Category Archives: Philosophy

Finding Meaning, Purpose and Morality in a Godless World

Posted on June 24, 2010 by Dan| Leave a comment

In this latest instalment of my series of articles on fundamental philosophical issues, I go beyond discussing the issue of whether there is a supernatural being, and move on to the next logical step, formulating a paradigm for how we can find meaning, purpose, and morality in a world without such a being.

What is the Meaning of Life?
The meaning of life is simply life itself. There is no meaning beyond our existence and our life experience. There is no greater meaning to it all that can somehow transcend our world. This is it.

So now what?
The all too unfortunate side of this realization is the potential for nihilism or hedonism. Nihilism is the idea that because there is no greater meaning to it all, we should live with the attitude that life is hopeless and pointless. The nihilist would spend life sitting around, moping, and waiting for the inevitable end.

The opposite of the nihilist is the hedonist. The hedonist believes that since there is no greater meaning to it all, he is free to do as he pleases, when he pleases, without any regard for others, and with the only goal of seeking maximum personal pleasure. The hedonist would spend life committing crimes, doing drugs to excess, and walking over others for his or her own benefit.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with either of these attitudes. There is nothing universal that would preclude someone from living a life as such and feeling perfectly content. However, most people would probably be more content not living with either of these attitudes. We do live in a real world with real consequences, and living without regards to others will subject a person to the consequences that individuals in our society have created to deter such attitudes (i.e. laws, social isolation, etc.).
These are not the only options available for living a life in a godless world. There is a “light at the end of the tunnel” for the rational person, and it’s not in the form of a supernatural being.

Purpose
The amazing thing about there being no greater meaning to life beyond life itself is that we have the power to create meaning. Everyone has a blank slate to work with to craft a story that will please himself or herself. We craft a meaning by choosing a purpose. We have the power to decide our purpose, or even several purposes that we will work to fulfill. By fulfilling a purpose, and working to do so, we can live our lives in such a way as to become content with our own existence and the world around us. After one purpose has been fulfilled, we can choose a new one. The meaning of life can be to find and fulfill life purposes.

A purpose can really be anything. It can be to do works of art, start a business, help the poor, enforce the law, help the sick, or create scientific developments. It can even be to start a family, travel, or to spend time with friends or a significant other. Whatever makes us content with our lives. Although this paradigm is very simple, it is also very empowering. Life is ours for the taking. We are in control of our own destiny.

One of my purposes is to create a legacy that will live on after my death. Why would this matter if I don’t believe that I will have the ability to experience that legacy? It is for the same reason that someone would send a check to a charity to help a group of people that he will never see or never meet. Or, from a more selfish perspective, why a celebrity would want to be considered famous to a person that he will never encounter. We as humans share the common experience of life, regardless of the time or place we live in. If there is one way we can transcend our own existence, it is through the life of another. Although their life experiences may have ended long ago, historical figures constantly remind future generations of the experience they had by cementing their names in the history books.

The hedonist or the nihilist lives a life without purpose, and will likely never find spiritual fulfillment. The hedonist could say that his purpose is to do whatever he feels like. If he can truly find meaning in fulfilling that purpose, then perhaps that will create content. But there are very few people who would find such a meaning.

The Religious Paradigm
Under most religions, the meaning of life is simply that each individual life amounts to some minor part of a greater plan by some invisible being or beings. Many questions remain unanswered. What is the meaning of the greater plan? What is my meaning within the greater plan? Why would such a greater plan include suffering? What is the meaning of the creator, and where did he come form? These questions create more confusion and despair than the theories pacify.

The purpose of life in most religions is to follow a list of rules (many of which are ridiculous and inconsistent with contemporary life) that an invisible being wants us to follow in order to gain access to a better afterlife. What is the purpose of the afterlife? What is the purpose of each particular rule? What if the purpose I would like to fulfill conflicts with one of the rules?
The religious paradigm is incomplete. It simply makes up a story and calls it a meaning. An existentialist paradigm may not be as fantastic or magical, but it is rational and complete. The meaning of your life is whatever you want it to be.

