Conservatives in Tupperware with Labels

There is an old term in resurgence that

everyone who is a liberal needs to learn:
Authoritarian

Just as, I’m sure, conservatives sit around putting liberals into classification boxes, so do we liberals place them into little categorized Tupperware containers. The difference is that the liberals, i.e. myself included, will explain why a label fits on a particular Tupperware container and why a particular type of conservative fits inside so nicely. This willingness and ability to explain a nuance such as "why I have classified you this way,” is a trait far more common to liberals and intellectuals of the left than of the right.

Since the rise and folly and fall of the Reagan and Bush and Bush and Gingrich administrations a psychological theorem first written about nearly fifty years ago has seen a resurgence among those who dare to ask “why? What on this Earth makes a conservative?” The theorem is call Authoritarianism.

Main Entry: au·thor·i·tar·i·an
Pronunciation: o-"thär-&-'ter-E-&n, &-, -"thor-
Function: adjective

 
1 : of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authority authoritarian parents>

2 : of, relating to, or favoring a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people authoritarian regime>
- authoritarian noun

 
- au·thor·i·tar·i·an·ism /-E-&-"ni-z&m/ noun

This is the name of the part of the Tupperware warehouse that holds thirty-million containers categorized as American Conservatives. The theorem is widely accepted as true among the world psychologists, hence it is safe to call it a theorem.

From Wickopedia: “Right-wing Authoritarianism (RWA) is a psychological personality variable or "ideological attitude". It is defined as the convergence of three attitudinal clusters in an individual:”

1. Authoritarian submission — a high degree of submission to the authorities who are perceived to be established and legitimate in the society in which one lives. "It is good to have a strong authoritarian leader."

This behavior is best observed with the ear, by listening to American talk radio. Listen over a period of time so that you can realize that the authoritarians calling in to the radio talk shows are not changing their loyalties. No matter what happens. A recent poll determined that nearly %30 of Americans still “favor the job that “president” George W. Bush is doing,” despite wide spread acknowledgement that he will not only be the worse president in American history but the most tragic. The authoritarians will stretch the facts beyond belief and beyond reasonable assumption to excuse their beloved leader. Their authority, they very classification of the leaders that give them their own title.

2. Authoritarian aggression — a general aggressiveness, directed against various persons, that is perceived to be sanctioned by established authorities. "It is acceptable to be cruel to those who do not follow the rules."

For example the illegal immigrant condition: The many small and seemingly acceptable restrictions that anyone who is here without legal papers are faced with daily, become the evidence for the authoritarian that it is socially acceptable to shun the illegal, to further complain about them. “If the government is doing it, why can’t we?” Repercussions are likely to be small if anything. It’s a hateful comfort zone. In New Mexico, citizen militias have formed, from mainly white men without jobs, and stake-out regions of the Mexican border with rifles and other military equipment at hand.

3. Conventionalism — a high degree of adherence to the social conventions that are perceived to be endorsed by society and its established authorities. "Traditional ways are best."

As a simple example: Do you know someone who sings television commercial jingles? Who believes every bit of those pharmaceutical company adds in magazines and television? They do because they gladly, perhaps blissfully, accept the mainstream. But paying for advertising time is not legitimizing your product, but to the authoritarian its good enough.

Some studies have discovered that the Authoritarian usually always rises upwards within the Right Wing of political party. Thus the acronym: RWA, Right Wing Authoritarian. Below are some better details of the RWA. See if you can spot that angry uncle within these descriptions:

From Wickopedia

“1: Faulty reasoning — RWAs are more likely to:

• Make many incorrect inferences from evidence.
• Hold contradictory ideas that result from a cognitive attribute known as compartmentalized thinking.
• Uncritically accept that many problems are ‘our most serious problem.’
• Uncritically accept insufficient evidence that supports their beliefs.
• Uncritically trust people who tell them what they want to hear.
• Use many double standards in their thinking and judgments.

2: Hostility Toward Outgroups — RWAs are more likely to:

• Weaken constitutional guarantees of liberty such as the Bill of Rights.
• Severely punish ‘common’ criminals in a role-playing situation.
• Admit they obtain personal pleasure from punishing such people.
• Be prejudiced against racial, ethnic, nationalistic, and linguistic minorities.
• Be hostile toward homosexuals.
• Volunteer to help the government persecute almost anyone.
• Be mean-spirited toward those who have made mistakes and suffered.

