The pure is the enemy of the real

I run in leftist circles (surprise, surprise).  Before the last election there was a lot of talk in those circles that HRC was a terrible candidate.  They pointed at her economic policies as representing the same neo-conservative track begun with Carter, enhanced by Reagan, then Bill, and continued by every president since.  True enough.  Then they pointed to a list of personal failings straight out of the right wing smear machine that had been targeting her since Bill was first elected.  Not true.  And we won’t even mention they way that they, along with many of Trump’s true believers, swallowed the Russian propaganda hook line and sinker. They looked at Trump and said as inept as he was, he still wasn’t much worse than HRC... besides, he would never beat her so they were going to “vote their conscience” and give their vote to a third party candidate who truly represented their pure visions for the US.  After all, why should they compromise?

Well... we have seen why.  Trump did win.  Indeed, there were many on the left who were predicting he would win (Michael Moore immediately comes to mind).  He has decimated every agency of government.  He has established a kleptocracy more brazen than we American’s could even imagine. He has nominated judges who will literally change the direction of US law, perhaps forever.  He has engineered a new zeitgeist where moral values don’t count and truth and facts no longer hold sway. And this morning, the Republicans voted in lock step to dismantle our economy, shifting everything to their wealthy overloads.

I almost can’t blame Trump.  He is simply stupid.  I truly believe that he does not realize the consequences of his actions... and because of who he is, when he does realize them, he doesn’t care.  Nothing more could be expected from him.  Ditto the Trump heads - low information voters filled with fear and hate - nothing better could be expected.  The Republican elected officials?  Them I can blame.  They knew what they were doing.  Some had been telling us this was their plan all along and we can’t be surprised at them, but there were a few who seemed to be thoughtful, principaled people.  They still voted to rape the poor, the elderly, the middle class, children, the disabled, and just about every other category other than the top .01%.  Yes, I blame them and I hope that the electorate will get smart enough and motivated enough to vote enough of them out in ‘18 to turn the tables and begin to rebuild America.

The one’s I am most disappointed in and are worried about as we move forward are those on the far left.  If you voted third party, I blame you.  I don’t care where you live, just by arguing for your moral purity you motivated people to stay home or to vote for third party candidates.  It didn’t take very many staying home, complaining that there was no good choice, the give the election to Trump.  You helped elect him and the minions below who are enabling his dystopian vision.  I only hope that moving forward you will be able to see that elections have consequences... that pure choices do not exist... that sometimes we have to hold our noses and vote for a candidate who will not destroy the very ideals that have made us who we are/were.

Failing presidents & hypocrisy

I've heard the word "hypocrite" a lot lately, referring to Democrats who complained about Republicans who pledged to obstruct Obama at every opportunity and yet seem determined to do exactly the same thing with Donald Trump.  It isn't the same and here is why.

1.  In spite of what we heard on Right Wing Talk Radio & TV, Obama is not and never was a communist out to destroy our country.  He is a centrist, committed to working across the isle, many of whose ideas actually reflected Republican ideas.  Take the ACA.  It was a program very similar in its most important details to a health care proposal put forward by the right wing Heritage Foundation.  It was centered around the private sector and enfranchised the insurance industry.  Had he truly been a leftist, Obama would have argued for Medicare for all as Bernie Sanders has done.

Trump, on the other hand, seems to be poised to blow up the entire government.  He has already skirted many of the common practices of the past such as releasing his tax returns so we can all see whether his interests conflict with those of the American people.  He has chosen to avoid intelligence briefings, either because he truly believes there is nothing he needs to learn or because he doesn't trust the intelligence agencies.  His cabinet appointees so far seem almost all to fall into one of two categories... either they have no experience and no knowledge of the area they will be heading or they are committed to destroying the role of the very agency they will head.

2. Obama clearly fell in line with the general trajectory of history.  Whether we like what he dd or not, he didn't do anything that made people go, "What?"

Even before he is inaugurated, Trump is already breaking with policies and ideas that are foundational to our security both nationally and internationally.  His thoughtless actions regarding our treaties have already begun to push Asian allies towards China and he has unnecessarily provoked China by skirting the one China doctrine.  His relationship to Russia is troubling at best.  His calls for the US military to commit war crimes and his commitment to sidestepping accepted rules that have to do with nepotism and conflicts of interest are equally troubling. 