Morality
An obvious argument against the concept of choosing your own purpose in life is that someone could choose the purpose of hurting or killing other people. What would make this purpose wrong if it made that person content? Would there not be something universally wrong with hurting others?
There is nothing universally wrong with hurting others. But, a world in which people hurt others would be worse than a world in which people did not. Although there is no ultimate arbiter of right and wrong, or universal moral code that we should adhere to, the fact remains that there are several independent beings in the world whose interests will inevitably collide. Morality is simply a set of rules that we create to organize human interactions. There is no hard and fast set of rules, but we as a species have been very successful at crafting rules that provide all individuals with the opportunity to fulfill their purposes.

If there is one thing I learned in law school, it’s that there is a solution in law to almost any possible problem resulting from human interaction. The law is constantly evolving as new problems are solved, and old solutions are replaced with better ones. Of course, laws can be bad. For example, a law permitting the killing of someone for having the wrong religious belief. Why would we say that such a law is immoral? It is because such a law is a bad solution to a problem, and there are better solutions that will create more opportunity for happiness.

Many philosophers have searched for a unifying theory of morality. For example, the utilitarian theory states that morality is simply the solution that provides the greatest good for the greatest number of people. The theory attempts to measure levels of good and compare them. This theory fails when you start trying to measure levels of good. Is the value of a great scientist’s life more important than a bum’s? How about two bums? What of a law that provides a huge benefit to a large group, but a serious detriment to one or two people? The world is simply too complex to determine values for every possible interest and measure those values against the values of others.

Another theory is Kant’s categorical imperative, which basically states that an action taken by an individual in any situation should be such an action that should be Universally taken by any person in such a situation. If I see another person’s house, it should be a Universal maxim that I should not break in and steal that person’s TV. The problem with this theory is that it only works for simple human problems. What if there are several competing good things to do. Should I take a good job in a far away city, or stay home to help my ailing mother? There is no universal maxim to solve this problem. A similar situation arises if there are two bad choices.

We as a society have made rules to guide people to make better choices, and to punish choices that we think are bad. We create morality to try and shape the best possible world, but there is no perfect world.

Of course politics is an inevitable factor in discussing morality. Is the United States moral code the best for regulating human interactions? Or is a more socialist European nation like Sweden’s better? Who should determine what is the best moral code for the people of all nations? There is no easy way to make such determinations. Settling who has the best moral code and what it should be is a great goal of humanity that will involve inevitable conflicts in opinion. However, there is no room for moral relativism in this theory. That is to say, there are certain moral codes that are vastly inferior and should not be considered acceptable forms of organizing a society simply because they are accepted by the individuals in that society. For example a society that permits ritual human sacrifice would be vastly inferior to one that did not. It may be for the good of humanity for a more powerful society to enforce its superior moral code on the society committing ritual sacrifice in order to provide a better life for the individuals in that society.

In any discussion of morality and atheism, Hitler and Stalin will inevitably be discussed as examples of what happens when atheists are given the power to enforce their moral views. These individuals led their nations based on what they believed were moral principles. Under skewed forms of utilitarianism, both believed that they were acting for the greater good by killing political dissidents, the mentally ill, Jews and other ethnic minorities. These dictators had inferior moral codes by which they organized their societies. It was not their atheism that led to their horrible deeds, but rather their skewed versions of morality. We have realized that these moral codes were absolutely abhorrent, and should never be allowed to exist again.

These examples of immoral atheists should also be compared with the hundreds of immoral actions by dictators and societies acting around religious foundations of morality. The problem with religious morality is that religions set a moral code based on the prevailing views of morality at the time and in the society that the writers of the religion were living. The Jewish moral code is based on the sections of law in the of the old testament, which were written approximately 2600 years ago (read up on the documentary hypothesis for more information on the origins of the old testament). The Christian moral code is based around morality from 2000 years ago. Islam 1500 years ago. Of course religions generally have their own case law, or religious scholarly writings, interpreting the primary sources and allowing some change. However, these writings are bound by rigid books written by ancient people. The books cannot be amended or changed to reflect changes in prevailing views of what is right or wrong.

Contrast with the US constitution. The US constitution provides a moral code from approximately 250 years ago. However, the constitution permits amendments, meaning that the primary source of law can change as morals change. This flexibility permits change and evolution.

Conclusion
Realizing that there is no god and that our existence is simply a great fluke may be a scary experience, but it does not mean that life cannot persist without spiritual enlightenment. There is opportunity to find meaning in life, fulfill a purpose, and act in a moral way. We have the power to shape our world and our own destiny. We must take control of the power while we are here, for it will not last forever.

