Prohibiting insurors from refusing coverage of pre-existing conditions seems a bit unfair to them on the one hand or a prescription for higher rates for everyone does it not? However, while there may be some cross subsidization by healthy people of sick people, consider the alternatives. Those sick people who can’t afford or are unable to obtain coverage, will go to emergency rooms–soaking up available resources from people with genuine emergencies. Those uncovered people will also be out and about in stores, schools, neighborhoods, etc., where any communicable illnesses they may have can impact on the rest of us. In other words, we may all wind up paying for or suffering on account of denying coverage to others. So in the long run, it may make more sense to  find a way to pay for coverage for them, pre-existing conditions and all.

The “equality premise,” assumes that in a fair society, “different groups of people [defined by race, sex, sexual preference, etc] will naturally have the same distribution of outcomes in life [income, education, status, etc.]“  When they don’t, it must be because of bad human behavior and an unfair society. Well sure, but that is true only if all other variables are controlled; there may be those who baldly assert such a premise but more generally it comes into play in drawing conclusions about the absence of equal opportunity or outright discrimination. “Much of the Democratic Party’s proposed domestic legislation assumes this [equality premise] is true.”Logically, is there an error in such a premise? Well, let’s revisit Shockley, et al [Blacks are genetically inferior to Whites, etc.]. Without citing any specifics, Murray suggests that scientific findings will soon ”force the left to abandon the equality premise.”

These new findings of biology will also invalidate the “New Man” premise ”which says that human beings are malleable through the right government interventions.” From whence comes this bit of straw?! He cites the example of government programs intended to support fatherless children as an example. He goes on to  say that “social democrats will have to acknowledge that the traditional family plays a special, indispensible role in human flourishing.” Are there politicians, bureaucrats or others on the left who argue otherwise or assert that government-run creches are the best? No, of course not. Did the 40% of babies born to single mothers in America in 2007 come as a result of government encouragement or “New Man” promoters? On the contrary, they probably came about due to the failure of the “abstinence only” sex education policies pursued over the years that a Republicans have controlled Congress and/or the White House.

The religious right has exercised an overly large influence on government policy during the past decade, attempting to impose their values on American institutions and the behavior of the American people. That is where the futility of the “New Man” premise has been most clearly demonstrated. Church attendance is down, unwed births are up, corporate greed has run rampant, etc. So whose paradigm is failing? The one item on which I can agree with Murray is that people must be treated as individuals. The success of social policy is to be measured by the “freedom of individuals, acting on their personal abilities, aspirations and values, to seek the kind of life that best suits them.” It is not social democrats, the left, Democrats or erstwhile Europeans that suck the life from life through social policies and values that limit individual freedom for individuals–it is the religious right and conservatives. On the other hand, the “he who dies with the most toys” perspective on life (not too different from the one Murray chastises the Europeans for) also comes from the right–not the religious right, of course, but the “free enterprise” right. Maybe the American Enterprise folks are comfortable with that?

It is true that no matter how wonderful an agenda one may have, one will never have an opportunity to advance it if one is not elected. So the temptation is to say what one believes needs to be said in order to get elected. Once elected, the genuine article can reemerge. But it is a fine line to walk, running for office and maintaining a sense of genuine identity and clear principles. While McCain trumpets his years of experience in contrast to Barack Obama’s relatively short record, he fails to note how this hurts rather than helps. Because he has had so many years in public office, he has had the opportunity to weave this way and that in opposing and supporting policies of one president or another. He asks “who is the real Barack Obama” while failing to recognize that he has made it much more difficult to tell who the real McCain is by his own vacillation. He might actually be a decent president, but who can say what he really stands for? Perhaps he never read Shakespeare’s admonition, “to thine own self be true.”

Nichiren says, “When great evil occurs, great good follows.” (WND, 1119). So something good can come from this, amidst all the political posturing and finger-pointing. It’s not inappropriate, rather it’s essential to look at the causes of this collapse if the effects are to be avoided in the future. When you have politicians enabling, through a laissez-faire approach to the financial sector, these Buttheads of the Universe to take free-market capitalism to its most extreme the outcome is certainly foreseeable. Not, of course, to George “Herbert Hoover” (or maybe we should call him Beavis) Bush and his friends in the Republican party. Government regulation has a place, to protect citizens and taxpayers from the worst excesses of human nature. We have laws that punish criminals. We also have regulations and regulators to help prevent crimes. It may not be possible, practical or sensible to try to protect everyone from greed and stupidity, but it certainly is reasonable to have more oversight and control of the financial sector than we have had in recent years.