The Myth of Uniform Virtue

Americans believe the great myth that a uniform confers virtue on the wearer.

If you believe The Myth, you won’t like what I’m about to say: Those who serve or have served in the American military are no better than anyone else. General John Kelly tried to perpetuate The Myth last week when he claimed in a public appearance that those who wear or have worn a uniform in the service of the U.S. military are “the best one percent of us.” Sadly, General Kelly has bought The Myth and, like most generals, is trying to get the rest of us to buy it, too. (It is understandable that General Kelly, whose son was killed in combat in Afghanistan, would want to believe The Myth. He deserves our deepest sympathy.)

Americans love uniforms. They revere—some even worship—anyone who wears or has worn a uniform of the U.S. military. There are reasons for this. For one thing, those who wear the uniform look so good: They stand up straight. Their hair is cut. In public they are usually wearing clean, well-fitted, well-ironed clothes. They are often young and (usually) healthy and strong. We also like the way those in uniform act: They say, “Yes, ma’am.” and “No, sir.” They have firm handshakes. They accept authority and do what they are told. They are like the perfect children we never had.

Yes, they look and act just fine, but those who wear or have worn the uniform are not better than any other ordinary U.S. citizens. They are no kinder, no more generous, no smarter, no wiser, no more tolerant, no more competent, no more self-sacrificing, no more humble, no more ethical, and no more moral than anyone else. The Myth says otherwise, but it is just a myth. In terms of virtue, the mechanic who serves on a naval destroyer is likely to be no different from—and certainly no “better” than—the mechanic at your local car dealership.

The Myth says that those who join the military do so because they are “self-sacrificing” and “patriotic.” There are no statistics to decide the question one way or another, but reality tells us that a large portion of those who volunteer for the military do so for one simple reason: The military offers them a good job. It’s a job that comes with room and board, decent pay, excellent benefits, early retirement, a nice pension, decent workmates, and, thanks to The Myth and people like General Kelly, instant respect. Some enlistees even get a free or near-free education out of it. Those are things very difficult for an 18-year-old—or a 35-year-old—to find in the civilian world.

Of course, some join the military for other reasons. In a world full of difficult decisions, for example, they like the idea of being told what to do. Or they like being part of a “team.” Or they expect to see the world. Or they’re pugnacious and need a meaningful outlet for their pugnacity. Or, very often, they have no other meaningful choice. There’s nothing wrong with any of those reasons, but they are not the products of virtue.

Finally, yes, some enter the military because they are “patriotic”—they love the U.S.A. and want to help protect it. But patriotism is not a virtue. It is simply an attitude, a state of mind—a state of mind fertilized and cultivated by other myths we needn’t go into here. Patriotism doesn’t make anyone better than anyone else, much less make them “the best of us.”

The Myth is further perpetuated by the images we see from Hollywood and on our TVs: brave heroes running into battle and defying death to save their comrades, protect innocent civilians, and defend our country. But in fact, except in times of more general warfare (WWII, Vietnam), very few of those in the military ever experience combat. By most estimates, only about one percent of those in the U.S. military ever directly face the bullets and bombs of our enemies.

That one percent does deserve our special attention, however. If, whether in combat or otherwise, they are violated in mind or spirit or body, we owe them as much care as we can give in order to heal them, if they can be healed. If they are killed in battle, we owe their families the same attention and care. (Do we owe those in uniform our “thanks”? It depends on the cause they fought for. If the cause was honorable and necessary, as in WW II, then yes. If it was not, as in Vietnam and Iraq, then, sadly, no. Gratitude is not the proper response to those who helped, however unwittingly, to perpetrate a massively mortal mistake. Respect and care, yes. Gratitude, no.)

Again, those in the military who ever face death and injury are few. And yet we are expected to revere—indeed, nearly to worship—ALL those who wear and have worn the uniform. We are, that is, expected to believe The Myth. But life gives the lie to The Myth. I taught for eleven years at a university with a large corps of cadets, most of whom were soon to enter the military. The cadets were, for the most part, wonderful, disciplined students . . . and so were their non-cadet classmates. And I have known scores, probably hundreds, of veterans in my lifetime. In my generation, most of them are Vietnam veterans. In my experience, the following is true: Veterans are kind and unkind, humble and arrogant, moral and immoral, ethical and unethical, tolerant and intolerant, competent and incompetent, wise and foolish, generous and ungenerous—and they are all those things in exactly the same proportions as the rest of the country’s population.

