Perched on the edge of my hard, wooden kitchen chair, I didn’t know what to say.
Two of my children, my oldest, Sara, nearly 10 years old, and Zachariah, 8, were on the bench across from me, our pizza dinner nearly completed. The statement that left me speechless moments before had come from the mouth of my 8-year-old, who had recently been baptized into the LDS church.
“Dad, that’s nonsense.”
Seeing my shocked expression, and obviously misinterpreting it for a lack of understanding, he added helpfully, “What you’re saying. We believe in Jesus. You don’t. What you were telling us just now? We think it’s just nonsense.”
I was stupefied. I could not fathom what it was that would cause my otherwise bright, insightful son to reject out-of-hand scientific facts I was attempting to discuss with him. Comprehension eventually dawned upon me, but it’s not something that I could really wrap my head around until several days later.
The conversation had begun innocently enough. As is common with my kids when we’re alone, the conversation swung around to science, through mouthfuls of pizza at the kitchen table. We discussed flying remote-controlled model airplanes (my latest hobby), bugs, and eventually got around to talking about what it means to be human, what intelligence is, and that kind of thing. I decided it might be fun to re-use a line from “Contact”, one of my favorite movies of all time.
“We live in a galaxy with billions of stars, each surrounded by at least a few planets. Maybe trillions of planets. With all those stars, and all those planets, if we are the only intelligent life in the galaxy,” (here I paused for dramatic effect before uttering the fateful line), “it seems like an awful waste of space.”
“Yeah,” muttered my daughter, obviously impressed by the numbers I’d just thrown out.
“But Dad,” replied my son, “aren’t we the only ones?”
“The only ones what?” I responded, not quite catching his drift.
“The only people.”
I dug idly, with my tongue, at a chunk of pizza stuck between my teeth as I thought about his pronouncement. “Well,” I replied, “it depends on how you define ‘people’.” I continued, “There are instructions inside each of the cells in your body called ‘DNA’. Have you heard of DNA before?”
“Yes,” replied my daughter.
“No,” replied my son.
“OK,” I continued, “DNA is basically the program for your entire body. It’s what makes you a human being instead of a bird or a fish. For instance, the chimpanzee and the human share 96% of exactly the same DNA. That’s a lot! That means that there’s really very little difference between us. The biggest differences,” I tapped my head, “are up here. We have highly-developed language abilities, allowing us to communicate effectively. We have a bigger brain. At some point in the past, we stopped being as furry as many of our animal cousins. Our arms are a little shorter in comparison to our bodies. There are several hundred other differences, large and small. Out of the millions of pairs of DNA that make up our genetic code, though, those differences are very slight.
“If you shaved a chimpanzee and put clothes on him,” I said, “he’d look an awful lot like a really ugly little man!”
Both of my kids laughed hard at my obvious joke. I drove onward, though, not quite done. “But is a chimp a person?”
“No,” giggled my daughter.
“No,” chortled my son.
“Right. A chimpanzee and a human are two different species. We can’t reproduce together. Although,” I added with a smile, “that would be a very funny-looking baby!”
Again, the appreciative laugh.
“Chimps are the closest living relatives to ‘people’. Even with that, they can’t talk, and they can’t be educated much beyond the equivalent of a kindergarten education. But your little brother, Elijah,” (here I gestured toward the basement, where the aforementioned preschooler was watching a movie) “is a person, isn’t he? Even though he doesn’t talk well yet, and even a chimpanzee would have no trouble keeping up with him?
“So it’s kind of tough to define exactly what ‘people’ are. I would expect that, even though we’re the only ‘people’ we know of, that there are probably ‘people’ who live elsewhere, too. At least they may be as smart as we are. But they probably wouldn’t look much like us.”
“So if there were people on other planets,” my daughter interjected, “have they come and visited us?”
“That’s a topic for another day,” I replied. “I really don’t know. But what I do know, and what every biologist works with every single day, is that all the mammals on our planet carry a similar genetic heritage. They are more similar to us than we think! At some point in the past, it seems likely we shared a common genetic ancestor. And even today, new species come about over time, in response to changes in their environment.
“The easiest example is bacteria. The germs that make you sick. You’ve heard the commercials about taking all your medicine? That’s because, if you only take part of your medicine, you’ll allow some of the bacteria which are more resistant to the medicine to live. If they live, they’ll reproduce, and pass on their resistance to the medicine! Eventually, this will mean the medicine is no longer effective, because the bacteria will be immune to it.”
“Animals change the same way,” I concluded. “We’re the only ‘people’ we know of today, but who’s to say if some other species might be the ‘people’ on the planet a hundred-thousand years from now?”
“Dad, that’s nonsense,” came the comment from my son.
“What is it you are saying is nonsense?” I asked, somewhat lamely.
“That people are related to animals,” he said. “We’re totally different. God put us here just the way we are, and if there were people on other planets, He’d tell us.”
I think I finally understood. At some point, some trusted instructor had gotten ahold of my son’s brain, and attempted to innoculate him against reason, common sense, and imagination. I was upset by this mental vaccination of tomfoolery my son had received, but tried hard not to let it show.
“Zach, have you heard the word ‘Evolution’ before?”
“Yeah,” he replied, “you’ve talked about it before.”
“I mean, from someone other than me.”
“I think so,” he said with a quizzical frown, “but I can’t remember who.”
“OK,” I responded as I shelved the drawn-out lecture I wanted to give in favor of the short sermon he was going to receive. “I need you to listen very carefully. There are many scientists — both Mormon and non-mormon — who use the theory of evolution every day in their careers. It’s the cornerstone of modern biology and pharmacology. In other words, it’s how we understand how living things work, and how we develop new medicines which actually work to keep us living longer and healthier lives.
