The Myth of Silver Bullet Solutions

Have you ever noticed that fixing one thing frequently breaks another? Take medicine for example: It is common for the side effects of a medication to be worse than the ailment the medicine is used to treat. The patient then has to take several other pills to deal with the side effects of the first drug, each of which has its own set of side effects.

It is much the same with political “solutions”; only we are not told up front what the side effects will be so we can decide if we are willing to accept them. Instead, politicians herald a solution as a magic bullet that solves the problem without creating new ones. If common sense does not defeat this notion, empirical evidence certainly will.

Take for instance the popular myth that regulation is the solution to the housing crisis. While some regulation is arguably necessary, regulation almost always has unintended effects. Rent control laws are a strong example of this. While they are designed to keep housing affordable they almost always have the unintended consequence of driving up the costs of other housing in the area and have led to housing shortages in cities around the world. In short, when evaluating a new policy we must not only consider what it will fix, but also what it will break.

What our Extra Tax Dollars Will Buy

As the Obama administration moves forward with its health care reformation plan it is imperative that we take the time to sit down and take a good look at exactly how the proposed plan will change the way we receive our care. Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute has published a concise piece listing some of the more controversial elements of the new bill. He argues that significant tax increases across the board will be needed to finance the proposed overhaul. I have listened to numerous people say they have no problem paying more in taxes if it means they receive health care in return, but we need to take a deeper look at just what these tax dollars will buy us.

Several months ago I had a lengthy chat with a practicing doctor about the problems in our medical system. In the discussion he eloquently summed up the central issue of the US medical system by saying that “Americans want three things from health care: they want it good, they want it cheap, and they want it now and in the end it is not possible to have all three at the same time”. Currently in America we tend to have really good health care that is administered in a relatively fast amount time when compared to other countries, but we have to pay a large amount of money to get it. Countries such as England that have government ran health care tend to have moderately good health care for much lower prices, but they have to wait much longer than Americans to receive care. Take these two cases from England as examples of some of the wait times that are experienced in such systems. Nor are such examples unique to England. All countries with large, government ran health care systems have much longer average wait times to get into a doctor’s office and much longer average wait times in a waiting room to see the doctor than in the US. In many cases the average wait time is 3 or more times longer than here at home. On top of this even advocates of a system like England's have admitted that quality of care offered in such systems is typically mediocre when compared to the system we currently have.

So as Obama pushes this policy forward we need to ask ourselves if we prefer our health care cheap, mediocre, and slow, or good, fast, and expensive.

Slogans In Lieu of Facts

It is a well documented fact that humans rally behind salient agenda items with well-crafted slogans to unite them. Darfur is a great example of this phenomenon. While the problems of Darfur have been going on for decades, it wasn’t until several years ago that it finally became a common topic of discussion in America. Around the same time you see slogans such as “save Darfur now” or “Stop genocide”. While this case demonstrates their value as glue to keep large and diverse communities together on an important issue, during election time this benefit is distorted.

During election season discussion of the actual agenda item(s) moves to the back burner while slogans because the central focus. In this case the slogan itself can become so prominent that its meaning is lost in the crowd. Take for instance Obama’s slogan “Change we can believe in”. By the time we were into the general election the original meaning of this slogan had fallen to the way side in favor becoming a rallying call for Obama’s supporters, many of whom had no idea what kind of change they were supporting. This is unfortunate because in this situation the issues that affect us do not get discussed as more than soundbytes or bullet-points.

Contrast this to the famous debates between Lincoln and Douglas prior to the civil war. In these town hall style debates candidates would spend well over an hour making proof-laden arguments in support of their platform and Americans would sit around for the whole thing. Though this would be unrealistic to expect in our fast paced information society, we have clearly gone to the opposite extreme where we spend far too little time discussing politics and evaluating our leaders. In the words of Thomas Jefferson: “Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty”.

Dodging Issues Rather than Dealing with them

Yesterday I watched an interview with Carolyn Maloney, a democrat representative from New York, about her position on universal health care. At one point in the segment she was asked point-blank if she supports insuring illegal immigrants. For whatever reason she chose to ignore the question and continue with her talking points to which the interviewer responded by asking her the same question… four more times!

The point here has nothing to do with universal health care, illegal immigration, or the fact that it happened to be a democrat this time around. The issue here is that she refused to answer an important question about the way she will vote on an issue. Worse than this is the fact that this is NOT a rare occurrence. In fact, not only is it a common phenomenon, it has become an accepted norm in both major parties across the entire spectrum of issues.

Rarely does anyone do as this interviewer and continue to ask the same question and even rarer is it that the politician gets directly called out for intentionally avoiding the question. We have gotten so used to not having our real questions answered that we no longer demand real answers from our leaders, and until we demand them we will not get them.

A Lesson in Rhetoric

Smooth words pave the way for big lies. Whenever a policy maker is about to give the public a pill that is hard to swallow, he will typically soften the blow with encouraging rhetoric. Politicians will also use this technique during debates to distract listeners from the actual message.

These tactics are remarkably effective at disarming us due to the way the words tend to resonate with core values that we typically hold. Take for example the following positive resonators: “fair” “free” “equal” “regulation”. These words reverberate with “good feelings”. Unfortunately politicians rarely hammer out the definitions they use for these words when addressing the public, leaving us with the responsibility of discerning their intent.

Aside from the obvious path of conducting your own research there is a valuable measuring stick that can be used to evaluate politicians on the fly. While you listen to what they are saying look for trigger words that tend to illicit a positive or negative emotional response when you hear them. Once you have identified one, listen carefully to the next thing the persuader says. Chances are this statement is the one that actually contains some content. Though this technique will not always work, it does provide one more tool to protect yourself from lofty rhetoric.