It's also important to note that you're insisting on cherry-picking here (only citing life expectancy). There's a reason that I included four separate categories on aggregate health outcomes. That you insist on citing only one category, and only in a few anecdotes that cut against the overall trend, says something about the weakness of the position you're arguing.
It's also important to note that you're insisting on cherry-picking here (only citing life expectancy). There's a reason that I included four separate categories on aggregate health outcomes. That you insist on citing only one category, and only in a few anecdotes that cut against the overall trend, says something about the weakness of the position you're arguing.
Then in what other metric i should use?
Anyway, people tend to think on "fixing the symptom, not the disease", the high profits on healthcare industry is caused by a lot of entry barrier and the solution is not a price control from the government limiting the profits(it never worked), the solution is to just take out the entry barrier.
Even if the problem was low competition between insurance companies, I don't think making it easier to start an insurance company is the simplest, easiest, or most reliable solution. I don't even know what "entry barriers" are making it so hard to create a health insurance company. If the problem is monopolies, the solution is breaking up monopolies--forcibly break apart the largest insurance companies and force their parts to compete with each other. That way, you don't have to wait for new, "good" companies to join the market and you don't have to worry about the old ones buying them out or conspiring to crush them.
I'm reasonably certain the solution to a viciously profit-driven healthcare system is to remove the middle man and therefore the profit motive to begin with. Health insurance is an inherently parasitic industry. It only makes money at the consumer's expense; it only exists because, in the absence of a public option, it is a necessary evil. Insurance companies don't keep premiums high and deny coverage because it's too hard for "good" companies to join the market and save the day by offering low-cost coverage. They do it because it's profitable to do so, and any goodhearted insurer that just wants to protect people and not exploit them is going to make less money and fail to compete in the free market.
A lumber company that offers quality lumber at low prices will win in the free market and grow. Same goes for a restaurant that has good food with low prices, and a software company that writes quality code at low prices. But a health insurance company provides no product or service. An insurance company's "product" is just a promise--a promise to provide coverage when people get sick, and they make lots of money when they break that promise. It's the same essential business model as a casino: customers put in money and hope to get money back.
I see no reason why price controls can't work. They work with Medicare. Medicare is a huge expense due to the population it covers (old folks, who have the most health problems), but the government already pays below market prices when covering our senior citizens.
deltago "When I say ‘natural,’ I mean it in a way that the general population wouldn’t think differently about the candidate due to their gender."
That will never happen here in the US during my generation. People will complain and question it no matter what credentials the person has.
Maybe that's why it took a 100 years to get to this point. Nature is a slow process, something people tend to forget in the instant gratification present we are currently living. Now isn't soon enough for some people.
Also, human progress isn't a natural process governed by any laws of physics, biology, or whatever. It's something humans choose to do or not to do. The US didn't end slavery because human society just naturally reached the "no more slaves" stage. Many people fought for abolition before the whole thing ended up with the South seceding over their belief that human beings should be allowed to own other human beings as property, and the Civil War decisively ended the practice of slavery in the US... except in the case of prisoners.
The civil rights movement, feminism, etc. didn't take a long time because they had to take a long time. The fact that those movements existed before they saw successes shows that such attitudes were not uniform and omnipresent. Those movements existed because of choices people - virtually always white men - explicitly made prompted the need for those movements.
Just who exactly gets to put a timetable on someone else's liberation? Or to use the naturalistic fallacy to defend it? Just because it is this way, this is the way it ought to be? That's not vision. That's just treading water. It also makes a great excuse to not care about justice because one can airily wave away any need for urgency with "It'll happen in its own time" even though such processes are driven by human actions and decisions and not the laws of physics.
I can't get over how you're talking about this stuff that it was just nature that women happened to not get the vote or many other rights that men had, or that somehow people were just enslaved because that's the way it was, and that is most certainly not the way it had to be, nor was it "just that way just because." Plus this argument completely ignores the perspectives of those impacted by these decisions, as if they're a non-issue until nature magnanimously grants them rights... which is essentially the first argument you made when you said we can't talk about women in politics prior to women getting the vote because it doesn't matter, when that is precisely the reason it does.
Also, human progress isn't a natural process governed by any laws of physics, biology, or whatever. It's something humans choose to do or not to do. The US didn't end slavery because human society just naturally reached the "no more slaves" stage. Many people fought for abolition before the whole thing ended up with the South seceding over their belief that human beings should be allowed to own other human beings as property, and the Civil War decisively ended the practice of slavery in the US... except in the case of prisoners.
The civil rights movement, feminism, etc.(...)
Except that slavery was ended not thanks to progressivism but thanks to JUSNATURALISM!!!
And feminism din't made the life of woman better. I also don't know why feminists has so much admiration to Frida Khalo and ignore a lot of amazing woman like Marie Curie, now only the first woman to gain a Nobel Prize but also the first person to win 2 Nobel prizes. She is also the unique person that won two Nobel prizes in different fields.
I also don't know why some feminists demands "eqqual rights", what right does they require? The right to not have a due process and be considered guild until proven innocence in cases of sexual and domestic violence? The right to be forced to be a state owned slave and die for the interest of politicians(be drafted)? The right to have thinner sentences for the same crime?
So saying "My VP has to be woman" might not be popular with 50% of the US electorate. I dont know. What I do know is that moving the ball down court by making that statement does more to normalize a woman as president than waiting until it polls well everywhere. Activism for social progress is the inciting effect, not the end of the process.
Sorry, I was knocked out the entire day.
This is what I have a problem with. This line of thinking. Gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or anything else in between shouldn't play a role when selecting a candidate.
Anyone who puts gender as a primary factor as a person being chosen discredits everything else about them.
I am going to use Kathleen Wynne as an example. As much as I can't stand her policies, I believe she was appointed as party leader of the Liberals more for her merit, experience and accomplishments. She had held 4 different cabinet positions, was separate from most of the liberal scandals that plagued them during the McGuinty years and was widely supported by the party. Her being a woman and gay was brought up once during the leadership selection where she said: "I don't believe the people of Ontario judge their leaders on the basis of race, colour or sexual orientation – I don't believe they hold that prejudice in their hearts."
The first time I had heard that she was gay was after the election and looking for reasons why this highly corrupt Liberal government was elected to a majority and noticed some people mentioning it on twitter. Not once was it brought up in the conservative newspapers I was reading at the time, nor was it brought up by the Liberals during the campaign. Her being gay wasn't an issue, because it shouldn't be an issue. Did some people vote against her because she was gay or a woman? Probably. But did some people vote for her because she was gay and/or a woman? According to Twitter, yep. So that is going to happen and people can feel free to celebrate the fact that a gay woman became Premier of Ontario. In fact, she was a much better leader than her predecessors going all the way back to Peterson - but that is a low bar to achieve. If it's one thing about Ontarians, we tend to despise the political leadership we elect.
And I think Wynne is right. We shouldn't judge our leaders on race, colour or sexual orientation. It's prejudice to do so regardless which way you do. A woman has to be leader is just as bad as saying a woman can't be a leader.
Again, I'm going to call out your tendency to bring up an anecdote -- cherry picking -- in order to try and reject some much more comprehensive, aggregate data on health outcomes that I posted earlier. This again, is indicative of having a weak argument.
As well, sourcing from an ideological publication. It shows us that you're not interested in taking in objective data on the subject.
Sorry, I was knocked out the entire day.
This is what I have a problem with. This line of thinking. Gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or anything else in between shouldn't play a role when selecting a candidate.
Anyone who puts gender as a primary factor as a person being chosen discredits everything else about them.
I genuinely understand the desire for people to want a meritocracy for their government. I actually want that too. I want the best candidate to be elected and do the best job possible. If absolutely no one is putting their finger on the scales in any way, then that's clearly the best scenario that can be envisioned.
The problem is: a finger is already on the scale. Constantly. When we accede to the idea that a candidate should be purely judged by his or her ability to govern - we should fundamentally expect the number of men and women in government to nearly exactly reflect the population out of which they are found(This requires only the the basic assumption that either gender is equally capable of being the best candidate at any give time). As it stands, that number a comfortable 50/50 (I hope I will be forgiven for not looking at non-binary options here, as it makes the point I'm trying to make a bit more complicated, but I understand it exists. Consider this argument akin to those in physics class when you're told to "Ignore friction").
If we see continual statistical evidence that this is not the case, we have no choice but to surmise that the system isnt a true meritocracy.
So flatly - candidates are already being judged with gender as one of the overriding primary factors. If they werent, and we look at government on a national level, we should expect to see close to 50% of all law makers and politicians as being women.
It's already playing a huge role in the selection of a candidate. By suggesting it's problematic for people to put a second finger on the scale in hopes of balancing the equation, you are tacitly endorsing that the system should remain as is, and be fundamentally biased against women and minority law makers.
This is what I have a problem with. This line of thinking. Gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or anything else in between shouldn't play a role when selecting a candidate.
