Bernie has more progressive ideas, but Hillary is too important an opportunity to miss

The Most Polite Debates on Record

The conversation I had a few weeks ago prompted me to pull out the soapbox. As I’ve made obvious in my many status updates on Facebook and the material I published in the Op Ed pages of various newspapers, I detest inequality and the suppression of humans based upon some mythological superiority system. It may make me sound socialistic, and of course I *am* socialistic on many fronts, but the truth is that I’m simply humanistic. Demographically, being an old, Caucasian male, I fall into the most common category of the oppressor. Life would be so much simpler if I was to just go with the flow and be just another echo chamber WASP… but I can’t do that.

We briefly discussed the role of women in society. The person with whom I was speaking felt sad that her friends, two long term progressive judges, lost their jobs to primary opponents. In a way it’s a shame, because they *were* quite progressive, but I still feel that raising the profile of their female and minority opponents should be a prime concern. The way to defeat Stone Age thought is to drive the Stone Age thinkers back into the caves from whence they emerged. The old, white, male, while progressive, were… well… they were old, white males. They lost to primary winners will have a larger effect on our society… if they manage to get elected… just because they are female and of minority origin. The day will come when that won’t be as important, but today… this election… is not that time.

It is very, very important to advance the historically oppressed into positions where they cannot be oppressed. Women and minorities in the background won’t get it done. We’ve got to get those demographics out front and center. Women, Hispanics, LGBT, the disabled, the non-dominant religions, and anything else that isn’t old, white male. The status quo has got to be busted down. If you don’t understand why, pull up any major newspaper’s web portal and read the comment to the articles and editorials.

In that conversation we also briefly talked about minorities in science and technology. Let me ask you, if you were forced to come up with the names of 10 female or minority scientists, could you do it? 10 white, usually European male scientists would be easy, but it seems the accomplishments of minorities are either kept quiet or usurped by a white male colleague. As an example I offer the Pythagorean Golden Ratio. This simple mathematical principle has been used by scientists, engineers, architects and artists for centuries and Pythagoras gets the credit for its discovery. But did he really discover it? Look up Theano, Pythagoras’ wife and see what the math historians say about it. Why do we not already know these things? Why are the accomplishments of women and minorities buried?

Other unheralded minorities have accomplished fantastic feats, developed vaccines, eliminated plant diseases, designed large buildings, made great advances in medicine, and generally contributed to our human society… all in relative anonymity. Had they been white males there would be books written about them. The list below was gleaned from Smithsonian websites. Each of these people made large contributions yet still suffered persecution for the crime of being different.

Sind ibn Ali – 7^th century Muslim, developed the first known astronomical charts

Bertha Parker Pallan-Cody – Native American archeologist

Doris Cochran, herpetologist and Doris Blake, entomologist. Lesbian lovers married to men.

Janet Bashen – First black female software developer to receive a patent on a web-based application.

Harlean James – landscape architect and huge promoter of the National Park System

Valentina Tereshkova – Russian Cosmonaut.

George Edward Alcorn Jr. – Black male who gave us the Xray.

Libby Hyman – Textbook author and zoologist with the University of Chicago. She couldn’t get any other job because she was Jewish.

Keith Black – Black male who was doing neurosurgery before Ben Carson

And then there is Penelope Jo (Maddy) Parsons. She is my age and won the national Science Fair as a teenager with an amazing demonstration of mathematical aptitude. Four years later she was awarded some kind of recognition by a European group, and then she disappeared into the crowd never to be heard from again…because she is a woman… and women don’t do science.

I’ll summarize by saying that mankind has managed to shed many of the chains that have bound us to the past, but we still have a few we must address. The knuckle-draggers, perhaps fearing a loss of power or stature, have made an astounding resurgence over the last half-century (Taliban, Evangelical Christians, Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, Fox News viewers).

From my perspective those efforts are going to backfire and right now the time is ripe to push back. Minority children being born today should, by the time they reach my age, be enjoying equal stature with white men of the same age… with 100% equality… and no foolishness about some kind of supremacy based on stupid reasons. Society should be able to look back in shame at the way we treated our fellow humans over these previous decades, just as many of us do now with the genocide of Native Americans, slavery and civil rights.

