think to actually spend their own take-home pay on charitable works. Others spend the money but do not get involved. Every election year, the media reports charitable giving by candidates. It always seems the candiate who is most anxious to institute government social programs is the one who spends the lowest percentage of his income on charity.
I could go on and on in different directions that I may take in future blogs. However, I want to give an example of why it is so important that changes in society be brought about by love and not government intervention. Because I am a woman, I feel the following is an appropriate example.
The historical picture for women has been mostly negative. For thousands of years, culture and laws did not allow us to vote, hold well paying or respecatble jobs, or escape from abusive marriages. However, thorughout history there have been shining stars of women who achieved great things. Many times, I look upon these women only to discover that there was a man who believed in them. A father or husband taught her his trade, encouraged her to get an education, or so on. This does not mean that women could not succeed on their own (many did) but only is an example of how the love and care of a man was often pivotal for success.
So it was with gaining the right to vote. How do you "gain" the right to vote? You can't vote yourself the right. Someone else has to vote it for you. The first state to allow women to vote had to do so on the urging of men. The first woman elected to congress was voted for by men and women. But how do you get men to allow women to vote? Because the men who know women and love women see that they need to have a voice. Because men realize that the system as it stands is unfair to women and unethical on a human rights level.
Essentially, love only, not government mandates, allowed women to reach equal voting ground with men.
Throughout the first half of the century, women gained grounds professionally and educationally. Once again, male institutions had to open up their doors to women out of love and compassion. Women took over in the workforce during the wars and men, gratefully, worked together with them when they came back. Men loved women. Women loved men. Real change happened.
However, in the 1960's and 1970's, the attitude changed. Women started to resent men for various reasons, forgetting that it was men who put them in their position of voting and working. They started demanding more and more "rights," and trying to gain equality. These women are still trying to gain equality, because to them, nothing will ever be enough. They stopped celebrating the beauty of being female and the love and companionship of men, and they started celebrating themselves and their own perceived achievements.
Rules enacted during this time did not serve to help the environment of men and women. It started to become common for companies to feel obligated to hire and promote women, which led to resentment among male employees. Women were given scholarships to colleges that men could not apply to. Women forced their way into all-male organizations. Any given remark was subject to be called sexist. And so on.
Men stopped feeling the need to love women into a position of respect because women were pushing their way in - sometimes causing resentment. So, compare the changes in the first half of the century to the second half. In the first half, women gained the right to vote and to work to support themselves. These concepts have become so embedded in our culture because they work. They are based on love. In the second half, women complained about nearly everything, elbowed their way in to what they could, and complained some more. If anything, although women have the same rights as men, it is possible that they have eroded some of the respect men used to have for them.
This is what I mean when I say that change has to be brought about by love. Once we won the right to vote and work, it was only a matter of time before other equalities fell into place. Hard working women would eventually be rewarded by their bosses with promotions and raises. This may have taken time, just as the voting process took over 100 years, but it would have happened. And then we would live in a world where we are truly equal. Instead, both sexes seem to be constantly looking over their shoulders, always suspecting the other of trying to keep them down. It truly became a battle of the sexes.
This same pattern continues in any venue in which one group of people or the government try to force something upon someone else. To put it another way, all Christians are taught the virtue of charity, but very few give up everything they have for the sake of others. Through our own growth in Christ and love for others we can also help change the world and make it a better place, but any kind of forced response diminishes the physical and spiritual returns of the good it attempted to do.
Monday, February 22, 2010
The Realization of All Things Conspiracy Theory
"Beggars in Spain" is a three-part novel about a woman who was genetically engineered to not require sleep. The science fiction book addresses the topics of society's resentment against genetically improved humans. However, the book may be more science than fiction.
I recently read an article about parents who were "genetically engineering" their children so as to avoid passing on genetic diseases. Their methods varied. One Jewish community, which already practices arranged marriages, took into consideration risk for certain genetic diseases when pairing couples. Other couples who are using artificial insemination pre-test embryos for susceptibility to genetic diseases before implantation. The final method is to abort fetuses who test strong or positive for these dieases.
Oddly enough, the article seemed to praise these efforts and applaud the parents who made these decisions as heroes of the human race. However, when I look over that last paragraph, I see ethical dilemma after ethical dilemma - eugenics, bioengieering, abortion. Are any of these topics easy?
One's view on the ethics of genetic selection may be based on when you believe life forms. For instance, some may find aborting fetuses a much higher ethical problem than discarding embryos. I would like to leave my opinion out of that argument for a moment to say that, whether one considers embryos to be human beings or not, the idea of testing, selecting, and altering embryos sounds eerily like genetic engineering. It brings to mind words like 1984 and clones.
The plus sides of genetic selection are obvious - people will be healthy. Diseases will not be passed on to future generations. But the drawbacks are numerous!
1. As people select their children to not have genetic diseases, research for cures for these diseases will go by the wayside. This will effectively leave out those who choose not to use genetic testing either for ethical or financial reasons.
2. The definition of a genetic disease may broaden. Already most parents who find out they are carrying a Down Syndrome child choose to abort. How many other diseases and birth defects will we decide are too burdensome either on the parent or child to warrant carrying the baby full term? For instance, what if the child is missing a limb? A thumb? Will we be able to test the potential IQ of children before they are born and abort children who are only average? And what about eugenics? The idea that we can create the perfect human being, and idea that was popular in the 1930's and inspired Adolf Hitler?
3. Right now genetic testing is only being performed on embryos from parents who are trying to have children. However, as this science expands, it could become more popular and less carefully used. If genetic selection is performed on too many children, the gene pool could be decreased, which may actually cause MORE sickness in the general population.
4. The ability to use genetic testing to select children is an emerging technology, and it will therefore be used only in dire cases or for wealthy individuals. This will serve to further the class gap. Poor families who cannot affort genetic testing will have to struggle to pay the medical costs of raising sick children, while the wealthy will choose only to have healthy (and perhaps intelligent, athletic, etc., when the technology improves) children.