Why not though? Political candidates, especially presidents or party leaders are often chosen, in part, for tactical considerations. Again, every four years we have a discussion about how VP candidates should be from a certain region, state, or of a certain ideological makeup to "balance the ticket". Why is this perfectly innocuous criteria but gender or race aren't?
Because, for one, gender and race absolutely *were* criteria for hundreds of years. So let's not pretend like this is something new. And secondly, as i said before, those are less narrow categories than, say, picking a candidate from a particular swing state.
Again, I'm going to call out your tendency to bring up an anecdote -- cherry picking -- in order to try and reject some much more comprehensive, aggregate data on health outcomes that I posted earlier. This again, is indicative of having a weak argument.
As well, sourcing from an ideological publication. It shows us that you're not interested in taking in objective data on the subject.
IS not a anecdote. The article shows how Canada has a problem with waiting times and it is worsing with time. But lets suppose that healthcare got much more heavily regulated by the regulators that created this situation in the first place or estatised . Do you think that few bureaucrats in Washington can deal with tons of different realities, from the northern part of Alaska to the Southern part of Florida?
It's weird that for over two centuries now race, gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation have effectively excluded tons of people from political candidacies, but the thought of selecting someone for those reasons is intolerable?
I guess it only counts when the system's contravened, prevented from doing what it's been built to do - keeping anyone who isn't a WASP dude from gaining any real power.
Also, the word "meritocracy" was coined as satire, because if there's one thing the United States government, media, business, etc. does not run on it's personal merit. Isn't it strange that the people who put themselves in power continue to have that power, but other people who are not the same gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, personal wealth, or even religion do not have the same opportunities or access to resources? It's almost as if there's a system of power relations that exalts some people at the expense of others. Calling anything in the US a meritocracy is a sick joke at best.
A lot of energy goes into maintaining this system and trying to roll back the gains made over time (and in many cases successfully). This is not something that just happened naturally, and it does not reflect anyone's supposed inherent superiority or inferiority. Modern society is a garbage fire and will remain as such as long as people insist that actually bringing women, people of color, LGBT people, etc. into the halls of power is somehow "forced" but bringing in white men is supposedly "normal."
Regarding Canadian health care: The waiting times are a problem, but that's not caused by having a publicly funded health care system. Cherry picking individual flaws as if they discredit the entire system is not a valid argument.
Any nation that does not provide full coverage health care for all citizens is essentially engaged in crimes against their own citizens. Republicans whined and cried about "death panels" when the Affordable Care Act was making its way through the legislative branch, but insurance companies are, literally, death panels, and they make decisions about coverage every day that cause needless death and suffering. Private insurance is why the US has the most expensive health care system that provides the worst care of any developed country. There is no ethical way to defend this as a good thing. If you defend it, you're defending a system that kicks cancer patients off insurance because their treatment costs are "too expensive."
IS not a anecdote. The article shows how Canada has a problem with waiting times and it is worsing with time. But lets suppose that healthcare got much more heavily regulated by the regulators that created this situation in the first place or estatised . Do you think that few bureaucrats in Washington can deal with tons of different realities, from the northern part of Alaska to the Southern part of Florida?
Let's cut to the bone: How many people dying of preventable causes due to lack of insurance coverage is acceptable to you? How many people do you think should die to maintain a system whose only purpose is to drain money from people who need health care? Would you be willing to die of preventable causes just for the sake of having a capitalist atrocity of a health care system? How many of your friends and loved ones would you be willing to lose to such a system?
This is not some sterile difference of opinion, this is policy that has a real world cost in human lives.
deltago "When I say ‘natural,’ I mean it in a way that the general population wouldn’t think differently about the candidate due to their gender."
That will never happen here in the US during my generation. People will complain and question it no matter what credentials the person has.
Maybe that's why it took a 100 years to get to this point. Nature is a slow process, something people tend to forget in the instant gratification present we are currently living. Now isn't soon enough for some people.
Also, human progress isn't a natural process governed by any laws of physics, biology, or whatever. It's something humans choose to do or not to do. The US didn't end slavery because human society just naturally reached the "no more slaves" stage. Many people fought for abolition before the whole thing ended up with the South seceding over their belief that human beings should be allowed to own other human beings as property, and the Civil War decisively ended the practice of slavery in the US... except in the case of prisoners.
The civil rights movement, feminism, etc. didn't take a long time because they had to take a long time. The fact that those movements existed before they saw successes shows that such attitudes were not uniform and omnipresent. Those movements existed because of choices people - virtually always white men - explicitly made prompted the need for those movements.
Just who exactly gets to put a timetable on someone else's liberation? Or to use the naturalistic fallacy to defend it? Just because it is this way, this is the way it ought to be? That's not vision. That's just treading water. It also makes a great excuse to not care about justice because one can airily wave away any need for urgency with "It'll happen in its own time" even though such processes are driven by human actions and decisions and not the laws of physics.
I can't get over how you're talking about this stuff that it was just nature that women happened to not get the vote or many other rights that men had, or that somehow people were just enslaved because that's the way it was, and that is most certainly not the way it had to be, nor was it "just that way just because." Plus this argument completely ignores the perspectives of those impacted by these decisions, as if they're a non-issue until nature magnanimously grants them rights... which is essentially the first argument you made when you said we can't talk about women in politics prior to women getting the vote because it doesn't matter, when that is precisely the reason it does.
I am not going to start arguing semantics. If people are just going to cling to a single word - this one being "natural" - and not actually address the points I am making, I will not respond.
The MLK letter, actually supports my point more than it hinders it to be honest. He is calling for more majority support than what he has been receiving and calling the support he is said be getting misleading.
And as I mentioned before, if you want to learn more about how WORLD slavery ended, and not just in backwater US, who some how celebrates the fact they did this but took them close to a 30 years longer (pretty much an entire slaves lifetime) then read The Sugar Barons as it highlights the history of western (UK/European) slavery.
I will also repeat, that equality injustices have been moving much faster than previously as the LGBT+ community has been fast tracked compared to racial or gender equality. None of these are on par with white straight males, so there is still a large time to go, but to understand a "why" something is, one needs to look at the entire history of a culture - or issue - and understand where the conflicts are coming from.
It shouldn't surprise people that while the influences of the Christian churches are waning, the injustices that they promoted are crumbling. How society is influenced by these powers, greatly shapes their perceptions.
There is no individual in this conversation either, even though some individuals stand out (Gandi, MLK). There are only ideas and beliefs that push forward (equality) and those that push back (being gay is against the teaching of bible). It's the goal of either idea or belief to gain enough support to change the status quo. Indifference, what MLK was talking about in the letter can hinder the speed of change, but IMO should be the final resting place once that change has occurred. People should be indifferent if it is either a male or female, gay or straight, black, yellow, brown, white whatever on a ticket. That is when equality happens.
Sorry, I was knocked out the entire day.
This is what I have a problem with. This line of thinking. Gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or anything else in between shouldn't play a role when selecting a candidate.
Anyone who puts gender as a primary factor as a person being chosen discredits everything else about them.
I genuinely understand the desire for people to want a meritocracy for their government. I actually want that too. I want the best candidate to be elected and do the best job possible. If absolutely no one is putting their finger on the scales in any way, then that's clearly the best scenario that can be envisioned.
The problem is: a finger is already on the scale. Constantly. When we accede to the idea that a candidate should be purely judged by his or her ability to govern - we should fundamentally expect the number of men and women in government to nearly exactly reflect the population out of which they are found(This requires only the the basic assumption that either gender is equally capable of being the best candidate at any give time). As it stands, that number a comfortable 50/50 (I hope I will be forgiven for not looking at non-binary options here, as it makes the point I'm trying to make a bit more complicated, but I understand it exists. Consider this argument akin to those in physics class when you're told to "Ignore friction").
If we see continual statistical evidence that this is not the case, we have no choice but to surmise that the system isnt a true meritocracy.
So flatly - candidates are already being judged with gender as one of the overriding primary factors. If they werent, and we look at government on a national level, we should expect to see close to 50% of all law makers and politicians as being women.
It's already playing a huge role in the selection of a candidate. By suggesting it's problematic for people to put a second finger on the scale in hopes of balancing the equation, you are tacitly endorsing that the system should remain as is, and be fundamentally biased against women and minority law makers.
Am I allowed to say that the place that I work is oppressive against men because the management breakdown is 2 men to 5 women? Should I have demanded that the last manager hired (who was the most qualified for the job and was a woman) be given to a man because it'd promote equality more?
Having a 50-50 split is a false equivalency though, especially in government where a person 1) needs to choose to run, and 2) needs to be elected by the population they represent.
