Why Not Privatize the Police and Firefighters?

It is the year 70 BCE. You have worked your entire life as a hotelier with a small establishment near the Circus Maximus, offering room and board to those who come from far and wide to see the chariot races. It's not a great living, but it keeps you in bread and circuses without the need for government handouts. One night, to your horror, a fire breaks out in your hotel--who started it or how you don't know, but that doesn't matter now: you do your best to extinguish the blaze with pails of water and dirt. Unfortunately, the blaze is too much: your feeble efforts are in vain.

Suddenly, out of nowhere comes your salvation: the Fire Brigade arrives. Except that this is no ordinary fire brigade financed by the Senate and People of Rome--for no such entity exists. The very concept is a novel one to you and your fellow citizens. No, this particular Fire Brigade is run by one Marcus Licinius Crassus, one of Rome's richest and most powerful men and eventual member of the Triumvirate with Julius Caesar and Pompey. Crassus' firefighters are his personal slaves; they're not only the best at what they do--they're the only ones who do it.

Crassus steps down from his chariot, looking his usual glorious self, and asks you if you wouldn't mind filling out a bit of papyrus-work while his men prepare to fight the fire. No problem, you say--except that then you see the terms: "I hereby sell my hotel to Marcus Licinius Crassus for 5,000 sesterces (less than 1/5th its market value)." At first you scoff--"these terms are outrageous!" you say. "It's extortion!" Crassus sighs and says, "ok, have it your way" and calls his slaves off to go back home. Suddenly turning back as yet another room bursts into flames, your spirit breaks--and you call for Crassus to return with his men. And in one fateful moment, you sign away your life's work to a man with no scruples.

This is not legend: the history is all there in Plutarch's Lives and elsewhere in the record of Roman historians. This scene played itself out time and time again in the waning years of the Roman Republic, as Crassus made of himself Rome's principal landlord through the use of this private fire department. It is even alleged that Crassus also had his own arson brigade, which he utilized judiciously when nature itself was too slow in starting the desired conflagrations.

It is a scene that played on a continuing feedback loop in my mind as I watched Michael Moore's brilliant film Sicko the other night. Throughout the film, the barbaric extortion practiced by the United States healthcare system on those in desperate straits seemed as foreign and as repulsive to the citizens of Canada, France and Great Britain as Crassus' "fire brigade" seems to us. Why, they feel, must one hand over one's life savings for a service that is properly in the public domain? Why should one be forced to pay when one is least able or prepared to do so? If we have public police and firefighters, why not a public healthcare system?

I am not the first to raise this point, of course. Moore himself raises it in the context of the boogeyman that is "socialized medicine": in the film, he points out that we already have a number of "socialized" services, ranging from the police to the firefighters to the armed forces to the post office. The poignancy of this issue as it relates to the military is even the subject of a panel for YearlyKos '07. And certainly, the applicability of the model of such needed social services to the common good that is public health has been stressed by many a Democratic politician.

It is too easy, however, for conservatives to dismiss such a comparison. They point out, in proper conservative fashion, that police and fire have always been taxpayer-funded services in America, and medicine always private. They say that, unlike police or fire, healthcare is a purchaseable commodity--and as such, best handled with the famed efficiency of the "free market." They claim especially that the costs of making public such a system would be significantly greater to the average citizen than those of keeping the system private. Of course, these latter two claims are utterly spurious: the "free market" in healthcare is anything but free, while guaranteed health coverage costs less in the long run. Nevertheless, conservatives are able to kick just enough sand in the face of the public and muddy the waters just enough with these and other arguments to keep Americans in the Crassus-era of extortionary health coverage. The fact that conservatives are always on the wrong side of history--they're still calling the New Deal Unamerican to this day--troubles them not a whit: back in Ancient Rome, they'd be defending Crassus' fire department if there was money in it for them.

There is a clever reverse argument, however, that can be extremely effective and is grossly underused by proponents of guaranteed health coverage: If the free market is so effective and cost-efficient in providing critical social services, why not privatize the police force and the fire department?

This line of argument is particularly effective because it forces conservatives to explain when and why privatization is a bad thing, rather than arguing the drawbacks of making such systems public. I have used this argument many times against conservatives, and the results have never failed to be absolutely devastating. Responses to this argument tend to run along the following five lines:

1) "Because it's always been that way!" This is not a terribly clever argument, of course, nor would any major political figure use it. Nevertheless, Crassus' fire brigade is an effective couter-attack.

2) "Because health care is so much more expensive than police and fire departments!" Also a not-too-intelligent argument, the easy counter is that public healthcare saves more long run, just as public police and fire departments do.

