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Ivan W.
Parkins |
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To order Dr. Parkins book, Perspectives For
American Society Contact |
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©Ivan W. Parkins 2009, All articles, text, web pages property of
Ivan W. Parkins. Use of any material
requires permission of the author
and can be obtained by contacting,
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About Ivan W. Parkins: Dr. Parkins is a retired professor of
Political Science from Central Michigan University. He received his PhD from the University of
Chicago and is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy. Dr. Parkins served as a naval officer
during WWII aboard the battleship Alabama.
He is a recent widower with three daughters, 3 grand children and 2
great grand children. Dr. Parkins has
written extensively, having authored 3 books and a newspaper opinion column
for many years. |
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Front Page |
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WHAT ABOUT HEALTH CARE? Tort reform and Simple Tax Credit for Insurance, Best Options By Ivan W. Parkins If
health care is to be a constitutional “entitlement” it, and other social
entitlements, should be limited, as the “safety net” simile implies. The circus performers’ safety nets are
simple devices to preserve bodies and lives.
They make it possible for individuals to continue. Comfort, dignity, and more advanced
achievements will vary with the individual’s own efforts; it is unrealistic to
guarantee them. One
simple and modest tax credit or grant, available to all Americans, and
adequate to purchase insurance covering most common emergencies and
illnesses, is needed. Several
practical administrative hurdles stand in it’s way. One is the lack of a single reliable
identification device for all individuals.
Another is a plethora of state laws specifying what health insurance
must include. Congress has adequate
authority to resolve both of those impediments.
Regarding rarer health problems and those resulting from the
individual’s own indulgences, any single centralized authority is at a
disadvantage where cases vary widely from one to another. The nation may provide for health and
medical research, and for controls of poisons and epidemics. It may also aid lesser governments and
private agencies that are dealing with unique problems. It should avoid most
varied services.
Most urgently, and relating to health care costs, the distortion of
tort proceedings into “jackpot justice” should be
crushed, and made costly for those who participate in it. Real injuries should be compensated on an
actual loss basis, if specific negligence is demonstrated. The legal process should not be a game of
chance for predatory and dishonest individuals. |
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Two Tea Parties, Russell Kirk’s And Mine Ruminations
from my past., By Ivan
W. Parkins - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Shortly before I retired from college teaching, about thirty years
ago, a nationally known political scientist who had retired to a community
near here was invited to give a series of lectures at our institution.
Our department had not extended that invitation, but the subject of a
tea in recognition of Russell Kirk came up in a regular departmental
meeting. Favorable sentiment was
obviously minimal, but after a brief discussion our chairman said that
apparently most thought that “it was the thing to do.” (Professor Kirk, though better known than
any of us, was “a conservative.”) One professor replied “can’t we have a
vote?” The tea was held. My
own retirement, after fifteen years in the department, was acknowledged more
warmly than I had anticipated. I was
given a pair of fine fishing rods, built by a colleague who had also been a
fishing companion. My almost total
separation (I live about a mile away.) has been largely my choice. At one of the few events that I did attend
I was greeted by the person who had called for the vote, that person had
become a dean. |
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In This Issue: On Health Care -The Turmoil of the Debate -Information or disinformation |
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Other Notes: Richard
Beeman, in his PLAIN, HONEST, MEN,
page 29, says “In Madison’s conception, governments were designed not to
embody virtue and the public good, but, rather to mediate among the various
interests in society, and in the process, to allow public good to be served.” It
appears to me that Beeman is correct in his interpretation of Madison, and
that Madison was correct in that interpretation of government’s role. |
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REPRESENTATION
AND SIMPLE
MATHEMATICS, CLARIFYS HEALTH CARE TURMOIL The
problem with representation and the media is clearly made in this most recent
issue for health care. By Ivan W. Parkins A
little application of mathematics helps to demonstrate why our
Representatives have a diminished and confusing role in American politics,
and why the role of the mass media has become so great.
Allowing that ages, citizenship, and personal health or other
restrictions reduce the effective populations of average congressional
districts from about 670,000 to about 500,000 constituents, how many of them
can a Representative contact in any “personal” way during this month of
“vacation.?”
Assuming that town meetings are limited in size to about 250
participants if they are to be at all “personal,” let the Representative hold
twenty of them. If each lasts about
two hours, and the Representative participates, for an average of five
minutes each, in accepting and replying to questions and follow ups, he can
speak directly with 24 people, or to a little less than one in ten of those
present. In twenty such meetings he
can contact a total of about 5,000 of his constituents, or one in every
hundred of the total.
Additionally, our Representative will spend forty hours of his time
reading and responding to letters, phone calls, emails, etc. It will take on average 5 minutes each to accomplish
that. Hence he can accommodate another
one constituent in every thousand. With the expenditure of eighty hours, plus
preparation and travel times, the Representative has had personal contact of
some sort with a few more than1% of his constituents. “Some vacation!”
The above theoretical account of a Representative who is very devoted
to fulfilling the role that our Constitution assigns to him/her should help
to make it clear why the mass media, their choices of the above events they
will attend, and how they report on them have come to overshadow some
traditional political processes. More and more it is
becoming evident that America is facing revolution . We face changes not merely of national
policies foreign and domestic., but changes also in the institutions and
political means by which we are governed. |
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WHY ARE THE HEALTH CARE DEBATES SO CONTENTIOUS? Well
the answer is relatively simple. The
Media misleads the public and
misinforms our representatives. This
is purposeful and disastrous for our Republic. By Ivan W. Parkins
Health care touches deeply the lives of nearly all of us. And, the present political turmoil is a
reflection of much that has been neglected, for generations, in our political
system. It is a rare thing when large
and diverse portions of the general public pour forth to agitate for or
against the actions of government. The following is an article from a previously published column, Daily
Times-News, 09/12/72 PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY By Ivan W. Parkins Those who agitate for
political reforms often presume that democratic processes, like computers,
can provide numerous and nearly instantaneous decisions. In fact the outputs of majority
participation by masses of people are necessarily few in number and arrived
at only slowly. The reason is quite
simple. Even in our highly educated
and mechanized society, most people have little time or energy for
politics. The classical example
of ancient Athens, is misleading until one is aware that “citizens” were only
a minority there and often enjoyed leisure provided by slaves or other
non-citizens. As noted by Aaron
Wildavsky in his REVOLT
AGAINST THE MASSES, it is a luxury
available only for a leisure class.
Selecting representatives in well-scheduled elections, and rare
protests, are about as much involvement as most Americans can afford. A political system in
which authority of elected representatives is diminished, and the authority
of public clamor is increased, will not usually be responsive to the majority
of its citizens. How this relates to
the United States since the 1950s was suggested by Edward Shils in THE INTELLECTUALS AND THE POWERS, “…intellectuals in the
United States have become demonstrators, not by rational argument, but by
standing in public places, by covering themselves in buttons and badges, by
signing petitions and public declarations.
They have come to fill the air and the press.” What needs to be
clarified regarding the sixties and seventies of the last century, is that it
was not new policy changes that need to be produced. They also initiated major changes in how
national policy in America is determined.
The newly emergent class of verbally advantaged “liberals” was
assuming dominance of our political communication. Political parties and
personalities became increasingly the creations or victims of the mass
media. Older political elements found
it more difficult not only to be heard on matters of policy, but also to
share in the interpretation and enforcement of the constitution. |