Awaiting a ruling

Just a quick update to say that I’m excited for tomorrow’s Supreme Court ruling on the challenges to the PPACA (Obamacare). I’m a nerd, and currently a law nerd; I know.


Still, this represents one of those cases where a perfectly good and desirable outcome – everyone having healthcare – can be gotten through a means that is deleterious. There are ways to ensure universal healthcare (though maybe not obtainable politically) that would ensure its constitutionality. Instead, some individuals let an end goal we can all probably sympathize lead them down a path from which there is probably no return.

If you can be forced to purchase healthcare because it affects everyone, you can probably be forced to purchase or consume certain foods (broccoli being the one most named) because that too is used by and affects everyone, especially after healthcare is federalized. And what about voting? Elections affect everyone and national elections certainly affect interstate commerce. Can we be forced to vote? I would argue that the answer to all three (healthcare, food and voting) should be answered in the negative. Allow for the mandatory healthcare, however, and I see no line that requires exclusion of food and voting.

Maybe those two wouldn’t happen today, but without a line they could, and in all likelihood would, eventually happen.

Dalai "Quote Machine" Lama

I don't post quotes very often, because I generally find people tend to use them in place of actual, good, intelligent arguments.  As if having posted Quote X effectively wins the argument.  Fact is, you can find a smart-sounding quote to support just about anything.  They are the original sound bite.  A good quote can add finality to an argument, but it doesn't comprise an argument.  Most conflicts are much too complicted to be resolved in a quote.  Sadly, many people seem not to know this and merrily go about with it anyway.  Confirmation bias and all.

Having said that, here you go:

"I am increasingly convinced that the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics beyond religion altogether." - Dalai Lama

I told you so

It happened faster than I thought, but I have to say I told you so.

The board/commission that will consider banning large sodas is also making noise regarding popcorn and milk-based drinks such as milkshakes and various coffees.

First they came for cigarettes, then candy bars, then soda, then coffee, then popcorn, then ... [hey, you know what has a lot calories, pizza, burgers, hotdogs are a nutritional wasteland almost on par with soda, and also: food in general].

I for one would rather enjoy a nice unhealthy food every now and again and die 5 years earlier than not enjoy the food and die 5 years later, probably after a long, insidious disease that deprives me of every enjoyable part of life.  Life is to be enjoyed, not just lived.

Hopefully by the time pizza is illegal, assisted suicide will be legal.

UPDATE: I changed the last sentence.

Cigarettes yesterday, soda today, burgers tomorrow

When I say I support gay marriage, even though I don’t think its constitutionally protected (at least not under any sensible reading of the due process clause), its because of outcome like the following.

Several years ago people began to bang the drum for heavy regulation of cigarettes as a public health issue. Cigarettes are horrible for you, and I don’t and have never smoked. I don’t support it and frankly, if you smoke, I think you are an idiot. And in public places, the public should be able to ban smoking, but not in private places, so bars and restaurants should be able to allow smoking. But this compromise wasn’t enough, and public policy makers went after these establishments as well.

“No, no,” they said to those who worried about what this could mean down the road, “this is where it ends. Cigarettes are a unique case involving a product that is hazardous as used. It is limited to this one case.”

Except now the use of trans fats is all but illegal (and actually illegal in New York). Also in New York, salt is all but illegal. And then you get Newsweek columnist Michael Tomasky supporting New York’s ban on soda’s containing more than 16 ounces (but not in convenience stores; or grocery stores).

Ok, you say, someone out at a movie or at a McDonald’s can buy two 16 oz sodas if they want more soda.  Same price.  No a big deal. Soda really doesn’t have much in the way of a redeeming quality, so its an easy target.  Obesity is epidemic.  Obesity is clearly unhealthy. Maybe you can see the logic here. I for one can understand the thinking.  If you drink too much soda you really are an idiot, and if you wind up fat, you really only have yourself to blame.  This all makes this is a pretty unique case, correct?

Certainly, except that this is where Tomasky goes next:

“Are bacon-cheeseburgers next? As a practical matter, no. Sodas are an easy target because there is nothing, nothing, nutritionally redeeming about them. But might there come a day when the New York City Department of Health mandates that burgers be limited to, say, four ounces? Indeed there might. And why not? Eight- and ten-ounce burgers are sick things.

“As a practical matter, no.” It’s also not often practical to wage a 2-front war. But once the war on 1 front is won, it makes perfect sense to turn your eye to that other front. So once the battle over 16oz+ soda is over and people are still fat, perhaps then it will be more practical.

When you try to accomplish something good without regards to the means, this is where you can end up.  Because now there is no limiting principle.  Why stop at 4oz burgers.  An eight ounce burger (Tomasky's "sick thing") is twice as large as a four ounce burger, but a four ounce burger is twice as large as a 2 ounce one.