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The Post-Recession World

Posted on April 15, 2010 by Dan| Leave a comment

The world has changed. Many ideologies that were previously thought to be correct by many have now been debunked. We are attaining a new level of understanding of how our society should work, and when governments should intervene in private actions. However, the greatest change is yet to come.

The Profit Incentive
Many conservatives thought that corporations should be in charge of everything, and that the private sector will always operate more efficiently than the public one. They really felt that taking away the autonomy of the health insurance companies was akin to crushing the free market and leading America down a slippery slope to socialism. After all, if the government is controlling your health insurance, what says that they can’t tell you what work you can do or what business you can operate.

The reality is that there has to be a balance in society between private enterprise and public organizations. Our society has decided that fire protection, crime prevention, justice, delivery of mail, national defense, record keeping, education of our children, and several other services are best placed in the hands of the government. Meanwhile, the private sector is in charge of distributing consumer goods, food, professional services and real property, among others. Why is this?

There are certain services for which the profit incentive is fundamentally misaligned with the good of society, whereas there are other services for which that incentive allows more goods and services to be produced, allows society to progress, and gives us the sense of freedom that drives the democratic system.

Policing is a perfect example of this misalignment. Imagine if police would only protect you if you purchased crime insurance. The poor would be subject to murder and violence without any repercussion. Vigilante justice would prevail, and total anarchy would result.

Computers, on the other hand, are best controlled by the profit incentive. Computer companies are incentivised by profits to make newer and greater computers so consumers will buy them. Some individuals may be priced out of the computer market, but that can be considered acceptable by society. Not having a computer may be a disadvantage, but it would not cause pain and suffering like not having healthcare does.

The fundamental difference is whether society decides that something should be a right or a privilege. The privilege of owning a house, getting a computer or hiring an attorney puts those items in the private category. But the right of being protected from fire or crime, or of getting decent medical treatment if sick necessitates government intervention.

The Exchange System
Although I did not get my public option, the Obama health care exchange system will serve to realign the health care system in a positive way. With the public option, the government insurer would be able to bargain with health providers to lower expenses.

The exchange system simply keeps the insurer as a middle man. However, customers are able to collectively bargain with the insurance companies by making individual choices on a grand scale (by simply purchasing the cheapest and best health insurance). The insurance companies will be forced to bargain with the healthcare providers to maintain lower costs. If an insurer does not bargain, a different insurer who does bargain will get their customers. The government will subsidize insurance costs for the middle class, and therefore will be able to dictate which plans get subsidies.

The inevitable result of this exchange will be the emergence of a select group of extremely large insurance providers, possibly just one. The government will either control this one insurer, or break it up into two that would compete. Health care costs will be lower, and insurance will be available to more individuals.

The Regulated Private Sector
There are some categories in society that do not neatly fit into the public or private sectors. Hence, the regulated private sector becomes necessary.

The illicit drug market is a great example of the consequences of a completely unregulated, lawless market. When I say lawless, I realize that there are laws banning drugs. But there are no laws governing the sale, transportation, cultivation, or delivery of drugs, which means that any disputes in the industry must be settled through vigilante justice. Hence the large crime wave that emerged along with the drug wars of the eighties and early nineties. Gangs were fighting for drug selling territory, and since there was no legitimate mechanism for settling disputes, they resorted to violence and murder to do so.

The war on drugs demonstrates that even though society may have an extreme animosity towards certain goods or services, the fact that there is a demand for those goods will inevitably create a market. It is therefore the prerogative of government to provide a mechanism by which that demand can be satisfied through legal means. Otherwise, anarchy results. The government needs to legalize, regulate, and create disincentives for the use of drugs, not simply throw every drug user or dealer into jail or prison.

The Financial Sector
The financial sector is another example of a market that needs government regulation to succeed. The recent crisis has shown us that if left to their own devises, really smart individuals will make poor decisions if their incentives are misaligned. Why would banks take such risky bets on mortgage backed securities when it should have been obvious that the system would be crushed if housing prices fell. The answer is that banks, as public corporations, are incentivised by short term profits, not long term sustainability. Mortgage backed securities provided such great returns that bankers did not think about the risks that they were taking. It is for this same reason that Enron continued its fraudulent accounting practices until it became insolvent, or that Madoff kept taking new money into his Ponzi scheme even though he knew that it would collapse if new money stopped coming in.

