Era Of Logical Fallacies Near An End?

In the week before Christmas I talked about the association fallacy and chronological snobbery as they're commonly used in discussions about religion, and as promised I will now put one of them into a rather ripe political context, along with another logical fallacy.  First as in all cases previous we start by posting the definition as found in Wikipedia.

"Association fallacy (guilt by association) – arguing that because two things share a property they are the same."

This particular fallacy is running amok through our current political climate.  Prime evidence being exit polls from the recent election showing that at least half the people who voted believe our current economic woes are the fault of former president George W. Bush.  The belief that economic down turns are the fault of politicians is, besides being an example of the regression fallacy, a prime example of the association fallacy.  While it is common to blame downturns on the president who happened to be in office when it happened, pretty much all economists and historians would be quick to agree that whoever was president was not the cause.  They recognize the logical fallacy in this assumption and the facts that come available through time show that this association of presidents with downturns is not only bad logic but in all past cases thus far wrong on all rational fronts.

In this example of the association fallacy Bush and his policies are assumed to be the cause of our current woes because they were in force when it started.  Now on the other hand, there is evidence in history that supports the argument that presidents who preside over downturns, as Barack Obama has been doing, can cause the downturn to last longer than it would have without him or his policies.  So logically the only blame for the current economy that could have been ascribed to any president would have belonged to Obama , but based on certain exit polls at least half the people who voted were swimming in a logical fallacy or two and blamed Bush, the logically un-blamable in this case.

To be totally fair I must say to assume Obama's policies have lengthened the current economic downturn solely because other presidents before him have done so would be a sloppy use of logic as well.  To definitively determine if his policies have done that or not would require economic analysis, and the complete data needed to do that wont be available until long after Obama has left office.  That said, there is at least sound reason to believe his policies have lengthened the downturn, though that reasoning is open to debate.  Unlike the argument that Bush and his policies got us here, which is based on a logical fallacy.  There should be no debate there.  Bush and his policies didn't get us here.  Contrary to the popular refrain, it is not Bush's fault.

Ah but we live in an era defined by logical fallacies.  Here's another relevant one.

"Reductio ad absurdum - Extending an argument to ridiculous proportions and then criticizing the result."

The Bush administration's policies, like most presidential administration's, was a very mixed bag of good, bad, conservative, liberal, and moderate policies.  His infamous tax cuts are a prime example.  On one hand they've been commonly seen as an outgrowth of conservative governing principles, since lower taxes usually are.  However there's something extremely un-conservative about them.  They were intentionally designed to shift the proportional tax burden onto the rich.  The progressive nature of the United States' income tax code is most definitely not conservative and the Bush tax cuts were even more progressive than the rates they replaced.

While conservatives favor breaks for the poor they don't favor a tax system that makes people pay a higher and higher percentage of their income as their income grows, and more importantly they don't favor a system where most of the income taxes are payed by a very small percentage at the top.  This sets up democracy to be at its worst where a majority can vote themselves goodies from a treasury they make virtually no contribution to.  The fact that the Bush tax cuts pushed the code in this direction was a huge flaw.

During the last campaign conservatives were tasked with defending a tax code they actually object to more than their critics do.  This task was assigned to them through the use of the reductio ad absurdum fallacy.  Since they're conservatives and didn't want to raise taxes they must favor the current tax code established through the Bush tax cuts.  That last step, chaining them to the Bush tax cuts, was extending an argument to ridiculous proportions so as to criticize the result.  There is nothing conservative about the Bush tax cuts other than they were tax cuts.  They are now the current tax code, one that just happens to have a built-in mechanism to restore its rates to where they were before they were cut.  Conservatives actually want a distribution of burden more like the old rates, they just don't like the idea of raising taxes.

This situation is very ironic.  It would have been immensely unpopular and difficult to have passed legislation to restructure the tax code to spread the burden down the income latter, and that's pretty much what a Romney administration would have been tasked with.  But, since Obama won re-election the task of correcting the major wrong of the Bush tax cuts is literally as simple as doing nothing.  The rates with their unfair burden on the rich will expire on their own.  And even more ironic, the fact that the tax rates going up will hurt the economy will be a burden born by an electorate that chose this very route.

That is not to say we all deserve the coming pain and suffering because a majority of voters amongst us chose it, but it is rather to say the blame for not doing this in a better way will rest clearly in the laps of those who voted for Obama.  Oh sure, the blame is already being prepared to be laid in the laps of conservatives, but logic wont support it, and this era of logical fallacies has to come to an end some time.  Until then allowing the Bush rates to expire is clearly the least of evils for conservatives.  At least we will be done with what was wrong about them, and that will be a step in the right direction a Republican president may very likely have not been able to achieve, at least not this quickly.

Like Obama's campaign slogan says, "forward", and in this case it will be in spite of him, and against his goals.  This is what happens when the foundations of one's agenda is built on faulty logic.  Here's to a new year and the eventual end to this era of logical fallacies.

Association and Chronological Snobbery Fallacies

Here are some other logical fallacies that see heavy use in the atheist verses theist debates.

"Association fallacy (guilt by association) – arguing that because two things share a property they are the same."

Many horrible episodes in history are popularly blamed on religion or the lack there of when often times the only thing the given religion has to do with the event is that it was there and its leaders cooperated with the event happening.  Similar association fallacies are used against atheism as well (see the human rights legacy of Marxism as an example).

Religion has demonstrated an unusual ability to unify a large population behind a cause, and thus it should be little wonder that political leaders have sought to enlist the popular religion of their realm into their causes.  It also follows that once a cause becomes unpopular and the used religion becomes so too or at the very least less so, that politicians and the historians that defend them should attempt to blame the religion for the whole event.

Thus we are expected to believe that all of Western Europe launched several crusades into the Middle East just because they thought it was a good way to spread their religion.  The fact that the Papacy had become a center of immense political and financial power and felt threatened by the rise of monarchies must have been a small influence by comparison.  Keeping these rising monarchs distracted far away from the Papal realm, the prospects of securing a major trade hub, or looting a wealthy region of the world?  Certainly that all paled in significance to the Pope's desire to spread the faith by the sword, right?  After all, it says right there in the Bible that Christians are to spread their faith by threat and might of arms, right?  That's why when Matthew, a first hand witness of Jesus's teachings, spread Christianity into India he became known as a great military strategist?  Well, no.  He used the same persuasion his teacher used, that carried by words.  That's because there is absolutely no place in Jesus's teachings or anywhere else in the Bible that says Christianity should be or even can be spread by force.  Popular history's attempt to blame Christianity for the crusades is an association fallacy.

The fact that the same guy who headed up the church also headed up Europe politically doesn't mean his politically inspired decisions were religious ones, even if he dressed them up as such.  The Church was his tool, not him the church's tool.  If you don't quite see this, I can understand why.  It seems so obvious to think a religious leader's decisions must be an effect of that religion rather then his effect on that religion's followers.  If a religion is based on the teachings and edicts of its current leaders you could make that argument, but Christianity isn't and no major world religion is.  You can't blame Jesus Christ for the decisions of popes or any other Christian leader unless you can show a direct link between their teachings and those decisions.  In the case of the crusades and the inquisition for that matter, no such direct link can be found.

Likewise, I should add that blaming the human rights atrocities of Marxism on atheism is also an association fallacy.  The Marxists that committed these atrocities were atheists because most popular religions would frown upon their dehumanizing ways.  For them atheism was a convenient place to park that part of their mind and heart that might have otherwise questioned the authority of Marxist teachings.  And, to be fair to atheists, they don't have any self-appointed leaders to denounce atheism's misuse.

"Chronological snobbery – where a thesis is deemed incorrect because it was commonly held when something else, clearly false, was also commonly held."

