Jerry Bowyer Gets Some Feedback

Remember this blog post from a few days ago?

That's the one where local Pittsburgh conservative pundit Jerry Bowyer stumbles (embarrassingly) as he takes on Christopher Hitchens (who's dead and can't defend himself) regarding Christ's virgin birth.

Well, some readers at Forbes.com have given Jerry some feedback.  Not all of it good.

As of the writing of this blog post, there was a smattering of comments supporting Jerry, like this one:

I see the Secular Nazis are coming out of the woodworks to attack Jerry Bowyer. I think Hitchens was an interesting guy who had legitimate complaints against Mother Theresa and others but he was also one of the most arrogant Marxists around. He was far from the “genius” he and other Left-wing Nazis claimed him to be. I wonder which is harder to conceive: The virgin birth or that inanimate matter spontaneously formed living beings, something which scientists have never been able to replicate or prove and never will replicate or prove.

But for the most part the comments ran this one:

What did I just read here??? I mean, and guy who believes in the Unicorn proclaimed himself to be smarter than Hichens??? Ok mate, keep on dreaming..

Or this one:

Vapid!

Seriously Jerry? Don’t try to write anything like this in the future. It makes you look silly.

Given the current state of right wing victimology, I would assume some on the right would see this comment as an attempt to limit Jerry's 1st Amendment rights.

Since he's no longer with us, I'll let Christopher Hitchens (by way of this comment on Jerry's Forbes piece) defend him his position on Mary:

I’ll grant you that it would possible to track the pregnancy of the woman Mary who’s mentioned about three times in the Bible and to show there was no male intervention in her life at all but yet she delivered herself of a healthy baby boy. I can say—I don’t say that’s impossible. Parthenogenesis is not completely unthinkable. It does not prove that his paternity is divine and it wouldn’t prove that any of his moral teachings were thereby correct. Nor, if I was to see him executed one day and see him walking the streets the next, would that show that his father was God or his mother was a virgin or that his teachings were true, especially given the commonplace nature of resurrection at that time and place. After all, Lazarus was raised, never said a word about it. The daughter of Jairus was raised, didn’t say a thing about what she’d been through. And the Gospels tell us that at the time of the crucifixion all the graves in Jerusalem opened and their occupants wandered around the streets to greet people. So it seems resurrection was something of a banality at the time. Not all of those people clearly were divinely conceived. So I’ll give you all the miracles and you’ll still be left exactly where you are now, holding an empty sack.

(In case you missed it, Jerry's just been hitchslapped)

You can read the full debate transcript here.

Local Conservative Pundit Jerry Bowyer Makes A Boo-Boo...

...and misreads Christopher Hitchens all at once.

A complete surprise, huh?

Here's Jerry:

It’s a clever line. When Christopher Hitchens used to slam Christianity he did it with style. “If we lost all our hard-won knowledge and all our archives, and all our ethics and all our morals…and had to reconstruct everything essential from scratch, it is difficult to imagine at that point we would need to remind or reassure ourselves that Jesus was born of a virgin.”

The line employs a sharp edged bathos: End of civilization drama counterpoised with a sneer at that most-despised bit of pre-modern Christian dogma – the virgin birth. Religious people gasped, and aggressive atheists snickered, but I just sat there wishing that Christopher Hitchens knew more history.

And I sit here wishing Jerry had done his homework and not set up a straw man argument.

Here's what Hitchens actually wrote (Jerry, it's on page 96 of Hitchens' book, God Is Not Great.  If you don't have a copy, I can lend you mine):

Thus, though I dislike to differ with such a great man, Voltaire was simply ludicrous when he said that if god did not exist it would be necessary to invent him. The human invention of god is the problem to begin with. Our evolution has been examined "backward," with life temporarily outpacing extinction, and knowledge now at last capable of reviewing and explaining ignorance. Religion, it is true, still possesses the huge if cumbersome and unwieldy advantage of having come "first." But as Sam Harris states rather pointedly in The End of Faith, if we lost all our hard-won knowledge and all our archives, and all our ethics and morals, in some Marquez-like fit of collective amnesia, and had to reconstruct everything essential from scratch, it is difficult to imagine at what point we would need to remind or reassure ourselves that Jesus was born of a virgin.

