OP-ED: Freedom even for the speech we hate

Anti-fascist counter-protesters outside Emancipation Park in Charlottesville

(Photo: Getty Images)

By: Thomas Jones, Staff Reporter

It’s astonishing that in modern day America one of our most fundamental freedoms, the right for one to speak freely, is now being questioned; it’s even more astonishing that the ones questioning this freedom are people who would actually call themselves liberals. We have seen a pattern of this happening, mostly beginning on college campuses and now spreading into a leftist viewpoint held by so-called liberal social justice groups such as Antifa. These groups believe they’re doing a public service by silencing those with views they see as racist, sexist, xenophobic or just simply intolerant of others. Despite the obvious ironical contradiction of refusing to allow certain people’s speech to be heard on the grounds of spreading tolerance, we also see that this new brand of leftists have literally become the colonialists they supposedly despise and aptly see as a root cause of most of the major social issues we are currently facing in our society.

At the point where you force your assumedly correct and paramount ideology onto others, especially to the extent that you don’t even allow others who hold viewpoints outside of your ideology to even have a voice, you are practicing in the very core of what it means to be colonialist. You quite literally become the colonialist oppressors which you hate when you act in accordance with the very definition of colonialism, which is at its roots, the practice of seeing viewpoints that you don’t like or understand and refusing to engage with those views, instead, assuming your own intellectual and moral superiority. This practice of refusal to engage with and acknowledge other groups is what has continually allowed colonialism to exist.

The intolerance perpetrated by the left to the right's viewpoint also isn’t helping further liberal ideology, it’s actually causing the exact opposite of what those on the left would want. The biggest ad agency for the alt-right, so to speak, are liberals who refuse to engage with them in dialogue and instead just yell them off podiums and threaten them when they rally. The main attack by the left to the far right, and now even in many cases to the moderate right, has been to simply label them as racist or sexist or xenophobic or whatever label works best in a given circumstance without ever engaging with the reasoning behind the label.

This practice of unengaged and unthoughtful labeling is incredibly dangerous. It reduces the impact of what it actually means for one to be racist or sexist. If everyone is in some way labeled as a racist then no one is, and the label loses its power and true meaning. We already see this happening in regards to the growth of the alt-right. The alt-right has been labeled as a racist white supremacist movement, which in my opinion it certainly is, but it continues to grow in number. This isn’t because people are suddenly deciding to proclaim themselves as racists, after all, if you were to ask an alt-right member if they considered themselves racist they would most certainly say no. It’s because titles like that of racist are hurled with such frequency nowadays to people who aren’t actually racist but rather just disagree with certain viewpoints held by the left. As a result, these people who are labeled as racist then face social exclusion and aren’t able to put forth their viewpoints into the social arena where they can be scrutinized because every time they try to do so it gets immediately shot down as wrong and racist without ever having an explanation as to why it’s racist. This social exclusion leads to further entrenchment of their views (this is the same on the left as well, since they never have to engage in argumentation as to why their views are correct, which ultimately leads to their views no longer being logical opinions, but simply dogma) and a greater political divide which ultimately leads to social outcasts finding refuge in groups of others with the same societal labels, and thus groups like the alt-right are created.

Now to be clear, I’m not saying that the alt-right and its members aren’t racist, I’m simply saying they weren’t born racist, and that the conditions that leftist groups have allowed to flourish that don’t ever allow engagement with these groups views is exactly what causes their ideology to flourish. Just simply look at the overarching message of the alt-right. Their main view is that white men are currently oppressed in society. The anger then that comes out of this supposed oppression is what leads to the alt-right wanting a white ethnostate.

Now that logic they put forward is ridiculous, but what happens when national media coverage shows them constantly yelled off stage and even threatened and harassed by leftist groups? The actions of leftist suppression of the right's agency are exactly what gives credence to the alt-rights ridiculous claims and therefore leads to its growth or at least to others sympathizing with their viewpoints.

If you don’t believe me, look to the last presidential election. It wasn’t that half of America suddenly became radically right-leaning since the last administration, it was due to the fact that the left refused to engage in discussion and debate with the right on their concerns. They would rather just assume their own correctness and continue to dismiss those on the other side of the aisle. This led to Democrats not only losing the presidency but the House and the Senate as well. It was not Donald Trump who won the election, it was the left that lost it.