[I'm going to re-use both of these before the year is up because they're extremely relevant to another set of commonly held beliefs.  That will be getting back to politics.]

I've read critiques of ancient documents in general, not just the Bible, that deliver the chronological fallacy in spades.  The argument goes something along the lines of, 'how can we take seriously the writings of people who thought the world was flat and that the Earth was the center of the universe?'.  Another is to suggest the Bible says pi equals three. There are more, but after this they're logical faultiness should also be obvious without having to list them all.

Before I get to the logic there are factual problems in these too I feel compelled to address.  Europeans didn't discover the Earth is round because most of western civilization knew it already, at least several centuries BC and it's highly probable it has been pretty much obvious to any human being that has ever seen a large body of water.  Secondly, pi does equal three if you're rounding and ancient scribes were frequently prone to doing just that.  Such rounding would be pretty treacherous for an artisan, but scribes weren't artisans and nor was most of their audience.  What we would consider excessive rounding was very common in those days.  Thirty three thousand one hundred and twenty eight would be lucky to be reported as precisely as five thousand.  They tended not to be numbers people, much like modern day journalists reporting the size of protest crowds.  In a very real sense, that's what ancient scribes were, the journalists of their days.  The numbers were there more to be descriptive then to be precise.  Ten thousand meant there was a lot of people there, and a circumference three times the diameter meant it was the perimeter of a circular shape and not a square one, which would be four times the distance across.

Much more to the point though, even if the writers of the Bible believed the Earth was flat, nowhere did they codify that, and the writings of the Bible never attempted to have anything to do with geography.  The Bible is a religious document with historical and ideological significance, and there is absolutely no evidence that its authors intended it to be anything else.  Now whatever may have been believed about astronomy, geography, or biology at the time it was written in no way effects its merit in the areas of religion, history, and ideology.  Thus those who attempt to discredit with claims about its accuracy on other subjects or the supposed beliefs of its authors on those subjects is an example of the chronological snobbery fallacy.

It's a very appropriately named fallacy as well, I might add.  Knowing more about the nature of the universe's dimensions and where it all is in relation to where we stand doesn't make us superior in anyway except in a certain area of trivia.  There are people who actually demand other people demonstrate knowledge with no contextual reelvence to advice sought in order for them to consider them a worthy source, but these people are generally thought of as snobs, and not as good judges of people's merits.








 

Shifting the Burden of Proof and the Definist Fallacy

[Note: I'll return to logical fallacies of a more political flavor next week, but this week seemed to be a good one to address the logical fallacies I have observed in modern discourse about God and religion]

"(shifting the) Burden of proof (see – onus probandi) – I need not prove my claim, you must prove it is false."

This one is commonly found wherever someone wishes to challenge or defend a view supported by tradition.  Both sides of the argument step in it and believe the other has instead.  It's like being on a teeter-totter in space where there is no agreed upon up or down.  Context is everything.

An atheist insists that someone who believes in the existence of a god is making an assertion by doing so and thus must prove it.  Meanwhile someone who defers to a time tested, and still currently popular line of tradition believes the assertion in the argument is that there is no god, and the burden of proof is thus on the atheist instead.

They both could be right depending on the context.  If the theist's belief were new to the context then the atheist would be correct.  In that case the assertion that must be proved is being made by the theist.  This would be the context if the theist was trying to change the atheist's mind, for example.  But, if the atheist's beliefs were new to the context then the theist would be correct.  This would be the case if the atheist was trying to change many public policies regarding religious expression for example.

More specific examples would be the content of science curriculum and the use of public places for religious reasons.  A Christian, for example, cannot simply insert religious teachings into a science curriculum unless they are prepared to prove the existence of God solely through the use of the scientific method.  Otherwise they are forcing poor logic onto science.

In the same way an atheist who insists that a religion, that most members of a community through long years of tradition believe and practice, should not be publicly acknowledged is also going to be the one needing to prove things.  Before one demands that governments not acknowledge tradition they must first prove that tradition is wrong.  The very fact that something becomes a tradition means that many people over many years came to see value and efficacy in it to such a degree that they thought it should be passed on, and several generations arrived upon the same conclusion until it came to be deferred to almost without question.  Traditions are not all that unlike scientific theories in that way, and both should only be changed when those asserting they are wrong present proof to their assertions.

Context is everything and yet it is almost always, it seems, what people in the atheist verses theist debates lose track of.  They both often make the mistake of assuming the burden of proof is always on the other side.  Not so.

One of the most common ways they get to this wrong conclusion is through yet another logical fallacy.

"Definist fallacy – involves the confusion between two notions by defining one in terms of the other."

One might say this isn't exactly an example of the definist fallacy, but I think it is.  The Christian who wants "God created the heavens and the earth" in science textbooks defines science's mission in terms of all knowledge and all things, when science is limited only to those things that can be both observed and quantified.  That's a classic example of the definist fallacy.

Once you define science as dealing with all things, even those things unobserved and unquantified, it becomes like a train off its rails.  It not only can't defend itself from those who wish to impose unscientific ideas onto it, but it becomes useless completely, no longer a tool for objective study.

Likewise when an atheist demands that the Christian god's existence be proven using only things that can be observed and quantified, this is also a prime example of the definist fallacy.  Functional and rational people, by most people's understanding of such, make effective decisions every day using more inputs than just those that the scientific method could make use of.  Things like tradition, personal but unreproducible experiences, and what we call intuition are just a few.  Religions purpose, which addresses all things, requires this of it, since those things are part of that set.

To use my psychology and education backgrounds here, I can tell you that religion forms a mental construct, like a model in science, into which an individual organizes all aspects of their life.  It doesn't step on science, preclude emotions, or insist that someone pretend they didn't see something they saw.  Instead it gives each and every aspect of a person's life a place to fit into the larger whole.  Studies have shown it to be a very effective life tool.  To be this tool it must address all rationally valid inputs including those observable and quantifiable.  Just as science cannot retain its objectivity if it must address all things at all times, religion cannot be as holistic as it needs to be if it is limited only to the observable and quantifiable.

Now I've talked to atheists enough to know that some of them would insist that science can eventually address all things, at least in theory if given infinite time, and all the things it can't currently address are best not addressed at all until it can be done in a purely objective way.  I'll resist the temptation to pounce (at least for right now) on the rather religious sounding talk about science eventually addressing all things given infinite time, and instead present something that drives home my point about people having good reason to want something to address all things today and not just at some indefinite time in the future.

The unreproducible personal experience is one very good example.  It is something that is useless within the scientific method.  It cannot be used to advance any objective study, but it is still very important to the person who experienced it.  There is a psychological need to rationally fit it together with the rest of their life.  Failing to do so can cause psychological discomfort and possibly even interpersonal impairment.  It's likely they will need something to put it all together with, something that is either called religion or at the very least plays the same role, which can't be science.  Some atheists cope with some sort of substitute for religion while others prefer to deny the existence of such things and insist the experience must have been a miss-perception of some kind.  Of course the miss-perception approach is to ask someone to exchange faith in what they actually believe themselves to have experienced with faith in that theory about science being given infinite time to eventually explain everything, and we're some how better off waiting for the explanation that may never come in their life time.  And to think many of them don't believe in teaching kids about Santa Claus.  I don't know about you, but I think the odds of me seeing Santa's workshop at the North Pole far exceed the odds of science ever managing to explain all things.  

It's that whole matter of infinity.  What do the latest and greatest scientific theories have to say about the dimensions of the universe in regards to infinity?  Now compare that to the track record of human creativity and perhaps my point starts to become clear.  Science may very likely not have infinite time to deal with but the potential of human creativity on the other hand does seem infinite based on all valid inputs available to us.

