Michael Moore, as part of his anti-capitalism campaign, is sending around an e-mail asking if Jesus were alive today, would he be a capitalist, or would he be opposed to capitalism? Here's my response:
Name an economic system that would be better for the poor than capitalism. Seriously.
Sure, it creates big gaps between rich and poor, but would Jesus want you comparing your life's worth to the life of your neighbor? The poor in America have a better standard of living than the poor in most non-capitalist countries, with more opportunities for social mobility as well. A poor person in capitalist America is better off than both a poor person pretty much anywhere in non-capitalist Africa and a poor person anywhere in the world during the time of Jesus. Heck, they're better off than most rich people in both those situations (certainly most middle-class people). Better access to healthcare, education, resources, the tools for self-improvement, travel opportunities, social and socioeconomic advancement and development...
And to those who make the argument that those are trappings of modern society and not of capitalism itself, which economies invented all that stuff? Communist and socialist countries lagged behind the societies which lavishly rewarded those who brought tremendous value to those societies. Not everyone's a genius and a saint like Norman Borlaug. We're human, by and large, and respond to incentive structures. Life saving medicine is invented by pharmaceutical companies who expect patents on their $50 pills which save the taker a $10,000 operation (which itself was once not that big a price to pay for 20 more years on Earth). The best way to make money in a well-run capitalist economy is to provide things people want, that make their lives better. Sure, we've got regulatory gaps, but to abandon the system entirely? I don't buy it.
To those who say "OK, fine, capitalism was good, but now it's run its course. Let's go another direction," I reply: "What about tomorrow's poor?" Do we want to freeze the state of poverty, redistribute the wealth, and squelch innovation? Crawl along in a dangerous world not giving people strong incentives to better everyone? Capitalism was worse a hundred years ago than it is now...the current crisis highlighted some steps back, but we're still far ahead of where we were. We're making progress within capitalism, and the capitalists are making more progress than others.
What's the alternative? Non-capitalist countries are quickly adopting capitalist activities and policies, but the reverse isn't happening. Even successful "socialist" countries are really capitalist countries with socialism-inspired domestic policies. And they wouldn't be where they are today without the help of capitalist friends and trading partners.
Yes, we need a better safety net. Yes, we need to regulate markets and correct for market failures. But the dirty little secret is America won't really fail because capitalism will tumble...the Visigoths at our gate are not socialists, communists, or anything else. They're capitalists, who will beat us at our own game, the only game in town among superpowers, nations on the rise, and great societies. They'll better regulate, better incentivize, better innovate, better create...solar panels are coming from China and Germany; wireless innovations are coming from developing nations without legacy systems and inflexible out-of-date policies like India and Israel; we're being out-manufactured by places that can do it cheaply--and in doing so take the poor out of the streets and put them in bad jobs, but jobs nonetheless. Jobs where there were none before. And all these countries are coming around to capitalism.
Would Jesus be a capitalist? Would he find jobs and dignity for the poor? Would he help invent life-saving drugs or safer cars or cleaner energy? Would he sell software to help us make better decisions, and donate the money to a big foundation to level the educational playing field? Would he still walk around the countryside talking to people dozens at a time, or would he go with a book, a blog, a podcast, a TV segment, an Op-Ed? Almost 7 billion people, can't save them one at a time anymore.
He might not speculate in the derivatives market, because it's more or less a zero-sum game...but would he frown upon a farmer buying a weather derivative that pays off in case of an extra-dry season, giving him enough money to get by and replant next season? Would he tell Merck to close up shop? Would he disapprove of accessing capital markets to raise funds to build a hospital? Darn right Jesus would be a capitalist were he alive today. Just like the rest of the Jews.
Showing posts with label social issues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social issues. Show all posts
Sunday, October 04, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
Healthcare, Stick Figures and Analogies
This YouTube video (found by Lilly) not only spells out the case for universal healthcare, including a public option, but ends with a great analogy that will help people struggling with the complexities of the current system.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jng4TnKqy6A
(I had it embedded, but the dimensions of the video exceed the space allotted and I'm too lazy to recode the main page. It's 4:37, well worth it, amusing, and not a Rick-Roll.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jng4TnKqy6A
(I had it embedded, but the dimensions of the video exceed the space allotted and I'm too lazy to recode the main page. It's 4:37, well worth it, amusing, and not a Rick-Roll.)
