Common Ground

In recent years, there has been a growing fear in Europe about the spread of Islam throughout the continent.  It is not relegated to one specific area, cropping up in countries such as England and the Netherlands.  It is perhaps most apparent, though, in France, which has gained considerable attention in recent years for taking drastic measures to curb the public display of Islamic religious symbols under the pretense of secularization.  These measures are horribly misguided, and are creating acrimony around a social dynamic that already has a good deal of it.  They are simply a mistake, and completely counter to the democratic ideals that France helped instill across the globe.

Anyone who knows me knows that I do not have a favorable view of religion.  I'm an agnostic atheist myself, and I frankly don't think religion is necessary at all in today's world.  However, these measures not only target religion but culture, are based in xenophobia, and do nothing but further acrimony between different religious groups, even those not directly involved.  They should not be tolerated if not for the obvious nature of suppressing human rights, then for the malice they paint the different religious groups with.  I, personally, think that France's history of secularization has been beneficial for the most part.  France has walked a delicate line of keeping government as removed from religion as possible and vice versa without upsetting its large portion of religious citizens (61% Catholics, 6% Islamic, 1% Jewish).  Some secular practices I think could be very beneficial to the United States, such as the requirement that any school receiving government money not require any religious classes as a requirement.  Not only would that be scoffed at here, but some movements have tried to go the other way, manipulating curricula to include religious doctrine as in Texas and Kansas.  Indeed, secularization has some far-reaching benefits, such as the curbing of the systematic degradation of objectivity in the sciences by religious extremists.

That being said, not only are laws like the one passed in France in 2004, banning the wearing of any religious symbol, horribly discriminatory against religion, but are completely detrimental to the cause of secularization.  France, as well as the rest of Europe, has been marred by religious quarrels for as far back as modern history goes.  Ever since Christianity spread to the so-called barbarian tribes that once occupied those lands have they been fighting over who has the correct interpretation, in addition to fighting Muslims from the Ottoman Empire and placing harsh, discriminatory laws on their Jewish populations.  Secularization in France was actually intended to be a response to this, the government is not to interfere in religious matters and religion is not to interfere in the policy-making of government.  This is another example of a secular reform that I think could be universally beneficial, I only dream of the day when politicians such as Bobby Jindal and Ayatollah Khamenei no longer use their government positions in order to broadcast their extremist religious policies.  However, these recent secular reforms go completely against that spirit.

The main argument against secularization has always been that government can become too oppressive, that they can begin to curtail the rights granted to the religious.  Any good secularist should consider it their duty to prevent exactly this from occurring.  When secularization works this is nothing more than an unfounded fear, when these concerns start to become reality they strengthen the arguments against secularization.  American Christians fear secularization, they fear the government intrusion onto their religious practices.  Up until this point those fears have been unfounded, France has had a perfectly functional secular democracy in a country dominated by Catholics.  They know have a right to fear, they can now point to secularization banning religious symbols in school and say that there is concrete evidence of secularization being oppressive.  More than in any other manner, I am against this as a secularist.

The interesting dichotomy that this last point brings up is one of the Christian perspective.  One would think that, especially given the long-standing grudge many American Christians have held towards secularization, these recent bans would be prime fodder for an argument against secularization.  Not so, most Christians I have heard from are largely in favor of this.  Why would that be?  Perhaps because the law doesn't so much target religious expression as it does Islamic culture.  These laws have been passed under the pretense of secularization, but the wearing of religious ornaments in schools has never been an issue for either Jewish or Christian students in the past in France.  It seems it doesn't become an issue until hijabs and burqas begin to become more prevalent.  In short, these secular reforms are specifically targeted at Islam and are supported due to the growing Islamaphobia present in France and other European countries at the moment.  Like the Jews of old Europe, Muslims are now the target of social ridicule and ostracization in an institutionalized manner.  The reason most Christians do not speak out against secularization when they would otherwise is because they, too, harbor some of this Islamaphobia.  I believe I wrote extensively about the golden rule a short while back, again Christians should learn to heed their own scripture.  The Bible preaches tolerance and evangelism not by proselytism, but by setting a good example.

