Health Care vs. Homeland Security

Alright--first, a note for those of you who don't want to read another political entry. I am thinking about learning Esperanto. I have decided to learn it on the condition that at least five other people will learn it with me, so it will actually have a tiny bit of practical worth. Let me know if you are interested.
on to the post!

Alright, if you will permit me to be a cold and calculated utilitarian for a minute, I would like to illustrate why, even if you give them all the benefit of the doubt, given $x amount of money, it would be smarter to put it towards Universal health care than homeland security. But, in keeping with my promise of giving them the benefit of the doubt, let's call it "Socialized Medicine", so they can have the rhetorical advantage as well.

Ok. So. According to the Institute of Medicine, 18,000 Americans died from lack of health insurance in 2002. Now, I take the IOM as being a credible institute (it is non-partisan, and all of their studies are subject to blind peer-review by scientists).
But a conservative may be able to find some reason why this study was biased. So let's lower that number to 12,000. Cutting it by a third seems very generous to me.
Now, selecting the number of estimated Americans who actually died from not having health insurance is giving another benefit of the doubt to conservatives. Because the figures of who doesn't have insurance and why is controversial--illegal immigrants are sometimes included in the count, as well as people eligible for government programs who just don't sign up. But we will ignore the fact that besides flat out death, not having health insurance decreases quality of life as well.
(An interesting analysis of this can be found here.)
Ok, so let's take our next step of helping our conservative friends out. The conservatives may say, "Well, yes. We certainly can agree that there are a lot of uninsured people out there, and the solution is to be found in the private sector." Of course, I am not sure what this would mean. Giuliani is the GOP frontrunner, and he wants to do something with tax credits for the poor. That is not a private solution. In fact, that is is similar to democratic proposals, and as such, we are going to have to call it weak "socialized medicine". Though, his proposal is absolutely unclear, since 'Health Care' is not listed on his website anywhere.
But let's not let it end there. Conservatives don't like Giuliani; moderates do. So let's take a look at Mitt 'double Guantanamo' Romney. Romney's site has Health Care as an issue list, but fails to mention anything besides that health coverage should be provided through market-reform rather than government reform.
Its hard to see exactly what this would be, since he says nothing at all about it. However, I could hardly see it being something other than tax credits.
The problem is, even with tax credits younger adults can choose not to have health insurance, and then just claim bankruptcy if something goes wrong.
Ok though, let's not stop this benefit of the doubt stuff. Let's say these conservative reforms cause half of those deaths to go away.
We are down to 6,000 deaths in an average year caused by lack of insurance. And remember, this is assuming all possible ways the number could be lowered from its original number, 18,000.
Remember that number: 6,000 per year.

Terrorism is a worldwide problem. But in the United States, how many people die from terrorism in a given year? In 2001, 3,000 people died. Since then...none...in the United States at least. But maybe my memory is mistaken. Let's say 50 more die every year. And let's count citizens of the U.S. in foreign countries. About 1,000 contractors have died in Iraq since the war started. Let's just pretend they were all American. And let's say another 50 citizens die from random terrorist attacks across the globe each year. You know, those minor attacks...at hotels and what-not. I admit, I really have no idea about that number, but it seems about right. Hell, call me out on it if I'm wrong.
And, though its quite debatable, and I don't think this is a fair move because these deaths could have seemingly been prevented (not to mention, terrorism is a little rough here because 7 in 10 Iraqis approve of attacks on soldiers), let's include American soldiers in Iraq. As of my last count, about 3838 American soldiers have been killed in the War in Iraq. Let's round that up to 3900. Another 450 in Afghanistan makes 4350.
Ok, I think I've been generous enough. Let's add it all up.
4350 American soldiers
600 random traveling citizens
3000 Sept. 11.
1000 contractors in Iraq
equals
8950
divide that by 6 (years this total makes up)
1491 and 2/3. (average number of American deaths, per year, from terrorism, including American soldiers and contractors in Iraq.)

So, let's look at our raw data:
Being completely generous to our conservative friends:
6000 Americans die per year from lack of health insurance.
1491 and 2/3 die per year from terrorism.

Now am I saying defund homeland security? Of course not. Terrorism is a big deal. What I am saying is this: All Republican candidates (except Ron Paul, who has his own issues) are using fear to try and turn people's attention away from real issues. Terrorism is very frightening. Republicans want people to be so afraid of terrorism that they will vote for whoever will keep them safe from it. But if we look at the raw facts here, rationally, we should care more about a quality health care plan than doubling the size of the military. And on health care, I think it is pretty clear the Democrats win. (After all, if they didn't have the better positions, why would the Republicans downplay the issue so much?)

