Well That Went By Quickly : Best and Worst of 2012

As this is the last 2012 post for Academy, I believe it's appropriate to become a little bit nostalgic. This year has been big for Academy and it's all because of you, the readers. Before I get on with my list of the best and worst of the year, I would like to thank you all for taking the time to read this real first year of Academy's existence. Without you, I'd merely have a pointless soapbox on which to stand on. 

Anyway, onward with the list. 

Best of 2012

Women Representing Arab Countries at the Olympics

London had one very important job while hosting the Olympics this year; make its mark in Olympic history as the country that had to follow China's Olympic opening. They did so, not with Danny Boyle but instead with Sarah Attar. Ms. Attar was the first female athletic representative from Saudi Arabia to ever compete in the Olympics, and was part of a swell of women athletes from countries that are historically tied to not encouraging such a behavior. But Saudi Arabia did not stop at one female competitor as Wojdan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani also competed in women's judo. This came after what could only be described as a Saudi internal scuffle between conservatives on twitter and dazed Saudi Olympic officials sprang up conversation as to whether or not women could even be allowed to practice sports and be seen in sporting events at all by the general public. Thankfully for viewers of the Olympics and the brave girls who didn't let internet trolls get to them, they were allowed to compete and they showed the rest of the world that progress for women's rights is indeed possible anywhere, even at the Olympics. If there ever was a question as to whether or not the Olympics serves as a greater purpose than the sports themselves, you can cite 2012 as one prime example of the power of humanism that the Olympics are able to evoke, even under obtuse circumstances.

Mario Draghi Keeping them Honest

Let's be frank, the Eurozone has been severely crippled by this economic downturn more by political inactivity than by a lack of a recovery. Everywhere in the Eurozone, you have leaders that have had to broker agreements between their interest groups, their weakened parties and coalitions, their people, the rest of Europe and the banks. This has led to mixed results across Europe. Germany teetered on dropping out of the Euro until the German courts decided to bite the Nth bullet for the Euro by backing the bailout fund in September. Italy decided to politically implode in the later months of 2012 by destroying a technocratic government and pushing for elections which will pit an unelectable former communist against an electable former felon, if only to add a bit of drama to the scene. To top it all off, Greece checked its balance sheets in February of this year and came to the conclusion that the recovery was going to cost slightly more and take more time, hinting at a possible third bailout later in the year. Is there a rock to be found among these tall waves? Mr. Draghi is probably the closest thing to it. For the entirety of 2012, financial news like this one depicting Mr. Draghi's honesty about the health (or lack thereof) of the Eurozone injected a sense of humanity when many state leaders looking to justify higher emergency taxes were wary of explaining to their people exactly why their taxes had gone up. If anything, Mr. Draghi's honest approach is constantly extending a political lifeline to EU leaders looking to use this crisis as a way to strengthen bonds between nations and ensure that future crises like this one are managed better with greater tools in the EU toolkit. 

Coalition of the Outnumbered

The 2012 American Presidential Election told pollsters everywhere (except for perhaps Nate Silver) that this time around it wasn't the economy, stupid. Instead, it was all about offering an honest progressive package to minority voters on the part of the Obama team. The electoral college landslide and the popular vote win that ensued was painted by some Republicans as being proof of promising gifts as Gov. Romney put it to those constituents, but the fact of the matter is that the Democratic ticket merely involved minorities in the conversation about what progressive reform looked like in 2012, whereas the Republicans opted to avoid the issue altogether on ideological and moral grounds. More importantly, the Obama campaign won the heart-vote, that gut instinct that simply cannot be persuaded by numbers alone, of these constituencies. Instead of alienating Latinos with talk of heavy deportation or alienating African Americans by enacting "voter-fraud" turned "vote-suppression" laws like the Republicans did, Democrats were much more moderate in their rousing of the base, making their platform effectively more centrist and more approachable. Why does the coalition then make it on the list of the best of 2012? Simply because regardless of what either campaign said or promised, it still was up to them to give President Obama the victory by going to the polls. Some mailed them in, others sat in lines for hours even after the election was called simply because they believed in what they were doing. Their vote is more than just a political expression, it's their stake in a rapidly demographically changed country, and that is something to celebrate regardless of what party you come from. 

Worst of 2012

Taliban Assassination Attempt of Malala Yousafzai

The Taliban are not nice people. This much is evident. They proved this fact earlier this year when they attempted to assassinate Malala Yousafzai in October in an effort to silence her call for greater rights for girls. The backlash that the Taliban received in Pakistan was not enough to derail it, but it was enough to genuinely challenge their notion of being right about suppressing women's rights in Pakistan. It takes a real idiot to think that creating a martyr for an opposing cause will prove fruitful, but it takes a real coward to do so by trying to shoot a little girl. If only by the grace of God Malala was able survive the attack, let alone recover in Britain in the months following, only adding on to the failure of the Taliban attack and their supposed need to take out a little girl. I really do wish that once Malala is fully recovered that she go back to Pakistan, even with death threats still out there for her, and continue her work of giving women a voice in life under the Taliban, and remind the twisted cowards who tried to kill her that they essentially failed in all facets of their plan and have been reduced to child killers instead of the religious warriors they make themselves out to be.

Benghazi Consulate Attack

I have been meaning to return to this topic ever since more intelligence came in, but I have had to postpone it for more pressing issues that needed to be covered. Here you can read what I had to say about the attack in the days that followed, but I figure that this needs a final wrap up here. The terrorist attack that unfolded that night told the world three things. One, that terrorism is still alive. It may not be as strong as it once was, but radical militant elements of the Jihadi sort are still quite operational in some parts of the world, especially where unrest is high as it is in new Libya's Benghazi. Two, the United States needs to drastically re-evaluate its preparedness for defense of its diplomatic missions in hot-spots around the world. This is being made evident by murmurs coming from Senate hearings as well as the raised levels of unrest in the Arab world after the Arab Spring as mentioned before. This seems like a simple fix but in reality it raises a lot of separate issues. For example, what does something like the Fiscal Cliff say about funding for diplomatic mission security? Also what sort of message do extra armed forces surrounding diplomatic missions say to host countries and their populations? The worst part of this is that all these questions must be answered on a country-by-country basis, multiplying the severity of the challenge. Thirdly and lastly, in this new world of ours, are diplomats safe as they once were? Historically speaking, diplomats have always been regarded as untouchable entities of foreign states. They were to be treated as gold dust, but in a world where there are constantly new questions about the rules of war and who follows them, are diplomats inherently safe anymore? This question unfortunately will be answered with time, but here's to hoping that diplomats of any country are still regarded as off-limits by combatants. 