Now before any atheist gets too offended by what I'm saying here, remember I gave the Christians who want to muck with science as though it's religion their medicine for using the definist fallacy.  Now I just gave you yours for trying to get religion to play by science's rules, and thus using the same fallacy.  It just took a bit longer in your cases because some of you actually try to do the same thing some of my fellow Christians do, treat science as though it's a religion.  That's a bad practice and I'm sure many of your well educated and well thought fellow atheists can drive home that point for me, so I wont belabor it further.

While I'm not sure anyone can quantify the exact degree of sin on both sides, I think it should be pretty clear that both sides are guilty of using heavy doses of shifting the burden of proof and the definist fallacy.

Our Current Economic Crisis And The Regression Fallacy

Understanding Today Is To Understand Logical Fallacies

I am fond of telling people I am simply applying logic in order to arrive at my conclusions.  I  then go on to present a line of reasoning which to many may seem like just another opinion.  One  that is no better than anyone else's.  Those who see it this way may think I'm just puffed up and  full of myself.  It is for those people and anyone who finds themselves in a discussion with  those people that I provide the content of this series of blog posts.

Many of today's popular views are heavily based on well acknowledge logical fallacies.  By "well  acknowledged" I mean logicians and other scholars who's professions depend on the use of logic  have long since come to agree certain ways of arranging facts or the lack there of are  completely wrong.  I will list some of my favorites with relevance to many popular views.  I  will deal with a couple, perhaps three or four if they're short enough, in each post across the rest of this month.

I will be quoting Wikipedia's List of Fallacies page for the actual fallacy definitions and then adding my discussion of the far too common examples of it in much of today's thinking.

Our Current Economic Crisis And The Regression Fallacy

"Regression fallacy – ascribes cause where none exists. The flaw is failing to account for  natural fluctuations. It is frequently a special kind of the post hoc fallacy."

Popular view number 1:  Our current economic downturn was caused by _______. 
You can fill in the blank depending on one's politics, but unless that blank is filled by  something along the lines of, "the inevitable ups and downs of the economic cycle", we have an  example of a regression fallacy.

The Bush tax cuts didn't cause this.  Lack of regulation of the mortgage industry didn't cause  this.  Excessive government spending didn't cause this.  The size of the national debt didn't  cause this.  Nothing caused the down turn.  

It was inevitable.  This is basic macro- economics.  Economies contract from time to time because they become too full of weak or bad  business ventures.  When large numbers of these ventures fail or get downsized around the same time, investors, lenders, and  consumers very reasonably become cautious and there's a downward momentum in the economy.  Many  reasonably solid ventures also start to suffer because of the lower availability of investment  funds and the reduction of income (due to less consumer spending).  At this point it looks like  a never ending vicious cycle, but eventually it stops.  

Eventually the  accumulation of idle investment funds is lured out by the increasingly solid business ventures  that remain.  These ventures are seen as solid precisely because they've survived thus far.   Once the investment funds start to not only flow more easily but are doing so into largely solid  ventures, the corner is turned.  The economy now begins to grow again.  Good new ventures and  the relaunching of some unfairly halted ones enter the picture and add to the growth even more.   The new jobs and greater incomes lead to more consumer spending which leads to even more  growth, and now we have momentum going the other way, a boom.  

This momentum inevitably starts  to carry even more weakly conceived and/or managed ventures, and they go further than they deserve to because of it.  This sort  of thing accumulates until ... you guessed it, we have a new economic contraction resulting from  all the eventual failures.  This is the economic cycle.  Not only is it inevitable but even if we had a way to stop it we wouldn't want to.  An economy without ups and downs would be very much like a person that can't feel pain.  We'd keep hurting ourselves and never know it.  Economic downturns are inevitable and even good in the long run.  What we can and should be concerned with is not making them more severe or longer than they need to be.

Government can't stop the cycle but it  can effect it.  If government does something to either encourage, prop up, or create weak  businesses it will cause the boom to be artificially high and the following bust to be more  painful.  These are the sorts of things we should be asking ourselves about.

Relevant to our current situation, we should be asking if bad mortgage loans had been  encouraged by government policies, propped up by government, or created by government?  The  answer is yes, yes, and pretty much yes.  The lack of regulations are pretty much a red herring.

"Red herring – a speaker attempts to distract an audience by deviating from the topic at hand by  introducing a separate argument which the speaker believes will be easier to speak to."

The regulations were a problem, but they were regulating a kind of loan that had essentially been created  by government policies and actions and were also encouraged by them, and not only were there too  many of these loans but they wouldn't have even existed without government intervention.  Blaming the lack of regulations is a lot like blaming a forest for a fire, when the better question is who started the fire.

The  government policies that gave birth to these loans came into place back in the 70's as a an  outgrowth of the civil rights movement, the Community Reinvestment Act most notably.  Not to fault the civil rights movement.  I'm just  pointing out that it wasn't just the lenders' greed and the politicians' lust for power that  created these bad policies, it was also misguided good intentions.

I suspect that's why neither major political party is willing to talk about the real major cause of this recession's severity, because to do so would be to admit that both of their sets of rhetoric about  how best to govern for most of the last fifty years has all mostly been wrong.  Both tax cuts and government spending can  stimulate economic growth but at least some times growth shouldn't be encouraged, lest we make  the inevitable bust bigger.  Likewise economic forces and their outcomes are not always  fair, but when government steps in to try to make them fair they will inevitably just move the  pain to another place, another time, perhaps another generation and while doing so make it greater.  The only way to overcome the unfairness of market forces is in the aggregate of all events.  Individuals must win some to compensate for the times they lost and shouldn't have, and government should try to stay out of the way.

People can disagree with me about that last conclusion, but that the current economic policy debate in Washington D.C. is all based on logical fallacies is undeniable.  Most notably they are based on the regression fallacy and red herrings.

A Day My Life Changed

Some times I look back at my late and short teaching career and wonder if I ever should have done it. Perhaps, I consider, the time could have been better spent, say, getting my computer science degree sooner, or I could even have started to write sooner, but no. Without that experience there are certain very important things I never would have learned.

As a teacher I was driven to take an interest in the character and destiny of each of my students. I know it sounds a little corny, but what exactly is the universal job description teachers have? Are we not there to help our students by encouraging high character in them, and then to train them in what they need to know and master in order to achieve the personal goals that derives from that high character? These are the sorts of things only a teacher or parent is likely to ever commit to, and having never been a parent, teaching was the reason for me. So in spite of my normal tendency to simply allow fools to be fools, I was driven by a job description to try and save them.

I remember in particular one middle-school student of mine that was a free spirit. He was smart, got good grades on his assignments, and was generally respectful toward his teachers, but from the point of view of my lead teacher and the school's principal he was sorely lacking in two very important areas. He was terribly disorganized to the point that the contents of his desk often overflowed into other students' spaces. That really annoyed them, but the second area of lacking was what really worried them. He tended to be a loner. He seldom associated with other students and when he did, the other students would become annoyed with something he'd say or do. Nothing serious. They were little things I don't remember exactly, but like say playing four square and not seeming to try, or starting to do his imitation of a flying saucer sound. The only thing I do remember is that there was little to no consistency or pattern in these things. He might frustrate students not trying one day and then compete in earnest the next, or just not play on another. In a nut shell, he was not just a loner, but a very creative one.

The moment of my enlightenment came as I was grading papers after school and he and his parents were meeting in the next room with the principal and my lead teacher. I heard bits and pieces of what was being said at first. It was an old story. For years he had attended this K-8 school, and for years the faculty had worked with him on his two shortfalls. The parents said things I could tell they realized they had said several times before, but the teacher and the principal sounded more determined to make progress. They noted it seemed that none had been made.

