"Social justice" means not that I contribute my wealth to the needy which all religions agree is laudable, but that I force you to contribute your wealth to the needy and that your contribution must go to the needy that I choose in the manner that I choose you to do it, and by the way, since I'm the one who forced you to do it, I get the recognition for your contribution as if it were mine and therefore become revered and powerful and wealthy. This is a distortion of religious teaching. When I hear a homily that is not telling me how to improve myself but instead is telling me how society should be ordered I construe this not to be Christian teaching but political discourse and I avoid further contact with that preacher.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Is Science the only way to knowledge?
Not having any expertise in physics my reading informs me that there are a series of fundamental forces in the universe. Among these are things like strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, gravity, etc and that these are extremely finely tuned such that a minor deviation in any would have resulted in a universe that could not have supported life, or even lasted very long. The marvelous coincidence of all this fine tuning is suggesting an intelligent plan to many because the odds against it happening by chance are infintesimally small.
More fundamental than all this however is the explanation of the origin of these forces and for that matter the origin of the universe. We now understand that the universe had a beginning and the date roughly has been calculated. In addition physicists speculating about the radically different state of the universe in those first couple of billion years state that there appears to have been exquisite fine tuning of the colossal initial forces to produce the universe that we know today rather than one that imploded on itself, etc. I'd have to look up my sources to be any more specific than that.
The big question then appears to be that if the universe had a beginning in a singular point of unimaginable power, what is the explanation of that event. In addition we know from einsteinian physics that space and time are not independent of the universe and do not exist apart from our universe. All of this suggests the common sense intuition that there is a reality outside of that which we presently understand that exists outside of space and time that is responsible for our universe. I can think of no other explanation.
Modern secularists and atheists divide truth and knowledge into scientific and supernatural. This seems to be a common presumption of those who hold up "science" as the only valid knowledge. They contend that the only possible knowledge or truth is that which we can perceive with our senses or with instruments that are extensions of our senses. That seems to me to be an extremely limited viewpoint and one which is doomed to result in major defects in knowledge. It is like the men in Plato's cave who see only shadows on the back wall and believe they have a real view of the world.
Science, philosophy and theology all seek universal truth and cannot contradict each other. All are valid. Einstein was just as much a philosopher as a scientist. He never conducted experiments except in his head and his philosophical experiments turned out to be true (at least as far as our present day understanding is concerned). Cosmology is half science, half philosophy. Einstein found that our presumptions of reality which seemed so obvious were incorrect. The same process in our acquistion of knowlege of the world around us has happened time and again in the past and will continue to happen in the future. What we know as "scientific fact" today will seem ridiculous to those a thousand years from now.
Let us suppose that it is true that the universe as we know it was created by an intelligent being who exists outside of time and space and who is unimaginably powerful. From all we know that is at least a reasonable possibility. If a "scientist" who is seeking an understanding of the origin of the universe excludes that possiblility from his consideration, then he is not seeking truth but is doing something else, perhaps forming his own religion. If he is really seeking truth he must accept this at least as one possibility and look for what evidence he can of this as an explanation. In my view he will find it. For those of us who are convinced by our "thought experiments" we can move on to the more important question of the meaning of creation and our relationship to the creator.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
About what Mormons and Catholics believe
For the life of me I can't figure out what people have against them. And I've heard both liberals and conservatives express negative opinions. I'll give you the problem with their doctrines and their history but what religion doesn't have that sort of thing. But their doctrines as far as I know aren't bad, just a little wacky. And their history is history. I know they're conservative generally. Is that what the problem is? I like people who are courteous and respectful and stick by their families and communities and try to help others. My family and I spent a night in O'Hare airport back in 2000 when my son got married. My 85 y/o mom was with us. We hung out next to a group of Mormon kids coming back from their 2 year service and they couldn't have been nicer, expecially to my mom. I had a Mormon student from the local medical school in my clinic this year. Same thing.
As far as Catholics believing what the Church tells them to believe, I think we've got a little contradiction in terms here. When you say the Credo, do you believe all those things. Well there's a lot of stuff in there that's hard to swallow. Is Christ God? Did He die for our sins? Was he born of a virgin? Did he rise from the grave? That's tough stuff that you'd never believe except that the Church tells you it's true. Can you at least accept the possibility? If you don't believe these fundamental things that the Church tells you are true, can you still be a Catholic? "And if Christ has not been raised, then empty is our preaching; empty, too, your faith. … You are still in your sins" (1 Corinthians 15:14,17).
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Medical Care Prices under government control.
Prices are the mechanism in the market for appropriate allocation of scarce goods with alternative uses such as medical services. If a central entity controls prices rather than letting price float freely this causes disruption in appropriate distribution and reduction in quality.
