In an email discussion with a very interesting new friend, an idea I’ve heard before came up:  Libertarianism is sort-of childish; a Utopian dream that’s nice in theory, but not practical in reality.

It might be trivial to write at this point, but I of course disagreed.  To be fair, I believe this is completely true on foreign policy.  Libertarianism seems like a domestic political philosophy only, but more on that in the future.

On the childish part – in some ways I can see why that perception exists as well.  I’ve jokingly said before the reason libertarianism has a bad name, is because of libertarians.  The cultural norm in libertarian thinkers who draw large numbers of readers seems to be to take one basic principle and stretch it to infinity.

For instance – it’s your property, you can do with as you please.  So you can put a brothel next door to an elementary school and the only recourse should be neighbors buying the lot to out price the brothel.

To many, including me, this is stupid.  The point in giving as many freedom to others as possible, simply can not include a dissolution of society itself by subjecting populations to things they don’t want.  Also, I think they already have this type of vision in local government using SOME zoning laws.

Additionally though, libertarians do believe in contracts.  So if a bunch of people bought tons of land, they could sell those plots with any caveat they want – even religious requirement.  By buying the lot, you are signing the contract and therefore willingly entering into that agreement with those constraints.

While I firmly believe this is possible, legal, and potentially preferable, it seems like that’s a community/town.  Their issue however with government control is one of the use of force, but I think that’s due to too much centralization.  Studies have shown, more decentralization, IE – more local control, leads to better outcomes (here).  What this would mean, if we were to ever take it seriously, is that while New York might maintain 18 million people for the economic possibilities that provides, government spending and programs should be on a much smaller level.

Please note – this doesn’t mean that no federal government should exist or that taxes should only exist on a very local level, just to say that smaller communities providing for their own fire, police, education, etc, etc, etc works better than 3 million people trying the same thing.  The idea is a state tax or federal tax would be required for things such as national defense, but the majority of expenditures should be directed more locally by a mayor or city manager at a much smaller level.

So it’s not that I believe the community should completely dissipate, it’s that I firmly believe that when the government gets involved, it actually distorts the system to the point where people simply don’t take care of themselves…. or their neighbors.   I think this is backed up by basic human behaviors and thinking as well as all of our uniquely “urban” problems.

One of the human conditions which helps this continue is that of group think.  By safely removing yourself far away from the negative results the government produces with its Wars on poverty, terrorism, obesity…. kids?  People can insulate themselves in larger communities due to increased anonymity by blaming society at large, instead of assuming any direct responsibility.

Listen carefully when people argue about police abuse, or crappy government inefficiencies with social spending, or politician’s lack of values…. they place blame it lots of places, but never on themselves and usually, oddly enough, never on the voters either.

Going further, the government exploits our fears with the media willing accomplices (Politics of Fear) into giving up more control to the government and thereby reinforcing the notion that the government is the answer, when it fact it’s people.

For instance.. violent crime is down a great deal since 1990 (uptick recently, but very small and declining again), but the reporting of crime has increased on average around 500%.  Thanks to multiple 24 hour news shows, combined with a finite amount of news, sensational stories about very rare events influences people’s fears about those events.

We humans aren’t that good at evaluating risk as it is, without doing so in a very methodical way, but with the government’s various wars on everything: AIDs, H1N1, Poverty, Terrorism, Obesity, Smoking, Drugs, Cancer…. kids?  All with the media willingly pushing these sensationalized news stories, people have exaggerated fears towards rare events and minimal fears towards much more likely catastrophic events (great video here ~20 minutes).

Add to this, a general lack of skepticism and critical thinking, most people never take the time to see if their fears, concerns, or core set of understanding of the world is accurate.  I believe this is due to a lack of appropriate priorities for most people, but more on that later.*

Looking at society, you can see the fear we have in our neighbors.  For example, in lots of neighborhoods in lots of places, people will more quickly call the cops on a loud neighbor than just walk over and ask politely.  We go to court when cutting down a tree that crosses property lines, we call the cops when we think the neighbor has too many dogs, we…. we just call the cops because people are scared of their neighbors.  & not because they know about the bunker with a year’s worth of rations and ammunition, but because we continue to allow our human frailty in risk assessment to be exploited by those only seeking more power.