Anti-Scientists

The title is a bit obscure, but anti-scientists are exactly what they sound like. They are people that inherently doubt expert opinions on concepts that they find obscure or unimportant in the realm of science. 2012 has been an absolute treasure chest in terms of scientific advances and discovery, for instance the Higgs Boson particle was discovered this July, giving researchers a depth of the universe like never before. Meanwhile on Mars, NASA's Curiosity Rover landed much to the relief and joy of NASA scientists and began transmitting an insane amount of information about a foreign planet millions of miles across the solar system to Earth. While all that was going on, there were still people who doubted and belittled the work of these scientists who spend their lives giving hard meaning to everyone else's lives. Those sorts of people are the ones who really drag humanity through the mud instead of helping everyone else raise it and try to avoid getting dirty for no reason. Even worse, many are proud of their skepticism to such a tee that they run on it as political platforms. If it wasn't for scientists' logic-induced stoicism, I'd hate to wonder what sort of contraption they would come up with to try to teach these anti-scientists a lesson. Fortunately, scientists have better things to do than worry about what some people who shy away from enlightenment have to say or think; they just keep going, discovering wonderful things about our universe and our world that deserve amazing praise day in and day out. In 2013, let's try to be a little more trusting of the people who have done their work on problems of the universe instead of taking the easy way out and criticizing from the get-go.

And so here we are, at the end of what has been a fantastic year for this blog and I truly hope your readership as well. I wish you all a wonderful New Year and hope to see you back here on Academy in 2013. 

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Grow Up About Gun Control; A Serious Talk on Why Guns Are Such An Issue In the United States

There are few things that can really be considered tough to talk about. I don't necessarily mean tough in the sense that the content material is too difficult or too sensitive, but instead tough as in the potential the topic creates for tangents of different political leanings to take up and effectively take off with, rendering the initial topic mute to the world. Gun rights in the United States are one such topic. To the right, talking about whether or not people have the right to own guns is immediately taken as the first domino in a series of quickly falling rights, leading to a cataclysmic showdown with the federal government in the second Civil War. To the left talking about whether or not people have the right to own guns quickly becomes a starting point for first bashing the NRA and subsequently any "evil" right-wing interest group with ties in Washington.

Against my better judgement, I'd like to try to foresee those tangents and ask that anyone reading this abandon prejudices for the sake of having a real conversation about gun rights and gun control. This conversation doesn't need to include the NRA, nor does it need to include talks of secession. It needs to be able to stop, look at the gun attacks we've had this year and say that lives were lost due to some sort of error down the line of people purchasing, owning, and keeping guns. So let's start from the top.

Is there an absolute human right to own a gun? I'm tempted to say yes, but not on grounds of divine intervention (I don't think God cares one way or another whether or not you own a .308, the same way he doesn't care if you own a Ford Taurus), nor on grounds of state endowment of a right to own a gun (states have historically struggled with the idea of "rights by majority" and "rights by necessity") so we can't really use either as an argument for or against. There is simply too much subjectivity on both sides to successfully garner an objective answer. Perhaps the right to own a gun falls under a category of owning any other thing that may be dangerous. But there is something to be said about a difference between owning a handgun and owning a firecracker, so maybe ownership of dangerous things does not quite take into account the scope of owning firearms. What I can say is this; ownership of any thing could in theory be fine if that thing is not putting anyone in danger of any negative externality.

Perhaps then ownership of any thing really comes down to a utilitarian approach; a "do least harm" sort of idea where even a nuclear weapon would be theoretically legal to own should it pose no objective threats to anyone else. So is that the case with firearms? I can imagine that to some extents, this rule does not really apply. There are some types of firearms that overstate their purpose of providing hunting or defense interests, in the sense that it would be, not trying to be cruel here, virtually overkill. For instance, a military grade fully automatic M16 is overkill whether you take it hunting or keep it at home to ware off petty burglars. This overkill extends itself to being dangerous to the public should it fall into the wrong hands. So in a certain sense, ownership of some weapons, while endorsing rights of ownership do not provide an adequate utilitarian response for the danger they inherently provide as firearms always do (to the extent of their power obviously).

On the opposite side of the coin, most firearm ownership is very much insufficient when it comes to satisfying what in the U.S at least is the second portion of the second amendment. If the allowance of a militia is to be interpreted as private citizens having a fighting chance against a tyrannical government, then that particular portion of the second amendment may as well be null and void. There is simply no way that armed citizenry can width-stand the force of the entire American army. There isn't even a sense of having an honorable end to it all because of the  use of airstrikes or drones don't make it a fair fight. Better yet, there is historical evidence of people having tried to enforce that second amendment against the federal government and having failed even when the technology gap was much smaller; see Civil War.

Either way then whether to maintain rights of ownership or rights of defense, having highly capable and consequently very dangerous weapons available to the general public seem to bring present danger with little tangible positives to be found.

BJS - Homicides 1974-2004

So then what of less capable, perhaps less dangerous firearms like for instance pistols? Yes, the capacity for these weapons to inflict unwarranted damage has a much lower rate than rifles or automatic weapons so they are definitely safer on an individual basis. But the Bureau of Justice has shown that between 1976 and 2004 homicides by handguns are incredibly higher than any other sort of weaponry used in such cases. So while handguns theoretically offer less danger in terms of bullets per second or bullets fired, we cannot ignore the fact that the statistics make handguns the most deadly of any sort of weapon in the United States.

Is this because there is an amendment allowing citizens to keep weapons? Not quite. Execute a quick Wikipedia search like I did and you will find that other countries with some sort of acceptance of the right to bear arms have lower per capita gun related deaths than the U.S. Is this because the United States has a deep gun culture? Not really. In that same list from before, many countries have rich gun-making histories yet significantly lower gun related deaths than the U.S. What could it possibly be then?

The answer I believe lies somewhere outside statistics. It sounds strange, knowing that the more objective proof you have of a phenomenon the more reason you should have to believe in it but if that were the case then this problem would have been resolved by now. I am also fairly confident that it doesn't start at the societal level either; there is no "Godlessness" that is forcing evil onto the U.S nor have video games ever brought about slaughter of innocents in real life (only ignorance to individual problems have caused that).

At the end of the day, I believe it all comes down to a mixture of different issues, explaining exactly why this issue is so contentious. It is not divisive because there are rights of people at stake or because there isn't a good enough scapegoat. It is divisive because so many relatively small issues feed onto themselves in a continuous feedback loop ever promoting the issue; the trouble is nobody knows where to start fixing it. I will describe it as follows.

You, a normal human being, have an inherent sense of duty to protect yourself. As a citizen, as a business owner, or as a crook, you know that the best form of defense that is accessible, cheap, and effective is a gun. You can go to your local Walmart right now and check that fact yourself. Now in theory there is nothing wrong with that; nobody should tell you your life isn't worth protecting. The feedback loop starts when everyone begins walking around with a gun given the fact that guns are readily accessible. People are not thick, they pick up on the fact that everyone else has the same opportunity to have a gun as a form of protection. So, like the very first caveman who realized his caveman neighbor could also pick up a rock, the "modern caveman" quickly begins looking for a much bigger gun. What happens next is right up Adam Smith's alley; someone decides that seeing as how everyone is in the market for better guns, there's money to be made in all this. So gun companies begin to cash in on this very big demand. Again, nothing wrong with exposing a high demand market.