The principal, a woman I had great respect for, was talking when suddenly this young 7^th grade fellow shouted “shut up!”. I was horrified, both because he was being so extremely disrespectful and because I was worried for him and his future at the school. I was tempted to charge into the room, but wasn't sure what I could or would do, calm him down or scold him. I decided to stay at my grading work, but couldn't avoid hearing what was going on in the next room. He went on to tell them how it made him feel to be continually picked at, and asked them, still yelling and angry, to “just leave me alone!”. I heard adult voices, occasionally his parents but mostly my co-workers, attempting to reason with him, but he wasn't having any of it. He only continued to tell them off.

It was then that it happened, the thing that really mattered to me and my future, the proverbial lights came on. The words came out of me like an involuntary sneeze, “you tell them”. I caught them enough that I couldn't be heard through the walls. It scared me for a split second, but then I felt something quite different than fear. I felt free and enlightened.

This young man had spent the last several years of his life under constant attack for in essence just being an individual. Sure, organization is important, but not enough to justify years and years of nit-picking and threats. And sure, it's wise to worry a little when a child is left out of social circles, but not when it's his choice and when he has no ill will or feelings toward anyone. His stand in that meeting, taken out of context is just a student being extremely disrespectful and insubordinate, but in context it was the Boston Tea Party, Lexington-Concord, Rosa Parks in the front of the bus, and Robert the Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn. He was expelled that day, and I called the parents shortly after to offer any and all help I could give them. My help was minor, but I was there to see him go on with his life, free of those who had sought to take away his individuality. To the best of my knowledge he's been very successful at being himself, and more than that.

One of the most significant measures of success in a person's life is who they've effected in positive ways, and just how positive. In this young man's case, he effected me. His moment of taking that stand that day showed me just how important the individual is. Without his stand, I probably wouldn't be writing right now. As a matter of fact I hate to think of what I might be doing, something meaningless, something depressing, something wrong.

I'd be so bold as to thank him by name, but I don't want to draw in the people I worked for and with at that time. That moment was also the moment I realized I was working with the wrong people, at least for someone like myself who cherishes the individual. So I'll leave it at this until I manage to contact him again more directly and less publicly, thank you, and sorry I was unable to see things before that day, but that wasn't going to happen without you doing it. The individual is bigger than all of us.

The Golden Rule And Genetics -- Two Keys To Understanding Our World

What follows here is some thinking out loud, or more accurately to say, in print.  These thoughts were inspired by a series of articles and papers written on the premise that our political views may in fact be the results of genetics and not just how we were raised and educated.

Here are links to a couple of them.
Body Politic ~ The Economist
Major New Genetics Of Politics Study ~ Chris Mooney, in The Intersection

There are many many more examples of these to be found if you find reading more of them to be more than redundant,  but the point is that my thoughts here are in fact about a very serious possibility, that conservatives and liberals can no more agree on some issues than a fish can hunt gazelle in the African veldt.

I put this into a Christian context by using the Golden Rule, "Do to others as you would have them do to you", and how liberal and conservative Christians end up reading such a simple rule so very differently, and how that translates both theologically and politically.

Both believe in the general principal of treating others the way you want to be treated.  That much isn't missed by either.  The difference, and what I strongly suspect to be how the genetics plays itself out in our brain wiring, is how they interpret the context of the rule's application.

Genetic conservatives, I believe, see the rule is largely practical.  Following it will generally result in others treating you better than if you didn't follow it.  It's what some would call a win-win.  If you treat others well they will tend to return the favor, not always, but often enough for it to just make good sense as a regular practice.

Genetic Liberals  on the other hand believe the rule is largely moral.  You treat others the way you want yourself to be treated because it's the right thing to do.  There's no guarantee or even likelihood the favor will be returned, but good people just do it.

How these two different perspectives of the Golden Rule plays out is then perhaps counter-intuitive, but very much logical.

The Counter-intuitive Outcome

The Genetic Conservative follows the Golden Rule reflexively without thinking, while the Genetic Liberal follows it with greater hesitation.  Since the conservative believes there's a personal benefit to following it there is seldom if ever a question about following it, but since the Liberal believes it's pretty much a moral decision they think about it as a test of their character and so it's conceivable they may not follow it in a certain instance, but when they do they tend to pat themselves on the back or say, "I was good".

Now before my fellow conservatives jump to the conclusion our perspective is superior since we will be "good" almost without hesitation, consider what the liberal perspective on this difference is.  Liberals could claim their heart is more sincere and selfless in this since they have no expectation of reward for being "good".  They also will insist they're the more rational and realistic.

A Side Note On Atheists

One wonders why it is there are conservative and liberals within both the ranks of evangelicals and atheists, yet conservative evangelicals outnumber liberal ones and liberal atheists outnumber conservative ones.  Similar studies have suggested there's genetics involved between religious and non-religious people as well as Conservatives and Liberals.  Could they be the same?

Well, yes they could, and I suspect the Golden Rule focus works here as well.  Both conservatives and liberals pretty much agree the world is imperfect, but they differ as to whether being "good" is generally rewarded or not.  In order for conservatives to so confidently believe that following the Golden Rule will bring them benefit more often than not, they must at times believe the reward will be at the very least an ultimate one somewhere in the future.  Anyone who is confident in an ultimate reward would logically gravitate towards religious beliefs.  Now liberals on the other hand believe no one can be trusted to do the right thing and that it is the natural tendency of human beings to selfishly exploit others.  For them it is just a matter of maintaining sanity to anticipate this and it is irrational to expect otherwise.  Their mindset is to anticipate the worst of people and of life in general.  For them it is only through great caution guided by reason that they can maximize their personal experience and impact.  They tend not to count on things they can't see, feel, hear, or touch.  This mindset would logically gravitate towards a rejection or at least skepticism of religion.  The Golden Rule is for them, as said before, a decision they make to be "good" with no expectations of anything in return.  For them it is a sign of their personal enlightenment.

So many of the most common parts of many fruitless arguments back and forth between Christians and atheists makes a lot of sense in light of this analysis of how each perceives the Golden Rule.

Many atheists insist no caring god would allow all the suffering we see on Earth around us, and often Christians respond by saying the atheists are missing the bigger picture.  Both leave this exchange confident their reasoning prevailed and no minds or hearts are changed.

Christian conservatives see ultimate justice and reward as part of their lives.  There are near countless examples of it in their lives and those of others, and for them believing in the unseen is not so much faith as it is humility, indeed an exceptionally rational and logical belief that the universe is not limited to our abilities to perceive it, and that weighing and considering the testimony of others helps expand our understanding beyond what would otherwise be our limits.

For Genetic Liberals things like justice must be obtained through human effort alone. Christian liberals see themselves as God's avatars.  It's up to them to get it done with God's help.  Atheist liberals just leave the God-talk out of it and see it as completely on them to get it done.

Back To Politics

Now we can swing back into the area of government policy and this Golden Rule idea follows there just as easily.  Liberals distrust human nature so much that they're inclined to favor government control over individual liberty, while Conservatives are so confident that people left to their own devices will tend to do good because it benefits them, that they have a hard time accepting government controls as justified.

Liberals tend to see the decision to do good as the result of high personal character and enlightenment, and conservatives tend to see it as a rational response to an environment where people being good to each other tend to prosper.  These different ways of seeing "good" and its consequences leads to very different politics.

If you believe good behavior derives from enlightenment then you're open to government enforced good behavior.  After all, the average person cannot be expected to have the kind of superior moral character and/or spiritual enlightenment necessary to make these decisions on their own.  And further, if someone compelled to do good becomes so enlightened they should have no problem with having been forced, since it would have been their decision anyway if they knew then what they know now.

If on the other hand you believe most people tend to act rationally and rational people will see enough personal benefit to good behavior that they will tend to do what is good, then you will also tend to see government enforced good behavior as generally unnecessary, demeaning, oppressive, and arrogant.  And further, seeing it as unnecessary, you will see the potential harm of government possibly getting things wrong as outweighing the likely possible good.

