Thursday, November 1, 2012
Romney's Exegetist
Be not careless in deeds, nor confused in words, nor rambling in thought.
— Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Meditations
It is probably too late to help the undecided voter, but thanks to Rachel Martin’s interview with Barbara Comstock, an advisor to Mitt Romney’s campaign, on National Public Radio’s October 28th Weekend Edition, we finally have clarification of two of Governor Romney’s positions that, up until now, have lacked clarity. The first pertains to health care and the second to abortion. This column and its report of the interview will only be of benefit to the small minority of voters who think these issues are as important as, for example, the economy.
Ms. Martin’s first question pertained to health care. Up to now Mr. Romney has been vague about what he would do other than repeal Obamacare the day after he is sworn in. Here is some clarification. Ms. Martin asked Ms. Comstock what Mr. Romney’s position was on “popular parts of the federal plan, like coverage for pre-existing conditions.” Ms. Comstock gave the clear and concise answer that was not given by Mr. Romney during the debates. She said: “He has been clear from the start that he is for repealing and replacing, and that is what all Republicans have tried to do. [Ms. Comstock briefly digresses to observe that Governor Romney wants states to be innovators and then continues answering the question.] [Y]ou know, we want to deal with pre-existing conditions. Something like, you know, having children be able to stay-well, children. If you’re 26 years old you’re not a child. But if parents want to keep their adult children on until 26, the insurance companies have already said, Hey, that’s working out great for us. We want to keep that.”
Ms. Martin, who was apparently not paying attention, did not understand that Ms. Comstock had already answered her question so repeated it saying: “So will his plan include a mandate for insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions?” Ms. Comstock patiently and clearly explained once more: “Well, there already are pre-existing conditions law in there. If you have insurance you can’t be thrown off. So there are going to be combinations on that. I’m not familiar with the exact specifics. But we have always said we want to deal with pre-existing conditions because that’s part of what makes, you know, people maybe don’t get insured in the first place or aren’t able to stay on their insurance. So that’s one of the, you know, you want to have insurance when you are sick. And so, that is something obviously that we want to make sure we could take care of.” With those clarifications, readers of this column who did not know for whom to vote because of their concern that Mr. Romney might get rid of the provisions in the health care law that say no insurance company can deny coverage to a person with a pre-existing condition, have the clear answer that for some reason Mr. Romney was unable to come up with during the debates.
Other readers may have been more worried about Governor Romney’s position on abortion and a woman’s right to choose. Addressing Ms. Comstock, Ms. Martin said: “In 2002 Governor Romney said, and I quote here, ‘I will preserve and protect a woman’s right to choose.’ And in this campaign, his position has been ambiguous. Can you tell us if the issue of abortion will be a priority for Governor Romney if he is elected?” Again Ms. Comstock steps up to the plate and essentially hits a homerun. She replied: “[Y]ou’re focusing on all the issues that the voters aren’t. See I go out and I talk to voters every day and do the grassroots and go door to door, and the issues that they bring up are the economy. But on abortion, Governor Romney has made clear that he is pro-life, but there’s also what you can-the Supreme Court has also spoken on this. So what the federal government can do is largely deal with funding issues. And what Governor Romney has said on funding, when we have, you know, very strong disagreement on the issue of funding abortion that let’s, you know, we can agree to disagree on those issues. But on the vital matters that need to be funded when we have such budget shortfalls, let’s not have it be on these things that we very much have, you know, strong disagreements on. Let’s focus on jobs and the economy and getting things turned around on the economy, the things we agree on. And that’s why people are coming around to supporting Governor Romney.”
For my readers who have been unable to decide whether or not to support Governor Romney because they are unclear about where he stands on a woman’s right to choose, the foregoing explanation, being as it is, clear and concise (as the governor has not been), will prove to be of assistance. Should Mr. Romney be elected, Ms. Comstock has clearly demonstrated that she would be a valuable addition to the Romney administration and should receive a high ranking, if not a cabinet position. We will all be the beneficiaries of her ability to express herself clearly and concisely. Sort of.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Voters and Debaters
A President needs political understanding to run the government, but he may be elected without it.
— Harry Truman, Memoirs
A number of people have asked how it is that three weeks before the election debate organizers were able to find an uncommitted group of people to question the candidates in the second debate. Since we are now only a few weeks away from the beginning of the 2016 election season, a refresher as to what to expect during the next four years is in order, and that explanation may help explain how it was that three weeks before the election there were still undecided voters.
The best way to insure that voters are informed and, therefore, committed, is to provide ample time for them to examine the positions of the people they are being asked to support. No other country takes greater pains to make sure its electorate is informed than the United States. In France, for example, the presidential election lasts four months from start to finish, hardly enough time for an interested voter to make an informed decision. (In addition, and as an additional handicap for the voter, political advertising is not allowed on the airwaves in France, thus almost guaranteeing that the voters will be uninformed.)
The first event that will signal the beginning of the 2016 election cycle will be the announcement by a politician that he or she is going to visit Iowa, a state not normally associated with vacation planning. A politician’s announcement of a trip to Iowa is the same thing as a formal announcement that the visitor is seriously considering a run for the presidency. Iowa is a good place for a politician to start since not only does it hold the first primary in the country but politicians can test out positions and see if they appeal to the voters. If, not, they can revise them in future primaries. In addition, in primaries where all the candidates are members of the same party, as was the case this year, they can change their positions in order to effectively compete with the other participants in the primary process. This year, the goal for each entrant was to be more conservative than any of the other participants. In order to compete with his conservative rivals during the primaries, Mr. Romney, among other things, disavowed much of what he had done with respect to health care as governor of Massachusetts and said he supported a Senate piece of legislation that would permit employers to select insurance plans that denied contraceptive coverage to women (a position he rejected in the second debate.) Since the interested voter recognizes that whatever is said during the primary is of no moment, it is easy to see why a voter would, at that stage in the process, remain uncommitted.