Additionally, we willingly take away rights from others.  The most consistent comment from friends, colleagues, strangers who accidentally started a conversation with me…. but for those I did talk to around carry conceal laws during a vote in MO had, by definition of a binary question, one of two answers. Yes or No

The interesting part of the nos was almost all used the same basic reasoning when talking to me:  “You’re fine. It wouldn’t bother me a bit if you carried a gun, you were in the military and trained.  I just don’t know about everyone else.”  Other than showing a lack of knowledge of how little an electronic technician trains on weapons, I think it shows our general distrust of others.

Not surprisingly, even when confronted with the stats that prove FL, TX, and other states did not turn into the Wild West (not that the West was truly all that “wild”) where horn honks during rush hour turned into shootouts between soccer moms & insurance salesmen, were all safely ignored.

I guess the cognitive dissonance was too much to handle because stats like those in FL & TX demonstrate that our 99.9% of our neighbors who might get a carry conceal permit are not planning to emulate Rambo on the morning commute did nothing to waver the opponents.

With all that being said – I’m proffering the idea that in an odd, perverse, but easily understandable way, government involvement, even in very charitable actions, can actually reduce our incentive to live together peacefully and take responsibility for our communities.

*On the lack of priorities, I don’t believe all people should run out and research everything I know because I think everyone should read what I read.  I think the very first rule in critical thinking that all trying to be honest analysts have to understand is that like all other humans, even those trained and educated in analysis, will still have the same frailties in their thinking process.  Potentially less pronounced, but never completely mitigated.

Therefore, when writing that peoples’ priorities seem to be off, I think our failure isn’t with not reading what I read – but in being a well rounded person by honestly reflecting and actively deciding their core values.

As a corollary to that – I believe society is teaching people right now that this is a good thing. Valueless employees ask fewer questions and do more as their told without contemplating reality and what the decision’s effects most likely are. & Even if they do contemplate and know it’s wrong, they do it anyway. Therefore people who don’t make waves, get promoted. Those who ask pertinent questions, even if necessary and correct, get ostracized.

This is not only true of our business leaders, Bernie Madoff, Enron, MCI, but our politicians as well.  Unethical leaders leading secret lives, even the corrupt politicians among us, seem to get a reprieve from the voters… so long as you’re on their side and they’re not mean.

Additionally the leadership selection process seems perverted for the same reasons the leaders aren’t what we should expect.  Someone who is arbitrary, but polite and educated, is someone a lot of people like.   In a deep seeded wish to reduce not only any discomfort we might experience, but for civility’s sake try to prevent others’ discomfort, society has conflated the ideas of social skills with leadership to the detriment of society as a whole.

On the whole, it seems our desire for civility has the unintended consequence of making us less civil and more prone to failure.

Sorry for the respite….

• Two great articles in Reason’s February issue:  One by staff science writer, Ron Bailey discussing health care (here), which starts with something everyone should know who’s interested in high price of medical care:

According to the conventional wisdom, the United States faces a massive medical bill thanks to our use of pricey new treatments and equipment. “About half of all growth in health care spending in the past several decades was associated with changes in medical care made possible by advances in technology,” a 2008 Congressional Budget Office report declared….

Don’t be fooled however, some of our more interesting intellectuals think this is reason enough to retard medical advance:

…This is familiar territory for [bio-ethicist Daniel] Callahan, who for decades has advocated reining in medical innovation to reduce health care costs. He also favors limiting the life-extending treatments that older people receive, on the grounds that most of them will “have lived a full and fruitful biographical life prior to age 70.”….

Who like most people that wish to control every thing in your life, including how you’ll die – refuses to take his own medicine:

…Interestingly, Callahan, age 79, underwent a life-saving seven-hour heart procedure in August that cost upward of $100,000….

So out “bio-ethicist” wants to tell your grandmother tough crap, while he does as he pleases.  I’m guessing his title was self-anointed as this is a one-way trip to genocide…. all genocidal societies started with this premise – the young, but very sick & the old, they are burdens on us… what a disgrace as a human being.

But going forward… the second article, written by staff writer Radley Balko… generally disliked because all his articles contain bad news about law enforcement abuses angering most readers and this case is no different.   Read about LE & justice system abuses when they are allowed to seize assets they believe were used in a crime or bought with criminal proceeds (here).  One more thing the state is actively doing to subvert true freedom.