A careful writer would have pointed out that the thought experiment is actually from Sam Harris, not Christopher Hitchens (though I am sure the latter agreed with it wholeheartedly).  Here's Harris from page 23 of The End of Faith:

What if all our knowledge about the world were suddenly to disappear? Imagine that six billion of us wake up tomorrow morning in a state of utter ignorance and confusion. Our books and computers are still here, but we can’t make heads or tails of their contents. We have even forgotten how to drive our cars and brush our teeth. What knowledge would we want to reclaim first? Well, there’s that business about growing food and building shelter that we would want to get reacquainted with. We would want to relearn how to use and repair many of our machines. Learning to understand spoken and written language would also be a top priority, given that these skills are necessary for acquiring most others. When in this process of reclaiming our humanity will it be important to know that Jesus was born of a virgin? Or that he was resurrected? And how would we relearn these truths, if they are indeed true? By reading the Bible? Our tour of the shelves will deliver similar pearls from antiquity— like the “fact” that Isis, the goddess of fertility, sports an impressive pair of cow horns. Reading further, we will learn that Thor carries a hammer and that Marduk’s sacred animals are horses, dogs, and a dragon with a forked tongue. Whom shall we give top billing in our resurrected world? Yahweh or Shiva? And when will we want to relearn that premarital sex is a sin? Or that adulteresses should be stoned to death? Or that the soul enters the zygote at the moment of conception? And what will we think of those curious people who begin proclaiming that one of our books is distinct from all others in that it was actually written by the Creator of the universe?

See? It's all there, Jerry.  Which leads us to the next point.  A careful writer would not have omitted the Marquez reference.  Though in doing so it makes it possible for the rest of Jerry's piece to be about the necessity of hope at "the end of civilization" and not some solid epistemology after a "collective amnesia":

When our civilization did indeed collapse – when the Goths tore the gates of Rome from its hinges and mobs of tattooed warriors raped and pillaged their way across what had formerly been the civilized world...

And so on.  How convenient.

Indeed the rest of Harris paragraph is about knowledge - what knowledge we'd need and how to separate Yahweh from Shiva.  How would we "know" which one is "correct"?  No way for us to tell.  And for the purpose of humanity's survival in that hypothetical, unnecessary.

Which brings me back to Hitchen's use of Harris' hypothetical.  It's in the chapter of God is not Great devoted to the "argument by design" explanation of the existence of God.  Hitchens is making the point that when taking an honest look at science:

...all this will be further clarified if we are modest and patient enough to understand the building blocks of nature and the lowly stamp of our origins. No divine plan, let alone angelic intervention, is required. Everything works without that assumption.[Italics in original.]

And yet Jerry misuses it to muse on about the "truth" of Mary's virgin birth.  Had he done his homework and wanted to challenge Hitchens on the "truth" of Mary's virgin birth Jerry Bowyer could have done after this paragraph in God is Not Great (page 23, for those of you keeping score):