3: Profound Character Attributes — RWAs are more likely to:

• Be dogmatic.
• Be zealots.
• Be hypocrites.
• Be absolutists
• Be bullies when they have power over others.
• Help cause and inflame intergroup conflict.
• Seek dominance over others by being competitive and destructive in situations requiring cooperation.

4: Blindness To One’s Own Failings And To The Failings Of Authority Figures Whom They Respect— RWAs are more likely to:

• Believe they have no personal failings.
• Avoid learning about their personal failings.
• Be highly self-righteous.

(1) have a conservative economic philosophy; (2) believe in social dominance; (3) are ethnocentric; (4) are highly nationalistic; (5) oppose abortion; (6) support capital punishment; (7) oppose gun-control legislation; (8) say they value freedom but actually want to undermine the Bill of Rights; (9) do not value equality very highly and oppose measures to increase it; (10) are not likely to rise in the Democratic party, but do so among Republicans." (The Authoritarian Specter)”

”Altemeyer's own statement about this may be worth noting (from p. 239 of "Enemies of Freedom"): "right-wing authoritarians show little preference in general for any political party," and their prevalence in the Republican party reflects the long term effects of point (10) above.”

“Alfred Adler provided another perspective, linking the "will to power over others" as a central neurotic trait, usually emerging as aggressive over-compensation for felt and dreaded feelings of inferiority and insignificance. The authoritarian need to maintain control and prove superiority over others is rooted in a world view populated by enemies, empty of equality, empathy, and mutual benefit.”

Consider how easy it would be to turn your authoritarian mass into a fascist army of angry censor happy fundamentalists marching in lock-step shouting ugly stereotypes down the street left and right of them. Consider how easy it will be to feed them the language of the day, the faxed talking points, the television sound bites for first thing in the morning. Consider this and you are considering the end of a democracy, a bill of rights, the end of tolerance, of diversity, of equality and justice under the law.

If you are reading this and it totally reminds you of a conservative you know. Here is my suggestion: Teach him or her about him self. Teach them about authoritarianism, its history, and its narrow attributes. Don’t demean them. Teach them about it as if it were only a simple difference between you, not a flaw. Bring them around by helping them understand themselves.

Single Payer Health Care - FAQ

Since monitory and other numerical figures vary by interest group whose sources vary by funding. Statistics and figures will be absent in the following FAQ. Instead the document will focus on the reasoned pro argument and con dispute.

1. Other countries that have socialized medicine have long waits for surgery and we do not. Why should we become like them?

Those other nations triage their patients in order of need so an average wait is going to be longer for elective knee surgery or rhinoplasty than for kidney transplant or appendicitis repair.

We don’t have to be like any other nation’s health care. Ours can be our own. The best of other nations’ health care systems and the creative new methods we are capable of, will make-up a new Single Payer Health Care system.

2. Why should my family and I pay for those who do not pay for their own health insurance? It doesn’t seem fair to me.

You already pay for their health care. Except that by the time those without insurance get to a doctor, or hospital, their ailments / diseases have progressed to their most expensive stages. Costing the taxpayers far more, easily surpassing funding enough to have bought them health insurance in the first place. So, the absence of coverage for the poor and middle class, who can’t afford premiums and deductibles, costs taxpayers a lot of money, billions.

What’s more fair to the taxpaying American, every single taxpayer paying for everyone’s health care at once, or allowing tens of millions of taxpayers (yes they all have jobs) without affordable health care access to enter the system upon charity conditions (taxpayer subsidies to hospitals) with their diseases advanced to a point of expensive post onset care? The latter is not fair.

3. What about fraud by doctors and hospitals and those equipment manufacturers and sales people?

Under and new SPHC system stopping fraud will have to be paramount. The ideology that we are all spending our own fortunes, our own hard earned dollars on each other will have to be understood widespread throughout the system, by patients who will be welcomed whistle blowers, by everyone from kitchen employees to the chief surgeon.

A new anti fraud division will be necessary. It must draw a balance between punishment and repercussions for just being investigated, so that those subject to investigation are not threatened should they be innocent.

Some of the types of fraud to watch for will be: over treatment (padding the bill) tough to prove, best discovered by the patient. Over billing for treatment (especially common now towards Medicare and Medicaid systems due to their absence of investigative funding). Equipment over billing and over production and over manufacturing: titanium wheel chairs are not necessary, carved / milled walking canes are a luxury and less sturdy than aluminum canes. Over medicating by physicians; doctors are susceptible to the influences of pharmaceutical company sales persons and their perks, i.e. vacations, flights, golf junkets. Doctors often pile-on medications to the point where side effects from one medication are masking the side effects of another, creating a dangerous situation for the patient. The alert patient is the best whistleblower for this type of fraud and abuse.