The government has to step in to protect investors’ money from people who are investing it unwisely for current gains. The libertarian mantra of less government is always better is now a fallacy. Sometimes, government intervention is necessary. Monopoly busting was an early form of positive government intervention. Post-depression financial reforms kept the financial system relatively stable. It was when those reforms were reversed that this crisis occurred.

The Fed
I recently had a conversation with an individual who claimed to be part of the end the fed movement. He concluded that the Federal Reserve caused the great recession by keeping interest rates too low for too long, thereby encouraging too much borrowing, which led to the mortgage meltdown.

Although keeping rates low may have been a small factor in causing certain individuals to get mortgages who should not have, low rates did really not matter that much. Many sub-prime borrowers were given mortgages regardless of whether they could afford the interest payments. Banks gave out variable rate mortgages knowing that rates would eventually go up and that the borrower would not be able to afford his or her house. It was the banks, who were not properly regulated by the federal government, that caused the recession; not the Fed.

The Federal Reserve, led by Bernanke, has had just as much of an impact, if not more, than the federal government, led by Paulson, Geithner and Obama, in ending the recession and leading to the current turnaround. While the government was managing $350 billion in bailouts to artificially prop up the economy, the Fed was managing trillions. The Fed is like the great counterbalance in our society. It is independent from the government, so as to ensure that economically sound decisions are not affected by politicians judgment. It has to be, and needs to remain independent.

Evolution
I have been thinking a lot about what this all means in the grand scheme of things. The truth is, the economy, law and politics are all insignificant when compared to the revolution that we are currently experiencing. Humanity is at the end of its 60,000 year reign as the most advanced species on earth, and is about to be the first species to be replaced by its own creation.

Humanity
Recently, a 2,000,000 year old fossil was discovered showing an intermediary species between humans and apes. Although this species may not necessarily be a direct ancestor of modern humans, it provides even greater proof of our natural origins, providing evidence of an intermediary species between early hominids and Homo Erectus, the most successful hominid in the history of the world. Homo Erectus roamed the earth from over a million years ago to the time of early humans . The new species is just one species discovered among many that have already been unearthed. We lived alongside one of our inferior relatives, the Neanderthal, for almost 10,000 years in Europe, a period ending approximately 20,000 years ago. That is a period of time longer than human civilization has existed as we know it.

Humans have been continually evolving, even though from a physiological standpoint, we are probably not very different from our ancestors who lived alongside those Neanderthals. Through civilization and technology, we have been able to maximize the productivity of our earthly forms, providing ourselves with extreme amounts of knowledge and using technology to allow us to interact with the world in a more efficient way. We have created numerous ways to express ourselves, and have made the world smaller by creating efficient methods of transportation.

The Singularity
Unfortunately, we have reached the limits of our earthly forms. Futurists predict that within the next 50 years, computers will have matched and surpassed our level of intelligence. They call this the singularity principle, as the distinction between humans and computers will no longer exist, making us one singular being.

The logical conclusion is that humans will have to become one with computers in order to compete. Those of us that survive to that period of time will have to augment ourselves, becoming cyborgs. Those who cannot afford this augmentation will become an inferior species that will likely eventually die out, as the Neanderthals and dinosaurs did.

The only thing that will prevent this from happening is literally a global catastrophe like one never seen by humanity. Technology as we know it would have to be destroyed. Even the greatest catastrophes, the great world wars or global epidemics, could only delay the progress of technology, not halt it. In many cases, those catastrophes actually increased progress. Although an earth shattering event could happen, I would give it an extremely low likelihood, since economics, technology, diplomacy and science have allowed us to progress to a point where such threats are diminished. A great technological roadblock (such as the end of Moores law, which will happen within the next 20 years) may present itself, but it will be overcome eventually, as all technological roadblocks are.

We Become God

After thousands of years of looking to the skies thinking that there were invisible creatures out there more advanced than ourselves that crafted us into being, it is time to realize that we are in fact the creator creature. We will create life forms much more advanced and complex than our naturally occurring selves, and those life forms will create even more advanced life forms. The only thing we can be certain of is that we do not travel to the past to visit our ancestors, at least not in such a way as to make our presences known.

