And now, some politics

I really need to get in the habit of blogging Facebook threads quickly. These days I'm not posting much here on Kazim's Korner, but I am having the occasional heated discussion on Facebook. Unfortunately, Facebook posts are not searchable in any graceful way, which means that they become effectively impossible to find after a month or two has elapsed. These discussions are exactly the sorts of things I enjoy coming back and reading again a few years later, so I'm synthesizing the discussion from the one I just linked so I can have a record of it.

For starters, I recommend this article.

Liberals pride themselves on being tolerant. Are they really just suckers?

Good article. Hits many of the points that I like to highlight in my typical political posts. As I've said before, I am often frustrated by the fact that liberals (and, to a lesser extent, many atheists) are so married to the idea that they must be "reasonable" that they tend to try to compromise as quickly as possible. In falling all over themselves to give ground in every argument, they crippling their ability to negotiate effectively.

I often tell this joke about the kids haggling over a cake (see the post linked in the previous paragraph) to highlight a truism: if one side starts out taking at an extreme position, and the other side reasonably starts in the middle, then the extremist will usually be happier in the end. That's because if you start from the middle and then negotiate a "middle ground" between those positions, that ground must be much closer to the extremist's position than it is to the the reasonable person's position. Therefore, I would like people who agree with me to start out saying what they really want, and then fight to reach a compromise which is as close as possible to what they wanted all along.

Here's my party affiliation in a nutshell. I am a liberal because I believe two things. First, people should have the right to do pretty much whatever they want with their private lives that doesn't hurt others. Second, it is a demonstrable historic good to have a social infrastructure that provides education, roads, a social safety net, and pooled resources for scientific research, among other things.

When I look at the Democratic Party Platform, I agree with most of it. When I look at the Republican Party Platform, I disagree with most of it. Hence I am a Democrat. I do not start from the position "I am a Democrat" and then reason out my positions based on asking "What would my party do?" I am a Democrat because with any given issue I care about, I find that the Republican party nearly always lands on the wrong side of my beliefs.

I tend to get into political arguments with three kinds of people:

1. People who agree with Republicans on social issues (i.e., religious intrusion in government, abortion, gay rights, war on drugs).
2. People who agree with Republicans on economic issues (often libertarians, generally encompassing shrinking or eliminating social safety net programs, cutting spending on education and national infrastructure, replacing our existing tax structure with something far more punishing to people lower on the income totem pole).
3. People who do not appear to have any significant political principles, but are opposed in general to supporting any political party, in order to be contrarian.

I very rarely get into arguments with people who agree with Republicans on both social and economic issues, except in artificial situations such as taking calls on The Atheist Experience. This is simply because there is so little common ground between us that there is little to be gained from such a discussion. They are plentiful out there in the world, but they're a very small part of the universe of people I'd typically spend time with.

As a result, when I argue politics with somebody, it's nearly always someone who falls into one of the above three categories. It follows that those people are neither Republicans nor Democrats. Category 3 is, by definition, unaffiliated. Categories 1 and 2 can be shown not to belong to either party, because if they were Democrats they'd likely agree with me on both social and economic issues, and if they were Republicans they'd likely disagree with me on both social and economic issues. QED.

Contrariwise, if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.

To my friends who substantially disagree with me on economic or social issues, and cannot find a party to call home, all I can say is: You and I have fundamental disagreements on the best way to run a country, and I will never persuade you to vote for candidates that I would like. As the Republican party doesn't suit your needs either, all I can do is wish you luck in finding a candidate who matches your interests, although when you find such a candidate I will most likely vote against him.

But also, every time I do a political post, I can count on a number of people showing up from the third category. They seem to agree with me on what policies are desirable, but argue that the party platforms are trivial and irrelevant. Examples from the thread:

So is it worth associating yourself with the right or left? or any political parties in particular? I mean some Democrats have good ideas and not so good ideas. Some Republicans the same way. It really depends on the times you live in. To me it always seemed foolish to tout party lines or vice versa label (project your ideas) on someone who naively associates themselves with a political party.

And:

Both parties are crap. The only difference is that one is a pile of lying crap that wants to take away your right to abort a fetus, while the other doesn't.

The impending demise of reproductive rights

Let me get specific about what prompted that last qualifier. Pro-choice is one of my issues. As I recently discussed on the Non-Prophets, there has been a recent rush of state laws which deliberately violate Roe v Wade. This article by Dahlia Lithwick documents that:

Since the start of this year, 916 measures seeking to regulate reproductive health have been introduced in 49 states. According to the Guttmacher Institute, by the end of March, 15 laws had been enacted in seven states. These laws include an expansion of the waiting period in South Dakota from 24 to 72 hours and a requirement that counseling from "crisis pregnancy centers" include scientifically flawed data on risk factors. There are new regulations in Utah and Virginia governing abortion clinics. Legislation has been introduced in 13 states requiring that women have an ultrasound procedure before having an abortion—and in seven of those states, the woman must view the fetus and listen to a detailed verbal description as well. Measures have been introduced in 17 states copying a Nebraska law banning abortion at 20 weeks, on the theory—again based on questionable medical data—that this is when a fetus can feel pain.

As a result, abortion is rapidly becoming effectively illegal in many parts of the country right now, even though these statutes are deliberately running afoul of established supreme court rulings.

You would think that pro-choice groups like the National Organization for Women would be challenging these laws left and right, and you'd ordinarily be right, except for one tiny little snag:

The risk of challenging these clearly unconstitutional laws and then losing at the Supreme Court is evidently so high, according to Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, that it's not worth taking. As she explained last week to Rachel Maddow, the fear that Justice Samuel Alito would vote to overturn Roe is so deep that reproductive rights groups may be opting to leave the state bans in place. And, as she conceded in that interview, wherever unconstitutional state abortion bans go unchallenged, they become law.

In 2004, Bush beat Kerry and won a second term. As a direct result, Bush was able to replace two liberal-to-moderate Supreme Court justices with Alito and Roberts. They are now the swing votes that could strike down Roe if a case ever came before them that gave them the opportunity to reopen it. Therefore, pro-choice groups are afraid to challenge these state laws. However, if they don't challenge them, then the laws stand, causing abortion to become completely inaccessible to many women.

I draw a clear, direct line between the victory of one political party and the massive curtailing of women's freedom. If you don't think that is a bad thing, if you disagree with me on this issue, that's fine; you are in category 1, and this doesn't apply to you. But if you are not in category 1, if you are bothered by this curtailing of these rights, then you should not see the differences between the parties as trivial on this particular issue.

The ACLU and you

Another example. Most liberals are with the American Civil Liberties Union on most issues that I know of. They're the ones who focus on separation of church and state issues, free speech rights, allowing accused criminals due process of law, and so on.

Every year, the ACLU puts out a position paper indicating which issues they care about. In addition, they examine which politicians voted the way that they would like on key policy proposals, and give a rating.

This is the ratings list for 2008, which I think is fairly typical.

Read that list and you'll see an obvious trend. Among 390 total House members, Senators, Governors, and executives, on issues that the ACLU cares about, 105 of them were on record as voting with them 100% of the time.

Those 105 were all Democrats. Every single one. No exceptions.

On those same issues, 160 politicians were shown to vote with the ACLU 33% of the time or less.

All 160 of them are Republicans. No exceptions. Count em.

If you have serious disagreements with my desired political outcomes, I'm not talking to you. You're right, the Democratic party does not represent you. Yes, yes, Obama hates your freedoms, everything Congressional Democrats do is a secret Muslim Communist Satanist plot, etc. Vote for someone else, or protest and don't vote.

But if you want the outcomes that I want, you can't continue claiming that the difference between the parties doesn't exist. It is objectively false.

Do Democrats, as a broad group, suck at politics? Yep, they do. Do they act like pussies when it comes to defeating a bunch of loud, angry bullies? Repeatedly. Is it desirable, in the long term, to eliminate blue dog Democrats and bring in more liberals with spine like Bernie Sanders and Anthony Weiner? Hells yeah. And are there some Democrats who are genuinely more conservative than some Republicans? On an individual basis, there are a few.

