Potpourri

How come op-ed writers are so bad? The one I am most likely to find interesting is David Brooks, but today's column is a stinker. He compares Obama's position to Lincoln and Churchill. But the Afghan war is not the Civil War or WWII. Why should we care about places in the Stan where almost nobody lives? Why should we want to be their police force?

Ezra has more good columns today on health care. In one he questions how cost-effective the public option is going to be. It seems pretty clear that premiums are going to rise and that some people who don't have care now in order to get insurance are going to have a huge bill. Of course, the penalty for not getting coverage is miniscule. But maybe that is a good thing. If they really can't get coverage, now they will be able to. But since they will tend to be the most in need of health care, they will be more expensive. Either the premiums are going to be high or taxpayers are going to be stuck with more expenses that are currently imagined.

I'm not a therapist, a buddhist or a philosopher, so this may be really simple-minded. But isn't a feature of all three that they require detachment from your emotions or beliefs to work? Of course, you have to feel the emotions first so that you know what they are. But then you can detach from them instead of identifying with them. Same with beliefs. We can carry around unexamined beliefs that determine our opinions, including what the relevant facts are.