On the national level, he is either allowing or directing the dismantling of many of the social safety nets upon which many people depend. 

3. Obama knew what government is and what its role is.  Trump doesn't seem to understand that government is not a business and the rules by which it operates are not the same.  If his business fails, it can declare bankruptcy and at least Donald walks away unscathed.  It has happened multiple times.  If government fails... that is something altogether different.

4. Obama knows that when the president speaks, things happen, so he is careful about what he says.  Trump has no such wisdom or he enjoys the chaos that happens when he says something unwise.  In either case... it is not good.

5. Obama has a heart to leave the world a better place.  You may not agree with his vision of that, but you cannot argue the point.  Nothing that Trump has ever done in his entire life would indicate that he has any concerns beyond himself.  There is nothing beyond his skin that he seems to truly care about beyond the way that it impacts him.

6.  The best you could say about the Republican obstructionists might be that some were acting consistently with their values - that they hate the federal government and literally want it to fail so by obstructing a president as thoughtful and charismatic as Obama who began his presidency with a real mandate, they were working to that end.  And now they find a kindred soul in Trump, who wants to see government curtailed not out of some political ideology but because it constrains his personal behavior.

Democratic obstructionists will be working to preserve the rights and safety nets, some of which have been in place for decades and upon which many people depend.  Without those safety nets, people will die.

So... are there areas where Dems should support Trump?  Say, like if he proposes working on infrastructure?  I have mixed feelings.  I should say that I believe he will only propose improving the infrastructure if he will personally benefit from it.  Still there clearly are areas where he may see his self-interests and those of the nations align... so yes, I would argue that we work on those issues with him.  But we must never allow those issues to cause us to lose sight of the other things he is doing or allowing to not be done.

If Trump and the Republicans in office work to tear apart Social Security, Medicare, and the ACA (all of which they propose to do), I will do what I can to obstruct them and call upon my representatives to do the same.  I want them to fail there.  If they want to tear up treaties and alliances with other nations and put the entire world at risk, I will work to obstruct them and call upon my representatives to do the same.  I want them to fail.  If they continue to enfranchise hate groups and normalize the kind of behavior I would punish my grandson for, I will do what I can to obstruct them and call upon my representatives to do the same.   I want them to fail.  If the Republicans continue their march to destroy our government by undermining trust in all facets of it, I will do what I can to obstruct them and call upon my representatives to do the same.  I want them to fail.  If the Trump administration actually becomes the kleptocracy I expect it will be, I will do what I can to obstruct them and call upon my representatives to do the same. I want them to fail.

Obamacare... again

As I understood it, the Republicans were afraid that once Obamacare really got going, there would be no turning back.  Well, it has taken hold.  Clearly there have been problems and there are some folk, a small percentage in my understanding, who were truly impacted in a negative way by the program.  One might even argue that it was not the best solution for the problems or that some of the biggest problems in our healthcare system were not even addressed as directly as they could have been. 

Still, the ACA accomplished a number of things that I believe we as a nation needed to accomplish.  It removed pre-existing conditions as a barrier to getting health insurance.  It expanded the pool on which rates are based to include the entire community rather than a small slice or individual family.  It removed the lifetime cap that insurance would be responsible to cover.  It made insurance available and affordable to everyone (except in those states which have refused to expand Medicaid and continue to exclude the poorest folk from health insurance) and procvided health insurance to millions who did not have it before.  And it standardized what an insurance policy must cover.

My family were serious beneficiaries of the ACA.  For a whole variety of reasons my medical insurance, which was paid by my church, was insanely expensive.  It was one of the largest line items in the church budget and was getting to the point that it was becoming unaffordable.  A pre-existing condition made it impossible to get any other coverage at any price.  Under the ACA, the church was  able to get another policy with roughly the same coverage and save some $15K a year.  My 25 year old son, working at a just above minimum wage job,  had not had insurance for 4 years.  He has it again.  My daughter, son-in-law, and grandson were on an absolutely unaffordable COBRA plan after Christian lost his job, 2 months before the baby was expected.  They couldn't get any other plan because of a pre-existing condition - pregnancy.  To make things even more complicated, the company he had worked for changed their insurance 1 month before he lost his job.  Simply put, the ACA saved their butts and things would have been even better had it been available 6 months earlier.  I can tell multiple other stories of church members, friends, and acquaintances who were saved by the ACA.  I can also tell stories of folk who suffered significantly and some who even died because of lack of insurance. 