But when that market starts to produce items that in some way shape or form fall through the cracks and into the hands of those not looking to protect themselves but instead looking to cause havoc among us, that creates a big problem. Ironically, the only logical response anyone can have to knowledge of this fact is to go out and buy more guns in order to protect him or herself from these criminals. So, the loop becomes bigger, and more guns end up getting on both the regular market and the darker markets. Fear leads to more guns leads to more fear and back again it goes. Compounding that loop are the intangibles of society that tend to provide the most hurt of all when applied to loose weapons; the mentally unstable, the gun shop owner looking to make a quick buck instead of screening correctly, the lobbyist looking to keep gun companies out of the loop entirely, all throw wrenches in an already malfunctioning system.

Is there a solution to all this? Perhaps you can start by looking at whether or not the gun control laws that are in effect already are being looked after in a good way. Then you can start to see where the holes really are. Is there a place that has gun control laws on the books but isn't doing much to solve the issue? Well then perhaps it's time for a reassessment of that particular community. Is there a place where gun control has worked? If so, what can that particular community tell us about what works well? Also, considering that no law abiding citizen who owns a gun would use that gun to murder someone (hence the "law abiding" characteristic) what objection would they have to registering their firearm with their local police station, or perhaps their state? We've already ruled out hiding the possibility of a massive pro-gun insurgency and we've eliminated criminality from law abiding gun carriers, so what is the issue with forcing gun owners to tell others that they do indeed have a gun which they would never use for nefarious purposes?

Gun registration would also help keep unregistered firearms from ending up in the wrong hands (assuming hefty prison time would be served for such an offense by both the owner and the dealer of the gun). But for this to work there needs to be a more open dialogue between the individual and the state with regards to the liberties of the individual and how the state is trying to help them maintain said liberties. There is a characterization of anti-establishment, anti-government, pro-conspiracy theory Americans out there among us which to some extent is as true as the foil of that very characterization, but that all stems from poor efforts on both sides to reach a consensus on what the government is there for. Essentially, there needs to be an abandonment of this overblown individualism in exchange for legal assurance of both physical defense and defense of rights.

With that sort of transaction, gun politics can begin to become a thing of the past. There will still be generations who would never agree to these sorts of things on archaic principles alone, but if they truly believe in a robust sense of individualism then they will allow the loss of some privacy for the gain of many spared lives who otherwise would never have had a chance of experiencing individualism at all. It is a societal trade, but it is a trade that should be done for the sake of innocents everywhere. Historically speaking self protection and the right to correct injustices have slowly been handed over to the state as dangers have been proved to be neutralized by the state itself. The attitude of some living in the United States needs to follow on this trend, because it is their justified fear that drives the issues we still have today.

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Where's The Manual for This Thing? Arab Spring and Democracy in the Middle East

If 2011 was the sunrise of the Arab Spring, 2012 might very well be the third time the snooze button has been violently slammed in an attempt to not leave a very comfortable dream. Before the Arab Spring's day will be over, many years will have passed, but those that we have seen so far have created more questions than anyone could ever have anticipated. Recent events in Egypt and the ongoing civil war in Syria have not just asked questions about what democracy would look like in an Islamic setting, but also what democracy means for sectarian struggles in each specific country. Regardless of what you make of these bits of news, one thing is certain; democracy does not come naturally to the Middle East.

There is a special distinction to be made here. Democracy does not come naturally to the Middle East, not the people of the Middle East. It seems odd to think that genetics have anything to do with understanding the concept of Democracy. What instead might have something to say about how well Democracy sticks is the culture that gives way to it. Democracy cannot be considered just a form of government or a heavy ideal. It is, for better or worse, a culture in its own right, always at odds with the state of the current level of Conservatism that roots itself in mainly socio-religious camps. Historically Democracy has always followed this path. The very start of Democracy in ancient Athens was a fight between the conveniently named Democrats who wanted to maintain a democracy and Conservatives who wanted to maintain an oligarchy that supported the status quo. It should not come as a surprise that this is still the way in which Democracy is practiced in parts of the world that have adopted it and for the most part strive to perfect the idea.

But to get from Athens to Venice to Cromwellian England to the United States and supposedly to the United Nations, you need several hundreds of years to, putting it lightly, work out some kinks. Concerns regarding who could vote, who could work, who could learn, who could own property, and even who could be considered to be a human being were all questions that society at one point answered at the very slow pace of generational turnover. Needless to say the secular portion of Democracy was not built overnight. The important thing to remember is that it was indeed built, and today's Democracy is not only more flexible in its approach to modern issues of inclusiveness, but it is without a doubt the moving force rather than the reactionary force it once was. Conservatism is still its foil, but it is no longer its oppressive parent.

That being said, this is a very narrow and concise view of Democracy as it transgressed in the Western World. It is enough though to draw sharp comparisons between the history of the Western World and that of the Islamic World in order to explain why Democracy is having such a troubled and violent period of integration in the latter.

For one, there has never been an expansion of popular rights in traditionally Islamic countries. This has for a long time been wrongly attributed to the "Islamic" portion of that particular phrase when instead the emphasis should have been on the "countries" portion. The greatest changes in the way people saw rights and entitlement to social benefits (to be completely cautious, social benefits here does not connote modern social benefits such as retirement security, healthcare, etc., but instead to benefit from a functioning society through complete access to services and goods as citizens) came about between the Renaissance and the First World War. In this time Western cultures established the precedent and procedures for extending rights of citizenship and humanity to demographics that lacked them.

At the same time, the Muslim world was really one world; the Ottoman Empire. Because of its relative power, its internal stability, and half-baked tolerance, there was very little reason for anyone to think of expanding political rights and inclusion. Because the situation for many was just "good enough" for so long, there was no emphasis that mirrored the truly terrible conditions of feudalism and its social remnants that lingered into the age of mercantilism in Europe. The Ottoman millet system allowed for major religions to have their own space within the Ottoman empire, something European states struggled for a long time to achieve. Although Jews and Christians were considered lesser than their Muslim counterparts, they were still subject to their own religious laws and could carry out their cultures without significant if any interference (so long as they remained loyal subjects of course). The major point to begotten out of this is the following; the Ottoman tolerance was enough to stifle any calls for more tolerance, but its lack of updating caused it to slowly become more draconian in nature when put up against European suffrage movements.

The greater part of the 20th century continues the same motif of the state not being conducive to changing of social tendencies if you look at what happened after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. While civil rights were being sorted in the United States, European powers were slowly but surely returning their Middle Eastern play-things to the global toy-box. The only problem was who do you put in charge of colonies that you are abandoning? De facto dictators seemed to be their best bet in most places. These dictators however were not state-builders, they were status-quo maintainers (if there is such a thing). Because of this, sectarian issues that European powers neglected when drawing the lines were never planned to be resolved. Instead, the ruling class normally made it a point to establish itself as the indisputable leader not out of religious fervor but instead to simply remain in power often not for the sake of being in power but instead for the sake of being alive.