Leaders of Countries who Deny Genocides...

President Ahmadinejad of Iran takes a lot of shit for denying the Jewish genocide of WWII, and rightly so. Truly, how can he not know? The evidence is sitting right there in front of everyone. It happened. It was fucked up. I wish everyone could acknowledge that. I mean, Ahmadinejad wouldn't even have to take any of the blame for the genocide! It wasn't him, it wasn't his country. It was Hitler and Germany. And Germany acknowledges it, they feel bad about it. And that is good. We all ought to remember genocides.
I won't even mention the genocide happening in Darfur that no one seems to care to do anything about. Except to respond to: "Yeah, but Preston, you are a pacifist liberal--you think intervening in Iraq and Iran to stop human rights abuses was wrong, so how is Darfur any different?" Well, I'll tell you. I am not talking about killing people. I am talking about a peace force. Its completely different. Its like when you are at a bar and a fight breaks out--someone ought to step in and hold the two guys back. That isn't war; that isn't regime change; its using force for peace.

Anyway--back to the topic here. Why does Ahmadinejad deny the WWII genocide? I'm not sure. Maybe he feels like if he did he would have to acknowledge Israel as a state. But his motives aren't too crucial to me--the point is denying genocide is stupid and arrogant. Especially when the evidence is right in your face. And I think everyone would agree with that.

except...

Wait a minute. Has anyone been watching the news this week? Congress finally is trying to pass a bill acknowledging the other genocide...you know, the Armenian one? The obvious response...I would have thought, from almost everyone, would be "Wow! That is great! I mean, its unfortunate the government is using our tax dollars to vote on so many non-binding resolutions, but, cool. I guess its time we finally acknowledge that happened--after all, hundreds of thousands of Armenians died (link is graphic; be advised).

But wait a minute...

President Bush and his cabinet are urging congresspeople to take the bill off the table, or barring that, vote against it? What!? Why?

Well, the Ottoman Empire (which doesn't exist anymore) was based in Turkey. Apparently we have more genocide deniers than just Ahmadinejad on our hands. Turkey has threatened to take away our strategic military base if we..uh..I don't know how to say this and have it sound unbiased...if we..acknowledge a genocide of which there is overwhelming evidence happened.
I am not sure why Turkey is repressing what happened in their country a hundred years ago. No one that committed the genocide is still alive. No one would have to be held accountable. So it can't be that. I am very confused on why Turkey is so pissed off.

But this presents a problem for us. Do we take down the bill, thus tacitly denying a genocide which involved hundreds of thousands of people's deaths?
President Bush says yes. I am not really sure how this wouldn't make him a genocide denier. He is saying passing this bill will be harmful to our alliance with Turkey and our war on terror. So, don't pass the bill.
But doesn't that imply the following:
Acknowledging a horrible event of which hundreds of thousands of people were killed because of their race would be harmful to our alliance with Turkey and our war on terror? What if Turkey came out and denied the Holocaust happened? Would that change anything? And if so, why? Because Hitler was more successful at his genocide? Because we will allow you to deny one genocide, but two is just too much?
What
the
hell!

I mean, I think even folks against the bill would agree, that Turkey is just being completely unreasonable. We aren't holding them accountable--we aren't asking for reparations. We are acknowledging something happened on the same land that they live on. I guess the Ottoman Empire was also Muslim, but, we aren't making any overarching claims about all Muslims. I think Muslims would agree genocide is wrong. So yeah, Turkey is being completely unreasonable.

Now if their threats are going to prevent us from passing a non-binding resolution about a genocide which anyone with the evidence in front of them would acknowledge happened, then how much power do they really have against us?
What other unreasonable demands could they make that Bush would nod and smile to?

I say, pass the resolution. Everyone knows its the moral and principled thing to do. The only argument against it is the pragmatics. And it seems like one thing everyone would have agreed upon, Republicans and Democrats, before this week, is that we are not going to pander to any genocide deniers. So why is it different because its Turkey? If their leadership (not necessarily their people, I don't know what they think) want to be completely unreasonable, and deny genocide, then fine. They shouldn't be our allies. Period.
And if someone thinks our policy should change on that, and that we should allow leadership of countries to hold bizarre opinions, then fine. Let's open up talks with Iran then.

Its your choice. All I ask from you is consistency.

(It seems to me like the Republican thing to do would be to tell Turkey to fuck off if they are going to be ridiculous, and the Democrat thing to do would be to open up talks with Iran and keep Turkey as an ally. I am sympathetic to both, but more so to the latter. Either way, passing the bill seems the obvious thing to do, since we are supposed to be a country with a moral compass, not North Korea or Myanmar.)