Monday, June 15, 2009
My Neighbors
In lieu of hearing my opinions, read this (Too Poor to Make the News), or even just part of it. If you're too lazy, it's a New York Times guest piece written about how invisible the poorest Americans have become.
The media is flushed with stories of rich and middle class people who have fallen from grace, but the working poor are losing their jobs and homes in disproportionately greater numbers as they crowd into trailers and tiny apartments and sleep on the streets. They're hard to count, hard to see, and are becoming invisible, but there's almost 40 million of them, more than 1 out of every 10 Americans, and when designing policy or making donations or arguing around the watercooler, it's important not to forget them. The gap between the middle class and the uber-rich may be shrinking a bit, but the gap between the middle class and the poorest certainly isn't as their standard of living falls to third-world levels. Unharnessed economic potential and millions of families hang in the balance as we argue about Main Street and Wall Street...but the streets aren't just places of business. They're homes and beds to far too many.
[Incidentally, this kind of makes me mad at John Edwards...he was in a prime position to help these people and do something about it--more than just handouts and stopgaps--and he had great ideas and energy, and then he screwed it all up...it's not just his own life and marriage on his shoulders. Am I crazy, or do others feel like he let a lot of people down too?]
The media is flushed with stories of rich and middle class people who have fallen from grace, but the working poor are losing their jobs and homes in disproportionately greater numbers as they crowd into trailers and tiny apartments and sleep on the streets. They're hard to count, hard to see, and are becoming invisible, but there's almost 40 million of them, more than 1 out of every 10 Americans, and when designing policy or making donations or arguing around the watercooler, it's important not to forget them. The gap between the middle class and the uber-rich may be shrinking a bit, but the gap between the middle class and the poorest certainly isn't as their standard of living falls to third-world levels. Unharnessed economic potential and millions of families hang in the balance as we argue about Main Street and Wall Street...but the streets aren't just places of business. They're homes and beds to far too many.
[Incidentally, this kind of makes me mad at John Edwards...he was in a prime position to help these people and do something about it--more than just handouts and stopgaps--and he had great ideas and energy, and then he screwed it all up...it's not just his own life and marriage on his shoulders. Am I crazy, or do others feel like he let a lot of people down too?]
Monday, May 18, 2009
My Dramatic Readings
This editorial from today’s New York Times talks about what we have lost by no longer reading aloud to one another (and no longer playing music for one another). I know many who would agree with this piece, and I too agree with the author that such activities had and have great value, ranging from a different kind of literacy and literary understanding to a lost form of familial intimacy. That said, I think that by and large this author is completely wrong.
The first logical fault lies in claiming that aside from convenience, we gain nothing from hearing books on tape instead of read aloud at an in-person gathering and from hearing music recorded by professionals instead of played in a cozy living-room recital. I say that even if it were NOT as convenient, these things could still be considered massive improvements. Audiobooks are often read by professional actors or voice actors, and even the less-professionally done volumes still get the benefit of editing and redoing portions. We are getting a higher quality product. When I read aloud, I stammer sometimes. I don’t always read far enough ahead with my eyes to begin a sentence with the inflection or tone intended by the author. I may be quite deficient compared with the average bookworm of a century or two ago, but even they can’t compete with trained pros who get do-overs and editing equipment. My audiobook is of a higher quality.
And that argument goes double for music. Sure it’d be nice to hear a waltz played on the family harpsichord by my neighbor’s daughter, but does she take requests? She can’t possibly have the 5,000 song repertoire my iPod has, and even if she did, my iPod can learn a new song faster. A collection of friends can’t master all the techniques, songs, instruments, styles, and vocal impressions required to recreate my favorite compositions, and I don’t even think I have enough friends to replicate the London Symphony Orchestra. Which brings me to my next point: the London Symphony Orchestra is BETTER than my friends. Apologies to any musically inclined readers, but there’s no way a social network can match quality recordings of the best the world has ever seen. Metropolitan orchestras, original cast recordings from musicals, historical recordings of bands long gone, and nearly instant access to the best of modern innovation…all these things are at our fingertips now.
Now, I’ll still read to my children. And I’ll play my audiobooks as I drift off to sleep because it’s convenient. But I’ll also play music for my children even when I’m capable of singing to them instead—because I suck at it. And audiobooks read by the author will always have a place in my home, because that out-loud version is guaranteed to better represent the author’s intended inflections, tones and more ineffable qualities. Technology doesn’t stop us from doing these things, but the fact that we frequently choose not to may be telling. Convenience is huge, but so is quality.