And So It Goes
We stand at the foot of the great turning point in humanity. We are about to experience the greatest global economic and technological boom that the world has ever seen. We have braved the storm of the great recession, and now will be passengers on this great ride to the end of humanity as we know it. Hopefully, we will maintain our health and life so that we can be a part of it. Otherwise, c’est la vie.

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Why America Needs The Public Option

Posted on October 1, 2009 by Dan| Leave a comment

The health care reform debate has been at the forefront of the national media spotlight since Americans got tired of talking about the economy. What amazes me is how few economic discussions are involved in assessing what should be done to fix America’s broken health care system. Instead, the discussions focus on hyperboles, emotions, and a whole lot of fear mongering. This is my analysis of the situation.

Part I: The Problem

Profit Maximization
Insurance companies are corporations. Corporations have one underlying goal: to maximize profits for their shareholders. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a fact. Insurance companies are not in business to make sure everyone is insured, they are in business to sell policies and make money.

Think about insurance policies like TVs. If it costs you $50 to make a TV, but you can sell just as many for $100 as you would for $50, it would be stupid not to sell the TVs for $100. Let’s say you can sell ten TVs for $100. That’s $1000 in TV revenues and $500 in costs, with a profit of $500. What if you could sell eight TVs for $200, with two fewer people buying TVs because they’re too expensive? That’s $1600 in revenues and $400 in costs, with a profit of $1200. It would be stupid not to raise the price to $200. But what about those two poor suckers who don’t have TVs anymore? Well, they’re just TVs so it’s no problem.

Health insurance operates in the same manner. Insurance companies are incentivised to charge higher and higher rates, up to the point where profit is maximized and any increase in price will cause companies or individuals purchasing the insurance to drop coverage at a loss to the insurer. But, unlike with TVs, not having an insurance policy means risking sickness, death or bankruptcy. This makes health insurance highly inelastic, in that a large increase in price will cause only a few people to drop coverage. Letting people die by forcing them to drop coverage because costs are too high is thus built into the private system.

Market Power
In a purely competitive economy, insurance companies would not be able to charge rates as high as that which would maximize profits, because other companies would charge cheaper rates. Going back to the TV example, imagine if your competitor sold similar TVs for $100. Lets say that if you charged $200, you could only sell 2 TVs with a profit of $300, which is less than the $500 you would make if you sold them for $100. It would make sense to buy your competitor out so that you can jack up the price to $200 and sell just as many TVs. Or, you could talk to your competitor, and agree to both sell the TVs for $200. Or, even better, you could buy the factory that sells the TVs to your competitor, make that company stop selling to the competitor, then jack up the prices and watch your competitor fizzle out. This is called gaining market power, (monopoly power if you are the only seller).

Most of the health industry is not competitive. There are a limited number of health providers, and they collude on prices. Healthcare companies gain market power in a way that is similar to the third example in the previous paragraph. The factory producing TVs is like a hospital providing health services. Insurance companies often own hospitals, or have exclusive agreements with hospital operators. They make sure no other insurance companies have access to those hospitals, or make agreements with other companies to charge the same prices for access to those hospitals.

Insurance companies will charge rates that are as high as they possibly can, and squeeze people out of coverage. In a recession, more people and businesses are forced to drop coverage because they don’t have jobs. Insurance companies raise rates to compensate for having fewer customers, because they know that the remaining customers will fork over more money for an essential service like health care.

Pre-existing conditions
Insurance companies are also disincentivised from providing coverage to people with pre-existing health conditions, the people who need health insurance the most. Think about it like a life insurance policy. Would you sell a policy for $100 a month that paid out $100,000 to someone who was likely going to die in 2 months? That would be stupid, since you know you would lose almost $100,000 on the deal. Similarly, health insurance companies would not provide coverage to someone who has suffered from cancer, since that person is likely to rack up a lot of medical bills if their cancer comes back. Health insurers are in the business of risk, and sick people present too high of a risk.

Society loses
The result of all of these issues is that society loses. Health care should not be a scarce commodity like TVs. It should be a universal commodity available to all. Anyone who disagrees with this thinks that people should die because they are poor. This is a viable argument that can be made: if you can’t afford health insurance, then you should die if you are sick. We live in a capitalist system, and people who haven’t figured out how to manipulate the system to maximize their financial gain should die. This argument is completely inhumane, and I can’t understand the thought process of those who make it.