4. No one is going to want to be a doctor or nurse under this kind of strictly regulated and restricted environment?

If its strict and restrictive environments that doctors and nurses don’t like, they should leave now. Because, under the current system the greatest pain in the ass is the health insurance companies that determine if a procedure can be paid for – literally a faceless voice on the phone dictates to a nurse or doctor whether or not a healthful or lifesaving procedure can be performed. Some hospitals dedicate an entire floor or wing to desks of workers whose main job is to communicate with mega bureaucratic health insurance companies. Does that seem right?

Under a SPHC system the Administrative body or the SPHCA will allow any and all procedures deemed reasonable by the doctor in charge.

Quality should be rewarded with monitory bonuses and promotions to health care workers.

Under an SPHC system funding will be made available for health care professional higher education and even the building of new campuses dedicated to professional training in medicine.

5. Government sometimes seems to get things so wrong, I don’t trust it. Why would a SPHC system be any different than other government failures, with fraud, negligence and etcetera?

Democracy is the answer to the checks and balances needed to ensure that a SPHC system continues efficiently and without fraud. A hierarchy of councils which ends at the top in Washington D.C. at the SPHCA and a cabinet level appointed bipartisan committee members totaling 9 members (for instance – a tie breaking number of members i.e. the Supreme Court).

The SPHCA must be created via Constitutional Amendment. The main purpose of this would be to separate the funding from the U.S. Congress, which could be swayed by power shifts to functionally change the SPHC system by removal of funds. The second reason the SPHCA should birth via Constitutional Amendment is that the people should be behind it in unanimity. This will ensure an extended life of the program as generations will recall in memory why they created the SPHCA.

The accountability to the consumer should begin with democracy at the local level (as per Clinton Health Care Reform plan of 1995). A Health Care Regional Council District (HCRCD), several or more than one in each state depending on population and number of health care facilities, will be voted in by the local populace during each general election (every four years). This local council would review all consumer complaints. It would review all medical professional complaints. The council must contain a minority of medical professionals and a majority of non medical professional citizens, and this will require run off electioneering allowing election boards to chose second tier candidates to meet the mandate.

The spirit of competition does not have to die with SPHC. Consumer information plays a crucial role in maintaining and building the quality of a facility and its staff. Internet and mailing pamphlets must be prolific in each HCRCD ensuring citizen awareness and input. No citizen should have to be limited to receiving care in his or her own local HCRCD, this is the competitive edge maintained by the consumer/citizen. This edge raises and lowers the numerical value points of any given facility.

You must ask the question of yourself: Do I like democracy? Has America worked pretty well? What if I knew a full accounting of the quality and performance of the hospital in my local area? What if I never had to deal with a health insurance company again?

Visit SiCKOCure.org to learn more and become a part of the struggle for real universal health care.

Paris' Behavior is None of Our Business

Be who you are Paris. I envy you. Be free; you’re in America. Do nothing with your life or do something great or find a place of accomplishment in-between. You have the privilege of opportunity unmatched by others except by a few on Earth and that also means opportunity to do nothing. Rescuing third world orphans or participating in a Hagen-Daz ice cream marathon on your couch every day is all your choice to make.

Do what you will, but harm no one. That’s a credo of Humanism and a damn good one for all of us to follow. Paris Hilton appears to be following that ethic, as far as I can see. She was caught driving a car drunk, twice, and needed to be reminded and that’s fine, and had to be punished, that’s the rules and that’s good. Still however she has hurt no one. She has no obligation to be anyone in particular besides herself, for anyone, no matter how wealthy she is, no matter what pedigree of privilege, so long as she harms no one.

Enter the pundits editorializing about who Paris should be, how she should act. Some pundits go as far as to suggest that she somehow owes society a different woman to be presented, that her position of wealth and celebrity dictates she have good behavior, be a role model, stay "on" whenever out. Bull. Says who? Would you tell a minority of color that he or she needs to be a role model, that he has to behave differently because of who he is and who he was on the day he was born? That’s counter to the spirit of freedom our founders had envisioned when writing the Bill of Rights. That all men are created equal. That the pursuit of happiness can only be accomplished by recognition of the individualism that is a man or woman in their own element, free, unhindered.