Prices (or fees or whatever you want to call them) for medical services in this country are largely set by Medicare. Look at any private insurance contract and you will see that it relates to Medicare prices. This phenomenon is producing misallocation of medical services and reduction in their quality in our country.
Democrats point out the obvious fact that those who are not in some way participating in this bizarre and stupid system have a problem when they require medical services. The answer is not to bring these people into the system but to let everyone else out of it.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
60 leaders stood up to insurance companies and stood up for working families all across America.
Isn't it strange that the 60 leaders were all from one party. Anyway they sure socked it to those horrible greedy insurance companies who now are going to have to sell their product to everyone in the whole country even if they're sick as hell. And if they charge somebody more than they can pay well then the government will just take care of everything. And those bad young healthy people are not going to get away with not buying their product anymore no matter what it costs. Can you imagine the stupid people on wall street were idiotic enough to pay higher prices for the insurance company stocks when they knew that President Obama was very mad at them and told everybody they were very greedy and were causing all our problems. Well when everybody sees what happens to those bad insurance companies they're going to know just which one of those parties did it and they will get everything that they deserve. You wait and see.
From: Terrence Carden <tscii@comcast.net>
Sent: Thu, December 24, 2009 7:41:14 AM
Subject: 60 leaders stood up to insurance companies and stood up for working families all across America.
T
News Analysis
In Senate Health Care Vote, New Partisan Vitriol
WASHINGTON — The vote on Monday, in the dead of night, was 60 to 40. The vote on Tuesday, just after daybreak, was 60 to 39. And the vote on Wednesday afternoon, at a civil hour but after less-than-civil debate, was 60 to 39 again — an immutable tally that showed Democrats unwavering in the march to adopt a far-reaching overhaul of the health care system over united Republican opposition.
The votes also marked something else: the culmination of more than a generation of partisan polarization of the American political system, and a precipitous decline in collegiality and collaboration in governing that seemed to move in inverse proportion to a rising influence of lobbying, money, the 24-hour news cycle and hostilities on talk shows and in the blogosphere.
The health care legislation is likely to be approved Thursday morning, with the Senate divided on party lines — something that has not happened in modern times on so important a shift in domestic policy, or on major legislation of any kind, lawmakers and Congressional historians said.
The Democrats flaunted their unity on Wednesday at a news conference with nearly their entire caucus in attendance.
Many senators said the current vitriol, which continued on the floor on Wednesday with a fight over when to cast the final health care vote, was unlike anything they had seen. "It has gotten so much more partisan," said Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia. "This was so wicked. This was so venal."
Even in a bitter fight over President Bill Clinton's budget in 1993, decided 51 to 50 with a rare tie-breaker vote by Vice President Al Gore, the partisanship was not as stark as it is today. Although no Republicans voted for Mr. Clinton's budget, six Democrats joined them in what amounted to bipartisan opposition.
Mr. Rockefeller said the health bill had created an almost perfect storm of political and policy disagreements, so that some of the bitterness reflected basic philosophical disputes crystallized by President Obama's agenda. "If there was ever a time for that kind of partisanship to come out, this was the bill to do it," he said.
Ross K. Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University and an expert on the history of the Senate, said that in earlier eras, senators would routinely cross party lines to vote in favor of major legislation on issues like civil rights and social welfare policy.
In 1965, the Senate created the Medicare program by a vote of 68 to 21, with 13 Republicans joining 55 Democrats in favor, and 7 Democrats joining 14 Republicans in opposition. In 2003, some Democrats in both the House and the Senate voted with most Republicans to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare.
"It certainly is a culmination of a long period of intensifying political polarization," Mr. Baker said of this year's showdown over health care. "It has gotten so bad now that Republicans don't want to be seen publicly in the presence of Democrats or have a Democrat profess friendship for them or vice versa."
With Democrats nominally controlling 60 seats, the precise number needed to overcome Republican filibusters, there is no room for wavering Democrats to break ranks. If they held one less seat, there would be no choice but to win over a Republican; one or two more, and one or two senators with apprehensions could be released to vote no.
Some lawmakers predicted that the Senate would eventually rediscover its genteel equilibrium.
"There's a tolerance level here for what we have just been through, and I think we have hit the tipping point," said Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut. "It got rougher than it should. We are getting precariously close to fracturing an institution where no one wins, so I think we are going to be back on track."
But some experts said that the divide in the Senate reflected a broader political shift that lawmakers cannot easily reverse. "In the 1970s, for instance, there was a much wider political spectrum in both parties," said Donald A. Ritchie, the Senate historian. "You had conservative and liberal wings in both parties."