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was in this wise. When his mother, Mary, was espoused to Joseph, before they came together she was found with child of the Holy Ghost." Yes, and the Greek demigod Perseus was born when the god Jupiter visited the virgin Danaë as a shower of gold and got her with child. The god Buddha was born through an opening in his mother's flank. Catlicus the serpent-skirted caught a little ball of feathers from the sky and hid it in her bosom, and the Aztec god Huitzilopochtli was thus conceived. The virgin Nana took a pomegranate from the tree watered by the blood of the slain Agdestris, and laid it in her bosom, and gave birth to the god Attis. The virgin daughter of a Mongol king awoke one night and found herself bathed in a great light, which caused her to give birth to Genghis Khan. Krishna was born of the virgin Devaka. Horus was born of the virgin Isis. Mercury was born of the virgin Maia. Romulus was born of the virgin Rhea Sylvia. For some reason, many religions force themselves to think of the birth canal as a one-way street, and even the Koran treats the Virgin Mary with reverence. However, this made no difference during the Crusades, when a papal army set out to recapture Bethlehem and Jerusalem from the Muslims, incidentally destroying many Jewish communities and sacking heretical Christian Byzantium along the way, and inflicted a massacre in the narrow streets of Jerusalem, where, according to the hysterical and gleeful chroniclers, the spilled blood reached up to the bridles of the horses.

Compare that to Jerry's argument about the status of women in Western Civlization:

If Jesus was God and Mary bore Jesus, then Mary must be the ‘theotokos’, the God-bearer. Thus began something that changed the view of women in the Western world, elevating them to previously unheard heights. First Mary, and then by extension all virtuous women. A thousand years after Mary bore Jesus into Palestine, she bore Chivalry into Europe.

That would be the same Chivalrous Europe that destroyed many Jewish communities and sacked Christian Byzantium during the Crusades.

An Election In Australia and Jerry Bowyer Makes A Silly

In contrasting the incumbent Kevin Rudd and the winner, Tony Abbot, Jerry Bowyer makes a number of points in this piece at Forbes.com.  Among them this one:

Social policy: Abbott, a practicing Roman Catholic (and former seminarian), opposed calls for same sex marriage, while Rudd argued for it, with awkward attempts to link the Bible’s opposition to homosexuality with its alleged support for slavery.

Alleged, Jerry?  We need to take a look at that.

But first let's take a step back.  What Jerry's referring to is this Q and A with Rudd a week or so ago:


From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:

The pastor in the Brisbane audience asked the Prime Minister how he could support gay marriage "if you call yourself a Christian".

The Prime Minister responded by suggesting that line of thinking would also make slavery an acceptable proposition.

The pastor asked Mr Rudd: "Jesus said a man shall leave his father and mother and be married ... Kevin, if you call yourself a Christian, why don't you believe the words of Jesus in the Bible?"

"Well, mate if I was going to have that view, the Bible also says that slavery is a natural condition," Mr Rudd responded.

Mr Rudd's response received loud appaluse (sic) from the audience.

"Saint Paul said in the New Testament, 'slaves be obedient to your masters'," the Prime Minister continued.

I guess that's the part where Jerry Bowyer and Australia's ex-Prime Minister differ, hence the former's use of the adverb "allegedly."   But does Saint Paul actually say that?

Why, yes.  Yes, he does.  Ephesians 6:5-9:

5 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. 6 Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. 7 Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, 8 because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.

9 And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.

He says almost exactly the same thing is said in Colossians 3:22-4:

22 Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

But he's also not alone in The Good Book in allowing slavery.  It's also OK'ed in the Old Testament. As in Leviticus 25:44-46:

44 “‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46 You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

So, slaves obey your masters as you would obey The Lord, masters don't threaten your slaves as The Lord won't like it.  Israelites can own slaves, just as long as the other Israelites they own (temporarily) are not treated "ruthlessly."

I'm thinking we're way past "allegedly" on this one, aren't we Jerry?

I mean, correct me if I am wrong, please.  How do these texts say anything otherwise?  Show me the "allegedly."

Props To Jerry Bowyer!

His rhetoric's landed him on MediaMatters again!

Take a look:

Forbes contributor Jerry Bowyer relied on shoddy logic and baseless assertions to attempt to debunk the well-supported claim that marriage equality has a variety of economic benefits.

In his July 4 blog post - touted by the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) - Bowyer claimed that the Supreme Court's recent marriage equality decisions would hurt businesses by adding to "paperwork" for same-sex couples.

It's a silly argument Jerry's making but I'll let this commenter sum things up:

Yeah, because excess paperwork is always an awesome reason to deny people their civil rights.