To be fair, there are some within Christianity who do still abide by these principles.  For as much criticism as I heap on the Catholic Church, they are taking the lead in this issue in Europe.  The church has allocated substantial funds to helping immigrants, the bulk of which are Islamic, become more acclimated in their new homes throughout Europe.  Some detractors have called this movement, started under Pope John Paul II, one motivated by his own memories of Polish Jews who were forced into transience during the days of institutionalized racism against Jews.  My question to them is why is this a bad thing?  History is there for us to learn from, to ensure we do not repeat mistakes.  I understand that some might invoke Godwin's Law here, that no one is talking about killing Muslims outright or anything even close to that.  To them, though, I would say that all oppression begins this way, that the oppression of the Jews began with false tales of their supposed supernatural nature and unflattering caricatures and depictions.  It began with a lack of understanding of their culture, and a vilification of them due to this lack of understanding.  This is exactly what we have occurring with Islamic culture.  Will it devolve into mass genocide?  More than likely no, but there is plenty of recent oppression that can be traced back to cultural tensions, such as the fighting in Rwanda and Sudan and the systematic oppression of Muslims in China.  To let this type of cultural warfare not only take hold, but to do so in a country whose thinkers birthed the very ideas of modern democracy and human rights, is simply unconscionable.

Speaking of these cultural differences, they are less pronounced than most people think.  A common rallying cry of secularization supporters who target Islam in Europe is that Muslims want to spread Sharia law.  Aside from the misunderstanding of that word that is inherent in western culture, most Muslims do not actually support Sharia law in the context we commonly know.  The word has been hijacked from religious extremists, and the Muslims who do support Sharia law only support broad, religious principles that are typically synonymous with what we refer to as human rights.  Furthermore, a distinct minority of Muslims actually support subversion of existing governments, only about seven percent.  Another common misconception is one that Muslims do not respect women's rights, and also that the hijab is a solely religious garment.  A majority of Muslim women actually support women's rights, and though smaller, so do a majority of Muslim men.  Muslim women also do not view the hijab as a symbol of female oppression, as has commonly been suggested by western women's movements, but as a part of their culture, and also as a way to be recognized not only by their beauty but by their own intellectual merit.  It is frankly arrogant of westerners to suggest that they do not have the right to choose whether or not it is a symbol of oppression.  Women fought for so long to have the rights to express themselves how they wanted, and now they choose to dogmatically dictate what is oppression and what isn't?  It is hypocrisy at its finest.

The simple truth with Muslims, as with Jews and any other religious groups, is that they are more similar to us than we give them credit for.  They believe in principles of equality and democracy, they choose to go to countries like France not to subvert their culture, as has been claimed, but to adapt to their culture, to find a haven from the oppression that occurs in countries like Iran where religion is used as a smokescreen to hide political authoritarianism.  By focusing on the small differences and using them to vilify and dehumanize a group such as Muslims countries like France are spitting in the face of their democratic ideals.  These laws are wrong; they are wrong on a level of human rights, they are wrong on a level of religious toleration, they are wrong on a level of properly representing secularization.  I am proud of being not only a secularist but an atheist in part because such disputes as this should be beneath either one, and not only does it lessen my pride to see that is not true but it also serves to make me a target of ridiculous arguments that atheists and secularists are religious bigots.  France has three words at the bottom of the symbol of its government: Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.  Où est-ce que ta liberté?  Où est-ce que ton egalité?  Où est-ce que ta fraternité?  Liberté, egalité, et fraternité pour tout le monde, ou pour personne.

We're Living in a Society

So the subject of healthcare has been on my mind a bit as of late, due in part to arguments I have had and a particularly arrogant debater from the Wall Street Journal spouting off on a radio show.  In addition, the topic of government spending has come up quite a bit in this discussion, and I feel a need to get a few things out there that seem to be flying under the radar.  For one, this snide journalist who also made assertions that colleges don't offer meaningful education (mental footnote for a later discussion), stated that we don't have the money to be spending on healthcare, and that it was a fallacy to say that having more young people in Medicare would help with its cost issues.  I'll shelf the latter right now and go straight for this, "we don't have the money," argument, my question is where were all these conservatives during the Bush years?  Oh dear god in heaven, medicaid is broke, that absolutely proves that government-run programs can't work successfully, right?  Not when you intentionally run them at a deficit.  That's one thing that never ceases to enrage me, is these conservatives will talk until they're blue in the face about fiscal responsibility, then turn around and act in the most fiscally irresponsible manner in order to acquire political capital.  We didn't have the money for Medicare Part D back then, everyone knew that, and yet Bush and the Republican Congress passed that, "socialist," spending increase.  Better than just that, they passed it at a time when they were paying for two wars AND cutting taxes.  Now suddenly we try to spend money on something that isn't politically motivated and that actually helps the health of our citizens and we don't have the money?  But we still have money for war, we still have money for the type of government-run medicine that garners votes.

