Critique of President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize speech

The world must remain a place where citizens read the comments of political leaders and subject them to common sense analysis. Let us avoid the alternative: a world where we become dulled by the drone of meaningless speeches and the profusion of political nonsense — until we are no longer able to think critically about issues ourselves.

Following are short excerpts from Mr. Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, each followed by my comments.

Now these questions are not new. War, in one form or another, appeared with the first man. At the dawn of history, its morality was not questioned; it was simply a fact, like drought or disease — the manner in which tribes and then civilizations sought power and settled their differences.

Atop his many other accomplishments, it now seems Mr. Obama is an anthropologist, too. Why is he certain that war “appeared with the first man”? Is it possible that early humans were peaceful? Why assume that the human love for peace, deep and untaught, is a recent development, or something less basic to our nature than war?

We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes.

Well not if we don’t try. But make the effort and we might be surprised.

Why doesn’t the president stand at the podium, the world as his audience, and say, “I present to you, citizens of the world, a bold challenge: let us seek to end war in our lifetimes.” Wouldn’t that be more worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize winner?

President Obama is participating in the peculiar form of schizophrenia that is modern government. As individuals we know that war is wrong and in almost every case unnecessary. He stands there there telling us something we don’t believe, pretending that he doesn’t know we disbelieve it, and expecting that we’re going to play along.

For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.

This is the low point in his speech, and reveals the absurdity or irony his receiving the award. Evil does indeed exist. But the reason war continues as an institution is precisely because people persist in the illusion that whoever opposes them, or simply dislikes them, is not just acting badly, or influenced by evil, but is Evil itself. Obama is here equating al Queda with Evil incarnate. This simplistic, black-or-white thinking is the problem. Hitler, perhaps it could be said, was as close to pure Evil as one can imagine; he institutionalized genocide – an utterly terrible, horrific thing.

But usually things are more complex: Evil – whatever that may be precisely – affects the judgment of basically good people. Evil sets us against one another. Evil is the true enemy. Our human opponents are still God’s children, made in His image and likeness. They are tricked by Evil. So are we.  If we wish to fight our true opponent, Evil, let us end war.

From one point of view, the terrorists seem motivated only by the urge to destroy and hurt. But perhaps their own view is that they are fighting a war against a giant, oppressive, military super-power, by the only means they have available. Of course I don’t condone terrorism – far from it! But I am not unable to see even terrorsts as human beings with positive and negative traits not so different from mine.

What we must beware, as Carl Jung and other psychologists inform us, is the human tendency to project one’s own unacceptable dark side onto others. We fight with our own demons by projecting them on other people. The sign of such projection is when we see or respond to events with greater irrationality than circumstances would warrant. War will continue as long as people and political leaders lack the sophistication to understand this.

It is undoubtedly true that development rarely takes root without security; it is also true that security does not exist where human beings do not have access to enough food, or clean water, or the medicine and shelter they need to survive. It does not exist where children can’t aspire to a decent education or a job that supports a family. The absence of hope can rot a society from within. And that’s why helping farmers feed their own people — or nations educate their children and care for the sick — is not mere charity.

Alas, he is here only paying lip service to these principles. Where does he suggest that America will take on these challenges?

Perhaps there is such a thing as a just war, a war of self defense. Perhaps sometimes a war is necessary to achieve peace. But how much more often is peace necessary to achieve peace! The US spends hundreds of billions of dollars trying to gain peace through war. What if we spent even one tenth that amount on tangible gestures of friendship and assistance?

What, for example, is the United States doing to assist Latin America economically or culturally? At least John F. Kennedy (to whom Obama alluded more than once) promised this in his inaugural address. Kennedy didn’t follow up on his promises, but at least he kept the vision of the country pointed in the right direction.

And yet, I do not believe that we will have the will, the determination, the staying power, to complete this work without something more — and that’s the continued expansion of our moral imagination; an insistence that there’s something irreducible that we all share.

Mr. Obama fails to recognize that religious institutions already demonstrate this moral imagination. I wonder if he has ever heard of the 1967 encyclical of Pope Paul VI, Populorum Progressio (On the Development of Peoples), or the encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, penned 20 years later by Pope John Paul II. Such works constitute the true state-of-the-art of enlightened people to grapple, in a sincere, loving, and ethical way, with the social needs of the world. The principles by which the human race may proceed on the paths of peace and justice are already outlined, yet arrogant civil officials ignore them.

The one rule that lies at the heart of every major religion is that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Adhering to this law of love has always been the core struggle of human nature.

But this is not true! That this is a common mistake does not excuse Mr. Obama here. If there is indeed one rule at the heart of religion, it is not love of other people, but the love of God.