Awesome.

Happy Birthday John Maynard Keynes

Today is June 5.

On June 5th in 1883, economist John Maynard Keynes was born.

Why is this important?  He's the "Keynes" of "Keynsian economics" and agree with him or not, he's among the most influential economists of the 20th century.

When faced with the problem of stubborn persistent unemployment in Great Britain, Keynes had an idea:

The solution to this conundrum was seemingly simple: Replace the missing private investment with public investment, financed by deliberate deficits. The government would borrow money to spend on such things as public works; and that deficit spending, in turn, would create jobs and increase purchasing power. Striving to balance the government's budget during a slump would make things worse, not better. In order to make his argument, Keynes deployed a range of new tools—standardized national income accounting (which led to the basic concept of gross national product), the concept of aggregate demand, and the multiplier (people receiving government money for public-works jobs will spend money, which will create new jobs). Keynes's analysis laid the basis for the field of macroeconomics, which treats the economy as a whole and focuses on government's use of fiscal policy—spending, deficits, and tax. These tools could be used to manage aggregate demand and thus ensure full employment. As a corollary, the government would cut back its spending during times of recovery and expansion. This last precept, however, was all too often forgotten or overlooked.

And so on.

Of course, he's not without controversy recently:

Historian and author Niall Ferguson has apologised "unreservedly" for "stupid and tactless" remarks in which he implied that John Maynard Keynes did not care about future generations – because he was childless and gay.

Whah? You can read more of what he said here.  Suffice it to say that Ferguson's apology was swift and complete:

“I should not have suggested,” Ferguson writes, “that Keynes was indifferent to the long run because he had no children, nor that he had no children because he was gay. This was doubly stupid.”

Ferguson noted that people who have no children can and do care about future generations. He also said he forgot that Keynes’s wife had suffered a miscarriage.

“My disagreements with Keynes’s economic philosophy have never had anything to do with his sexual orientation.” Ferguson also says. “It is simply false to suggest, as I did, that his approach to economic policy was inspired by any aspect of his personal life. As those who know me and my work are well aware, I detest all prejudice, sexual or otherwise.”

Unfortunately, that hasn't stopped local conservative Jerry Bowyer from sticking to something that Fergsuson has called doubly stupid:

The signals have been sent: the Keynes/homosexuality/theoretical distortion theory is not only wrong, it is blasphemy, punishable by instant anathematization and career immolation, at least as far as academic and corporate life are concerned. Even some conservative commentators have denounced Ferguson and, to the degree that he has found ‘defenders’ on the right such as Mark Steyn, their contributions have been more along the lines of pointing out the thought-police-like response to Ferguson than actually defending the theory itself.

But fear not, Grand and not-so-grand Inquisitors, your wood pile will not go to waste. I intend to defend the notion that Keynes’ sexual outlook is likely to have distorted his views of economics.

Yea, good luck with that Jerry.

No Death Panels

Reg Henry starts out his column this morning with:

Today marks the one-year anniversary of President Obama signing the Affordable Care Act, if you support it -- or Obamacare, if you don't.

As one who supports the law but is disappointed in one aspect, I have a question: So where are the death panels already?

No death panels are in sight, and some of us are dying to see them implemented. It just goes to show that Big Government can't organize a booze-up in a brewery.

Not that he thinks they're lurking. A few paragraphs later:

Actually, we were told by the critics of health care all sorts of bad things would happen that, in fact, haven't happened.

No Death Panels. Mediamatters has a history of the lie and how it spread and that got me to thinking.

The lie started with Betsy McCaughey (transcript via mediamatters):

And one of the most shocking things I found in this bill, and there were many, is on Page 425, where the Congress would make it mandatory -- absolutely require -- that every five years, people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner, how to decline nutrition, how to decline being hydrated, how to go in to hospice care. And by the way, the bill expressly says that if you get sick somewhere in that five-year period -- if you get a cancer diagnosis, for example -- you have to go through that session again. All to do what's in society's best interest or your family's best interest and cut your life short. These are such sacred issues of life and death. Government should have nothing to do with this.