Of course there are the two big complaints... that everyone must purchase insurance and that some folk are having to purchase insurance for things they either will not use or even have some moral objection to using.  The entire system falls apart without those two criteria though... so it becomes a choice between the keeping the positives or disposing of the negatives.  As a country, I cannot see how we can morally even consider the latter.  Indeed, that will kill people.  I guess there are a small number of folk who actually do believe that poor people do not deserve health insurance and that the current system of going to the emergency room when things are dire is enough for them.  I don't think that viewpoint is even worth discussing it is so immoral.

Here's the surprise.  Over the past few weeks I've seen advertisements for two local politicians running for the House and promising to work to repeal Obamacare.  Invariably, they always back-pedal when asked and say they only want to repeal the mandate and the government requirements for what an insurance policy will cover... but given the current system, that literally cannot work.  Those two features cannot be removed without causing the rest to be unworkable. What they are really saying is that the poor need to be kicked off Medicaid, those with pre-existing conditions are on their own, and that any company can decide what it will or will not pay for via insurance for any reason they want and that if that happens to be the way you get your health insurance... too bad for you.  And we cannot forget that in '09 a study showed that 45,000 people died annually in the US due to lack of insurance.  I cannot imagine how anyone can think that is a good idea to repeal the ACA and I cannot imagine how anyone with a conscience would ever vote for a representative with that as a significant part of their agenda.

What Republicans Believe

I wouldn't dare speak for conservatives so I'll refer to an article written by Jennifer Rubin in her column in the Washington Post - Right Turn.  The piece is Ten Things Republicans Believe.  I found it a very interesting read and agreed with much of it... even though the implimentation of some of the ideas would likely be very different.  For example, she says that Republicans are Pro-Israel.  I would argue that being Pro-Israel is not the same as supporting Israeli abuse of Palestinians.  Even less so, is support of Israel the same as supporting the expansion of settlements in occupied land.  Indeed, I would argue that is precisely the worst thing possible that can happen to Israel as each settlement makes a 2 state solution more difficult and a 1 state solution means either apartheid or a nation wherein the Jewish population are overwhelmed by the Palestinians.

Two differences really jumped out for me.

The first is not as explicit as it could be.  Rubin says that there is a distrust of centralized power when she really means to say that Republicans do not trust government.  The implication is that they do trust centralized industrial and economic power.  Limited regulations inevitably lead to the centralization of those two types of power and the unwritten theme is that that is just the natural course of things.  In effect, she says they do not trust government, but they do trust multinationals and big banks.  They trust institutions that have as their primary purpose in existence, a profit motive for a limited number of people and which have no basic commitment to the welfare of this nation vs. institutions that have the public good of US citizens as their primary motivation.  Frankly, that bit just makes no sense to me at all.  I understand about the failings of human nature and that they play themselves out in government agencies.  Yes, government bureaucracies screw up sometimes.  The same is true in the business world... only in businesses, without government regulations, there is no recourse and the power is unchecked. 

A second important difference is what she refers to as an "originalist theory of interpretation of the constitution."  She says that those with a different theory of interpretation "grant judges free rein to think up new rights and powers."  Again... this makes no sense to me.  One must understand the Constitution as having been written in an historical and cultural context that is not the same as the one in which we live today.  She mentions the 2nd amendment in another place.  Let's agree for argument sake that it gives the right to bear arms to all citizens (which I would not agree with under normal circumstances).  If we think of the context when "arms" = muskets, do we take it to mean today that individuals can own muskets?  That was the literal original intent if we agree to the first premise.  Or do we take it to mean than individual citizens can carry any arms that the US Army uses (which at the time was pretty much a musket)?  If the latter, then should individuals be allowed to own nuclear warheads?  If not, why not?  How do we translate that into today's world?  Or do we take the sentence literally and agree that it referred to State Militias, used primarily in the south as a means of suppressing slave revolts and was included as a way of reassuring Southern states that the federal government would not take away their slave based economies and so has literally zero meaning in 2013?

