Epic fail
November 25th 2009 23:16
Did you read Phillip Levine’s article about Bart Stupak’s anti-abortion amendment to the health care bill? If so, could someone tell me how it ended? See, I tuned out after he started counting the number of women of childbearing age covered by Medicaid, and the number of women covered by private insurance who actually seek abortions. (If one of my students threw quotes around without citations as much as he does, I’d penalize them – but apparently the New York Times has a less strict marking guide.)
I don’t know what school of economics Levine went to, but I was taught that even though the field is about numbers, it’s also about people. He talks about these things like they’re a production-demand graph, or a strategic form game. They are not. He is dealing with people’s lives (literally). By this kind of cold-blooded calculus, slavery should have been all right because there were also millions of free blacks in the North and West. Al-Qaeda is not a serious threat because the majority of Americans live in towns that are unlikely to be targeted. Iran is not a credible nuclear threat because they're only likely to have about one nuclear bomb. Rape is not a social problem because most women will never experience it.
Do you really need me to continue with this?
Mr. Spock may have asked us to weigh the good of the many versus the good of the few, or the one. But we do not live in Vulcan, we live in the United States of America - and the United States of America is not based on cold logic and numbers with no context. It is based on people, and their inalienable rights.
tldr: Epic fail, Professor Levine. Epic fail.
I don’t know what school of economics Levine went to, but I was taught that even though the field is about numbers, it’s also about people. He talks about these things like they’re a production-demand graph, or a strategic form game. They are not. He is dealing with people’s lives (literally). By this kind of cold-blooded calculus, slavery should have been all right because there were also millions of free blacks in the North and West. Al-Qaeda is not a serious threat because the majority of Americans live in towns that are unlikely to be targeted. Iran is not a credible nuclear threat because they're only likely to have about one nuclear bomb. Rape is not a social problem because most women will never experience it.
Do you really need me to continue with this?
Mr. Spock may have asked us to weigh the good of the many versus the good of the few, or the one. But we do not live in Vulcan, we live in the United States of America - and the United States of America is not based on cold logic and numbers with no context. It is based on people, and their inalienable rights.
tldr: Epic fail, Professor Levine. Epic fail.
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