Fast forward to just before the Arab Spring, you found yourself with countries formerly under Ottoman rule, currently under dictatorships, and with stagnation at the middle to lower class level. Essentially, you found yourself with countries that had an outdated understanding of tolerance, ruled by those hellbent on maintaining the status quo supporting a cultural struggle that had it not been for an error in judgement would have never happened. Of course rage had to have been the most appropriate answer given the lack of a system of governmental turnover. But the changes in the Middle East were not made to secularize the countries involved, they were made to expand the number of people who could benefit under the current socio-political system. 

The Arab Spring was never about instituting Democracy over-night, instead it was made to retake resources, both tangible and not, from the few political elite who had them and disperse them to traditional family leaders of the more powerful cultural castes. There were more banners calling for respect of the "people" than banners calling for an expansion of who can be considered "people". The reason is not that Muslim majorities cannot possibly be tolerant; there are almost infinite cases of this in countries outside the Middle East. Instead it is because there is no cultural history shared among any of the people living in these states that points to an expansion of tolerance, only the maintaining of whatever tolerance is already in play. Without this history, the whole idea of secularization simply escapes most of the people in the Middle East, citizens and leaders included, making the prospect of true democratization much further away than it was anticipated. 

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Double Take #2: "The Need for U.S.-Iran Talks" - NYT 11/12/2012

Here is the second edition of my Double Take series, where I choose a specific piece of opinion writing and toil with its core tenets. In this edition, I focus on "The Need for U.S.-Iran Talks" by Roger Cohen published in the New York Times on November 12th, 2012. 

America's foreign policy, while packed with humanitarian and democratic ideals has always needed an external threat, some exclusive foe, a perennial boogey-man to use as an international foil and give a reason to fight. It doesn't seem surprising given the fact that the nation was born out of war and established union from the same forge. Now, Iran is specified as the current threat for the United States to contend with, with nuclear access being the major fulcrum at the heart of it all. 

The article develops into an assessment of and argument for diplomatic contact between D.C and Tehran. I tend to agree with this particular disposition, of course with some particular limitations that must be addressed before any decision is made, diplomatic or not. Diplomacy is, as Mr. Cohen explained it, an exchange of interests. What the Obama administration has been doing by imposing economic sanctions is slowly building diplomatic capital with which to use in diplomatic talks; by offering to relieve sanctions, they can expect something else in return. This is an appealing approach simply because all else has not pushed anything forward as of yet. Sanctions themselves, while harsh, has not stopped Iran from upping the rhetoric and nuclear research. At the same time, countless speeches by heads of state at the U.N have produced the same amount of positive progress. Direct talks are the only thing that's left short of armed conflict, and while that may not give a solid chance of success, it does buy some more time between the present and that aforementioned armed conflict. 

The tricky business with this is that unlike other diplomatic missions in the past that have dealt with America's established foes, none have had other independent countries as interested and as influential as Israel is with whatever talks there are between the U.S and Iran. Not only that, but Israel is perhaps the country with the most political influence over American political leaders by far, especially when elections roll around. Unfortunately, the anti-China side that Nixon faced does not feel itself to be actively lobbying for the survival of an entire country, making Aipac's opposition as any pro-Israeli opposition much more formidable. Even more so than a lack of direct diplomatic cables between the U.S and Iran. 

It is crucial however that whatever diplomatic talks come about between D.C and Tehran that they not only focus on the very real world issues facing the two countries, but also acknowledge a real lack of understanding nuclear morality in the Middle East. Apart from some rogue states, every other major area of the world has in some way, shape or form a plan with regards to nuclear armament. A talk with Iran must also include some talk about dealing with the region in terms of nuclear proliferation. In that sense, I see it as finally one good opportunity to do so without the Western World making itself appear unabashedly imperialistic which will just derail any talks with any Middle Eastern countries. That may just be the "courage" that Obama needs, as any negotiations about Middle Eastern nuclear policy will also by definition shed light on the Israeli nuclear program, which has been a clear and somewhat justified point of contention by Iran and other neighbors. 

Overall diplomacy is an exciting prospect, mostly because it can either accomplish nothing and maintain the status quo which while not amazing is still relatively more peaceful than war with Iran, or it can accomplish something great, which would only propel other non-nuclear but still explosive conflicts to the forefront of resolution. So yes, diplomacy is important, but it's not so much out of choice as the article presents it. Instead it's the last peaceful option available to both parties in dealing with a nuclear Iran. 

More importantly, it is more feasible than war as well, given that as the article states, war is unpopular domestically as it may as well be in Iran, and that a coalition of the willing may be found in economic sanctions but not in invading Iran. The drone point that Mr. Cohen brings out is a good example of this; a hawkish America would have used that as an excuse to go to war and would have been justified given the circumstances of the drone mission in international waters. Instead, it was chosen to not even follow up on such a thought, which is a great signal as to how willing the United States is to go to war. 

Eventually it comes down to one final thing; how willing the individual leaders of each country are to seeing peace prevail. The Cold War was not won, it was solved by the few leaders who figured out that peace was more important above all else. In the American case it was more important than living up to ideals of military grandeur, whereas for the USSR it was more important than national and ideological pride. Call me optimistic, but the fact that global destruction was averted over talking points leads me to believe that a positive solution can be found through American-Iranian diplomacy. 

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Someone Please Tell the Republicans that Reagan is Dead ; Why Your Dad's Republican Party is No Longer Fit to Survive

This may sound like an obvious statement, but in an election, there is a winner and there is a loser. This time around, Democrats came out on top as they did in 2008, meaning it is now time for Republicans to figure out exactly where they came up short when it comes to winning votes. This process has already started, but it is not going in the direction you would expect. Republicans are worrying that they will no longer be competitive in major national elections given what this election turnout has shown. 

The reason for this lack of competitiveness is however not the fault of Republicans or their strategists; it is apparently the fault of the electorate itself for having changed, not being morally present, and being less of the "old America". The quick fix solution it now, it would seem according to the major news programs, would be for the Republican party to rethink its outreach to these newly blossoming demographics where minorities play a much greater role. However it is that same thought process that will continue to 1) alienate more voters from Republican candidates and 2) keep pointing out the fundamental flaw that the Republican party has with its ideology. 

The first consideration will seem like an obvious problem to anyone with a small sense of how "politics" is supposed to work. "Outreach" is not the same as "caring"; that is to say that reaching out to a certain demographic is not the same as conveying a message of sincere caring about a problem or set of issues important to a specific demographic. Republicans want to "reach out" to these minorities that by their accounts sprung up out of nowhere to hand President Obama the win on Tuesday in order to win back votes for the next elections in 2014 and 2016. The problem with this idea is that minorities, like anyone else, does not want to simply be reached out to, they don't to have a sales pitch be given to them with regards to whom they ought to vote for. 