It's a lot of work that I do not want to do, even during a pandemic that keeps me in bed till 10:30 at night, but one should actually look at every single candidate across all the ridings and lump them by gender to see if that will get close to a 50-50 split, and then lump them by total votes and see if that gets to a 50-50 split. I don't think the votes will because there are a lot of other, more important factors that should be considered on why the Communist party candidate only received 23 votes in a riding, but I personally think it will be closer than the actual parliamentary split at the moment.
But this is where the slow crawl that I have been talking to comes in. In the 338 seats of the Canadian parliament, only 97 are held by women. But you want to know something? That number is a record. We as a nation are trending up (I also think we are ahead of the US when it comes to equality on this issue). More women, or people of minority, need to realize that yes, you can be part of government and that these barriers do not exist (at least not in Canada). Once again Kathleen Wynne "I don't believe the people of (Canada) judge their leaders on the basis of race, colour or sexual orientation – I don't believe they hold that prejudice in their hearts."
This is what I have a problem with. This line of thinking. Gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or anything else in between shouldn't play a role when selecting a candidate.
Why not though? Political candidates, especially presidents or party leaders are often chosen, in part, for tactical considerations. Again, every four years we have a discussion about how VP candidates should be from a certain region, state, or of a certain ideological makeup to "balance the ticket". Why is this perfectly innocuous criteria but gender or race aren't?
Because, for one, gender and race absolutely *were* criteria for hundreds of years. So let's not pretend like this is something new. And secondly, as i said before, those are less narrow categories than, say, picking a candidate from a particular swing state.
Because gender is broad of one. It doesn't narrow anything down. As I said before, someone shouldn't be chosen because of gender, race, or sexual orientation - and that does go both ways. It shouldn't be just white males. Just because it was like that in the past, shouldn't discredit every white male from here on out that attempts to run for an office.
I will say though, if you have two equally qualified candidates, and in this US election - for democratic VP, you do, race and gender can be applied to choosing the candidate but once again, it shouldn't be the primary reason. I'll bring up Sarah Palin again. Why was she chosen? Was she considered the best candidate for the position? How did that choice end up working for the republican party?
Am I allowed to say that the place that I work is oppressive against men because the management breakdown is 2 men to 5 women? Should I have demanded that the last manager hired (who was the most qualified for the job and was a woman) be given to a man because it'd promote equality more?
Having a 50-50 split is a false equivalency though, especially in government where a person 1) needs to choose to run, and 2) needs to be elected by the population they represent.
It wouldn't be appropriate to demand that in your position. However, if there were less than 30% representation of men in managerial positions across the economy I would expect questions to be asked about why that was. If the conclusion was that this was not just due to biological differences, but social and cultural ones (and there was general agreement that equality was a good thing to aim for), I think it would be only reasonable to consider how best to address those, rather than assuming that the situation would be self-correcting in the longer run.
One alternative for such action would be preferential treatment for men applying for such positions. I'm not particularly advocating such action, as there are considerable drawbacks associated with it. Not only is there the possibility you won't get the best candidate, but those men getting jobs may be regarded negatively by colleagues. In addition it may be more difficult for them to act as role models for other men if they have not succeeded in a fully competitive selection process.
However, although I think the issues about positive discrimination are relatively balanced, I do think there is a strong case for taking some sort of action - if only because signalling support for the objective of moving to a more equitable system is itself one way to challenge cultural attitudes. I might criticize the particular details of a positive discrimination system, but I wouldn't criticize anyone for wishing to apply the principle that we should be aiming for a more equal society.
Again, I'm going to call out your tendency to bring up an anecdote -- cherry picking -- in order to try and reject some much more comprehensive, aggregate data on health outcomes that I posted earlier. This again, is indicative of having a weak argument.
As well, sourcing from an ideological publication. It shows us that you're not interested in taking in objective data on the subject.
IS not a anecdote. The article shows how Canada has a problem with waiting times and it is worsing with time. But lets suppose that healthcare got much more heavily regulated by the regulators that created this situation in the first place or estatised . Do you think that few bureaucrats in Washington can deal with tons of different realities, from the northern part of Alaska to the Southern part of Florida?
First off this is a strawman about how a universal coverage system would be implemented. Second off, it is an anecdote. Even if I concede the dubiously sourced point that there are longer waiting times in Canada, that has still not resulted in worse aggregate health outcomes, as I already pointed out in my data from a non-partisan source. This is called missing the forest for the trees.
I will say though, if you have two equally qualified candidates, and in this US election - for democratic VP, you do, race and gender can be applied to choosing the candidate but once again, it shouldn't be the primary reason. I'll bring up Sarah Palin again. Why was she chosen? Was she considered the best candidate for the position? How did that choice end up working for the republican party?
I'm highly sympathetic to your arguments. Obviously in a perfect universe, we'd love for meritocracy to win out. Obviously we also don't live in that universe. And I'm sympathetic to the argument that sometimes identity politics can go too far.
However, given the context of some of the other things you've said, I have to feel you're missing that gender and race have been criteria running the other way. It's odd to call it out only when groups that have historically been underrepresented are demanding greater representation.
I also quibble with your Palin example. The 2008 election was not lost by Palin. In the wake of mismanagement of Iraq, Katrina, and the collapse of the economy, no Republican was going to win that election. I'll also add that technically, she was more qualified to be president than the current occupant of the White House. It's a weird irony in a way.
A much more salient example is Mike Pence, also probably unqualified to be president, though again, more qualified than the actual president. Clearly picked more for his identity as a staunch conservative Christian than any merits. That pick worked out, didn't it?
Frankly, it would be electioneering malpractice for the Democrats to not choose a woman VP. Look at the breakdown of polling among subgroups in the US. White women are clearly going to be a critical swing demographic. I mean, one issue I have with identity politics for liberal causes is that sometimes it's a bad move electorally. But in this case, hell yeah, it's the right move.
The fact that waiting times have increased over a 25 year period in Canada is not evidence that regulation in a whole host of countries has never worked.
The reasons for waiting times are complex. You've talked before about demand and supply. Over a long period like this the demand for services has changed radically both in its nature and extent. That partly reflects technological changes - for instance joint replacements are very common now, but were rare in 1993. It also reflects demographic changes - the proportion of elderly people in the population of Western countries has increased and treatment of geriatric conditions is a much larger proportion of health costs than it used to be.
It's true that governments may not be as flexible about responding to such changes as private provision would be. There is a tendency for changes to health care supply to lag behind demand changes somewhat, except when there are major shocks to the system. Covid-19 is a good example of such a shock and in the UK we've seen, for instance, the number of critical care beds more than triple in a short period - despite the standard line being for years that it would be difficult to change the number of such beds. I think that while much of that change will be reversed once Covid-19 is under control, it's likely it won't all be, i.e. the shock will have long-term effects.
Private provision has its own problems with responding to changes in demand though. The point about the private sector responding to the availability of money (with the potential consequence of the needs of many people not being covered) has already been made in this discussion. There is another aspect to this though, which directly relates to your contention that governments are the creators of stifling regulation. The US is a prime example of a country where supply of healthcare has not increased in line with greater demands over time. However, that has little or nothing to do with government regulation. The government does not fix the number of training places, nor the curriculum, nor the examination standards, nor the residency requirements. The US government did cap financial support for graduate medical education in 1997, which will have had an influence on take-up of places, but presumably you would not support such government funding anyway.
The reasons for supply not increasing as fast as demand include:
- the high costs of training put many less wealthy people off.
- restricting the number of new healthcare professionals helps keep income for existing professionals artificially high (and it's those professionals who actually control the system).
Both those are instances of market failure and that failure is a inevitable result of conditions in the healthcare market. For perfect markets people need perfect information - and the high degree of specialization in healthcare means such information is not available. They also need to be able to accurately estimate risks (such as how quickly you might be able to pay off a medical training debt of hundreds of thousands of dollars), but that information is also not available (in this case largely because it depends on future events which can't be predicted).
While no system is perfect I think both theory and real-world experience show that the provision of healthcare is better in systems where the government is involved in regulation, than those where it is not. Incidentally, Chile's government is much more involved in regulating healthcare than the US government. It directly controls universal public health services and primary care and also runs a national health fund (an insurance scheme that over 75% of the population pay into - it also covers various other groups such as dependent relatives and those receiving state benefits). The government requires that all workers and pensioners pay 7% of their salary/pension into either the national scheme or various private insurance schemes. It's true that there are some uninsured people (around 5%, so a rather smaller proportion than in the US), but the basic model of regulation is much more akin to a European than US one.
I will say though, if you have two equally qualified candidates, and in this US election - for democratic VP, you do, race and gender can be applied to choosing the candidate but once again, it shouldn't be the primary reason. I'll bring up Sarah Palin again. Why was she chosen? Was she considered the best candidate for the position? How did that choice end up working for the republican party?
I'm highly sympathetic to your arguments. Obviously in a perfect universe, we'd love for meritocracy to win out. Obviously we also don't live in that universe. And I'm sympathetic to the argument that sometimes identity politics can go too far.