“There are many scientists, both Christian and Mormon,” I continued, “who are able to use the scientific facts related to evolution in their careers, and still be believers in Jesus. The two don’t necessarily preclude one another. It just means that they accept that we don’t have all the answers yet, for either religion or science.”
“Whatever, Dad,” said Zach, “but I still think what you were saying is nonsense.”
I guess my challenge over the coming weeks is to find ways to pry open my son’s brain, which some well-intentioned but ignorant instructor has attempted to nail shut. With our shared mutual interest in flying airplanes, I think we’ll start with Bernoulli’s principle (the reason airplanes fly), and find ways to tie that in to other science.
Nevertheless, the situation makes me upset. I just want to grab whoever it is that planted that idea — and that particular “nonsense” response — in my kid’s brain, shake them hard, and tell them to stay the heck out of my child’s education. Kids have a hard enough time distinguishing fact from fiction at this age. Teaching them that an entire branch of science is “nonsense” because of one’s religious beliefs is an unconscionable act of well-intentioned villainy.
— Matthew P. Barnson – – – – Thought for the moment: Famous quotations: ” ” — Charlie Chaplin
” ” — Harpo Marx
” ” — Marcel Marceau
Well intentioned villiany..
Wow.. that must have been a difficult day for you.
I wanted to take the opportunity to make a couple of points, somf of which you might agree with, and some you’ll probably not, which is Okay.
The point I think we both agree with is the assuredness and stubbornness of the word “nonsense”. I, as you know believe in Creationism with evolution as a probable tool.. but I do believe in intelligent design (with apologies to jon Stewart) – the idea that there is an intelligence that has made us as we are (again, possibly by giving evolution nudges here and there). That being said – even if I out and out decided that evolution is wrong, I do not think the theory of evolution is nonsense. I do think it is mistaken about some things (which is I guess my invitation t the flamers), but I certainly don’t think its “nonsense”.
I’m sure your reaction would be different if your son said “Dad, it is an interesting and valid theory, but I don’t think its true.” There is an implied disrespect for other ideas and a willingness to write them off with out thinking about them implied in the word “nonsense”. And on that point, I agree.
For the same reason, I don’t think Islam, Mormonism, Buddhism or Taoism are nonsense. I think they are attempts at understanding God that stray from the truth. Reasonable members of those religions probably feel the same about me. It is the word “nonsense” that changes things. If I suddenly go from “I believe I’m right” to “I believe other’s beliefs or ideas are ‘Words or signs having no intelligible meaning – Subject matter, behavior, or language that is foolish or absurd. – Matter of little or no importance or usefulness – Insolent talk or behavior; impudence’ (American heritage Dictionary)” then I have crossed the line into closed minded disrespect, and that is unacceptable.
So, that being said, there needs to be a real drawing of a line when it comes to disrespecting others’ beliefs. Let us be clear.. if you believe differently than me, you think I’m wrong and I think you’re wrong. If I am considering your beliefs and challenging my own, perhaps I will stop believing as i do, but the fact is that if I say “Buffy is the greatest show ever” and you say “No, Angel is the greatest show ever”, then we both think the other is wrong. If I say “There is only one way to God” and you say “I respect that your way works for you, but there are likely many paths” – you are euphamizing beautifully, but you are saying “If you believe there is only one path you are wrong”. And all of that is fine.
People believe differently, but I can respect the ideals of Mormonism and the good it does for people and for families and for society, and never be able to get behind the concept of a preexistence or my being the Christ to another people on another world. I can respect the ideals and culture of Catholicism and say I think there is no Biblical evidence that Mary stayed a virgin after jesus, and that the Bible suggests otherwise.
And.. I can say that evolution of some sort seems to be an immutable fact. It does happen. I don’t think that means God couldn’t have interjected us in the middle of all of it in some way. I can’t find the evolutionary basis for music or abstract art or comedy or philosophy or faith. I can’t understand why so many civilizations seem to have “evolved” the idea of a “God”, or “Gods” having supposedly never met. And ALL that being said, I can say that Evolution is a concept I cant entirely get behind as it stands right now among secular scientists. BUT I respect their work, their conclusions, and it is certainly not “nonsense”.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter all that much if your son ever comes around to your way of thinking. Its fine if he believes Evolution is dead wrong. BUT he knows it it relevant to you and to others, and that it is respected and thought of by many to be true. And still, he is willing to use a word like “nonsense” – and that is the real danger to him.
It is okay to be closed minded if thats what you want to do. It is not okay to deride the opinions of others, and that kind of thinking is the person who comes on this site and snipes “God will punish you” or “God hates Fags” or “I’ll pray for you, youre going to hell”. Respect for all beliefs and opinions is an important lesson to learn.
Unless of course you like the Friends spinoff “Joey”. In that case youre a f&^##’n dummy. (Smiles abound)
On nonsense…
As a long-time lurker, this post was enough to finally get me to officially join. I probably should choose a less charged topic than faith vs. science to delurk, but I just can’t get this topic out of my mind today. Maybe it’s that my own 3-year-old has started expressing concerns about how to fit dinosaurs into the Creation. He hasn’t called evolution nonsense yet, but it’s only a matter of time…
Just so everyone knows my faith background (mentioned because it may come off as incongruent with the rest of this post), I’m a fully active Mormon, married to a Mormon, and raising two min-Mormons.
The idea of “nonsense
My thoughts…
You are a long way from the core doctorines of Mormonism with your forward thinking and open mind about faith.
I predict you are about 3-5 years from throwing your hands up about the whole thing and declaring it all to be hogwash.
