Choices

As I expected, I didn’t go out last night. I was able to eat but it was late. I had minor digestive issues. What I ate when I could will surprise many of you, Buffalo wings. Spices are not the sort of thing that bothers me and I need something tasty to motivate me.

I got the call this morning; my cataract surgery is all set. I’m having it at 7:30 Monday morning. Allison is picking me up, she said, “Looking forward to you seeing me.” Next time I see you, I’ll be able to perceive your depth. My post-op appointment, when he’ll remove the shield over the eye, Is Tuesday at 9:00. Even the walk home should be exciting. I have not had binocular vision without glasses since before my Bar Mitzvah. I know I discovered that my right eye was near-sighted when I closed my left eye in Hebrew school. Till then I hadn’t realized it as my brain had learned to ignore the right eye. I got glasses when I was 17, just because they gave me a hard time when I had my eyes checked to get my driver’s license. Legally I could drive as my left eye was still 20-20. When I first put the glasses on I couldn’t combine what the two eyes were seeing; I had double vision. I don’t know if it’s like this with everyone with double vision but they two images were not stable, One moved around the other. I had to learn how to coordinate focusing my eyes again. Once it snapped in place it stayed that way permanently.

I want to discuss Brexit, not on its merits but the flawed decision-making process that has created chaos. We can lay the blame on the Right Honorable David Cameron, who proved neither right nor honorable. For political purposes he put the question of Britain leaving the EU up for a plebiscite, never dreaming that the people would vote, leave. They did, because it wasn’t a well-posed question. Naively stay or leave sounds like a binary choice, but it’s not, and that’s the root of the problem. There was one way of staying and a plethora of ways of leaving, and a narrow majority voted to leave, each with their own idea of what it would mean. Since the vote no single option carries anything near to a majority. That’s why there is chaos. The majority is against each individual option for leaving because there is no good option. The Irish border is the most intractable of problems. Nobody wants to go back to a hard border with customs between northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, but there’s no way to avoid that if Britain won’t follow the rules of the EU.

This is a great example of democracy being the worst form of government, with the exception of every other form of government. This was never a simple binary choice and should have never been treated as one. A serious vote would have been between negotiating a break with the EU and not negotiating a break. Then a second vote could be held on what was negotiated. That way people would know what they were voting for.

Something similar happened in the US. After the ACA was passed the right went on a huge campaign against it. Its flaws were magnified and benefits dismissed. In anything so complex there are going to be aspects that aren’t popular, everything has costs and benefits, and the stress was on the costs. It became so unpopular that GOP was able to take over congress on what was in many respects a referendum on the ACA. Do you see the parallel with Brexit? The choice was the ACA vs everything that wasn’t the ACA, and people voted for all the benefits without any of the costs, without considering that it was an impossibility. The GOP spent years with the mantra, “Repeal the ACA” but when they took control of the government the discovered that the ACA was better and far more popular than any alternative they were willing to consider. When the choice was between the ACA and the GOP specifics the ACA had far more popular support.

It’s easy to spot flaws in the status quo, the trick is to come up with alternatives that are better and to accept that better is not perfect. The alternatives will also have flaws. Things must be considered in their totality. That’s more challenging and people have trouble accepting it.

I finished writing early today. That’s good as I should try and find my paperwork for the surgery. Last time I discovered deep in it a way for me to get transportation to the hospital in the morning without having to pay for a cab. This still gives me anxiety. What if I can’t find it? If I don’t look it certainly won’t so I’ll be good now and look. I know that sounds like a trivial decision but it’s not. It has a large emotional cost, I have to remember the monetary benefit, grit my teeth, and do it.