3) "Because doctors don't make enough money under public healthcare!" This argument is simply a bold-faced lie. What actually happens is that disparities between the incomes of various types of doctors decrease--those earning the most do end up earning less.

4) "Because I don't want to pay more taxes!" To which one simply asks if they would be willing to accept a tax cut that got rid of the fire department. If no, why not? Rinse and repeat...

5) "Because I want to be able to choose private insurance!" Of course, this choice is never removed from them under a guaranteed system, just as one can always supplement the police with a private security force.

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The truth of the matter, of course, is that none of the above arguments are the real reason a conservative doesn't support the privatization of the police or firefighters. The real reason is that if such large systems so essential to the public good were privatized, the private companies would find that it was only worth their while to secure the lives and property of the very rich--or to extort everyone else. Just as the salaries of private contractors in Iraq dwarf those of publicly funded soldiers at great cost to the American Public, the only people who benefit from such privatization are the privateers themselves and those bought off by them. In other words, in the absence of a State Fire Department, the only private fire departments tend to act like Crassus' noble enterprise.

Every American understands this principle on a fundamental level, whether they can articulate it or not--but rarely are Americans allowed to tap into this commonsense understanding when it comes to healthcare.

In my experience, the best way to get even conservative Americans to understand the necessity of a public healthcare system is to make them confront their own distaste for a private fire and police system--and to force them to attempt to articulate their reasons for that distaste. It's a simple process from there to applying the same reasoning to public health.

Because in the end, only the most hardened sociopath can defend the Crassus way of running a healthcare system.

Memo to DKos: Jim Webb Can Call It An Occupation--Why Can't You?

As Markos pointed out yesterday, Jim Webb's blistering statement against the Capitulation Bill in the Congress was like a breath of fresh air in a Democratic Party apparently too afraid to stand up for public opinion in the face of a President with a 28% approval rating. Even more interesting to me, however, was the fact that Mr. Webb, a military man throughout his career considered too hawkish and too conservative by many progressives to gain their support, consistently referred to the disaster ongoing in Iraq as an occupation (with only one exception when referring to Joe Lieberman's stance). Let's look at his statements again:

On the one hand, I find myself unable to vote against a measure that is necessary to fund our troops who are now in harm's way. On the other, I will not relent from my continuing efforts to bring this occupation to an end.

"I will continue to press for a strategy of strong diplomatic engagement, which will enable us to end the occupation of Iraq, to increase regional stability, to fight international terrorism more effectively, and to address our broad strategic interests around the world. emphasis added

Jim Webb knows to use the word "occupation", I must believe, largely because his military experience leads him to understand the difference on a gut level between the sort of fighting he was engaged in in the jungles of Vietnam, and the long slow bleed of our troops in Iraq who are being used as sitting ducks and targets of an angry home-grown resistance.

I have made clear again and again and again the reasons why we should be using the language of "occupation" to describe the conflict in Iraq rather than the language of "war": wars can end only in victory or defeat, while occupations end only in annexation or withdrawal. The business of war is killing enemies and seizing territory; the business of occupation is pacifying areas you already control and exploiting their resources. In all respects, our involvement Iraq is an occupation rather than a war--which doesn't preclude the idea of a civil war going on between indigenous parties in Iraq. Most importantly, if we are truly fighting a "war" in Iraq, then calling for withdrawal does indeed equal a call for "defeat"; but if we are instead engaged in the "occupation" of a hostile country, withdrawal is simply inevitable and must happen sooner rather than later, given the hostility of the populus. In the context of the congressional funding battles, calling our presence an "occupation" makes defunding seem less like denying troops bullets in the middle of a firefight (a lie), and more like packing up our occupational operations and leaving the Iraqi people alone to manage their futures as they see fit (far closer to the truth).

And yet, in spite of the apparent obviousness of these facts, it often seems to me that this simple linguistic framing gets more traction in the halls of Congress than it does even on Daily Kos. With the Capitulation Bill at the forefront of most bloggers' minds, the topic of Iraq has been a central issue. And in most cases, those who speak for Dailykos have been consistently using the "war" frame over the last three days--a frame that has in many ways been one of the key sources of our inability to fight back against the immoral policies of the Bush administration.

