From Moral Obligation to Policy - An Observation
Before I get down to 'business', I first want to thank Matt Herrema for setting up and propping this blog, and Russ Graves for hosting it. The fact that both of these guys are in my lifegroup made things really easy, but even so, I'm gonna break down and cry if I think anymore about how grateful I am. (And would I even joke about that?)
Also, for those of you that missed my ... ummm ... stirring rendition of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" after The Rock this evening in Friley, cassette tapes are available for a nominal fee. If demand reaches a certain level, I will be forced to find time from my busy schedule to go on tour.
Anyway, fellow PlanetRockISU blogger Kathy Hanson wrote this entry earlier today about alternative energy. I enjoyed the linked article, but there was a subconscious nag. It got me thinking about the propensity of Americans to fail to distinguish very clearly between moral obligation to solve and the solvency and net benefit of policy initiatives.
Americans (and probably the whole of Western society) seems to be well adjusted to the notion that problem X exists, and the implications are disastrous. This stems from the prosperous, and thus reactionary, nature of the West. Even if it is pretty evident that X is not a problem, or at least a very big one, we are reticent to the notion that said situation could always get better. My favorite example of this is health care, where any system that fails to grant immortality to 100% of patients is considered mankind's doom. (And who wants to be worse than Canadians at something, really?) Another example is education, probably an issue cared about by more Americans than any other. (No, 'moral values' is not an issue, or even a meaningful sequence of words, but that's a discussion for later.)
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