Cheers
——– Visit my blog, eh! The Murphy Maphia
Documentary
Even as a nonbeliever, I still find traces of magical thinking hanging around inside me. I try to prune them, but some stick around. For instance, even though I know it’s baloney, a part of me believes that when I wash my car, it runs better. The theory seems to fit the facts: on the days I wash my car, it seems as if the car purrs more nicely, and many of the old creaks are gone.
Of course, this has little to do with the cleanliness of the vehicle, and everything to do with the fact that I usually choose warm, sunny days to wash my car. These warm, sunny days warm up the creaking joints so they creak less, and the car runs more smoothly in that kind of weather anyway.
Yet the belief remains. Kind of like cargo cults.
I was in a similar position when I was 25-29. I saw the conflict between proclamations from authority figures and the reality of the ongoing “documentary” that is the scientific method. I had doubts, but tried to ignore them. I was comfortable raising my kids Mormon and giving the right answers in the temple recommend every year.
Then I began teaching Old Testament in sunday school, and I read the Bible deeply. I’ve always been passionate when it comes to teaching, and applied myself for hours preparing most lessons. I came out of deep-reading Biblical experience a nonbeliever in Christianity, then shortly thereafter a nonbeliever in Mormonism or any other religion.
It’s a painful process, much like a self-amputation, which I don’t recommend unless one feels the ethical need to do so. The social ramifications alone are staggering, and having the people you love and trust most issue ultimatums as if you’ve become some sort of monster is the worst.
I’m not sure what this means. It can parse two ways:
Which one is it? I suspect it’s the first, but it almost sounds as if you’re saying that, if you dig deep enough, all faith systems are nonsensical…
I’m not sure of your point here. It sounds as if you’re saying that if you adhere to a particular faith because you enjoy the benefits and/or lifestyle of it, that’s a valid reason and not “nonsense”. If, however, you join because of the perceived “rewards” (eternal life, harps and heavens, etc.), that’s nonsense?
I know some members of the LDS church who take that perspective. The chief problem I encounter with it is that it makes some aspects of the faith–notably, temple recommend interviews–very difficult to get through honestly. The way those in this situation generally seem to make it work, long-term, is to ignore the whole temple aspect of the LDS church, and focus more on the gospel basics.
You might be interested in an earlier blog about the three types of faith. I think many folks, like the allegorical frog placed in cool water slowly warmed to boiling, will actually jump out when the water gets too hot. I think you were in class with me, Dan, when that particular urban legend was shared to support some gospel principle. Unfortunately, for those who do not develop their own internal ethic, this doesn’t hold true. The Mountain Meadows Massacre comes to mind. As does the Crusades, but it’s an entirely different ballgame when the religious extremist has the power to force someone else to strap the bomb on.
I think this is a survival characteristic common to successful bureaurocracies. Moderating one’s tactics to appeal to the sensibilities of the largest percentage of people tends to give the greatest result. Witness Microsoft recently backing off from their support of pro-gay-marriage legislation. While this displeased the extreme left-wing fringe within their corporation and without, it was a move calculated to leverage popular appeal by backing off from a controversial position. When I look at large churches as corporations, their behaviors become much more consistent. Not necessarily “just” or “clear”, but consistent with a “survival in the marketplace of ideas” mentality.
You just made my quotes file with that statement 🙂
— Matthew P. Barnson – – – – Thought for the moment: Quantum Mechanics is God’s version of “Trust me.”
Clarifications
I think this is an area where faith, or more specifically, faith communities, add a lot of value to the human experience. A couple of years ago I had a lot of conversations with a colleague who was an atheist (an Objectivist, really) who was raising his toddler to share his Objectivist world view (of course).
He seemed entirely confident that she would understand and adopt his value system, but I was a little more pessimistic. I believe that spirituality is closely linked to emotional experience (a hyper-emotionalism, as it were), and works to drive people’s decision-making processes in a way that reason just can’t. Imagine, if you will, twelve years pass, and this man’s daughter is now at a high-school party. Someone passes her a joint. Reason would dictate that doing drugs is a high-cost form of entertainment, best left to people who don’t think through the full consequences and inherent risks of their decisions. But reason isn’t necessarily present when surrounded by teenage friends. At this point, the decision becomes much more emotional—“I want to fit in; I want to be liked
Milgram
Right. That’s why I put my remaining comments about authority in there. Regardless, there were a significant fraction of people who would refuse to continue to injure someone else. Not as many as we’d hope, though. It takes a lot of gumption to say “I refuse”.
Reading about those experiments was actually a part of my change of mind regarding religion. When I watched the Twin Towers fall on September 11, 2001, I recognized in myself the seed of fanatacism which could be nurtured by the appropriate authority figure into something monstrous. It made me feel ill for several days. Shortly thereafter, I read about the experiments and recognized that it seemed to be the same principle at work in the mind of the hijackers: someone believes someone else has the answers, and does what they want, even though it may go against their natural inclinations.
I think I’m a stronger person now, and would be able to resist if I were thrust into a Milgram-like situation. I hope. I’d really rather be the Sirius Black of the encounter, rather than the Peter Pettigrew, if you know what I mean 🙂
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Need an avatar
Dan, you gotta bring an avatar with you to the blog.
That’s true…
If you don’t, Matt will find one for you, I’m sure.
——– Visit my blog, eh! The Murphy Maphia
You said it!
Heh, you said it, I’m pretty certain now he’ll change it:
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Open mind
Hey, my 100×100 all-white avatar was especially created just for my first post! Where’s the love?
Wait a tick…
Is this Dan W. ?