Instead, people are looking to be shown logical reasons as to why their vote belongs to one candidate or another. They don't want sales pitches and they don't want gimicks. In an age where any campaign material is quite literally dissected and dispersed in seconds, Republicans can no longer afford to apply a clear sheen to a baseless message like they have for the last two decades almost. For those of you worrying this charge is not part of partisan hackery, it is a reflection of the two styles of campaigns run by the Obama and Romney camps. Romney was consistently attacked for not being specific enough with his own policy recommendations which gave him real problems when it came down to him explaining what sort of change he was willing to bring to the White House. Obama on the other hand was never cited for lacking a vision within his campaign, and his victory speech showed that. 

Any voter, minority or not, is bound to be attracted more by the candidate who is out to change lives and become truly involved with the problems of the people rather than the candidate who ends up fitting the mold of the shallow, careless politician. The bottom line here is this; voters do not want to sell their vote to candidate, they want to give their vote to a candidate. No amount of sales trickery will ever be a good enough substitute for a politician that looks the part of the concerned leader. 

Sales and businessmen brings us to the second major point. Republicans need to realize that the reason why they are not able to provide substantial policy initiatives is because their political philosophy revolves around a singular economic ideology. While it's fantastic on its own to have in a national discussion, economic discipline simply does not answer the vast array of questions regarding social policy. A libertarian approach to government might be convincing when it comes to finances, but it also leaves you answer-less to questions about civil rights, labor issues, environmental policy, and even international relations because the answer will always be somewhere along the lines of "government shouldn't be answering that question" when instead politicians should be doing exactly that. 

The Republican party has been trying to milk the political cow that has been Reaganism for the last thirty years now, and it turns out that the source has run dry well before this last Tuesday. Republican commentators and strategists still have not caught on to this, as all they are saying now is that they simply cannot believe that people do not vote with their wallets anymore. Better still is their suggestion that minorities are wrong in not thinking first with their pocketbooks. That simply can't be the full story because while people's money is an important factor in making a decision for supporting a candidate, so are reproductive rights, rights of marriage, immigration policies, education, and general fairness of diversity. Those are topics, among many others, that are polled and are sent into consideration by all sorts of voters. While the economy may have been the biggest polled response among all these individual worries, it was not greater than all the other factors put together, which was the true downfall of Republican efforts this time around. 

There needs to be an almost full retreat from this idea that economics knows best because it is simply no longer the case. The American people have seen this fact and learned it first hand; from Gov. Romney not being able to articulate a policy agenda that included anything beyond fiscal responsibility to the Republicans in Congress blocking legislation more than they have introduced it. By reducing their agenda to just economics, and somewhat flawed ones at that, Republicans have effectively become the "we will get back to you on that" party. Instead of trying hard to find answers on social policies hidden between Ayn Rand and Adam Smith, Republicans need to become more proactive in establishing a serious social agenda between now and the next elections if they want to be looked at as a party in tune with the times. That might mean challenging previously held principles to see if they truly stand the test of time, or even restructuring an entire political philosophy behind their cause. If they do not, minority turn out will be the least of their worries come 2016. 




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Just Missed the Mark ; What Got Left Out of the 2012 Presidential Campaign

Like any presidential campaign, a multitude of talking points has been generated to create a contrast between the two candidates and subsequently the two parties. To an extent, some talking points have created legitimate results about what both candidates would do as president (Middle East policy, economic policy, civil rights, etc.). The rest regrettably have not accomplished much to move the political conversation forward (dogs on roofs, not building enterprise by yourself, loving trees, being socialist, etc.). So which talking points which could have been talking points were instead overtaken by these more superficial election distractions? Below are some talking points that should have been gone over but weren't during this campaign, along with a nice quote to explain just what they became in this election cycle. 

Education - "I love teachers" Gov. Mitt Romney

Education this cycle was transposed to talking about teachers which is a start but it's not the whole picture. Education is not in a state of where it needs massive reform from a logistical standpoint, but it may have been helpful to acknowledge the fact that the United States still lacks rather behind other industrialized countries when it comes to subject test scores. At the same time, it would also have been refreshing to hear some sort of policy that evaluates students better than a number value can. This is not to say that assessment of skills is unnecessary, but that in a world full of different occupations and more importantly quickly developing occupations, evaluating math and reading skills may not necessarily apply to figuring out the full potential of every student. No proposal to change this approach has been made during this election cycle, and regardless of who is elected is unlikely to happen given the state-oriented nature of education policy in the United States. With the economy taking center stage this time around, it would have been nice to hear something about how to prepare all students to become American workers better than evaluating their SAT's. 

Gay Rights - "I am absolutely comfortable ... [with gay marriage]" Vice Pres. Joe Biden

It seemed that once President Obama announced his support for gay marriage back in May, the Pandora's Box on Gay Rights would have been smashed wide-open, sending the country into disarray over whether its Adam and Eve instead of Adam and Steve. Then Rick Santorum endorsed Gov. Romney and the media moved on. The Gay Rights battle, primarily the right to marry, has since then been delegated to different state ballots and largely ignored on the national stage. Aside from the usual reminder of where the parties stood on the issue, neither campaign has been willing to make it a reason to vote for them, when in all fairness to the American people it should have definitely had a spot at centerstage. State ballots are simply not good enough to move the conversation of Gay Rights along, mostly because it doesn't apply to all Americans. It doesn't seem right to think that people in one state should have more or less basic rights than people in another state that end up paying the same federal taxes. Regardless of where the conversation of marriage equality goes, or who comes out on top, it should have been a very important and very thorough examination of what the United States and not some states is made of and willing to support in terms of civil rights. 

Drones - "Drones are one tool that we use [in keeping Americans safe]" Pres. Barack Obama

Drones are a tricky talking point to bring up which may have been the reason why it was left out of stump speeches. Technically, drones are a difficult concept to understand for anyone that isn't immediately familiar with foreign policy, let alone military tactics. Furthermore, their lack of daily applicability (if Americans begin seeing drones in the sky in their every day lives, the election is going to be the last thing on their minds) to most has distanced them from the spotlight. For those who are indeed troubled by the development of drone use and technology, their questions were not answered in 2012. Firstly, what effects do drones have on the enemy and what effects do they have on civilians? Secondly, considering that drones are practically hobby-shop planes on steroids, and therefore much easier to acquire than nuclear weaponry, is their spread to belligerent nations a problem for American hard security? Lastly, is there some moral authority to be respected when drones are introduced on the battlefield or are they instead a wild card in military arsenals? Although I hate leaving readers with these tantalizing questions, I'm afraid I must simply to respect the depth of this particular topic, but I will reiterate the point that neither Democrats nor Republicans were able to answer these questions to the American people during this election cycle, which again is somewhat of a shame. 