Conclusion

I summarize this thought exercise as follows -- the reader should keep in mind I am a conservative --.  The modern American conservative sees all things in life as connected and that means to be rational one must have the humility to not look down on the average human being, and perhaps more importantly one must see doing good as having a practical reward.  Humility and balanced rationality are what separates conservatives from liberals.  The left tend to see those who disagree with them as inferior in some way.  The modern American liberal sees a disconnect between the way things ought to be and the way they would naturally trend without the the intervention of the enlightened.  They see no need for balance in their reasoning since they see themselves as fixing a broken world.

A Call To Action For Christians (The Church Universal)

It's not that conservative Christians fail to see the world as fallen, it's that they have the humility to accept that it is Christ and not them who will fix it.  The liberal Christian may argue that we are Christ in this world and we should thus share in His purpose to redeem it, and the conservative view is little more than an excuse not to act.  The liberal argument however reveals its own failings.  It does this in three large areas.

1. Christ calls us to do many things in His name, but hubris isn't one of them.  If human effort, even that aided by Christ's inspirational enlightenment, was capable of redeeming this world He would not have had to die on the cross.  Justifying the use of governmental power to force people to act in "good" ways by saying it's what Christ would want us to do, well perhaps that's just nonsense, but I'd say it's more like a hubris born of poorly balanced reasoning.  This shows in the very use of the phrase, "we are Christ in the world".  No, Christ is Christ in the world.  We should be His humble followers, not His replacements.  If He needs us to be Him, our religion has a problem much bigger than a lack of active members.

2. The liberal argument is very unkind in its assumption that conservatives believe in sitting around and waiting for Christ to fix everything.  There are lazy Christians who can't seem to do much more than attend Church and accept the label, but their problem isn't theology or philosophy.  They may use a false humility of the sort that says, "who am I that I can make any difference?", but that's not because they're really humble, certainly not because they're theology is conservative.  And, there are many lazy ones who also use liberal sounding theological reasons for their laziness as well, like, "the church is full of hypocrites".  There are even what I call pseudo atheists who are really just people who's core beliefs are Christian but are too lazy to wrestle with the meanings and would rather not face their unfinished intellectual work on a regular basis, so they declare themselves to be atheist.  There is no theological position of any popularity that isn't used by someone somewhere to justify laziness.  My point being that one doesn't need to assume the mantle of Christ in the world to serve Him in it, and suggesting that anyone who doesn't must be amongst the lazy is insulting, and thus not a very Christian argument.

3. The logical ends of this "we are Christ in the world" theology is that we stop acting as persuaders and become more like dictators, authoritarians, patronizing.  This is clearly evident in the results, yes even the very results our liberal Christian brothers and sisters are more than happy to point at and claim.  Government grows and grows to add to and sustain programs designed to be everyone's salvation from misery, and it tells us more and more what we must and must not do for our own sakes and that of others.  Even as we all see how impersonal and dehumanizing many of these programs, laws, and regulations become, even as we see how they undermine individuals seeking even the slightest sort of self-actualization, they see all of this as just acceptable collateral damage.  The Christian Church as a whole keeps losing more and more ground in a nation, yes in a world, filled more and more with people who want to be treated and seen as individuals, and we lose ground because we have become trapped in the misconception that when Christ told us to take our message to the nations he some how meant we were supposed to convert their governments and their government policies and essentially just skip over the actual individuals who live there, or that they would just come along.  In a world where more and more people are losing their faith in their rulers, liberal Christians seem to think it good policy to work out the Gospel from the top of government down to the people.  It is little wonder that fewer and fewer people associate themselves with the Christian message.

So am I saying liberal Christian teachings are to blame for our current failure to connect with people?  Not in the sense that they are to blame alone.  Who amongst us is earnestly reaching out to the individual?  There should be more.  The lonely unreached poor of John Wesley's time are now embodied by the lonely people who sit alone and use web-based media for most of their socialization.  Who are today's Methodists who are reaching out to these people?  If Paul were walking the Earth today instead of when he did, his dream in Troas would not have been of a Greek, but a geek.  In today's world, more and more people are waiting for the next Paul or Wesley to bring the gospel to them, and not just in word but deeds, and to do this the message must be one aimed at individuals, not collectives. You know what I'm talking about, like Christ's message was and is?

Dyslexic Wisdom

Dyslexia was my handicap in my youth but once I overcame it through sheer hard work, dyslexia has become a gift to me.  Because, unlike so many others, I never actually ridded myself of it, I constantly see the opposite sides of everything I think about, and seeing this I see connections that others miss.  You see that's what my form of dyslexia is, a mind that must see addition and subtraction at the same time, or any other set of opposites, and thus must answer two questions for every one that is posed, but more importantly must see the two answers as part of the same thing.

Now I'm familiar with the common conclusions people jump to when I describe this, and no, I'm not saying I merely see what opposite sides of a cause have in common.  One wouldn't need a different mental wiring to see that.  What I see is the actual toggle, so to speak, or I could say the hinge the sides turn on, and their connection to that hinge is frequently quite enlightening.

Some opposites, like many philosophers have claimed through the millenia, need each other, but that's not true of all of them.  The Jedeo-Christian God for example has absolutely no need of the devil.  In fact they simply aren't opposites at all.  Other apparent opposites on the other hand are inseperable.  We human's are apt to mix these things up, and to our detrement.

Here are some proverbs, so to speak, that have grown out of my brain's unusual wiring.

1: A child can't really learn to share until they first know what it means to own something and not share it.
-- You can't share what isn't yours to share, and you also aren't really sharing something if you're being forced to.
-- The option not to share must be real, or their can never be a choice to share and thus can never be true sharing.
-- It's more important to teach a child ownership than sharing, if you must teach only one, since the latter is impossible without the former.
 

2: Show me a truly greedy man and I'll show you someone who doesn't understand ownership.
-- If you own something, you care about it and you want others to respect your property.  If you want others to respect your property you understand how others will want the same for their property.  While it's possible someone may be so self-centered that they don't see the relationship between respecting others' property and the respect they want for there own, this level of self-centeredness borders on being a sociopath.  Yes, it's that unlikely.  The more likely cause by far is they never came to see anything as actually being anyone's property, including their own.  They're greed is that of someone wanting to dominate a buffet.  They have an irrational insecurity, most likely the result of parenting that failed to teach them a sense of ownership, and so they strive irrationally to get things before others do.
-- The absolute best government policies for countering greed is to protect and respect property rights, nothing less.
 

3: You can't have non-violence or even life without violence.
-- Violence is an inescapable part of life.  It's how organisms sustain themselves.  Even photosynthesis involves a violent bombardment by the Sun of the Earth.  Instead of teaching a child non-violence only we should teach them the difference between appropriate and inappropriate uses of violence.  The anti-spanking movement is raising generations of people who simply can't cope with reality.  It's only through a massive co-enabling that these unfortunate victims of warped child-raising are able to avoid becoming quivering balls of disturbed confusion the first time they're confronted with a situation requiring violence.  And as for those who still become violent in sheer nature, they lack any guidance that might tend to limit the degree of of their sociopathic behavior.
-- Show a child that tends towards violence what appropriate violence is and you show them a path to being a functional part of society.  Show a child that doesn't tend towards violence the same thing and you prepare them for those inevitable moments in life that might otherwise destroy them.
-- There is nothing nurturing about teaching zero tolerance of violence.
 