Looking at the big picture as a purely statistical issue, though, party affiliation does provide a good indication of which side of the issues they are on, and it's clearly disingenuous to say they are the same. You can't teach statesmen the lesson that they aren't fighting hard enough for what you want, if your method is to sit by allowing the people to win who are actively fighting against what you want.

Social media resembles magically multiplying broomsticks

For a few weeks I've been a member of Google Buzz. Because of my ever expanding list of automatically updated sites, here's how posting stuff works:

1. I write a new blog post.
2. The link gets forwarded to Twitter.
3. My Twitter feed in turn gets forwarded to Facebook and Buzz.
4. At that point, I am equally likely to receive comments on Buzz, FB, or in the comments of the post itself.

The additional exposure for said posts is quite nice, because there are people on each site who don't pay attention to some of the other three feeds. However, it is tough to converse about a topic when the discussion is split three ways. Also, the blog posts themselves look a lot lonelier with the shorter comment threads.

Breaking news: Democrats suck at politics

Stuff like this makes me repeatedly bonk my head in annoyance.

Under Massachusetts law, it'll probably take 10 days for the election of Scott Brown to be certified and for Brown to be sworn in as a Senator. Nothing nefarious -- that's just how orderly transfers of power work in a democratic system. Consequently, Paul Kirk will continue to serve as Senator up until the point that Brown is properly sworn in.

Barney Frank, God love him, doesn't think Kirk counts:

"I know some of my Democratic colleagues had been thinking about ways to, in effect, get around the results by working in various parliamentary ways, looking at the rules, trying to get a health care bill passed that would have been the same bill that would have passed if [MA AG] Martha Coakley [D] had won, and I think that's a mistake," Frank said. "I will not support an effort to push through a House-Senate compromise bill despite an election. I'm disappointed in how it came out, but I think electoral results have to be respected."

Jim Webb agrees, except ever so more so:

"In many ways the campaign in Massachusetts became a referendum not only on health care reform but also on the openness and integrity of our government process," Mr. Webb said. “It is vital that we restore the respect of the American people in our system of government and in our leaders. To that end, I believe it would only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is seated."

I watched a Daily Show episode this week in which Jon Stewart said something along these lines: "Oh. So apparently what is going to kill Obama's agenda is having only 59 allies in the Senate, which is more than the number that George Bush ever had, back when he did pretty much whatever the [bleeped] he wanted."

But as dumb as the new normal is, where Senate Republicans filibuster every bill every time regardless of content, what is even more stupid is that even leading Senators find it so easy to cut and run.

If Tom Delay had ever commanded a filibuster-proof Republican majority, which was about to end in two weeks, would he have said, "Aw shucks fellas, I guess we'd better put all legislation on hold in order to be fair to the Democrats"? Fuck, NO. What Tom Delay would have done was rush to cram as much legislation as possible into the next two weeks, in order to take maximum advantage of the existing time window.

Look, Democrats. Do I like it that the Senate is now this cutthroat, where both parties need to use every possible political trick in order to gain the upper hand? No. But it is what it is -- if you don't use every opportunity to get what you want, then you get steamrolled by Republicans, who have no such scruples.

Odds and ends 3: Politics

The main podcasts I've been listening to in the car are audio captures Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann, since I don't have time to watch them -- or, indeed, the Daily Show -- most days of the week.

So anyway Congress is infuriating me at the moment. I keep starting to write a post, then deciding I don't have enough to cobble together except little one liners. Also, many things I think have already been eloquently expressed elsewhere. But it's odds and ends day, so here are a few things I think.

The health care issue is a bit personal for me. I was not receiving health care when I worked as a consultant for Motive, and there was a brief period when I simply wasn't covered. I tried to replace my old job-based coverage with private coverage from Blue Cross, but I discovered to my dismay that they would not accept me because I have an -- extremely minor! -- history of high blood pressure. No joke, they didn't try to take me on at inflated rates, they just said... sorry, look elsewhere.

I admit that there were other avenues I could have pursued more aggressively, but I got a bit apathetic and didn't follow them up. I got Ben insured and that was the most important thing. Now that my job is covering me again, it's become moot.

But anyway, I think this highlights the fact that the insurance industry does not provide insurance, which is to say, spreading risk around a diverse pool of people. Their response to attempts at "reform" has been to threaten to raise rates, which only highlights the critical need for more competition. Hence the public option, which at this point looks likely to be presented in some form, but very watered down.

Now in the first place, I do not ever want to hear any more press or whiny Congressman saying "Everything we do requires 60 votes!" There is no rule that says they have to get 60 votes. The rule is that you need at least 40 people who will not filibuster, and 50 votes.

Now filibustering is a very different action from voting against something, but you'd never know that from the press. Remember how Congress worked until 2006, when Democrats were actually in the minority? Every time a Dem even dared to breathe the word "filibuster," Republicans would scream and moan about "obstructionists", and wring their hands and talk about the need for a "nuclear option" which would eliminate the barely-Constitutional practice of filibustering once and for all. And Democrats caved. Every time.

I don't know how filibustering suddenly went from "horrible miscarriage of justice" to "this is the way we do things on every vote as a matter of course!" Freaking hypocrites.

Democrats absolutely have enough votes to pass whatever legislation they want, never mind bipartisanship. The problem is that not only are Democrats still scared of their own shadows, as they still insist on eliminating everything useful about health care reform in their haste to capitulate to President Snowe (as Grayson put it). If they had any party unity there could be no filibuster possible. But now Joe Lieberman, of the prestigious Connecticut for Lieberman party, wants to join the filibuster.

Hey, anybody remember why it was important that Lieberman defeat his primary opponent, Ned Lamont? It's because:

"What I’m saying to the people of Connecticut, I can do more for you and your families to get something done to make health care affordable, to get universal health insurance."

Lieberman argued that Lamont was SO liberal that he would hurt the Democrats' credibility enough to be a liability on the important issues. Issues like universal health insurance. Whew! I'm glad we dodged that bullet, so now we have Joe Lieberman fighting for us on that subject!

What's astounding is that Joe Lieberman still holds a key chairmanship position within the Democratic party, even though he is not a Democrat. Reid insisted at the time, and probably continues to say, that we need to do whatever we can to make Lieberman happy so that he will continue to stand with Democrats instead of jumping ship and doing something ridiculous like, say, filibustering against his own former party.

How's that strategy working out, guys?

John McCain makes Adam go "sproing"

As far as I know, not very many people are readers of Adam Cadre's regular articles.  His site is not really a proper blog, and I only know of him originally through his great work writing offbeat interactive fiction.  I am a big fan of Adam's writing.  He's blunt, atheist, liberal, and has great taste in entertainment styles, ranging from comics to games to movies to food.

So I want to wave a hand in the general direction of Adam's latest article about the presidential race.  I'll qualify this endorsement with apologies to my friends who live in red states and love them.  Hell, I love Austin, but only because it's not part of the "real" Texas, and I've long ago learned to abandon all hope when it comes to my vote personally influencing a national race.  However, quite a few things Adam says ring true for me.

Every election in my adult lifetime has played out the same way: Republicans argue that Red America is better than Blue America, and Democrats cry that, no, we're not so different! Republican political ads spew insults — or at least epithets thatRepublicans think are insults — while Democrats hold out their hands and coo that"There is no them — there is only us." I am so sick of this. There's a reason the guy who said that moved to New York after his presidency instead of back to Arkansas: New York is better than Arkansas. Massachusetts is better than Texas. Chicago is better than Wasilla, Alaska. Saying so might mean losing votes in Arkansas and Texas and Alaska, but those states are lost causes (in more ways than one); Republicans certainly show no compunction about slamming San Francisco and Boston and Vermont, and they're the ones winning elections.

...
Democrats can avoid saying that the red states are inferior to the blue ones as much as they like. But the red staters will continue to hear it. They'll hear it because the voices inside their heads are saying it. And those voices are correct. This makes them angry, and they lash out. Ten years ago, I was floored when a direly unfunny SNL alum named Adam Sandler suddenly scored a massive hit with a movie called The Waterboy, in which he played a mouth-breathing loser who becomes a star linebacker, fueled by uncontrollable rage at the thought of people making fun of him. At the time I couldn't understand why anyone would watch that, but now I get it. It spoke to people. After all, it's what vast numbers of American voters do at the ballot box.