President Obama shattered the myth that kept blacks held down… now is the time for Hillary to break the next barrier. In 30 or 40 years… who knows? Maybe a transgender, black, Muslim, woman will be judged on her merits as a leader and not considered inferior because she isn’t an old, white male.

Signed:

An old, white male who refuses to hate someone simply because they are different than me. 

Flawed Reasoning and Failures in Cognition, the wrap-up

 - Part 3 of 3

Over the past couple of days we established the negative outcomes resulting from confirmation bias and the resulting flawed reasoning. We further defined some of the fine subdivisions of confirmation bias. Today define a few more of those subdivisions and wrap up our discussion.

Bandwagon Effect might also be called the “mob effect” or “mob behavior”. While we are often unaware of it, humans have a strong tendency to go with the flow. When the masses start to pick a winner or a favorite, that's when our individualized brains start to shut down and enter into a kind of "groupthink" or hive-mind mentality. But it doesn't have to be a large crowd or the whims of an entire nation; it can include small groups, like a family or even a small group of office co-workers. The bandwagon effect is what often causes behaviors, social norms, and memes to propagate among groups of individuals — regardless of the evidence or motives in support. This is why opinion polls are often maligned, as they can steer the perspectives of individuals accordingly. Much of this bias has to do with our built-in desire to fit in and conform, as famously demonstrated by the Asch Conformity Experiments.

Projection Bias makes it difficult for us to “walk a mile in their shoes”, to project outside the bounds of our own consciousness and preferences. We are trapped inside our own minds and for this reason we mistakenly assume that most people think just as we do… often with little or no justification. This cognitive shortcoming often leads to the related effect of false consensus bias where we tend to believe that people not only think like us, but that they also agree with us. It's a bias where we overestimate how typical and normal we are, and assume that a consensus exists on matters when there may be none. This can also create the effect where the members of a radical or fringe group assume that more people on the outside agree with them than is the case. Or the exaggerated confidence one has when predicting the winner of an election or sports match.

The Current Moment Bias is the “things will forever be as they are now” bias. Humans find difficulty in imagining our future selves and resist altering current behaviors and expectations accordingly. Most of us would rather experience pleasure in the current moment, while leaving the pain for later. This is a bias that is of particular concern to economists (i.e. our unwillingness to not overspend and save money) and health practitioners. A 1998 study showed that, when making food choices for the coming week, 74% of participants chose fruit. But when the food choice was for the current day, 70% went for the chocolate.

Anchoring Effect, also known as the Relativity Trap, is the tendency to compare and contrast only a limited set of items. It's called the anchoring effect because we tend to fixate on a value or number that in turn gets compared to everything else. The classic example is an item at the store that's on sale; we tend to see (and value) the difference in price, but not the overall price itself. This is why some restaurant menus feature very expensive entrees, while also including more (apparently) reasonably priced ones. It's also why, when given a choice, the larger number of us will pick the middle option… not too expensive, and not too cheap.

Rebooting

Spend a bit of time, if you will, in some self-analysis. Looking at these definitions and comparing them to your own perspectives, how often do you find yourself guilty of feeding personal biases? Look at your friends. How many of these have political or religious beliefs mirroring your own?

The most passionate will recognize flaws in cognition only in those whom they oppose… and will never admit that they too might be viewing the world through glasses tinted by bias. The truth is that all humans are subject to the bias traps and the sooner we recognize the flaws within ourselves within… the quicker we will be able to adapt.

Adapt we must. We find ourselves in already very polarized positions and suffering from the political divides in which such polarization inevitably results. Both the far left and the far right can be observed lumping any position more centrist into the far opposing camp. Thus we hear the acronyms “RINO” and “DINO” casually bandied about.

The truth is that both extremes have abandoned reason and neither can recognize the danger in such posturing. The reasonable must self-diagnose these failures and debug our systems. There must be enough reasonable voices to outvote and overwhelm passionate partisanism. There is truth to be found in every perspective and good can come even from some of the more extreme views, but both extremes must also learn that the final adaptation will be in the drift back to the center. 