• PysBlog has a good post on reasons we desire and try for conformity (here).

• The IRS, one of the most hated government agencies, is now allowed to bring armed guards into your home if they find you a possible threat (here).  The Christian Science Monitor seems to think this is warranted due to anti-government violence, but tries to prove it with numbers that are likely on par with the rest of society:

…The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), which oversees the IRS, handles an average of 918 threats made against IRS employees every year, according to the agency. Between 2001 and 2008, court cases resulting from those threats have resulted in 195 convictions, according to TIGTA….

Even if out of all the hundreds of thousands of people who worked for the IRS between those 7 years, it seems like this is overkill.  Having said that, I also have no faith in their numbers at all.  Months ago we were told to stay away from 10% unemployment, we have to spend money.  We spent, we’re at 10% (here).

Additionally, organizations like MADD routinely exaggerate their findings.  For instance, in their version of “alcohol related accidents” – if you had too much to drink and just want to sleep it off and someone, completely sober, runs into your parked car – that’s an alcohol related accident.

I’m not saying he’s lying, I’m just saying that in my personal experience while studying, believing a government agency is telling the full and accurate truth, especially when that truth gets them extra funding, is highly unlikely.

• Lastly, an oldy but a goody.  My 13 year old daughter heard this on an economics talk I was watching, told one of her friends parents about it & they refused to believe.  You might refuse as well…. but remember, we are all entitled to our opinions, but not our facts (here).  Basic thesis:  Seat belt laws did not reduce driver fatalities significantly, because it increased the number of overall accidents and worse still, it has resulted in more deaths of pedestrians.  Proving once again, that almost all governments laws intending to prevent some result, do more harm than good.

For  a little over a week now, political writers everywhere are telling us how the WH is going to aggressively work to change the narrative over health care & the stimulus.  This all began with a mea culpa from John Podesta last week when he admitted they [Democrats] have lost the narrative (here @ Politico):

John Podesta, the president of the Center for American Progress who led Barack Obama’s presidential transition, acknowledges the White House has been unable to successfully drive the debate on health care reform.

“They lost the narrative,” Podesta told the Financial Times. “They lost the perspective of how all of the activity they were engaged in was knit together.”…

This was followed up by pundits everywhere showing the signs of the WH’s pursuit of changing the current narrative (here @ WaPo):

…White House officials are retooling the administration’s communications strategy to produce faster responses to political adversaries, a more disciplined focus on President Obama’s call for “change” in Washington and an increasingly selective use of the president’s time…

[Dan Pfieffer Communications Director] “In 2010, the president will constantly be doing high-profile things to be the person driving the narrative.”

Continuing the Post reports something I think should be more controversial:

Senior White House aides described the changes as an aggressive response, aimed at producing fresh momentum for the president’s faltering agenda and regaining the advantage ahead of the congressional midterm elections in November.

I believe that’s an admission that the main reason they plan to change the topic at large and how that topic is described is for the mid-term-elections.  You’d think they could feign some empathy and argue that the policies are for the people, but instead they only discuss power.

But I digress… the main thing I think is important to see in all this discussion about narratives is two-fold.  They are coming out and honestly saying, the only reason we lost “the conversation” is because we didn’t sell it well enough.

& to be fair – it might well be true.  There are seemingly many more citizens willing to vote based on the narrative than they are willing to critically analyze the facts, therefore changing the way something is being sold will have some success.

But seriously – just because you have the opportunity to take candy from a baby, doesn’t mean that you should.  Meaning, if you can honestly argue that changing the narrative will push people to change their minds, you’re honestly arguing that winning is more about propaganda than ideas & facts.  & just like taking candy from a baby, just because you might be able to exploit people through emotional appeals, doesn’t mean you should do so.

What is more worrisome however, is the lack of reaction by people.  They read these things and mostly argue based on their political beliefs more than anything else.  & they do so, all without asking: what’s the difference between a narrative and the right policy?

Yes, what is worrisome is not only that people are ignoring this question, and thereby agree through silence, but that many of them may not even understand the difference.

In a very interesting post @ The Decision Science News, notes that:

There are those who consider the field of Judgment and Decision Making to be much like the field of Social Psychology, and others who find them as similar as vodka and water.

