The Conservative Brotherhood

I don't know why I'm surprised. The deafening silence from the Israeli lobby in our Conservative Brotherhood ranks following the Goldstone Report and the subsequent extortion of Fatah is to be fatalistically expected. Those recently decked out in their red, white, and blue tea party duds can't seem to distinguish between the interests of the United States of America and those of the State of Israel. Supporting Israel's right to exist, as an accomplished fact, is one thing, the requirement to acquiesce to their geo-spatial ambitions and diminution of the Palestinian's equally legitimate right to a homeland and sovereign state, is another. I can understand the Christian world's attempt at moral atonement after the holocaust of W.W. II, and I can also understand why Muslims generally, and Palestinians particularly, resent the flotsam of European history being dumped in their backyard. What has never been sufficiently explained to me is the geo-political importance of the one state of Israel to the U.S. that justifies making enemies of an entire region with our unfair and unbalanced policies. The old saw about a "democratic state" in the Middle East being a geo-political asset for the U.S. has yet to prove its merit strategically or as an inspiration to its neighbors. In many ways Israel has been a liability, not only financially and because it has strained our relationships with the oil states, but it has reflexively caused religious friction. Whatever the benefits of religion in the quietude of individual souls, it has always been a weapon of mass destruction in inter-state affairs. And it has often been the fount of hypocrisy, as evidenced in the non-reaction to the Goldstone Report among those who have defended and championed Israel on this very site.

Let me declare at the outset, I am for a two state solution in the Middle East - Israel and Palestine. I expect my lifespan will have its majority footprint in the twentieth century, so I arrive at my outlook as a contemporary person attempting to apply the precepts and precedents of international law and common sense as practiced at the beginning of the twenty-first century. I try to avoid applying any religious beliefs or prejudices that have been impressed upon me by culture or upbringing because the accident of my cultural identity isn't more likely to align me with any universal religious truth less subjective than the beliefs of my instructors.

Is it just me? What did the President say at the U.N. that was so bad? To retreat from the fallacy of American exceptionalism was a concession to reality rather than a capitulation to enemies real, imagined, or potential. The criticisms putting forth the notion that the U.S. is being betrayed by a naive administration too focused on multi-nationalism to properly secure our vital interests are silly and retrogressive. I take particular issue with the comments of Alan Keyes and his mono-directional American perspective and world view. What is wrong with engaging and negotiating with other states holding the same reverence for their national sovereignties as we hold for our own? Mr.

What are we to make of the noxious state of our civil discourse? Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from restraint. Public announcements or remonstrations should ideally advance the behaviors it is best to encourage if civilized coexistence is a worthwhile outcome. Decorum is not high couture, it is not a costume that expresses unarticulated ideas of self, or a uniform to denote or confirm ephemeral identity. It doesn't have a season, and so it follows, should survive the transitory heats and chills of ordinary life. The ubiquitous media and the technology that makes paparazzi of us all, may instigate an inaccurate view of our personal space, which we are free to pollute as we choose, causing us to become inured to the gravity and negative force of the amplified and endlessly re-broadcast rejection of appropriate public decorum.

Now that an immediacy of decision has been deferred, I think we can dispassionately consider the question, "Do we want universal health care or not?" If the answer is "no", then let's just drop it and move to resolve our wars and other economic problems. If the answer is "yes", then we must find a way to accommodate disparate views. The proposal of a "public option" has caused the most recalcitrance. The harm a "public option" is projected to engender is the establishment of the government as a "predator" and unfair competitor with private companies because of its dual role as both player and umpire in the business arena. Secondly, a "public option" is expected to inevitably lose the 'optionality' and evolve into a socialistically mandatory duty of citizenship, which is feared, will be the imposition of still another yoke and bridle conveying diminishing freedom of individual choice and action to ever larger and engorged government. It is true the most publicized solutions put forth to address the generally perceived need for health care reform have had unfamiliar, discordant socialistic components which conflict with our society's deeply ingrained capitalistic sensibilities. Nevertheless, since the status quo has been irreparably discredited, some adjustment of attitude is necessary and unavoidable. And I haven't heard any proposal directed to affect any semblance of "universal" health care reform which doesn't include government as a prominent partner. If my understanding of just this portion of the controversy is correct, then we are obliged to forge some kind of palatable compromise between the policy antagonists.

