Obama vs O’Reilly

The president’s attacks on Fox News have become part of normal conversation. Everyone from Bill O’Reilly to Jon Stewart is talking about his “war” on Fox News. I’m not wholly sure what’s happened to media in this country. The partisan bickering seems not to be reflected in the media as much anymore, but is just as often started there. The president’s attacks on Fox News though, are dangerous.

The White House doesn’t have the authority to declare that those who disagree with him aren’t really news outlets. Campbell Brown interviewed Valerie Jarrett and asked her about MSNBC’s bias, which Brown then correctly says that “Jarrett seems loathe to admit that MSNBC has a bias.” Anyone who thinks they don’t should just watch The Ed Show, Countdown with Keith Olbermann and The Rachel Maddow Show one night. I promise that their own liberal bias is at unhealthy levels if they don’t see clear examples of spin in all three of those shows equally as much as when they watch Hannity, O’Reilly or Glenn Beck.

A nice example form both Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. I used to podcast both shows, because I find them entertaining and informative enough given their extreme biases. I stopped watching Olbermann when I heard him say that if the economy gets better by the 2010 elections we can thank President Obama for his leadership, but if it doesn’t get better by then we can blame President Bush for leaving us in this mess. And, the scariest part to me, he said that with seeming complete and total unawareness about what he was saying. The clear and blatant spin there is quite frightening. It’s thoughts like that that cause this red vs blue fight in this country (a fight in which, as a libertarian, I thankfully have little part). I posted awhile ago about the problem of disagreement over what reality is that is increasingly common in this country. Pundits like Olbermann aren’t helping that problem at all. My example with Maddow is a little more subtle than that. It has to do with the way news is framed. For the entire duration of the health care debate, she has lauded the toughness of progressives and has all but called their struggle a heroic cause (actually, I’d be quite unsurprised if she actually used the word “heroic” once or twice to refer to it). Jane Hamsher, of firedoglake, has been on many times. And Maddow has encouraged her in her fight against the “conservadems.” A term which Maddow uses with as much scorn as you’ve ever heard a Republican refer to a RINO. Then there was an incident where some tea-baggers attacked Senator Lindsey Graham. And how did TRMS frame it? As a civil war. And it was likened to a clique of high school girls no longer being the most popular clique, so they turned on each other. The blatant incongruity is a little hard to watch.

Rachel Maddow stated on her show why she felt Fox News was in fact not news. The Fox News guy, Shepard Smith, that Maddow complimented was one who shared her view on Katrina and the response, and attacked the Bush administration, which Maddow despised. In fact, in all instances that Maddow says it’s okay to express an opinion and still be authoritative were ones where the correspondent in question agree with Rachel Maddow. I like the fact that Fox News has become more openly conservative. I wrote a little over a year ago complaining about their faux news tactics as they related to Sarah Palin. I have a problem with people claiming a lack of bias when there is bias. It’s fine for news media to be biased. The Economist is openly biased in favor of free trade, for example. But there are few in this country who think of The Economist as anything less than one of the most authoritative news sources available. In that regard I have to agree with Maddow. But she makes the same mistake that all those conservatives who whine about the liberal media make when it comes to the news.

The New York Times editorial pages may be liberal, but that doesn’t necessarily mean all of their content on the other pages is going to show hatred for conservatism and will inaccurately reflect the news of the day. Similarly, simply because their pundits are well-known to be far right doesn’t mean that during their news hours they can’t deliver proper news. When people ask Glenn Beck about his credentials as a “journalist,” for example, he flat out says he’s not a journalist. He says that he’s not a reporter. He admits, openly, he’s a pundit. Actually, he often goes a step further and will actively refute any statement that he’s a journalist.

Maddow takes the argument a step beyond opinion though. She said, “The difference between Fox and news … is that only one of these organizations is organizing anti-government street protests.” I wonder, then, about Olbermann’s politically motivated call for five  mass health care free clinics, and subsequent donation along with Lawrence O’Donnell’s donation. Is this not much the same thing? Simply because his idea incidentally helps thousands of people it’s less of a political activity? Olbermann intends to guilt the six key senators in those five states into supporting a public option, which is a political idea. Because he’s guilting them into it is he really much different than those organizing mass protests against something? Guilt is better than fear? Since when?