4: The individualist will usually be less selfish than the collectivist.
-- If you don't fully appreciate the value of your own individual dignity, liberty, or aspirations then you'll ignore those things in the lives of others as well.  It is easy to convince yourself that the greater good just so happens to work in your favor as you proceed to be very selfish.  On the other hand it is relatively difficult to convince yourself that you are being less than selfish when the pursuit of your benefit runs over someone else's individual liberty or dignity.  That is, if you first appreciate and value your own liberty and dignity.
-- I think this is one of the most difficult of the proverbs to grasp.  It's just seems to make so much sense that if we emphasize groups over individuals, we are being unselfish.  We miss the logical subtlety that groups verses individuals is not the same as others verses self.  We miss that others are individuals just as we ourselves are, and thus there is no equivalent relationship to groups and individuals.  We only understand others by understanding ourselves.
-- Once one grasps this important distinction between groups and others one will also begin to see why social justice is such a wrong concept, and how much harm it does.
 

5: Humility leads to greater command of one's talents as well as command of one's immediate environment.
-- A humble person sees both what things can be done and which of those things will be most advantageous to do.  Over time humble people will be more effective in their endeavors than those who are not humble.
 

6: Humility can maximize confidence.
-- Knowing one's limits teaches the full extent of one's capabilities, and knowing that makes one confident in what they do.  To know if someone is humble, you need to get to know them. A humble person could come off as cocky because they will tend to be confident. 

The End Of Marxism And Capitalism

"Mr. Marx, meet reality.  Reality, meet Mr. Marx.  I'll send in the cleanup crews after you're done."

[This is a repeat of post 2 from 11/12/2012.  I am re-posting it because it seems too important to leave it shrouded in the directory behind a more time specific post on the same day.]

If your ideology defies reality you must call reality an ideology, so as to create an illusion of plausibility.

Based on my reading of both domestic and foreign journals on our current economic state, worldwide, and on the results of last week's election, something has dawned on me.  The debates between the Capitalists and the leftists needs to stop.  Unlike any fair and honest debate, it has not served in any way to advance our knowledge or understanding of economics.  Instead it has only served to deceive us.
 
Through it the world has been cruelly deceived into thinking we can defy reality.  It's as if a bunch of adults had taken up the habit of telling every child they see near a precipice they will fly if they jump off.  Only in this case, while the potential consequences are just as horrible, there can be no authorities to tell the real deceivers to leave the gullible alone.  The deceivers I speak of are, to be fair to them, self-deceived, but not all of them are unaware of the disingenuous tactic they've been using to advance their cause.  They just believe the ends can justify the means.

Their disingenuous means is to set themselves against a mythological ideology they call Capitalism.  The reason Capitalism is a myth is because it is an attempt to explain the natural phenomenon of market forces within human civilization by a means other than objective observation and study.  Instead of treating the facts of how market forces operate as the facts that they are, they stuff them into a fabricated ideology called Capitalism, so they can debate reality itself and not look ridiculous.

Like real isms it may have some purely ideological/philosophical elements, but they also make it include things that are factual and thus should be ideologically neutral.  e.g. Quality of goods and services naturally trends upward with higher compensation.  Competition does usually produce more favorable price to quality ratios for consumers.   Centralized decision makers intervening in market decisions tend to make services less sensitive to individual needs.   These are not the facets of an ism or ideology, they are part of reality.

Marxists and other leftists needed to create this label, "capitalism", in order to give their ideas which flew in the face reality the illusion of merit.  Or from their perspective, the delusion of merit.   I should add, as the recent re-election of a leftist president in the United States seems to indicate, this intellectual slight of hand has been very effective. It seems most of the world is now fooled by it.  A world-wide delusion has set in.  One where the above realities about how goods and services best get distributed can be treated as just someone's unenlightened or poorly informed opinions.  They're part of an ideology after all, right?  So the leftists can claim they have no more merit than there ideas that happen to fly in the face of such things.

Of course we cannot dismiss these factual ideas about product distribution by simply attaching them to a made up straw-man-like ideology and then posing another ideology against it, but why do I say contemporary leftist ideologies fly in the face of reality? Because they do.

The most fundamentally flawed of them is the one that laid the foundation for the others.  Marxist economics is based heavily on what has come to be called Marx's Labor Theory of Value.   In fact, according to my reading of Das Kapital, this was the base assumption of the book.   Marx pretty much came right out and said so.  'All value is ultimately derived from labor' would be my paraphrase.  While this is a great place to start if one wishes to argue workers are being unjustly exploited, property owners have no intrinsic right to their property, and all property is ultimately that of the community's, it's none the less a horrible place to start if you want your ideas to withstand any respectable application of critical thinking.

If all value derives from labor, what does that say about ideas that dawn on people while their not working?  What does it say about forests, rivers, mountains, and other natural wonders?  What does it say about talents that only a few people have at certain levels, like leadership, craftsmanship, artistic ability, creativity?  What does it say about human dignity? It's not a matter of having caveats for things in order to save the Marxist assumption about value from being untenable.  Value either derives from labor or it doesn't.  If it doesn't then Marx's Labor Theory is wrong from the very start of its argument.  If value does derive from labor than individual worth and dignity is nonsense and I have some cardboard homes to sell that should catch me a high price.

Obviously value does not ultimately derive from labor.  Labor is just another part of the set of goods and services that we human beings endeavor to distribute between ourselves and benefit from.  This isn't capitalism.  This is just how things work.

Marx may have been attempting through this base assumption to give individuals more dignity, but he actually did the opposite by equating their whole value to their ability to work, and even worse for the plausibility of Marxism, he forced it to stand on a foundation of dehumanization.  If your ideology's base assumption quickly falls apart, or even worse becomes monstrous, when confronted with both reason and reality, then your ideology is implausible.

It is this implausibility that made it necessary for the straw-man called "capitalism" to be created, so that the facts and realities that make Marxism implausible could be dismissed as just being part of its rival ideology, Capitalism.

The other major contemporary leftist ideologies, Progressivism and socialism, don't escape the same implausibility of Marxism.  It's not that they necessarily can't escape it, but they simply don't try.   It's too convenient for their causes to reject reality and pretend that anyone who tells them free market forces will ultimately maximize the effectiveness of the distribution of goods and services is simply part of a rival ism, "capitalism", and thus it's actually possible for them to know a better way.   As if someone may know a better way of dealing with gravity than assuming you'll fall if you jump off a bridge.

It's a titanic slight of hand and it's worked.  Now it seems most voters in the United States believe reality is just a nasty ideology they need not agree with.   My advice to the rest of the world is to stop depending on us.  Whether you agree with the leftists in this country or not doesn't matter.  Reality is not an ideology you can argue with.   If you defy it, as the left will insist on doing, everyone who depends on you will lose.

My advice to my fellow travelers in the struggle for individual liberty is to lean on one of our surest allies, reality.  She can be a harsh mistress, as the saying goes, but we gave it one really good try this election cycle to help our fellow citizens see what the left is doing and most of them chose not to see it, so now they have to deal with that harsh mistress.  There is much suffering ahead and I for one will not be shy to say, "I told you so".

As for all the people about to lose your jobs, we so called "heartless conservatives" will be doing whatever we can to help you, within reason of course.  Look to churches, synagogs, and other volunteer organizations if you have need.  We are all going through very rough times and we all will get through them the best if we come together and help each other. 

I just wish so many of us hadn't bought into and played along with that "capitalism" trick the left used.  Will these be the last words of a great nation to warn others who come along after us, "reality isn't an ideology!"?

Worldwide Debate Over The Economic Crisis

Post 1 : About The Election

Are We This Stupid?

An amazing thing happened last week in the United States.  In a very low voter turnout the majority of the people said they either don't see a problem with the last four years, or they don't believe anyone can do any better than the current set of leaders we've had the last two years, or they just don't care.  In this election they had the opportunity to express themselves, to put their government in a position to get things done, to at least try to end the paralysis it's been in.  Instead they both re-elected the Democrat president and strengthened the Republicans hold on the House of Representatives while doing nothing to weaken them in the Senate.  One side or the other needed to be significantly weakened or at least in some way sent a clear message to cooperate with the other.  Instead the voters and non-voters conspired to help the two sides dig their trenches all the deeper.  It's as if the majority of the American people decided to give reality the finger, or maybe just refuse to take responsibility for their role in self-governance. 