5. Those who are now living with genetic diseases may be hurt by the process. I was interested in the response to the Super Bowl commercial from Focus on the Family. Here a woman stood up and said how blessed she was to have her son, and her son stood up and said how happy he was to be alive, and people actually became outraged. What kind of person does it take to look a mom and her son in the eyes and say, "No, this man should not be alive?" And he was healthy. People who are not in perfect health can still contribute to society, love, feel, and enjoy life. And more than that, their parents love this child. Sure, times are tough, but parents were meant to love their children, and ultimately, they are a joy to them.
6. Some of these genetic diseases do not kill for many years. One man featured in the article had Huntington's Disease. I am not an expert on this disease, but the article itself said that first symptoms often do not appear until someone is in their 40's, and even then, the disease works slowly. To be sure, a slow death is not appealing to anyone. However, this is all the more reason to find cures for the disease itself. The man was so proud he was going to eradicate the disease in his family, and yet he had his 40 healthy years to live. Who are we to say that a potential child, whether embryo or fetus, would rather never be born than to live a good life of 40 years? What if that child had found the cure for Huntington Disease, forging on through life-saving necessity?
7. Most importantly, this practice furthers our culture's downward spiral into a culture that has no love. By genetically testing potential children, parents are giving a clear signal - only healthy children will be acceptable. However, there are still many diseases that cannot be diagnosed in the womb, and non health related traits such as intelligence are all but impossible. Further, sometimes pre-birth diagnoses are inaccurate. How many times does a doctor get the gender of a baby wrong? I have seen it happen. Are you willing to trust your child's life on a similar diagnosis? Or risk a healthy baby's life to actually perform the test in the first place?
Further, when parents close the door on unhealthy children, they are closing the door to the possibility of unconditional love. A year, four years, or even 12 years, after their healthy child is born it is possible he could get in a car wreck and enter a wheelchair for the rest of his life, or perhaps suffer severe brain damag. How will parents who custom ordered a healthy child deal with the unpredictable?
How will children in the family feel about the practice - will they feel the love of their parents looking out for their health? Or will they feel pressure to measure up to the pre-set standards? Will they wonder if they would have been a twin or triplet, if only that other embryo had not shown predisposition to a genetic disease?
This is so important. No matter what your opinion on birth control, abortion, or even genetic testing is, if you set out to do something "for the children," you must consider all the consequences of that choice. Ultimately, what are the motives of genetic testing? Is it really to have healthy, happy children who will lead fulfilled lives? Or is it so we can have wealthy or middle-class parents who don't have to struggle along for finances and free time as they help their child, God's precious gift, through life. Are these heroes of humanity after all?
I recently read an article about parents who were "genetically engineering" their children so as to avoid passing on genetic diseases. Their methods varied. One Jewish community, which already practices arranged marriages, took into consideration risk for certain genetic diseases when pairing couples. Other couples who are using artificial insemination pre-test embryos for susceptibility to genetic diseases before implantation. The final method is to abort fetuses who test strong or positive for these dieases.
Oddly enough, the article seemed to praise these efforts and applaud the parents who made these decisions as heroes of the human race. However, when I look over that last paragraph, I see ethical dilemma after ethical dilemma - eugenics, bioengieering, abortion. Are any of these topics easy?
One's view on the ethics of genetic selection may be based on when you believe life forms. For instance, some may find aborting fetuses a much higher ethical problem than discarding embryos. I would like to leave my opinion out of that argument for a moment to say that, whether one considers embryos to be human beings or not, the idea of testing, selecting, and altering embryos sounds eerily like genetic engineering. It brings to mind words like 1984 and clones.
The plus sides of genetic selection are obvious - people will be healthy. Diseases will not be passed on to future generations. But the drawbacks are numerous!
1. As people select their children to not have genetic diseases, research for cures for these diseases will go by the wayside. This will effectively leave out those who choose not to use genetic testing either for ethical or financial reasons.
2. The definition of a genetic disease may broaden. Already most parents who find out they are carrying a Down Syndrome child choose to abort. How many other diseases and birth defects will we decide are too burdensome either on the parent or child to warrant carrying the baby full term? For instance, what if the child is missing a limb? A thumb? Will we be able to test the potential IQ of children before they are born and abort children who are only average? And what about eugenics? The idea that we can create the perfect human being, and idea that was popular in the 1930's and inspired Adolf Hitler?
3. Right now genetic testing is only being performed on embryos from parents who are trying to have children. However, as this science expands, it could become more popular and less carefully used. If genetic selection is performed on too many children, the gene pool could be decreased, which may actually cause MORE sickness in the general population.
4. The ability to use genetic testing to select children is an emerging technology, and it will therefore be used only in dire cases or for wealthy individuals. This will serve to further the class gap. Poor families who cannot affort genetic testing will have to struggle to pay the medical costs of raising sick children, while the wealthy will choose only to have healthy (and perhaps intelligent, athletic, etc., when the technology improves) children.
5. Those who are now living with genetic diseases may be hurt by the process. I was interested in the response to the Super Bowl commercial from Focus on the Family. Here a woman stood up and said how blessed she was to have her son, and her son stood up and said how happy he was to be alive, and people actually became outraged. What kind of person does it take to look a mom and her son in the eyes and say, "No, this man should not be alive?" And he was healthy. People who are not in perfect health can still contribute to society, love, feel, and enjoy life. And more than that, their parents love this child. Sure, times are tough, but parents were meant to love their children, and ultimately, they are a joy to them.
6. Some of these genetic diseases do not kill for many years. One man featured in the article had Huntington's Disease. I am not an expert on this disease, but the article itself said that first symptoms often do not appear until someone is in their 40's, and even then, the disease works slowly. To be sure, a slow death is not appealing to anyone. However, this is all the more reason to find cures for the disease itself. The man was so proud he was going to eradicate the disease in his family, and yet he had his 40 healthy years to live. Who are we to say that a potential child, whether embryo or fetus, would rather never be born than to live a good life of 40 years? What if that child had found the cure for Huntington Disease, forging on through life-saving necessity?
