Progressives seem to be engage in an effort to project the hyper-partisanship of the day onto their opposition. The party line is that progressives have transcended partisanship; therefore, it is the reactionaries and free-marketeers who are the source of the shrill partisanship.
This idea is patently absurd.
Progressives are people who seek solutions in government. The opposition is largely people who seek solutions in the market and want limited government.
By nature, people who are seeking solutions through politics are more prone to adhere to a political party.
The "Tea Party" was named after a historical event. The tea parties are uniting independents who are usually less active in partisan politics.
It is true that right wing partisans love seeing independents railing against the left wing partisans. This fact does not mean that all of the opposition to the massive power grab by the Obama administration is partisan.
Anyway, the efforts of progressives to project partisanship on those seeking to preserve the American Constitution is an absurd political lie.
Showing posts with label projection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label projection. Show all posts
Saturday, March 06, 2010
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Monopoly Status of Health Management Organizations
I am happy that the Democrats have decided to go after the monopoly status of Health Management Companies. The current system allows these massive firms to engage in anti-market activities (like price fixing) to maintain and grow their market share.
The anti-trust movement is the first thing in the health care debate that I believe could lead to a better health care system.
As you see, the trust status of HMOs break the pricing mechanism. The broken pricing mechanism means that a person paying cash for medical services often pays three times more for the service than the HMO. They are often paying ten times the maginal cost of the service.
It is the trust status of the HMOs and not the inherent weakness of the Free Market that has created the dynamic where people are denied access to care.
I could insert a discussion on the difference between the free market and capitalism here ... instead, I want to address a puzzling issue.
The puzzling issue is that this attack against health monopolies happened in the 11th hour of the debate and as a reaction to the insurance industry's publishing a scathing critique of the Baucus bill.
The bills prior to this time were carefully tip-toeing around the trust status.
The modern progressive is not opposed to monopolies. The Marxian model essentially has companies form into monopolies, when this process is complete, a revolutionary change movement will flank the monopolies and role them up into state owned enterprises.
A few decades ago, when I was in health care, the progressives were the ones actively encouranging the development of the massive Health Maintenance Organization that dominates the medical landscape today. In other words, the people who are trying to change the horrid health monopolies of day are of the same ilk as the ones who built it.
This eleventh hour attack on the trust status of HMOs is quite interesting.
It really appears as if the administration is falling into the bunker mantality where in they have defined enemies and friends and are devising their health care system around the base notion that it should reward friends and punish enemies.
This game of having friends and enemies appears to be the nature of man. Throughout the whole of Western history one finds political leaders rallying the folks against perceived enemies. The wicked discrepency in income is often traced directly to actions taken by a government that set aside one group as friends and another as the enemy.
As I watch the health care disaster unfold, my poor little brain reels with the question .... why would anyone want their health care resources controlled by the political class that will seek to redistribute care from the enemies list to the friends list?
To end this post, I found a great example of projection below:
The anti-trust movement is the first thing in the health care debate that I believe could lead to a better health care system.
As you see, the trust status of HMOs break the pricing mechanism. The broken pricing mechanism means that a person paying cash for medical services often pays three times more for the service than the HMO. They are often paying ten times the maginal cost of the service.
It is the trust status of the HMOs and not the inherent weakness of the Free Market that has created the dynamic where people are denied access to care.
I could insert a discussion on the difference between the free market and capitalism here ... instead, I want to address a puzzling issue.
The puzzling issue is that this attack against health monopolies happened in the 11th hour of the debate and as a reaction to the insurance industry's publishing a scathing critique of the Baucus bill.
The bills prior to this time were carefully tip-toeing around the trust status.
The modern progressive is not opposed to monopolies. The Marxian model essentially has companies form into monopolies, when this process is complete, a revolutionary change movement will flank the monopolies and role them up into state owned enterprises.
A few decades ago, when I was in health care, the progressives were the ones actively encouranging the development of the massive Health Maintenance Organization that dominates the medical landscape today. In other words, the people who are trying to change the horrid health monopolies of day are of the same ilk as the ones who built it.
This eleventh hour attack on the trust status of HMOs is quite interesting.
It really appears as if the administration is falling into the bunker mantality where in they have defined enemies and friends and are devising their health care system around the base notion that it should reward friends and punish enemies.
