Social Justice and Health Care

The Democrats’ celebratory mood last week over their major legislative victory on health care was perhaps dampened when Cuba’s communist leader, Fidel Castro, endorsed and praised it, and even chided the US for taking two centuries to “approve something as basic as health benefits for all.” He wrote, “It is really incredible that 234 years after the Declaration of Independence ... the government of that country has approved medical attention for the majority of its citizens, something that Cuba was able to do half a century ago." (Well, the Declaration of Independence does not say that a government should be in the business of providing health care, that’s why. It states explicitly, however, that it is the duty of a government to secure and preserve individual rights and liberties.)

But if there is a hint of moral indignation on the part of the Democrats over Castro’s endorsement and the implication that their health care efforts is nothing less than socialized medicine, they should revisit their social justice argument that is at the core of their health care legislation. When President Obama campaigned for the passage of the bill on the argument that 32 million Americans are without medical insurance, he was demanding social justice for all where the well-off should be required to rescue those who are not insured. It’s the same argument that made Speaker Nancy Pelosi declare that health care is a basic right and must be possessed by all. And it is the same argument that Cuba has used to justify its free health care and education for all its citizens. But as it also subsidizes food, housing, utilities and transportation, “which have earned Cuba global praise,” the Cuban government realizes that these programs are “no longer sustainable given Cuba's ever-struggling economy.”

Social justice, in its collective terms, aims for equalizing the distribution of opportunities and resources (and, in the case of government programs, of equalizing entitlements), instead of equalizing access to them. Yes, everyone is equal, but equal in entitlements, not in rights and liberties. This can only create a herd mentality, leading to the establishment and perpetuation of a strong state against weak individuals. Instead of encouraging ambition, dignity, pride, and individul assertiveness, social justice promotes sluggishness, passivity, and dependence as virtues.

Religion is CCP’s Anti-Thesis

The persistence of religious disposition and practice in China, despite the Chinese Communist Party’s all-out efforts to eradicate religion during the Cultural Revolution, gives us a clue on what may become a source of internal dissent that may bring about CPP’s collapse. According to Richard Madsen, in his Templeton Lecture, “Back to the Future: Pre-Modern Religious Policy in Post-Secular China,” surveying the role of religion in China, religious activity of all sorts is on the rise in Chinese society, with official statistics indicating about 100 million religious believers, although, a recent survey accepted for publication in an officially approved Chinese journal, puts it at 300 million. Whether such an increase in religious activity springs from a natural desire to go back to the religious traditions of the Imperial age or due to influence of universalizing religious movements, the Chinese are looking for religious self-expressions.

Freedom movements everywhere should take note: in these religious practices taking place in China today lie the seeds of liberty that can flourish into legitimate dissent against the communist regime. Where free-market seems to fail (as it has benefitted the Party mostly, since wealth, along with economic liberties that come with it, hasn't really trickled down to the bottom), religious liberty is China's self-contradiction.

Philippine Presidential Elections: Yet Another Popularity Contest?

After defending his welterweight title last night, Manny Pacquiao is rushing to go home to the Philippines in order to resume his campaign for a congressional seat in the Philippine Congress. He is also expected to help boost the campaign of a presidential candidate, Manny Villar, who is hoping to ride to victory on the strength of Pacquiao’s popularity. Not to be outdone is Noynoy Aquino, the son of the late former president Corazon Aquino, who chose the great grandson of another former president, Manuel Roxas, to be his running mate, both of whom are banking on the fame that their last names evoke. The other “presidentiables” have also solicited the help of celebrities, usually movie actors or basketball players.

Winning elections in the Philippines is like running a popularity contest. Forget about partisan fights for principled agenda. Political parties field in candidates who have a charismatic appeal, social standing, and ability to buy votes. Politics is driven by personality wherein Filipinos make political choices based on personal considerations.

This is frustrating. One would think that the young, highly educated set of presidential candidates would make things different this time, and that political parties would craft a philosophical vision and party platforms based on good ideas. At least that’s what Gibo Teodoro, another presidential candidate closely associated with the unpopular President Arroyo, is trying to do. But it seems he’s not making a dent because he is being judged by the company he keeps and not by his ideas.

This fledgling republic, poised to become a major player in Southeast Asia during the pre-Marcos era, has yet to achieve a stable constitutional democracy. After three centuries of despotic Spanish rule and an American democratic experiment that was heavily influenced by Wilsonian self-determination policy, the Philippines has yet to learn the ways of genuine republicanism by statesmen who rule in the interest of the people they are supposed to serve.

This campaign season offers an opportune moment for the candidates to reverse the ugly habits of the past, to elevate the meaning of citizenship and political obligation. This they can achieve by giving the citizenry what they deserve: intelligent discussions about the nation’s problems and the directions to which it should be heading. They should start running their campaigns based on the burning issues of the day: how to turn the country into an Asian tiger and become competitive in the world market; how to quell the communist and Islamist insurgencies that have dragged on for decades; what foreign policy directions the country should pursue vis-avis the emerging power of China in Asia; how to develop and harness the human and natural resources of each of the regions in the country so that opportunities can start flourishing in these places, away from Manila; how to eliminate corruption and improve public services, etc.

Filipino politicians owe the Filipino people nothing less than principled statesmanship and effective leadership. Personality-driven politicking must stop. So does undermining the ability of the Filipinos for intelligent discourse.