7. Most importantly, this practice furthers our culture's downward spiral into a culture that has no love. By genetically testing potential children, parents are giving a clear signal - only healthy children will be acceptable. However, there are still many diseases that cannot be diagnosed in the womb, and non health related traits such as intelligence are all but impossible. Further, sometimes pre-birth diagnoses are inaccurate. How many times does a doctor get the gender of a baby wrong? I have seen it happen. Are you willing to trust your child's life on a similar diagnosis? Or risk a healthy baby's life to actually perform the test in the first place?
Further, when parents close the door on unhealthy children, they are closing the door to the possibility of unconditional love. A year, four years, or even 12 years, after their healthy child is born it is possible he could get in a car wreck and enter a wheelchair for the rest of his life, or perhaps suffer severe brain damag. How will parents who custom ordered a healthy child deal with the unpredictable?
How will children in the family feel about the practice - will they feel the love of their parents looking out for their health? Or will they feel pressure to measure up to the pre-set standards? Will they wonder if they would have been a twin or triplet, if only that other embryo had not shown predisposition to a genetic disease?
This is so important. No matter what your opinion on birth control, abortion, or even genetic testing is, if you set out to do something "for the children," you must consider all the consequences of that choice. Ultimately, what are the motives of genetic testing? Is it really to have healthy, happy children who will lead fulfilled lives? Or is it so we can have wealthy or middle-class parents who don't have to struggle along for finances and free time as they help their child, God's precious gift, through life. Are these heroes of humanity after all?
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Hermanos
English is a fallen language. The beauty of our language has been watered down over time, and coarseness has taken place. In addition, political correctness has creeped its way into the language until PC and grammar are considered one and the same.
When I grew up, if we were discussing a person of unknown gender, it was grammatically correct to refer to this person as "he." For instance, "In order for the student to understand complex mathematical problems, he must study nightly." Further, multi-gendered nouns took on the masculine, "policeman" "congressman," and humanity itself was referred to in the masculine. "Wherever the rights of man have been threatened..." "Good Christian men rejoice!" "Brothers let us now be at peace with each other."
By high school, "he" had been replaced with "he or she." Besides being a hassle to write (that extra "or she" is a lot of work), the change resulted in a new onslaught of grammatical errors. It is not correct, for instance, to say, "In order for the student to understand complex mathematical problems, they..." It has to be he or she. But people, under the grounds of political correctness and ignorant of the correct grammar, ultimately turn to they or them.
After that, it became necessary to switch "he or she" with "she or he," and then finally "she" became the norm in some texts.
Worse, of course, is the message it sends. It sends a message of ignorance of our language origin and meanings. Calling a non-gender specific person "he" does not make that person male. It simply is what words like "he" "she" and "it" have always been - a pronoun, something that takes the place of a noun. It shows that we are easily offendable, to the point of ridicule. If we cannot listen to humanity described in differing and unique terms, which even include "all men," "men" and "mankind," then we are likely to take offense at anything ("Why did you invite a policeMAN to come speak to the children? Can't you bring in a policeWOMAN?)
Unfortunately, this terminology is even slipping into our Bible and religion. The one place where women should know that they are loved and accepted - equals to men - is church. Christianity has always been one of the most women-friendly religions of the world. And yet, Paul now writes to his "brothers and sisters," and Bible have become gender neutral in other ways as well. The worst part is that some are now calling God a woman - our heavenly parent or heavenly mother.
Don't get me wrong. We all know that God is gender neutral - He has to combine all the male and female parts and traits in order to have created them. And He loves us all equally. However, He chose to represent himself to us as a male figure, as a Father. He chose to send His Son to earth - we can't get around the fact that Jesus was a man. To call God a "parent" or woman is to politicize our great creator!
I went to church this afternoon, and the service was done in half English and half Spanish. Because I have a fairly good grasp of Spanish, I followed along with the Spanish readings, interpreting them as I went. Imagine my horror to see written on the page, "hermanos y hermanas" or "brothers and sisters."
The Spanish language is different than English in that all nouns, whether living creatures or not, have genders. It's a grammar thing. A house, casa, is feminine and so all the words used to describe the house are also feminine. Words of living beings that have genders will have two words to describe them, much like we do. HermanO is brother, and hermanA is sister.
However, much like English, in Spanish if there is a crowd of mixed genders, the masculine form is used. Therefore, "hermanos" may translate to "brothers" OR it may translate to "brothers and sisters" depending on the context. Much like we have the word "grandparents" to describe two individuals - grandMA and grandPA as a group, they have "abuelos." And much like English, this system has nothing to do with a masculine leaning machismo society. It has everything to do with grammar. That's it - grammar. I've always liked Spanish because it is so much easier to work with the gender system than to try and tiptoe around offending anyone on the basis of gender.
But now we have printed "hermanos y hermanas." Bad Spanish grammar. Is this a simple mistake on the translators part? Based on the fluency of the rest of the translation, I think not.
How sad is it that this political correctness is seeping into Spanish. It's as painful for me to consider as, say, the westernization of native American cultures has been. When we were in Spanish class learning gender grammar, no one ever thought to say that there was some sort of bias. But today, it seems that someone thought that the "sisters" might feel left out if they weren't specifically mentioned. I know this has to be an act of an English-speaking person, probably not a native speaker of Spanish. You may as well have printed "brothers and brothers" or "sisters and sisters" based on the grammatical rules.
And as women, especially, we should be trying to preserve this grammatical heritage. We should be celebrating our differences with men. We should be aware and respectful of our long history and how we are afforded more rights today than ever before. We should be reading "brothers" and smiling at our knowledge that Paul may have been writing "brothers" but that the religion he was spreading was open to both male and female.