How can we, as the French say, préciser la différence?…

Using word analysis from two recent conferences, one from the SJDM (Scientific Journal of Decision Making) & the other done at the conference of SPSP (Society for Personality & Social Psychology) and noted the differences.

Now many should be able to logically recognize there are likely significant differences as well as assess some of the differences, all just with the names only.   These appear to be vastly different undertakings, but I think one can see in society behavior that seems to agree with the premise that many believe this to be closely related fields.

As one might suspect, the most used SPSP words were emotional and included using these words fairly often ups and downs, positives and negatives, attitudes, personalities & the SJDM words?  Choice, risk, future, uncertainty.

The full analysis easily digested and well worth the look.  After showing the most used words, using the scale of how many times each word was used per 1000 words, they plot both conferences words against each other.  IE – they show SJDM’s most used words and how many times those words were used by SPSP and vice versa.

The two commentators add weight to DSN’s premise that many are confused as both asked, “Why can’t it be both?”  Which might certainly be a noble thought, but ultimately wrong and dangerous when making critical decisions.

To begin, a disclaimer:  my intention is not to prove that emotions are evil.  Emotions are very important to our humanity, our culture, and our life.  Additionally, some decisions should include emotions, and not just in the mate selection process, but also just when buying a car or an engagement ring.  Money constraints might limit your choices, but you still don’t want to buy something you believe isn’t you.

What I see however in society is the desire of the posters, to make the best decisions possible, while still maintaining some nebulous idea of positivity, no matter what.

& again to be fair, this is itself a necessary goal if you are making group decisions consistently interacting with the same people.  However, it can never be an end in itself, and that seems to be where we are today.

You can see this in our leadership, both in business management as well as local, state, and federal government.  Their constant flip-flops belie any notion that a core set of beliefs is needed.  At times, these people seem to almost be arbitrarily making decisions.  For business, you can see this in constantly changing priorities as public winds shift.

All of this – is an anathema to critical thinking and analysis.  In a completely theoretical sense, using a specific slice of time, there is always a “best” decision.  This decision sometimes happens, but many times not only do groups fail to get the best decision, but seem to do just the opposite.   And this is true for many consistent reasons such as dealing with group dynamics and personalities.

Two recent examples @ Reason.com’s Blog by Tim Cavanaugh demonstrate not only shockingly bad decisions, but that those decisions have defenders.

Read here about a kid whose parents are suing the school district, because as owner of one of the 1900 laptops given to students, they didn’t seem to be aware that the school can at anytime remotely activate the built-in webcam and mic and secretly watch whatever it sees.  As the FBI investigates, the District Superintendent is still defending the policy as they cancel it.

& here as well, about a man named Terry Hoskins, who took a bunch of money from banks for a business which ultimately failed, used his private home as collateral, then when the bank went to foreclosure as freely agreed upon by Mr. Hoskins; he balked, then destroyed the home.  This is an event that should and will likely land Mr. Hoskins in jail on fraud.  He promised the bank the property, didn’t like the terms, the removed their ability to recoup.  The oddest thing isn’t a common thief in existence, it’s the fact he has supporters including local media.

From here all I can do is speculate as to why anyone would defend allowing the school district to spy on kids at home or hail as a hero a deadbeat who destroys property just to spite those who have ultimate rights to it because he didn’t pay his debt.

I say speculate, because more local analysis of the debates and media spots would be needed to know, but I think the school district is likely an extreme case of group think.  Likely exacerbated by administration pressures of some sort.  The debtor’s defenders however are more likely not only falling into group think, but projecting their anger on the current economic situation to this criminal’s seemingly anti-authoritarian behavior.

But regardless what the reasons for their failure in thinking, I think objectively we can say that those defending either action are wrong.  For the school – while states everywhere are sending kids to jail for child pornography because one 17 year old sends photos to another 17 year old – how would they ever believe that having the ability of spying into kids rooms wouldn’t increase the potential of breaking those laws themselves?  Do they not know that unreasonable search and seizure?

It’s really hard to believe that someone didn’t know about these things, just more likely the objections were either dismissed or never heard, due to emotionally imposed, nonexistent constraints.  While worrying about all these complex social issues, they failed to focus on exactly what they were doing through critical thought.