Let’s be wholly honest and frank here. Bias is inevitable. The difference between traditional journalists like Walter Cronkite and pundits is the effort he put forth into mitigating the effect his bias had on his deliverance of the news. He wasn’t perfect, and it’d be unreasonable to expect that. But Olbermann, Maddow, O’Reilly and Beck don’t even try. Which makes them pundits. Nothing wrong with that, but it is a reality. If Fox News isn’t a legitimate news organization because of something one of their pundits organized, then neither is MSNBC.

I’d argue the MSNBC example is even worse. Media is supposed to be a watchdog on power, both public and private, the government and the multinational corporations. Freedom of the press is so important because, without that freedom, we won’t know if people in other parts of the country are losing other freedoms. And, if they are, it’ll inevitably come back to us. I’ve said for awhile that the difference between American conservatives and libertarians, in opposition to American liberals and communitarians, is the kind of power they fear. Libertarians and conservatives in this country see the government’s potential for unlimited power, and it’s ability to enforce it’s will by force if necessary, and declare that to be what we must protect ourselves from. Liberals and communitarians in this country see the lack of transparency and accountability in private industries and declare that that’s what we must protect ourselves from. This distinction is becoming increasingly apparent in the media. The reason I’d argue it’s worse is linked to my libertarianism. But, unlike the majority of libertarians in America, I don’t only fear government power. I fear private power nearly as much. But I do nevertheless fear government power more. The rate at which incumbents in Congress get re-elected shows to me it’s not as accountable as liberals/communitarians like to think. And even beside that, it’s accountability is only to the majority.

So, if Fox News isn’t a legitimate news organization and can therefore be treated as such by President Obama and his advisors, then MSNBC is even less legitimate. The media is our main watchdog, and it’s better that the media organizes events to oppose government intervention than organizes events to encourage greater government intervention that could very well lead to one-sixth of the economy being run by the government in two, three decades.

Cartoon worth 1000 words

This sums up the media in this country right now. It’s not entirely the fault of the media, the balloon story mattered a lot more to people, and that’s why it was aired. This nation needs to start noticing what’s going on around it. We’ve all heard the pathetic statistics about how many people can find Iraq, or even America, on a map of the world. It’s a vicious cycle, and Steve Breen captured it with less than 20 words. Time for the US to pay attention to the world, and that requires both the people demanding the media to present such stories and perhaps a little courage on the part of the media. The newspapers are in too dire straits to do that, but surely the 24-hour news networks can make the attempt. This drum has been beat before, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Media has grown so pundit-based, in this mindless left vs right, red vs blue culture we’ve come to live in. But surely we can agree that some news, like what’s depicted in Breen’s cartoon, is more important than who the leaders of the Democrats or Republicans associate themselves with or where they get their funding (a topic both Glenn Beck and Rachel Maddow have an obsession with). We need to be informed as a country. Perhaps our power has made us complacent. Or maybe it’s a series of domestic reactions to WWI, then WWII, then Vietnam, followed by Somalia and now Iraq (with other events in between, of course). It might just be something cultural. Whatever it is that causes us to be so incredibly uninformed needs to be pushed to the side. An informed citizenry is key for any democracy, and we emphatically do not have that.

Nobel Peace Prize

Legitimate concern? Doubt it.

It’s a good moment for America now that President Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize. I first saw it through what the committee claimed was their reason for it. They said it was for his achievements, not hope for the future.

Now that’s disingenuous. And I first thought that he does not deserve it. He hasn’t the achievements for it. But then when I was pointing this out to someone, the subject of who else has won it came up. Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson in 1919 and Carter in 2002. That made me think that perhaps he does deserve it. Liberal pundits made the argument in a more organized manner, and they continue to.

But even when I thought he didn’t deserve it, I didn’t think it “a joke” or “an insult.” The right’s reflexive opposition to President Obama is raging unchecked (and I’ll cop to having a reflexive opposition to anything related to the government, Republican or Democrat). Their repugnant glee at the loss of the Olympics is further evidence of that.

But the president has changed the atmosphere. And, in regards to the wars we’re waging now, the president is drawing down in Iraq and the War on Afghanistan is, as the world is well-aware, a war in self-defense.

So, good for the president. I’m proud, as should be all Americans.