...
What kind of people do places like Wasilla grow? Well, for one thing, it's hard to get off to a good start in life when your drunken stepfather is tasing you, bro. Child abuse happens everywhere, but some cultures foster it more than others. When parents exert total hegemony over the household without any kind of societal check, it opens up the potential for a real horror show — as the Palin family has demonstrated. Barack Obama tried to provide that societal check in Illinois with a program to teach schoolchildren how to avoid sexual abuse — and a McCain/Palin ad this week actually slams him for it. But given that an Anchorage judge ruled in 2005 that Sarah Palin herself was guilty of child abuse, I suppose it's not so surprising that she and her ilk are so afraid of daylight: it makes it that much harder for "our small towns" to keep their ugly little secrets.

Much more... please read.

Why your vote matters

It happens every four years at about this time: some people (and I won't name names here) start proudly announcing the fact that they don't see any point in voting. Why? Well, a variety of reasons, generally including several of these points:

1. No candidate has exactly what I'm looking for. I don't respect any of them, and I conscientiously refuse to vote for someone whom I don't respect.
2. The two candidates both suck. I won't vote for the lesser of two evils.
3. If I refuse to vote, then maybe politicians will get the message that they should offer better candidates, because there aren't any that I can get behind now.
   
4. One person's vote is so inconsequential that I have a greater chance of being struck by lightning on election day than I have of personally affecting the outcome of the election.

I'm going to hit each of these points in turn.

1. No candidate has exactly what I'm looking for. I don't respect any of them, and I conscientiously refuse to vote for someone whom I don't respect.

As Donald Rumsfeld might have said, "You go to the polls with the candidates you have, not the candidates you might want or wish to have." Let's say you've decided to sit out every election until you finally encounter the candidate who's a left-handed green-eyed atheist libertarian who will institute the flat tax and can sing classical opera. I can guarantee you that you, my friend, will be sitting out every election of your entire life.

But let's say a candidate finally comes along who's a right-handed green-eyed agnostic libertarian who will institute some kinds of tax reforms (not the exact ones you want) and plays the tuba. And let's say the other guy in the race is George W. Bush. Are you really telling me that you're going to sit out on principle because you only like southpaws?

There are a lot of people in the world who could be running for president, but only a few of them are. The stronger you make your qualifications that are required to get your vote, the more you are guaranteed to be disenfranchised from the process. Which brings me to...

2. The two candidates both suck. I won't vote for the lesser of two evils.

Oh, I see. Then you won't mind if the greater of two evils wins. Suppose you've been kidnapped and imprisoned by a sadistic dictator, and he gives a choice between being punched once in the face or being slowly and painfully flayed alive for four hours. Would you say "Ah, who cares? Both things are evil, so either way I'll get hurt. Pick whichever one you want." I don't know about you, but in that situation I'd be saying "Punch me in the face, please!"

In the first place, I don't buy the fact that both candidates are evil. Like committing to a lifelong relationship with a person of the opposite sex (or same, if that's your thing), I guarantee that you will never find a person who is without flaws. When confronted with these flaws, you can either say "Sorry, imperfect match detected; no votes for you" or you can take the bad with the good and pick the person who is clearly the best available, warts and all.

In the second place, even if both candidates represent a net dislike for you, that still doesn't mean that your choice is irrelevant. Again, do you want to get punched once or flayed for hours? Easy choice: pick the outcome which is best for me.

3. If I refuse to vote, or write in "Mickey Mouse" on my ballot, then maybe politicians will get the message that they should offer better candidates, because there aren't any that I can get behind now.

Yes, of course they will. And then everybody will magically receive a million dollars and a pony from the sky.

Look, I hate to say this, but a vote is not a treatise on the state of our nation. If you want to send a message, start a blog. A friend of mine likes to say that voting has very low bandwidth: each person gets to transmit only one bit every four years. There's not a lot to resolve there about what your vote "means."

Most people in this country don't vote most of the time. There are countless reasons why somebody might not vote. Maybe all the candidates are too liberal. Maybe all the candidates are too conservative. Maybe the voter only supports left-handed green-eyed atheist libertarian candidates who will institute the flat tax and can sing classical opera. Or maybe the voters just couldn't muster the energy to get off their lazy asses and transmit their one bit this year.

When you're looking at election results, do you hear those messages? No. The ONLY information transmitted in the election is: "X voters voted, one candidate won by Y percentage points." That's it. Maybe you get more information out of news coverage and interviews, but that is true regardless of whether people vote or not.

If the greater of two evils wins, what's the strongest message that got sent? "Most people prefer this candidate to the other one. He must have done something right." Then, guess what happens four years later? Both candidates try to be more like the guy who won. Over time, the landscape drifts in the direction that people push it. Not voting, and even voting for somebody that you already know isn't going to win, rarely has an effect other than that of bolstering the person who wins.

I'm talking to YOU, Ralph Nader and entourage.

4. One person's vote is so inconsequential that I have a greater chance of being struck by lightning on election day than I have of personally affecting the outcome of the election.

Sure. This one is true. But there's a significant fallacy involved.

Clearly there is little chance that the margin of victory will be a single vote, so the chance that YOUR vote is going to make the difference is very, very remote. Conceivably if you just stayed home on election day and didn't mention it, your influence on the election would be pretty much invisible.

But that's not all that people do when they announce "I'm not voting because my vote doesn't matter." They're not only choosing not to vote; they're also proclaiming that not voting is a better option. In doing so, they are, to some extent, influencing others who might agree with their own positions to do the same. And by convincing like minds to also not vote, this is spreading a "don't vote" meme across a broad population. The act of not voting may not influence the outcome, but the meme certainly does.

This isn't an academic issue; the use of memes that say "do vote" or "don't vote" has been used very effectively by special interest groups. For instance, one of the reasons that the religious right has been so successful at gaining disproportionate influence in government is that they have organized communication channels, mailing lists and church announcements and such, which mobilize their congregants to vote. This is a big message that DJ Groethe of the Center for Inquiry drove home for me once, showing materials such as Mind Siege, which end-times crackpot Tim LaHaye uses to frighten fundamentalists into voting (and also sending money). The basic message is that if YOU PERSONALLY don't take action IN THIS ELECTION, then the fags will make gay marriage mandatory for everyone and the evilutionists will jail all dissenters.

Strictly speaking, this isn't the truth. But the effect that this message has is very real. And likewise, sending the inverse message to people -- that voting is stupid and a waste of time -- ALSO has a genuine effect on overall turnout. Memes have a ripple effect. Maybe your vote won't sway the election, and maybe your message about not voting won't sway the election either. But people who are persuaded not to vote also have this tendency of replicating the meme and encouraging other people not to vote.

So, in fact, I choose to believe that my attitude about voting -- in addition to my vote -- makes a difference. It's a straight up Prisoner's Dilemma decision: "cooperate" and vote for the best alternative you can locate, even if it's inconvenient, or "defect" and stay home. Though your vote may not count, everyone who agrees with you and stays home will practically translate to one half of a vote for whoever they believe to be the worst candidate.

On the other hand, few things delight me more than hearing somebody say "I voted for Bush twice, but I don't think I'm voting in this election." Sure, I'd prefer that they decide to vote for Obama (or even Clinton) instead, but given that this is a semi-rare event, I want to encourage them to continue "protesting" the Republican by not voting for him. "Go, dude!" I say. "Keep registering that protest and not voting! Refuse to vote Republican because there's not a crazy enough apocalyptic dominionist left in the bunch! That'll show those jerks who's boss! And if necessary, I hope you continue to not vote for as long as it takes, even if it's your whole life, until you get exactly what you want."

So in conclusion, don't just vote: convince those with whom you agree to vote. And make sure that the people with whom you disagree are good and surly about their candidates this year.

Hey Orson Scott Card fans! Not disillusioned yet?