Speaking of which, you hear many Republican congressmen coming out in support of the Tea Party, saying they don't believe in government spending, but is anyone paying attention to what they're doing behind the scenes?  There was a lot of rhetoric being circulated among right wing circles during the debate around healthcare about transparency, or the purported lack thereof on the Democratic side, but are they keeping track of what their own camp is doing?  While Obama and the Democrats proposed cuts in Medicare and Medicaid (that's right, socialist Obama proposing cuts to government-run medicine), the conservative side fought against those cuts.  Aren't these the same people crusading against government-run medicine?  Don't they hate all forms of government spending short of military?  The answer is simple, they don't have the guts to go to senior citizens and make their grand, hyperbolic speeches about conservative ideology.  They have no problem going to young voters, first-time voters, voters who rarely use the healthcare system and making these sensationalistic claims about government spending, but put them in front of a crowd of seniors and government-run healthcare is the best thing in the world.  And why?  Because it garners them votes.

This brings me to my next point, which I will preface with a discussion of economics.  Tea Partyers, conservatives, libertarians, whatever you want to call them, always claim that their ideology is based on simple economics.  It's common sense, it's right there for everyone to observe.  Why, then, do they continue to ignore certain basic economic rules that don't fit in with their ideology?  This journalist, and I use the term lightly (yet another mental footnote concerning later discussion), claimed that the assertion that having a younger contingent in Medicare would help to bring down costs was faulty.  Faulty, how is that?  Let's go through the basic operation of the insurance industry.  Insurance is mutual risk, that is a group of people pay into a fund knowing they may not see a return on that money, but when they do need a costly item such as medical care an individual will see a return.  Let's go even simpler for this, insurance is a gamble.  Think of the insurance companies as the house and the consumers as the players.  Whom  the  odds favor is dependent on whom we are talking about.  If we take an example of a twenty year old the odds favor the house, he will pay for the insurance and use it probably only for checkups, and perhaps less than that.  All the money he pays winds up as a profit for the insurance company.  Now let's say his father, fifty or sixty, has insurance under the same provider, the odds favor him.  He's going to use his insurance more and for more costly procedures, the insurance company stands to lose money on him.

This is where we get to the reason why this journalist's logic is simply wrong.  Insurance providers are casinos that make money on younger patients and lose it on older patients.  Medicare is insurance targeted towards the elderly; this means a lot of operations, a lot of visits to the doctor, and in general more costs.  An operation running almost exclusively on providing care to those 65 and older is simply not sustainable.  Medicare cannot run at a profit without young people paying money that they will likely not recover, and if there are young people paying into Medicare it will result in increased profits.

This is also the reason we need the government mandate for all consumers.  I have heard arguments against this measure in principle, but not in practicality.  The fact is that getting rid of industry policies of bumping policy holders with pre-existing conditions or those who become more of a liability as they get older was necessary.  This was the game the insurance industry was playing, and why I think health insurance simply cannot remain for-profit.  Executives were playing a game, they were treating the industry as a market and not as a necessity for individuals.  Take the example of the father and the child, if the money they make on the child outweighs the money they lose on the father they're still running at a profit.  One would think that would be good enough, but not so.  The attitude the industry took was one of maximizing profits, whatever the cost, and is part of an unsustainable attitude towards capitalism (mental footnote for later examination).  It's not enough that they make a profit, if there's money they could be making, or saving, they treat that as a loss.  Together the father can child represent a net profit, but if they bump the father that's increased profit for them.  This is the detrimental attitude I am speaking of, not being content with just making a profit but maximizing profits, even if it comes at the expense of certain consumers.  Furthermore, this completely defeats the purpose of insurance, there is no risk because as soon as there is a risk the individual is bumped.  That really is a scam, that's saying to the young people that when you're young we'll take your money because it nets us a profit, but when you're old we're going to bump you because we'll actually have to pay you.  That is, frankly, outright robbery.  And I know there is a sentiment among younger people of not wanting to pay in the first place?  Why pay money for something you're not going to use?  Well, in the words of George Costanza, "because we're living in a society here!"  This is a perfect example of co-dependence, of the type of communal thought that benefits individuals.  Yes, you pay more money than you use when you're young, but when you're old you just might see a return on that money, if you don't get bumped that is.

Which is, again, why the individual mandate was required, to get the number which ranges between fifteen and thirty million Americans who are young and uninsured to buy insurance, to drive up profits for insurance companies, to make it more feasible for them to keep the customers who net them a loss in the form of payouts.  I still hold that executive salaries are extreme in the industry, that going to a non-profit format would cut down on overhead in this regard and net a lower price for the consumer (isn't that what free market theory states, that the market should provide the best product for the lowest price?), and that there are other issues such as the overabundance of overpriced and sometimes inferior drugs and medical techniques when talking about Medicare costs.  The issue still remains, though, that this is all basic economics, why can't these supposed masters of economics realize these simple economic tenets?