——– Visit my blog, eh! The Murphy Maphia
Dan Call
Nope, it’s Dan Call, a friend from high school. He Googled for Sammy G, and found us all hiding out here 🙂
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Yikes…
My fear for you, Matt, and for Zach is that Zach will begin believing every thought and feeling he has is direct and divine revalation because of his new-found “gift”. It hard to ever believe you are wrong or have more to learn about something if it has been pre-determined that everything you think came from God’s brain to yours.
On the flip side. Your son will think, act, feel, and speak things that you would not choose for him and that’s a fact. This one issue might be sensitive for you but it doesn’t mean you get to decide it for him. He is his own.
——– Visit my blog, eh! The Murphy Maphia
His own
Too right! I got some good advice from my acquaintance Richard about this very issue. “Ask him about the process he goes through for deciding sense from nonsense.”
So I did. We spent some time out in the workshop talking about Bernoulli’s Principle, how the pressure of a fluid or gas decreases the faster it is moving relative to another mass. Then I asked him how he knew what I was telling him was sense, and not nonsense.
“It flies,” he stated flatly.
He can be taught 🙂 I’ll have to ask him similar questions about science in the future.
You’re right, though, science is a hotbutton for me. I’m big on knowing how things work, and exactly what the repercussions are of misunderstanding how something works. It reminds me of a joke:
Two scientists are walking together when they stop to stare at a steaming pile in the middle of the sidewalk. “Looks like poo,” says the first. “Smells like poo,” says the second. They both kneel down and dip a finger in the poo. “Feels like poo,” says the first. “Tastes like poo,” says the second.
“We’ve confirmed our hypothesis: it is poo!” says the first. “Glad we didn’t step in it!”
—
Matthew P. Barnson
The mind of an eight year old!
This has been a very intriguing blog thus far. I’m a bit behind the times. But I have a few thoughts on the mind of a child.
Zach is recently baptized into the LDS church and rarely misses a Sunday. We certainly do have some different beliefs from Matt’s, but we as Mormons believe that science and religion go hand in hand. As Daniel already mentioned, we just don’t have all the answers just yet to understand how it all connects.
While all of the religious perspectives on this is a great discussion, no one has mentioned how children think and their own use of words. Zach is an avid reader and picks up a lot of vocabulary that he doesn’t necessarily know how to use.
For us as adults, the word “nonsense” can be very offensive and rude. For Zach at age 8, I can see in his little mind that nonsense simply means, “that doesn’t make sense to me.” One year in his mind is a VERY long time. Waiting for Christmas 3 months from now is also a long time to him. Trying to imagine another species running the earth thousands of years in the future is quite the stretch of the imagination for anyone his age.
I teach primary all the time, I know what the teachers are putting in the young minds of the Mormon children. No one is telling them that science is wrong. No one has told him that evolution is nonsense.
To sum it up, my feeling on this topic of conversation (that I was not home for) is that Zach is using the little science background that he has and is trying to make sense of what his dad is teaching him. They just started teaching science to him in school, which is going to be very basic.
In the meantime, he loves to learn, he loves discussing science. I’m proud of him for standing up for what he thinks is right. That tells me in the future when he is offered drugs or alcohol or is asked to commit a crime with some friends, he won’t be afraid to say, “That’s nonsense.”
Science changes every day. We all have a lot to learn about it no matter what our religious beliefs are. —
Christy
Quick thought
I don’t have time for the long drawn out post I’d like to put here, and let’s face it, it would probably be rambling and boring, so I’ll confine my initial response to a quick thought: (This sort of touches on my particular Arthurian Maxim which you’ve heard from me before, that “If it is wicked cool, it must be true (TM).”)
In the mind of a young boy, massive ginormous dinosaurs will generally win out over dainty little gardens for this one reason: “Tyrannosaurus Rex could have eaten your average school teacher in JUST ONE BITE!” Neither Adam nor Eve could accomplish this, and this makes them (at least in my mind) far less impressive.
Also, I’m sorry, but there were no dinosaurs in the garden of Eden, because if there had been, T. Rex would have eaten both Adam and Eve before the whole “bad fruit” issue even came up. And don’t tell me that Adam would have had mastery over the dinosaurs. No way T.Rex is going to let some puny little hu-man tell him what to do. No @*#($% way.
—————————– “I can kill you with my brain…” Arthur Rowan
Rowan…
Again..
no more drugs for you.. unles syou want to come over next week.. then.. okay, maybe a few..
I Dread the Day
I am in the same boat as you, Matt, in that my wife is a Baptist and takes the kids to church with her. While I think church is a wonderful thing for kids as it gives them a basis for a strong moral character, I cannot fathom my children ever denouncing evolution and science in general. I am frankly boggled how my wife, a RN who works with advanced technology every day, can claim to believe in Genesis and say the science of evolution is invalid.
Huh?
I have no clue how I’ll handle such a situation with my children, but there’s been great advice in this thread to help. Specifically, to remember your children have minds of their own and have to reach their own conclusions. No matter how much you try to show them the results of their actions beforehand due to your experience, they have to learn the hard way a lot of the time. What do I know, I’m just an old man 🙂
My $.02 Weed
Prying open the mind
Yeah. It took me until I was twenty-five to begin prying open my brain. It took until I was about thirty before I believed that my parents were right about a bunch of stuff. Seems like we all go through it.
I think we should fix human brains so the entire acquired knowledge of ancestors can be transferred into the brains of newly-minted high-school graduates. It would sure save a lot of time. Most of us, I think, die still trying to figure life out.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
1492
In 2-3 years, Zach is going to come home and tell you how he learned about an important historical date from his teacher at a public school. In 1492 a Spanish explorer discovered America. It will be written down in a textbook. The teacher will give a test during which Zach will be asked to give the date in which America was discovered. They may even sing a song about this date.