However, given the context of some of the other things you've said, I have to feel you're missing that gender and race have been criteria running the other way. It's odd to call it out only when groups that have historically been underrepresented are demanding greater representation.
I also quibble with your Palin example. The 2008 election was not lost by Palin. In the wake of mismanagement of Iraq, Katrina, and the collapse of the economy, no Republican was going to win that election. I'll also add that technically, she was more qualified to be president than the current occupant of the White House. It's a weird irony in a way.
A much more salient example is Mike Pence, also probably unqualified to be president, though again, more qualified than the actual president. Clearly picked more for his identity as a staunch conservative Christian than any merits. That pick worked out, didn't it?
Frankly, it would be electioneering malpractice for the Democrats to not choose a woman VP. Look at the breakdown of polling among subgroups in the US. White women are clearly going to be a critical swing demographic. I mean, one issue I have with identity politics for liberal causes is that sometimes it's a bad move electorally. But in this case, hell yeah, it's the right move.
Nope. You learn from history, you don't repeat it.
Putting those at a disadvantage in a better position to succeed is a good thing. Handing them the position outright is not. @Grondo pretty much summed up the pros and cons above.
But you can also open up a debate as to why there are few woman/minorities in higher political jobs. That debate happened in Canada the last election cycle after both the NDP and Conservatives chose men as party leaders. Besides Kim Campbell (briefly as a sacrifice PM before an election the conservatives were not going to win) and May (former leader of the Green Party who never won more than 10 seats) there has never been a female party leader at the federal level during an election.
Why is that? How can we as a nation get that to change? Encouraging strong women candidates to run? Should Rona Ambrose suck it up, quit the private sector and home life she has established and run in June's leadership race? Should the Conservatives just hand it to Marilyn Gladu or Leslyn Lewis, the only women who have so far entered the fray for the conservatives even though they are less likable and less qualified than the likes of Peter MacKay or Erin O'Toole? There is a lot more to women not being in political leadership positions than "they're women."
I think the Liberals will have strong female candidates their next leadership race happens. Too bad that will be after Justin Trudeau has burnt everything down making them unelectable in which ever election that might happen to be in.
In Canada there are only 4 or 6 of these positions every election. It should be celebrated when a minority does get like Jagmeet Singh did for the NDP, as it has shown we as a nation (or atleast the NDP card holders) can look past skin colour, religious beliefs or gender in choosing our candidates. But it shouldn't be poopooed if a candidate isn't one of these minorities because there is a lot more that goes into choosing a candidate than the colour of their skin, sexual orientation or anything else that someone thinks should be levitated.
But you also have to remember, this is my view of things being Canadian and growing up in a multicultural city. I do know racism and sexism exist, I just live where it isn't rampantly so that it changes people's overall perception of political candidates. If I did live in a place where these things existed more, I might be inclined to elevate that 'oppressed' class by supporting them for an election even if they weren't the most qualified candidate. They would bring about change in equality a bit more faster than the other candidate(s) having experiencing the oppression and knowing what would need to change. But that might be naïve thinking as someone like Obama did very little for black rights in America IMO.
Once again, this entire debate started with Biden flatly saying he is going to have a woman VP candidate without naming any names. He is placing gender above everything else which diminishes the merits the VP candidate actually has.
But yes choose a woman VP. As I said, there are many strong candidates, probably stronger ones than any male candidate that can be put forward. Just don't announce that you are prior.
Am I allowed to say that the place that I work is oppressive against men because the management breakdown is 2 men to 5 women? Should I have demanded that the last manager hired (who was the most qualified for the job and was a woman) be given to a man because it'd promote equality more?
No - but that's a bad example. You'll note that in every instance I've been discussing this, I use terms like "law makers". I've referenced the gender breakdown of the US house of representatives. These are statistically significant numbers. The breakdown of your management team is not large enough to be statistically relevant to the conversation.
If I flip a coin 7 times, a perfectly reasonable outcome is heads twice and tails 5 times.
Having a 50-50 split is a false equivalency though, especially in government where a person 1) needs to choose to run, and 2) needs to be elected by the population they represent.
It's not a false equivalency when the statistical sample size is large enough. if 10,000 people were elected, you would expect to see a distribution reflecting the population unless there is a weighted bias influencing the system
But this is where the slow crawl that I have been talking to comes in. In the 338 seats of the Canadian parliament, only 97 are held by women. But you want to know something? That number is a record. We as a nation are trending up (I also think we are ahead of the US when it comes to equality on this issue). More women, or people of minority, need to realize that yes, you can be part of government and that these barriers do not exist (at least not in Canada). Once again Kathleen Wynne "I don't believe the people of (Canada) judge their leaders on the basis of race, colour or sexual orientation – I don't believe they hold that prejudice in their hearts."
We've gone over this three separate times. You keep proclaiming a slow crawl of people accepting women without recognizing that there are underlying forces at work - the same kind of forces that want a woman VP on the ticket. That kind of social activism begets the change you're seeing. In a vacuum, if no one was arguing for gender equality, we would expect to see fewer female politicians (we know this because we have recorded history, when fewer people agitated for such things resulted in few female candidates.
Once again, this entire debate started with Biden flatly saying he is going to have a woman VP candidate without naming any names. He is placing gender above everything else which diminishes the merits the VP candidate actually has.
But yes choose a woman VP. As I said, there are many strong candidates, probably stronger ones than any male candidate that can be put forward. Just don't announce that you are prior.
@DinoDin has refuted this point not once but twice. You keep repeating your argument without even acknowledging his. This is the very definition of talking past someone.
In the USA - the VP selection is almost always a tactical selection. The VP isnt selected simply because they're the best for the job (Which is obviously almost entirely subjective). Tim Kaine wasnt suddenly the literal most qualified choice for a VP for Clinton in 2016. He was a sitting senator for a swing-ish state (VA having only recently gone blue), and was a very average inoffensive candidate (Code for: White and moderate).
He was selected in part because of his gender (Not a woman) and his ideological position with a group of voters that Clinton wanted to win
@DinoDin also pointed out that Mike Pence was selected for that same reason (White. Man. Religious). Not because he was some ace super talented politician. The polls in Indiana suggested he was going to lose his reelection for governor.
It is already the norm in american electoral politics to choose your VP for tactical reasons. In a way, this whole argument absolutely emphasized my central thesis. Why is it perfectly fine for Clinton to pick Kaine and Trump to pick Pence as tactical choices (Apparently they earned it, and it wasnt "handed" to them) - but if Biden says he's going to pick a woman, suddenly it's identity politics (Used here as a pejorative)?
If your argument boils down to "Biden said it, Trump didnt" - that's just... Pointless? A distinction that is essentially meaningless next to the act of actually doing the thing?
Well, now some of them are at least being totally honest about their feelings. But people who want Republicans in power should think long and hard about how needlessly killing off 10s of thousands of seniors is going to impact them electorally. Because clearly the moral argument is pointless to bring up:
IS not a anecdote. The article shows how Canada has a problem with waiting times and it is worsing with time. But lets suppose that healthcare got much more heavily regulated by the regulators that created this situation in the first place or estatised . Do you think that few bureaucrats in Washington can deal with tons of different realities, from the northern part of Alaska to the Southern part of Florida?
Let's cut to the bone: How many people dying of preventable causes due to lack of insurance coverage is acceptable to you? How many people do you think should die to maintain a system whose only purpose is to drain money from people who need health care? Would you be willing to die of preventable causes just for the sake of having a capitalist atrocity of a health care system? How many of your friends and loved ones would you be willing to lose to such a system?
This is not some sterile difference of opinion, this is policy that has a real world cost in human lives.
Again i ask : Why the politicians that created the problem in the first place are reliable to provide the solution?
I an not against public healthcare. I just don't think that a federal goverment in ANY continental country(US, Brazil, China, Russia) is capable of offering public healthcare to a population of 300 million+. Why not try to make more local types of welfare like Alaska Permanent Fund?
We've gone over this three separate times. You keep proclaiming a slow crawl of people accepting women without recognizing that there are underlying forces at work - the same kind of forces that want a woman VP on the ticket. That kind of social activism begets the change you're seeing. In a vacuum, if no one was arguing for gender equality, we would expect to see fewer female politicians (we know this because we have recorded history, when fewer people agitated for such things resulted in few female candidates.
No. I have given two examples of some of the underlining issues at work:
1) They need to run.
2) They need to be elected.
If your choice for congress seat is for two males, a male is going to win.
If it is perceived that the female candidate is less qualified, or doesn't align with your communities beliefs, you again are not going to vote for them and the male candidate is going to win.
Now feel free to question WHY there isn't a viable female candidate running and how, as a community, you can change that the next time around, which again, the democrats have seem to have done here, HOWEVER, do not announce that the primary reason they are being chosen is that they are female. It diminishes that gain.