REV: 20130831-0500

###

H/T to George Dvorsky

Flawed Reasoning and Failures in Cognition, continued

 - Part 2 of 3

Yesterday we established confirmation bias as being at the root of our failure to reason logically when debating political and religious divisions. Today we will discuss textbook definitions for some of the subdivisions within the umbrella we call confirmation basis.

In-group Bias is a somewhat nonspecific bias of genetic origin. It is rooted deep in our animalistic or tribalistic tendencies, manifesting as the fear and hatred of people “not like us.” Research has shown this bias may be affected by the neurotransmitter oxytocin. University of Amsterdam psychologist Carsten De Dreu describes oxytocin as helping us forge bonds with the people of our in-group while having the opposite function for those on the outside. It promotes suspicion, fear and even hatred of the out-group.

This particular bias is evident in both political subdivisions and religious theology, causing individuals to discard those not within the subdivision or sect while elevating inbred and possibly deficient individuals to positions of leadership. Where it hurts us is that it leads to an overestimation of the value of our fellow tribesmen while diminishing that of people we don't really know, often resulting in a terrible waste of talent.

Observational Selection Bias is when we suddenly start noticing things we didn't notice that much before, and then incorrectly assume that the frequency has increased. An example might be pregnant women suddenly noticing a lot of other pregnant women, or new car buyers suddenly noticing the same car everywhere they look. The likelihood is that there really isn’t any increase in the frequency, but instead the thing has become elevated in our mind and in turn we notice it more often. Trouble is that most people don't recognize this as a selectional bias. Most actually believe these items or events are happening with increased frequency, causing a distinctly disconcerting feeling. Another attribute of this bias is that it contributes to a feeling that this couldn’t be coincidence.

Status-Quo Bias promotes the human tendency to be apprehensive of change and often leads to choices that guarantee things will remain the same or change as little as possible. This has obvious ramifications in everything from politics to economics. Take for instance the difficulties of the 60s experienced by those pushing for racial equality, and the subsequent resistance still evident 50 years later. More recently there are the LGBT issue and continued support for marijuana prohibition.

We like to stick to our routines, our political parties, and even our favorite restaurants. When given the choice between the unknown Bob’s Diner and the familiar Burger King, status quo bias prompts a fearful resistance to the unknown and often prompts the choice of the latter.

The perniciousness of this bias is the unwarranted assumption that another choice will be inferior or make things worse. We know that the Burger King will serve something familiar, even if perhaps not of the highest quality or with the best flavor. Although Bob’s Diner might have far better food, the risk is more than many will take. The status-quo bias can be summed with the saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"… an adage that fuels conservative tendencies. And in fact, some commentators say this is why the U.S. hasn't been able to enact universal health care, despite the fact that so many support the idea of reform.

Negativity Bias is the belief that all news is bad news. People tend to pay more attention to bad news… and it's not just because we are morbid. Steven Pinker, in his book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, argues that crime, violence, war, and other injustices are steadily declining. Recent national crime statistics tend to verify this, yet most people would argue that things are getting worse. An example is the constant drumbeat that the U.S. economy has steadily gotten worse under the current administration, when all reliable data proves this to be untrue.

Social scientists tell us that we perceive negative news as being more important or profound. We also tend to give more credibility to bad news, perhaps because we are suspicious of proclamations to the contrary. In our prehistoric past the heeding bad news may have been more adaptive, but today we run the risk of allowing this bias to inhibit growth. Dwelling on negativity at the expense of genuinely good news tends to cause people to believe that the world is a worse place than it actually is.

Some who voted for the current President are experiencing Post-Purchase Rationalization bias. This occurs following what starts out looking like a good deal, but later seems a bad bargain. The same occurs when we see something in a store and just can’t live without it. We take it home and later find the gee gaw not as valuable as we first thought, causing us to start doubting our decision. We might regret the purchase because of the expense or because it did not perform as expected… but then the bias kicks in and we convince ourselves that it was a smart move regardless of the deficiencies.