What Zach won’t learn is that there were lots of people already living in America. Then international pirates showed up. They came from Europe. They had this public mission to disprove the theory that the earth is flat, and to find trade routes to faraway places. The real reason that the international pirates started showing up was to accumulate little pieces of rocks. Apparently, little pieces of rocks were more important than other things, like human life, because the international pirates started murdering everyone. For some reason, schools don’t like teaching kids that it’s okay to murder other people for rocks. It conflicts with the general behavior controls imposed on the playground.
This won’t be on any test. Neither will the fact that these international, murdering pirates worked hard to convert the natives to their religion. Anything that worked for the Roman Empire can work for international murdering pirates looking to expand their control over more rocks.
Unlike church, this out-of-home educational experience is being paid for by your tax dollars.
At what age
At what age do you teach kids the simple version and start teaching them what really happened? I don’t want my kids to have to deal with that kind of truth until he’s well past 10.
Public education doesn’t teach kids to think, but regurgitate. College is for thinking, and then it’s still dependent on the professor. I think kids CAN think well before college age, but there’s no way the gov’t will teach anything but standardized curriculums.
I will take responsibility for showing my kids what’s behind the curtain. I just hope they help me to know when I should pull the curtain back. Before then, it’s all Disney & happy endings.
My $.02 Weed
Totally Disney
Wow, someone’s watched Pocahontas one time too many! I think I remember learning about the indigenous practices of human sacrifice and cannibalism. Anyway, the real killer was smallpox–WMD at their best.
Of course, as barbaric as the “advanced world” of yesteryear seems to us today, imagine what they’ll be saying in another 400 years…
“Daddy, did they really have socialized medicine in the 2000’s?”
“Yes Johnny, and marginal tax rates as high as 50%. It was like enslaving a little piece of everybody, so nobody would notice. People expected governments to do everything short of changing their diapers for them.”
“Daddy, I’m scared…”
Whoa there, tiger… nice
Whoa there, tiger… nice use of dramatic and emotional spin to villainize socialized medicine and a high tax rate… I particularly liked the “Daddy, I’m scared” element; nothing pulls at the heart strings like children, after all.
But ironically enough, our country’s actually in the minority on this one… a large portion of the world’s top powers practices universal health care, and many consider it the height of barbarism that we don’t. Also consider that many countries with high tax rates (like Sweden) have stable, popularly elected democratic governments. So if it’s slavery, at least it’s slavery of the people, for the people, and by the people.
Now there ARE plenty of strong arguments against a high tax rate, and I’m sure there’s some good ones for privately managed health care as well, but this isn’t 1954… we’re no longer allowed to equate socialism with pure evil without providing backup.
All that being said, welcome to the boards. 🙂 It’s always great to hear another point of view in the discussions we have here. —————————– “I can kill you with my brain…” Arthur Rowan
Take Off, Eh!
Our great neighbor to the north, Oh Canada, has socialized health care.
There are pluses to trying to take care of everyone like socialists countries do, and there are minuses. Just like there are pluses and minuses to the health care system in good ole Capitalist USA.
Ask someone who works for an employer who doesn’t provide health care how good our system is.
I personally think in 400 years, our kidswill be ahgast that we actually had to cut the skin to perform medical procedures.
My $.02 Weed
Socialized medicine..
I do believe that more needs to be done in terms of providing health care (especially preventitive) to the poor.
But, lets have a cursory look at the issue..
First off, no hospital may decline aid to someone base don the person’s ability to pay. In terms of most procedures.. you can have the vast majority done whether or not you can pay for them. Of course.. anything you can pay will be taken from you.
Second, there is government assistance in the form of Medicaid and Medicare, which will cover a good amount of many major procedures. Where we need increased coverage is on Prescription drugs for the poor and elderly. That is where the most lives can be saved, and it is a feasible tihng to accomplish.
In terms of totally socialized medicine.. it fails to help with the really complicated stuff.. you may well be put on a national waiting list and die there waiting for procedures to be done. Keep in mind that resources are limited, and that the government tends to take ten days and ten dollars where the private sector can get it done in five.
The fact is, when rich canadians need something done, they come here to have it done. We attract the better doctors and the better technology.
All that being said, I will occasionally have patients who stop their medicine because they can’t afford it. Options need to be given to these people. of course, if you can possibly afford health insurance and you don’t get it, then you’re risking a lot in an attempt to beat the system. Get health insurance.. what you pay is close to what the government would take out if they provided it. Many employers will help. Government assistance is also available to help.. at least get insurance with a high deductible and lower payments to cover big problems. If you don’t, you’re getting th tax break from unsocialized medicine, but putting yourself at risk.
So in closing.. as someone who works in the medical field.. a little more government assistance is something I agree with, but socialized medicine as a whole isn’t a good idea.
Socialized medicine
I think you and I have talked about this on the phone before. I have this sense of deja vu…
As a former contractor, I can tell you that it sucks to have to pay nearly $800 a month for health insurance for my family. I just can’t do that!
The problem with Medicare is that you must be in abject poverty in order to use it. If you are retired, living on a fixed income, there’s this enormous gap between maintaining the standard of living you want for 20+ years on that retirement money and Social Security, and how poor you have to be to qualify for Medicare. Within this gap lies most of America’s enormous middle class.
Sure, the hyper-rich purchase medical services in the U.S. I think private hospitals are a good thing for that. But right now, corporations are exploiting loopholes in employment law to hire people as “contractors” for a very long time, leaving them without affordable health insurance, but making too much money to qualify for government aid. I know it’s inefficient, but I also know that I want to be able to take my child to a hospital if he’s dying and not have it cost me over $9,000 that I’m still paying off three years later.