Politifact debunked the claim:

Republicans have found many reasons to oppose the Democrats' health care proposal, but this is one of the oddest.

Betsy McCaughey, chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths and former lieutenant governor of New York state, says the bill goes too far to encourage senior citizens to end their lives.

On the radio show of former Sen. Fred Thompson on July 16, 2009, McCaughey said "Congress would make it mandatory — absolutely require — that every five years people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner."

And their summation:

For our ruling on this one, there's really no gray area here. McCaughey incorrectly states that the bill would require Medicare patients to have these counseling sessions and she is suggesting that the government is somehow trying to interfere with a very personal decision. And her claim that the sessions would "tell [seniors] how to end their life sooner" is an outright distortion. Rather, the sessions are an option for elderly patients who want to learn more about living wills, health care proxies and other forms of end-of-life planning. McCaughey isn't just wrong, she's spreading a ridiculous falsehood. That's a Pants on Fire.

Didn't stop our very own Jerry Bowyer from chiming in. In the video clip Jerry's screaming about Section 1233 of HR 3200. You can find it here. Though you won't find the "death panels" in there.

Never were there in the first place.

Chris Potter Does It Again

Slag Heap, today.

Potterman deconstructs BOTH Jack Kelly AND Jerry Bowyer. The topic? The high cost of higher education:

Let's acknowledge the obvious: Whatever else these guys are, they're conservative ideologues, and they aren't writing in a vacuum. After all, even Phyllis Freakin' Schlafly has begun asking questions about whether a college education is worth it. And when folks like Phyllis Schlafly start expressing concern for the poor and indebted, you know something is up.

One gets the sneaking suspicion, in fact, that what really bothers Schlafly & Co. is not the cost of education per se, but the fact that Barack Obama has done something about it. Back when giant for-profit enterprises like Sallie Mae were raking in fees, massive student indebtedness was, presumably, just the free market at work. Now that Obama has cut the banks out of student lending, you'll hear conservatives begin to wring their hands about whether those poor first-years are getting their money's worth.

(I mean after all, when Kelly complains that "it is virtually impossible to discharge student loan debts in bankruptcy," he might have felt obliged to mention the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act. That 2005 measure, passed by a Republican-led Congress and signed by a Republican president, made it difficult to discharged loans even when they were issued by Sallie Mae and other for-profit lenders.)

So I can't blame those who wonder about Kelly's motivation here. Does his concern stem from the fact that college campuses are among the few places where liberal ideas are not roundly dismissed ... where they even predominate? Is it any wonder that Kelly -- a global warming denier in the face of strong scientific consesnsus -- doesn't see the value in book-larnin'?

So, yet again Potter shows us all how it's done.

More On Jerry Bowyer's NightTalk Death Panel

Thought I'd spend a little time fact-checking Jerry's NightTalk appearance. First on the so-called "Death Panels."

Jerry, as you may recall, said that Sarah Palin was "sort of onto something" regarding the death panels.

Uh, no. Politifact.org, a fact-checking subsidiary of the St Petersburg Times has found this to be such a huge lie, they use their "Pants on fire" label:

We have read all 1,000-plus pages of the Democratic bill and examined versions in various committees. There is no panel in any version of the health care bills in Congress that judges a person's "level of productivity in society" to determine whether he or she is "worthy" of health care.

Palin's claim sounds a little like another statement making the rounds, which says that health care reform would mandate counseling for seniors on how to end their lives sooner. We rated this claim Pants on Fire ! The truth is that the health bill allows Medicare, for the first time, to pay for doctor appointments for patients to discuss living wills and other end-of-life issues. These types of appointments are optional, and AARP supports the measure.