And ultimately, we should keep our heads. Making a big deal out of the gender of unidentified people or groups should be seen as ridiculous as trying to gender identify a tree or a flower. Yes, words do mean something, and in this case, not yielding to the PC temptation means something as well. It means that we are bigger than the prejudices that we may have faced in history and that we are still one united race, one humanity, one mankind.
When I grew up, if we were discussing a person of unknown gender, it was grammatically correct to refer to this person as "he." For instance, "In order for the student to understand complex mathematical problems, he must study nightly." Further, multi-gendered nouns took on the masculine, "policeman" "congressman," and humanity itself was referred to in the masculine. "Wherever the rights of man have been threatened..." "Good Christian men rejoice!" "Brothers let us now be at peace with each other."
By high school, "he" had been replaced with "he or she." Besides being a hassle to write (that extra "or she" is a lot of work), the change resulted in a new onslaught of grammatical errors. It is not correct, for instance, to say, "In order for the student to understand complex mathematical problems, they..." It has to be he or she. But people, under the grounds of political correctness and ignorant of the correct grammar, ultimately turn to they or them.
After that, it became necessary to switch "he or she" with "she or he," and then finally "she" became the norm in some texts.
Worse, of course, is the message it sends. It sends a message of ignorance of our language origin and meanings. Calling a non-gender specific person "he" does not make that person male. It simply is what words like "he" "she" and "it" have always been - a pronoun, something that takes the place of a noun. It shows that we are easily offendable, to the point of ridicule. If we cannot listen to humanity described in differing and unique terms, which even include "all men," "men" and "mankind," then we are likely to take offense at anything ("Why did you invite a policeMAN to come speak to the children? Can't you bring in a policeWOMAN?)
Unfortunately, this terminology is even slipping into our Bible and religion. The one place where women should know that they are loved and accepted - equals to men - is church. Christianity has always been one of the most women-friendly religions of the world. And yet, Paul now writes to his "brothers and sisters," and Bible have become gender neutral in other ways as well. The worst part is that some are now calling God a woman - our heavenly parent or heavenly mother.
Don't get me wrong. We all know that God is gender neutral - He has to combine all the male and female parts and traits in order to have created them. And He loves us all equally. However, He chose to represent himself to us as a male figure, as a Father. He chose to send His Son to earth - we can't get around the fact that Jesus was a man. To call God a "parent" or woman is to politicize our great creator!
I went to church this afternoon, and the service was done in half English and half Spanish. Because I have a fairly good grasp of Spanish, I followed along with the Spanish readings, interpreting them as I went. Imagine my horror to see written on the page, "hermanos y hermanas" or "brothers and sisters."
The Spanish language is different than English in that all nouns, whether living creatures or not, have genders. It's a grammar thing. A house, casa, is feminine and so all the words used to describe the house are also feminine. Words of living beings that have genders will have two words to describe them, much like we do. HermanO is brother, and hermanA is sister.
However, much like English, in Spanish if there is a crowd of mixed genders, the masculine form is used. Therefore, "hermanos" may translate to "brothers" OR it may translate to "brothers and sisters" depending on the context. Much like we have the word "grandparents" to describe two individuals - grandMA and grandPA as a group, they have "abuelos." And much like English, this system has nothing to do with a masculine leaning machismo society. It has everything to do with grammar. That's it - grammar. I've always liked Spanish because it is so much easier to work with the gender system than to try and tiptoe around offending anyone on the basis of gender.
But now we have printed "hermanos y hermanas." Bad Spanish grammar. Is this a simple mistake on the translators part? Based on the fluency of the rest of the translation, I think not.
How sad is it that this political correctness is seeping into Spanish. It's as painful for me to consider as, say, the westernization of native American cultures has been. When we were in Spanish class learning gender grammar, no one ever thought to say that there was some sort of bias. But today, it seems that someone thought that the "sisters" might feel left out if they weren't specifically mentioned. I know this has to be an act of an English-speaking person, probably not a native speaker of Spanish. You may as well have printed "brothers and brothers" or "sisters and sisters" based on the grammatical rules.
And as women, especially, we should be trying to preserve this grammatical heritage. We should be celebrating our differences with men. We should be aware and respectful of our long history and how we are afforded more rights today than ever before. We should be reading "brothers" and smiling at our knowledge that Paul may have been writing "brothers" but that the religion he was spreading was open to both male and female.
And ultimately, we should keep our heads. Making a big deal out of the gender of unidentified people or groups should be seen as ridiculous as trying to gender identify a tree or a flower. Yes, words do mean something, and in this case, not yielding to the PC temptation means something as well. It means that we are bigger than the prejudices that we may have faced in history and that we are still one united race, one humanity, one mankind.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
The Price of Revolution
I've heard the revolution word a lot recently, and I'm not sure why all of us are throwing it around. I posted about this last year, and I believe that the reasons are similar to what I posted about - people who do not feel that they are being justly represented in a so-called democracatic republic. On the other end of the spectrum, however, there are those who are not satisfied with the state of life we live in right now. They are jealous of those who have more than them.
However, I recently watched a documentary on Catherine the Great of Russia and bits of a documentary on the French revolution, and they have made me realize how difficult, dangerous, and unecessary real revolution really is.
First of all, when the Russians revolted under Catherine (not the great Communist revolution over a century later) they existed in feudalism. This social setup places those at the bottom of the ladder in near slave conditions. There was absolutely no way for these people to move up in society, become financially independent, or even get out of poverty without either the aid of the upper class or revolution. However, in the wake of their revolt, they also showed a scary world - one where they slaughtered all the wealthy and educated members of society, all the leaders.
In light of this documentary, I became enraged at the sentiments of some people in America today. More and more I feel that there are very few legitimate reasons to complain about being poor - for instance, poor health and handicaps - but for the majority of people, it is simply a matter of choosing not to complain but to do something constructive about their situation. We are no longer barred by feudalism, which means that any one person can live the American dream. Incidentally, sometimes it seems that those who have the greatest barriers are those who rise to success above us all - those whom I would understand if they gave up instead surprise us all and fulfill their dreams. It is because Americans, even the poorest of us, are too well off and cozy that we have lost the ability to work hard for our goals. It is easier to sit in middle class and complain about not being rich than to actually work hard to be rich.