Infrastructure - "Of course we believe in government. We think government should do what it does really well, but that it has limits, and obviously within those limits are things like infrastructure, interstate highways, and airports" - Rep. Paul Ryan

This quote comes out of The New Yorker in a profile of Paul Ryan before he was chosen as Mitt Romney's running mate. Unfortunately for the American electorate, this is as far as the conversation on the country's infrastructure has come from both campaigns. Both candidates have tried to tie in talk of infrastructure within their economic plans and consequently what they think the role of government is, which is understandable given the similar nature of the two topics. However, like the talk on education, more specifics and more federally centered ideas are needed to truly tackle the problem of a failing infrastructure in the United States. Forget bridges being deficient, forget energy systems and power lines being less than optimal, there is a fundamental update to a national infrastructure system that states simply aren't capable of carrying out on their own. Fuel and energy lines that stretch across states, interstates that need expanding, and ports that fail to keep up with international trade are all matters that were handled in the 50's and 60's and then left to essentially rot under the excuse of economic dominance which led to complacency. They are also matters that have been stalled in a gridlocked Congress given the animosity there is in American politics from one aisle to another. If you take that fact into consideration, then the infrastructure problem no longer has to do with economics, but instead has all to do with leadership; a leader is needed to whip into shape those that would oppose obviously positive bills for fear of overspending or earmarking or worse, bipartisanship. 

The Bottom Line

These are some of the many talking points that just didn't seem to make the cut this election cycle. Whether it was because the problems were too complex to turn into campaign soundbites or because these were not topics that mattered to voters in Ohio and Florida, these issues were not thrown into the political mix, and are most likely destined to remain in political purgatory until someone picks up the reins or most likely they become an immediate issue. Hopefully we can try to address the former and not the latter in this situation, but it ultimately comes down to the electorate to demand what talking points should be discussed and argued and which ones are simply not as important as others. Without that feedback campaigns and elections in general are forced to take more aggressive and negative stances as opposed to solution-oriented stances, which seems to have happened during this cycle. Ironically, it is that strain of politics that manages to ignore issues like these presented here and go straight for the meatier ones which while perhaps objectively more important still  do not overpower these missing talking points or make them irrelevant. 



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What Happens When Dragons Come Out of Hiding. Is China Actually a Threat to American Interests?

During these last days of the Presidential campaign, it seemed that a newly developing buzzword was not just a word but an entire country; China somehow began to creep up into the campaign's consciousness, and "being tough on China" started to become the new line in the sand for the next president of the United States.  The question then becomes just how did China, a country of more than a sixth of the world's population, manage to stay hidden in the shadows and all of a sudden become a major wrench in American gears? My intuition is that not only is China objectively not as big an issue as it's made out to be, but that instead it acts as a place-holder for the rapidly expanding developing world in political conversations. 

Looking at China from a relativist stand-point, there really isn't much to fear, let alone much to criticize. Although China's military capability looks quite large on paper, it's been known for some time that their full military capability simply is not comparable to western powers, (i.e. 60 years behind the air-craft carrier technology race) let alone powers of nations surrounding it. The nuclear issue runs essentially the same path. China, like Russia, understands that the Cold War has come and gone, and nuclear security now means keeping their own warheads secure for their own good. More importantly, if a nuclear issue were to even begin peeking its head from around the corner, China understands that it would not just deal with one central pole of opposition like the United States, but instead multiple nuclear armed powers in its neighborhood who, not knowing China's full intentions, would practically rush out of the woodwork to secure their own interests. There simply is no reason short of madness to ring all those alarm bells all at once. 

Socio-economically speaking, China's situation becomes a little trickier to calibrate, but in the end it all still points to fire-less smoke. Since the reforms of the 90's China is now the world's largest economy, but it is the world's largest economy that undoubtedly plays in a capitalist world as much as that annoys Beijing, which means the days of the Chinese bubble are like all bubbles numbered. China still refers to itself as a communist country, and does not shy away from its authoritarian labels of dissent suppression. However like all countries in this modern age, the Chinese central government is susceptible to the same popular threats that social media provides when it comes to information dispersal, organization capabilities, and grassroots social strengthening. The facade that China has had for decades about it being an impenetrable, social cookie cutter, economic leviathan is, much like its burgeoning economy, had its days numbered. 

To add to all this supposed animosity, China has been much more willing to cooperate in the international scene than it is normally given credit for. Blocks against action in Syria have been rebounded with economic sanction assistance against Iran. Lawsuits filed on the part of the United States in the WTO regarding Chinese trade practices have been rebuffed by talks about economic development in Europe. There is even talk of Chinese ambitions to curb their carbon emissions, a topic that even some politicians in much more affluent countries fail to grasp on to today. Given that China isn't as scary, as reclusive, and as closed-minded as some may want it to be for their own political gain, what exactly does one mean when they mention China?

In order to answer this question, it's important that we detach the word "China" from China itself. This may sound like useless semantics, but "China" in reality is a term for all developing countries around the world. Six or eight years ago, the "developing world" was a buzz-word designed for countries beginning to step out of the third-world category, but not yet strong enough to be considered legitimate competitors. Unfortunately for those of us not paying attention over that time-frame, the "developing countries" have evolved into "almost fully developed countries". The subtle change could not be of greater importance; even sequoias at one point or another were saplings, and that is exactly the sort of surprise that this economic downturn in the developed world has revealed. China, India, Brazil, and Turkey have reported more than positive GDP growth, with other countries, particularly in Asia following closely behind. Not only is GDP an indicator of this, but so too are student test scores, general affluence, and in some countries the recognition or reinforcement of women's rights. 

"China" as understood as a standard-bearer for all "almost developed countries" is indeed frightening for leaders in countries that could only dream of having real GDP growth or population growth at the same levels. The combination of an open door invitation to the free-trade market-space that the developed world has touted for so long teamed along with deplorable but highly lucrative labor practices makes these "almost developed" exports a peril for established economies that have been hurt for almost half a decade. More importantly without being able to claim to be the unsurpassed leaders of the global economy, a world that responds less and less to forceful coercion and much more to the national bottom-line begins to take a much less glorifying opinion of the old world guard, thereby diminishing the influence on non-economic affairs. 

It would help then if candidates, or any future elected leaders for that matter, would stop making claims about being particularly tough on a single country or citing specific but minute lawsuits designed to keep "the meek of the world" in check and instead begin designing a comprehensive guide for how to deal with the "developing world". It is crucial that American and European leaders recognize the fact that "developing countries" are no longer developing, and that they have instead already built the engines they need to power their economies. Realizing that China is not a stand-alone problem is what is needed to actually address the greater issue of a whole host of new countries coming to seriously compete and looking to beat the established leaders of the world. If that isn't run, the leaders of the "developed world" seriously run the risk of being jumped by not one but several crouching tigers. 