You go girl. Party on or volunteer. Whatever. Its your life and this writer remains jealous.

How to Stop Urban Sprawl

Urban sprawl is the condition of humankind and its associated ecological foot-print of asphalt, housing and pollution stomping all over nature as humankind itself requires more and more space. Urban sprawl usually occurs in concentric rings from a city center outward. Urban sprawl drives out wildlife, fauna, vistas. Trees which function to exchange oxygen are reduced numbers greatly, adding to the air pollution already increased exponentially by the presence of bio burning humans. In all urban sprawl situations, no matter how tough regulations, human waste usually finds its way to spill into waterways, lakes, oceans, underground aquifers. Nearly half of people reading this will be part of urban sprawl and relatively helpless to change their own role in urban sprawl, due to economics.
 

Stopping urban sprawl and shrinking the negative ecological foot-print is entirely possible. It will take first consensus and secondly courage. Consensus that all the ailments of urban sprawl exist and must be halted. Courage to vote in the majority for the changes needed to stop urban sprawl.

We must stop building outward to stop all urban sprawl. We must become a society of people living above one and other like stacked pancakes. We can begin in the suburbs where everyone dreams of owning their own home. Spacious, private, yours to do with what you will. We take that single family home concept and stack it. No more condominiums in the suburbs in which living is squeezed side by side with others in two bedroom compact “homes.” A nice alternative to the suburbia model would be to stack the 1500 – 2200 square feet, of a nice single family home, onto one and another five or ten high. A large community backyard fulfills the need to play in the grass, to stretch one’s legs, to lay in the sun and to have some trees.

We revitalize the age of the skyscraper as housing for the masses. Spiking the skies with glass towers that gleam and dance with the sunlight. The towers of housing will compete for grandeur and perfection, for efficiency and affordability. Thousands of individuals or a thousand more families can exist in one small ecological foot-print. Home Towers they might be called, with roof top airports, basement recreation centers, underground shopping malls, cities within cities that accommodate every need. No need to drive anywhere for the Home Tower dweller, no need for even a car. The Home Tower captures wind energy with propellers lining the exterior of the top 100 floors from all sides, it captures solar energy from a large array that encircles the rooftop and top 50 floors. The Home Tower is %98 off the grid.

Consensus must be reached that the change is necessary. Petition your government for a redress of grievances with phone calls and snail mail. 

Courage must be achieved among our legislators that the wishes of the wealthy few must be overcome for the sake of the planet and of the people, its stewards.

Knows No Internalization of Costs

The Health Care industry knows no internalization of costs. Rather, no internal company sacrifice to deduct from profits, like nearly all other businesses in the United States, save for the oil industry. Under U.S. style corporate regulation, basically, if you the consumer have to have it for life and lifestyle, then you can bet on it, they the corporation will pass every penny of every new cost on to you, nice. Where is the equilibrium between us and them? What balances out the vacuum machine that is these types of businesses sucking relentlessly on our precious dollars? The balance we dream of is non existent without controls by government, a.k.a. us, we the people.

Good capitalism places checks and out-right restrictions on industries. Why?

1. To ensure the continued growth of all industries by:

Curbing anti-competitive behavior by any one corporation.
Preventing monopolization of resources.
Enforcing ethical labor standards across industries.
Enforcing and ensuring a fair and equitable internalization of costs of businesses.

2. Ensuring that workers are able to provide for themselves.

Instituting a Living Wage nationally.
Providing a nationalized health plan for all.
Provide for workers accident compensation, Social Security, individual pensions.

In Venezuela the Chavez government has taken control of the oil industry and provided a methodology for all of the people to benefit from every dollar of proceeds. Because oil lies deep under the people’s ground, in pools stretching for tens of miles, it can not be measured to belong to one man or one corporation. This is the thinking for the people from the Chavez governments plan and it works just fine. In the united states, in the 1880s when this very condition was argued in court, the rich mining companies won because they already had the drilling equipment, the political clout, and the riches needed to get started exploiting the under-earth. They became the Robber Barrons and the inequity they wrought with their predatory and ex-ploitative, dis-compassionate behaviors, brought us into an era of widespread poverty unmatched in U.S. history.