& this is where I think the idea of narratives working, the inability of people to understand true critical thinking requires removal of emotion, and people hailing bad decisions all stem from the same basic idea:  we so fear being uncomfortable or making others uncomfortable that we have weakened as a society in making the right decisions.

I’m not exactly sure when this cultural shift happened, but if we want to move forward in the best possible way we can; we must understand that sometimes people will be upset when they are challenged on beliefs for which there lies no logical foundation.  Additionally, sometimes telling people “negative” things, is in fact the best help you can give.  Your best friend might not like to hear if they are failing to meet up with their responsibilities, but they might need it.

I can dream though, right?  Dream that maybe, just maybe at a time in the future…. when the next administration is working to adjust the narrative and effecting elections through White House communication, the majority of people will simply ask, “Why the hell do I care about your narrative?  How about giving me the details of your proposals and I’ll decide on that?”

One day….

• Never before seen aerial photos of 9/11

I think they show much more in terms of scope than most pictures I’ve seen so far @ UK Telegraph.  Side note:  It should not have required FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) to release these.

• Interesting research in solar cells @ Scientific American, “researchers [led by Harry A. Atwater] at Caltech say they’ve designed a device that gets comparable solar absorption while using just one percent of the silicon per unit area that current solar cells need.”

• Despite calls for greater transparency as recent as the State of the Union speech, the Feds still refuse FOIA requests to show how stimulus money was spent.  @ The Conglomerate Now some may say the Fed isn’t the Whitehouse, but the law that was passed by both houses & signed by the President is the law in which the Feds are standing behind.  If this isn’t challenged successfully in court, then any government action could be completely hidden from the citizens just by pushing the leg work to an executive agency.

• Krugman…. proving once again the Nobel Peace Prize is worth far less than imagined. Author Tim Cavanaugh via Reason.com

• Short, 5 minute video discussing school choice versus governmental monopolies.  Isabel Santa via Cato.org

• John Stossel on our politicians using European social spending as the leading example (here), “Europe does have a bigger “social safety net.”  But the gain comes with pain: Europe’s higher taxes and bigger government lead to slower job growth and higher unemployment. Politicians always claim that the safety-net will be limited to “necessities for the truly needy,” but such government programs always grow.”

• Greg Mackinaw show how President Obama’s agenda, grossly misnamed “A New Era of Responsibility”, will saddle US citizens with continuing and ever increasing deficits.  This is according to the administration very own numbers.  via NY Times proving once again that when a politician names a bill, the probability of the bill doing the exact opposite of its authors’ claims is directly proportional to how much the title of said bill attempts to imply those same claims.

Typically I’m not in favor of pointing out hypocrisy to serve as proof of any specific individual fault.  Two main reasons, most people are hypocritical on some level; meaning they do things they would advise others against.  Secondly, sometimes those things labeled as hypocrisy are nothing more than changing opinions with changes in time, facts, or understanding.

But sometimes… it’s just too easy.

Senator Harkin writing about the need to change filibuster procedures in the Senate in order to make it easier to stop one.  At the Huffinton post (whole thing here):

…the unprecedented abuse of the filibuster by Republicans is no joke.

…The problem is not only that Republicans are using the filibuster to kill good bills that would help working Americans. The larger problem is that the Republicans’ indiscriminate use of the filibuster has made it all but impossible to conduct everyday business in the Senate. On an almost daily basis, the Republican minority — just 41 Senators — stops bills from even coming to the floor for debate and amendment.

…The Senate cannot continue down this path of obstruction, paralysis, and de facto minority rule. That is why I have introduced a bill to change the Standing Rules of the Senate to reform the cloture procedure in the United States Senate…

& the almost perfect statement from Mr. Harkin, his insistence on his consistency:

….I want to emphasize that I am offering this bill with clean hands. I introduced the exact same bill in 1995, when Democrats were in the minority in the Senate. So this legislation is not about one party or the other gaining advantage. It is about the Senate, as an institution, operating more fairly, effectively, and small-d democratically….

As I read this I thought…. it seems the parties have changed sides once again as I recall Republicans trying to do this during the Bush years.  & after about an entire 30 second search (more than either the Huffington Post or Mr. Harkin can do) I found this great quote when the Republicans were attempting similar things (NY Times, 2005):

…Democrats asserted one after another today that the Republican leadership’s attempt to bypass the filibuster – a procedural obstacle that requires 60 of the Senate’s 100 votes to overcome – is an attempt to change two centuries of Senate tradition. To do so, said Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, would be “the end of the Senate as we know it” because it would dash the protections that the Senate has always afforded lawmakers in the minority and, by extension, their constituents….