Yeah. We’re in that situation right now. We’re making it, but that medical debt sucks, and when your budget is tight, it just doesn’t get paid off. It gets shuffled around.
Free basic and emergency care. I don’t care if my taxes get bumped up 5% to cover it. The American middle-class needs it.
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Matthew P. Barnson
Feeling your pain…
Having just finished two years of private insurance (I hear you on those premiums), and racking up $1,000’s of expenses along the way (our monthly prescription costs exceeded our premium payments, then stack on ER/surgeries), I know it’s expensive. But what’s your alternative?
If you turn back the clock a bit, say pre-Depression (when government salary caps first led to insurance benefits), what was medical care like? As cited in this superb article on healthcare in the US, spending as a fraction of national income has more than quintipled since 1919. And that used to include house-calls! Back in those days, rich people paid a lot, and poor people didn’t. The hospital could exercise discretion in meeting its desire to help everyone, no matter how indigent. But the third-party payer screwed that up…
From basic microeconomics, when the marginal cost to an individual approaches zero, demand approaches infinity, yet supply approaches infinity only as price rises (to infinity). Thus we find the third-party attempting to bridge an ever-widening gap. The third-party, of course, doesn’t have infinite money, so it demands price concessions from the providers such that, after a few decades, people without insurance are paying through the nose (but not being denied care, by the way!), even while the third-party controls its own costs.
Proposing free “basic care” only perpetuates this problem. What, after all, is “basic care?” Everything but cosmetic surgery? Who decides? And who pays? Five percent obviously wouldn’t cut it, or else you wouldn’t be in this predicament. You’re still in a third-party paying mode, which is inherently flawed as an economic model. Again, if the government had created perverse incentives in the first place (which are still around today, as you know if you’re making non-tax-deductible insurance payments), we wouldn’t be here.
Is it broken? No question. Will doing more of the same damage fix it? I don’t see how. It’s like hitting your TV to improve the reception, and when that doesn’t work, getting a bat. Pretty soon you find yourself standing in shards of glass and plastic, thinking to yourself, “Oh yeah, I unplugged the satellite receiver this morning! Maybe I should have plugged it back in and gotten out of the way…”
It’s constant government tweaking that leads medicine (and most things) to ever greater fluctuations from the ideal. It’s like trying to stop your son on a swingset by pushing him back from the apex.
I aim to entertain…
I was surprised that my overly emotional retort to Sam didn’t garner faster responses. Of course I laid it on thick, but I just hate to see a good thread die.
Socialized medicine was really not the focus of the barbarism jab–socialist tendencies in general were the issue (as exemplified by a high tax rate). The whole “slavery of the people, for the people, and by the people” thing. Are you seriously advocating this as an acceptable practice? If you want backup, here’s a start. I’ll go 30,000-foot-view to begin with, and if people want to delve in deeper, that’s great.
First off, some definitions. Humans, by virtue of their natural capability to act rationally, have natural rights. These are rights bestowed by nature. So ask yourself, what rights would I have if I lived alone (in nature)? Makes it really simple doesn’t it–the right to do what you want. If you happen to meet another human, those rights don’t really change, except at the intersection, i.e. you can act of your own free will, but not if it removes the other person’s free will. There are two ways to do this: violence (or the threat thereof) and fraud.
So now that we have the limits of human authority, what are the limits of government authority? Well, given that we’re resting that authority on the people, said people can’t really bequeath any more than they’ve got, can they? I, for example, could start a neighborhood watch group, but the fact that it is founded on the people of the neighborhood wouldn’t give us the right to take money from passers-by. In other words, being a collective does not create new rights.
So, the only thing governments are morally able to do is defend their citizens against violence and fraud. Anything else is simply an act of violence (or threat thereof) in itself. If you don’t believe me, write, “I opt not to pay anymore” on your next tax return. Not interested, eh? Well, if you did, the IRS would (if they were efficiently run, at least) attempt to take the money anyway, directly from your paycheck, financial assets, etc. If you were wiley enough to avoid that seizure, and move to a bunker with all your cash, you still may not like the outcome. In short, any government policy beyond protecting natural rights (e.g. healthcare, education, welfare, trade regulations) is being imposed on its citizens, without moral authority. Superficial inspection of such programs may be promising (“Wow, free healthcare for all!”) but it is inexcusable to look at the whole picture (“Hmm, I can’t pay extra to get the services I really want.” and “I see that it’s free for me, but twice as expensive (through taxes) for her–isn’t that like stealing?”)
Taking it back to the nature roots, if you were attacked by another person, and you killed in self-defense, would that be immoral? Of course not, and from that right is derived the creation of a military and police force.
But what if you got sick, and knew another person who you thought could heal you. It would require time and effort on that person’s part, but let’s say you didn’t have anything to barter for the services. Can you threaten to kill him if he doesn’t help you? Not morally. Can you threaten to kill yet another person if they don’t pay the healer on your behalf? Equally ludicrous. How about threatening 500 people, so they each pay only a little bit? Maybe you could even introduce a home mortgage deduction while you’re at it, just to make it seem like you’re a nice guy.
In short, the empirical evidence behind the problems of socialism abounds, but it is beside the point. First socialism (even socialist democracies, where rather than one person threatening you, the whole gang gets involved) must be justified philosophically and morally, and that is where they have been weighed in the scales and found wanting.
I think my primary
I think my primary disagreement with your argument originates at its root: concerning ‘natural rights.’
>>>>First off, some definitions. Humans, by virtue of their natural capability to act rationally, have natural rights. These are rights bestowed by nature. So ask yourself, what rights would I have if I lived alone (in nature)? Makes it really simple doesn’t it–the right to do what you want.