To love other human beings is, in itself, no outstanding virtue. Even bad people love their family and friends. What sets a religious person apart is love of God. From this loves springs a deeper and more meaningful love of other human beings. For one thing, this form of love for others is free from self-interest.

The expressed sentiment of “love for all men” without love for God has no more substance than a Coca Cola commercial. Obama here is repeating the mantra of European Liberalism, which has tried to make a secular religion – one based on human instincts, including a bland appeal to “love for all” – in place of a solid, genuine one based on God.

The purely human form of “love for all” is egoistic. You love those you like, who are nice to you, who benefit you – if only because you feel “warm cuddlies” by helping them. What is needed is the kind of love that that extends to enemies as well as friends.

So there you have it in a nutshell. Mr. Obama seems to fancy himself walking in the shoes of Dr. King. But Dr. King was a Christian; he knew the meaning, importance, and necessity of loving ones enemies. There is not the slightest trace in Obama’s speech of his understanding or believing this principle.

Clear-eyed, we can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace.

His speech at this point has degenerated into nonsense. The absurdity of his nomination has led to the absurdity of this speech – it could do nothing else. His vision as expressed here is the opposite of clear-eyed. Nothing he has said has demonstrated the necessity of war. And even if war is necessary, to wage peace – in the form of energetic initiatives aimed at promoting justice and welfare around the world — is much more needed. On this he is silent.

Correct transcript of Ambassador Bolton’s remarks on Obama’s Nobel Prize speech

On December 10, in Oslo, Norway, President Obama gave his acceptance speech for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

Fox News host Greta van Susteren later asked the former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, John R. Bolton, for his analysis.  The careless transcript of Bolton’s remarks currently found online at several blogs is very rough and filled with errors.  I’ve made and supply below a more accurate transcript, taken directly from the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-H5vG8Q3CM

Greta van Susteren, Fox News:  Good evening, ambassador.

Former US Ambassador to United Nations, John R. Bolton: Good evening.

Greta: So what do you think of the speech?

Bolton:  I thought it was a pretty bad speech.  I thought it was turgid, repetitive.  I thought it was analytically weak, sort of at a high school level.  It’s like he didn’t have any lead in his pencil left after his speeches at the UN and the speech on Afghanistan.  So all in all a pretty surprisingly disappointing performance.

Greta:  What would you have expected him to say?  Because it’s rather awkward for a couple reasons.  Number one is he was nominated just a few days into his presidency and there’s been a lot of controversy over whether or not that he’d achieved — and even he says his accomplishments at this point are slight compared to others who’ve received it.  Secondly, he had just called up more troops to go to Afghanistan.  So it’s a completely awkward situation for the man.

Bolton:  Well, in circumstances like that, one alternative is not to say very much, is to thank the Nobel Committee for the honor of the award and accept it in humility and then sit down. Sometimes when people don’t have much to say, they don’t say very much.  Other people say it four times as long, which seemed to be the way he did it.

Greta:  Why do you think he was awarded this prize.

Bolton: I think that this was a conscious effort by the Nobel Committee, which has been over the years a very highly politicized body, to try and affect the American political environment, to try and send a signal of what they wanted from the Obama presidency.  I think that it’s a big mistake on their part.  I think our own political polls show that.  And I think that it will turn out to be a millstone around the president’s neck, but that’s obviously not the way the Nobel Committee saw it.

Greta:  How do you compare and contrast the speech that he gave about a week or two ago at West Point, the one when he announced to the nation that he was calling up troops.  Because a lot of the same sorts of themes about Al Qaeda and about Evil in the world.  But, still, very different speeches.

Bolton: Well I think you have to look, as I said, back as well to the speeches at the United Nations.  And what was striking was how little new there was in this speech.  But I think it’s important in looking at how Obama addresses national security, not to try and parse his speeches too carefully, not to say, “well I like this paragraph, but I don’t like this paragraph.”  You have to look at the speech whole, just as you have to look at the man behind the speech whole, and I think that’s where he runs into difficulty.

This speech today in Oslo is filled with some of the most amazing misconceptions about everything from human nature to the role of the United States in the world.

Greta: So, I’ll bite.  What are the amazing misconceptions that you say?

Bolton:  Let’s start near the beginning of the speech.  He says, that “We have to acknowledge the hard truth we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes.”  Well, no kidding.  You know, homo sapiens is hardwired for violent conflict and we’re not going to eliminate violent conflict until homo sapiens ceases to exist as a separate species.  And the whole notion you could even think about eliminating it, not just in our lifetime but soon thereafter, I think reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature.  And when you start from that kind of position it only gets worse from there.  And I’ve got other examples, too.