Every once in a while, I can't help rubbernecking the hideous wreckage that is Orson Scott Card's personality. Card wrote some sci-fi books that I greatly enjoyed (Ender's Game and Pastwatch being my favorites, along with some great dialogue for adventure games). Even though Card is a devout Mormon, some of his work even contains highly believable and empathetic atheist characters. The messages are generally interesting and Ender's Game, while being primarily about a war to wipe out an entire species, still manages to put forth the notion that war should be an absolute last resort, and aggression should only be initiated when there is no way to defend yourself through communication.

Besides that, Jeff Dee once loaned me an audio tape of Card imitating a preacher in the very funny and poignant presentation, "Secular Humanist Revival." He praised the value of secularism in American culture, and warned against takeover by rampant fundamentalism.

But either I totally misunderstood his philosophy through his fiction and public speaking, or at some point in his life he just made a palpable shift from being lovable and entertaining "Uncle Orson" to being a batshit crazy theocrat who spouts right wing talking points. Card now does a column called "War Watch" in which he regularly jabbers about how people oppose the war because they hate America, Democrats are worse appeasers than Neville Chamberlain, etc.

A few days ago, somebody drew my attention to some recent comments that he made, reminding everyone that atheism is one of the most terrifying threats to American culture today. Responding to some Christian author who asked whether Mormons are "true Christians," he replied:

We Mormons don’t agree with you on many vital points of doctrine. But I hope we all agree with each other about this: In a time when a vigorous atheist movement is trying to exclude religious people from participating in American public life unless they promise never to mention or think about their religion while in office, why are we arguing with each other?

Oh noes! Teh angry athiests r going 2 pwnz0r teh xian nation! Mwa ha ha ha, all ur churches r belong 2 us!

This, of course, led me to check out Card's personal site to see what other mischief he's getting into lately. I discovered he's decided to go back in time and retroactively defile his own beloved series with his newfound hilarious paranoia. Check it out.

Coming This Fall: A War of Gifts

Orson Scott Card offers a Christmas gift to his millions of fans with this short novel set during Ender's first years at the Battle School where it is forbidden to celebrate religious holidays.

The children come from many nations, many religions; while they are being trained for war, religious conflict between them is not on the curriculum. But Dink Meeker, one of the older students, doesn't see it that way. He thinks that giving gifts isn't exactly a religious observation, and on Sinterklaas Day he tucks a present into another student's shoe.

This small act of rebellion sets off a battle royal between the students and the staff, but some surprising alliances form when Ender comes up against a new student, Zeck Morgan. The War over Santa Claus will force everyone to make a choice.

Yes, Merry Christmas, Ender fans. In a time when hostile bug-eyed aliens threaten to wipe out humanity for good, the biggest battle will be... The War over Santa Claus.

Honestly, it's almost like Present Orson, the hack neocon blogger, read some material by Past Orson, the talented science fiction author, and decided to write some extremely bad fan fiction that imitated his hero while completely missing the point.

Hey, that would make a good sci-fi story. You could incorporate a time machine and one of those flashy memory erasers from Men In Black. Somebody should write that. Can anybody go dig up Past Orson and see if he's doing anything?

Scooter goes free

When I first heard the news that Scooter Libby escaped from jail, my first impulse -- apart from the obvious disgust -- was just apathy. Eh. Libby is a small potato. He was put away for obstruction of justice, and not the main perpetrator of the crime. They should have kept following the trail until it reached Rove, Cheney, or Bush.

But then I realized: The crime of outing Valerie Plame is the ONLY crime that has been prosecuted in the service of investigating going to war based on lies. And Scooter Libby is the ONLY person who has received any kind of punishment for this crime. And now he's gotten off, with a mere word from the president.

Yeah, now I'm pissed. This wasn't a pardon of some "family man" based on a bunch of whiny commentators feeling sorry for his kids. This was the Bush administration brazenly pardoning themselves and ducking responsibility for their actions yet again.

Criticizing Islam

One very frequently asked question asked of us on The Atheist Experience goes something like this: "Every time I watch you guys, you always seem to be bad-mouthing Christianity. There's lots of other bad religions out there. Why don't you criticize Islam more?" This question was asked again on last week's show, and then repeated in email, sparking a small internal debate on whether we should in fact be focusing more on Islam.

I contributed this to the discussion:

Please tell me, when was the last time that anyone called and tried to defend Islam as a true and correct worldview? When, in the entire history of our show, have we EVER been asked to defend atheism from Islam?

I imagine it has happened once or twice, though I can't personally remember a single time in the show's entire history. That's a history that goes back a good 10 years or so.

We don't spend time on Islam because nobody freakin' believes Islam. There are people in the world who do believe Islam, but those people mostly aren't watching our show. If they did, and they called or wrote to us, we'd take them on. Just like we take on every silly idea that
comes our way.

But the fact remains that it is a complete waste of time to go out of our way debunking something that everybody already knows isn't true. It would be amusing, but it wouldn't be any more relevant than spending an entire show debunking Santa Claus. It would be like spending an entire show explaining why putting your cat in the microwave is a bad idea. To all but a very, very tiny percentage of our audience, it would just be reaffirming something that's totally obvious to them.

Disclaimer: Not putting Islam on the same moral footing as a cat in a microwave, one way or the other.

I want to add that this is very different from me saying that Islam is not a serious threat to our culture. Sam Harris has pointed out many times that liberals have a tendency to overemphasize religious tolerance, and underplay the role of religion in inspiring people to do some really crazy stuff.

But our show is outreach. It's aimed at communicating with a culture that is largely dominated by Christianity. It is about dealing with things that we face on a daily basis here in the United States. Of course there's a lot of focus on Christianity; Christianity is what our culture wants to talk about.

More thoughts on Ann Coulter

Jeff, Denis and I had a very interesting discussion about Ann Coulter this weekend on the Non-Prophets this weekend. I'd say it lasted a solid half hour, and Jeff gave me a new perspective on what her motives might be in naming the book "Godless".

In her latest train wreck of a column, Coulter complains that people aren't getting properly offended by the central thesis of her book.

My book makes a stark assertion: Liberalism is a godless religion. Hello! Anyone there? I've leapt beyond calling you traitors and am now calling you GODLESS. Apparently, everybody's cool with that. The fact that liberals are godless is not even a controversial point anymore.

To Coulter, "godless" is a worse insult than "traitor." And she's frustrated that this isn't what bothers people.

Jeff Dee wrote a blog entry a year ago that addresses what this issue is all about. Like many things I write, some of this post is a wholesale ripping off of ideas that he gave me.

First of all, the reality. Most atheists do in fact vote Democratic. It's simply a fact... somewhere around 70-80% of the atheist vote went to Gore, and then to Kerry.

But of course, most Democrats are godful. Not all Democrats are atheists; many are liberal Christians, or wiccans/pagans/new agers/whatever. This reflects that fact that Democrats are actually a highly diverse coalition of people and interests. The godless and the laid back religious form one issue oriented segment; then there's gay rights advocates, pro-choicers, environmentalists, pro-science people, anti-war people, civil rights pinkos, and so on. Many times these interests converge, but not always. Democrats have varying individual agendas and tend not to move in lockstep. Being "liberal" on one or several issues is no guarantee that you'll agree with the rest of the party platform.

This is as contrasted with the Republican party, which by and large demands complete loyalty on all issues. Sure, they have the "enrich the rich" big money guys on one hand and the very poor rural theocrats on the other. But the poor rural theocrats have also been persuaded to believe that eliminating the estate tax is in their interest; while the big money guys regularly use hyper-religious language to woo the rural theocrats. In short, Republicans have managed a kind of cohesion that Democrats don't have.

Ann Coulter's nasty routine tries to drive a wedge into the already tenuous alliance among Democrats. Liberal Christian Democrats are driven to say "We're not Godless, you mean lady! Look how much we love God!" And then they try to find ways to make the Democratic party more overtly religious.

Then what happens? It alienates the atheists, of course. We atheists -- who make up a not insignificant fraction of the party's base -- see that the Democrats are starting to pander to the religious left, and we get discouraged, and the votes start to fall off.

THIS is what Coulter and her ilk are really after. Internal rifts in the Democratic party. With the last two elections being won by less than five points, a chunk of 10-20% of Democrats becoming convinced that there's no difference between the parties could ensure Republican victories for a long time to come.