This is probably just a disagreement on definitions, but to me there’s a tremendous difference between a “right” and an “ability.” A “right” in and of itself is a positive thing, something with intrinsic moral value. It’s what the founding fathers meant when they talked about the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Just because you have the ‘ability’ to do what you want doesn’t mean that it’s a moral ‘right.’
I disagree that there are natural rights. There are thousands of natural ‘laws,’ but when you get down to it I think the tsunami and Katrina have shown that Mother Nature doesn’t give a rat’s @*# about our so-called ‘rights.’ And the ultimate Law of nature is simple: the strong will survive at the expense of the weak.
>>>>> So, the only thing governments are morally able to do is defend their citizens against violence and fraud. Anything else is simply an act of violence (or threat thereof) in itself.
This seems to state that a government’s only job is to preserve the ‘natural right’ of being able to act freely as you so choose.
But keep in mind that a government is simply the administrative body of a community. And a Community’s job is a lot more than that. If anything, the purpose of a Community is to actively FIGHT the law of nature.
Thousands of years ago we learned that we were much more likely to weather the worst that nature could throw at us, more likely to survive, if we banded together. A Family could do more than one person. And a Community of Families could do more than just one family. But strangely enough, contrary to the law of nature, we still put emphasis on PROTECTING our weak, instead of solely focusing on the strong.
It’s one thing to say that a man who wants education, health care, or a job with a given minimum wage (three services that the government ‘imposes’ on us, as you say) can get it if he wants to. That would follow the natural right you speak of. But try applying that same logic to your eight year old daughter and it falls apart. Because there’s no way she’d be able to achieve any of those thing without *the help of other people.*
We’re human beings, and therefore we follow a higher law than just the natural one. You don’t need to be religious to recognize that. If we only follwed the natural law then things like slavery, murder, abandoning the sick and elderly wouldn’t horrify us as they do. But strangely, all these things still happen, even though as a whole we know it’s wrong. So every community throughout history has had to develop a process by which we protect our weak not just from outside dangers, *but from ourselves as well.* It’s a paradox, but that’s life.
I would put forth that the moral and philosophical purpose of a Community (and therefore the administrative branch of that Community, its government) is the extension of the purpose of any good family: to care for and protect all its members. To protect from both without and within. And the ideal (notice I say ideal)behind socialism is to achieve a community in which, to borrow a phrase, no child gets left behind. Every member of this ‘family’ is cared for.
>>>>First socialism (even socialist democracies, where rather than one person threatening you, the whole gang gets involved) must be justified philosophically and morally, and that is where they have been weighed in the scales and found wanting.
I want to make this clear: I am completely unqualified to judge the PRACTICAL merits of socialism. Indeed, in many ways it does fall apart when put into effect. But MORALLY I’d say it can carry a lot of weight. Certainly a lot more than the oppsoite ideal of total free-trade. Capitalism is the ultimate exemplification of nature’s law: Under true lassez-faire economics, there would be no anti-trust laws, no minimum wage, no child labor laws, no mandatory overtime. All of these things I just stated are yet more examples of services the government is “imposing” on us. And yet, strangely, the only ones complaining about these imposed services are the ones at the top of the food chain. Is capitalism ‘natural?’ Absolutely. But being natural doesn’t mean being right.
Again, I’m not advocating extreme socialism any more than I would extremem capitalism. I think there’s a happy medium. But in order to achieve that balance, you have to be willing to recognze that sometimes thinking in terms of the society instead of the individual is a good thing. Sometimes the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one. And sometimes the ones at the top and even in the middle should give something up to help out the ones on the bottom.
So yes, God Forbid, sometimes a tax increase is warranted in order to make sure that all members of the family are being looked after.
P.S. These are blanket statments, I know. And again, I’m not trying to argue whether such things are always PRACTICAL. I’m merely arguing against the concept that socialism is somehow immoral, and that any socialist government is automatically a high-powered gang of thieves.
—————————– “I can kill you with my brain…” Arthur Rowan
Law of Nature
I would argue that the desire to “protect the weak” is human nature. Those tribes which did a good job of protecting their tribe members survived better than those which did not. Those which preserved their aged matrons for the wisdom they provided were able to weather harsher problems than those who allowed them to die earlier, thus depriving themselves of their knowledge. Those tribes who’s members protected their children–even by offering their own lives–survived better because they ensured that another person would survive to reach reproductive years.
Self-sacrifice isn’t selfless. It’s baked into our genes as a hedge to ensure the survival of the species over any individual.
The so-called “law of nature”, that only the strong survive, is a misnomer. It’s a phrase which will engender misunderstanding of statistics. The strong might perish, while the weak survive, if there is a freak accident. The strong might choose to perish rather than the weak. Perhaps the weak have some other beneficial attribute which allows them to have a better survival rate than the “stronger” representative of the species.
Survival of the fittest may be a useful general rule, but all it takes is one successful mutation or unusual behavioral pattern (like cooperation) to eventually saturate a society with that beneficial change. One merely need look at the ancient American societies–I’m talking heavily pre-Columbian–to realize that often the strong societies perish to weak ones who had some small advantage. Accidents of geography, culture, or genetics play a strong role in causing unexpected outcomes.
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Matthew P. Barnson
Hmmm… very well put,
Hmmm… very well put, Matthew. I especially like the concept of cooperation being just another adaptation, but one that’s served us in good stead.
Though this modifies my original argument on the importance of looking after a society’s lowest common denominator (ie, the poor), I think it also strengthens it, in so much as we have practical, *natural* evolutionary evidence that a cooperative communal environment in which the weak are looked after may actually survive longer than an every-person-for-themself situation.