The other perspective was of the French Revolution, which happened around the time of our own. Here we had men overthrow their government, much like we had done. However, the aftermath was incredible. Those who disagreed were beheaded, more and more every day. The church was banned - extremes were taken to rid the country of religion. A counter revolution began. Yes, America had a war to win our independence and a rough start to boot, but every account of the French Revolution sounds like sheer terror for everyone involved.
When I study revolutions around the globe, it seems to me that it is rarely the case that a country can successfully carry one off and then stabilize as we did. Even America had a civil war within 84 years of our founding. Latin American countries are rocked by instability. Iraq and Afghanistan are having difficult elections. How European countries stabilized into democracies is beyond me, although I know they had hundreds of years to perfect the systems of government they use, slowly ceding more power to the people, rather than all at once as we did.
One thing that I think helped our revolution was that we had a governing body in place before we even began. While the continental congress did not ultimately begin to rule, it established great leaders who worked together for the common good. No one man stood to profit by the war, and a republican system was already at work before the war was even won.
Revolutions also tend to bring about extremes in government. It is no wonder, because if they are started by politically charged people, then the result will be extremists in power. Communism is one such extreme, whereby the people throw this system of government together without thinking of the past, present, or future implications.
As I mentioned before, in America we have little reason to complain about being too poor. Those with communist and socialist leanings are either well-intentioned or lazy and greedy. We have the necessities of life, but we just want more.
Imagine if we took the GDP and spread it out evenly, per capita, to everyone in America. Say this is about $30,000 a year. That's liveable, especially if you have a two or more person home! Or say we take all the property - savings and equity - in America and redistribute it evenly. Say we just give everyone $100,000 to start off with. Or say we even do both. Even steven. All from scratch.
The truth is that in a short time, perhaps even within a year, the classes we now see will be back in place. The poor will be poor and the rich will be rich. This is because those who are rich now know how to save and work hard and make good investments. Those who are poor now do not.
Now, there are obviously other factors involved in what makes someone rich or poor. Education is key - and this education inevitably comes from your parents, not the schools. I went to public school and a state college, so as far as I'm concerned I was afforded no additional advantages than your average student. If there was an educational difference it came in my predisposition to learning and support from my parents.
I write this because ultimately everyone loses in impassioned revolution. Some lose their lives. Others lose what they have worked hard for. We all lose our dignity. And those who start the revolution may find that they have ended up in the same place they started in, only now they have the guilt of what they have done to contend with.
I don't think that we are on the verge of major revolution in America. But I think people do need to think about what some of the words they throw around mean and imply. Unless changes are made out of love for the common good, then they are imperfect changes and will not bring about the reform we envision.
However, I recently watched a documentary on Catherine the Great of Russia and bits of a documentary on the French revolution, and they have made me realize how difficult, dangerous, and unecessary real revolution really is.
First of all, when the Russians revolted under Catherine (not the great Communist revolution over a century later) they existed in feudalism. This social setup places those at the bottom of the ladder in near slave conditions. There was absolutely no way for these people to move up in society, become financially independent, or even get out of poverty without either the aid of the upper class or revolution. However, in the wake of their revolt, they also showed a scary world - one where they slaughtered all the wealthy and educated members of society, all the leaders.
In light of this documentary, I became enraged at the sentiments of some people in America today. More and more I feel that there are very few legitimate reasons to complain about being poor - for instance, poor health and handicaps - but for the majority of people, it is simply a matter of choosing not to complain but to do something constructive about their situation. We are no longer barred by feudalism, which means that any one person can live the American dream. Incidentally, sometimes it seems that those who have the greatest barriers are those who rise to success above us all - those whom I would understand if they gave up instead surprise us all and fulfill their dreams. It is because Americans, even the poorest of us, are too well off and cozy that we have lost the ability to work hard for our goals. It is easier to sit in middle class and complain about not being rich than to actually work hard to be rich.
The other perspective was of the French Revolution, which happened around the time of our own. Here we had men overthrow their government, much like we had done. However, the aftermath was incredible. Those who disagreed were beheaded, more and more every day. The church was banned - extremes were taken to rid the country of religion. A counter revolution began. Yes, America had a war to win our independence and a rough start to boot, but every account of the French Revolution sounds like sheer terror for everyone involved.
When I study revolutions around the globe, it seems to me that it is rarely the case that a country can successfully carry one off and then stabilize as we did. Even America had a civil war within 84 years of our founding. Latin American countries are rocked by instability. Iraq and Afghanistan are having difficult elections. How European countries stabilized into democracies is beyond me, although I know they had hundreds of years to perfect the systems of government they use, slowly ceding more power to the people, rather than all at once as we did.
One thing that I think helped our revolution was that we had a governing body in place before we even began. While the continental congress did not ultimately begin to rule, it established great leaders who worked together for the common good. No one man stood to profit by the war, and a republican system was already at work before the war was even won.
Revolutions also tend to bring about extremes in government. It is no wonder, because if they are started by politically charged people, then the result will be extremists in power. Communism is one such extreme, whereby the people throw this system of government together without thinking of the past, present, or future implications.
As I mentioned before, in America we have little reason to complain about being too poor. Those with communist and socialist leanings are either well-intentioned or lazy and greedy. We have the necessities of life, but we just want more.
Imagine if we took the GDP and spread it out evenly, per capita, to everyone in America. Say this is about $30,000 a year. That's liveable, especially if you have a two or more person home! Or say we take all the property - savings and equity - in America and redistribute it evenly. Say we just give everyone $100,000 to start off with. Or say we even do both. Even steven. All from scratch.
The truth is that in a short time, perhaps even within a year, the classes we now see will be back in place. The poor will be poor and the rich will be rich. This is because those who are rich now know how to save and work hard and make good investments. Those who are poor now do not.