If Democrats were smart, their reaction to being called Godless would be one of unambiguous solidariy with atheists. Easy for an atheist to say, right? But they don't have to agree with our position. They could say, "You know, most of our party are not godless, but we gladly accept people of all religions and no religion. We understand that there are differences among individuals, but we celebrate those differences." The people who find "godless" to be an automatic insult will avoid the Democratic party, but they already do that anyway.

The knowledgeable world view

I haven't blogged any atheist thoughts for a while, so I thought I'd dredge up a board post that I wrote last October.

Christians like to frame things in terms of "world views", saying that being a Christian changes the way that you think about everything, which is why they have such specific views on "moral" issues like abortion and homosexuality and so on. Of course, many liberal Christians don't align with those views, but that's okay; fundamentalist Christians just write them off as not True Christians^TM who are duped by worldliness.

I kind of believe in "world views", but I don't believe they are caused by religion. I think a major component of your world view, INCLUDING how seriously you take your religion, is influenced by the way in which you regard the concept of knowledge.

Whether there is a god or not, human knowledge is imperfect. Everybody realizes that, or ought to. Theists generally believe that there is a god, and their god knows everything. Therefore, True Knowledge is obtained by listening to what God says.

The problem with that is that, even if their god is real, he isn't down here issuing public statements on the issues that we deal with right now. Take abortion, for instance. Anti-choice Christians will point to portions of the Bible which they say clearly prohibits abortion. But on the other hand, pro-choice Christians will just as easily point out passages in the Bible that supports THEIR position as well. I suppose the god could have clearly said in the Bible "don't commit abortion" or "abortion is a-OK with me!" But it probably wasn't known in those exact terms back then, and it's been a while (2000 years) since he supposedly communicated with us.

So even if you personally know an omnipotent being, that doesn't really do you much good unless he tells you clearly what he thinks. And the Bible sure ain't it. Hence we have the concept of "faith", which is believing things sincerely without evidence, just because it makes you feel better.

Now, "faith" may well be an excellent way to become personally fulfilled and at peace, but historically it has proved to be a notoriously bad way to actually know things. Even accepting the idea that there is a particular kind of faith which is right, and which will reveal the absolute truth, that still leaves open the sticky question of what to have faith in.

There are thousands of religions in the world now, as well as thousands more historical religions that are now defunct. It's hard to be objectively certain that you're not simply participating in a religion that will, hundreds of years from now, be studied with the same kind of bemused curiosity with which we currently regard the ancient Greeks. Furthermore, these religions can't all be right, because many of them hold as a fundamental tenet that the other religions must be wrong.

The fact that there have been a lot of false religions doesn't PROVE that any particular religion is wrong. But it does illustrate that people put their faith in an awful lot of things that turn out to be false. If you were an educated person born in ancient Greece, chances are good that you'd probably believe in Zeus. Being born in 21st century America, chances are almost nil that you'll believe in Zeus.

What changed? Did Zeus once exist and then disappear to make room for Jesus? No. We know for pretty certain that Zeus doesn't exist and never did. But as an ancient Greek, you wouldn't KNOW you were wrong, because you wouldn't have the perspective that hundreds of years later, everybody would "know" that Zeus is a silly idea. Whereas the idea of a man who was born of a virgin, walked on water, and rose from the dead is a far more sophisticated idea that represents the real truth.

In short: really, truly BELIEVING something is a bad yardstick for verifying what's actually true.

So if faith isn't the way to go, then how do we go about the business of actually finding things out and being pretty sure you know the things that are true? I think that at some point, clearly the answer has to be that you come up with unemotionally applied tests that can be repeated by everyone. You have to be able to admit that you don't know what you don't know, and apply what you do know to form an overall informed opinion of the world.

Unfortunately, sometimes even your most informed opinions will be wrong. There's no way to escape this because, as I said before, all human knowledge is imperfect. But the ability to recognize and admit when you're wrong is actually a strength, not a weakness. Because every time you understand that you have been wrong, it allows you to switch to a position that is (more likely to be) right. And there's a word for the process of investigating things and trying to weed out wrong ideas. It's science.

I think that even the most die hard young earth creationists understand the value of science in principle, because that's what religious apologetics are all about. At their best, apologetics are meant to be logically sound arguments that persuade the listener to objectively accept their opinion as true. If faith were enough to really know truth, then apologetics would be a waste of time, because logic would be irrelevant.

And I know that the promoters of Intelligent Design (or "stealth creationism" as some prefer to call it) recognize the value of science as a way of understanding the world, because that is after all what ID is theoretically about. It is an effort to meld a belief in God with the respectable objectivity of the scientific method. Again, if faith were enough to go on, there would be no need to make scientific arguments, and ID would not have come to be in the first place.

In a sense, I applaud the concept of ID. Although I happen to not believe in any sort of intelligent designer, I understand that many people believe it very seriously. And if there is one, I want to know about it. I would like nothing better than to see the question settled once and for all from a scientific perspective.

Where I have a beef with Intelligent Design is not their goal to marry science with God; it's their unfortunate tendency to repeatedly declare victory before they've actually accomplished anything at all. If you really want to put science and religion in harmony, then I say throw money at research. But you have to be sure that your money is actually funding RESEARCH, and not a PR campaign. Not lawsuits. Not politicians. Not school boards. Tell them to stop trying to buy respectability by getting museums to show designer-friendly movies.

Really, I think everyone who truly cares about ID should be DEMANDING that the Discovery Institute start spending their donations on hiring brilliant minds to do genuinely original research, instead of more lawyers. I think it would be a great day for science if that happened.

You suck because you know stuff

Here we go again...

The Education Oversight Committee voted Monday to reject curriculum standards for high school biology that deal with teaching evolution.

The school reform panel wants the Board of Education to rewrite a portion of the standards to encourage high school students to critically analyze evolution.

Scientists who support teaching evolution reject the idea of adding the phrase "critical analysis" to the curriculum. They call it an effort by evolution critics to introduce creationism and intelligent design in the classroom.

State Senator Mike Fair says the change is necessary because science is always changing.

Both the oversight committee and the board of education must agree on the standards. Monday's 8-2 vote sends the issue back to the board of education.

"Critical analysis?" I thought that going through the rigors of the scientific method WAS critical analysis.

You know, it occurs to me that what's really at the heart of the "teach both 'theories'" movement -- and indeed, the heart of the whole fundamentalist/neocon rise to power -- is outright hostility to the notion that some people know more than other people.

Scientists are treated as "elitists" or "not in touch with the common people", as if it's a bad thing to spend a lot of time studying a subject and becoming informed on it. Meanwhile, the opinion of "common people" is treated as somehow more "pure" because their minds are unfettered by specific education.

By extension, in today's exciting world of neocon rule, generals who actually study war aren't the ones who plan our wars. Disaster management experts who study disasters aren't the ones put in charge of national disaster management agencies. Brilliant legal minds who have offered respected opinions aren't the ones who are put forth as the best supreme court candidates. Instead, we get people whose major qualification is that they are ordinary people who happen to be well connected. And then people who know things are slandered and ridiculed for being snobs.

Being called "ignorant" about something shouldn't necessarily be considered an insult. I'm ignorant about cars, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. There are guys who change their own oil and diagnose their own car troubles, but I am not one of those guys. When I have car troubles, I pay somebody who works on cars for a living to fix it. I try to understand as much as I can so as not to get ripped off, but in the end there's a point where I agree with the mechanic by default because he's interested in cars and I'm not.

People who approach their lives with the perspective that everything is "faith based" hate to admit that somebody knows more than they do (other than God, perhaps). Their point of view is that no one knows everything, therefore no one knows anything, therefore all opinions are equally valid. And if you claim to know more than they do about a subject, that's an attack, and you must have a sinister motive.

An Alito Filibuster?

So, it looks like John Kerry might be leading the charge to filibuster Alito. Good for him. Alito is a creep. The whole "unitary executive" spiel freaks me out, but there's more to it than that.

A few months ago, I wrote that the discussion of Harriet Miers was bothering me because the main argument in favor of her was "She MIGHT succeed despite her complete lack of credentials." No, that's not the point. We shouldn't have to guess whether a nominee will make a good Supreme Court candidate or not. The point of having hearings is so that Congress can ask questions and the nominee can answer them.