The piece of the article that was encouraging to me was that there are some places where we agree even if implementations differ.  At least then, there is room to talk.  Here's to hoping that we all can do just that.

The Problem with the Insurance Argument

After the Supreme Court ruling, the question of health insurance has come back to the front with Democrats celebrating and Republicans vowing to repeal.   Democrats should not be celebrating and while the Republicans might be able to repeal the Affordable Care Act but they have no solution worth real discussion.

First off, the free market does not and can not work with regards to health care.  The consumer has no power to influence the market at all.  You can't shop for the lowest cost when you've just had a heart attack.  Add that there is often only one hospital nearby and the physician on duty is the physician on duty.  Most of us also have no control over what, if any, insurance is available to us and even less over what is covered by that policy.  Employers may shop for the lowest price on insurance but it is very seldom that they do so while comparing two identical products and the dissimilarities may not be obvious until the product is used and the patient discovers that a specific lab or physician is not covered by their insurance.  And the coverage is constantly changing so a physician covered one year may not be the next year.  Which services and providers are covered by a given policy rarely if ever have anything to do with quality of care.  Market forces simply do not work when it comes to health care so if we rely on them to control costs or quality, we will only see failure.

Second, there are some things that should not be sold for profit.  Health care is one.  In a for profit business, the business always has a primary responsibility to make money for the stock holders.  There is a legal responsibility to do that regardless of whether they are producing widgets, automobiles, or providing health insurance.  The first responsibility is not to the client, it is to the stock holder.  Obviously, in the free market, a better product is more likely to produce higher profits for the stock holder, but the primary job of any for profit company is not to produce widgets, automobiles, or sell health insurance... it is to make money for stock holders.  For health insurance companies, that means denying coverage.  If they can deny a procedure, they have made more money.  It is no surprise then that for profit insurance companies have employees whose job is to find ways to deny coverage to the patients and they get bonuses when they do so.  At least a panel of government agents making decisions around coverage would have the well being of the larger population as their primary concern. 

The bottom line is that the current system, even under Obamacare, cannot solve the problems we face and will remain the most expensive health care delivery system in the world while at the same time being far down the list in terms of almost all of the significant metrics for outcomes.  The good news is that there are models around the world that actually work.  All we need do is swallow our pride and embrace a model that delivers health care to all of our citizens at a more reasonable price.

handling the text

As a pastor, I take handling the text very, very seriously.  It is my responsibility to help my congregation understand what the text meant in its own setting in life and then help them find the meaning it has for us in our setting.  This can be tricky.  Often the setting of the scripture is as foreign as it can be to our setting.  Sometimes the details just don't make sense to us.  Sometimes, especially in the case of the gospels, there is more than one setting.  For the gospels, we have not only the setting of Jesus' ministry, but also the setting of the writers' churches.  They looked back at Jesus' life and asked, "What stories or events from Jesus' life do my folk need to hear?"  Understanding those passages often requires looking at both Biblical settings and our own.  Then... there are just those passages that don't seem to fit our setting at all.

This past Sunday, I preached on Matthew 25:1-13.  It is a passage that I don't think particularly speaks to my congregation.  The more I thought about the parable, the more I became convinced that if Jesus was telling this story to my church or to most churches in America, the story would take a different tack.  In the Biblical story, there are 5 wise maidens who have adequate supplies of oil for their lamps when the bridegroom is late and 5 who do not.  When those who do not have enough ask the 5 wise maidens for help, they are sent away.  When they finally arrive at the wedding feast, again, they are turned away.  The point is to be ready at all times for the coming of Jesus.  This was especially true for Matthew's church who thought Jesus was running very late.  My congregation is just not concerned about the second coming.