First and foremost, we have Markos himself:

I've never been under any illusion that this war would end before the next Democratic president took charge. But when a party wins control of Congress on ending the war, I thought they would at least work to make that happen.

and here:

Thus far, Hillary has somehow managed to deceive voters into thinking that she's against against this war, despite having promised to keep troops in Iraq if elected president

Then there's BarbinMD:

"We're into the fifth year of George Bush's war

And DarkSyde:

The only reason I became involved beyond the casual level is because I don't like being lied to -- about a lot of stuff, but mostly about a pointless, devastating war

Or mcjoan, right in the headline:

Senate votes on ending the War Tomorrow

And Meteor Blades:

Marching Toward an Iraq War Moratorium

And last year's highest-impact diarist bonddad:

We Can't Afford The Iraq War

Of those who are said to speak for the site, only Kagro X has been valiantly and consistently using the "occupation" meme with effective and crystal clarity. It is possible to talk about Iraq only with the frames of "occupation" and "withdrawal", and Kagro has done it beautifully. For example, see here:

But the strangeness doesn't end there. Somewhere along the line, the preferred argument against actually de-funding the Iraq occupation -- that it would amount to an "abandonment" of the troops -- became the argument against timelines.

and here:

From all indications, today is going to be a lousy day. We are going to see another blank check issued on the Iraq occupation, and everybody is going to scratch their heads and wonder how it happened -- and that's only if you're still willing to give Congressional Democrats the benefit of the doubt.

I don't wish to seem to be misdirecting my anger with congressional Democrats against my fellow bloggers and staunch progressives here, nor is my intent to call out any particular individual writers. It just so happens that these particular individuals are among those who own, operate or speak for DailyKos, so their visibility and importance provide worthy exemplars.

All I'm saying is that if Jim Webb can do it, surely we can as well. It is not difficult to change one's language regarding this Occupation, and it can do everyone a world of good. Pretty please, with sugar on top?

UPDATE: I do, of course, agree with the many kossack commenters who have pointed out that Webb's speech means little without a "no" vote to back it up. All too true, and Virginia voters should hold him to account for it. Regardless of bluster or hypocrisy, however, his choice is language is still quite instructive.

Ditching "Choice": MSOC, clammyc and I Talk Abortion Framing

It's no secret that progressives are slowly but surely losing the abortion wars: from parental notification legislation to Roe v. Wade sunset laws in many states to the recent Supreme Court decision on late-term abortion, abortion-rights advocates have been playing defense and losing ground for years. And we are losing ground in public polling as well, in spite of overall favorability towards freedom to have an abortion in general.

It is a controversial opinion of mine that part of the reason we are falling behind in this battle is our outdated, ineffective and even counterproductive use of the word "choice" as our crumbling rhetorical fortress. It is an opinion, however, that is shared not only by myself but also by clammyc and even MaryScott O'Connor of MyLeftWing as well.

In a 40-minute audio segment on our new blog Political Nexus, MSOC, clammyc and I discuss the intricacies of why "choice" is such a terrible frame, and what alternatives we might want to embrace in its place--as well as the weakenesses of our opponents' "pro-life" framing and the ways in which we can exploit the rhetorical chinks in their armor.

Unfortunately, I am unable to embed a direct link to download the show here on DailyKos, or I would certainly do so. It can be downloaded directly from BlogTalkRadio here, or streamed from our blog here. If a little bit of slef-promotion can be pardoned on behalf of myself and my good friends clammyc and MSOC, it's a great discussion that delves right into the heart of the issues at hand.

To give everyone some idea of what we are talking about and why we are pushing to ditch "choice" as a frame, allow me to present one of the arguments we put forward: polling on the issue of partial-birth abortion is not favorable for us: at least 69% of the American Public want the procedure banned, with exceptions for the life of the mother. One of the biggest reasons for this is because they believe that women are whimsically changing their minds during the third trimester, choosing to abort otherwise viable fetuses not presenting major risks to the mother's life/health. While it is true that this perception is a product of misinformation, it is also a product of our own framing on the issue: as long as our side is saying that it is a woman's person's "right to choose" what she does with her own body up until the fetus/baby exits the womb, people are going to assume that these decisions are being made irresponsibly and casually. Not to mention the fact that most people would indeed consider a third-trimester fetus viable (without extraordinary measures) outside the womb a living, separate person.

And that is just one of many arguments that can be made against the use of "choice" as a frame.

For a preview of another argument, allow me to excerpt a quote from MSOC herself, an ardent abortion-rights supporter:

MSOC: It's about pro-privacy...You know, when I hear a politician say, "I support a woman's right to choose", I want to vomit! It's a guaranteed kiss-40-percent-of-your-voting-population-goodbye. If a Republican were even considering your positions, your oh-so-nuanced but brilliant positions on the environment, on the economy, on the war, on everything else, you've got them. You've got them in the palm of your hand: "well, this guy's not so bad, he's reasonable, I think I could go for a guy like this." And then the guy like this says, "I support a woman's right to choose." Oooohhhhh God, he's another one of them, one of those idiots who just can't say what he really thinks.