This game of having friends and enemies appears to be the nature of man. Throughout the whole of Western history one finds political leaders rallying the folks against perceived enemies. The wicked discrepency in income is often traced directly to actions taken by a government that set aside one group as friends and another as the enemy.
As I watch the health care disaster unfold, my poor little brain reels with the question .... why would anyone want their health care resources controlled by the political class that will seek to redistribute care from the enemies list to the friends list?
To end this post, I found a great example of projection below:
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
A Quick Flash of Projection
The short video below includes off color language from a top level advisor in the White House.
The question is why, in our hyper partisan day, did the Republicans seem a bit better at passing laws than the Democrats.
I contend that Republicans had actually substantially more bipartisan and open to ideas from across the aisle than the press let on.
Progressives tend to hold to a Marxian dialectical style which pushes conflict into the forefront. This ideology is rife with contradictions and paradoxes. However, I've noticed that people who hold to this thought process hold to a self image of bipartisanship. The basic reasoning is: Since my ideology is rife with paradox and contradictions; I must be bipartisan.
People holding to the dialectics see those holding the classical Aristotelian/analytic view as being necessarily partisan.
I believe the opposite is true. I believe that people holding to the Aristotelian view are better at being bipartisan. After all, one can't be bipartisan until one has a basic grasp of their core principles. The left is struggling as they simply have strategies for projectings images onto people. As HR3200, the Cap and Trade Bill along with the Stimulus shows that they are bankrupt on ideas.
Anyway, the video below contains adult language. I believe it stands out as an example of projection.
The question is why, in our hyper partisan day, did the Republicans seem a bit better at passing laws than the Democrats.
I contend that Republicans had actually substantially more bipartisan and open to ideas from across the aisle than the press let on.
Progressives tend to hold to a Marxian dialectical style which pushes conflict into the forefront. This ideology is rife with contradictions and paradoxes. However, I've noticed that people who hold to this thought process hold to a self image of bipartisanship. The basic reasoning is: Since my ideology is rife with paradox and contradictions; I must be bipartisan.
People holding to the dialectics see those holding the classical Aristotelian/analytic view as being necessarily partisan.
I believe the opposite is true. I believe that people holding to the Aristotelian view are better at being bipartisan. After all, one can't be bipartisan until one has a basic grasp of their core principles. The left is struggling as they simply have strategies for projectings images onto people. As HR3200, the Cap and Trade Bill along with the Stimulus shows that they are bankrupt on ideas.
Anyway, the video below contains adult language. I believe it stands out as an example of projection.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Empathy as an Organizing Principle
A comment from Ran on the last post pointed out that the American law and common law tradition have always value empathy. The post points to juries as a case in point.
The founders also appear to be aware that different courts served different purposes. The founders gave different courts different forms to help them achieve their purpose. Criminal courts exist at a local level and have juries made up from the locality. Clearly, they wanted cases tried before a sympathetic ear.
The problem with empathetic courts is that they tend to arrive at wildly different conclusions depending on who is doing the empathy. So, the founders created a hierarchy of appeals courts with the Supreme Court at the top.
The Supreme Court has multiple judges and now jury.
The common courts evolved through the development of common law. The Supreme Court was established by the Constitution specifically for examining law in context of the Constitution. It is a thing of a totally different form.
Ran clearly is excited about the idea of empathetic judges.
Empathy is a welcome trait in a judge. The ideal judge takes pains to see issues from multiple perspectives. It is valuable for a judge to imagine how different people might feel about a case.
Samuel Alito's mentioning empathy as a positive trait was a good thing.
ScienceBlog leveled the charge of hypocrisy at conservatives for criticizing Obama's position on "empathetic judges," when they don't mind people mentioning empathy as a positive trait.
Claiming empathy as a trait is something different from making empathy an organizing principle of the court.
In the lead up to the nomination. Obama was positioning empathy as an organizing principle for the courts. When a person moves an idea from one context into another, it can take on a different characteristic.
When a local judge shows empathy for a plaintiff, the local judge makes a decision that affects only a small number of people. Other judges might make contradictory decisions when they empathize with other people affected by a trial.
