Salute those trying to re-establish some democracy

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Whatever happened to the idea of public service? According to the Center for Responsive Politics, 45% of ex-congressmen join lobbying companies, where pay can be ten times that of a congressman.

In the words of Watchdog.com “Public service should be for the public good – not an audition for a lavish lifestyle as a corporate lobbyist”.  A member of Congress is unlikely to vote for measures that put large corporations back in their boxes if those corporations might hire them as lobbyists when they lose their seats. There is nothing wrong with genuine, legitimate lobbying – I have done it myself.  It is the corrupt influence trading and buying of votes that makes a mockery of democracy.

The new “Close the Revolving Door Act”, initiated by Sen. Al Franken, attempts to mitigate this boil on the body politic. In addition to banning actual members of Congress becoming lobbyists it also

–   Increases penalties for breaking the Lobbying Disclosure Act
–   Extends the ban on congressional staffers becoming lobbyists, from only one year to six
–   Gives the public better online access to information about who lobbies Congress

Epicurus would have been on the side of integrity and the angels against perceived corruption.  But the angels are few and the money-grubbers and careerists many. Don’t expect this to become law any day soon!

Medical tourism

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£2.8 bn is the cost to the British National Health Service of treating everyone who is not a British national:  students, workers on visas, tourists, immigrants, expats popping back to see their old GP and yes “health tourists”.   One figure puts deliberate abuse of the NHS by the un-entitled at £200m a year, which is a lot less than nearly £2bn.  But I wonder about this £200m.

One weekend I had to go to St.Mary’s Hospital Emergency Department in London.  The whole waiting room was full of Arabs, some fully covered, some very pregnant.  I waited for hours while they were attended to, and when my turn came I asked the nurse what arrangements there were for charging the clearly affluent Arabic clientele.  “None,” she replied, “we have no computer and no price list”. The waiting room of the local doctor’s surgery is a smaller imitation of the same thing.  I have no idea how much medical tourism there realistically is, but my guess is that £200m a year is just that, a guess.

In so far as this cheating causes resentment and loss of peace of mind, it is un-Epicurean. More sinisterly it aids  the cause of those bent on privatising the health service.  The advocates of this straightforward theft of taxpayer assets see nothing wrong in making big profits out of the sick and disabled. Tomorrow: a shocking case of flagrant greed in the medical world.

 

An unusual perspective.

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“All over Europe, Saudis and Kuwaitis are making a nuisance of themselves. Social media is stuffed with video clips of tourists from the Persian Gulf acting appallingly. We watch as they picnic in public parks, then stroll away leaving their garbage on the grass. We cringe as they double-park their luxury cars in the middle of busy European streets, and boast about the ensuing traffic jams. One group can be seen squatting in the dirt next to the Eiffel Tower and smoking from a hookah, another stealing a duck from a pond in an Austrian park and cooking and eating it in front of horrified locals. That last episode prompted Viennese authorities to call for a reduction in visas for Gulf citizens, and we can hardly blame them. Saudi Arabia has spent “huge sums on scholarships, conferences and forums” to improve the image of our country, only to be undermined by “a handful of reckless holidaymakers”. We can’t tolerate this. Anyone caught infringing the laws or customs of a foreign country should lose the privilege of travelling for a few years – maybe then they’ll learn how to act respectfully”. (Mahmoud al-Madani, Okaz, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia).

This might well be the arrogance that wealth and ignorance bestows, and the plea is nice to read.  But from a perch in London this past  summer, I have to say that the Arabs generally behave well. So huge are the numbers of foreign visitors (and so few the British) that the Arabs are lost in the tide of humanity.  It is a bit overwhelming. But I wouldn’t pick on the Arabs as mis-behavers in particular, except in one respect, and I will deal with  that tomorrow.

 

Quotation – a must- read

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Bernie Sanders to a meeting at the evangelical Liberty University, founded by Jerry Falwell:

“Are you content? Do you think it’s moral that twenty percent of the children in this country, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, are living in poverty? Do you think it is acceptable that 40 percent of African-American children are living in poverty?

“In my view, there is no justice, and morality suffers, when in our wealthy country, millions of children go to bed hungry. That is not morality. I think when we talk about morality we are talking about ail God’s children, the poor and the wretched.   They all have a right to go to a doctor when they are sick.  I want you to search your hearts. Millions of people in this country are working long hours for abysmally low wages. You have got to think about the morality of that, the justice of that”.

Living forever

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“35% of men and 21% of women want to live forever”. (YouGov poll)

Why would anyone want to live forever? Is it because they are having a gloriously wonderful life,  free of anxieties?  My wife expects to live to 100 and wants me with her; I will gladly oblige –  if I and my memory can make it.  But it will be for her, not because I want to live forever.  Whether you like it or not one’s body slows and technology passeth all understanding.  Everlasting life, even if healthy, would be a terrible trial. Friends gone, money diminished, everything changed, and probably no one to care for you.  And to what purpose?

No, I suspect that the real reason for wanting to live forever is that those people fear, or cannot imagine, being no longer alive.  Epicurus taught that we shouldn’t fear death.   “Death is nothing to us” he is quoted as saying.  Life is feeling or sensation, and when it ends, there is no feeling. Death does not hurt.  What can hurt – a lot – is the process of dying, and here our collective attitude is paleolithic.  The ultimate individual human right should be the lengths of our our lives.  No one has the right to keep alive someone in desperate pain or on life support, for instance.  It is our life and no priest or doctor should dictate how we dispose of it  The tentacles of organised religion and its preoccupation with life goes back to prehistoric times.  In the modern world the preoccupation is a trial to humanity.

Epicurus believed that man is a bundle of atoms. You have eternal life in so far as your atoms are recycled forever in a myriad of forms.  We came from stardust and to stardust we shall return.  Be satisfied with that.