South Dakota Politics

Let Occupy Occupy

Mayor Bloomberg has drawn criticism from some conservatives for letting Occupy Wall Street stay indefinitely. In some ways, it is easy to understand why critics are upset with Bloomberg. Garbage is piling up, one person defecated on a police car, and many of the protestors do not even seem to know why they are there.

Even charitable accounts note that, after three weeks of protests, organization “is still lacking and political goals still need unpacking.” This group has protested for three weeks without knowing what its goals are. So it isn’t hard to see what critics are upset about.

But there are four good reasons for conservatives to applaud Bloomberg’s decision. The first is that it favors democracy. Contrast Bloomberg’s decision to Governor Perdue’s recent suggestion that we should suspend congressional elections for two years, so that Congress could concentrate on fixing the country’s financial problems. Or consider the claims by many on the left, including Vice President Joe Biden, that the Republican were akin to terrorists, because they engaged in debate and would not immediately let the Democrats raise the debt ceiling.

Elections and congressional deliberation are two core parts of America’s democratic system and it is worrisome to me that some would suggest bypassing either. In light of these things, Bloomberg’ decision to support free speech seems refreshingly Democratic. This is, I think, the best reason for conservatives to support Bloomberg’s decision. But it is not the only one.

When Fox's Brian Kilmeade asked who he thought Occupy Wall Street benefitted, conservative columnist Mark Steyn replied that it benefitted everyone. Here’s why:

Kilmeade: Mark, who is benefitting from these protests downtown?

Steyn: I think we all are, actually, because, this is a very clarifying moment. I mean, I think it’s the dumbest revolution (so-called), of the last hundred years. It’s basically non-workers of the world united. It’s basically all the economically non-productive elements of society from America’s vast pampered college class, big labor is supporting them, the spend-a-holic Democratic Party is supporting them. And I think it’s symbolically useful in that sense, because it gets to the heart of the biggest problem in the western world today – that too many people lead economically unproductive lives and to have them all down there in lower Manhattan providing a great visual reminder of that actually does us all a service.

Steyn is right. The protestors do a good deal to expose the problems many conservatives have with certain elements of the leftist base. These problems range from the willingness of some do or repeat anything, to the apparent contradictions in their positions.

For instance, Occupy is marching both against high student tuition and against lowering the salaries or lessening the benefits of Dartmouth professors. I suspect that it would be hard to lower tuition without lowering salaries as well.

Furthermore, Occupy is protesting against the rich, while defending some of the richest academics in the country. The average salary for a Darmouth Faculty is $203,140 – higher than the average salary for faculty at Cornell and Brown. The university currently has a budget deficit of $96 million. Yet Occupy is protesting even the most modest cuts in faculty salaries.

Perhaps Occupy would be more supportive if Darmouth administrators could levy a tax on faculty instead. At any rate, both the hypocrisy and the unworkability of certain leftist ideas are put into the spotlight by the protests.

But Occupy doesn’t just expose problems with the left’s base. It also exposes the hypocrisy of some of the most prominent political figures on the left.  Perhaps the most vocal congressional critic of the tea parties has been Nancy Pelosi. She first dismissed Tea Party protests as “astroturf”, then went on to treat the Tea Party as an uncontrollable and fearsome group. She urged Republicans to take back control of their party. She hinted that Tea Party protestors were creating a culture of violence. Contrast this to the way she reacts to Occupy. Does she say that Occupy is promoting a culture of violence? Is she scared of Occupy? Does she dismiss it as astoturf? Of course not.

Here’s Pelosi on Occupy (transcribed from a broadcast on C-Span):

The message of the protestors is a message for establishment every place. The focus is on Wall Street and justifiably so. God bless them for their spontaneity! It’s independent people coming. It’s young, it’s spontaneous, it’s focused and it’s going to be effective.

There are only a couple problems with this. One is Pelosi’s blatant hypocrisy. If people who are politically opposed to the policies she supports, they are dangerous and worrisome. If people more in line with her political ideologies protest against something, well, God bless them.