The Supreme Court is not dealing with individual cases, but with very complex precedents that effect the entire system.
The highest quality that I would value in a Supreme Court justice is the ability to see the big puzzle and see how a decision will affect the system as a whole in the context of existing precedent and the Constitution.
The empathetic judge might make a ruling on empathy for the people in the case, and fail to realize the ramifications for all invovled.
I find it easier to feel empathy for individuals and small groups. Were I to employ my empathy in the service of God and King I would tend to make decisions that concentrated benefit on a few with the costs distributed to the many. This, of course, would lead to a wider disparity in income.
In my case, I would reject my own empathetic impulses because I realize that my empathetic impulses are likely to lead to injustice. It is possible that the empathy lobe of a Latina is better in tune with the cosmic oneness than a white male. I suspect that this is not the case.
I should also point out that the actual science of empathy has always been a bit murky. I know empathy is an established fact in Star Trek and Starship Troopers (oh man, that battle between the humans and bugs was something to behold). However, there really isn't a lot of solid evidence to suggest that there are people who can pop out of their body ant into another to feel what they are feeling.
Some of the people who I've met who believe they are empaths appear to be projecting emotions on others.
It is possible that empathy is simply a form of projection.
If, in our effort to build a Utopian court system founded on empathy, we accidentally appointed judges who were projecting their emotions on others; we might actually create a dystopia where courts issues destructive dictates based on false information.
I doubt that this debate about empath judges will really hang around very long. I think Obama was simply using a word the polled well.
To be fair, Sonya Sotomayor appears to be someone set on building a solid legal career as a justice. She appears to have left leaning sentiments but is not desirous of being an activist judge. It is likely that Obama was simply trying to find a word for a center left judge, but accidentally chose a word that is antithetically to traditional thinking on Constitutional law.
The founders also appear to be aware that different courts served different purposes. The founders gave different courts different forms to help them achieve their purpose. Criminal courts exist at a local level and have juries made up from the locality. Clearly, they wanted cases tried before a sympathetic ear.
The problem with empathetic courts is that they tend to arrive at wildly different conclusions depending on who is doing the empathy. So, the founders created a hierarchy of appeals courts with the Supreme Court at the top.
The Supreme Court has multiple judges and now jury.
The common courts evolved through the development of common law. The Supreme Court was established by the Constitution specifically for examining law in context of the Constitution. It is a thing of a totally different form.
Ran clearly is excited about the idea of empathetic judges.
Empathy is a welcome trait in a judge. The ideal judge takes pains to see issues from multiple perspectives. It is valuable for a judge to imagine how different people might feel about a case.
Samuel Alito's mentioning empathy as a positive trait was a good thing.
ScienceBlog leveled the charge of hypocrisy at conservatives for criticizing Obama's position on "empathetic judges," when they don't mind people mentioning empathy as a positive trait.
Claiming empathy as a trait is something different from making empathy an organizing principle of the court.
In the lead up to the nomination. Obama was positioning empathy as an organizing principle for the courts. When a person moves an idea from one context into another, it can take on a different characteristic.
When a local judge shows empathy for a plaintiff, the local judge makes a decision that affects only a small number of people. Other judges might make contradictory decisions when they empathize with other people affected by a trial.
The Supreme Court is not dealing with individual cases, but with very complex precedents that effect the entire system.
The highest quality that I would value in a Supreme Court justice is the ability to see the big puzzle and see how a decision will affect the system as a whole in the context of existing precedent and the Constitution.
The empathetic judge might make a ruling on empathy for the people in the case, and fail to realize the ramifications for all invovled.
I find it easier to feel empathy for individuals and small groups. Were I to employ my empathy in the service of God and King I would tend to make decisions that concentrated benefit on a few with the costs distributed to the many. This, of course, would lead to a wider disparity in income.
In my case, I would reject my own empathetic impulses because I realize that my empathetic impulses are likely to lead to injustice. It is possible that the empathy lobe of a Latina is better in tune with the cosmic oneness than a white male. I suspect that this is not the case.
I should also point out that the actual science of empathy has always been a bit murky. I know empathy is an established fact in Star Trek and Starship Troopers (oh man, that battle between the humans and bugs was something to behold). However, there really isn't a lot of solid evidence to suggest that there are people who can pop out of their body ant into another to feel what they are feeling.