I watched some of the Alito hearings and they pissed me off. I am sick of this stupid game that all the Bush nominees have played -- a game called "Guess how to make me talk." Whenever Congress asks a direct question like "How would you be likely to rule on this issue?" we get one of these canned responses:

1. "I can't answer that because it might reveal what I think before I actually rule on it."
2. "That's already been ruled on, so it's been settled and I can't answer it."
3. "You can't read what I said I think as an indication of what I actually think."
   

You know how it goes...

Senator: "Judge Alito, you once wrote that you personally feel that abortion is the world's greatest evil and should be destroyed with extreme prejudice the moment we have the chance to do God's bidding."
Alito: "Well, first of all, I was only writing what my former bosses told me to write. And second of all, even if I ever did feel that way, it was a long time ago."
Senator: "Okay. How do you feel about it now?"
Alito: "Stare decisis. My opinion isn't relevant."

Can you imagine any other job interview where a candidate gets to act like this?

Interviewer: "How would you handle this hypothetical situation if we hired you for this position?"
Candidate: "I'm sorry, but I can't answer that question because it might have some relevance to how I would do this job."

For all the interviewer knows, this person MIGHT be supremely competent at handling the job. But there's no point in waiting to find out, because the candidate is an asshole, and the interviewer is completely justified in showing him the door.

And that's what I wish Congress would do. And keep doing it. And send a message to the president: "I'm sorry, but this idiot will not talk to us. If you're serious about getting a nominee approved, please send us someone who will answer the questions."

Alito should damn well SAY: "No, I changed my mind about this unitary executive stuff. I don't believe it, and if the president overstepped his boundaries, I would rule against him." And if he won't say it, after being pointedly asked, then there's no reason not to assume the worst.

If Bush and Co. want an anti-abortion candidate badly enough, can't they at least be honest about it? Let them send a guy who will say "I disapprove of Roe v Wade and I mean to do all I can to undermine it, if not overturn it." If they want somebody who will assign the absolute power of a monarch to the president, let them send a guy who will say that.

He'll lose, of course. But he deserves to lose if he can't get 60 votes. As I said about Miers, the vast majority of people have NO business being on the highest court in the land, and the nominee gets the burden of proof on whether he is one of those uniquely qualified individuals.

Unlike Harriet Miers, Judge Alito is not a clueless groupie. He knows the law. But that's not enough. I want the guy who will serve on the Supreme Court for most of the rest of my life to have at least two qualifications. I want him to be competent, AND not evil. One or the other doesn't cut it.

I don't think that's a high bar to set. Nor do I think it's unreasonable to expect the candidate to openly and honestly demonstrate that he meets those expectations.

The war against objectivity

"Some people today would say that there is no true reality, only perceptions and opinions.

...Today we often hear phrases like 'that may be true for you, but it’s not true for me.' To those that hold that there is no absolute truth, truth is seen as nothing more than a personal preference or a perception and therefore cannot extend beyond a person’s boundaries."

Thus sayeth Josh McDowell - Christian apologist, youth minister, and author of popular religious books such as "Evidence that Demands a Verdict" and "More Than a Carpenter". As a masochistic listener to Christian radio, I've heard him and many like-minded Christians repeat this charge many times over the years, generally following it up immediately with an assertion that this is bad news for religion and undermines faith.

What surprises me is how much I agree with the underlying principle. There ARE a lot of people who seem to think that truth is nothing more than opinion, and it is a serious problem for everyone who likes to deal with logical debate. Where I disagree with Josh is that I don't think the cause is atheism. On the contrary, subjective reality is fundamentally a faith based proposition.

The dictionary definition of "faith" in the religious sense is "Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence." The Bible declares that "faith is he substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Mark Twain, through the mouth of Pudd'nhead Wilson, said "Faith is believing what you know ain't so." Any way you slice it, having faith means coming to a conclusion first, and then filtering the facts to match your expectations.

I argue on message boards a lot, and I notice a trend among certain types of people. Often I go to considerable trouble to research an argument, make sure there are no holes in my reasoning, and prove beyond all reasonable doubt that I am making a solid case. Yet hours of work are tossed aside with a single dismissive comment, such as, "Well, that's some pretty good research, but I still believe what I believe. You're welcome to your opinion, though."

Or, "You can't trust polls / mainstream news sites / that website, they're biased!"

That's depressing because there's no real response to it without getting into a whole metaphysical argument about what constitutes evidence, and whether there really is a difference between fact and opinion. I expect to have to deal with mistakes on my part. I expect to be taken to task for my own misinterpretation of the facts. At the very least I want some kind of canned response to refute my points. But instead, I get "thanks for sharing, that's just your opinion." Or as one of Josh McDowell's students might say, "That may be true for you, but it's not true for me."

Except these aren't liberals I argue with (most of the time). They're Christian conservatives. Hence, they've made up their mind, and even acknowledging any serious flaw in their argument would be tantamount to heresy or treason, depending on the subject.

I think this is an absolutely poisonous attitude that goes beyond some bandwidth wasted on a message board or blog; it's something that infests our national debate. One way that it manifests itself is in the way they attempt to undermine the perceived accuracy of any and all forms of media.

Sometimes even a relatively straightforward link to a reference site, such as Wikipedia will lead into a whole can of worms about how everything Wikipedia says is automatically wrong because it's "open source". Now, I think that every skeptical person should be at least aware of what Wikipedia is, and not take everything they say as gospel. It's important to be aware of the review process, and make sure to check out their secondary sources, and use your own critical judgment to recognize the difference between fact and opinion. But those are general concerns that everyone should have about every source: some are less reliable than others, do your homework.

That's not how this kind of person argues, though. They don't argue with the contents of a particular article, or explain why they find a particular claim to be likely untrue. They just dismiss the source outright, and refuse to read any further.

Now hang on just a second. I realize, of course, that NOTHING written by human beings is ever going to be 100% objective. That's a basic principle of scientific thought. But if everything in Wikipedia can be dismissed because there are multiple authors... and everything we read in newspapers can be dismissed because it's "liberal"... and (according to creationists) everything coming out of the "scientific establishment" can be dismissed because it's advancing the agenda of the scientists... what are we supposed to do?

Is it seriously the position of these people that there is NO WAY to know anything at all with even a tiny bit of confidence? Is it then absolutely impossible to arrive at something that we can refer to as "The Truth"? Is it a waste of time to even try?

This attitude comes pretty darn close to solipsism. Solipsism is defined as "The view or theory that self is the only object of real knowledge or the only thing really existent." I might call it weak solipsism, because they don't necessarily believe that the self is "the only thing really existent." But if you took their arguments seriously, it would be hard to avoid the conclusion that they think there is no truth or reality that extends beyond themselves.

Is that what they really believe? Well, probably not. I think that they believe in objective truth, or at least they believe that they believe it. What they really want is to overthrow research and investigation as a legitimate way of arriving at the truth. What does that leave? The answer can be summed up in a word: FAITH.

Faith in an ancient holy book. Faith in the administration. Faith in the fundamental and unshakable goodness of everyone whom they, personally, hold to be good and right. That is truth to them. Facts are fickle; they have this nasty habit of not supporting your most cherished opinions. But faith can never be undermined unless you want it to.

But, yikes! If there was EVER a method of knowledge that could be called subjective, it's faith. To judge the reality of the universe based on what you have decided is true, regardless of any sort of study or skepticism? Not only does that make no sense, but I would say that the odds are astronomically stacked against any pre-conceived belief system just happening to be the one that is in tune with reality.

What it does do is entrench power. If I can't hope to decide for myself what is real, then my only choice is to go down to my friendly neighborhood priest and ask him what to think. Then he'll be happy to open up his holy book, point to chapter and verse, and tell me that this sentence here is absolutely true and the answer to all your moral dilemmas. I can also go to the rabbi or mullah next door, and get a totally different answer that is also absolutely true. Ultimately, though, the sect with the most power will amplify itself and crush out the other absolute truths, until it's the only one left.