Following the conclusion of the primary season the campaign begins in earnest. That is when the survivor has a chance to look inward and figure out what, if anything, he really believes and firm up the platform on which the candidate plans to run. During that time an uncommitted voter might have the opportunity to become committed except for one thing. The candidates rely on thirty and sixty second ads that do more to demonize the opponent than edify the voter and, as a result, the large sums of money that are spent benefit the media outlets more than the voter. Thus, the uncommitted voter can easily remain uncommitted.
It is estimated that this year supporters of the two candidates will each have spent $1 billion on explaining why the candidate they oppose is not qualified to be president. To put that sum in perspective, $1 billion is the amount that bald men in America spend each year on shampoos, hair transplants and other treatments designed to cure baldness. Unlike the hair products, the $2 billion spent on the campaign is used to tear down rather than restore. It is easy to see why, at the end of the process, unless they have done independent study, the voter is able to remain uncommitted even though the election looms.
After months of campaigning and $2 billion having been spent, the whole four-year process of selecting a president boils down to one thing-who performed better in three one and one-half hour debates. The only question is who smiled too much or not enough, who seemed subdued or aggressive, who snuck in a cheat sheet and other matters of non-substance. Based on the foregoing, voters will cast their ballots to select the next leader of the free world. It is at that point that the uncommitted voter will decide for whom to vote.
It is not too late to change the process for 2016. Instead of spending $2 billion and wasting four years on another election cycle, we could reduce the entire process to three debates and spend $2 billion to make restorative hair products available at no cost for all the balding men in America. It won’t happen and the first visit to Iowa is only a few months away.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Abortions and Contradictions
If men could get pregnant abortion would be a sacrament.
— Gloria Steinem, The Verbal Karate of Florynce R. Kennedy, Esq.
Here’s how it works. People who do not oppose abortion are in favor of steps that can be taken to avoid unwanted pregnancies so that there will be fewer abortions. People who oppose abortions oppose the steps that can be taken to reduce unwanted pregnancies. Some people who oppose abortions think doctors perform abortions on women who aren’t pregnant. It is confusing but it is hoped that this column will help readers understand how it all works.
Contraception enables a woman who wants to have sex (as the vernacular has it), but not a baby, to do so. The Catholic Church and similar luddites think a woman should do nothing to avoid becoming pregnant except rely on her bodily cycles to decide when to enjoy sex. The Catholic Church makes its wishes known through men who can enjoy sex whenever they want, even with children, without fear of any consequences.
A study was recently concluded that demonstrates that if contraception is widely available there will be fewer unwanted pregnancies. The study was conducted from 2007 to 2011 and its results were published in Obstetrics and Gynecology. The participants were between the ages of 14 and 45. The researchers discovered that when cost was not a factor (since the various methods of contraception were provided to the study participants free of charge) the participants chose those methods that were most likely to be successful such as implants and IUDs. The study found there was a teen birth rate of 6.3 per thousand among participants in the study compared with a teen birth rate of 34.3 per thousand nationwide. Annual abortion rates ranged from 4.4 to 7.5 per thousand women in the study compared with 19.6 per thousand nationwide. Megan Kavanaugh, one of the researchers said: “These findings really show promise for what could happen on a national level” with a combination of free birth control and promotion of the most effective methods.”
On the date the regulations mandating insurance companies to cover, among other things, DEA-approved contraception, became effective, Jeff Fortenberry (R.NE) joined colleagues in a ceremony to mark what he called: “The day Religious Freedom Died. ” He could also have named it “The day the number of unwanted pregnancies (and resulting abortions) was reduced.” Explaining the reason for the demonstration he said (without using quite these words) that for the government to take away the right of men to decide what women may do with their bodies, including the right to not become pregnant but nonetheless enjoy the same right to enjoy sex that men have, “violates a deeply held traditional principle of the rights of conscience and liberty in our country.” He was probably thinking of the Puritans. Jeff was joining the Catholic Church and its allies who have filed lawsuits to ask the courts to invalidate those regulations that require them to offer such coverage to their employees. Opponents of reducing unwanted pregnancies have lots of tools in their arsenals. In addition to attacking the Health Care Act in court, legislators, cities, and states have found another line of attack. Tulsa, Oklahoma, is the most recent example.
On October 5, 2012, The Oklahoma State Department of Health officials notified Planned Parenthood of the Heartland that at the end of the year it would lose its state funding. The agency had three clinics that had about 2,800 visits per month. They performed no abortions. They provided, among other things, free contraceptive services to women who could not afford to pay for them. In withdrawing funding, Oklahoma was joining other progressive states such as New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Tennessee, all of which have cut or attempted to cut funding to Planned Parenthood even when the clinics in question performed no abortions. Indiana legislators passed a law eliminating Planned Parenthood federal funding and Texas passed a law to exclude those clinics from the state’s Women’s Health Program which is federally funded in part. Those steps will insure the continuation of unwanted pregnancies and give new momentum to the fight over who controls women’s bodies.
Occasionally the ongoing debate about abortion produces interesting tidbits. Todd Akin, who is running for the Senate in Missouri, explained a short time ago that women who are raped do not become pregnant because of their bodies’ responses to the assault. In comments he made in 2008 Mr. Akin observed that doctors who perform abortions cheat on their taxes and “ perform abortions on women who are not actually pregnant. “
Here is a bonus for this week’s column that has nothing to do with contraception or abortion. On September 27, 2012, Congressman Paul Broun (R. GA.) gave a speech at a sportsman’s banquet at Liberty Baptist Church in Hartwell, Georgia. In his speech he said: “All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell.” Mr. Broun sits on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.