Now, there are obviously other factors involved in what makes someone rich or poor. Education is key - and this education inevitably comes from your parents, not the schools. I went to public school and a state college, so as far as I'm concerned I was afforded no additional advantages than your average student. If there was an educational difference it came in my predisposition to learning and support from my parents.
I write this because ultimately everyone loses in impassioned revolution. Some lose their lives. Others lose what they have worked hard for. We all lose our dignity. And those who start the revolution may find that they have ended up in the same place they started in, only now they have the guilt of what they have done to contend with.
I don't think that we are on the verge of major revolution in America. But I think people do need to think about what some of the words they throw around mean and imply. Unless changes are made out of love for the common good, then they are imperfect changes and will not bring about the reform we envision.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
The Trickle Around Effect
We've all heard of the trickle down effect, made popular in the Reagan era. The concept is that if you give someone extra money, he will spend it, and the person he spends the money on will have more money and so on, until everyone gets a piece. This concept is also debated in the race to fix the economy, as the goal of both tax breaks or stimulus bills is to put more money into the hands of the people so that they can spread it around.
Because the economy is the way it is, and perhaps because we are nearing the end of winter, people are starting to get edgy. I have heard stories of the "shrinking middle class" (newsflash, if the Kindle is Amazon's best selling product, the middle class is fine). People are suspicious and angry about "fat cats" on Wall Street making millions of dollars. Some of this anger is justified, given that taxpayer money bailed these people out.
However, I would like to explain why, when no bailout is applicable, fat cats and high corporate profits are not a problem for any of us.
First of all, in a free market the price of goods are set by supply and demand. There may be some resentment against corporations about the price of the goods or services we acquire from them. However, when there is no unethical behavior (lying), the price is the price. If a company sets a price for a product unreasonably high, eventually they will have to lower it as the market adjusts.
Now, on to corporate profits.
There are essentially a limited number of things that a company can do with their net income (bottom line after tax). It doesn't matter if their profit margin is 1% or 100%, a company's net income is good for everyone.
One way a company may spend their net income is to give raises and bonuses to their executives. If you remember the trickle down effect noted above, this is a good thing. If you are particularly upset about executive pay (I have blogged on that before), then I suggest you consider the company using its income to give raises to the meat and potatoes employees. A company that has a net loss or bad year is not going to give as good of raises to ANY employee, executive or entry level. The other good thing about a company using income to doll out raises and bonuses, is that the different levels will spend differently, thereby affecting different areas of the economy. An entry level employee may buy a TV or a bike or start building a deck. An executive may buy a vacation home, a yacht, or a luxury car. All these industries need customers.
But what, you say, if the employees throw the money into savings? Well, this is also an option for the company - to throw their net income into savings. Whether on the individual or corporate scale, people put money into banks that pay ridiculously low interest rates. These banks loan the money out to others at higher interest rates. Although the money is borrowed, the money goes towards a variety of expansion projects - from funding new business to building and purchasing houses, and sometimes to getting that yacht. Once again, even though the money is technically being saved, it is actually being spent by someone else, thus helping the economy.
One thing companies are expected to do with their income is to pay out dividends. A portion of the income is passed on to stockholders, who include anyone from the chief officers (go back up to the bonus paragraph) to individual shareholders who own less than 1,000 shares each, to retirement accounts and 401(k)'s that contain some form of the company stock. Just think about investments, because we all have a stake in the stock market in some way - like this: any time a company succeeds, you get a little richer!
The final thing the company can do is reinvest the earnings. They may do this by expanding their assets, such as purchasing a new world headquarters, streamlining their fleet of trucks, or opening an office in Detroit. In each case, this reinvestment results in jobs for someone, either within the company, or perhaps at the truck company they purchase from. Another thing they can do to invest is to purchase companies that would fit within their business model. Once again, they grow the company, expanding jobs, and an "exec" at a mom and pop business retires with a hefty pension based on the deal.
So, you see, although there is a lot of animosity towards "corporate earnings" and CEO's, because our economy is linked we all succeed together or fail together. I call this the trickle around effect, because what goes around comes around. If we want to be employed, to expect raises, and to be able to meet our full potential in earnings and as human beings, we must be respectful of the institutions that allow us to do that. Those institutions are our employers and the corporations that help to keep America running and goods priced low.
Don't bite the hand that feeds you.
Because the economy is the way it is, and perhaps because we are nearing the end of winter, people are starting to get edgy. I have heard stories of the "shrinking middle class" (newsflash, if the Kindle is Amazon's best selling product, the middle class is fine). People are suspicious and angry about "fat cats" on Wall Street making millions of dollars. Some of this anger is justified, given that taxpayer money bailed these people out.
However, I would like to explain why, when no bailout is applicable, fat cats and high corporate profits are not a problem for any of us.
First of all, in a free market the price of goods are set by supply and demand. There may be some resentment against corporations about the price of the goods or services we acquire from them. However, when there is no unethical behavior (lying), the price is the price. If a company sets a price for a product unreasonably high, eventually they will have to lower it as the market adjusts.
Now, on to corporate profits.
There are essentially a limited number of things that a company can do with their net income (bottom line after tax). It doesn't matter if their profit margin is 1% or 100%, a company's net income is good for everyone.
One way a company may spend their net income is to give raises and bonuses to their executives. If you remember the trickle down effect noted above, this is a good thing. If you are particularly upset about executive pay (I have blogged on that before), then I suggest you consider the company using its income to give raises to the meat and potatoes employees. A company that has a net loss or bad year is not going to give as good of raises to ANY employee, executive or entry level. The other good thing about a company using income to doll out raises and bonuses, is that the different levels will spend differently, thereby affecting different areas of the economy. An entry level employee may buy a TV or a bike or start building a deck. An executive may buy a vacation home, a yacht, or a luxury car. All these industries need customers.