The AP has also debunked the "death panel" story, after quoting Governor Palin's description of the "panels" they say:

Nothing in the legislation would carry out such a bleak vision. The provision that has caused the uproar would instead authorize Medicare to pay doctors for counseling patients about end-of-life care, if the patient wishes.

But what of the broader questions - are there any "euthanasia" issues" to the bill? The AP has the answers to those questions as well:

Q: Does the health care legislation bill promote "mercy killing," or euthanasia?

A: No.

Q: Then what's all the fuss about?

A: A provision in the House bill written by Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., would allow Medicare to pay doctors for voluntary counseling sessions that address end-of-life issues. The conversations between doctor and patient would include living wills, making a close relative or a trusted friend your health care proxy, learning about hospice as an option for the terminally ill, and information about pain medications for people suffering chronic discomfort.

The sessions would be covered every five years, more frequently if someone is gravely ill.

Q: Is anything required?

Monsignor Charles Fahey, 76, a Catholic priest who is chairman of the board of the National Council on Aging, a nonprofit service and advocacy group, says no.

"We have to make decisions that are deliberative about our health care at every moment," Fahey said. "What I have said is that if I cannot say another prayer, if I cannot give or get another hug, and if I cannot have another martini - then let me go."

Q: Does the bill advocate assisted suicide?

A: No. It would block funds for counseling that presents suicide or assisted suicide as an option.

Not sure where Jerry Bowyer is getting his news on this one - if he has a problem with these facts, he has them with the AP and the St Petersburg Times, not with me. But those are the facts. And spreading anything else is, well, just a lie.

Jerry Bowyer on Night Talk

Watching the 10:00 rerun.

10:22pm

Jerry Bowyer thinks there ARE euthanasia issues found in the Health Care Bill.

Jerry said that Sarah Palin "was sort of on to something" on the "death panel" issue.

10:28

Jerry thinks that the solution is found in giving vouchers to the 5 million households that are chronically uninsured. There are really only 15 million uninsured in the US.

10:31

The rerun is half over. Some comments. Jerry said he invited Congressmen Altmire and Doyle to be on the show but they couldn't show. SO he had on two conservatives instead.

Unbelievably one sided.

Jerry asked the rhetorical question "why would anyone follow a leader who lies to them?" It would probably be too snarky to point out they weren't discussing Iraq's WMD.

10:33

Jerry just said that the Democratic Congressmen would not come on the air to defend the health care plan.

10:35

Only 10 or 15 million uninsured. The rest are illegal aliens or those who qualify for insurance but don't choose to get it.

10:37

Now they're dragging out the "it'll add $1 trillion to the deficit" meme.

10:39

Judging from Jerry's teaser, they're going to be discussing Dr Ezekiel Emanuel.

10:42

Dana Irey (one of Jerry's guests) just said you're definitely going to have death panels. Now Glenn Meakem (the other guest) is spreading the VA death book lie.

10:50

Now on the screen during the discussion: "Health Care Bill: Is Euthanasia Implied?"

10:53

The Health Care bill is questionable Constitutionally.

10:55

If you don't like the current health care system, you're going to hate Obamacare.

Show just ended. It's rare that so many myths and falsehoods (see above) could be found in such a short period of time.

A Fallacious Argument

I want everyone to take a look at Jerry Bowyer's latest article in the National Review Online.

Before I get into analyzing it, I have to admit that Jerry's article disappointed. I used to listen to him on the radio all the time. While I agreed with about 1% of what he said, I was also greatly admiring his intellect and his obvious depth of reading. He's a very smart guy and you DON'T want to tangle with him unless you've done your homework very very well. If you don't prepare, you'll loose and be out the door before you even knew what happened.

Jerry is the guy who turned me onto Peter Kreeft's book Socratic Logic. Great book. Kreeft takes the reader on a tour of Aristotelian (i.e. "classical") logic and - for the purposes of this posting, let me point this out - the range of logical fallacies possible.