We can lament the decline of human interaction brought on by computers, cell phones and iPods, but when it comes to the recitation and recreation of pre-composed prose and music, I’ll accept modernity’s technological embrace over Jane Austen’s contemporary parlors, because not only is it more convenient, it’s better.Friday, May 08, 2009
My Bag Tax?
The City Council in Philadelphia is proposing a 25 cent charge per-plastic-bag used at a store...small businesses would get to keep the revenue for themselves, larger ones would have to give some of it back to the city as taxes. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but I've been asked by a few readers to share some thoughts, so here's my first-cut analysis.
Some people are asking "why not just ban it?" On principle, government should intervene and ban really harmful stuff, but there's a whole category of other things which provide value, but which people tend to over-consume due to a market failure (a negative externality). This occurs when someone gets most or all of the benefit of an action, but only incurs a small portion (or none) of the cost of that action. The government doesn't want to ban a helpful activity altogether, but it needs a way to keep it in check, lest people hurt society for their own benefit. Governments cap emissions on cars, for example (if cars could pollute more, they'd be cheaper, and drivers would get all the benefit while passing most of the cost onto everyone else who has an equal stake in having clean air). Taxation is a powerful market-adjusting tool if applied correctly...one of the greatest public health measures of the century in this country has been the cigarette tax.
A tax also makes sense because it helps generate money that can be used to help offset the harm caused by the thing being taxed...helping to negate the initial wrongdoing. If Philadelphia put the revenue towards city beautification, cleanup projects, and creating green jobs, it may be better than a ban, which would eliminate consumer choice. I'd rather have the option of bringing my own bag or paying 25 cents for one as opposed to being forced to bring my own bag. A tax is no WORSE than a ban from an individual consumer's perspective...unless a store under a ban would switch to free paper bags and under the tax will just charge for the bags...and now I'll get into the real problem I have with the tax:
It's extremely regressive. Poor people will end up paying a higher percentage of their income, and generally be more shafted, for several reasons. One, they'll be less well prepared for the switch, as they don't read my blog (and other factors). Two, avoiding the charge is an expense and hassle more easily managed by wealthier people: buying good reusable bags would be a substantial one-time expense, and it's a lot easier to use such bags once acquired if you have a car and don't have to take a bus (they'll be bulkier, and must be carried both ways). Third, and most importantly, it's a flat fee tax, that is, everyone pays the same. It won't rise or fall with income or even the value of the items purchased, making it more regressive than even a sales tax, which at least goes down as you buy cheaper stuff. This tax is proportional to the amount of stuff bought, and when it comes to groceries, poor people buy cheaper, but they still need to eat the same amount of food as anyone else. If passed, this may be one of the most necessarily regressive taxes in history. (I say "necessarily regressive" because there are more regressive taxes that target products preferred by poor people, like the cigarette tax actually. But poor people at least have a choice not to smoke; they don't have a choice not to buy groceries, making it necessary to choose between paying the charge or paying to avoid it.)
(OK, now that I've made some good points, I'll go back to being wishy-washy.) The only thing I can think of to mitigate the regressive problem is to require that any place offering plastic bags also offer paper ones, which won't be subject to a city-mandated charge. It's not a perfect solution, and I generally hate the idea of government micromanaging business like that. The whole thing doesn't sit right with me...that said, it is a step in the right direction environmentally speaking and people will adapt to it. On a macro-level, though, I think a national gasoline tax would be a lot better than widespread plastic bag bans or taxes, and I do love my Wawa bags.
Now I want a Wawa sandwich. Who's surprised?
Some people are asking "why not just ban it?" On principle, government should intervene and ban really harmful stuff, but there's a whole category of other things which provide value, but which people tend to over-consume due to a market failure (a negative externality). This occurs when someone gets most or all of the benefit of an action, but only incurs a small portion (or none) of the cost of that action. The government doesn't want to ban a helpful activity altogether, but it needs a way to keep it in check, lest people hurt society for their own benefit. Governments cap emissions on cars, for example (if cars could pollute more, they'd be cheaper, and drivers would get all the benefit while passing most of the cost onto everyone else who has an equal stake in having clean air). Taxation is a powerful market-adjusting tool if applied correctly...one of the greatest public health measures of the century in this country has been the cigarette tax.