"The things that will destroy us are: politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without morality; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice" - Mahatma Gandhi

I am fascinated by the ruckus engendered by the health care debate. I haven't seen this level of citizen involvement or desire to instruct political hirelings since the Watergate debacle. But, I am surprised at the tenderness of adoration so many claim to hold for capitalism, contrasted to the almost irrational fear and hatred of any degree of socialism. I hate to remind that there is nothing in the mandate of the philosophy of capitalism that requires or even encourages fairness. I believe our Wall Street Bonus Babies, exemplars of capitalism, will stipulate to that. This eccentric myopia may explain some of the difficulties the current administration is experiencing in its attempt to persuade the public of the value of mutuality in the realm of health care. Mr. Jefferson, in the Declaration, displayed admirable prescience when he wrote, "all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they have become accustomed". This is evidenced by the surprising cleaving to the "free market" as the proper mechanism to achieve more affordable and widespread health care, when doing so is contradicted by the obvious failure of the free market to meet these goals. This is not to say the free market is inherently incapable of fulfilling such a hope, but is simply an acknowledgement that its recent failures have driven us to the present controversy. Health care in the "free market", at this point in time, is unaffordable for institutions such as corporations, unions, states, and cities, let alone non-affluent private individuals. The only corrective measures proposed at present are "socialistic", which are roundly attacked at town hall meetings, at the same time there is a bizarre affection for the status quo, which it is generally admitted, under serves the public interests. What a quandary?

I will admit at the outset that I am not competent to argue the merits or demerits of the various health care proposals being bandied about. As I have said in the past, I will accept what emerges from the political process because I can't find it in myself to veto compassion due to ideology. I would like to be stronger and wiser, but the human and economic complexities, frankly, overwhelm me. Still, I maintain one of the essential elements of the problem is not the source from where payments for services will derive, whether we pay cash on the barrelhead or through the circuitous route of taxation-bureaucracy-disbursement, but most significantly, the actual costs of services. The other element is our unwillingness to accept the reality we must mediate the costs of health care and our massive military spending. It is one of those conundrums of humanity. Nations addicted to the illusion of pre-eminence cyclically waste their treasure in military preparations that ultimately convinces them they are less secure than before pre-eminence. Invariably, however much they eschew aggression or empire, they always end up with more they feel the need to spend and to defend. If our primary barrier to universal health care is money, these two areas need to be addressed or all the buckshot of arguments impacting our consciousnesses will be moot.

When conservatism is discussed the phrase "big government" is often recited as a curse. Usually the reference is to the growing number of bureaucracies established to equip the government to carry out the tasks it has taken unto itself. This trend is certainly a contentious point for conservatism, but left at this simplistic and somewhat misleading point it allows many designating themselves as "conservative" to reflexively and thoughtlessly believe that "big government" is always the enemy, sub specie aeternitatis, of business. To the contrary, this encouraged fallacious belief, often disguises the fact that big government is frequently the ally, if not the servant, of big business. In my blog, "Caesar's Painted Bride" I alluded to the cozy relationship of the denizens of Wall Street with the regulatory agencies of government. Reports in various financial news sources on July 31, 2009 supported my insinuation that those former officers of Wall Street firms now serving as economic Czars in the public sector trail a distinct fishy smell. A reasonable and sober person could not be faulted for being suspicious of the institutions to which they owe their munificent personal fortunes and apparently their loyalties as well, the champions of unrestrained capitalism which they now supposedly regulate, lately at death's door and only resuscitated by the socialist infusion of public capital, paid 4,749 of their employees million dollar bonuses, 311 got five million dollars, and 47 received ten million dollar bonuses, over and above already substantial salaries. In the past I prophesied this phenomena of dollars being collected socialistically only to be transferred to the enrichment of capitalists. This generous bequest has been made possible by whom - big government!

What can be the reason the "Change you can believe in" candidate has appointed yet another Goldman Sachs executive to an official government position from whence this cabal of professional Mafioso can control and direct our national economy? As a layperson dumbfounded by the complexities of macroeconomics I am intellectually unable to see an improvement in the economic affairs of the nation that correspond to Goldman's record quarterly profit and 68% rise in its stock price. Of course it may be mere coincidence the methodology employed by our new Secretaries, Czars, and advisors has had a greater stimulus effect on Wall Street than Main Street, but in terms of public morale it is an unfortunate coincidence. Such coincidences underscore why the debate over executive compensation is more than a trivial matter. When banks and houses of finance faced imminent bankruptcy a few short months ago, necessitating nearly a trillion dollars of public bailout, and in the heat of humility excessive executive compensation was frowned upon and rejected on all fronts, they nonetheless managed to record historic profits, which they now say will be impossible to reproduce unless the greed incentive is restored. Some may enjoy this line of reasoning as reminiscent of the comedic nonsense of an Abbot and Costello routine, but in my ignorance all I see is the resuscitation of a scheme out-come designed to assure that literally billions of dollars resume their flow in the usual direction and into the pockets of the usual suspects. I once described our modern socialism as "fewer capitalists controlling more wealth". Can I get an "Amen"? Or are some still willing to mistake capitalism for conservatism?