You guys haven't offered any evidence of the prejudices at work. They are just perceived. So I will throw this out to you: Should Sanders have conceded to Elizabeth Warren because she was female and their policies were aligned? Should people have voted for her over Sanders because of her gender? Or were there other reasons to choose Sanders over Warren? I do not think for a second the reason why Warren did so poorly was due to her gender.
I am not one to buy into the American public "isn't ready" for a female president or Vice President. Clinton's campaign clearly shows that they are even if she didn't win.
Once again, this entire debate started with Biden flatly saying he is going to have a woman VP candidate without naming any names. He is placing gender above everything else which diminishes the merits the VP candidate actually has.
But yes choose a woman VP. As I said, there are many strong candidates, probably stronger ones than any male candidate that can be put forward. Just don't announce that you are prior.
DinoDin has refuted this point not once but twice. You keep repeating your argument without even acknowledging his. This is the very definition of talking past someone.
In the USA - the VP selection is almost always a tactical selection. The VP isnt selected simply because they're the best for the job (Which is obviously almost entirely subjective). Tim Kaine wasnt suddenly the literal most qualified choice for a VP for Clinton in 2016. He was a sitting senator for a swing-ish state (VA having only recently gone blue), and was a very average inoffensive candidate (Code for: White and moderate).
He was selected in part because of his gender (Not a woman) and his ideological position with a group of voters that Clinton wanted to win
DinoDin also pointed out that Mike Pence was selected for that same reason (White. Man. Religious). Not because he was some ace super talented politician. The polls in Indiana suggested he was going to lose his reelection for governor.
It is already the norm in american electoral politics to choose your VP for tactical reasons. In a way, this whole argument absolutely emphasized my central thesis. Why is it perfectly fine for Clinton to pick Kaine and Trump to pick Pence as tactical choices (Apparently they earned it, and it wasnt "handed" to them) - but if Biden says he's going to pick a woman, suddenly it's identity politics (Used here as a pejorative)?
No, I honestly think it is you guys talking past me (as I also pointed out the Pence selection prior - why I ignored it). But let me say it one more time, this time bolding and putting the key part in italics. Ready?
Gender shouldn't be the primary reason why a candidate is chosen. It is too broad of a brush to actually use strategically. One of my posts I listed why someone like Kamala Harris would be a good VP pick for someone like Sanders. Gender and Race were at the bottom of her appeal, but do add to it. When you only look at gender, that is how you end up with a distraction like Sarah Palin.
jjstraka has listed who he thinks are viable female candidates for Biden in the past and all of them are strong candidates beyond their gender. The reason for this is due to the democratic party working with them, elevating their status for years and giving them opportunities to have their name known. A great example is The Response to the State of the Union which was given by Stacey Abrams in 2019 and Gretchen Whitmer in 2020 both of which are considered candidates for the VP position under Biden. Steps like these need to be taken, but they need to be taken tacticfully and not perceived as being given to people due to race or gender or you'll get push back. Read that paragraph as "slow crawl."
If your argument boils down to "Biden said it, Trump didnt" - that's just... Pointless? A distinction that is essentially meaningless next to the act of actually doing the thing?
No my argument, once again, is that Biden said it before he even secured the nomination. Trump was probably told that Pence was going to be his VP and had no say in it.
You do not announce the reason why you are picking a VP candidate because she is a woman is due to it diminishing all of her other qualities and merits. I find it actually very sexist to say "I am picking her because she is a woman."
You wouldn't say something like "I am picking this person because they are black." Hopefully you can see that as a racist comment. It's no different in what Biden did with stating his intentions of picking a female VP candidate.
But you are also right. It does feel like I am talking in circles here and unless something new is added to the conversation, I am dropping it here.
Sorry, I was knocked out the entire day.
This is what I have a problem with. This line of thinking. Gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or anything else in between shouldn't play a role when selecting a candidate.
Anyone who puts gender as a primary factor as a person being chosen discredits everything else about them.
I genuinely understand the desire for people to want a meritocracy for their government. I actually want that too. I want the best candidate to be elected and do the best job possible. If absolutely no one is putting their finger on the scales in any way, then that's clearly the best scenario that can be envisioned.
The problem is: a finger is already on the scale. Constantly. When we accede to the idea that a candidate should be purely judged by his or her ability to govern - we should fundamentally expect the number of men and women in government to nearly exactly reflect the population out of which they are found(This requires only the the basic assumption that either gender is equally capable of being the best candidate at any give time). As it stands, that number a comfortable 50/50 (I hope I will be forgiven for not looking at non-binary options here, as it makes the point I'm trying to make a bit more complicated, but I understand it exists. Consider this argument akin to those in physics class when you're told to "Ignore friction").
If we see continual statistical evidence that this is not the case, we have no choice but to surmise that the system isnt a true meritocracy.
So flatly - candidates are already being judged with gender as one of the overriding primary factors. If they werent, and we look at government on a national level, we should expect to see close to 50% of all law makers and politicians as being women.
It's already playing a huge role in the selection of a candidate. By suggesting it's problematic for people to put a second finger on the scale in hopes of balancing the equation, you are tacitly endorsing that the system should remain as is, and be fundamentally biased against women and minority law makers.
No, we wouldn't see a perfect 50/50 balance. Men and women do not have the same interests or pursue the same activities, or jobs, at exactly the same rates. A perfect 50/50 balance would be the exception to the rule, an anomaly.
The discrimination in politics that does exist comes primarily from white progressives, essentially the opposite of what they claim, caught in a strange bout of racial insecurity that makes them more prejudiced against their own kind than any group in politics is of anyone else, by the numbers. This manifests in a number of different data points, but this one seems most relevant. The irony of young liberal whites being the ones most opposed to an older white candidate on principle, while most other folks generally don't care, is something they should reflect on.
If people can do so, try talking to a woman in your life who is older and ask them about what it was like in the "workforce" when they were in it. My great aunt is in her mid-90s, so, just about as old as you can get and still be around. About a month ago I had a long conversation with her on the phone, and a large part of it was about what women got paid at work for doing the same thing as men. Spoiler: they didn't get the same amount, not even close, and there was no expectation they ever would (even though in her case her and the other "girls" as she described them basically ran the place for decades).
I asked her if the lack of money she made working faithfully for this particular company for years bothered her (since to hear those on the right talk about it, you'd think they were perfectly fine with the unfair treatment). Another spoiler: she wasn't ok with it, it did bother her, it bothers her to this day. They don't broadcast it, they don't make a fuss, but it's always been there, on the inside, and they'll tell you if you ask them. There simply wasn't ANYTHING they could do about because society had dictated their time and labor was worth less.
Her "interests" were the same as anyone else at a job, which was to take home a check that fairly compensated her for what she contributed. Funny thing is, growing up, I'd always ASSUMED she had a pretty good job. Turns out all those years she was barely making more than minimum wage.
What you are also referring to as far as "interests" is the idea that many women want to stay home and take care of kids instead of work (let's get real here). That may have been true in the 1950s Leave it to Beaver-land when everyone returning from the war was able to get loans to buy a house and a car and nearly ANY job done by a male could support a family. But that shit hasn't been the case for about 40 years now. 47% of American workers are women. 10% of women worked in 1920, and it's been going up ever since.
So, just like the slavery still shapes trends today, so too does the societal framing of pre-suffrage attitudes about women. I mean, if you want a quick and dirty example, watch any random episode of Mad Men. It's not inaccurate. A massive percentage of the population of this country hasn't even been able to fully participate in society for a full 100 years.
What you are also referring to as far as "interests" is the idea that many women want to stay home and take care of kids instead of work (let's get real here). That may have been true in the 1950s Leave it to Beaver-land when everyone returning from the war was able to get loans to buy a house and a car and nearly ANY job done by a male could support a family. But that shit hasn't been the case for about 40 years now. 47% of American workers are women.
About half of them do actually, and it has been a pretty consistent number over decades.
Most people's preferences are influenced by their cultural environment as is, so it was likely higher in earlier times when it was more common.
The economic model where one family member was able to work and provide for the whole family was a good one, and there isn't any good reason why we couldn't have it again.
Comments
Then in what other metric i should use?
Anyway, people tend to think on "fixing the symptom, not the disease", the high profits on healthcare industry is caused by a lot of entry barrier and the solution is not a price control from the government limiting the profits(it never worked), the solution is to just take out the entry barrier.
I'm reasonably certain the solution to a viciously profit-driven healthcare system is to remove the middle man and therefore the profit motive to begin with. Health insurance is an inherently parasitic industry. It only makes money at the consumer's expense; it only exists because, in the absence of a public option, it is a necessary evil. Insurance companies don't keep premiums high and deny coverage because it's too hard for "good" companies to join the market and save the day by offering low-cost coverage. They do it because it's profitable to do so, and any goodhearted insurer that just wants to protect people and not exploit them is going to make less money and fail to compete in the free market.