Unless we recognize the fact that there is such a thing as reality, which is not changed by our little beliefs. Unless we recognize that it is our job to FIGURE OUT and INTERPRET the available evidence, so that our beliefs might become more in tune with what's really out there beyond ourselves -- not rewrite the facts so that they better fit into what we believe.

Look, I know that all information-gathering organizations make mistakes, and many times even lie. The New York Times had their Jayson Blair incident. Dan Rather should have checked his sources better. But the solution to that is not to say "From now on, I shall never again believe anything that the New York Times or any other news source say, about ANYTHING AT ALL, just because they have printed it and they have been wrong." The solution is to treat each story with an appropriate level skepticism, try to cross-check and cross-reference their information, get as close to you can to the original sources, and accept that everything you know is tentative to a greater or lesser degree. But when all's said and done, you have to recognize that basing your beliefs on the evidence you can get is a better way of knowing things than basing your beliefs on your beliefs themselves.

In my opinion, the whole problem with our national discourse right now is how much people are buying into the idea that there are no facts that can be learned through observation; there are only opinions, and YOUR opinion is the one that matters. It cuts to the heart of the problem with batshit crazy fundamentalist types. It is on display every time we see another press conference in front of a pre-screened audience. It explains how people can hear about Terri Schiavo being brain dead and blind, and then immediately start off another quest to indict Michael instead of saying "Oh my God, we were wrong about her condition!!!" And it's why people hear reports of people being tortured by Americans, and they simultaneously say "That's not true" and "They deserve it!"

Qualifications? Why?

I was watching Washington Journal on C-Span this morning as a series of "experts" breezed through to offer their opinions on the nomination of Harriet Miers.

I find myself growing more and more irritated with the people who are acting as apologists for Miers. Over and over again, I keep hearing this argument: "Well, so-and-so was never a judge before his appointment to the Supreme Court, and he was a great justice." Or "Nobody could have expected this historical guy to amount to anything, based on his qualifications. But look how important he turned out to be."

Great. That's all fine as far as it goes, in the sense that it proves that there exist at least N people who did better than their record would indicate.

But it's a stupid, fatuous argument when it is applied to any particular case. What ticks me off is that this isn't an argument for why MIERS is a particularly good pick to be on the Supreme Court. It's as if all the experts are saying "Well, there's no particular reason I can think of why she should be approved, but in a cosmic sense, why shouldn't ANYONE be on the Supreme Court? Why put up any barriers?"

It's rather like Intelligent Design advocates who say "What do you care if we publish our results in scientific journals or not? Scientific journals are overrated, and they're biased against our work anyway."

Or it's like the crackpot inventor who tries to convince the world that his perpetual motion machine, or his eternal life rings, have merit. He says "Well they all laugh at me. But they laughed at Edison too!" Fine. So you have that in common with Edison. But what you still don't have is evidence that your whatchamacallit is of any use at all. Or as Carl Sagan put it: "But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."

And applying this to Supreme Court Justices: the fact that some brilliant legal minds had no credentials does not imply that all people without credentials have brilliant legal minds. Some people are just flat-out bad picks.

It's not about whether I personally think that Harriet Miers is a good pick or not. It's about the way all the people who defend her have nothing better to say than "You can't really tell anything at all about whether anyone is good, so you might as well just approve her and find out."

This sort of linguistic trick is nothing more than a kind of solipsism (I'll explain what I mean by that in more detail in a later post). It's not an argument, it's a concession. It's "I have no way to support what I say, but really we have no way of knowing anything at all. So you might as well admit that I'm right. I don't need a better reason."

You should always beware the kind of people who argue from solipsism. They may or may not know that they're wrong, but this argument stems from frustration that they can't figure out a better way to make their case.

In my opinion, Supreme Court nominees are not "innocent until proven guilty". There are far, far more people who *should not* be on the USSC than people who *should*. The burden of proof ought to be on Miers and her supporters to prove that she is one of the rare individuals who does have any business being on the highest court in the land.

But I can guarantee she won't meet that burden of proof. Just like John Roberts, we'll hear a lot of "I can't comment on this" and "That's not my problem". We'll get no substantial arguments at all. And she'll be waved through.

Liars, truth tellers, and bias

My wife and I both argue politics on different message boards, and we both agree that there is a tendency for people to listen only to the sources they like and discount the sources they don't like. For instance, people who insist that "mainstream media" is automatically lying because of their "liberal bias", will in the next breath go on to confidently quote blatantly right wing sources such as Rush Limbaugh, NewsMax, the Wall Street Journal op-ed page, etc.

Now, admittedly, Ginny and I get a lot of news from left wing sources. And I'm not talking about Time, the New York Times, CNN, etc... the places that conservatives pretend are liberal when they aren't. I'm talking about Air America Radio, Daily Kos, Media Matters, and so on. Sources that are really liberal, and don't fear to say so.

Ginny asks me sometimes, "Do you think we do the same thing, but reversed? Do we just listen to those sources and form our opinions based on that, while ignoring the other side?"

My answer is no. Sure I listen to my favorite liberals, and I occasionally catch myself repeating what they say without checking it out first. But most of the time, if I want a new "fact" to enter my mental library, I go and check it out with as unbiased a source as I can find. If it's about something Bush said, I look at the White House page. If it's about world news, I try to corroborate it with several unrelated sources. If it's about science, I look for peer-reviewed material, or at least direct references to peer-reviewed material. And whether the answer is what I want it to be or not, I accept the results of my best research efforts.

Al Franken likes to tell an anecdote about himself and Rush Limbaugh. He repeats it a lot, so if you listen to his show then you've almost certainly heard it. In case you haven't, I'm sure he wouldn't mind if I repeat it one more time. From an interview:

A few months ago, Rush was talking about the minimum wage. Conservatives like to portray it that no one has to raise a family on the minimum wage, the only people who get the minimum wage are teenagers who want to buy an i-Pod. So Rush says, "75 percent of all Americans on the minimum wage, my friends, are teenagers on their first job." And one of the researchers brings this to me, with a smile, and I say, "Well, can you look it up?" And they look it up, the researcher goes to something called the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 60.1 percent of Americans on minimum wage are twenty and above. 39.9 percent, then, are either teenagers or below twelve (laughs). I had several jobs as a teenager, so you figure, what, 13 percent might be teenagers in their first job. Not 75 percent. So where did Rush get his statistic? Well, he got it directly from his butt. It went out his butt, into his mouth, out the microphone, into the air, into the brains of dittoheads. And they believe this stuff.

So we get our labor statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He gets his from the Bureau of Rush's Butt. And that's the difference. We don't do that. That's one of the main differences.

That is a big difference in my book. It's not that I think Al Franken does flawless research; he's wrong sometimes. But the point is that he actually CARES whether his information is correct or not, he is willing to go to a credible source and not just use rhetoric. That very attitude sets him miles apart from Limbaugh.

Even so, I'm not sure that it is correct to say that Limbaugh is "lying" when he says something like "75 percent of all Americans on the minimum wage are teenagers on their first job." That is because in order to really be lying, you have to actually know whether what you're saying is true or not. If you don't know, then you're just mistaken.

I heard an anecdote -- almost certainly not true -- about an asylum inmate who was hooked up to a lie detector. He was then asked, "Are you Napoleon?" The inmate answered "No." The machine indicated that he was lying.

You can be right and still be lying, if you don't think that you are right. And you can be wrong without lying.

In that spirit, I don't know for sure that Limbaugh, O'Reilly, and Hannity ever lie. I think it is far more likely that they just don't care whether they say things that are true or not. There is a difference. They care whether they say things that agree with the construct they've made of the world, but they don't see a difference between lies and non-lies. That's why they tell you that the media is biased, that polls don't matter, that scientists all have a nefarious agenda, etc, etc. They want to rule out the possibility that anything could contradict them and still be accurate.

How American Are You?

I'm not very American, at least not according to the author of this quiz.

But then, the quiz ought to be called "How Conservative Are You?" Note that answering that your favorite president is Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter will both net you less points than Ronald Reagan, and answering that you like American music and movies actually hurts your American-ness. Where's the answer to the sports question for people who don't watch sports? And what is the guy's deal with cheese? Are sheets of yellow plastic the only other type of cheese besides brie and bleu? I think maybe they make some other kinds of cheese in Wisconsin, and they're Americans there.