Some of the people who I've met who believe they are empaths appear to be projecting emotions on others.
It is possible that empathy is simply a form of projection.
If, in our effort to build a Utopian court system founded on empathy, we accidentally appointed judges who were projecting their emotions on others; we might actually create a dystopia where courts issues destructive dictates based on false information.
I doubt that this debate about empath judges will really hang around very long. I think Obama was simply using a word the polled well.
To be fair, Sonya Sotomayor appears to be someone set on building a solid legal career as a justice. She appears to have left leaning sentiments but is not desirous of being an activist judge. It is likely that Obama was simply trying to find a word for a center left judge, but accidentally chose a word that is antithetically to traditional thinking on Constitutional law.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
An Example of Partisan Force
Hmmm, in a prime example of partisan extremism, Bill Clinton gave an extremely partisan speech with the central theme of accusing his opponents of partisan extremism.
Projection is one of the most successful tools of the left.
I tried listening to Hillary's speech on the radio yesterday. Except annoying announcers kept breaking in to the speech.
Bill Clinton was probably the single most fortunate president in history. The US was the center of both a computer and internet boom that can happen only once in history. The boom was crowned by an artificial Y2K problem that poured bucket loads of cash into the economy.
Bill Clinton ignored the rise of the Taliban, he turned his back on the people of Rwanda, and on the secod rise of Saddam Hussein.
He is correct that single pary rule under Bush was a fiasco.
The rational style, however, is not determined by the President. The rational style is set by the schools, press and other institutions that are dominated by the left.
Real analysis of the failures of the Bush presidency is valuable. The increased volume of the partisanship was the result the of the left and not Bush.
The wank right after Clinton (Evan Bayh?) just said the most ludicrous thing I had heard in a long time. He praised Obama for supporting a timed withdrawl of American troops when Al Qaeda was winning the war and the Iraq Democracy was at its most tenuous. He then attacked Bush for starting negotiation a time table for withdrawl when it looks like the Iraq Democracy made it through its darkest hour.
For those of you who are into definitions. Withdrawing your forces when you are losing is called "surrender." Withdrawing forces after winning is called "victory."
I opposed the war. However, the way one ends a war is far more important than the way it was started. I applauded Bush's stand that we should not negotiate a timed withdrawl until there was good chance that a democracy would survive in the region.
That means we needed to find a way to draw down during a upswing.
The ending of the war is more important than its beginning. We ended Desert Storm poorly because we left Saddam in power and simply ignored Hussein's atrocities during the Clinton years.
Projection is one of the most successful tools of the left.
I tried listening to Hillary's speech on the radio yesterday. Except annoying announcers kept breaking in to the speech.
Bill Clinton was probably the single most fortunate president in history. The US was the center of both a computer and internet boom that can happen only once in history. The boom was crowned by an artificial Y2K problem that poured bucket loads of cash into the economy.
Bill Clinton ignored the rise of the Taliban, he turned his back on the people of Rwanda, and on the secod rise of Saddam Hussein.
He is correct that single pary rule under Bush was a fiasco.
The rational style, however, is not determined by the President. The rational style is set by the schools, press and other institutions that are dominated by the left.
Real analysis of the failures of the Bush presidency is valuable. The increased volume of the partisanship was the result the of the left and not Bush.
The wank right after Clinton (Evan Bayh?) just said the most ludicrous thing I had heard in a long time. He praised Obama for supporting a timed withdrawl of American troops when Al Qaeda was winning the war and the Iraq Democracy was at its most tenuous. He then attacked Bush for starting negotiation a time table for withdrawl when it looks like the Iraq Democracy made it through its darkest hour.
For those of you who are into definitions. Withdrawing your forces when you are losing is called "surrender." Withdrawing forces after winning is called "victory."
I opposed the war. However, the way one ends a war is far more important than the way it was started. I applauded Bush's stand that we should not negotiate a timed withdrawl until there was good chance that a democracy would survive in the region.
That means we needed to find a way to draw down during a upswing.
The ending of the war is more important than its beginning. We ended Desert Storm poorly because we left Saddam in power and simply ignored Hussein's atrocities during the Clinton years.
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