A lumber company that offers quality lumber at low prices will win in the free market and grow. Same goes for a restaurant that has good food with low prices, and a software company that writes quality code at low prices. But a health insurance company provides no product or service. An insurance company's "product" is just a promise--a promise to provide coverage when people get sick, and they make lots of money when they break that promise. It's the same essential business model as a casino: customers put in money and hope to get money back.
I see no reason why price controls can't work. They work with Medicare. Medicare is a huge expense due to the population it covers (old folks, who have the most health problems), but the government already pays below market prices when covering our senior citizens.
You should read this: http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/060.html as it addresses your argument rather thoroughly and shows that there are always people arguing for incrementalism.
Also, human progress isn't a natural process governed by any laws of physics, biology, or whatever. It's something humans choose to do or not to do. The US didn't end slavery because human society just naturally reached the "no more slaves" stage. Many people fought for abolition before the whole thing ended up with the South seceding over their belief that human beings should be allowed to own other human beings as property, and the Civil War decisively ended the practice of slavery in the US... except in the case of prisoners.
The civil rights movement, feminism, etc. didn't take a long time because they had to take a long time. The fact that those movements existed before they saw successes shows that such attitudes were not uniform and omnipresent. Those movements existed because of choices people - virtually always white men - explicitly made prompted the need for those movements.
Just who exactly gets to put a timetable on someone else's liberation? Or to use the naturalistic fallacy to defend it? Just because it is this way, this is the way it ought to be? That's not vision. That's just treading water. It also makes a great excuse to not care about justice because one can airily wave away any need for urgency with "It'll happen in its own time" even though such processes are driven by human actions and decisions and not the laws of physics.
I can't get over how you're talking about this stuff that it was just nature that women happened to not get the vote or many other rights that men had, or that somehow people were just enslaved because that's the way it was, and that is most certainly not the way it had to be, nor was it "just that way just because." Plus this argument completely ignores the perspectives of those impacted by these decisions, as if they're a non-issue until nature magnanimously grants them rights... which is essentially the first argument you made when you said we can't talk about women in politics prior to women getting the vote because it doesn't matter, when that is precisely the reason it does.
Welllll
"This wait time is 136% longer than in 1993, when it was 3.7 weeks. The shortest waits for specialist consultations are in Saskatchewan (6.3 weeks) while the longest occur in New Brunswick (28.5 weeks)." https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/waiting-your-turn-wait-times-for-health-care-in-canada-2018
Except that slavery was ended not thanks to progressivism but thanks to JUSNATURALISM!!!
And feminism din't made the life of woman better. I also don't know why feminists has so much admiration to Frida Khalo and ignore a lot of amazing woman like Marie Curie, now only the first woman to gain a Nobel Prize but also the first person to win 2 Nobel prizes. She is also the unique person that won two Nobel prizes in different fields.
I also don't know why some feminists demands "eqqual rights", what right does they require? The right to not have a due process and be considered guild until proven innocence in cases of sexual and domestic violence? The right to be forced to be a state owned slave and die for the interest of politicians(be drafted)? The right to have thinner sentences for the same crime?
Sorry, I was knocked out the entire day.
This is what I have a problem with. This line of thinking. Gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or anything else in between shouldn't play a role when selecting a candidate.
Anyone who puts gender as a primary factor as a person being chosen discredits everything else about them.
I am going to use Kathleen Wynne as an example. As much as I can't stand her policies, I believe she was appointed as party leader of the Liberals more for her merit, experience and accomplishments. She had held 4 different cabinet positions, was separate from most of the liberal scandals that plagued them during the McGuinty years and was widely supported by the party. Her being a woman and gay was brought up once during the leadership selection where she said: "I don't believe the people of Ontario judge their leaders on the basis of race, colour or sexual orientation – I don't believe they hold that prejudice in their hearts."
The first time I had heard that she was gay was after the election and looking for reasons why this highly corrupt Liberal government was elected to a majority and noticed some people mentioning it on twitter. Not once was it brought up in the conservative newspapers I was reading at the time, nor was it brought up by the Liberals during the campaign. Her being gay wasn't an issue, because it shouldn't be an issue. Did some people vote against her because she was gay or a woman? Probably. But did some people vote for her because she was gay and/or a woman? According to Twitter, yep. So that is going to happen and people can feel free to celebrate the fact that a gay woman became Premier of Ontario. In fact, she was a much better leader than her predecessors going all the way back to Peterson - but that is a low bar to achieve. If it's one thing about Ontarians, we tend to despise the political leadership we elect.
And I think Wynne is right. We shouldn't judge our leaders on race, colour or sexual orientation. It's prejudice to do so regardless which way you do. A woman has to be leader is just as bad as saying a woman can't be a leader.
Again, I'm going to call out your tendency to bring up an anecdote -- cherry picking -- in order to try and reject some much more comprehensive, aggregate data on health outcomes that I posted earlier. This again, is indicative of having a weak argument.
As well, sourcing from an ideological publication. It shows us that you're not interested in taking in objective data on the subject.
I genuinely understand the desire for people to want a meritocracy for their government. I actually want that too. I want the best candidate to be elected and do the best job possible. If absolutely no one is putting their finger on the scales in any way, then that's clearly the best scenario that can be envisioned.
The problem is: a finger is already on the scale. Constantly. When we accede to the idea that a candidate should be purely judged by his or her ability to govern - we should fundamentally expect the number of men and women in government to nearly exactly reflect the population out of which they are found(This requires only the the basic assumption that either gender is equally capable of being the best candidate at any give time). As it stands, that number a comfortable 50/50 (I hope I will be forgiven for not looking at non-binary options here, as it makes the point I'm trying to make a bit more complicated, but I understand it exists. Consider this argument akin to those in physics class when you're told to "Ignore friction").
If we see continual statistical evidence that this is not the case, we have no choice but to surmise that the system isnt a true meritocracy.
So flatly - candidates are already being judged with gender as one of the overriding primary factors. If they werent, and we look at government on a national level, we should expect to see close to 50% of all law makers and politicians as being women.
It's already playing a huge role in the selection of a candidate. By suggesting it's problematic for people to put a second finger on the scale in hopes of balancing the equation, you are tacitly endorsing that the system should remain as is, and be fundamentally biased against women and minority law makers.
Why not though? Political candidates, especially presidents or party leaders are often chosen, in part, for tactical considerations. Again, every four years we have a discussion about how VP candidates should be from a certain region, state, or of a certain ideological makeup to "balance the ticket". Why is this perfectly innocuous criteria but gender or race aren't?
Because, for one, gender and race absolutely *were* criteria for hundreds of years. So let's not pretend like this is something new. And secondly, as i said before, those are less narrow categories than, say, picking a candidate from a particular swing state.
IS not a anecdote. The article shows how Canada has a problem with waiting times and it is worsing with time. But lets suppose that healthcare got much more heavily regulated by the regulators that created this situation in the first place or estatised . Do you think that few bureaucrats in Washington can deal with tons of different realities, from the northern part of Alaska to the Southern part of Florida?
I guess it only counts when the system's contravened, prevented from doing what it's been built to do - keeping anyone who isn't a WASP dude from gaining any real power.
Also, the word "meritocracy" was coined as satire, because if there's one thing the United States government, media, business, etc. does not run on it's personal merit. Isn't it strange that the people who put themselves in power continue to have that power, but other people who are not the same gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, personal wealth, or even religion do not have the same opportunities or access to resources? It's almost as if there's a system of power relations that exalts some people at the expense of others. Calling anything in the US a meritocracy is a sick joke at best.
A lot of energy goes into maintaining this system and trying to roll back the gains made over time (and in many cases successfully). This is not something that just happened naturally, and it does not reflect anyone's supposed inherent superiority or inferiority. Modern society is a garbage fire and will remain as such as long as people insist that actually bringing women, people of color, LGBT people, etc. into the halls of power is somehow "forced" but bringing in white men is supposedly "normal."
Regarding Canadian health care: The waiting times are a problem, but that's not caused by having a publicly funded health care system. Cherry picking individual flaws as if they discredit the entire system is not a valid argument.
Let's cut to the bone: How many people dying of preventable causes due to lack of insurance coverage is acceptable to you? How many people do you think should die to maintain a system whose only purpose is to drain money from people who need health care? Would you be willing to die of preventable causes just for the sake of having a capitalist atrocity of a health care system? How many of your friends and loved ones would you be willing to lose to such a system?
This is not some sterile difference of opinion, this is policy that has a real world cost in human lives.
I am not going to start arguing semantics. If people are just going to cling to a single word - this one being "natural" - and not actually address the points I am making, I will not respond.
The MLK letter, actually supports my point more than it hinders it to be honest. He is calling for more majority support than what he has been receiving and calling the support he is said be getting misleading.
And as I mentioned before, if you want to learn more about how WORLD slavery ended, and not just in backwater US, who some how celebrates the fact they did this but took them close to a 30 years longer (pretty much an entire slaves lifetime) then read The Sugar Barons as it highlights the history of western (UK/European) slavery.