The Myth says that those who serve in the U.S. military are, as General Kelly claimed, “the best of us.” But The Myth is simply a convenient recruitment device.

If, then, you see someone in uniform, show them the same respect you would show any other citizens—neither more nor less—because they are not “the best of us,” they are simply some of the same of us.

Ten Ways to Rein in Big Pharma

                                                  By Ed Weathers

Fifty-five percent of Americans take at least one prescription medication.

Americans spend more than $325 billion per year on prescription drugs. We pay, by far, the highest prices for necessary prescription drugs in the world. We spend 50% more per capita on drugs than, say, Canada and Germany, and two to six times as much for specialty pharmaceuticals like cancer and diabetes drugs.

The pharmaceutical industry wants to keep it that way. That’s why today it has 1,100 lobbyists in Washington, D.C. In the 2016 elections, it spent $58 million to support the campaigns of Congressional and Presidential candidates. This year it will spend about $300 million on Congressional lobbying. No wonder Congress is, shall we say, a bit shy about passing legislation that might lower the profits of U.S. drug companies.

But if Congress did want to lower drug prices, here are ten things it could do. Some of these proposals are conservative (fewer drug regulations), some liberal (more government involvement in pricing). Nearly all are supported by a majority of voters in both parties:

1) Let Medicare negotiate drug prices. Nearly a third of all prescription-drug spending in the U.S. is done by Medicare, meaning it could have tremendous leverage to lower drug prices. Yet Medicare is, by law, forbidden from negotiating with pharmaceutical companies over the prices of the drugs it pays for. If Medicare negotiates, drug prices will drop.

2) Give generics a fighting chance. In theory, when the patent on a brand-name drug lapses, similarly effective, similarly designed generic drugs can enter the market to provide price competition. But FDA rules place huge obstacles in the way of creating generics; approval of a generic can take many years and cost millions of dollars. And Big Pharma often games the system: for example, a Big Pharma company can make a small, medically meaningless tweak in a patent-expired drug and then claim it is a “new” drug that is not duplicated by generics. Big brand-name companies are also known to pay smaller generic companies to keep their generics off the market, thereby avoiding generic competition.

3) Make drug companies justify their pricing. Require drug makers to be transparent about their manufacturing, research, development, advertising, and lobbying costs, and about how much profit is built into the price of each drug. Profiteering companies would be publicly shamed into moderating costs.

4) Allow drugs to be imported from Canada. Canadian drugs are just as safe as drugs made and sold in the U.S., and they are cheaper. But current Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rules, sometimes written by Big Pharma lobbyists, put big obstacles in the way of importing Canadian drugs.

5) Let more drugs be sold over the counter. In other countries, safe, well-researched drugs like statins and birth-control pills are sold over the counter, thereby eliminating the prescriber and pharmacy middle-men for many drugs.

6) Give automatic approval to drugs approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Like Canadian drugs, these are as safe as FDA-approved drugs. The EMA’s approval process is at least at tough as that of the FDA, and the drugs are far cheaper, in most cases, than their American equivalents.

7) End direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs. These are those tv ads you see during the nightly news. They often encourage the public to buy more expensive drugs than they need.

8) Set prices based on the effectiveness of drugs. Compel drug companies to reveal, more transparently than they do now, just how well their drugs work compared to their cheaper competitors.

9) Control the “orphan drug” designation more tightly. An orphan drug is a drug used by very few patients. To get a pharmaceutical company to make and sell the drug, the government gives it a monopoly on the drug, and then allows it to charge whatever it wants—sometimes thousands of times what the drug costs to make. Many Big Pharma companies have found ways—too complex to go into here—to earn the “orphan” designation by skirting regulations.

10) Stop issuing patent monopolies on essential drugs, and have the government determine those drug prices. This has worked in other developed countries, but it won’t soon happen here—too many Big Pharma lobbyists. No sense tilting at windmills, so better to focus on items 1-9.

I take the drug on the left, which is necessary to save my kidneys. The drug comes in a vial the size of a AA battery (right).  Each vial costs $38,000.