(if I were the) King of the Forest

A health-news story in The New York Times set me thinking about the kinds of biases working in the background that affect both reporting and headlines.

In October of 2004 Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus published a critique of the environmental movement, which they claimed was too focused on technical and policy arguments over regulations and not focused enough on presenting a positive vision that inspired people to their cause. They had become the dour uncle focused on limits and sacrifice, presenting a grim future with a message of “just say no” to progress.

Salon.com wrote about their article and about the ensuing debate within the environmental community over the future of environmentalism. I thought the self-critique was insightful and overdue, but I thought they overlooked one aspect of modern environmentalism that contributes to its decline within the broad American population.

Mandatory seatbelt (and helmet) laws do not generally arouse my passion, for two reasons. First, although I consider them paternalistic invasions of my autonomy they also have no immediate or practical effect on me: I use seatbelts and helmets by choice, as do most people I know. Second, given the very real benefits they provide and the relatively low costs they entail – and given that on such bases only one state in the Union currently does not mandate the use of seatbelts – I consider them largely a fait accompli. That doesn’t make me agree with such laws or embrace them; it merely makes worrying about them a poor use of my time and energy.

That said, I happen now to live in that one state (New Hampshire), and when the issue arises – as it does from time to time – proponents of such laws tend to be particularly dismissive of any concerns about civil liberties, to characterize those who raise such concerns as egocentric simpletons, and to trivialize their opposition as merely a childish and irrational reaction to “being told what to do.” That dismissive and disrespectful tone does stir my passion.

Every once in a while a study is released comparing health care in the United States to health care in other countries. Despite the fact that we are the wealthiest nation in the world, and that we have one of the most technologically advanced health care systems in the world, there are inevitably some measures by which we lag other developed nations. We have come to expect that: no one denies that our health care system has problems with cost and access; and no one denies that there are certain groups within our society – bounded by poverty and self-destructive lifestyles – for whom our health care system is woefully inadequate. Those are problems we need to address – and solutions upon which so far we cannot agree.

But when by some measure our health care system trails the undeveloped world that attracts attention.

A recent report ranked the United States behind Cuba in infant mortality. Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times used that fact as a springboard for a broad and derisive critique of our market-based system. I agree with much of his diagnosis (and disagree with much of his prescription), but oddities in the way infant mortality is calculated in various countries makes it a dubious and slippery statistic upon which to hang a robust assessment of our current performance.

In January of 2005 Jeff Jacoby of The Boston Globe wrote a heartbreaking column about the outcome of a legal case in Florida that elevated the “parental rights” of a birth-couple, who changed their minds years after having given their child up for adoption, over both the “parental rights” of the adoptive parents who had […]