In fact, fried patties of ground meat are certainly one of the, if not the, least healthy ways to eat beef.  Why not ban burgers?  Practical?  Not right now.  Once we are down to 2 ounces per burger, maybe.  And plenty of people will tell you that eating beef isn't healthy anyway.  Why not just ban meat consumption.  Again, as a practical matter, it won't happen today, but I'm not worried about today, I'm worried about tomorrow.

Check out http://reason.com/blog/2012/06/03/newsweek-writer-we-have-this-liberty-bus for more likeminded commentary.

Blue Team, Rose-colored Glasses

V.P. Dick Cheney: Gay marriage is a state issue that the federal government should not get involved in = horrible policy and enemy of the "good."

President Barak Obama: Gay marriage is a state issue that the federal government should not get involved in = hip hip hooray, the "first gay president" and this Newsweek cover.

Is this partly on Newsweek?  Sure.  Is there some leeway for other parts of what they probably believe (Cheney that homosexuals are probably bad people, though his daughter is a homosexual; Obama that it is perfectly acceptable), yes.  But the policies and the way they want the issue treated is essentially the same.

If anything, I think Obama is cast in a worse light, since he was for gay marriage before he was against it and then in favor of it and supports federal intervention into such issues, whereas Cheney, as far as I know, has been consistent in his position and is generally in favor of state resolution of such issues.  Obama essentially came over to Cheney's position and got praised for it, while Cheney was demonized.  People love to talk about making politics more congenial, but its not only the demonizing that adds fuel to the fire.  This type of deification for taking a non-position that is already the position of the opposition doesn't help.

So... its not so much that Obama is great and Cheney is the devil as it is that Obama is a Democrat and Cheney is a Republican.  Got it.

The Beastie

Turns out, Oprah (in a kind of pre-"Oprah" Oprah mode) and Tipper Gore revealed the true turning point in society in 1986.  It was the Beastie Boys.

Yes, even in 1986 it was impossible to raise Christrian children in our X-rated society.  It's sad that so many of those now 30 yearish old kids have all turned to Satanism due to our society and are wildly accepting of whatever denigration is put in front of them.  So much so that children these days have no boundries or rules and essentially run wild in the street in their rag clothes, clutching knives to their chests - but only when they can't afford guns.

Kim Kardashian as the downfall of society; Or not.

Simon Doonan at Slate.com pisses and moans on and on about how as a society we are all fetished up with the Kardashians.  It isn't like in his day - or that of his parents or grandparents - when accomplishment and talent was truly respected, he says.

I've blogged so much about this type of thing, I doubt I even have to make most of arguments again.  Doonan ignores two hugely important facts:

A) every society and culture and time period has had its "cupcakes."  Way back when it was gladitorial fighting, then it was coming out parties and Queens and Kings and Barons and courts and then it became movie stars and comic books and on and on.  Most if not all of those "cupcakes" are forgotten about 30 years on, so of course today's offerings appear worse.  When you compare Bieber or Spears to only the best of what survived from decades ago, of course today is going to pale in comparison.  But was Elvis really so much more accomplished?  One of the few really insightful comments is from a reader of Victorian novels who notes that even in those works - written in the 1800s - people complain about the disrespectful youth and downfall of culture and society.

B) As more and more people learn to read and have access to television, of course the interests of those people are going to dominate the media more.  This isn't a dumbing down of America or the world or a refutation of science, its just that people who 100 years ago would have gossiped in pubs can now read, and so they read People or US or watch the Kardashians or Real Housewives.  To this extent, TV now more closely represents what the U.S. always was.  When rich, educated people have 90 percent of all the televisions you would expect the fare to be tailored to them.  It stands to reason that when they represent only 10 percent of the viewership, the programming is going to be less tailored to them.

And some of the commenters are the best.  They run about 80 agreeing, 5 percent contradicting Doonan, and 15 percent saying "don't lump me in with 'those people'"  This last group posts things like: "Kim who?" "Sports schmortz, we don't watch them."  "When people ask what us about the game we say 'is there someone playing something'" - as if not knowing about pop culture somehow makes one smarter or superior.  But its not as if one can't know both who S. Hawking or R. Dawkins are while at the same time knowing of K. Kardashian or Fletcher Cox (Eagles draft pick).  I know of all four.  I also know that - contrary to many of the commentors - there is plenty of good television programs.  And lots of it doesn't appear on PBS.  Channels like Science, Discovery and the like produce shows like "How Its Made" and shows featuring science giants like Hawking and Machu.

Some other comments I like: 80 of people are idiots (excepting, I'm guessing, the commentor and his friends, who probably don't follow such mundane things as sports and television stars)

As one of the commentors noted, there is an entire South Park episode dedicated to S. Hawking - how much more pop culture, Red Carpet, can you get?