A tax also makes sense because it helps generate money that can be used to help offset the harm caused by the thing being taxed...helping to negate the initial wrongdoing. If Philadelphia put the revenue towards city beautification, cleanup projects, and creating green jobs, it may be better than a ban, which would eliminate consumer choice. I'd rather have the option of bringing my own bag or paying 25 cents for one as opposed to being forced to bring my own bag. A tax is no WORSE than a ban from an individual consumer's perspective...unless a store under a ban would switch to free paper bags and under the tax will just charge for the bags...and now I'll get into the real problem I have with the tax:
It's extremely regressive. Poor people will end up paying a higher percentage of their income, and generally be more shafted, for several reasons. One, they'll be less well prepared for the switch, as they don't read my blog (and other factors). Two, avoiding the charge is an expense and hassle more easily managed by wealthier people: buying good reusable bags would be a substantial one-time expense, and it's a lot easier to use such bags once acquired if you have a car and don't have to take a bus (they'll be bulkier, and must be carried both ways). Third, and most importantly, it's a flat fee tax, that is, everyone pays the same. It won't rise or fall with income or even the value of the items purchased, making it more regressive than even a sales tax, which at least goes down as you buy cheaper stuff. This tax is proportional to the amount of stuff bought, and when it comes to groceries, poor people buy cheaper, but they still need to eat the same amount of food as anyone else. If passed, this may be one of the most necessarily regressive taxes in history. (I say "necessarily regressive" because there are more regressive taxes that target products preferred by poor people, like the cigarette tax actually. But poor people at least have a choice not to smoke; they don't have a choice not to buy groceries, making it necessary to choose between paying the charge or paying to avoid it.)
(OK, now that I've made some good points, I'll go back to being wishy-washy.) The only thing I can think of to mitigate the regressive problem is to require that any place offering plastic bags also offer paper ones, which won't be subject to a city-mandated charge. It's not a perfect solution, and I generally hate the idea of government micromanaging business like that. The whole thing doesn't sit right with me...that said, it is a step in the right direction environmentally speaking and people will adapt to it. On a macro-level, though, I think a national gasoline tax would be a lot better than widespread plastic bag bans or taxes, and I do love my Wawa bags.
Now I want a Wawa sandwich. Who's surprised?
Thursday, February 19, 2009
My Streaming Netflix
An old high school buddy just informed me that for 2009, Netflix is on pace to have streamed more instant-watch movies than mailed DVDs. I'm wondering: what does this tell us? Obviously the landscape of the business is changing, but what else?
A non-obvious possible conclusion I came up with: we're watching more movies alone. It used to be one would rent a movie and snuggle up with a sweetheart or the family, now it's sitting in front of a computer in a way we never used to before. Convenience can change the whole movie experience.
I'm still thinking about this, but any other ideas?
[Editor's Addendum: I fired off this post pretty quickly, full of incomplete information and first impressions. Rick Blaine just schooled me in the comments, and it's worth reading. If I were a smarter PR person, I'd just delete the whole thing and start over, but this is going to be the character-building part of my blog where I get to be the bigger man (or at least a man). The great part about having a blog, though, is that you don't HAVE to do any research if you don't want to. Thank YOU, Internet.]
A non-obvious possible conclusion I came up with: we're watching more movies alone. It used to be one would rent a movie and snuggle up with a sweetheart or the family, now it's sitting in front of a computer in a way we never used to before. Convenience can change the whole movie experience.
I'm still thinking about this, but any other ideas?
[Editor's Addendum: I fired off this post pretty quickly, full of incomplete information and first impressions. Rick Blaine just schooled me in the comments, and it's worth reading. If I were a smarter PR person, I'd just delete the whole thing and start over, but this is going to be the character-building part of my blog where I get to be the bigger man (or at least a man). The great part about having a blog, though, is that you don't HAVE to do any research if you don't want to. Thank YOU, Internet.]
My Advice To Facebook Users
OK, there's been a lot of stuff in the news about Facebook, information and privacy, especially as the latter two pertain to the internet. In the midst of a great and important national debate of issues that will soon define what historians think of modern US Supreme Courts, let me offer some specific advice to those Facebook users caught in middle of the storm, wondering what to do and what they think:
Don't put any information in your Facebook profile unless you don't care if anyone or everyone knows or ever will know it.
It's that simple. Deal with it.
Don't put any information in your Facebook profile unless you don't care if anyone or everyone knows or ever will know it.
It's that simple. Deal with it.