The other is that Pelosi is obviously wrong. She calls Occupy, which is largely financed by unions “independent”, while dismissing the largely grass roots tea parties as “astroturf.” She praises Occupy for its “focus”, even when even many of its participants admit that it has none. Occupy Wall Street puts the hypocrisy of figures like Pelosi in full view of the American people. The right ought to be happy about this.

Finally, when Occupy does express itself clearly, it is sometimes right. The group is right, for instance, about the wrongness of the bail-outs. It is right about the failure of the Obama administration to fix America’s economic woes. Occupy and the Tea Party would make unlikely allies, but I suspect that they do agree on some thing.

So, I say, let occupy occupy. Well done, Mayor Bloomberg.

Alienating Poland

President Bush was often criticized by his detractors for alienating America's allies. Yet Obama seems to be getting a pass for doing the same thing. In an earlier post, I mentioned Obama's poor treatment of the UK's Gordon Brown. Apparently, the UK is not the only ally that the president has chosen to snub. Today, on the anniversary of the soviet's attack on Poland, Obama announced his intention to scrap plans to build a missile shield based in Poland and the Czech Republic. According to Reuters writer Gabriela Baczynska, Obama means to shelve the plans in order to improve ties with Russia. If so, that is quite a blow to a nation that was one of America's strongest allies against communism.

Some have suggested that Obama means to improve relations with Russia to enlist its help in fighting Iran's nuclear development. I do not think such a move will help. Unless Russia has already agreed to put pressure on Iran in exchange for this favor, I can think of no reason that it would bother to do anything other than what it pleases. Furthermore, by doing this without securing any sort of agreement, we lose a bargaining chip in negotiations with Moscow, while alienating those who are already our allies. Indeed, according to The Wall Street Journal, "Russia, on Thursday welcomed the news but said it saw no reason to offer concessions in return."

Yet, according to the WSJ, The Obama administration justifies the move by saying the following because it believes that "a redesigned defensive system would be cheaper, quicker and more effective against the threat from Iranian missiles." Maybe so. But I hope the new design isn't as convoluted and difficult for the administration to explain as the new design for healthcare. The Obama administration gives one more reason for scrapping the Bush administration's plans. According to the WSJ:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the decision to abandon the Bush administration's plans came about because of a change in the U.S. perception of the threat posed by Iran. Mr. Gates said intelligence experts concluded the short- and medium-range missiles were "developing more rapidly than previously projected" in Iran.

But, says the WSJ, Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says the following:

We believed that the emergence of the intercontinental ballistic missile would come much faster than it did. The reality is, it has not come as fast as we thought it would come.

There is, therefore, some debate over whether or not Obama's assumption is correct. Were he Bush, I suspect this would have been enough to cause quite a bit of howling from the American left. But Iran clearly is a threat to the United States and I would not object to the president taking measures against Iran's nuclear program. Still, it would have been nice if he could have waited a week or two, rather than springing this change on Poland during such a solemn day or found a way to include the missile shield in his plans.

The Two Patients

 

During his speech, President Obama told two heartwrenching stories of medical patients who had had their health insurance unfairly ripped away from them with devastating consequences. The first is as follows:

One man from Illinois lost his coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because his insurer found that he hadn't reported gallstones that he didn't even know about. They delayed his treatment, and he died because of it.

This is infuriating, if true. But is it? Unless Obama is talking about a case other than that of Otto Raddatz, whose sister Peggy testified before Congress on his behalf, then, no. It isn't. On June 16, 2009, CNN wrote this about the Raddatz case:

Peggy Raddatz testified on behalf of her brother, who was diagnosed with stage four non-Hodgkin's type lymphoma. In the midst of his chemotherapy treatment, his coverage was rescinded and he was not able to receive the stem cell transplant needed to save his life.

Raddatz's brother was told his coverage was canceled for failing to disclose that, unknown to him, a doctor had once noted in his file that a CT scan showed a small aneurysm and some insignificant gallstones.

But this is not where the story ends. Indeed, according to the CNN article:    

Peggy Raddatz worked with the Illinois attorney general's office and eventually was able, after two appeals, to get her brother's coverage reinstated.