So, what exactly does a world of political engagement with the seemingly ridiculous in political belief, like the alt-right, look like? It in no way means one must accept or even sympathize with these viewpoints, but it does mean you must allow them to be heard, and that you ought to have warrants to back up your claims against them, because otherwise, as long as they have reasons for their beliefs, no matter how absurd, you are technically losing the argument.

Free speech is the central tenant of effective democracies and just societies. At the point, you give way to suppression of any speech, no matter its content, you have no right to call yourself a liberal or a progressive, at the very best you are a regressive, colonialist leftist.

Now, if you still disagree with me that speech should never be suppressed, I’ll leave you with one last thought. Don’t be angry nor surprised when the pendulum swings, as it always does, and you no longer hold the power you do as of now, and don’t be angry nor surprised when the precedent you’ve set, allowing speech to be censored, is then used against you and as a result you are forced to sit in silence and watch all the progressive achievements you once made begin to vanish with the solemn knowledge that it was you who paved the path that allowed that to be possible.

OP-ED: What Everyone Gets Wrong About Healthcare

(Photo: Roosevelt Institute)

               The American healthcare system is sick.  Everyone, from bleeding-heart progressives to staunch supporters of the Freedom Caucus, agrees on this – and how could they not?  One only needs to give a cursory glance at the statistics, or spend five minutes in a crowded emergency room, to realize that there is something deeply broken about how we go about ministering the health of our nation.  According to a meta-analysis by the Commonwealth Fund of healthcare data from thirteen high-income countries, despite the fact that the United States spends the most per capita on healthcare, Americans have the lowest life expectancy and the highest infant mortality rate.  The real question, then, is, “What is to blame?”

               The Democrats’ answer is that an unscrupulous health insurance industry is the root cause of our dysfunction, a thesis deeply embedded in the provisions of the Affordable Care Act.  On the other hand, Republicans claim that Medicare and Medicaid are distorting the market, and providers are raising prices for the privately insured to compensate; thus, the draconian cuts proscribed in the failed American Health Care Act. 

               In a certain sense, both sides touch on real issues.  Yes, before the Obamacare regulations, the feedback loop between uninsured patients being unable to pay their bills and the rising costs of health services and coverage was growing out of control; and yes, Medicare and Medicaid are poorly designed, inefficient programs which distort the market and consume more than their fair share of the federal budget. 

               However, both approaches to healthcare reform are fatally flawed, in that they assign a single cause to a mind-bogglingly complex phenomenon.  It’s not even the case, as many centrists like to believe, that an effective solution lies somewhere in the middle of the two policies because, outside of a handful of experts, everyone misses the real causes of rising healthcare costs.  Now, it would be impossible for me to give a complete account of everything which ails us in a single column, but here are the two most significant factors, based on what I’ve gathered from the data:

1. America is the least healthy developed nation.

               According to the Commonwealth Fund study, a significant portion of our healthcare costs come from the general poor health of the U.S. population.  Despite the fact that, as of 2013, we had the third lowest incidence of daily smokers from the countries included in the study, we came first in both obesity (at 35.3% of the population) and the percentage of seniors with two or more chronic conditions.  (68%)  Treatment of chronic health problems is far more expensive than treating acute conditions, such that a 2012 investigation by PBS found that the 50% of the American population with one or more chronic condition accounted for 84% of all healthcare expenditures in 2010.

2. Consolidation is stifling competition.

               While patients on government programs have the advantage of consistent pricing set by federal regulators, a study from the Health Care Pricing Project found that the privately insured are subjected to wide variations in price.  For instance, the authors found that nationwide, the price of a lower-limb MRI can vary by a factor of twelve – that is, the most expensive hospital charges twelve times as much as the least expensive one. 

               This, the study claims, can largely be attributed to the recent trend of hospital mergers and provider consolidation, which has led to the formation of healthcare monopolies in many areas, allowing providers to charge much more for basic services than the market would otherwise allow. 

            Until we can solve these problems, any effort at reform, be it conservative or progressive, is doomed to failure.  My advice?  Eat your vegetables and stay healthy.  We may be waiting for a while.