We've been blaming our leaders for not being able to put aside partisanship to get things done, but when we had a chance to correct that, we essentially allowed our own partisanship to reinforce there's.  We actually seem to have asked our leaders to go right on not getting anything done while our government heads towards fiscal oblivion and our economy has all the symptoms of D.C.S. (dieing civilization syndrome).  Just as President Obama will most certainly no longer be able to justly blame future economic woes on President Bush, the American voters will no longer be able to justly blame the politicians in general for our government's inability to get anything done.

If we cease to be a great nation in the next few years, let future historians know that it wasn't any of our leaders' fault.  It was ours, we the people, or at least the majority of us.

Post 2 : Worldwide Debate Over The Economic Crisis

We Are Not Alone If We Are

If your ideology defies reality you must call reality an ideology, so as to create an illusion of plausibility.

Based on my reading of both domestic and foreign journals on our current economic state, worldwide, and on the results of last week's election, something has dawned on me.  The debates between the Capitalists and the leftists needs to stop.  Unlike any fair and honest debate, it has not served in any way to advance our knowledge or understanding of economics.  Instead it has only served to deceive us.
 
Through it the world has been cruelly deceived into thinking we can defy reality.  It's as if a bunch of adults had taken up the habit of telling every child they see near a precipice they will fly if they jump off.  Only in this case, while the potential consequences are just as horrible, there can be no authorities to tell the real deceivers to leave the gullible alone.  The deceivers I speak of are, to be fair to them, self-deceived, but not all of them are unaware of the disingenuous tactic they've been using to advance their cause.  They just believe the ends can justify the means.

Their disingenuous means is to set themselves against a mythological ideology they call Capitalism.  The reason Capitalism is a myth is because it is an attempt to explain the natural phenomenon of market forces within human civilization by a means other than objective observation and study.  Instead of treating the facts of how market forces operate as the facts that they are, they stuff them into a fabricated ideology called Capitalism, so they can debate reality itself and not look ridiculous.

Like real isms it may have some purely ideological/philosophical elements, but they also make it include things that are factual and thus should be ideologically neutral.  e.g. Quality of goods and services naturally trends upward with higher compensation.  Competition does usually produce more favorable price to quality ratios for consumers.   Centralized decision makers intervening in market decisions tend to make services less sensitive to individual needs.   These are not the facets of an ism or ideology, they are part of reality.

Marxists and other leftists needed to create this label, "capitalism", in order to give their ideas which flew in the face reality the illusion of merit.  Or from their perspective, the delusion of merit.   I should add, as the recent re-election of a leftist president in the United States seems to indicate, this intellectual slight of hand has been very effective. It seems most of the world is now fooled by it.  A world-wide delusion has set in.  One where the above realities about how goods and services best get distributed can be treated as just someone's unenlightened or poorly informed opinions.  They're part of an ideology after all, right?  So the leftists can claim they have no more merit than their ideas that happen to fly in the face of such things.

Of course we cannot dismiss these factual ideas about product distribution by simply attaching them to a made up straw-man-like ideology and then posing another ideology against it, but why do I say contemporary leftist ideologies fly in the face of reality? Because they do.

The most fundamentally flawed of them is the one that laid the foundation for the others.  Marxist economics is based heavily on what has come to be called Marx's Labor Theory of Value.   In fact, according to my reading of Das Kapital, this was the base assumption of the book.   Marx pretty much came right out and said so.  'All value is ultimately derived from labor' would be my paraphrase.  While this is a great place to start if one wishes to argue workers are being unjustly exploited, property owners have no intrinsic right to their property, and all property is ultimately that of the community's, it's none the less a horrible place to start if you want your ideas to withstand any respectable application of critical thinking.

If all value derives from labor, what does that say about ideas that dawn on people while their not working?  What does it say about forests, rivers, mountains, and other natural wonders?  What does it say about talents that only a few people have at certain levels, like leadership, craftsmanship, artistic ability, creativity?  What does it say about human dignity? It's not a matter of having caveats for things in order to save the Marxist assumption about value from being untenable.  Value either derives from labor or it doesn't.  If it doesn't then Marx's Labor Theory is wrong from the very start of its argument.  If value does derive from labor than individual worth and dignity is nonsense and I have some cardboard homes to sell that should catch me a high price.

Obviously value does not ultimately derive from labor.  Labor is just another part of the set of goods and services that we human beings endeavor to distribute between ourselves and benefit from.  This isn't capitalism.  This is just how things work.

Marx may have been attempting through this base assumption to give individuals more dignity, but he actually did the opposite by equating their whole value to their ability to work, and even worse for the plausibility of Marxism, he forced it to stand on a foundation of dehumanization.  If your ideology's base assumption quickly falls apart, or even worse becomes monstrous, when confronted with both reason and reality, then your ideology is implausible.

It is this implausibility that made it necessary for the straw-man called "capitalism" to be created, so that the facts and realities that make Marxism implausible could be dismissed as just being part of its rival ideology, Capitalism.

The other major contemporary leftist ideologies, Progressivism and socialism, don't escape the same implausibility of Marxism.  It's not that they necessarily can't escape it, but they simply don't try.   It's too convenient for their causes to reject reality and pretend that anyone who tells them free market forces will ultimately maximize the effectiveness of the distribution of goods and services is simply part of a rival ism, "capitalism", and thus it's actually possible for them to know a better way.   As if someone may know a better way of dealing with gravity than assuming you'll fall if you jump off a bridge.

It's a titanic slight of hand and it's worked.  Now it seems most voters in the United States believe reality is just a nasty ideology they need not agree with.   My advice to the rest of the world is to stop depending on us.  Whether you agree with the leftists in this country or not doesn't matter.  Reality is not an ideology you can argue with.   If you defy it, as the left will insist on doing, everyone who depends on you will lose.

My advice to my fellow travelers in the struggle for individual liberty is to lean on one of our surest allies, reality.  She can be a harsh mistress, as the saying goes, but we gave it one really good try this election cycle to help our fellow citizens see what the left is doing and most of them chose not to see it, so now they have to deal with that harsh mistress.  There is much suffering ahead and I for one will not be shy to say, "I told you so".

As for all the people about to lose your jobs, we so called "heartless conservatives" will be doing whatever we can to help you, within reason of course.  Look to churches, synagogs, and other volunteer organizations if you have need.  We are all going through very rough times and we all will get through them the best if we come together and help each other. 

I just wish so many of us hadn't bought into and played along with that "capitalism" trick the left used.  Will these be the last words of a great nation to warn others who come along after us, "reality isn't an ideology!"?

Why We Will Win

This election is far too important. Too much unchecked power has been given to our federal government and, as was inevitable, it has come to be abused, yes by members of both parties, but this election is not a choice between two wrong parties. It's a choice between those who wish to expand government's power further and further into our lives, and those who at least tell us they are ready to start putting on the breaks and roll it back. The inevitable ends of continuing as we have is slavery to those who govern us.

This has been the case throughout human history. People settle in places away from tyranny and over time due to the needs of security and civility that rise with growing population densities, they gradually give up liberties to governors. One liberty after another is taken away in the name of the greater common good until tyranny becomes the rule rather than the exception. This repeated pattern is a depressing thought.

