E. J. Dionne tries to reconcile numbers in health care bill

Bear in mind that the CBO figures showing a net deficit reduction for our most recent version of the health care bill include the caveat that the Medicare savings may not materialize.  Dionne was answering a question posed to him on the Hugh Hewitt Show, and I rely on Hewitt's transcript:

"Well, some of it, what they’re talking about is moving away from fee for service medicine. And they’re talking about a lot of different ways of charging people for medicine that encourage activities by doctors that deliver care more efficiently. The truth is we are shifting money that’s paid into the health care system one way, and paying it back into the health care system another way. And so I am persuaded that you are not going to see seniors, once this thing actually takes effect in 2014, or 2013, if they back it up a little bit, I don’t think you are going to see seniors wildly unhappy. And I think you’re going to see a lot of seniors very happy as they close the donut hole on the prescription drug benefit. So again, I think some of the polling among seniors against the bill reflects the fact that this generation of seniors is very Republican compared to the earlier, the earlier New Deal generation of seniors. So I think that when you’re talking politically, a lot of seniors are going to say the bill is bad, and they’re going to vote Republican. But guess what? Seniors voted for John McCain over Barack Obama. I think that politically, what’s going to be interesting is the behavior probably 10-15% of seniors who are persuadable by your side of this or by the other side of this."

One comment from Dionne reminds me of a criticism I read some days ago.  That critic charged the bill with budgetary sleight of hand for counting Medicare savings as part of the overall savings, if I remember correctly, in spite of the fact that the money is spent regardless.  Dionne seems to play up that bug as a feature.  But how can seniors have any assurance that the saved monies will go toward care for the Medicare population?  I detect no such assurance.

The later satisfaction Dionne expects comes, I believe, from the satisfaction folks usually have with a service they do not use, combined with the satisfaction of at least a few who actually use the service.

Hewitt has a good number of transcripts dealing with the health care issue, many featuring the words of those who favor the legislation.

Shermer versus Koukl on the Hugh Hewitt Show (Updated)

This week on Hugh Hewitt's radio program, Hewitt continued his "Great God Debate" series by matching skeptic Michael Shermer against Greg Koukl.

Though I heard only portions of the program, I came away greatly impressed with Koukl.  He displayed an excellent command of the moral argument and great rhetorical skill in pressing the argument against Shermer's defense.

As for Shermer, he seems like a genuinely nice guy who happens to bring a poor set of arguments to the table.  His arguments are as bad as Christopher Hitchens' in terms of logic, and Shermer lacks the rhetorical skill that frequently allows Hitchens to produce an effective debate performance despite his bankrupt basis for argument.

Hewitt has a transcript posted, but unfortunately it is mostly worthless until the formatting is changed.  I'll pull out some interesting bits to illustrate the portion of the argument I found riveting.

Koukl frames the key issue as he sees it:

Actually, the big question here, Hugh, is whether it’s possible to be good without God. Now I’m not talking about whether it’s possible to be good without a belief in God. I certainly think that’s possible, but be good without God. And the answer to that question hinges entirely on precisely what you mean by good. And so I was going to give an illustration. So a man drags a young girl into the alley, he sexually abuses her, strangles here, and tosses her into the dustbin. Is that act wrong? Now I think everybody listening is going to admit it is wrong. But here is the real question. What do we mean when we say that that act of rape and abuse and murder is wrong? Are we describing the action itself, the object? Are we saying that the object, the rape, the murder, has a quality of being wrong, and therefore, wherever that rape goes, the wrongness follows it, just like your height, 6’ 2”, or whatever it is, is an objective quality of you. Wherever you go, your height follows you in the same way. Does the wrongness follow the rape? Well, if it’s a quality of the rape, if it’s an objective quality of the rape, then it does. And it doesn’t matter what people think about it, or what cultures decides, or what your evolutionary conditioning is. The rape is still wrong. The other alternative is that you’re not talking about the rape. You’re talking about yourself.

What I heard of Shermer's attempts to deal with this issue were practically amazing in the degree to which they failed to supply a real answer.

Shermer, addressing whether morality is objective or relative:

"Well, I don’t think it’s quite so black and white. That is to say I think there are provisional moral truths that exist whether there’s a God or not. In other words, it’s wrong, morally, absolutely morally wrong to rape and murder. And that would be true whether there was a God or not."