But what, you say, if the employees throw the money into savings? Well, this is also an option for the company - to throw their net income into savings. Whether on the individual or corporate scale, people put money into banks that pay ridiculously low interest rates. These banks loan the money out to others at higher interest rates. Although the money is borrowed, the money goes towards a variety of expansion projects - from funding new business to building and purchasing houses, and sometimes to getting that yacht. Once again, even though the money is technically being saved, it is actually being spent by someone else, thus helping the economy.
One thing companies are expected to do with their income is to pay out dividends. A portion of the income is passed on to stockholders, who include anyone from the chief officers (go back up to the bonus paragraph) to individual shareholders who own less than 1,000 shares each, to retirement accounts and 401(k)'s that contain some form of the company stock. Just think about investments, because we all have a stake in the stock market in some way - like this: any time a company succeeds, you get a little richer!
The final thing the company can do is reinvest the earnings. They may do this by expanding their assets, such as purchasing a new world headquarters, streamlining their fleet of trucks, or opening an office in Detroit. In each case, this reinvestment results in jobs for someone, either within the company, or perhaps at the truck company they purchase from. Another thing they can do to invest is to purchase companies that would fit within their business model. Once again, they grow the company, expanding jobs, and an "exec" at a mom and pop business retires with a hefty pension based on the deal.
So, you see, although there is a lot of animosity towards "corporate earnings" and CEO's, because our economy is linked we all succeed together or fail together. I call this the trickle around effect, because what goes around comes around. If we want to be employed, to expect raises, and to be able to meet our full potential in earnings and as human beings, we must be respectful of the institutions that allow us to do that. Those institutions are our employers and the corporations that help to keep America running and goods priced low.
Don't bite the hand that feeds you.
Monday, February 15, 2010
The Rising Costs of Healthcare
Why is health care so expensive? And what is the solution to lower the price? These have been the main topic of debate in the news and politics over the last six months.
It's time for a little history lesson. Not so long ago, healthcare was not as good as it is now. Pennicillin was not discovered until the first half of the 20th century. Treatments for diabetes came along later. Leaps and bounds have been made in the areas of medical technologies, drugs, and even sanitation. Because of all this, people are living longer. People with diseases that were once deadly now live and require ongoing treatments. Is this a bad thing? Not at all.
In addition to longer (but not necessarily healthier) lives, there are more of us to take care of. The baby boomer generation has aged, and now the largest group in the population today is also the group that requires near-constant medical attention.
The smaller population groups are asked to provide the care in the forms of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, etc. They are asked to assist financially. There are just not enough of us to go around.
Here we have a simple case of demand outstripping supply. When that happens, there is a shortage, and costs automatically rise.
Now, if we wanted to lower costs, we need to encourage more people to enter the medical field. And we probably need to stop research and development. Let's face it, once a cure has been found, everyone thinks they are entitled to it. So the simple solution to lowering medical costs would be to stop finding ways to save lives. (I offer this up as mere satire).
Another reason for high costs is the cost of research and development itself. Look at drugs. People complain about the high cost of a miracle drug that is saving their life. No one complains about the miracle. Drugs become generic so quickly these days, that pharmaceutical research companies have to mark up the price of their drugs 1,000% or more just to get by. For every drug that is marketed, many are dropped from studies. Each drug requires years and years of development and testing on hundreds of subjects.
Should the price of prescription drugs become more affordable, what I mentioned earlier will automatically happen - drug makers will simply give up finding new drugs. Yes, they will lower the cost of their drugs, but what we have now is what we will always ever have. And though the people who are being helped with the miracle drugs can now pay less, those with diseases not yet cured will never be helped.
Someone suggested that the government take research and development away from the companies, so that the companies could lower the prices without harming innovation. I think this is a bad idea for many reasons. First of all, the government is not efficient. Without being profit motivated it is, well, not motivated. We have seen the success of leaving research projects in the hands of the people. For instance, where space is concerned, private developers have picked up where NASA left off. Second, prices would still be high. We would no longer be paying them for prescriptions but to fund the research and development projects. Ultimately, then, this would be a tax on healthy people. We would pay higher taxes to fund lower prescription drugs for those who are unhealthy and already taking them. Finally, the government is not scrupulous. I have little faith in a government to avoid unethical experiments. It is true that businesses may perform them now, monitored by the government. However, if the government suddenly found itself with the power to research, it would start to bend the envelope further and further, and this time there would be no watchdog to stop it.
Another reason costs are so high are the lawsuits people file against medical practitioners. Here we may see one of the areas for greatest cost-cutting if applied correctly. Medical lawsuits, and most lawsuits for that matter, have blurred the lines of innocence and responsibility. No longer are doctors allows human errors - perfection is required or else millions of dollars may be paid out. Hindsight is 20/20, and lawsuits thrive on Monday morning quarterbacking. For this reason, doctors order excessive tests that are not necessary, just to make sure they don't miss something.
To cut these costs, tort reform is a good place to start. Another is with the people. Instead of having 10 tests performed when we go to the doctor with a headache, we should talk to the doctor and take his advice. Find out what the tests he suggests test for. Find out the odds that you have that disease. Find out what the worst case scenario outcome of having that disease go undiagnosed is. Ask for medicine that treats the problem, not just the symptoms. And above all, don't sue!
Now, I'm not saying that it's bad to sue a doctor who leaves his glove in a loved one who consequently dies. Or who amputates the wrong arm. However, even here we should be rational. Will a lawsuit bring back your sister? If it was your husband who was the bread earner, you may need the money to get by now. What do your career prospects look like now that you are armless? How much do you need to get by? We don't need to award multi-multi-million dollar lawsuits just because a doctor makes an honest mistake.
Finally, healthcare is expensive because we, the American people, are paying for it. Ever year billions of dollars of taxpayer money go to fund Medicare and Medicaid. Programs like these allow low income Americans to waltz into a doctors office any time they want - if their child coughs. While millions of other Americans stay at home with the sick kid and wait it out, either because they cannot afford the doctors visit, or because they are being responsible. In this regard, someone who only makes a few thousand dollars more than a Medicaid recipient is many times worse off than the latter and is being penalized for being wealthi-er.