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The Positive Symptoms of Romneysia ; Why a Moderate Republican President Might Actually Be a Good Thing

It's a well known fact that after primaries, candidates for presidential elections in the United States will move back towards the center of the political spectrum to seem more appealing to the undecided voters that will ultimately have a big say in who becomes president. Normally, these undecided voters choose more on a balance act of issues rather than strict party lines, making them the most difficult constituency to catch.

Ever since the first presidential debate, Gov. Romney has received a lot of flack for effectively moving towards the center much too soon and much too fast, greatly encouraging his opponents, big and small, to call him out on these inconsistencies and to an extent his supposed lack of honesty. However this criticism as due as it may well be could actually be signalling a very important and perhaps necessary change to the American political landscape.

A move to the center is expected, but why should a harsh move to the center be held questionable? If it's a matter of saying one thing and meaning another, then we have a problem. But if it's part of "playing the game" in order to achieve a truly higher political ideal then could a move to the center be acceptable? If it were the case, could Gov. Romney's move to the center actually mean the start of the retrieval of a Republican party that is willing to stop treating politics like a game of chicken and more like a game of cooperation?

It is no secret that the Republican party adopted a strict anti-Obama platform coming out of their presidential loss in 2008, and that has been reflected in not only the amount of filibustering in Congress during that time and now and public comments made referring to the goal of their politics not being to serve the country but rather to remove President Obama from office (granted, they could truly believe that the best thing to do for the country is to remove Obama, but I'm no mind reader so we'll leave it at that).

This has made compromise very rare in Congress these days, something which the American people not only feel (in their pocketbooks regarding the lack of real economic growth from a lack of policies being implemented) but also judge (given Congress' abysmal approval rate). The far right is not only opposition to those to the left, but also to those in the middle. If you were even a run-of-the-mill Republican in a constituency run amok by the Tea-Partyites and Glen Beck's of the world, you were in trouble in the last two elections. By refusing to allow any wavering towards the left, this motion also stopped any wavering towards the middle, which has soured the political conversation that the United States has always had.

So, is it possible that Gov. Romney's run to the center is not a very strong come-on to independent voters but instead the re-establishment of a Republican party that is willing to compromise again? Gov. Romney has made a point (quite a few to be honest) about how he is going to base realistic policy goals off of what can be accomplished by bi-partisanship, which with some wishful thinking points in that very direction. At the same time, Gov. Romney has hosted positions in the past that not only sit in the center but also tend to lean to the left. In my opinion, the real reason why he was able to be bi-partisan in a Democratically held Massachusetts legislature was because he espoused enough Democratic ideals to defuse any real friction.

A "Massachusets Romney", if elected, could theoretically bring the Republican party away from the far-right and back into the moderate, common sense approach of American politics. A more moderate Republican party would mean more moderate legislation, and that generally means more effective and fairer legislation overall (holding the idea that moderate approaches can come from the left as well). For that to happen, Republican voters need to first have a flag-bearer that holds an American flag, not a colonial "Don't Tread on Me" flag and then vote for him, stealing away the political capital of right-wing extremists who have derailed the Republican party and subsequently ruined the progressive political debate between those who lean left and those who lean right but both understand the importance of the middle.

Understandably, this theory wouldn't be credible without some serious considerations; 1) In the public court, Gov. Romney's motives for moving to the left and back should be suspect given the amount of times they've occurred. Who's to say he isn't appearing as hyper-malleable in this presidential race the same way he might have been in the Massachusetts gubernatorial race so many years back? 2) His VP pick, Cong. Ryan, seems to follow a more extreme socio-economic position (i.e. economic rights, social benefits, abortion) and although the VP is not the president, still must account for the thought process Gov. Romney and his team went through by picking him. 3) The President of the United States, as powerful as he/she is is not the Congress, and cannot account for all of its actions. Romney may himself be moderate, but he cannot alter the decisions by those in his party who are instead much more extreme in their right-leaning natures.

The question here then becomes is America willing to take the chance on this sort of thought-process in order to salvage what is left of a broken political discussion in this country? Given that the stakes are either having serious politics once more or being suckered into thinking such things for the sake of a hard-right win, the choice is not an easy one.

All that can be said is that should Gov. Romney win the election, it would be up to the electorate to hold him accountable to his more moderate promises in order to not only get what one voted for, but also work to dampen the extreme-right by reducing it obsolete and vote-less. That way, the fate of the American political discussion is no longer in the hands of the elected, but instead where it belongs in the voices of the people that then pull the strings in Washington.


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Would a Horsefly Watch a Presidential Debate? Are Debates Actually Good for Our Public Discourse?

Last night's VP debate did one thing; it let us know that America's next vice-president will be a catholic. That may be a cynical way of saying that no new talking points were created, but the essence remains the same. Although Team Obama came firing on all cylinders, Team Romney was able to dodge enough bullets to not thoroughly convince undecided minds. If anything, it pushed the real issues back another week towards the second presidential debate.

Given the general futility of this particular debate, one question began creeping in the back of my mind; what exactly do these debates give back to the public that so eagerly awaits them? In my view, not enough. We can take the VP debate as an example of exactly what i mean here.

What Debates Give Back:

What debates generally are good for is to reach a wider audience. Up until debate season, the only people involved in these campaigns are the hardcore partisan supporters who track irrelevant polls left and right. The debates are chance to push politics into an even greater, and importantly more public, spotlight which does have its advantages at cultivating an informed electorate.

Last night, both VP hopefuls were engaged in talking to every American; current VP Biden in fact had many direct messages to the viewing audience at home (cut to camera 4) pointing out differences in policy and approaches. He obviously does not need to remind people who have already donated to his campaign, but he did take the chance to reach out to the undecideds and perhaps the wavering.

Another thing debates are generally good at is projecting the candidates as people and not as just names on a cardboard post. There were moments of great humanity in this last debate, the majority of which coming from religious based questions. Although religion does not ultimately decide these men, their catholic faith and their own personal interpretation of it showed that there are some deep personal differences among the two.

In that respect, the debates are formulated to try to contrast the two people debating as not just two flag-bearers but as two wholesomely different people. All in all, it is a good attempt at trying to remind everyone that people and not talking points will be in leadership positions. That may be where the positives to debates end however.

What Debates Lack:

The biggest drawback in debates is the talk over foreign policy. In my view, this is the most theoretical and therefore most useless portion of the debates. The problem is the following; while you may have both sides arguing for what is America's rightful place/role in the world, you do not have enough concrete facts to go off of in order to fully judge the intentions of either candidate. Last night for instance, the attack on the Libyan Consulate illustrated this point precisely.

There was no talk about what could have been done differently, or where the moral blame should have been, or who ultimately is responsible, because the intelligence as VP Biden pointed out and Cong. Ryan chose not to proceed on was still not 100% there. Not only is missing intelligence a problem, but so too is intelligence which is already there. VP Biden made it very clear he did not want to release classified information, even if that information would have been a great piece of real evidence to use in his debate. Foreign policy in general needs to be taken for what it is in these debates: a hypothetical litmus test for the temperament and international knowledge of the candidates and nothing more.