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
My Dating Sites
How specialized can a dating site get before it's TOO specialized? Clearly some specialization can help, but basic economic theory would indicate that the value in a dating site depends entirely on the size and quality of the network of people on it. So how narrow (or "segmented" to use the marketers' term) do you want to get?
JDate is a wll-known example, catering to Jews (and, I suppose, people looking for Jews, but it primarily works if you're Jewish). This works well, because there's a significant number of Jews, who tend to be geographically concentrated, and for many of them, finding another Jew is a high priority.
Many of the most popular and successful ones (judging by TV ads at least) seem to cater to those looking to get married on the soonish side. This makes sense because it's a large population in the highest need of such services, and they'll typically have the most cash. Furthermore, it's not a very deep specialization. In fact, it's arguably most of the market.
There's even Ashley Madison, which has gotten a lot of attention because it's for married people looking to have affairs with other married people (I'm not sure why it needs to be with another married person, but I guess it's safer because they understand the problems, share your need for secrecy, and probably don't want to ruin their lives and reputations either by disclosing something like an affair). I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say it's providing value to society, but it's definitely profitable for the owners.
There are plenty of general ones, and the first-movers with good advertising budgets seem to be leading the pack.
But tonight I saw an ad for crewdating.com, a website catering to people in the aviation industry. I have to wonder: is this too specialized, and if not, how much further can it go? It makes sense that other airline employees would understand your hectic schedule during which you're almost never home, but do aviation professionals (flight attendants, pilots, etc.) really place dating other aviation professionals as a high priority? Does having a similar career really add a lot to the feasibility or enjoyability or probability of success of a relationship if you work for Delta? As near as I can tell, this service has only two things going for it: (1) people who work in aviation probably need a partner who's very understanding of the demands of the job and (2) because of their extraordinary relative mobility, geography isn't as big a boundary. By this I mean that someone in Philly could date someone in New York a lot more easily if they're both aviation professionals than if they're both lab technicians in the same cities.
As I think about social networking sites, and specifically ones looking to create high-value connections (dating sites primarily, but also in a way, job/employee search sites), I'm growing increasingly fascinated. I find myself wishing there were large amounts of data about these sites freely available. What aspects of the phenomenon will be a fad, and what components will mature to form a core part of the new social order of our increasingly connected, integrated, globalized, and technologically sophisticated society?
JDate is a wll-known example, catering to Jews (and, I suppose, people looking for Jews, but it primarily works if you're Jewish). This works well, because there's a significant number of Jews, who tend to be geographically concentrated, and for many of them, finding another Jew is a high priority.
Many of the most popular and successful ones (judging by TV ads at least) seem to cater to those looking to get married on the soonish side. This makes sense because it's a large population in the highest need of such services, and they'll typically have the most cash. Furthermore, it's not a very deep specialization. In fact, it's arguably most of the market.
There's even Ashley Madison, which has gotten a lot of attention because it's for married people looking to have affairs with other married people (I'm not sure why it needs to be with another married person, but I guess it's safer because they understand the problems, share your need for secrecy, and probably don't want to ruin their lives and reputations either by disclosing something like an affair). I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say it's providing value to society, but it's definitely profitable for the owners.
There are plenty of general ones, and the first-movers with good advertising budgets seem to be leading the pack.
But tonight I saw an ad for crewdating.com, a website catering to people in the aviation industry. I have to wonder: is this too specialized, and if not, how much further can it go? It makes sense that other airline employees would understand your hectic schedule during which you're almost never home, but do aviation professionals (flight attendants, pilots, etc.) really place dating other aviation professionals as a high priority? Does having a similar career really add a lot to the feasibility or enjoyability or probability of success of a relationship if you work for Delta? As near as I can tell, this service has only two things going for it: (1) people who work in aviation probably need a partner who's very understanding of the demands of the job and (2) because of their extraordinary relative mobility, geography isn't as big a boundary. By this I mean that someone in Philly could date someone in New York a lot more easily if they're both aviation professionals than if they're both lab technicians in the same cities.
As I think about social networking sites, and specifically ones looking to create high-value connections (dating sites primarily, but also in a way, job/employee search sites), I'm growing increasingly fascinated. I find myself wishing there were large amounts of data about these sites freely available. What aspects of the phenomenon will be a fad, and what components will mature to form a core part of the new social order of our increasingly connected, integrated, globalized, and technologically sophisticated society?