Women: A Call to Arms

I agree with Mary Eberstadt when she wrote, in a recent article, that women and military service don’t go together, especially if that service requires a young mother to deploy in some unknown part of the world and win a war for her country.

But policing is another matter. It takes place on the domestic front. Its goal of maintaining peace and order is carried out within the parameters of a local community.

And policing by women takes on a special meaning in societies where women are oppressed and treated as second-class citizens. Hear me out.

Last week, two Afghan women were in town to receive the International Women for Courage Award from State Secretary Hillary Clinton. One of them is Colonel Quraishi, who “earned her title as one of 900-plus Afghan National Police,” and now serves as director of gender, human and child rights at the Afghan Ministry of the Interior. In this Washington Post piece, “Saving the World, One Woman at a Time,” the author said that upon interviewing the colonel and other honorees, she noted that all of them would reiterate a dominant theme: “we are not victims.” There was Roshaneh Zafar, a Pakistani woman who founded a microfinance organization to help poor women, who said that “Like women everywhere, we want to be empowered.” “And no, said the colonel, women do not need to do handicrafts. When you think of an Afghan woman, in other words, don’t think of an embroidered tapestry; think of a cop. Tapestries are lovely, and we all want one, but Quraishi prefers that women have guns. Her immediate goal is to expand the number of women in the police force to 5,000.”

Arming women in a principled, legitimate way in societies where they are being oppressed (Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan, and elsewhere) is brilliant. Where some of them are being stoned to death for not wearing a veil, or being burned to death for marrying someone who is above or below their caste, or having acid poured on their faces for cooking a bad meal, or getting raped just because they have a different ethnic background, arming them with police authority gives them dignity, respect, and power.

I hope that a chunk of foreign aid funds handed out by the State Department to countries that oppress women include a proviso requiring that a portion of it be used for integrating women into the police force; and the rest, of course, for their education. For education and guns can indeed be empowering.

Google Stands By Its Principles

On good faith, Google seeks to honor its own “terms of agreement” that it offers to everyone who signs up for its e-mail service. And rightly so. It’s good business for the company to ensure and implement the right of privacy for its customers. It wins trust and company loyalty. But it also shows, on the part of Google, a serious respect for one’s intellectual property.

So that when the company discovered early this year that Chinese hackers had launched a sophisticated network attack against its e-mail service and corporate infrastructure, Google had threatened to pull out of China. Being targeted were the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists and at least 20 other large companies.

In today’s WSJ article, it seems Google is poised to close its China site, even if that means losing 400 million Chinese users. In taking a stance against censorship and intellectual property violation, Google is telling the Chinese they should play by the rules.

“Love Your Enemies”

I had heard about Mosab Hassan Yousef from a segment aired by “60 Minutes” sometime ago. That he surfaced this week on TV and in newspaper articles (“They Need to Be Liberated From Their God,” WSJ) must have to do with the publication of his book, Son of Hamas, which I intend to read shortly.

Mosab, son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, founder and leader of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group, decided to turn away from terrorism and a life of violence to become a double-agent for Israel and Palestine so that he could save lives, he said, and later on converted to Christianity. When asked what it was that made him embrace Christianity, he said one passage from the Bible did it for him: love your enemies.

There’s something profound about loving one’s enemies. It has both political and spiritual implications. Putting aside policy posturing, international relations precepts, and sophisticated academic discourse, “love your enemies” does indeed offer a true grounding for genuine peace in the community and in one’s self. It entails forgiveness, of overcoming a basic human passion called vengeance, of arriving at some understanding with the enemy, and, ultimately, of love begetting love. But unless situated within a spiritual context, everything becomes empty and meaningless.

Mosab puts it this way:

I converted to Christianity because I was convinced by Jesus Christ as a character, as a personality. I loved him, his wisdom, his love, his unconditional love. I didn't leave [the Islamic] religion to put myself in another box of religion. At the same time it's a beautiful thing to see my God exist in my life and see the change in my life. I see that when he does exist in other Middle Easterners there will be a change.

"I'm not trying to convert the entire nation of Israel and the entire nation of Palestine to Christianity. But at least if you can educate them about the ideology of love, the ideology of forgiveness, the ideology of grace. Those principles are great regardless, but we can't deny they came from Christianity as well.

To me, a Christian, Mosab is a lesson in faith and human understanding.

Ahmadinejad: Deconstructing Truths

When Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, contended that the Holocaust did not happen, we let him get away with it. That is, the press allowed his remarks to see the light of day. And world leaders did not exactly condemn him nor bar him from international meetings and activities. The United Nations had even provided him several times a forum for his verbal attacks against the West.

But if that pronouncement was meant to provoke, the latest one, “September 11 was a big lie and a pretext for the war on terror and a prelude to invading Afghanistan,” should persuade every reasonable human being that this guy is crazy. This is cause for serious concern, given that Ahmadinejad is overseeing a nuclear program that can cause great instability in the Middle East.

If world leaders, the UN, and the press will unite in condemning, ostracizing, and isolating Ahmadinejad, perhaps a regime change in Iran, waged from outside, is possible. Conversely, if the US and the rest of the world continue to engage Ahmadinejad in the name of diplomacy, they do nothing but lend legitimacy to a president who at best cannot distinguish a truth from a lie.