—————————– “I can kill you with my brain…” Arthur Rowan
Absolutely
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
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Matthew P. Barnson
Violent agreement–maybe
This sounds like violent agreement to me. I never said anything about abilities, just about rights. The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is just a poetic way of saying, “do what you want.
>>>>> Check your gut on
>>>>> Check your gut on this–if a destitute man broke into your house and stole your stereo and cash, would you feel violated? Would you be angry? Or would you say, “Hey, the needs of the many have prevailed! Where’s my union label?” Didn’t think so…
This seems like a Straw Man to me. Please explain where in my argument I equated, or seemed to equate, “the government as an administrative body looking after the needs of the less fortunate by taking a portion of money from the more fortunate in a thought-out and organized fashion” with “the government should let the destitute take what they want, when they want, from the rich.”
—————————– “I can kill you with my brain…” Arthur Rowan
Socialism – Or – Do We Need Parents
It’s a wonderful ideal to think we could take care of ourselves and the government would only step in when necessary. However, the problem arises when those who should take care of themselves are quite happy giving the government the power to do it for them. Then, they blame the government for not perfoming tasks they should do for themselves.
I like the idea of minimalist government, but too many people are dependent on bloated government for it to ever really fly.
My $.02 Weed
On the other hand…
On the other hand, too many people are dependent on an uninvolved government in order to exploit and abuse workers. It’s bad enough in many places that it really should be illegal, but I have no idea how it would be enforced.
I think that in the U.S. today, the balance is very nearly ideal between the desires of the capitalists, and the desires of the workers. IMHO, though, we’re slightly too far on the “unfettered capitalism” side of the scale when it comes to multi-national corporations exercising undue influence on government. I’m not sure what the solution is to big corporations buying their favorite legislation through massive campaign contributions. It’s legalized bribery.
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Matthew P. Barnson
Rewording
Guess I should have equated it to “organized crime.” They’re more throught-out in deciding how much and from whom to take what.
What they do with what they take is beside the point. Rights have been violated, whether you sugar-coat it with some insidious utopian vision or not.
The fact remains (and you have yet to adequately address this) that the government has no authority but what is granted by the people, and the people do not have the authority to take from each other, period. How then do they grant such authority? A government run purely on optional giving would be fine, but that’s what UNICEF does.
As far as corruption is concerned, if all the government did was provide security there would be no need for campaign finance reform. What would a crooked politician offer in exchange for bribes? Police could be allocated algorithmically (by tax base, crime rates, etc.) and the military equally defends all. No more “bridges to nowhere.”
I will grant you that the
I will grant you that the potential for corruption in such a government is high. Certainly we have examples of socialist/communist governments resembling organized crime rings. Just look at the darker days of the Soviet Union.
But to address your point that the people do not have the authority to take from each other, period. Let’s say for a moment that this assertion is 100% true. Then in your next paragraph you seem to say (I could be misinterpreting) that the government should provide security at least.
Going with those two assertions: 1) the government can only take what the people are willing to give it 2) the government should be involved in protecting the people from outside attackers,
let me propose a situation. Imagine that Mexico suddenly had an incredibely built up army, the best in the world, and was starting to show signs of wanting to take Texas back. The government would need money to build up its defenses along the Rio Grande. But who provides that money? The Texans would be more than happy to, I’m sure, but what happens when a bunch of people in Maine say “We don’t really think we need more defense, we don’t want to pay for this.” Yes, these people would be stupid and not realize that defending Texas would also be defending them, but that’s not the point. In order to get these people’s taxes to pay for defense then the government would have to break assertion 1, because they would be taking money from individuals who didn’t want to give it.
Now imagine what the state of our military would be if only the people in the country who believed in the Iraq War chose to donate money to the cause.
All I’m trying to show with this is that there ARE cases where the government is justified in taking money from people who wouldn’t want to give it, often for their own protection. And in a representative democracy, the people THEMSELVES have a say in what those cases are by electing their lawmakers. So if the people elect lawmakers who decide that the government should take money for education or for healthcare (even from those who don’t want to give it), how is that different from the people electing lawmakers who say that the government should take money for homeland security? In all three cases there will be individuals who don’t want to give.
I would assert that if a)the elected government operates by the will of the people, and b)the elected government decides it needs taxes for an issue, then c)taxes for that issue are taken by the consent of the people
So socialism in a representative democracy is not immoral in that it is socialism by consent of the people. (note, there’s a huge difference between “the people” and “each individual person in the country.” If we needed universal approval on every action the government took, NOTHING would get done) —————————– “I can kill you with my brain…” Arthur Rowan
How To Deal With The IRS
Dan, you raise an interesting point on your post — what would happen if you informed the fedeal government that you weren’t going to properly pay your taxes?
This is a strategy I employ every year.
I never understood why so many people spend all this money on professional tax preparation services. Every year, I enlist the help of my friends at the IRS to prepare my tax return. Here’s how it works:
First, I wait until February to make sure that all copies of 1099s, DIVs, etc. have arrived. I walk into the local library and get the necessary preparation forms. Then I spend, at most, an hour filling out my return. When I’m finished filling out my return, I do have some slight reservations that my end result could be wrong. Am I really supposed to get that much money back?
Then I put my signature and stamp on the return envelope, which legally states that I have filled out the tax return to the best of my ability. But that tax code is so complicated, the best of my ability just isn’t good enough sometimes. I wish I knew every 14,567,325,885 line of tax code. Then I know my calculations would be perfect.
Four months later, I surprisingly don’t get a refund check from the IRS. I get a letter, maybe a phone call, letting me know that I did it wrong (I did?). I then ask the IRS for their expert help in filling out my return correctly. Their help is so invaluable. It means I can finally get over the past year, and forge ahead, seeking new deductions in the current year.