CLAMMYC: Yeah.

MSOC: People are dismissing him because he supposedly supports a woman's right to choose, but I'm dismissing him because he's a pussy.

All of this and much, much more (which I may turn into a diary one of these days) is online and available either at Political Nexus or for download at BlogTalkRadio.

Give it a listen, and let us know what you think, either here in this diary or in the comments at Political Nexus. Thanks!

More Proof of Media Bias: The Terrible Scourge of "Leftism"

It has been nearly impossible to surf the web in the wake of Sarkozy's recent victory in the French elections without coming across one of the most overlooked framing atrocities in all of politics: the use of the inherently negative word "leftist" to describe progressives and liberals here around the world and here in the United States.

This condescendingly destructive word is used with reckless abandon in the U.S. and international press with nary a peep from our side nor usage of its equivalent to describe the other side. Moreover, the word is used to conflate violent anarchists and protesters like those who rioted in the wake of the French election, with more mainstream progressives like those at Daily Kos.

Now, before you turn away and say "no big deal", consider the following: while framing is certainly not enough to win a debate on its own merits, consistent and pervasive use of negative words and constructs can take a draining toll on one's ability to fight one's ideoligical opponents. Indeed, when one is confronted with a framing issue that is transparently one-sided, it behooves the activist to take steps to correct those usages and constructs in one's own discourse, and hopefully from there in that of the traditional media.

And this issue is very one-sided. If we examine the comparative instances of the words "leftist" vs. "rightist" in a Google search we come across the following:

GOOGLE SEARCH:
Leftist: 7,340,000
Rightist: 991,000

That's a ratio of 7.5:1. Now, why does this matter? It matters because almost ANY word ending in -ism or -ist connotes doctrinaire, ideologically driven extremism lacking in the virtues of pragmatism, open-mindedness or tolerance. If you doubt it, consider a handy list of -isms at Wikipedia: they include such niceties as communism, socialism, imperalism, zionism, authoritarianism, fascism, darwinism, creationism, neoliberalism, neoconservatism, and many more. Regardless of your agreement with and openness to the idea in question, the mere attachment of the suffix "ism" or "ist" to the word makes it inherently uncomfortable. Indeed, anyone with serious background in framing, social linguistics and/or rhetoric understands this as a matter of course.

Let's take a few examples:
1. All it takes is a simple "ism/ist" to turn a religion like Islam into a violent extremist (get that word "extremist"?) movement like "Islamism".

2. Say the word "capitalist" out loud. Now say the words "free market". Which one gave you a happier, sunnier feeling? Now say the words "socialist" and "common good". See what I mean?

3. Try the words "progressivism" or "liberalism". Those being honest with themselves will admit that these words sound negative--even if they are progressives and liberals.

In fact, all you need do is read Dan McLaughlin at RedState.com whine about the use of the word "rightist" to describe Nicolas Sarkozy to see that the other side certainly understands the importance of these kinds of usages.

Let us return now to that 7.5:1 ratio of "leftism" to "rightism". But first, it is important to note that dictionary entries for leftism and for rightism reflect the fact that "leftism" is no more extreme a reference than is "rightism", nor is "leftism" more relevant on the world stage than "rightism" in today's corporate-centric world. Nevertheless, if we examine some simple searches on traditional media news sites, we see the following astounding numbers:

Associated Press search:
Leftist: 8,720
Rightist: 2

That's right. Just TWO uses of the word "rightist", while word "leftist" is used to denote everyone from anti-nuclear activists in India to violent Colombian drug-trafficking rebels to Canadian environmentalists to Venezuelan populist dictators to mainstream French Socialists to Cuban communists to mainstream Progressives in Mexico to immigration activists in Turkey.