Shermer went on to sketch something akin to the Euthyphro dilemma, making it appear that he advocates a moral realism that requires no divine foundation.  Shermer continued:

I think it really exists, a real, moral standard like that. Why? Well, because first, you could ask the person who is being affected, we should always ask the moral recipient of the act, how do you feel about being raped or murdered or stolen from or lied to. And the moral actor will tell you, it doesn’t matter whether, if I could use a current example, I haven’t any idea if Tiger Woods and his wife are religious or not. But you can just ask his wife whether it was morally right or wrong, and she’ll tell you.

Koukl responded perfectly, including the following:

"What I’m trying to do is to be able to answer the question that came up initially, is God necessary for morality, which Michael denies. It’s to say well, what is it that morality, that we’re trying to describe? It is either objective, and therefore an immaterial obligation that applies to certain behaviors, or it is subjective. The things that Michael described were variously subjective, evolutionary elements, subjective cultural elements, but then he affirmed that we all have good and evil in our nature, or an awareness of that. I agree with that entirely. We all are aware of those things. That’s why even if we don’t believe in God, we can still know morality and follow it. The question is what accounts for real, genuine objective morality?"

Thus Koukl put it back in Shermer's lap to coherently describe what type of objective morality would exist minus a god (such as God), noting that through this point in the debate Shermer had described it in terms indistinguishable from subjective/relativistic morality.

Shermer seemed incapable of addressing the point with his response:

I’m not arguing for cultural evolution. I’m actually arguing as part of our, what you described as materialistic, natural selection, Darwinian evolution, that it’s not enough to just pretend or fake being a good group member. You actually have to believe it, feel it, and live it. So what I’m arguing is that natural selected certain moral sentiments, as Adam Smith called them, moral feelings, an actual empathy, Adam Smith talked about, we actually empathize with somebody else, we can put ourselves into their shoes and feel their pain, I’m arguing that’s very real.

I earlier encountered a response similar to Shermer's over at the Center For Inquiry discussion board.  Apparently some skeptics think that if subjective impressions are real then it therefore follows that morality based on those subjective impressions somehow adds up to moral realism (objective existence of moral precepts themselves).   That seems ridiculous on its face, and a simple reductio ad absurdum follows:

If Fred thinks that it is wrong for Tom to do X at time t while at the same time Tom thinks that it is right for Tom to do X at time t, then we have a case in which Fred and Tom have apparently established "real" moral precepts that directly contradict one another.

Koukl adopts a slower process to bring out the same point:

"Regardless of what our sentiments happen to be regarding moral actions, we can feel good or feel bad or whatever, the problem is that morality is prescriptive, not merely descriptive. That is it tells us not just what we did, but what we ought to have done in the past, and what we ought to do in the future. That is not something that any Darwinian mechanism can describe, because nothing about my biology can inveigh upon me to act a certain way for moral reasons in the future. It doesn’t tell me why I should be good tomorrow."

In other words, the "is" of "Fred thinks that it is wrong for Tom to do X at time t" does not make it that case that Tom ought not do X at time t any more than Tom's opposite belief entails the converse moral precept.  Put simply, Shermer has come upon the is/ought divide (the problem of deriving an "ought" from an "is") without providing reasonable evidence that he has solved the problem.

Shermer surely founders with all of his subsequent attempts to solve the problem.  Indeed, it remained difficult to tell whether he even perceived it as a problem.

HH: Michael Shermer, when we went to break, Greg had made the argument that the Darwinian model simply cannot explain immaterial concepts like morality, that there’s just no way you can rearrange the molecules to get there. You’re saying well, yes you can.

MS: Yeah, I think so, because if we think of morality as another suite of emotions that are involved with other people’s behaviors, the consequences of our actions, how we feel about them, how people feel about us when we do these things, that’s as every bit as important a biological part of our nature as anything else we talk about.

See what I mean?

I would encourage all interested parties to read the whole conversation, assuming that Generalissimo Duane gets around to properly formatting the text.

Props to Koukl for an excellent debate performance.  If Koukl is as good when treating other major issues in the God argument then I could easily place him up there with Dinesh D'Souza for effectively engaging nonbelievers in debate.


Update:

Until Generalissimo gets around to properly formatting the debate transcript, Wintery Knight has created a legible version at the blog of the same name.