If people on Medicaid were forced to pay any sort of copay, even a relatively small one, for doctors visits, it would free up doctors for other patients, earn back a small portion of the cost, and force people to consider responsibility in determining what warrants a doctor's visit.
These are things to consider when having a healthcare debate, because these issues are not easy to solve, and they may not actually need solving. Healthcare, like any other part of society, is a free market. If insurance premiums rise, it is because costs or demand rise. If Healthcare is 1/6 of our economy, it is because that is what people choose to find important. There is not an easy solution to the high costs, but there doesn't necessarily have to be. Eventually supply will catch up and if it does not, people will learn to accept a lower quality of healthcare. There is nothing wrong with that - people have survived on this planet for thousands of years with much less than we now know.
It's time for a little history lesson. Not so long ago, healthcare was not as good as it is now. Pennicillin was not discovered until the first half of the 20th century. Treatments for diabetes came along later. Leaps and bounds have been made in the areas of medical technologies, drugs, and even sanitation. Because of all this, people are living longer. People with diseases that were once deadly now live and require ongoing treatments. Is this a bad thing? Not at all.
In addition to longer (but not necessarily healthier) lives, there are more of us to take care of. The baby boomer generation has aged, and now the largest group in the population today is also the group that requires near-constant medical attention.
The smaller population groups are asked to provide the care in the forms of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, etc. They are asked to assist financially. There are just not enough of us to go around.
Here we have a simple case of demand outstripping supply. When that happens, there is a shortage, and costs automatically rise.
Now, if we wanted to lower costs, we need to encourage more people to enter the medical field. And we probably need to stop research and development. Let's face it, once a cure has been found, everyone thinks they are entitled to it. So the simple solution to lowering medical costs would be to stop finding ways to save lives. (I offer this up as mere satire).
Another reason for high costs is the cost of research and development itself. Look at drugs. People complain about the high cost of a miracle drug that is saving their life. No one complains about the miracle. Drugs become generic so quickly these days, that pharmaceutical research companies have to mark up the price of their drugs 1,000% or more just to get by. For every drug that is marketed, many are dropped from studies. Each drug requires years and years of development and testing on hundreds of subjects.
Should the price of prescription drugs become more affordable, what I mentioned earlier will automatically happen - drug makers will simply give up finding new drugs. Yes, they will lower the cost of their drugs, but what we have now is what we will always ever have. And though the people who are being helped with the miracle drugs can now pay less, those with diseases not yet cured will never be helped.
Someone suggested that the government take research and development away from the companies, so that the companies could lower the prices without harming innovation. I think this is a bad idea for many reasons. First of all, the government is not efficient. Without being profit motivated it is, well, not motivated. We have seen the success of leaving research projects in the hands of the people. For instance, where space is concerned, private developers have picked up where NASA left off. Second, prices would still be high. We would no longer be paying them for prescriptions but to fund the research and development projects. Ultimately, then, this would be a tax on healthy people. We would pay higher taxes to fund lower prescription drugs for those who are unhealthy and already taking them. Finally, the government is not scrupulous. I have little faith in a government to avoid unethical experiments. It is true that businesses may perform them now, monitored by the government. However, if the government suddenly found itself with the power to research, it would start to bend the envelope further and further, and this time there would be no watchdog to stop it.
Another reason costs are so high are the lawsuits people file against medical practitioners. Here we may see one of the areas for greatest cost-cutting if applied correctly. Medical lawsuits, and most lawsuits for that matter, have blurred the lines of innocence and responsibility. No longer are doctors allows human errors - perfection is required or else millions of dollars may be paid out. Hindsight is 20/20, and lawsuits thrive on Monday morning quarterbacking. For this reason, doctors order excessive tests that are not necessary, just to make sure they don't miss something.
To cut these costs, tort reform is a good place to start. Another is with the people. Instead of having 10 tests performed when we go to the doctor with a headache, we should talk to the doctor and take his advice. Find out what the tests he suggests test for. Find out the odds that you have that disease. Find out what the worst case scenario outcome of having that disease go undiagnosed is. Ask for medicine that treats the problem, not just the symptoms. And above all, don't sue!
Now, I'm not saying that it's bad to sue a doctor who leaves his glove in a loved one who consequently dies. Or who amputates the wrong arm. However, even here we should be rational. Will a lawsuit bring back your sister? If it was your husband who was the bread earner, you may need the money to get by now. What do your career prospects look like now that you are armless? How much do you need to get by? We don't need to award multi-multi-million dollar lawsuits just because a doctor makes an honest mistake.
Finally, healthcare is expensive because we, the American people, are paying for it. Ever year billions of dollars of taxpayer money go to fund Medicare and Medicaid. Programs like these allow low income Americans to waltz into a doctors office any time they want - if their child coughs. While millions of other Americans stay at home with the sick kid and wait it out, either because they cannot afford the doctors visit, or because they are being responsible. In this regard, someone who only makes a few thousand dollars more than a Medicaid recipient is many times worse off than the latter and is being penalized for being wealthi-er.
If people on Medicaid were forced to pay any sort of copay, even a relatively small one, for doctors visits, it would free up doctors for other patients, earn back a small portion of the cost, and force people to consider responsibility in determining what warrants a doctor's visit.
These are things to consider when having a healthcare debate, because these issues are not easy to solve, and they may not actually need solving. Healthcare, like any other part of society, is a free market. If insurance premiums rise, it is because costs or demand rise. If Healthcare is 1/6 of our economy, it is because that is what people choose to find important. There is not an easy solution to the high costs, but there doesn't necessarily have to be. Eventually supply will catch up and if it does not, people will learn to accept a lower quality of healthcare. There is nothing wrong with that - people have survived on this planet for thousands of years with much less than we now know.
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