I will also repeat, that equality injustices have been moving much faster than previously as the LGBT+ community has been fast tracked compared to racial or gender equality. None of these are on par with white straight males, so there is still a large time to go, but to understand a "why" something is, one needs to look at the entire history of a culture - or issue - and understand where the conflicts are coming from.
It shouldn't surprise people that while the influences of the Christian churches are waning, the injustices that they promoted are crumbling. How society is influenced by these powers, greatly shapes their perceptions.
There is no individual in this conversation either, even though some individuals stand out (Gandi, MLK). There are only ideas and beliefs that push forward (equality) and those that push back (being gay is against the teaching of bible). It's the goal of either idea or belief to gain enough support to change the status quo. Indifference, what MLK was talking about in the letter can hinder the speed of change, but IMO should be the final resting place once that change has occurred. People should be indifferent if it is either a male or female, gay or straight, black, yellow, brown, white whatever on a ticket. That is when equality happens.
Am I allowed to say that the place that I work is oppressive against men because the management breakdown is 2 men to 5 women? Should I have demanded that the last manager hired (who was the most qualified for the job and was a woman) be given to a man because it'd promote equality more?
Having a 50-50 split is a false equivalency though, especially in government where a person 1) needs to choose to run, and 2) needs to be elected by the population they represent.
It's a lot of work that I do not want to do, even during a pandemic that keeps me in bed till 10:30 at night, but one should actually look at every single candidate across all the ridings and lump them by gender to see if that will get close to a 50-50 split, and then lump them by total votes and see if that gets to a 50-50 split. I don't think the votes will because there are a lot of other, more important factors that should be considered on why the Communist party candidate only received 23 votes in a riding, but I personally think it will be closer than the actual parliamentary split at the moment.
But this is where the slow crawl that I have been talking to comes in. In the 338 seats of the Canadian parliament, only 97 are held by women. But you want to know something? That number is a record. We as a nation are trending up (I also think we are ahead of the US when it comes to equality on this issue). More women, or people of minority, need to realize that yes, you can be part of government and that these barriers do not exist (at least not in Canada). Once again Kathleen Wynne "I don't believe the people of (Canada) judge their leaders on the basis of race, colour or sexual orientation – I don't believe they hold that prejudice in their hearts."
Because gender is broad of one. It doesn't narrow anything down. As I said before, someone shouldn't be chosen because of gender, race, or sexual orientation - and that does go both ways. It shouldn't be just white males. Just because it was like that in the past, shouldn't discredit every white male from here on out that attempts to run for an office.
I will say though, if you have two equally qualified candidates, and in this US election - for democratic VP, you do, race and gender can be applied to choosing the candidate but once again, it shouldn't be the primary reason. I'll bring up Sarah Palin again. Why was she chosen? Was she considered the best candidate for the position? How did that choice end up working for the republican party?
It wouldn't be appropriate to demand that in your position. However, if there were less than 30% representation of men in managerial positions across the economy I would expect questions to be asked about why that was. If the conclusion was that this was not just due to biological differences, but social and cultural ones (and there was general agreement that equality was a good thing to aim for), I think it would be only reasonable to consider how best to address those, rather than assuming that the situation would be self-correcting in the longer run.
One alternative for such action would be preferential treatment for men applying for such positions. I'm not particularly advocating such action, as there are considerable drawbacks associated with it. Not only is there the possibility you won't get the best candidate, but those men getting jobs may be regarded negatively by colleagues. In addition it may be more difficult for them to act as role models for other men if they have not succeeded in a fully competitive selection process.
However, although I think the issues about positive discrimination are relatively balanced, I do think there is a strong case for taking some sort of action - if only because signalling support for the objective of moving to a more equitable system is itself one way to challenge cultural attitudes. I might criticize the particular details of a positive discrimination system, but I wouldn't criticize anyone for wishing to apply the principle that we should be aiming for a more equal society.
First off this is a strawman about how a universal coverage system would be implemented. Second off, it is an anecdote. Even if I concede the dubiously sourced point that there are longer waiting times in Canada, that has still not resulted in worse aggregate health outcomes, as I already pointed out in my data from a non-partisan source. This is called missing the forest for the trees.
As I've said before, Serwer is arguably the best person writing about US politics right now
I'm highly sympathetic to your arguments. Obviously in a perfect universe, we'd love for meritocracy to win out. Obviously we also don't live in that universe. And I'm sympathetic to the argument that sometimes identity politics can go too far.
However, given the context of some of the other things you've said, I have to feel you're missing that gender and race have been criteria running the other way. It's odd to call it out only when groups that have historically been underrepresented are demanding greater representation.
I also quibble with your Palin example. The 2008 election was not lost by Palin. In the wake of mismanagement of Iraq, Katrina, and the collapse of the economy, no Republican was going to win that election. I'll also add that technically, she was more qualified to be president than the current occupant of the White House. It's a weird irony in a way.
A much more salient example is Mike Pence, also probably unqualified to be president, though again, more qualified than the actual president. Clearly picked more for his identity as a staunch conservative Christian than any merits. That pick worked out, didn't it?
Frankly, it would be electioneering malpractice for the Democrats to not choose a woman VP. Look at the breakdown of polling among subgroups in the US. White women are clearly going to be a critical swing demographic. I mean, one issue I have with identity politics for liberal causes is that sometimes it's a bad move electorally. But in this case, hell yeah, it's the right move.
The fact that waiting times have increased over a 25 year period in Canada is not evidence that regulation in a whole host of countries has never worked.
The reasons for waiting times are complex. You've talked before about demand and supply. Over a long period like this the demand for services has changed radically both in its nature and extent. That partly reflects technological changes - for instance joint replacements are very common now, but were rare in 1993. It also reflects demographic changes - the proportion of elderly people in the population of Western countries has increased and treatment of geriatric conditions is a much larger proportion of health costs than it used to be.
It's true that governments may not be as flexible about responding to such changes as private provision would be. There is a tendency for changes to health care supply to lag behind demand changes somewhat, except when there are major shocks to the system. Covid-19 is a good example of such a shock and in the UK we've seen, for instance, the number of critical care beds more than triple in a short period - despite the standard line being for years that it would be difficult to change the number of such beds. I think that while much of that change will be reversed once Covid-19 is under control, it's likely it won't all be, i.e. the shock will have long-term effects.
Private provision has its own problems with responding to changes in demand though. The point about the private sector responding to the availability of money (with the potential consequence of the needs of many people not being covered) has already been made in this discussion. There is another aspect to this though, which directly relates to your contention that governments are the creators of stifling regulation. The US is a prime example of a country where supply of healthcare has not increased in line with greater demands over time. However, that has little or nothing to do with government regulation. The government does not fix the number of training places, nor the curriculum, nor the examination standards, nor the residency requirements. The US government did cap financial support for graduate medical education in 1997, which will have had an influence on take-up of places, but presumably you would not support such government funding anyway.
The reasons for supply not increasing as fast as demand include:
- the high costs of training put many less wealthy people off.
- restricting the number of new healthcare professionals helps keep income for existing professionals artificially high (and it's those professionals who actually control the system).
Both those are instances of market failure and that failure is a inevitable result of conditions in the healthcare market. For perfect markets people need perfect information - and the high degree of specialization in healthcare means such information is not available. They also need to be able to accurately estimate risks (such as how quickly you might be able to pay off a medical training debt of hundreds of thousands of dollars), but that information is also not available (in this case largely because it depends on future events which can't be predicted).
While no system is perfect I think both theory and real-world experience show that the provision of healthcare is better in systems where the government is involved in regulation, than those where it is not. Incidentally, Chile's government is much more involved in regulating healthcare than the US government. It directly controls universal public health services and primary care and also runs a national health fund (an insurance scheme that over 75% of the population pay into - it also covers various other groups such as dependent relatives and those receiving state benefits). The government requires that all workers and pensioners pay 7% of their salary/pension into either the national scheme or various private insurance schemes. It's true that there are some uninsured people (around 5%, so a rather smaller proportion than in the US), but the basic model of regulation is much more akin to a European than US one.
Nope. You learn from history, you don't repeat it.
Putting those at a disadvantage in a better position to succeed is a good thing. Handing them the position outright is not. @Grondo pretty much summed up the pros and cons above.
But you can also open up a debate as to why there are few woman/minorities in higher political jobs. That debate happened in Canada the last election cycle after both the NDP and Conservatives chose men as party leaders. Besides Kim Campbell (briefly as a sacrifice PM before an election the conservatives were not going to win) and May (former leader of the Green Party who never won more than 10 seats) there has never been a female party leader at the federal level during an election.