Mr. Ritchie and many senators said they had witnessed the change in the last 30 years.
"You have got this divide, this polarization in America," said Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, the only Republican in recent weeks to seriously consider supporting the health bill. "People become risk-averse, politically risk-averse. There is no incentive to reach across the divide and appeal to a broader inclination. It looks like pragmatism is a political cop-out; compromise is certainly viewed that way."
But even as senators complained about the rancor and expressed nostalgia for a kinder era, they conceded that the hyper-partisanship was likely to continue, potentially coloring coming debates on other major issues including financial regulation, climate change and, perhaps, immigration.
Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, and chairman of the Finance Committee, said the political — and often personal — divisions that now characterize the Senate were epitomized by the empty tables in the senators' private dining room, a place where members of both parties used to break bread.
"Nobody goes there anymore," Mr. Baucus said. "When I was here 10, 15, 30 years ago, that was the place you would go to talk to senators, let your hair down, just kind of compare notes, no spouses allowed, no staff, nobody. It is now empty."
For more than 30 years, the major parties — Democrats and Republicans — worked every angle to transform politics into a zero-sum numbers game. State legislatures redrew Congressional districts to take advantage of party affiliation in the local population. The two-year campaign cycle became a never-ending one.
Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, who worked on many bipartisan health care bills over the years, often with a close friend, the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said that the both parties were to blame but that external factors including ethics rules also discouraged senators from fraternizing.
"Both parties have become very polarized," Mr. Hatch said. "A lot of that is because of the stupid ethics rules. We can't get together at various events. A lot of people complain about taking foreign trips, which are really critical for us to understand foreign policy. The Internet is constantly badgering everybody. In the process, it's gotten pretty doggone partisan, both ways. It's bad."
Mr. Hatch and Republican leaders said the lack of any support on their side showed that the health bill was mortally flawed.
The majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, at a news conference on Wednesday with most of his caucus standing behind him, offered a different take.
"I don't see this as 60 Democrats versus 40 Republicans," he said. "I see it as 60 leaders who stood up to insurance companies and stood up for working families all across America."
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Adam Smith and the value of land
Just read a great chapter in "Wealth of Nations". Smith describes the progression of land ownership and development from classical period down to his time in the 18th century. Starting with slaves working the land and progressing through serfdom, tenant farmers and then to enlightened laws of tenancy in England in which the tenant had guaranteed use of the land for extended years, including voting rights. As the worker of the land accumulates personal benefit (rather than having it accrue to the owner) in making long term improvements in fertility and construction of fencing, buildings etc, the land becomes more and more valuable, not only to the farmer but to the whole country.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Why medical care costs a lot
There are doctors who treat medicine primarily as a business. In our community I think they are a small minority. In other communities there may be a different culture. Of course in medicine, just as in any other service business, you must make a living by providing a service and the dividing line between what is absolutely necessary and what is simply hand-holding is somewhat blurred. The real problem here is that in medical care there is no counterbalancing force of the customer's interest in getting the best value for his money so that for the guy who wants to make money by doing a lot of remunerative tests it's like shooting sitting ducks.
What's the solution. First of all to consider this as the only or even the primary cause of high health care costs is foolish. Secondly, can the government set out regulations that determine what test in necessary and what isn't? Impossible. That is the route to medical insanity -- rationing on the basis of what costs the most or which group has the most political power.
Here's what I think is the clear answer. Patient power and competition. If the patients think that the Mayo Clinic concept is the best value then that is the mode that will dominate. The medical profession will be come along and be convinced by the power of the purse. Here is a response I sent to a doctor friend of mine who was, like Obama, touting the Mayo clinic and similar institutions as the easy answer to health care economic problems.
The big medical groups that you are so fond of obviously have their place. They're kind of interesting in that they're kind of second tier in the academic area but have great reputation in the practice area because of their ability to super-organize. This puts them in a leadership position in things like surgical specialties but from my observation their efforts to extend their systems into the community are lacking. For example there's no way the local Geisinger clinics, with their high doctor turnover, can offer the service that a good devoted established primary care doctor can provide to his patients. I'm also not very impressed with the care my patients get at the Mayo and Cleveland Clinic satellites while they're in Florida in the winter. The big organized "Clinics" are the Walmarts and the Lowes of medicine. They certainly have their place and may even become dominant, especially if medicine becomes more market oriented, but they're never going to eliminate the good local stores with their personalized service. >>
What I really wish you would look at is the attached essay on this whole subject that I wrote almost 20 years ago when I was president of the local medical society. It's a bit outdated in parts, but I'm amazed that the great majority of the piece still holds true today. The problem is getting worse and we're still not facing up to the solution.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)