Another major drawback is the set of expectations regarding decorum and mannerisms creating a fake veneer of comradeship up on the stage. Putting the candidates on TV has the advantage of letting America see its candidates upfront and in person, but it also heavily dilutes the ideas and message of either candidate/party. Debaters who find themselves at odds with how to deal with misrepresentations of facts or outright lies cannot, for the sake of looking calm and collected, crush a statement if it needs to be done for the sake of truthfulness.

VP Biden's laughs last night as well as Cong. Ryan's wonky eyebrow gestures were not in any way extensions of their real personas, they were what each debater thought looked most appropriate to let the American people know "this guy is totally nuts, but I still respect him being nuts." Ironically enough, that itself is nuts. Unfortunately, we have nobody but ourselves to blame. If we as the American electorate understand that these are people with candid emotions that will fight tooth and nail to achieve their political agendas, then we can give up on the pageantry of the debates and instead find out who really believes what they are saying and who is the better actor.

What are we to make of all this?

What we are to make is that on the whole, debates water down the electoral process for undecided voters. They are out not to make a more informed electorate, but an angrier and simpler one. It takes more than an hour to hash out key ideological differences among two men who have severely different backgrounds and experiences. Trying to shove that much information, in that little a time, with so many unwritten rules pledging appearance over substance does not in any way add positive or necessary attributes to a presidential race, whether the debate is presidential or vice-presidential. If you want to keep debates a spectacle and still have them aim to be informative, there should be a new dynamic added to them; a truly independent panel of fact checkers that check facts as they are said.

Not only does it make good television to see politicians have their statements revoked by the facts right in front of them, but it forces more honesty into the debates. Perhaps you could also invite professional debate scorers like in most official debates to figure out who actually won instead of being slaves to a poll sampling error. What I'm suggesting is that the truth can be just as entertaining or as enthralling as these ad-hoc rules of engagement we have about the candidates or the expectations we lay down before anybody debates anything.

As the people who decide who eventually has a job come January 20th I suspect we deserve better than what we are being given right now. By not helping ourselves figure out a way to honestly judge these candidates, we are not helping society and we are definitely not helping the future we will ultimately decide.




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How Can You Pursue Happiness If You're Sick? A Constitutional Argument for Healthcare

Earlier this year, the statute known fondly as "Obamacare" was deemed to be both unconstitutional and constitutional at the same time. This judicial paradox described that the original presentation of "Obamacare" was unconstitutional as a provisional universal mandate, but was instead constitutional if viewed as a tax set forth by congress which is all fair and good. Personally, I find this decision to not have encompassed the real core of the debate regarding universal healthcare.

The decision behind "Obamacare" failed to recognize, in the way that it decided to label the law, that the idea of universal healthcare is a discussion about individual rights much more than it is an argument over states' rights. By claiming it constitutional only in terms of how such a law could be allowed to go on, the Supreme Court failed to tackle the issue of whether or not healthcare is a right that should or should not be respected in the United States.

Legally, the jury is still out on that decision because at no point in the "Obamacare" discussion did an amendment to the Constitution come to the table as a possible solution to this controversy. This is only the highest speculation, but the Obama administration probably did not want to flirt with the idea of the president actually fulfilling one of the far right's prophecy of him wanting to drastically change the constitution, even if it may possibly have positive effects.

Nevertheless, I believe that there can be a case made for why some form of healthcare coverage can be had within the constitution of today, albeit with some rather generous speculation of intent and possibly some modifications to be taken into account. We will begin, rather justly, from the beginning of the Constitution in order to better understand the motivation of this sort of enquiry.

This is what greets any reader of the Constitution at the head of the page;

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The italics here connote history, whereas the underlined connote areas of interest pertaining to this specific topic. The Constitution can be said to be looking out for, among other things, laws heading into a direction that encompasses some sorts of benefits (perhaps rights not necessarily found inalienable) for the American people. Given that "providing for the common defence" is already established, we cannot possibly imply that general welfare, domestic tranquility and justice are merely offshoots of the Constitution only keeping people physically safe, but must instead stand on their own merits.

There is very much an aspect of the Constitution that tries to better people's lives when it can, and perhaps when it is just to do so. We shall go into that later, but for now we must understand simply that the Constitution houses more than just the intent to defend land and property. It also shows some recognition of social goods to be found within American society itself; how many social goods and which ones again will be discussed later.

To begin to answer that specific question, we must first consult the 9th amendment, which reads as follows;

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

In modern English usage, this amendment basically means that just because a specific right is not now expressed in the list of amendments does not in any way deny any "new" rights yet to be discussed to be adopted into law. This is what acts as the legal in-route for any healthcare-based right; without the 9th amendment, it would be almost illegal to consider the adoption of new rights into the American legal system.

Putting the preamble and the 9th amendment together, we can begin to at least imagine that it is not only legal but implied by the Constitution that rights based on social justice are possible to be achieved, if someone is to receive them by the appropriate reasoning of course and not just crafting a right out of thin air. This becomes increasingly more possible if you look at how prohibition became a constitutional amendment.

Prohibition was not a legislative-bound amendment; it was pushed to that point by a popular movement behind it looking to define what right, specifically the right to consume alcohol, they wanted to block. Only under the Volstead Act (legality of Congress' enforcement of the 18th amendment) did the Congress actually find itself independent in its approach to prohibition (its vote to push the amendment through in the place of the people). Remember also that the idea behind making alcohol illegal was that it would, in theory, better society and promote general welfare.

If it is possible to define what rights should be taken away to better people's lives, then it should also be possible to define what rights should be established in order to better people's lives. If a right to some form of healthcare is to be aimed at economic relief, general physical wellness, and a greater capacity for wellness as a people, then a right to healthcare has just as much theoretical legality as the 18th amendment had in its heyday. 

So, given that there are historical in-roads to constitutional amendments, and given that rights can arguably be tacked on by the 9th amendment only if they truly embody the spirit of promoting obvious social benefits, a right to healthcare can at the very least have the opportunity to be heard as a possible "addition" to the sets of rights already specified by the Constitution. That being said, it would most likely still have to pass by the Supreme Court for its seal of approval given the political climate that state legislatures and leaders can evoke if something challenges their beliefs/views. I personally would welcome such an unfolding of events because the most significant changes to rights in the history of the United States has always fallen to justices and not representatives.

Although the Supreme Court is now as political as the world around it, I still have faith in their ability to look at law for law's sake, not at what pundits have to say or who can benefit the most from a certain decision. Given that this sort of decision would have to go back to understanding exactly what the Constitution set America's government forth to do, I find it likely that a proposal to have the Supreme Court embrace a right to healthcare would most definitely fulfil the concepts of the founders to protect and to promote welfare for the American people, in this case saving them from the pitfalls of a skewed and profit-driven and not health-driven healthcare system.

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