War correspondent Dexter Filkins on the Hugh Hewitt Show

The New York Times' Dexter Filkins sat for an absolutely riveting interview with Hugh Hewitt on Hewitt's radio program. Those unlucky enough to miss it owe it to themselves to read the transcript in full.

Here's a teaser:

HH: …who among with other fearless people, “they went to the slaughter, thousands and thousands of them, editors and pamphleteers, judges and police officers, and women like Widjan Quzay. The insurgents were brilliant at that. They could spot a fine mind or a tender soul wherever it might be, chase it down and kill it dead. The heart of a nation, the precision was astounding.” Are there any of them left?

DF: I think there are. I mean, remarkably, remarkably. But you know, it’s funny, because people, I used to get e-mails from people, you know, friends, whoever, and people would say why can’t they govern themselves? What’s wrong with them? How come they’re not, how come they don’t get with the program? How come they’re not grateful? And there’s your answer. I mean, every person who stepped forward to try to make a difference was killed. I mean, and it just happened over and over and over again. But what I think is remarkable, what’s really remarkable, is that they’re still coming.

And we had politicians here who wanted more Iraqis to stand up by withdrawing our troops.

Lawrence Lessig on the Hugh Hewitt Show

Last night I caught a few segments of Hugh Hewitt's interview with Obama supporter Lawrence Lessig. Generalissimo Duane has since posted a transcript of the interview (or maybe not--Townhall.com has been rather undependable lately).

Perhaps I'll post a portion of the transcript later. The portion of the interview that most struck me was Lessig's reluctance to speak out regarding the consequences of current responses to the situation in Iraq. Rather than dealing with the here and now, Lessig tended to dwell on the contention that the war was unjustified to begin with.

As a close second, I found Lessig's defenses of Obama's self-consistency extraordinarily difficult to understand. Lessig allowed that Obama had shifted a couple of positions (campaign finance, telecom immunity) but overall viewed the presumptive Democratic candidate as consistent in his positions. He chided folks such as Hewitt for trying to make Obama appear inconsistent.

In my view, Obama has made Hewitt's job extremely easy.

Slow going, but the transcript finally appeared:

HH: Have you perceived that he’s changed his position about meeting without preconditions with Ahmadinejad, Chavez, Castro, et cetera?

LL: I have not perceived that, no. I’ve understood, you know, to be a huge amount of press about whether parsing statements made in particular ways makes it look like they’re inconsistent. But again, you’re part of this spin, and this spin is let’s see how many places we can find inconsistency in order to say see, he’s just a flipping politician.

Lessig buys that "preparations" are not "preconditions" even if the failure of Iran to come through on certain "preparations" would keep the meeting from taking place.

As noted above, Hewitt had trouble getting Lessig to speak to the war issue.

HH: Okay, you’ve got two out of six, which is a lot more than most people do. My question is given what you know from The Looming Tower and Robin Wright’s, how does American withdrawal in Iraq make us safer?

LL: You know, I don’t think the question is, I don’t think you can say the withdrawal alone makes us safer. I think what makes us safer is restoring the perception that American is not waging unjustified war. And that certainly is the perception after every precondition for going into the war turned out to be false. So people in the region, people around the world believe we are not justified in going into this war. It was an unjust war, and therefore, waging, continuing to wage an unjust war fuels the other side in their ability to say we are not a just people. Now I believe we are a just people. I believe we believe we waged war for just reasons. But the other side doesn’t believe that, and we give them the Kryptonite to the extent we continue to wage what was an unjustified war.

Note the problem with Lessig's argument. The war is not the same war now that it was at the beginning. Even if you find the sustainment/containment of the Hussein regime acceptable, we are no longer fighting Hussein's gang. That regime was erased. The enemy now is AQI and Shiite extremists backed by Iran.

Does it make sense to retreat from the engagement with AQI and Shiite radicals for the sake of making us appear contrite over deposing Hussein?

Michael Yon sees momentum for peace building in Iraq

Visit Hugh Hewitt's site, which features an interview with Michael Yon.

clipped from www.michaelyon-online.com Thanks and Praise: I photographed men and women, both Christians and Muslims, placing a cross atop the St. John’s Church in Baghdad. They had taken the cross from storage and a man washed it before carrying it up to the dome.