But if Otto Raddatz had had his coverage reinstated, why did his sister have to testify in his behalf? Did he die, as Obama said? Well, yes, he died - three years later. Was it because of the problem with his insurance? No. Peggy Raddatz asserted that his insurance had been "reinstated without any lapse." Furthermore, according to the hearing transcript:

The company relented and Otto received his stem cell transplant. He was able to live 3 more years before passing away earlier this year.

So Obama's tale isn't exactly true. What about the other story? Here's how Obama tells it:

Another woman from Texas was about to get a double mastectomy when her insurance company cancelled her policy because she forgot to declare a case of acne. By the time she had her insurance reinstated, her breast cancer had more than doubled in size. That is heart-breaking, it is wrong, and no one should be treated that way in the United States of America.

Interestingly enough, a case identical to this one appeared CNN article. I rather suspect that it is the one Obama is talking about. Here's what it says:

Robin Beaton found out last June she had an aggressive form of breast cancer and needed surgery -- immediately. Her insurance carrier precertified her for a double mastectomy and hospital stay. But three days before the operation, the insurance company called and told her they had red-flagged her chart and she would not be able to have her surgery.

The reason? In May 2008, Beaton had visited a dermatologist for acne. A word written on her chart was interpreted to mean precancerous, so the insurance company decided to launch an investigation into her medical history.

Well, that sounds pretty bad. But CNN also says the following:

Beaton had listed her weight incorrectly. She also didn't disclose medication she had taken for a pre-existing heart condition -- medicine she wasn't taking when she originally applied for coverage.

So was Beaton's insurance really just rescinded because she had acne? No. It was rescinded because it looked like she had failed to report precancerous acne and when the insurance company launched an investigation of her medical history; they found out that she hadn't reported information about a pre-existing heart condition. According to CNN, she hadn't been taking that medication when she applied for coverage. Perhaps that is why Beaton was able to, with help from her representative, have her care reinstated.

In any case, it is important to note that both patients had their problems resolved in the Status Quo. And in the Status Quo, if someone has a problem with their insurance company, they can go to the government for help. But let's say the government is your insurance company. What is your recourse if it wrongs you? Where does a patient go then?

Trusting the Government

In this post, Cory over at the Madville times takes aim at Senator Thune and his claims that Americans don't trust the government. Here's some of what he has to say:

But Cory says the problem is Republicans, not government. The government can be trusted he says, if it is made up of Democrats (or, at least, that seems to me to be what he's saying).

All of these arguments strengthen Thune's claim. Even if Cory's comments are fair, and the Republicans alone are to blame for everything from terror to health care crises, leaving health care in the hands of the government might be a very bad idea. For now, Democrats control congress and the presidency. But will they always?

Probably not. This means that, while the Democrats might vote to implement this bill, Republicans may run the system later. Republicans would almost certainly fill many if not all of the appointed positions created by the plan. That's bad news if Cory is right. It's worse if he's not and I don't think he is. While Republicans do deserve much of the blame for the unbridled spending during Bush's terms in office, they are not the only culprits. Indeed, the Democrats stood right alongside them. Bush was president for two terms, but Republicans only controlled congress for one, and, indeed, many Democrats were behind some of the most expensive programs congress implemented.

As far as Bush "not preventing the worst terrorist attack on American soil in history", I'm not sure whether or not Cory is right. If we did prevent a worse attack, it didn't happen, so it would be hard to know. But blaming President Bush for his "failure" to prevent a type of attack that had never before occurred in America and took millions by surprise is, I think, a little unfair, particularly when Democrats complain about the military taking any sort of preemptive measure.

I do not blame Bill Clinton for failing to prevent the Oklahoma City bombing, which was the most significant attack on American soil until September 11th. However, if one is to blame, so is the other and appointing Democrats will not solve the problem. As for Corry's complaint that Bush did not "maintain good relations with foreign allies," Obama has snubbed our closest ally at least twice. So electing Democrats might not be the best solution to that problem either. Time will tell how Obama responds to the other problems Cory lists.

In the mean time, I think Thune is right. It is hard to trust the government when, no matter which side controls it, it has proven itself untrustworthy.