Lots of good sounding ideas to solve our health care problem (too expensive, too inaccessible to the poor, too extravagant) have been tossed out. Most fail to meet permanence of solution, just curbing some costs for some time. A Republican politician recently proposed his ideas be enacted if he is elected: “We need to educate the people! People need to know about calories from fat, soda and red meats, damage from alcohol. We need to inform aggressively about the dangers of smoking and inactivity and the benefits of exercise. Why diabetes alone, if reduced, could save us a billion a year! I predict that our health care industry could save up to %10 per year if these aggressive instructional measures are enacted.” Ten percent? Is he nuts? This year alone the cost of health care in America will increase by %12-%16 over the year before. That has been the rate of rising expense since the late nineteen eighties. Remember: There is no internalization of costs in either the health care industry or big-oil, no absorbtion of unwanted expenses, everything can be passed on to someone. But, how is a %10 health education program supposed to begin to overcome that? It won’t. The politician is lost. He is paying lip service politically to the naive who may vote for him. But more importantly he is protecting an army of CEOs and lobbyists he has come to know during the course of his carrier.

How do we regulate the health care industry for the protection of the people and the continuation of healthy capitalism? We barely do now , that’s the problem, that’s why I write on this subject. Why not? Political solicitation of a caliber which exceeds by far any type of access you or I could get to our representatives. There are approximately 40,000 lobbyists in Washington D.C. waiting to pounce in front of your interests, to circumvent you for a purely corporate interest.

What to do about it all? Begin with absolute public financing of every campaign and no exceptions for the wealthy. Free Television advertisements, where a television station uses the publicly owned airwaves.

Everything else follows the accomplishment of public financing. All fixes. All reforms. National living wage. National Health Care, or Medicare for All, a National Pharmaceutical Association which belongs to the people. Tough controls on multiple ownership of media, of natural resources consuming industries, of overseas exploitation of cheap and child labor.

Visit SiCKOCure.org to learn more and become a part of the struggle for real universal health care.

He Has Become His Own Imagined Enemy

I was pumping gas and leaning on the side my car as my wife sat cooling in the car, on a Friday evening around six o'clock. As I watched the numbers rolling by on the pump's gauge a mumbling and low voice occurred behind me, I glanced back over my shoulder. It was a man in his mid-fifties reading my bumper stickers. "Keep Church and State Separate," and "I'm Too Poor to Vote Republican," my chrome plated Darwin fish and "One Nation Undereducated," and the clencher, much smaller, on the lower right of the bumper "Attack Iraq? NO!"

"Figures!" He then said loudly enough for me to hear, "A commie, pinko, liberal, bunch of liberal crap!" He then huffed off to his truck. I stayed silent – trying to stay cool – and letting him be. But he wasn't through yet. He backed up his truck to within inches of my front bumper and then leaned out to see me while he added more angry diatribe from the comfort zone of his own front seat. "See that tag I got! See that license plate! "I got that in combat fighting for you to have the right to put that communist crap on your car! "Asshole! Pinko!"

I nodded for him to show him I acknowledged his Purple Heart that was displayed on his commemorative license plate that the state of Georgia was kind enough to make available. But I stayed silent and he finally drove off while the sound of words of disdain for me grew quieter has he left the parking lot.

Was he saying that he fought for my freedom, more specifically my freedom to political speech? I think he was. It was a reach, a long reach for reason, teetering on excuse for disagreeing with someone who is disagreeing with the status quo. Kind of like "Jesus died for your sins!" Essentially disagreeing with the wing of the status quo that had supported you – or said they had, seemed they had.

The gas station, mouth wielding vigilante was Vietnam age and I'll assume his Purple Heart comes from that theatre. A war based on a lie that accomplished nothing. What incredible disappointment it must be, the type that weighs like a brick in the chest, like a feeling of pressure on the brain, to return from that invasion and occupation considering yourself a patriot. A patriot so long as the mind stays closed, the brain stays shallow, and selective acceptance of news and of hear-say. Another veteran of that occupation might be a disdainful dissenter when the truth is known, having to deal with his anger, his reality. One man realizes he fought and was wounded in Vietnam for nothing and eventually is cool with the geo-political of it. The other is stubbornly insistent that he did something about communism, that the world is better off for what he did. He is sick of being the minority, so he may become a recluse, hiding himself and his family from the dissenters for the rest of his life. When faced with a dissenter and his bumper stickers, a button is pushed, a rage boils up, reality is hitting him the face, an affront to so much that he personally exalts about god and country.
For the veteran, in confronting the dissenter, with hostility and belligerence, in the gas station parking lot, he has violated the civil rights of the dissenter with the harmless bumper-stickers. He has become the freedom grabbing enemy he imagined he was fighting against. His own personal imagined enemy.