This is the mental mechanism that causes us to feel better after we make poor decisions. It provides us with a way to subconsciously justifying our decisions. Psychologists call this the Dissonance Model of Post-Decision Product Evaluation, and describe it as stemming from commitment principle and need to avoid the state of cognitive dissonance.

Neglecting Probability bias stems from irrational fear of low probability threats. An example would be the fear of flying. Almost nobody is afraid of riding in a car, but a measurable demographic refuse to fly out of fear of crashing. Many others suffer elevated stress levels while flying. This in spite of the fact that automobile accidents account for at least 67 times more deaths than air crashes.  Some estimations show the odds to be considerably greater even than this.

Now compare this with the current, rampant fear of terrorist incidents. In the U.S. you are far more likely to die of cancer than by terrorist attack, yet the anti-terrorism budget expends on average a half million dollars per documented victim of terrorism on an annual basis, while the budget for cancer prevention lays out only about $10,000 per victim.

The phenomena represents the human brain’s failure to grasp proper sense of peril and risk. It leads to the overestimation of risk for rare events while underestimating the risks involved with the more familiar yet far more dangerous. This country is currently suffering from an almost hysterical fear of terrorism, even though the odds of choking on your food or becoming accidentally poisoned are far greater. If society wishes to effectively counter the actual dangers we face, we must first put them in perspective.

Gambler's Fallacy or Positive Expectation Bias is perhaps more like a bug in our software than a bias. We inexplicably put tremendous weight in previous experience and let this influence our expectations. Think about flipping a quarter. If one flips heads four or five times in a row we are inclined to believe (and to bet on) the likelihood that the next flip will be tails. As Spock might say, this is illogical. The odds remain the same regardless of previous outcomes. The outcome of each coin flip is statistically independent of previous results, meaning the probability remains 50-50.

The positive expectation is that luck must eventually change and that because of all the previous bad luck it must mean that it is our turn to win. Successful gamblers know this not to be a valid assumption and do not rely on luck. These people have the ability to tabulate previous events, maintain the current odds in their heads and only bet when those odds are favorable. They also have an ability to “read” people, and can be pretty accurate in judging a bluff. This is not luck… it is science.

Further discussion and the conclusion of this thesis will continue tomorrow.

###

Flawed Reasoning and Failures in Cognition, part 1

 – Part 1 of 3

The most powerful computer of which we are aware is our own human brain. The ratio may have recently changed with the introduction in Japan of the K computer, but previously it was determined that our brains have the capability of 10¹⁶ processes per second. Powerful our brains may be, but humans are handicapped by a variety of quirks, bugs and self-imposed limitations.

The five-buck calculator sold alongside candy treats and novelties at the discount store checkout has the ability to process math to an exponentially higher degree than the average human brain, and we suffer from a deeply flawed operating system that mishandles memory and is highly susceptible to malware. Our mental data filters and filing systems are screwed up more so than even Microsoft’s “Bob”. We are prone to cognitive biases that frequently produce grossly erroneous assumptions and result in truly questionable decisions. Worst of all is our seeming inability to self-diagnose and correct these errors.

So why is that dime store calculator perhaps superior to our brain, at least in functionality? Unlike the processors in our mechanical counterparts, the human brain is lazy. This laziness is hurting us, resulting in deep political and social divisions. Mental biases make conclusion jumping and stereotyping the norm rather than the exception. As a collective we often engage in highly self-destructive behavior that we justify by repeatedly leaping to false assumptions. Our mental behavior fails the rationality test. We should work on that.

Perhaps a starting point for any correction would be to better understand the areas of the human psyche where aberrant traits reside, followed by subjecting our faulty circuits to critical examination. While most of us lack the education and training to make hardwired changes, we can at least look at the behavior and try to avoid the pitfalls.

We could start by defining and demonstrating the difference between cognitive bias and logical fallacy. Both are easy pitfalls that result in a misunderstanding of the world, but these two are very different from each other. Logical fallacy may be defined as errors in logical argumentation. Although some argumentative fallacy is premeditated, most logical errors result from cognitive laziness. The logical fallacies are well described in textbooks and taught in debate class starting in our high school years. Anyone with even a basic secondary school education is aware of the trap, but for some reason the ability to avoid them appears mostly beyond the capacity of modern man.