Here's what I think Jesus would do with the story today.  The 5 wise maidens would share their oil.  But what if there isn't enough and everyone runs out?  Think of the feeding of the 5000, of the Hanukah candles, of all of the instances where God's generosity overwhelms the needs and there is more than enough.  I think Jesus would remind us that by sharing, everyone has enough and the wedding feast would be that much more wonderful with the additional folk there helping to party.  I believe the call to us today here is not to worry about being prepared but to share all we can with others and watch as God's party gets bigger and bigger.  And I think he would use it to condemn those in the Church who identify with the Tea Party, the followers of Ayn Rand, and the Republican party who are so bent on holding on to what they have to the detriment of those in need.  And that is what I talked about on Sunday.

So I danced with eisegesis... clearly my message introduced something to the text that wasn't there... but I do believe that if Jesus was telling that same story to us today, that's the direction he'd go.

irresponsible governance

Today the House voted to repeal the health care reform act. That was no surprise. The Republicans had promised to do just that. They voted unanimously. That was no surprise. Depending on how you spin it, either the Republican Party has done a much better job than the Democrats at working together OR they have completely destroyed any options of diversity of thought within their party. What also isn't a surprise but deeply saddens me is that they still have not offered any real solutions to the massive problems we are facing. It is irresponsible to go into office without a plan other than to dismantle what is there. It is irresponsible to claim to govern when all you have are plans to say, "no." Indeed, it is irresponsible to run for office when you have no positive vision or plan for solving the problems we face. It is even more irresponsible to use emotionally laden terms and perhaps even dishonest data, especially while not having a positive plan.

Now, we know that the Senate will not pass the repeal and even if they did, the president would veto the bill. So... if the legislators are doing this as some cynical theater and feel no need to propose real solutions then they are even more irresponsible and should be ashamed of themselves.

The problems are real. Death panels that work for insurance companies regularly denied coverage to needy people when they became too ill and threatened profitability. Families struggling to get by lost insurance coverage at the whims of bean counters. Many people lived without insurance coverage and so only had access to the most expensive and least effective kind of care - emergency care. Increasing medical costs balloon the deficit and cripple the economy. If all the Republicans can offer is, "no," then they are being irresponsible and should be held accountable for their cynical and destructive actions.

Truth and Lies

Now politicians often stretch facts or take their opponent's comments out of context for their own ends. Obama has done this. Anyone who heard McCain's comment that middle class begins at $5 million knows he was actually saying that he didn't want to raise taxes on anyone and that he wasn't really saying at income was the dividing line between middle class and wealthy. Still Obama has used that figure in his speeches.

But that isn't what I want to point out. At the RNC, there was almost no real policy discussion (compared with a little at the DNC) but there was a lot of outright lies regarding records. Here is an article from the Associated Press that points out some of the lies told from the podium at the RNC.

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back little Wednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flattering praise on her credentials to be vice president. In some cases, the reproach and the praise stretched the truth.

Some examples:

PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."

PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate."

THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."

THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.

Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.

He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.

THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state — by population.

MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.

THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."

THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.

FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right — change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."

THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.

And Palin is being portrayed as a fiscal conservative who cut pork and reduced the budget in Waslla and in Alaska... again not true

In fiscal 2003—the last fiscal year Palin approved the budget—the bonded long-term debt was $18,635,000. In fiscal 1996—the year before Palin took control of the budget—there was no general obligation debt. [Wasilla Comprehensive Annual Financial Report 2003, Table 10]

I'm checking for the figures in Alaska, but I understand that similar changes took place in the state under her governorship.

Jon Stewart

After watching John McCain's speech last night, Cheryl said, let's watch Jon Stewart. I love Jon Stewart.

Immigration and the Devil

I've only voted Republican once in my life. After reading this article, I'm even more embarassed to admit that one time. It seems the Utah State Republicans met recently and ended their state convention by debating the influence of Satan on illegal immigrants. Yep. You read that right.

The Daily Herald, a daily paper in central Utah, reports that

Don Larsen, chairman of legislative District 65 for the Utah County Republican Party, had submitted a resolution warning that Satan's minions want to eliminate national borders and do away with sovereignty.

In a speech at the convention, Larsen told those gathered that illegal immigrants "hate American people" and "are determined to destroy this country, and there is nothing they won't do."

Illegal aliens are in control of the media, and working in tandem with Democrats, are trying to "destroy Christian America" and replace it with "a godless new world order -- and that is not extremism, that is fact," Larsen said.

What in the world can you say to that?