*****

Schumer on the dissembly line

Senator Charles Schumer on the surge, Sept. 5:

We've heard of success stories every six or eight months. This province, this town, this city. “They're cleared, they're safe.” And then because of the basic facts on the ground, we revert to the old situation. And let me be clear: the violence in Anbar has gone down despite the surge, not because of the surge.

The lack of protection for these tribes from al Qaeda made it clear to these tribes, “We have to fight al Qaeda ourselves.” It wasn’t that the surge brought peace here. It was that the warlords had to create a temporary peace here on their own. And that is because there was no one else there protecting them.
(Schumer Web site, senate.gov)

If that's what Schumer really believes, then he's not qualified to serve as a senator.

If nobody protects the tribes from al Qaeda, then al Qaeda kills the tribespeople--not the other way around. That's been the pattern wherever AQI holes up. The strategy represented by the surge has been underway in Anbar since before additional troops were authorized to implement the strategy in Baghdad as well. That's clear from the original surge proposal.

Al Qaeda is still active in Iraq. Its home base is Anbar Province. Al Qaeda has helped make Anbar the most violent area of Iraq outside the capital. A captured al Qaeda document describes the terrorists' plan to infiltrate and seize control of the province. This would bring al Qaeda closer to its goals of taking down Iraq's democracy, building a radical Islamic empire, and launching new attacks on the United States at home and abroad.

Our military forces in Anbar are killing and capturing al Qaeda leaders, and they are protecting the local population. Recently, local tribal leaders have begun to show their willingness to take on al Qaeda. And as a result, our commanders believe we have an opportunity to deal a serious blow to the terrorists. So I have given orders to increase American forces in Anbar Province by 4,000 troops. These troops will work with Iraqi and tribal forces to keep up the pressure on the terrorists.

(whitehouse.gov)

Those are President Bush's words from Jan. 10, 2007, when he announced the surge.

Bill Roggio, writing in Nov. 2006:

The Anbar tribes' turn against al Qaeda has developed significantly since the end of the Anbar Campaign late last year, which swept al Qaeda and the insurgency from the major towns and cities west of Ramadi. Over the past year, the majority of the tribes have denounced al Qaeda and formed alliances with the Iraqi government and U.S. forces operating in the region.
(The Long War Journal)

Strategy Page, Sept. 2006:

On the other hand, by signing up with the government, these tribal leaders will hasten the construction of government services, and gain something else just as valuable – the government's gratitude. In essence, the tribal leaders have slowly been won over by a combination of coalition perseverance and al Qaeda strategic ineptness.
(Strategy Page)

Listen to the execrable Schumer, trying to soften the insult of Sept. 5 with a fresh round of insult mixed with insincere appreciation for the effort of U.S. troops:




Amazing.

Hat tip to Hugh Hewitt and Duane Patterson at Radioblogger.com,

Christopher Hitchens v. David Allen White

Christopher Hitchens again involved himself in a debate about God on the Hugh Hewitt Show, this time against Roman Catholic David Allen White.

I haven't read the whole transcript through, yet, but here's the most memorable exchange for me thus far:

DAW: You know the great scene where old Theodore, the father, has two of his sons, Ilyusha and Ivan at the table. And he says to them directly, is there a God? And Ivan says no, there is not God. He asks Ilyusha, the young monk, is there a God? Ilyusha says there is. He follows. Is there immortality? Ivan says no, no immortality, Ilyusha says yes, there is. Now Ivan goes one step further then, and takes the cognac away from his father, and says without God, there will be no cognac, either. There would be no civilization at all if God had not been invented. Now I think that’s your claim, fair enough, that God was an invention?

CH: Yes, absolutely. It’s a manmade construct. It’s a reification of our peers, and also of our self-centeredness.

DAW: I guess what I am suggesting, and Dostoyevsky said himself in a letter he wrote after the book was finished, that he thinks he made better arguments than the atheists themselves had made. He was an honest man and a brilliant man, and in that taking away of the cognac and saying there can be no more civilization, I think he is absolutely correct in that civilization is connected directly to the religious impulse, and that what we are likely to see is a dissent into mere political power, as Waugh called it in his great novel Helena, power without grace. Maybe we can explore that later.

(Hugh Hewitt)

Hitchens has appeared weak to me in the past when it comes to addressing this type of argument. I'll be interested to see how he treats it when I've worked through the transcript.