Many would argue that under the current system, hospitals are forced to provide emergency coverage, and therefore the poor do get care. But, many are forced to go into bankruptcy because of this situation, which prevents them from having an equal opportunity to participate in the capitalist system. Further, there is more than emergency coverage necessary to have proper health care. What about diseases or operations? What about checkups that can prevent or catch sickness early? What about insane deductibles and denials of coverage for those who do have healthcare? Everyone should have a right to a basic level of health care. Lack of money should not be grounds for receiving the death penalty.

Corruption
Why has nothing changed? A problem that has persisted due to the current system is widespread involvement of insurance companies in spending money to sway people to support their companies and the current system. Again, this is just a part of the system. If your company is making $1 billion a year in profit, it’s worth $100 million to pay someone to make sure that you keep making that profit if you only will make $500 million a year in profit if you don’t make the payment. It’s worth $400 million in savings to spend that $100 million.

There’s no point in blaming insurance companies for spending hundreds of billions of dollars to fight the public option by giving money to lawmakers and spending money on expensive advertisements to sway public opinion in their favour. They are private companies, and those funds are a worthwhile investment. After all, it works. As of the writing of this article, the insurance companies have almost completely squashed the public option as a legislative solution to the health care problem. But, in reality, the public option is the only solution.

Part II: The solution

The Band-Aid
Any solution without a public option is essentially a band-aid. The current solution being sent through the senate serves to force insurance companies to take losses on people with pre-existing conditions and the poor who can’t afford insurance. The government would have to subsidize those losses in some way shape or form. Prices will keep going up, and inevitably the taxpayer will have to pay. These band-aid solutions are just another way of funnelling taxpayer money to shareholders of insurance companies. The poor will likely receive inferior and inadequate coverage.

Medicare and Medicaid are essentially band-aid solutions. Health insurance is provided to seniors or the poor with billions of dollars of government handouts. Medicare costs continually increase because basic health care costs continually increase. These costs put a greater and greater burden on the taxpayer, and lead to trillions of dollars in government debt.

The Public Option
A public health insurance provider would have a different incentive system from a private corporation. Rather than maximizing profits to shareholders, a public insurer would want to minimize profits, or even take losses, so as to make sure the maximum number of people are able to get the best possible coverage. A public organization’s incentives are directed towards pleasing voters. Thus, the more happy voters, the more support for the organization. The more people that have coverage, the more happy voters.

The public option is like a competitor selling TVs for $50, or even $40. What are you going to do if your competitor is selling TVs for $40 that cost you $50 to produce? Well, you either go out of business or build a better TV that you can make money off of.

The public option would force insurance companies to sell better and cheaper plans that would compete with the public plan. The public plan would slowly swallow up the cheap and inefficient side of the health coverage market. Many employers would switch their coverage to the public option to cut costs. Private options would be a premium service offered by certain employers. They would be forced to compete with public providers.

This scenario would be better for America. Employers would be able to see more profits because they can save money on giving health care to their employees. All Americans would be covered, and not be forced into bankruptcy to survive sickness. Medical costs would go down because the government insurer would be able to bargain with medical providers to lower medical costs. Doctors will still be rich, just not as rich.

Many people are afraid of this scenario unfolding because they think it represents socialism. Perhaps a complete government takeover of healthcare, hospitals, and the destruction of private competition as exists in Canada and other countries would be socialistic. But just providing a government option that competes with the private options is no different from a public school system, or a public parcel delivery system. Private schools have to offer an education that is better than the public system can offer. The public system thus encourages better education for all.

Some things are best done by governments, who serve the best interests of society, not their shareholders. Coming from Canada, it is astounding for me to hear the hell that Americans go through just to get health care. When I needed health care in Canada, I went to the hospital or doctor, filled some paperwork out, and showed my government insurance card. That was it. No bills, no questions, no deductible. Nothing. Just health care. Which is not to say that the Canadian system is perfect, but it is much better than a system where poverty is a death sentence.

Health care should be a right ensured by the government, not a purchased commodity like TVs. Americans need to stop listening to the rhetoric presented by the insurance companies. These companies are fighting for their lives. Fortunately for them, the people in charge of making the decision to put a public option in place are corrupt and ignorant, and will shift their position in return for kickbacks that will get them re-elected.

The only way things will change is if American support for the public option increases, and the only way that will happen is if Americans get educated about the issue, and realize that the public option will make life better for everyone except the shareholders of insurance companies.

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