And that's not all. Other "traditional" media also egregiously oversample the word "leftist". Consider these:

Reuters search:
Leftist: 926
Rightist: 121
RATIO: 7.6:1

CNN search:
Leftist: 1,358
Rightist: 267
RATIO: 5.1:1

ABC News search:
Leftist: 153 pages
Rightist: 7 pages
RATIO: 21.9:1

CNN search:
Leftist: 1,358
Rightist: 267

Then, of course, there's the Fox, the gold standard of right wing propaganda:

Fox News search:
Leftist: 1,090
Rightist: 29
RATIO: 37.6:1

The most even usage of the two words comes from the New York Times, a search of whose pages still reflects a hefty slant:

New York Times:
Leftist: 9,886
Rightist: 2983
RATIO: 3.3:1

What this means is that in a huge number of news articles, we are forced to believe that there is a debate in any given area between "leftists" and "conservatives"--with the conservatives getting a head start on semantics alone. Imagine if that debate were instead between "Progressives" and "Rightists"--how many more minds might be change just on the basis of altering two words alone?
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It is time to bring balance back to the traditional media in this area as well with a few simple steps:

1. Eschew the use of the word "leftist" in your vocabulary, if you haven't already.

2. Use the word "Rightist" as often as you can to refer to conservative doctrinaire positions.

3. Write emails and letters to your newspapers, cable channels, and internet news outlets in protest whenever you see the word "leftist" without equivalent use of the word "rightist" to denote their opponents.

It's about time we Progressives fought back against the Rightist Press on semantics as well as their actual biased coverage of events.

By the way, clammyc and I will be spending about 25 minutes discussing this and other issues related to leftism and rightism on our radio show at our Political Nexus radio blog 3pm PST today, Monday May 7th. The recorded show won't be on the site for a few hours, but you can listen live here.

Jon Stewart Delivers Greatest Dem Performance in 6 Years

UPDATE: VIDEO LINK IS HERE (thanks to kossack Ekaterin).  Watch it again and again--you won't regret it.

Tonight on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart owned John McCain and showed the world what a REAL Democratic leader who understands how to tell the truth and sound authoritative doing it looks like. I say this without exaggeration: it was the most amazing rhetorical performance I have seen from any progressive in the last six years. In one 10 minute debate with John McCain, he did the following:

--compared the daily horrific tragedies in Iraq with the VA Tech shooting to show just how bad things are over in Iraq

--obliterated the very idea that we are fighting a "war" in Iraq, challenging McCain to explain how military strategy and battleships could possibly factor into "winning" in Iraq

--insisted that the "war" as such was over once we had captured Saddam Hussein

--obliterated the idea the timetables for withdrawal will allow the "terrorists and Sunni insurgents and Shia militias" to win, by telling the truth that it's THEIR country and they can wait us out as long as they want

--called McCain's bluff when he said that withdrawal would constitute surrender, by stating matter-of-factly that these groups are fighting not with us but with one another while we babysit them, and then going on to state unequivocally, quoting Petraeus, that any solution must be political rather than military. And that benchmarks and timetables are an essential part of diplomatic and political solutions.

--demanded that McCain explain to him how criticizing the President was a greater failure to support the troops than extending their tours of duty, initiating stop losses, and failing abjectly to keep Walter Reed up to snuff.

--explained that Al-Qaeda's stated purpose is to draw America out into a long and bloody that drains our lives and our treasury...and that even granted the premise that terrorists in Iraq want to follow us back to America, they will do so one way or another.

--challenged McCain to show him what the "new strategy" was, and laid out the truth quite clearly: that we can either put over 350,000 troops on the ground there (full occupation), or withdraw (ending occupation).

And there's so, so much more where that came from.

Let me tell you something--I have not been inspired by ANY Presidential candidate currently in the race for the Democratic nomination in their entire campaign than I was by just TEN MINUTES of watching Jon Stewart. Which might be because Jon Stewart has a freaking spine and isn't afraid to tell the truth--or because his writers are paid to be sharp-witted and incisive, rather than namby-pambying fools like Axelrod.

Stewart obliterated a flummoxed and utterly outmatched McCain by changing the entire debate, and leaving him with absolutely NO coherent ground on which to stand--something I have yet to see Reid, Pelosi or any of our prospective candidates come close to doing.

For those who say that a Democratic politician cannot seriously tell the truth about this ersatz "war" and truly connect with the American people in a way that leaves the Republican opposition no chance of even engaging the debate, Jon Stewart just proved you wrong.

If you didn't see it tonight, download it tomorrow from Comedy Central's Motherload, and then bookmark it and save it to your hard drive. If Dem leaders and candidates want to win, they'll watch Stewart's performance 10,000 times until his clarion words, searing clarity and gutsy demeanor are seared irrevocably into their consciences. Watch it--there are more lessons in that one short debate than I could provide in hundreds of diaries.

Because the man I watched tonight clobber McCain in a heated debate did more to earn my vote for any office than any Democrat has in the last six years. Every frame was perfect, every stand firm and considered, and every statement ringing with truth, rather than politically expedient bullshit.