EDIT: Wilson’s League of Nations failed at preventing WW2, he couldn’t even get America to join it. Israel and Palestine still fight occasionally despite Carter’s efforts. The Paris Peace Accords on Kissinger’s part didn’t end the Vietnam War, just America’s part in it. Nuclear weaponry was proliferated and even tested since Linus Pauling won the award in ’62, though President Obama has pledged to try to get the Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which would officially end all US testing. And, to use a non-American example, Albert Lutuli was awarded the prize in 1960 for his nonviolent fight against apartheid, which didn’t end until the early ’90s. And didn’t that Disarmament Conference that Arthur Henderson was recognized for in 1934 just work so well. Plus, the one I truly have trouble with, Al Gore and the IPCC for their climate change efforts in 2007.

Is the process political? Are we really going to be naive enough to pretend that there’s any chance the answer’s no? The answer is a clear yes. But it’s still a prestigious award, the president should absolutely not refuse it like some have suggested, and we should all be glad for it, as Americans. If nothing else, recognize that it certainly can’t hurt, and will probably help, the soft power of this country.

It should also be noted that ultimately the president must be re-elected by the people of the United States, not the world. So concerns that he would let it affect his policies are likely way overblown.

The health care bureaucracy

Think health care in this country has major problems? That’s because it does. But all those advocates of a major health reform overhaul, especially those who support the public option, are not going to be of much help.

The CBO has said that yes, indeed, Senator Baucus’s health bill will reduce the deficit by 2019. By $81 billion, in fact. But that bill doesn’t contain in it a public option, and does contain a massive tax increase in the form of an excise tax on “cadillac plans.” It also has the co-ops idea. It seems like a nice compromise between the two sides, right? But the CBO tells us that the co-ops would have little impact on in the industry. Which is another way of saying they’re all but useless. So, public option then? No.

All those who support a public option point out, correctly, that the health care industry is rather terrible to its customers. The answer, though, is private charity. Not the government. Give to a group like the National Association of Free Clinics. I’ve pointed out that more people can’t afford food for a whole year than those who can’t afford health care for a whole year. And a further 3.5 million can’t stay sheltered for a whole year. What keeps the deaths from starvation and lack of shelter so much lower than the 45,000 that die each year from a lack of health insurance? Those 123 people every night? Private charities.

Those who favor a public option want simply to replace the current massive, monopolistic, power-hungry, money-grabbing bureaucracy with another massive, monopolistic, power-hungry, money-grabbing bureaucracy. Except where before the bureaucracy known as the health care industry had to buy off the guns, the new one comes furnished with them.

If you care, donate to private charities. Nothing works better dollar-for-dollar than them. Don’t bring the government to my door to bust it down if I won’t pay what they want. Governments govern by force. They have to. But simply because it’s a necessity doesn’t mean we should accept it wholly and completely. Leave me to donate as I will, and you donate as you will. If you don’t donate and you’re insured and you support an extensive public option, my response is this: sit down and shut up you filthy hypocrite. The only way you’ll give is if the alternative is a fine or a jail cell, and you have the nerve to demand others give? Or is it perhaps that you know you won’t be paying anything for this wonderful plan? Universal health care is good, as long as you don’t have to pay for it? Time for you to do donate if you are going to advocate the government force people to do it. Use the government where we must, that’s what it’s there for. But how about we get some private charity going on in this country again? Have the people do what we can without the government. A strike is impossible, as Keith Olbermann pointed out in his Special Comment yesterday. But this is the next-best thing. And get your morals out of government as much as possible. They don’t belong there, from either side of the aisle.

Fair share?

I am so tired of hearing about the tax rates of the rich and how they need to be higher. It’s gotten quite ridiculous. And the health care reform bill that’ll be likely voted out of the Senate Finance Committee contains in it a 40%, that’s right 40%, excise tax on so-called “cadillac plans.” By which they mean $8,000+ for individuals or $21,000+ for families. The average health care plan costs people $7,200. Doesn’t take much to get to having a cadillac plan, does it? If memory serves, they increased the point at which the tax takes effect for those in high risk jobs, like mining. How kind of them.

Here’s the key though: Senator Baucus wants to tax the wealthy. How dare you have health care a little above average! This isn’t capitalism. Oh, wait, yeah it is. 40% tax. That’s incredibly high. How dare people want better for themselves than the average American has indeed. Because we wouldn’t want anyone to be above average, would we? But, don’t worry, the people aren’t that opposed to this provision. After all, the rich can afford to pay more, so shouldn’t they?