Greta:  Go ahead.

Bolton:  Okay, then, just a few paragraphs later, he says, talking about the setting up the role of the United States, which many people said was a positive to the speech, he gets to it by saying that stability after World War II was brought about, quote “Not just treaties and declarations that brought stability, but the fact that the United States helped underwrite global security.”  As if to say it’s the treaties and the declarations that were the centerpiece and that the United States made a small contribution here or there.  In fact, it was the American nuclear capability after World War II and the strength of the military alliances, led and dominated by the United States, that brought stability and defeated the Soviets in the Cold War.  That didn’t seem to make it into this speech.

Greta:  Ambassador, thank you, sir.  Always nice to see you.

Bolton:  Okay, thank you.

Personally, I found the first half of Bolton’s remarks accurate, but the second half strangely peevish.  I think he should have stuck with what he initially said:  that you shouldn’t try to parse Obama’s speeches too closely, but rather should look for what they reveal overall.

The Individual Mandate is radical alteration of the social contract

The Individual Mandate is radical alteration of the social contract

Part of the health care reform bill currently being debated by the House of Representatives is the  individual mandate.  By this provision, everyone would be required — by law — to have health insurance, or else be charged with a criminal offense and face fines or possible imprisonment.

This would be a radical and unprecedented change in relationship between citizens and government.  The government would be saying, “you must be part of the system — our system — or we’ll fine or imprison you.”  That violates your basic freedom as a human being.

At face value, the arrangement seems no different than mandated car insurance, which already exists.  But there’s an important difference.  Nobody has to drive a car.  If you don’t want to be forced to buy car insurance, walk or take the bus.  You aren’t compelled.  You retain your freedom to participate or not.

Similarly, everyone is required to pay income tax – but only if you have income.  If you really don’t want to pay income tax, you can, in theory, quit your job and just live off the land.   Few do this, but the possibility of choice has a major implication.  Since you’re free to opt out of the system, your participation is voluntary.  That’s the essence of the social contract, and the basis by which governments are accountable to citizens.  Without the voluntary aspect,  there is no social contract, because a contract cannot be compulsory.  If you’re forced to participate, your condition is that of slavery and servitude to the state.

A further implication is that you’d be effectively forced to have a job so that you can pay for health insurance.  True, nominal programs would help the unemployed buy insurance, but these would likely be inconvenient and complicated.  Most Americans would feel it necessary to work and to buy insurance.

People should work because they want to, not because they have to.  When they have to work, it affects the workplace: companies then don’t need to supply good benefits or working conditions to retain employees.  So with the individual mandate, not only would you be a slave to the state, but to the corporate system as well.

The individual mandate’s closest analogy is military conscription.  But at least the draft — itself controversial — applies to a dire emergency — war.  The individual mandate is, at best, a convenience of the government, not a social necessity.

Thus, as with 9/11 and the ensuing Patriot Acts, the government is trying to use problems in the health care system to justify an expansion of power – at the cost of your freedom.

What we have in the United States is a health crisis, not a health insurance crisis.  Legislators seem unable to comprehend the difference.  The problem is not that many Americans lack health insurance, but that health-care costs are too high. We should be focusing on new ideas for reducing costs – based on technology, innovation, competition, and  individual initiative –  not trying to expand the current insurance-based system that has produced the crisis.

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Part of the health care reform bill currently being debated by the House of Representatives is the <i>individual mandate</i>.  By this provision, everyone would be required — by law — to have health insurance.  Otherwise you’ll be charged with a criminal offense and face fines or possible imprisonment.

This is a radical and unprecedented alteration of the fundamental relationship between American citizens and their government.  The government would be saying, “you have to be part of the system — our system — or we’ll fine or imprison you.”  This violates your basic freedom as a human being.

At face value, the arrangement seems no different than mandated car insurance, which already exists.  But there’s an important difference.  Nobody <u>has</u> to drive a car.  If you don’t want to be forced to buy car insurance, walk or take the bus.  You aren’t compelled.  You retain your freedom to participate or not participate.

Similarly, everyone is required to pay income tax – but only if you have income.  If you really don’t want to pay income tax, you can, at least in theory, live off the land.   Few do this, but the possibility of choice has a major implication.  Since you’re free to opt out of the system, your participation is voluntary.  That’s the essence of the <i>social contract</i>, and the basis by which governments are accountable to citizens. Without the voluntary aspect,  there is no social contract, because a contract cannot be compulsory.  If you’re forced to participate, your condition is that of slavery and servitude to the state.

Moreover, by legislating the individual mandate, the government is saying, “we have the right to pass a law that will require your participation in any program we dream up.”