Social media is quite revealing when it comes to the demonstration of failures in human logic. Perhaps the most common transgression is the use of ad hominem. Simply put this is when we attack the person rather than the philosophy; the messenger rather than the message. Although certainly not exclusive to political discussion, that element of human endeavor is rife with personal attacks.

There is no better evidence of this than the opposition to President Obama. A rather significant segment of the opposition behaves as if anything this president manages to accomplish takes a back seat to the “fact” that he is a foreigner, or a communist, a Muslim, or socialist… or any number of faux scandals.  The amount of energy, time and money expended on fruitless efforts to prove that Mr. Obama wasn’t born a U.S. citizen has been tremendous and extremely wasteful, both in terms of dollars and in the deep social divisions. The opposition appears not to care about the price and continues to recycle disproven memes on a regular basis.

This line of political attack incorporates both logical fallacy and cognitive bias, with one feeding off of the other. The political right wing is predisposed to dislike the Democratic Party because of deep rooted bias, and vice versa for the left. Directed at the current administration there are all those fear-inducing boogyman words mentioned above; socialist, communist, Muslim and foreigner, but perhaps the real culprit is the cognitive bias. For the demographic that does not like the President, no amount of contrary evidence will alter that bias.

Contrasting logical fallacy with cognitive bias we find something that is more innate and subconscious. The cognitive bias is a genuine deficiency or limitation in our thinking… a flaw in judgment born of errors in memory, social attribution, and mental calculation. Psychologists and social researchers have described our cognitive biases as helping us process information more efficiently, especially in potentially dangerous situations. Perhaps, but they can also lead us into making disastrous mistakes.

While we may be prone to these errors in judgment, we at least can make ourselves aware of the flaw. As you read the following definitions try to relate them to areas of your personal, political and social life. I’ll take a little time to describe my understanding of some of the more general biases and relate them to personal experience.

Confirmation Bias

Behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner coined the term “cognitive dissonance”, which is to unconsciously or subconsciously access our mental filing system… selectively searching only for perspectives that feed preexisting views while at the same time ignoring or dismissing any bit of information, regardless of validity, which fails to agree with those views. It is this dissonance that is at the root of the bias.

Confirmation bias promotes an attraction to people who agree with us while allowing us to justify the “un-friending” of those who disagree. It makes us lean toward reading, watching and listening to news and visiting websites with content confirming what we already believe. That this favored source may be omitting contrary data or even fabricating false data is something we will acknowledge only when cornered. Until then we will defend the source and employ the “evidence” in our attacks.

Confirmation bias pushes us to be selective in choosing friends, tending to associate mostly with people who hold similar views and tastes. We find individuals, groups, and news sources that make us feel uncomfortable or insecure about our views to be off-putting.

Taken to the extreme these individuals will refuse to listen to a contrary opinion even when graphically demonstrated, but will make positive yet baseless statements based upon incorrect information absorbed from the agreeable sources. An excellent example would be recent objections voiced against the CSCOPE curriculum tools used in many Texas public schools… both public and private. Texas Senator Dan Patrick (R) (who is running for lieutenant governor in the 2014 elections) has made it his mission to ban the curriculum. Sen. Patrick heard from some of his supporters, religious right-wing activists, that the CSCOPE lesson plans are “Marxist, anti-American and pro-Islamic.” That information is distorted and untruthful as can be seen by accessing the lesson plans (they are in the public domain), but this made no difference, as Sen. Patrick.

Sen. Patrick has his mind made and is not interested in veracity. His only interest is supporting his bias. The proof of this has finally surfaces. After months of stating with authority that the CSCOPE lesson plans are evil and “of the devil”, Sen. Patrick now admits he has never read the lesson plans. This has not changed his mind and Sen. Patrick remains single-mindedly focused on his misguided mission.

The problem with such dramatic bias is that we limit our ability to locate and process new information, often to our own detriment. Humans suffering from this disability are prone to believing that their worldview is correct and tend to accuse others of failure to understand the real truth. Religious apologists and anti-vaccine activists are also representative of this bias.