Unfortunately Jerry constructs an easily discernible logical fallacy (sorry, Jerr. but you're smarter than this).

He begins by pointing out the good news regarding US life expectancy:

It turns out that Americans are living longer than they did at any time in the nation’s history. The average lifespan is just shy of 78 years, with women living slightly longer than 80 years. Males and females, blacks and whites — we’re all living longer than ever before.

All good news, of course. But then Jerry commits the fallacy:

So what’s all this noise coming out of D.C. and the left-wing media about how terrible our health-care system is? Why are we told of its unsustainability, its inherent greed and corruption, and its tolerance for tonsillectomy mills? Watching all this hand-wringing, one might think that Americans had the highest death rates ever recorded, rather than the lowest.

The fallacy here is that it's entirely possible for our health care system to be less-than-acceptable while still producing the highest lifespan in our history (more on that later). Those two things aren't mutually exclusive.

Jerry's fallacy is that he writes as if they were.

Here's an example that may clear things up: my chess game is pretty mediocre. If I studied any of the chess books on my bookshelf my chess game would undoubtedly get better. Let's assume for the sake of the argument that I studied hard and made my game better than it ever was.

That does not mean I'd have a good chess game, however. It might be, it might not be, there's no way to know. All I'd know is that it would just be better than it was. See how that works?

That's what Jerry did. He used the comparative "better" without putting it into an understandable framework and then skewed what he was comparing. Just because it's better than it was doesn't mean it's good.

Jerry ends with this:

The cable-television pundits remind us that we’re spending about 16 percent of our national output on health care, and conclude that this is some kind of national scandal. Why? What percentage should we be spending? Is 10 percent more acceptable? Is 5 percent?

Let’s be clear: Prosperous countries spend more on doctors and medicine than non-prosperous ones. The poor allocate almost everything they earn to food, rent, and clothes, and have little to spend on medicine and even less to squander on fun. When a nation gets wealthy, however, food, roofs, and pants become less of a cost issue, while more money is funneled to matters such as health.

Our great-grandparents spent much less than 16 percent of GDP on health care, and they barely made it into their 60s. Would any of you willingly give back 20 years in exchange for less health-care spending?

The fallacy here is that he's comparing the US with only less prosperous countries. Omitting other prosperous ones (did you notice that?) as if to say that those are the only options.

So how does the US fare compared to other industrialized nations in terms of life expectancy and health care costs as percentage of GDP?

NOT as well as Jerry would like you think. According to the CIA Factbook the US ranks 50th among countries across the world (35th among UN member states) in terms of life expectancy. Behind Japan, Canada, Switzerland and so on.

And how does the US compare in Health Care spending as a percentage of GDP? According to this article in the NYTimes (which gets its data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) we're way way way ahead of the pack.

For the year 2007 (the last for which data is available) the percentage is about 16% - much higher than any of the other prosperous countries listed.

So we're paying more for it than anyone else on the planet and yet our life expectancy (though higher than it's ever been) is not the highest on the planet. Not even close.

See the fallacies in Jerry's argument now?

Local Kid Makes Good!

In what has to be the silliest argument against Universal Health Care, local kid Jerry Bowyer (remember him? the shredder of rabbis?) sees a terror threat in medical bureaucracies on Fox "News":

Let me see if I can sum up Jerry's argument. Since a universal health care program would require more doctors (really?), this country would have to import doctors to fill that need and at least some of these doctors would come from "Islamist" countries. And since "they" know how to "game the system" and stay relatively anonymous within large bureaucracies, there's a danger that if this nation adopts a universal health care system, it will be more vulnerable to terrorist attacks, like the ones we just saw in the UK.

Good Ole Jerry. Still crazy after all these years.

UPDATE: Jerry made it onto Keith Olbermann's "Worst Persons in the World" for July 6th. Unfortunately someone should have told Sir Keith that Jerry's last name is pronounced "BOY-yer" not "BOW-yer."