A further implication is that you are effectively forced to have a job so that you can pay for health insurance.  True, nominal programs will help the unemployed buy insurance, but these will likely be inconvenient and complicated.  Most Americans will feel it necessary to work and to buy insurance.

People should work because they want to, not because they have to.  When they have to work, it affects the workplace: companies then don’t need to supply good benefits or working conditions to retain employees.  Not only do you become a slave to the state, but to the corporate system as well.

The individual mandate’s closest analogy is military conscription.  But at least the draft — itself controversial — applies to the dire emergency of war.  The individual mandate is only a convenience of the government, not a necessity.

Thus, as with 9/11 and the ensuing Patriot Acts, the government is trying to use problems in the health care system to justify an expansion of power – at the cost of your freedom.

What we have in the United States is a health crisis, not a health insurance crisis.  Legislators seem unable to comprehend the difference.  The problem is not that many Americans lack health insurance, but that health-care costs are too high. We should be focusing on new ideas for reducing costs – based on technology, innovation, competition, and  individual initiative –  not trying to expand the current insurance-based system that has produced the crisis.

Hi Mischa

Hi Mischa!  It’s hard to keep ones nerve standing in a crowded grocery store line in a new town, at least for me.

Please send me your email address.

Seven arguments against a doctor’s office visit for flu

Seven arguments against a doctor’s office visit for flu

1. Unless the patient has *serious* pre-existing conditions the flu will pass by itself.

2. After two days of symptoms, pharmaceutical treatments (i.e., Tamiflu or Relenza) will probably have little or no benefit.

3. The best treatment for flu in any case is to stay in bed.  A trip to the doctor’s office places serious and potentially unnecessary stress on the patient and his/her immune system.

4. The patient exposes others to flu virus.

5. In principle, a prescription for Tamiflu or Relenza could be made without a physical examination.  Patients can accurately take their own temperature and report their symptoms by phone.

6. The best reason for an office visit is indirect:  to take a throat or nose swab/sample for flu virus confirmation, either via a rapid (immediate) test or by sending it to a lab for culturing and more accurate testing.  This has public health value, because it helps track flu in the community, but does not benefit the actual patient.

7. There’s no logical reason not to sell rapid influenza test kits in pharmacies (without a prescription) and to let patients use these at home.  Note that these tests have relatively low diagnostic sensitivity (50-70%): they produce many false-negative results.  However the tests have diagnostic specificities of more than 90%:  they produce few false-positive results; thus, if a positive result occurs, the patient probably has flu and Tamiflu or Relenza can be prescribed.  This could be done by phone or fax based on a patient’s self-test.  Thus, for 50-70% of patients with flu, an unnecessary and counterproductive office visit could be avoided by means of a self-administered rapid test.

The above just outline some of the obvious considerations.  The main point is that this subject needs to be examined at the level of public health policy and some sensible guidelines established.

More information on flu testing:
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/profesionals/diagnosis/labprocedures.htm

Prioritizing Flu Vaccine: Individual Patient vs. Aggregate Rules

This is a fairly big issue and I’ll probably devote more than one post to it.

In recent days newspaper headlines have made misleading statements that relate to how to ‘prioritize’ swine flu vaccine (potentially demand will exceeed supply).

For example, one headline today ran “Flu vaccine to pregnant women first“. What the study in question actually showed (or, rather, suggested) is that pregnant women may, on average and as a group, be at greater risk for swine flu and swine flu complications.

But to keep in mind is that each person’s circumstances are unique. Assessment of flu vaccine candidacy, assuming there’s a vaccine shortage, must consider all relevant factors of a person: medical history, age, risk of exposure, health status, risk of complications, risk of infecting others, etc.

While being pregnant is a factor to consider, so are others. It’s not as simple as putting all pregnant women ahead of all non-pregnant women in the ‘queue’, as the headline seems to suggest.

Another headline this week similarly suggested “Antiviral drugs for swine flu patients may be wasted on the elderly.” Again this is an incorrect and misleading statement. On average, elderly people perhaps respond less well to antiviral flu medicine (they do show somewhat lower immunoresponse to flu vaccination on average than younger people) ; they areprobably less likely, again on average, to have a lot of contact with children .

But there are plenty of people above age 65 who vary from the average. Some respond well to vaccines, some have a lot of contact with children, etc.

Decisions to administer antivirals or to give swine flu vaccinations have to be made on a case-by-case basis, considering all relevant aspects of the person and their circumstances.

