What Could Be Wrong with a Little ‘Moral Clarity’?

Frank Guan
The New York Times Magazine
Originally posted January 2, 2019

If, in politics, words are weapons, they often prove themselves double—edged. So it was when, on the summer night that Alexandria Ocasio—Cortez learned that she had won a Democratic congressional primary over a 10-term incumbent, she provided a resonant quote to a TV reporter. “I think what we’ve seen is that working—class Americans want a clear champion,” she said, “and there is nothing radical about moral clarity in 2018.” Dozens of news videos and articles would cite those words as journalists worked to interpret what Ocasio—Cortez’s triumph, repeated in November’s general election, might represent for the American left and its newest star.

Until recently, “moral clarity” was more likely to signal combativeness toward the left, not from it: It served for decades as a badge of membership among conservative hawks and cultural crusaders. But in the Trump era, militant certainty takes precedence across the political spectrum. On the left, “moral clarity” can mean taking an unyielding stand against economic inequality or social injustice, climate change or gun violence. Closer to the center, it can take on a sonorous, transpartisan tone, as when Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat, and former Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican, each called for “moral clarity” in the White House reaction to the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. And it can fly beyond politics altogether, as when the surgeon and author Atul Gawande writes that better health care “does not take genius. It takes diligence. It takes moral clarity.” We hear about moral clarity any time there is impatience with equivocation, delay, conciliation and confusion — whenever people long for rapid action based on truths they hold to be self—evident.

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10 ways to detect health-care lies

Lawton R. Burns and Mark V. Pauly
thehill.com
Originally posted December 9, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

Why does this kind of behavior occur? While flat-out dishonesty for short-term financial gains is an obvious answer, a more common explanation is the need to say something positive when there is nothing positive to say.

This problem is acute in health care. Suppose you are faced with the assignment of solving the ageless dilemma of reducing costs while simultaneously raising quality of care. You could respond with a message of failure or a discussion of inevitable tradeoffs.

But you could also pick an idea with some internal plausibility and political appeal, fashion some careful but conditional language and announce the launch of your program. Of course, you will add that it will take a number of years before success appears, but you and your experts will argue for the idea in concept, with the details to be worked out later.

At minimum, unqualified acceptance of such proposed ideas, even (and especially) by apparently qualified people, will waste resources and will lead to enormous frustration for your audience of politicians and outraged critics of the current system. The incentives to generate falsehoods are not likely to diminish — if anything, rising spending and stagnant health outcomes strengthen them — so it is all the more important to have an accurate and fast way to detect and deter lies in health care.

The info is here.

Trump shifts meaning of 'Drain the Swamp' from ethics to anything he objects to

Noah Bierman
The Los Angeles Times
Originally posted February 9, 2018

Donald Trump long thought the phrase "Drain the Swamp" was a little hokey, he has confessed to crowds. Yet it stayed. If Frank Sinatra had to croon "My Way," even when he tired of it, Trump reasoned aloud, Trump could belt out his crowd-pleasing catchphrase.

More than a year into his presidency, Trump mouths the words a little less often. But rather than completely kill off a slogan that once rivaled "Build the Wall" in the Trump repertoire, he has done something more subversive: He has drained it of its meaning.

The motto no longer refers to Trump's promises of ethics and lobbying reforms — many of which have dropped by the wayside or been watered down — or to vows about stopping members of his administration from profiting from their service.

In recent months, Trump has rebranded the "swamp" to mean almost anything he objects to: reporters, opponents of his immigration plan, free traders, phonies, bureaucrats, politicians who vote against tax cuts.

The article is here.