Very fortunately for us in the United States, our founders anticipated this very pattern and set up the government in such a way as to make it possible to break it. The elements of their design are many. The constitution and its “Bill of Rights” carefully defined the government's power. The government is set up in separate branches that each have the power to stop the others from acting, thus no great thing can be achieved by it without consensus. Further we are empowered to amend the constitution so as to further define government's limits and further ensure the individual rights of liberty and respect for dignity. But most importantly, they established the general governing philosophy of minimal government intended to maximize individual liberty while always respecting individual dignity.

That last part is what is often called “the American ideal”. This ideal is why many of us, including myself, believe America is not a specific nation. It just so happens that the ideal that is America has become part of the very fabric of this nation. If that governing philosophy ever becomes abandoned by a governing majority in this nation then it will cease to be the true America and those of us who remain faithful to the great experiment in self-governance will then be America, wherever we may live.

Many things encourage me about this election. I am encouraged by the apparent momentum for Romney and his apparent large leads amongst independents. The likely electoral count should all states polling within the margin of error split just evenly gives Romney the edge, and historically troubled incumbents lose more than half such races.

If Romney wins, some rightly say the fight has only just begun. Things need rolled back and constitutional amendments need proposed and passed onto the states for approval. But if he loses, I say the fight continues, just in a different context. The United States of America may no longer be the true America at that point, but the American ideal cannot be defeated.

It has existed in one way or another even before the first pilgrim set foot on American soil. Our founders may have put it all together into formal institutions, but the ideal has existed as long as human beings have had time to think and be inspired. Below are the words of Scottish poet Robert Burns describing what he imagined the words of Robert the Bruce as he addressed his men before the Battle of Bannockburn on the 24th of June in 1314.

Scots! wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots! wham Bruce has aften led,
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victory!

 Now's the day, and now's the hour;
See the front o' battle lour:
See approach proud Edward's power -
Chains and slavery!

Wha will be a traitor knave?
Wha can fill a coward's grave?
Wha sae base as be a slave?
Let him turn and flee!
 
What for Scotland's king and law
Freedom's sword will strongly draw?
Freeman stand, or freeman fa'?
Let him on wi' me!
 
By oppression's woes and pains!
By your sons in servile chains!
We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall be free!
 
Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty's in every blow! -
Let us do or die!

 
The Scots fought that day for freedom and liberty, yes liberty, that crucial part of the ideal that is the true America, long before this nation was born.  How similar is that last line to the words of Patrick Henry, “Give me liberty or give me death”. Burns words that he appropriately put into Robert the Bruce's mouth are those of a warrior, “Liberty's in every blow! - Let us do or die!” We aren't to the point of violent action. Today we vote to save this nation for America, but we know if it ever came to it, we would fight. That's because the true America cannot be defeated. We are not immortal, we can die, but that which is the true America cannot be killed.

Let's go vote. – To victory!

An Argument For Voter Apathy?

Is it just me or are there others in the United States who get tired of hearing, “never has an election been more important for our country”? It was said in 2004 when John Kerry threatened to pull us prematurely out of Iraq and to start treating terrorists as criminals instead of enemies. It was said in 2010 when the Tea Party started to clean house in the Republican Party and went onto be the force behind one of the biggest turn-arounds in the history of legislative elections. And now it's being said again in this election as the nation teeters on the edge of financial and ideological oblivion.

The problem with these statements aren't that they're being over-used, it's that they've been too often true over such a short time. Too many elections are mattering too much, and why? Because government has gotten too big and plays too important a role in our every day lives. It just shouldn't matter that much but it does.

And, because it does matter as much as it does it is tearing this country apart. People on both sides of this election are threatening to do very serious things if things don't go their way. Many progressives are threatening to riot and some are also threatening Romney's life. Many conservatives are threatening to leave the country (in order to preserve their private property rights), and some governors have hinted at creating a constitutional crisis by simply refusing to cooperate with a federal government that, in their legal opinions, has over-stepped its constitutional authority.

Even if much of this are just frustrated words, the prospects of future elections being less divisive are not looking good. More likely, if something significant doesn't change, elections are bound to become even more and more divisive until we reach a point where some future election can end in no other way but civil war.

“Whoa wait!”, you say? Someone thinks I'm leaping to and really reaching out for that conclusion? Why do I believe it? Here.

Our nation is ideologically divided between big government progressives and small government Tea Party constitutionalists. These two groups between them are the plurality of American politics. The Democrats can't be successful without the progressives and the Republicans can't be successful without the Tea Party (constitutionalists or whatever else you prefer). Sure there are “third way” liberals, big government conservatives, and those smug moderates and independents, but even if they hold a majority between them there are generally no workable compromises to be reached. The progressives will block anything that reduces the size and scope of government and the Tea Party will block anything that increases it. Thus the only way to get anything done is to satisfy one group while essentially excluding the other.

This means whichever group is excluded is going to insist some great injustice is being perpetrated, and from whichever groups' perspective that is, it will be more than just rhetoric. It will be sincerely felt. If it's the progressives they will insist that the poor, the under-privileged, the general welfare of the planet are all being criminally assaulted. If it's the Tea Party they will insist individual liberty and dignity is being trounced and the world's precious resources are being mismanaged to such a degree that needy people are being starved and/or in some other way criminally deprived. Worst of all, they can't both be wrong. One of them will be right and we must choose correctly this election and every subsequent election or millions will suffer dearly for our bad decisions.

As intelligent and well educated as we may be, we the people are not up to this task. It's no slight against us I am making. It's just way too much pressure for a general population to endure, and more importantly it's far too much for any political architect to expect a nation to endure again and again without eventually reaching a point where too many of the people are unwilling to accept defeat at the polls.

Some pundits who are inclined to conspiracy theories suggest that elements amongst the progressives are intentionally driving the nation to this point because they believe only their side will ultimately be unwilling to accept defeat and the other will acquiesce in the interest of preserving the union. I don't buy that necessarily, but even if is true those conspirators have got to be alarmed at what they presently see. The constitutionalist Tea Party movement is here to stay and has thus far proven itself to be far more willing to risk all they have for their ideals than have the OWS roused mobs the progressives hoped to counter them with.

Whether one believes in such conspiracies or not doesn't matter. The unavoidable reality we find ourselves in is one where one of these two ideologies must win in the area of public policy or we will get nothing done. Most should agree this circumstance is unacceptable, whether you be inclined toward either ideology or to thinking productive compromise is the stuff of good governance.

Solutions?

So what are our available solutions, if any? Here are the ones I see.

[a] Dissolve the union. Unacceptable as I see it because it would only be a temporary solution at best. Both ideologies would still be around and we can't just keep breaking into smaller and smaller pieces every time governance in a nation becomes impossible because of the balance between them.

[b] Marginalize one or both ideologies, effectively making them non-factors. The only ways I see to do this are either unrealistic or inhuman. These ideologies aren't going away, either of them. There are even scientific studies suggesting the people who follow them do so for genetic reasons. We have to figure out a way to live in a world with both of them.

[c] Reduce the size and scope of government to such a low level that it is no longer an effective tool with which to advance the cause of an ideology. This of course would be total victory for the constitutionalists and near total defeat for the the progressives. I say 'near' total because the progressives could always go about building the government back up. It does, after all, seem to be the natural tendency of government to grow.

Solution [c] is the closest thing to a workable compromise and, I think, a workable solution to the problem that threatens to tear our nation apart.

But We Need To Do More

Further, I think that we constitutionalists should look for every opportunity we can to amend the constitution in ways that further clarify the limits on government we believe are already there, and wherever we believe government can further be limited without crippling it, we should amend toward such an end.

In other words, we constitutionalists, the champions of individual liberty and dignity, we are the solution. We must triumph in enough elections to essentially reset the government into a smaller and more limited one. That way we can afford to lose a few elections going forward and we can stop having to constantly say, “never has an election been more important for our country”. Just for once I'd like to hear pundits speak of voter apathy and have it be because what the next government will do just doesn't matter.