It can easily be shown that approaching vaccine allocation by a blanket rule like “only young people and pregnant women should get the vaccine” would be extremely suboptimal. The degree of suboptimality associated with such rules — or what could be technically termed marginal prediction — can be estimated; in this case such faulty prediction would likely produce considerable excess mortality and morbidity,  reduced overall quality of life, and unnecessary loss of many millions of dollars.

One alternative is to construct a simple statistical decision tool that  would compute a score for each person (e.g., 1 = lowest priority to 100 = highest priority) based on the person’s individual data. This could be put online for people or doctors to use, for example.

The data to construct such a tool exists in various places, but would need to be collated and analyzed. At present I’m tentatively planning to develop a prototype tool, hopefully in the next couple of weeks.

Protect Yourself from the Flu – Video

Protect Yourself from the Flu

A leading flu vaccine producer, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), has generously released this audio-visual presentation, originally developed for their employees, to the public:

GSK flu prevention video

When the new window opens, press the “Next” button on the lower right to continue.

This is the best presentation of its kind available today. Watch it yourself and show it to your family and friends.

If enough people follow the simple, common-sense steps outlined here, it can have a significant effect on reducing the swine flu pandemic. Because pandemic disease transmission follows an exponential pattern, even minor preventive steps like those explained here can have a major impact on total disease incidence.

College Tuition: Inflation or Hyperinflation?

As promised, here is a graph showing the disparity between general cost-of-living inflation and inflation associated with college tuition and fees (if the student I promised this to reads this, please let me know if the post is clear):

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics and the College Board.

The figure compares inflation over the last 30 years associated with (1) the general cost of living, (2) the cost of medical care, and (3) college tuition and fees.

Inflation factors were computed to answer the question: in each year, how many dollars would be needed to have the same buying power as $1.00 had in 1978? The calculations made use of published data on the Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers (CPI-U), the medical costs component of the CPI, and historical data on inflation of college tuition and fees.

As is well known, medical care costs have grown faster than the general cost of living — by 2008, nearly twice as much. This receives a lot of public attention and many complaints.

Yet college tuition and fees inflated at a much faster rate: nearly three times that of general inflation. Thus while it took $3.30 in 2008 to buy the same general commodities purchasable for $1.00 in 1978, for college tuition and fees nearly $10 in 2008 was needed to buy what $1.00 got in 1978.

This excess inflation has, incidentally, occurred across the board: for both private and public 4-year colleges, and for public 2-year colleges.

This is why students are being forced to take out exorbitant loans.

In short:

• After adjusting for inflation, college tuition and fees are roughly three times more expensive now than in 1978. Why? What has intrinsically changed about college education so that this is the case?

• Excess inflation of healthcare costs is a prominent issue and receives much attention; but excess inflation of college costs is even greater. Why is this not a major social issue?

Shouldn’t we be making a college education easier to obtain instead of more difficult? We claim to rely on young people to make a better world in the future. How are they supposed to do that when they step into adulthood already burdened with debt?

Reading and Resources

• The College Board. Trends in College Pricing. Princeton, NJ: 2008.

• The Education Sector. Drowning in Debt: The Emerging Student Loan Crisis. July 2009

• Ronald Ehrenberg. Tuition Rising: Why College Costs So Much. Harvard University Press, 2002.

• The Project on Student Debt

• Paul Streitz. The Great American College Tuition Rip-Off. Oxford Institute Press, 2005.

• Richard K. Vedder. Going Broke by Degree: Why College Costs Too Much. American Enterprise Institute, 2004.

• Penelope Wang. Is college still worth the price? Money Magazine. August 20, 2008.

The Injustice of High College Tuition

I met a college student last weekend and promised her I’d put a post online about the outrageously high cost of college tuition.  I’m working on some figures now and hope to post a chart by tomorrow.

Meanwhile the bottom line remains the same.  It doesn’t matter much which inflation indices or economic indicators one looks at.  The brute fact is that when I went to college in the 70’s, students in California didn’t have to take out loans, but today they to have to.  Big loans, too.

1.  This indicates that we are moving backwards, not forward in terms of higher education in our society.

2. It is unjust, absurd, and socially counterproductive in the extreme to subject youth to this burden.

3. They are being taken advantage of, because they lack the historical perspective to understand that this was not the case 25 or 30 years ago.

4.  Nobody is speaking up for them or representing their interests.

5.  If anything, the costs of a college education should be declining (relative to the cost of living) because computer and internet technology can be used to facilitate distance learning, video lectures, etc.

More on this topic later…

My websites under construction

My websites (listed on the panel to the right) are currently under construction.

My old service provider (Compuserve Ourworld) has closed, and I’m gradually moving pages to a new provider. This may take a week or two.

Please be patient with any broken links, etc.

John Uebersax