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
My Don't Ask Don't Tell Policy
For those of you who don't know, the US Armed Forces have a "don't ask don't tell" policy regarding homosexuals serving in the various branches. This means they can serve, as long as they don't tell anyone they're homosexuals. If they're openly gay, they can't serve in the military. That's current policy.
It's taken a lot of heat (and it's in the news as the Obama administration might eventually try to change it). Sure, allowing gays to serve openly would be a mild disruption, but so was allowing blacks and women to serve in any capacity. OK, so the military isn't an agent for social change, but that doesn't mean it can't keep up with the times and contemporary values. Yes, the military is a conservative institution, but you can't use that as a cloak for being intolerant. And why does being gay mean you can't control yourself?
Well, let me ask my readers this: does having separate male and female facilities make sense? If the rational, tolerant and enlightened answer is yes, then I submit it may be rational, tolerant and enlightened to not let gays serve in the military at all. This may be a shocking statement coming from a guy with a gay best friend, but hear me out--it's not prejudice. IF we accept that coed everything is unacceptable in the military, the question is, why? Presumably because you don't want certain shared facilities among people who could possibly be sexually attracted to each other. It would cause problems beyond what letting blacks in the military caused. Not just a disruption you get used to, but a permanent tension and distraction among soldiers (after all, how many young men and women in good health and of fighting age get used to people their sexually attracted to enough that they can treat them as members of the opposite gender invariably without hesitation? We wouldn't last very long as a species if that happened). With letting women serve, there was a simple solution: separate facilities. But with homosexuals, it presents a problem. With 2 separate facilities, you can have all the straight men in one area and all the straight women in another without risking a sexual attraction. BUT, once you start dealing with homosexuals instead of heterosexuals, you can never have more than TWO PEOPLE in a room without someone falling into another person's gender preference.
So by saying gays should serve openly--or at all--we're not just saying that homosexuals are every bit as restrained and professional as heterosexuals (I don't think many people would have a problem with that, and people could get over their discomfort with homosexuality in general), we're also saying that homosexuals are MORE restrained and professional than heterosexuals, a position for which there is no evidence.
So I say, if we let gays serve openly in the military, and I'm not necessarily against it, why not allow coed everything? If it's OK for two homosexuals of the same gender to shower together, why not a straight man and a woman? Or are there more double standards than we want to admit in our push for equality everywhere?
It's taken a lot of heat (and it's in the news as the Obama administration might eventually try to change it). Sure, allowing gays to serve openly would be a mild disruption, but so was allowing blacks and women to serve in any capacity. OK, so the military isn't an agent for social change, but that doesn't mean it can't keep up with the times and contemporary values. Yes, the military is a conservative institution, but you can't use that as a cloak for being intolerant. And why does being gay mean you can't control yourself?
Well, let me ask my readers this: does having separate male and female facilities make sense? If the rational, tolerant and enlightened answer is yes, then I submit it may be rational, tolerant and enlightened to not let gays serve in the military at all. This may be a shocking statement coming from a guy with a gay best friend, but hear me out--it's not prejudice. IF we accept that coed everything is unacceptable in the military, the question is, why? Presumably because you don't want certain shared facilities among people who could possibly be sexually attracted to each other. It would cause problems beyond what letting blacks in the military caused. Not just a disruption you get used to, but a permanent tension and distraction among soldiers (after all, how many young men and women in good health and of fighting age get used to people their sexually attracted to enough that they can treat them as members of the opposite gender invariably without hesitation? We wouldn't last very long as a species if that happened). With letting women serve, there was a simple solution: separate facilities. But with homosexuals, it presents a problem. With 2 separate facilities, you can have all the straight men in one area and all the straight women in another without risking a sexual attraction. BUT, once you start dealing with homosexuals instead of heterosexuals, you can never have more than TWO PEOPLE in a room without someone falling into another person's gender preference.
So by saying gays should serve openly--or at all--we're not just saying that homosexuals are every bit as restrained and professional as heterosexuals (I don't think many people would have a problem with that, and people could get over their discomfort with homosexuality in general), we're also saying that homosexuals are MORE restrained and professional than heterosexuals, a position for which there is no evidence.
So I say, if we let gays serve openly in the military, and I'm not necessarily against it, why not allow coed everything? If it's OK for two homosexuals of the same gender to shower together, why not a straight man and a woman? Or are there more double standards than we want to admit in our push for equality everywhere?
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