The author, whether in jest or not, is buying into the myth that people who are religious, outdoorsy, macho, simple, and humble are true Americans; while people who are educated, cultured, complex, godless, and progressive are not.

Whether or not it's a joke, the myth is bullshit. I am an American. I like rock music and big summer action blockbusters. I like to read long non-fiction books and play video games in "hard" mode and solve puzzles on the internet. I like not having an official religion, or an official category of religions. I like it that minorities can vote and women can work, even though I am neither. I like speaking out against my government when they deserve it.

If "true Americans" can't accept that those things are part of what America is all about, then they should leave my country.

Why you should care about Terri Schiavo

So Terri Schiavo's autopsy was released. Not only was she in a persistent vegetative state, not only was her brain half the size of a normal brain, not only were there no signs of the "abuse" that her husband supposedly subjected her to, but SHE WAS BLIND.

Which is just fascinating, considering how everybody insisted that she could follow a balloon around with her eyes and everything.

Now, many people might say that this is a subject best left for the cable news talking heads to screech about, and normally I'd agree wholeheartedly. Back when the Schiavo case was considered real news, I managed to totally ignore it until it was almost over. Same way I mostly ignored the Michael Jackson trial, the OJ Simpson trial, the Peterson case, and all the other stuff that passes for news nowadays. Because really, who gives a damn about so much irrelevant pulp?

But the religious right MADE it real news by virtue of their interference. Those bastards saw the opportunity to use the Schiavo case as a launching point to rant about the "culture of death" and "activist judges" and Uncle Jeb decided it would be a swell move to conradict everything the doctors and the courts said by "saving" a life that had already been gone for many years. And they were willing to tell any number of lies about her husband. According to them, Michael was an immoral prick for living with another woman, and he was scheming to kill his perfectly healthy wife who could talk and sing and plead for her life, and any minute she was liable to leap out of her hospital bed and dance a jig.

I don't belong to a culture of death. I belong to a culture of evidence.

What sickens me about the news these days is this pervasive attitude that if one side says one thing, and the other side says something else, why then they're both opinions and who's to say what is true? Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle. So let's let the doctors who examined her have their say, and let's let this nice nurse offer her own personal testimony that Terri is in perfect health while Michael is a monster, and then we've done our jobs by presenting both sides.

Sometimes the truth lies with the preponderance of evidence. It's a crazy idea, I know. Sometimes "faith" just ain't good enough to contradict reality. Sometimes when two sides say opposite things, one side is telling the truth based on the best information they could acquire, and the other side is just making crap up because it sounds good.

Compromise

I received this email from my dad this morning:

Russell,

I find the "agreement" reached by Senate "moderates" disgusting. The Democrats gave up everything they were fighting for in return for a promise by the Republicans not to invoke the nuclear option this time. The Republicans reserve the right to invoke it the next time they feel like it.

The closest parallel I can think of is Neville Chamberlain returning from Munich on September 30, 1938, waving a piece of paper signed by Hitler and proclaiming "Peace in our time." Chamberlain and Daladier had given Hitler half of Czechoslovakia in return for a promise not to demand more. 6 months later he took the rest of Czechoslovakia, and 6 months after that he invaded Poland, starting WWII.

Dad

Disregarding the fact that my dad has already invoked Godwin's Law, I'm torn about this subject. On the one hand, compromise is good. It's what reasonable people do. On the other hand, the judges who were waved through are all major assholes.

For instance, let me remind you who Bill Pryor is:

"The American experiment is not a theocracy. It does not establish an official religion," Pryor stated. "But the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States are rooted in a Christian perspective of the nature of government and the nature of man.

"The challenge of the next millennium," Pryor continued, "will be to preserve the American experiment by restoring its Christian perspective."

Schumer castigated Pryor for his characterization of the Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion-on-demand during all nine months of pregnancy, as "the worst abomination in the history of constitutional law."

The problem with compromise is it works well only if both parties believe in compromise. It reminds me of a favorite joke:


Two street urchins find a cake in a dumpster and argue about how to divide it up. One of them demands to have the whole cake, while the other says, "That's not fair, we should cut it in half and each get half."

As they argue, a mathematician wanders by and asks if he can help. When they explain the situation, the mathematician says "Gentlemen, the answer to your problem is compromise! I know exactly what you should do: give this one three quarters of the cake."


I know the right wing bloggers were griping loudly this morning about how betrayed they feel, but this is complaining by the kid who got only three quarters of the cake when he wanted the whole thing.

Paradox: the only way to have a fair society is to make sure that everyone can be reasonable. But when a reasonable person meets an unreasonable person, the reasonable one often gets the worse end of the deal.

Another paradox: in a free society, people are even free to support political agendas that go against other people's freedom. When you have a group that is determined to strip other people of rights, the only way to stop them is to limit their right to impose their agenda. I wonder, is "freedom" inherently a self-destroying concept?


Finally, I'm reminded of a great bit of dialogue from Life, The Universe, and Everything. I'm snipping out some really funny lines, so go read the whole chapter.

In this book, there are a bunch of insane religious fanatics who decide that their ultimate mission in life is to obliterate all other life in the universe. Slartibartfast wants to save the universe, whereas Ford is much more interested in going to a party and getting drunk. Slartibartfast asks Ford, haven't you understood the stakes?

"Yes," said Ford, with a sudden and unexpected fierceness, "I've understood it all perfectly well. That's why I want to have as many drinks and dance with as many girls as possible while there are still any left. If everything you've shown us is true ..."

"True? Of course it's true."

"... then we don't stand a chance. The point is that people like you and me, Slartibartfast, and Arthur - particularly and especially Arthur - are just dilletantes, eccentrics, layabouts, fartarounds if you like."

Slartibartfast frowned, partly in puzzlement and partly in umbrage. He started to speak.

"- ..." is as far as he got.

"We're not obsessed by anything, you see," insisted Ford.

"..."

"And that's the deciding factor. We can't win against obsession. They care, we don't. They win."

"I care about lots of things," said Slartibartfast, his voice trembling partly with annoyance, but partly also with uncertainty.

"Such as?"

"Well," said the old man, "life, the Universe. Everything, really. Fjords."

"Would you die for them?"

"Fjords?" blinked Slartibartfast in surprise. "No."

"Well then."

"Wouldn't see the point, to be honest."

While I disagree with Ford's philosophy, it's hard to deny that there's a major problem with the fact that they're fanatics and we aren't. We don't WANT to be fanatics, that would make us just as evil as they are. But fanatics hold the upper hand, it seems.

One seriously divided nation

The mood of this election scares me. Kerry may win, Bush may win, but the problem is still going to be there. The problem is that the nation will continue to be divided up into a "faith based community" and a "reality based community", as Ron Suskind put it. (If you haven't read this article from the New Yorker, go back and read it. I insist.)

Let's pretend, just for a minute, that Kerry will win AND he'll turn out to be the dream president for the reality based community. He fights for science, bases his policies on evidence, and actively seeks advice from true experts in the relevant fields before doing anything potential stupid. And the economy rises, people start getting jobs and raises again, the stock market goes back up, etc. The Supreme Court gets a few more guys who believe in civil rights and free speech. Iraq is saved and becomes a utopia. (Just remember, this is my fantasy, not my prediction.)

Even in this rosy scenario, you still have a lot of faith based people who are angry at Kerry for deposing the guy they see as "God's man". Facts are inconvenient but meaningless trifles and will continue to be so. The economy? It's Bush's doing. Iraq? Bet you libs are GLAD we invaded now, look how grateful they are!

And still they're going to be angry about everything, because God's man is gone, church leaders will whip them into a frenzy about gay marriage, stem cells, abortion, evolution in schools, etc.

It's time to own up to the fact that the non-reality based community is not some fringe group of wackos; they are half our country. And they really want a fight. I have a strict "live and let live as long as you don't bug me with your craziness" philosophy, but they HATE me. They have signs and web sites saying they hate me. They've declared a "culture war" on me. I didn't declare that war, but apparently I'm in it now.

What do I do? Well, I have no idea.