Why is that? How can we as a nation get that to change? Encouraging strong women candidates to run? Should Rona Ambrose suck it up, quit the private sector and home life she has established and run in June's leadership race? Should the Conservatives just hand it to Marilyn Gladu or Leslyn Lewis, the only women who have so far entered the fray for the conservatives even though they are less likable and less qualified than the likes of Peter MacKay or Erin O'Toole? There is a lot more to women not being in political leadership positions than "they're women."
I think the Liberals will have strong female candidates their next leadership race happens. Too bad that will be after Justin Trudeau has burnt everything down making them unelectable in which ever election that might happen to be in.
In Canada there are only 4 or 6 of these positions every election. It should be celebrated when a minority does get like Jagmeet Singh did for the NDP, as it has shown we as a nation (or atleast the NDP card holders) can look past skin colour, religious beliefs or gender in choosing our candidates. But it shouldn't be poopooed if a candidate isn't one of these minorities because there is a lot more that goes into choosing a candidate than the colour of their skin, sexual orientation or anything else that someone thinks should be levitated.
But you also have to remember, this is my view of things being Canadian and growing up in a multicultural city. I do know racism and sexism exist, I just live where it isn't rampantly so that it changes people's overall perception of political candidates. If I did live in a place where these things existed more, I might be inclined to elevate that 'oppressed' class by supporting them for an election even if they weren't the most qualified candidate. They would bring about change in equality a bit more faster than the other candidate(s) having experiencing the oppression and knowing what would need to change. But that might be naïve thinking as someone like Obama did very little for black rights in America IMO.
Once again, this entire debate started with Biden flatly saying he is going to have a woman VP candidate without naming any names. He is placing gender above everything else which diminishes the merits the VP candidate actually has.
But yes choose a woman VP. As I said, there are many strong candidates, probably stronger ones than any male candidate that can be put forward. Just don't announce that you are prior.
No - but that's a bad example. You'll note that in every instance I've been discussing this, I use terms like "law makers". I've referenced the gender breakdown of the US house of representatives. These are statistically significant numbers. The breakdown of your management team is not large enough to be statistically relevant to the conversation.
If I flip a coin 7 times, a perfectly reasonable outcome is heads twice and tails 5 times.
It's not a false equivalency when the statistical sample size is large enough. if 10,000 people were elected, you would expect to see a distribution reflecting the population unless there is a weighted bias influencing the system
We've gone over this three separate times. You keep proclaiming a slow crawl of people accepting women without recognizing that there are underlying forces at work - the same kind of forces that want a woman VP on the ticket. That kind of social activism begets the change you're seeing. In a vacuum, if no one was arguing for gender equality, we would expect to see fewer female politicians (we know this because we have recorded history, when fewer people agitated for such things resulted in few female candidates.
@DinoDin has refuted this point not once but twice. You keep repeating your argument without even acknowledging his. This is the very definition of talking past someone.
In the USA - the VP selection is almost always a tactical selection. The VP isnt selected simply because they're the best for the job (Which is obviously almost entirely subjective). Tim Kaine wasnt suddenly the literal most qualified choice for a VP for Clinton in 2016. He was a sitting senator for a swing-ish state (VA having only recently gone blue), and was a very average inoffensive candidate (Code for: White and moderate).
He was selected in part because of his gender (Not a woman) and his ideological position with a group of voters that Clinton wanted to win
@DinoDin also pointed out that Mike Pence was selected for that same reason (White. Man. Religious). Not because he was some ace super talented politician. The polls in Indiana suggested he was going to lose his reelection for governor.
It is already the norm in american electoral politics to choose your VP for tactical reasons. In a way, this whole argument absolutely emphasized my central thesis. Why is it perfectly fine for Clinton to pick Kaine and Trump to pick Pence as tactical choices (Apparently they earned it, and it wasnt "handed" to them) - but if Biden says he's going to pick a woman, suddenly it's identity politics (Used here as a pejorative)?
If your argument boils down to "Biden said it, Trump didnt" - that's just... Pointless? A distinction that is essentially meaningless next to the act of actually doing the thing?
Again i ask : Why the politicians that created the problem in the first place are reliable to provide the solution?
I an not against public healthcare. I just don't think that a federal goverment in ANY continental country(US, Brazil, China, Russia) is capable of offering public healthcare to a population of 300 million+. Why not try to make more local types of welfare like Alaska Permanent Fund?
No. I have given two examples of some of the underlining issues at work:
1) They need to run.
2) They need to be elected.
If your choice for congress seat is for two males, a male is going to win.
If it is perceived that the female candidate is less qualified, or doesn't align with your communities beliefs, you again are not going to vote for them and the male candidate is going to win.
Now feel free to question WHY there isn't a viable female candidate running and how, as a community, you can change that the next time around, which again, the democrats have seem to have done here, HOWEVER, do not announce that the primary reason they are being chosen is that they are female. It diminishes that gain.
You guys haven't offered any evidence of the prejudices at work. They are just perceived. So I will throw this out to you: Should Sanders have conceded to Elizabeth Warren because she was female and their policies were aligned? Should people have voted for her over Sanders because of her gender? Or were there other reasons to choose Sanders over Warren? I do not think for a second the reason why Warren did so poorly was due to her gender.
I am not one to buy into the American public "isn't ready" for a female president or Vice President. Clinton's campaign clearly shows that they are even if she didn't win.
No, I honestly think it is you guys talking past me (as I also pointed out the Pence selection prior - why I ignored it). But let me say it one more time, this time bolding and putting the key part in italics. Ready?
Gender shouldn't be the primary reason why a candidate is chosen. It is too broad of a brush to actually use strategically. One of my posts I listed why someone like Kamala Harris would be a good VP pick for someone like Sanders. Gender and Race were at the bottom of her appeal, but do add to it. When you only look at gender, that is how you end up with a distraction like Sarah Palin.
jjstraka has listed who he thinks are viable female candidates for Biden in the past and all of them are strong candidates beyond their gender. The reason for this is due to the democratic party working with them, elevating their status for years and giving them opportunities to have their name known. A great example is The Response to the State of the Union which was given by Stacey Abrams in 2019 and Gretchen Whitmer in 2020 both of which are considered candidates for the VP position under Biden. Steps like these need to be taken, but they need to be taken tacticfully and not perceived as being given to people due to race or gender or you'll get push back. Read that paragraph as "slow crawl."
No my argument, once again, is that Biden said it before he even secured the nomination. Trump was probably told that Pence was going to be his VP and had no say in it.
You do not announce the reason why you are picking a VP candidate because she is a woman is due to it diminishing all of her other qualities and merits. I find it actually very sexist to say "I am picking her because she is a woman."
You wouldn't say something like "I am picking this person because they are black." Hopefully you can see that as a racist comment. It's no different in what Biden did with stating his intentions of picking a female VP candidate.
But you are also right. It does feel like I am talking in circles here and unless something new is added to the conversation, I am dropping it here.
No, we wouldn't see a perfect 50/50 balance. Men and women do not have the same interests or pursue the same activities, or jobs, at exactly the same rates. A perfect 50/50 balance would be the exception to the rule, an anomaly.
The discrimination in politics that does exist comes primarily from white progressives, essentially the opposite of what they claim, caught in a strange bout of racial insecurity that makes them more prejudiced against their own kind than any group in politics is of anyone else, by the numbers. This manifests in a number of different data points, but this one seems most relevant. The irony of young liberal whites being the ones most opposed to an older white candidate on principle, while most other folks generally don't care, is something they should reflect on.
I asked her if the lack of money she made working faithfully for this particular company for years bothered her (since to hear those on the right talk about it, you'd think they were perfectly fine with the unfair treatment). Another spoiler: she wasn't ok with it, it did bother her, it bothers her to this day. They don't broadcast it, they don't make a fuss, but it's always been there, on the inside, and they'll tell you if you ask them. There simply wasn't ANYTHING they could do about because society had dictated their time and labor was worth less.
Her "interests" were the same as anyone else at a job, which was to take home a check that fairly compensated her for what she contributed. Funny thing is, growing up, I'd always ASSUMED she had a pretty good job. Turns out all those years she was barely making more than minimum wage.
What you are also referring to as far as "interests" is the idea that many women want to stay home and take care of kids instead of work (let's get real here). That may have been true in the 1950s Leave it to Beaver-land when everyone returning from the war was able to get loans to buy a house and a car and nearly ANY job done by a male could support a family. But that shit hasn't been the case for about 40 years now. 47% of American workers are women. 10% of women worked in 1920, and it's been going up ever since.
So, just like the slavery still shapes trends today, so too does the societal framing of pre-suffrage attitudes about women. I mean, if you want a quick and dirty example, watch any random episode of Mad Men. It's not inaccurate. A massive percentage of the population of this country hasn't even been able to fully participate in society for a full 100 years.
About half of them do actually, and it has been a pretty consistent number over decades.
Most people's preferences are influenced by their cultural environment as is, so it was likely higher in earlier times when it was more common.
The economic model where one family member was able to work and provide for the whole family was a good one, and there isn't any good reason why we couldn't have it again.