So apparently, we have, according him, he was for filibuster reform in 1995, against it in 2005, and for it in 2010.

& for consistency sake, there is very likely a Republican doing similar flips.  President Obama spoke about the anger the public had at, not just individual parties or individual politicians, but at politics in general.  Back room deals, lying for political expediency, et, etc, etc.

Of course he went on in his State of the Union speech to claim another reason people are angry: that the government doesn’t work for the people.  It should be faster, more efficient, and more responsive to the people’s needs.

Funny thing though, this is exactly why the filibuster is needed, exactly what it is intended for, and exactly why Mr. Harkin & Mr. Obama are both wrong.

Among other reasons, historically the most “efficient” governments, are among the most oppressive.  We no longer seem to understand this as a society, but those governments able to move quickly are more apt to make bad decisions.  Since government is composed of humans, it has the same tendencies which humans have.  One of those tendencies is that our first, quick answer, on complex questions is usually wrong.

Which is perfectly ok – when only become successful, through our failures.  Due to the government’s power however, even short term failures can result in very long term negative consequences.

Therefore, we have a government designed to be deliberative versus efficient.  One way through separation of powers – where each branch has the power to prevent the other to act.  This by itself prevents too much impetuousness.

The filibuster, is not specifically Constitutional, as the Constitution only provided that each body could set their own rules through a majority vote.   However, filibuster rules were adopted  in the House near the very founding of that body and then adopted by Senate some years later.

& for me – they seem to follow a very logical understanding of both governments and human tendencies.  Not only that, but the filibuster also reinforces the fact that we are not and never have been a direct democracy.  Tyranny by the majority is still tyranny and if, hypothetically, lots of Senators or Congressmen wish to take away my rights, I’ll be grateful for just one to stand up and try to obstruct as much as possible.  If nothing else, draw attention to it and delay it long enough to get citizens engaged.

For me though – two times in my life the government has supposedly “shut down” & I was always happy.  The things they said would happen, mass chaos because no social security checks or military pay (I was in the military during one shut down) never happened.   The only thing I was sure of, was the government wasn’t making more laws and overall that’s likely to be a good thing.

• Great Real World parody exposing the laughable notion of “transparency”.  Brought to you by Reason.tv (video here)

• BBC Journalist proves… yet again, most journalists don’t understand much of anything….  In a pieced entitled Why do people vote against their own interests?. In true self-serving tripe form, instead of doing the right thing, checking their premises on the question they seek to answer;  they instead assume that people are actually voting against themselves when nominal logic and understanding of humans shows pretty convincingly that humans operate on incentives.  But that won’t stop them – they are smarter than those people, know exactly how they should vote, and therefore know that the reasons they don’t is some conspiracy from evil propagandists.

• Mark Roe writing for the Harvard Legal blog chastising the pro-freedom SCOTUS decision to remove the arbitrary distinction of corporations with respect to freedom of speech (his argument, DA’s stance).  It’s another example of hand wringing over what will happen to the poor hapless masses when they are forced to see political ads by business interests.  He writes without once admitting that this conclusion assumes that business will be prone for tons of additional political funding.  It also assumes people are too stupid and will be swayed easily by lots of commercials.  & lastly, he completely ignores the fact that businesses have NO reason to buy politicians if politicians didn’t exert so much control that it becomes imperative for businesses to be involved.

• So long as politicians, with a simple wave of the hand can truly affect a businesses’ ability to continue to operate, then reality dictates those businesses will use resources, money or others, to stay in business.

• A good Mark Cuban post stating (among other things) “The simplest way to create more jobs is to allow small business and entrepreneurs  to  spend less time and money on lawyers and accountants and redirect that intellectual and financial capital to the core competencies of their business….”

• The Economist blog post on Gendered peer effects which shows research demonstrating the peer effect on school performance.  As expected, they found that as the percentage of peers an individual has who about at the bottom 1/4, the more likely that person will have subpar performance.

• & just for something interesting… What would men do if they didn’t have to impress women?…. which seems intuitive: “The results show that if there were no returns to career choices in the marriage market, men would tend to work less, study less, and choose blue?collar jobs over white?collar jobs.”