A progressive tax system is a good thing. It’s not ideal, but unless really drastic cuts in government spending and programs happen (like that’ll ever happen) then that’s the only way to make it work. But people need to get off the backs of the wealthy. I saw a poll recently that said that if Congress and President Obama raised the income tax rate on the top tax bracket to 50% (it’s at more like 39% right now) then over half the country would support that. Really? How ridiculous. The wealthy, between the various taxes and levels of government, brings home less than half of their income. Is that not bad enough? Must we make it worse? People seem to support that.

Then there’s this report, which has just astonishing numbers. Forty-seven percent of the country will pay no income tax for 2009. That’s nearly half the country. Seventy-one million households. In all fairness, the report notes that it doesn’t take into account payroll taxes. Once that’s done, 24% of households have a net liability of zero or less. One fourth of the country will either pay nothing to the federal government or will get money from the federal government as a net gain for themselves personally. But people incredibly don’t think the system is progressive enough. Really? That’s so breathtakingly anti-capitalist it’s hard to comprehend.

To be sure, to call President Obama a socialist would be making heavy use of hyperbole. But to deny that he has any hints of socialism is naivete taken to a ridiculous extreme. The CNN report says,

“He [President Obama] has proposed increasing the income tax burden on families making more than $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,000, while offering new measures to reduce the tax bite for Americans making less.”

The top 20% of this country pays for 80% of this country. But that’s clearly not enough. As I noted at the beginning, the progressive tax system is the only thing that can sustain the kind of spending Americans have come to expect from their government. But they’re still politically equal to the poor, despite paying for a hell of a lot more of this country than the poor pay for.

The rich pay way more than their fair share. They should have their taxes cut. And I’m not saying that because I think trickle-down economics works. I don’t care if it works. The system is too progressive. Some is necessary, but too much is not good. If nothing else, can we agree that there’s an infringement upon freedom to collect taxes? It’s an infringement we all agree upon, in exchange for certain government functions (like the armed forces). But it is nevertheless an infringement. A tax system this progressive is infringing too much upon the successful class of Americans. And what do they get in exchange for it? An ungrateful America complaining about their alleged greed and “too-low” tax rates. Remember, nearly half of this country’s households will pay no income tax for 2009. And one-fourth of households in America will pay nothing or receive some money from the federal government for 2009. Who seems to be not paying their fair share now?

Responsibility –> right?

The Weekly Standard offered an interesting proposition a month ago that responsibility for your body equates to authority over your body. I thought for the past month that that was an interesting idea. But it had slippery slope written all over, and I tend to reject slippery slope arguments. I had seen an article about research in the EU that shows obesity will soon become the number one cause of cancer. That led to me to remark to someone that it’s an argument in favor of believing what William Anderson warned about. Nevertheless, I had rejected the argument on the whole as fear-mongering. However, I just saw a Reuters article that discussed what the Senate Finance Committee did for a day with their health care bill. And I thought: it’s happening. Slippery slope argument though it may be (not to be confused with attempting to understand the long-term impact of an action), that doesn’t mean that it isn’t necessarily right.

Now, I know the article says that the amendment merely offers incentives for healthy habits like quitting smoking and exercising. But that’s still coercion. When the federal government wants all of the states to do something (like make the drinking age 21 and the BAC limit .08) then they tie it to some source of funding (highways, in this case). Now, whether or not it’s good for the federal government to do this is itself an argument that can be had. But, regardless, can we at least agree that it is a form of coercion? The federal government coerces states to pass laws it likes. This is the same scenario. Except, now the government is coercing the people. It’s possible that down the road this will lead to more direct forms of coercion, like penalties through health care for smoking or not exercising. But that’s a slippery slope argument so I won’t make that case. The reality is that even as the amendment passed stands, it’s looking like there will be a form of coercion in the health care bill that ventures dangerously close to control of the bodies of the people of America.

As a side note, I understand that Senator Rockefeller wants to pass an amendment requiring that 90% of the subsidies from the final version of the bill be used for health care, as opposed to administrative costs etc. I doubt many Senators will want to be seen voting against a measure like that, so it’ll likely pass. And that’s a good thing. I disagree with the senator on many things related to health care, especially the public option. But I like this amendment, and hopefully it’ll be in the final version of whatever bill, if any, gets to the president’s desk.