Ford Mulligan Staff Reporter

OP-ED: We Need To Talk About Nukes

(Photo: History.com)

          If you watched the 2016 election cycle as closely as I did, you may have noticed the relative absence of one particular topic in the national conversation throughout the entire campaign – nuclear proliferation.  While most candidates had an opinion about whether or not the U.S. should stick to the Obama administration’s proposal to spend up to a trillion dollars over the next 30 years modernizing our delivery systems, (missiles, bombers, submarines, etc.) the questions of our commitments to our various arms reduction agreements and proliferation abroad was largely ignored.  

          In fact, as far as I was able to find, the only candidate whose position on the subject received substantial coverage was now-President Trump who, with varying levels of commitment, indicated that he would support certain countries, such as South Korea and Japan, obtaining nuclear weapons.  Thankfully, so far it appears that those statements were just the product of Trump’s characteristic campaign trail bluster, and not a serious policy stance.  One can only hope it stays that way – if not, the world will become a much more dangerous place.

          However, all of this obscures the fact that, despite the massive progress made towards disarmament between the U.S. and Russia and the widespread adoption of The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (a.k.a.- the Non-Prolifer ation Treaty or NPT) in recent years, the threat of nuclear war remains a constant, if diminished, existential threat to the entire human species.  The foibles and ambitions of everyone’s favorite communist backwater, North Korea, remain as worrying as ever after the rogue state performed two successful detonation tests last year, and as recently as  Feb. 12th, carried out a ballistic missile dry-run.  Their reluctant ally, China, has also been busy over the past decade, quietly expanding their stockpile of warheads and quickly modernizing their delivery systems.

          Perhaps the most disturbing development, however, is the silent arms race being waged between Pakistan and India.  Both countries have more than doubled their respective stockpiles in the past decade, and there’s little to indicate they plan to stop any time soon.  India has been rapidly upgrading its production facilities, and launched its first nuclear-capable submarine in 2014 with more on the way.  In response to the perceived threat from both Pakistan to the west and China to the north-east, the Indian military has also stepped up its research and development efforts in order to expand its strike range.  Pakistan, meanwhile, has begun deploying “tactical” weapons to its southern provinces, near the disputed Kashmir region.

          While the South Asian build up is deeply disconcerting, it is important to note that neither country has of yet developed thermonuclear capability.  Thermonuclear weapons utilize a standard fission reaction to kick-start a far more energetic fusion reaction, and are orders of magnitude more powerful per kilogram of payload than fission-only weapons.  At the moment, neither India nor Pakistan possesses warheads exceeding 40 kilotons of explosive yield, putting them more or less along the lines of the bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945.  

          However, this should bring us little comfort – a 2014 climate model study found that even a small regional conflict between the two countries resulting in a mere 100 15-kiloton detonations (less than 1% of global stockpiles) would kick approximately 5,000,000,000 kilograms of soot into the atmosphere, triggering a nuclear winter which would cut world-wide growing seasons by a month for at least 5 years, and depleting the ozone layer by up to 50% for 10.  The combination of colder global temperatures, shorter crop seasons, and increased ultraviolet radiation from the sun would likely trigger a global famine in which hundreds of millions would starve.

          Clearly, the use of nuclear weapons in any capacity would be morally repugnant, but what is far less clear is how we can for sure stop it from happening.  Deterrence and mutually assured destruction have worked so far, but as philosopher Bertrand Russell famously said, “You may reasonably expect a man to walk a tightrope safely for ten minutes; it would be unreasonable to do so without accident for two hundred years.”  

          Non-proliferation and disarmament, then, would appear to be the only permanent solution available, but how can we hope to achieve these goals now that the cat has escaped the bag? 

          “How to make nuclear weapons” has been indelibly written into the book of human knowledge, and even if we could get rid of all stockpiles tomorrow, there seems little we could do to prevent some rogue state or terrorist organization from acquiring the know-how 30 years from now.  Even worldwide non-proliferation seems like a distant reality.  I don’t how we could possibly convince rising powers like China and India that they should not pursue nuclear capability while we ourselves hold the second largest stockpile in the world.  But, I also don’t know how we could sleep soundly without them.  

          The terrifying reality of nuclear weapons so far is that so long as someone has them, then nobody is safe without them.  I wish I knew the solution to this problem – I do not – but I do know that we won’t get anywhere without talking about it.

Ford Mulligan Staff Reporter