Sometimes a more interesting way to find out how people truly view the world, is not to have them tell you where they stand on certain issues.  Another informative way to analyze someone’s critical thinking skills is how reflexive they are to disbelieve facts that counter their world view or agree with facts which confirms their world view.

Seeing their reactions to overly simplified answers which not only confirms their world view, but also their ego, you can use it to analyze that person’s tendency towards confirmation bias.

Before going further, a general disclaimer:  we all, every human falls for confirmation bias.  We want an ordered world and want to understand things and want to be right.  So patterns of random events become, after the fact of course, a series of events who destiny is their present state.

However, for those claiming to know more, claiming to impart important information to the masses, the truth as they see it – for those people, confirmation bias shouldn’t be as obvious.

For our example of people who lack critical thinking skills this time, we have Marcella Mroczkowski, a self described lawyer, activist, and Huffington Post Citizen Journalist.

Now I know – looking for critical thinking on a site like the Huffington Post is much more difficult than finding the proverbial needle in a haystack, but I still thinks it’s useful to remind us all of the tendency.

In her February 9th piece titled Why Americans Must Defeat the Right’s Culture of Hate: Understanding the Science And History of Demonizing Hate gives you a pretty good idea of her logical consistency, but for some reason, I read further.   To save you the trouble, I’ll summarize:

Using one poll, which she claims proves a large, but minority, percentage of Republicans are prone to believe things like Obama isn’t a natural citizen.  From there, she lumps the birther movement in with those who believe Barack is a socialist.  Tie that to the freedom-increasing destruction of the Fairness Doctrine, or in her parlance, the end of untainted free press and equality and an increase in corporate slavery.

Tie that to talk radio, through it, use nominal facts like people tend to get more fanatic during recessions and hate is a primal emotion.

Jump from there to leaders who can exploit man’s primal tendency to hate others through dehumanzing, such as Hitler!

& viola – people who don’t believe like Marcella are not just Republicans, but hate filled Republicans who are being exploited by Hitler’s reincarnation.

So with that said, I think objectively we can say that if this sample is her normal standards, then Ms. Mroczkowski’s skills in critical thinking are demonstrably lacking. We can also say, again, assuming this piece of hers is representative of her other writing & analysis, but with that assumption, she’s also a little full of herself.  Narcissistic even.

I mean even I try to assume the role of her – try to think, a liberal would agree – what do they see worth agreeing to?  Her non-familiarity with logic becomes apparent, as even if I agree with all her logical leaps, to believe the underlying assumption that her beliefs are perfectly right and her opponents are evil and full of hate is just too perfect to be believed by any nominally objective person.

I mean seriously – when the snake oil is packaged and marketed that it will grow your hair while shrinking your waistline and increasing your cognitive abilities – critical adults are naturally and rightfully and forcefully skeptical.

Or as others have said before, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence… or at least should for those pretending to provide “truthful” claims.

The interesting thing however is the polling data itself.  The data she uses to springboard her attempts to conflate Republicans and their mouth pieces with evil hate speech, is completely flawed.   First, it comes from Daily Kos, which should be an obvious sign to anyone approaching or attempting to approach objectivity.  They have an obvious bias and a quick check on their facts demonstrates it.

With simple math, we can take DailyKos’s own figures, 2008 voting records, and see if the percentages of respondents coincide with the actual percentages in the last election.

So in those states they label the NE, in the 2008 Presidential election, a total of 28,836,059 were cast for President, roughly 40% for McCain, or 11,458,616.

Those 11 million votes for McCain in that region, were out of the 59,948,240 votes cast for him nationally.  So the 11 million represents 19% of the total republican vote.  Not exactly a perfect measure of the percentage of Republicans living in the NorthEast, but likely more accurate than DailyKos’s attempts to minimize that part of country’s respondents to only 11%.  & my numbers were also two years ago – I think one can objectively say the Democrats aren’t doing as well as they could be and are in less favor now that prior to the election.

Regardless, they not only undervalue the opinions of those Republicans in the NE, but they also exaggerate the weight of the south, giving them 42% of the weight of the poll questions, whereas using the same basic analysis, those same states only made up 36% of the total Republican vote cast for McCain.

