Month: September 2005

failed experiment?

Small Government Republicanism Is Gone:

Small-government Republicanism has been dead since the inauguration of Ronald Reagan. But now it has been staked, and its head has been cut off and stuffed with garlic.

I wonder if the entire American experiment is over. Over the past quarter century, we have endured a relentless assault on the very idea of a national government that does anything beyond the minimum — and even that is considered onerous. We have seen the national news media, once considered to be a bulwark against political arrogance, undermined to the point where few people trust anything they see, hear, or read. Any education beyond the elementary years — the three Rs — is attacked by religious fanatics, ignoramuses of every stripe, as being biased, sacrilegious, or treasonous.

I wonder how a single nation, the third largest in the world, can be governed by people who hate government and whose most ardent supporters don’t seem to want to belong to a large, diverse community.

Anyone have any optimism to spare?
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I’d feel better if he had lived up to it

Inaugural Address:

And I can pledge our nation to a goal: When we see that wounded traveler on the road to Jericho, we will not pass to the other side.

America, at its best, is a place where personal responsibility is valued and expected.

Encouraging responsibility is not a search for scapegoats, it is a call to conscience. And though it requires sacrifice, it brings a deeper fulfillment. We find the fullness of life not only in options, but in commitments. And we find that children and community are the commitments that set us free.

Our public interest depends on private character, on civic duty and family bonds and basic fairness, on uncounted, unhonored acts of decency which give direction to our freedom.

Sometimes in life we are called to do great things. But as a saint of our times has said, every day we are called to do small things with great love. The most important tasks of a democracy are done by everyone.

I will live and lead by these principles: to advance my convictions with civility, to pursue the public interest with courage, to speak for greater justice and compassion, to call for responsibility and try to live it as well.

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health insurance: good if you have it

The New Yorker: Fact:

. . . cost sharing is “a blunt instrument.”

Interesting piece by Malcolm Gladwell on health insurance. I found the emphasis in dental insurance — and how people cope without it — to be pretty painful stuff. I have noticed the looks one gets when you’re missing a top front tooth, and am glad I am not looking for work right now (imagine applying for a knowledge worker or technical position and missing out on due to an inability to eat a crisp apple).

I have heard the phrase “moral hazard” before but had never heard the explanation before. Sounds like more tired Puritanism, where we refuse to extend a benefit to everyone lest someone somewhere malinger and abuse our collective good nature.

Reading this with the backdrop of New Orleans, post-Katrina, in my mind makes me wonder what people think of themselves and their fellow men: do we really dislike or mistrust each other that much?
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never saw New Orleans, and now I never will

I wanted to use a better headline, but someone beat me to it.
When I read the details of how New Orleans has fared — and I’ve read little else this past week — I keep thinking of the Kursk or Beslan, and how they were bunged by the new Russian state.

I have taken in so much information on when the city and state realized the potential magnitude of the disaster and how unaware the federal authorities remained until it was too late for many. This just doesn’t seem possible for a disaster like this to happen to the 4th largest seaport in the world, a major US city, an international tourist destination, and one of the most unique of American cities.

Is this the response we should have expected from our Department of Homeland Security in the four years since 9/11 “changed everything?”

I don’t feel safer.
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