There are other signs in there as well, but ones I didn’t feel like researching… but to the eye, I’m not sure if 89% should be white or that 56% should be men, though I’ll admit both might be possible.  Using a full 70% of respondents aged 45 and up however, defies logic.  A cursory glance shows voter registration for that age group making up a little less than 50% of all registered voters and while I’ll be more than happy to concede the idea that the makeup of the Republican party isn’t a complete demographic mirror of the national population, I’m pretty sure we can safely say the 70% is exaggerated as well.

With all the inconsistencies, it’s hard to even subscribe to a benign notion such as incompetence.  It appears much more likely that they moved the numbers around until they could get results which showed what they wanted.

Of course to normal people, hearing or reading “A poll from the Daily Kos showed….” could be followed by “the Earth is round” and be right to be skeptical.

Using that poll as evidence of something however is another story entirely.  Here again, I’d like to think this is an innocent mistake, but I think hiding the poll through another link (she linked to Huffington Post site which discuss the poll, which linked to the poll), picking only two questions out of the litany asked and acted as if the rest of it was overwhelmingly convincing of her basic point, then logically stumbling about to equate Republicans with hateful, primitive thinkers who are just following Hitler’s rise to power…. well, that might say more about her motives than even her reflexive belief.

The problem is that only slightly off people like me will dig around for all those numbers to prove or disprove our assumptions.  & that percentage of people currently testing their assumptions versus those voting… well, let’s just say it’s probably pretty small.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that mind you – our marketplace of ideas is full of different people with different opinions and tripe like this will always be seen by objective people for the hollow and shallow self-confirmation it truly is.

The only real sad part is some people, probably more than I want to admit to, will read and blindingly believe.  Not because they don’t have an extra hour to research voting numbers and compare then to polling – they will believe it for the same reason it was written – it will confirm something for which they already believe.  Republicans are primitive & evil.

Yep, using a big dose of self-delusion for courage, they will believe completely in such a hateful point, without even noticing the hateful point is being stated in an article decrying hate.

Over @ The Economist a little while back, they added a debate section.  Every week or two, the pick an assertion others might find interesting, have a moderator, along with a pro & con, guest writers and voting tallies which change over time.

As you can imagine, finding interesting things to debate on a consistent basis isn’t the easiest thing, but some of the questions seem a little silly.  For instance, Women:  This house believes that women in the developed world have never had it so good.

The good news is that 64% of respondents can readily agree that women are better off now than they were 200 years ago.  Conversely, the idea 36% of respondents are so singularly focused on an idea of equality that is impractical and impossible given that humans are different from each other.

I will begrudgingly admit, those in the “women don’t have it better” category are a little more nuanced, as they argue that they haven’t shared equally in the freedoms of men, therefore…. and here’s where I get lost, but apparently the conclusion is…. because of this we can plausibly argue against a simple statement that women have it better today than yesterday.

Either way, I’ve written about a couple of their debates on Chinese leadership with respect to the environment and the nanny states move to ban food.

The most recent debate however is very interesting and not because of the logically leaps some are making to defend their position.  It’s interesting that the Economist, a pro-free market magazine, is hosting a debate which has their readership closely divided.  The Motion:

Obama: This house believes that Barack Obama is failing.

I say interesting because while business magazines in general tend to lean conservative, the Economist endorsed both John Kerry & Barack Obama over their opponents.  On  Barack specifically, just four short months ago they wrote incorrectly in my opinion, how well Obama was doing with respect to foreign policy.

Secondarily, since 46% of their subscriber base is international (54% in North America), I would think the respondents tilt towards Obama would be more pronounced than it currently stands @ 46% agree Mr. Obama is failing, 54% disagree (rolling numbers so they could change).

Now to be fair, the Economist’s slant towards free market economics and pushes a lot of its news and analysis towards that.  For this, they can be fairly called right leaning on most issues.  It was pro-Iraq war, initially anyway, it’s free market stance made them endorse George Bush in 2000.

The respondents however seem to tend towards the liberal side, even though I think these facts point to the idea that their main base of membership probably lends conservative, at least economically so.

Irregardless – an interesting assertion is being debated – & with the pro-side written by David Boaz, Executive vice-president of the Cato Institute and the con-side written by Elaine Kamarck, Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School of Government – very worthwhile reading as well.