 There are many subdivisions of confirmation bias. I’ll detail a few of those over the next few days:

###

From 1956

Read this from Eisenhower's 1956 reelection platform and then look around you. Do you see any real Republicans? Any real fiscal conservatives? You won't see them, and if they exist they now sleep with the dogs and have the same fleas. Ike was the last of the true Republicans. He warned us about politicians like the ones now wearing the GOP robes.

Declaration of Faith

America's trust is in the merciful providence of God, in whose image every man is created ... the source of every man's dignity and freedom.

In this trust our Republic was founded. We give devoted homage to the Founding Fathers. They not only proclaimed that the freedom and rights of men came from the Creator and not from the State, but they provided safeguards to those freedoms.

Our Government was created by the people for all the people, and it must serve no less a purpose.

The Republican Party was formed 100 years ago to preserve the Nation's devotion to these ideals.

On its Centennial, the Republican Party again calls to the minds of all Americans the great truth first spoken by Abraham Lincoln: "The legitimate object of Government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves in their separate and individual capacities. But in all that people can individually do as well for themselves, Government ought not to interfere."

Our great President Dwight D. Eisenhower has counseled us further: "In all those things which deal with people, be liberal, be human. In all those things which deal with people's money, or their economy, or their form of government, be conservative."

While jealously guarding the free institutions and preserving the principles upon which our Republic was founded and has flourished, the purpose of the Republican Party is to establish and maintain a peaceful world and build at home a dynamic prosperity in which every citizen fairly shares.

We shall ever build anew, that our children and their children, without distinction because of race, creed or color, may know the blessings of our free land.

We believe that basic to governmental integrity are unimpeachable ethical standards and irreproachable personal conduct by all people in government. We shall continue our insistence on honesty as an indispensable requirement of public service. We shall continue to root out corruption whenever and wherever it appears.

We are proud of and shall continue our far-reaching and sound advances in matters of basic human needs—expansion of social security—broadened coverage in unemployment insurance —improved housing—and better health protection for all our people. We are determined that our government remain warmly responsive to the urgent social and economic problems of our people.

To these beliefs we commit ourselves as we present this record and declare our goals for the future.

Nearly four years ago when the people of this Nation entrusted their Government to President Eisenhower and the Republican Party, we were locked in a costly and stalemated war. Now we have an honorable peace, which has stopped the bitter toll in casualties and resources, ended depressing wartime restraints, curbed the runaway inflation and unleashed the boundless energy of our people to forge forward on the road to progress.

In four years we have achieved the highest economic level with the most widely shared benefits that the world has ever seen. We of the Republican Party have fostered this prosperity and are dedicated to its expansion and to the preservation of the climate in which it has thrived.

We are proud of our part in bringing into a position of unique authority in the world one who symbolizes, as can no other man, the hopes of all peoples for peace, liberty and justice. One leader in the world today towers above all others and inspires the trust, admiration, confidence and good will of all the peoples of every nation—Dwight D. Eisenhower. Under his leadership, the Republican Administration has carried out foreign policies which have enabled our people to enjoy in peace the blessings of liberty. We shall continue to work unceasingly for a just and enduring peace in a world freed of tyranny.

Every honorable means at our command has been exercised to alleviate the grievances and causes of armed conflict among nations. The advance of Communism and its enslavement of people has been checked, and, at key points, thrown back. Austria, Iran and Guatemala have been liberated from Kremlin control. Forces of freedom are at work in the nations still enslaved by Communist imperialism.

We firmly believe in the right of peoples everywhere to determine their form of government, their leaders, their destiny, in peace. Where needed, in order to promote peace and freedom throughout the world, we shall within the prudent limits of our resources, assist friendly countries in their determined efforts to strengthen their economies.

We hold high hopes for useful service to mankind in the power of the atom. We shall generously assist the International Atomic Energy Agency, now evolving from President Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" proposal, in an effort to find ways to dedicate man's genius not to his death, but to his life.

We maintain that no treaty or international agreement can deprive any of our citizens of Constitutional rights. We shall see to it that no treaty or agreement with other countries attempts to deprive our citizens of the rights guaranteed them by the Federal Constitution.

President Eisenhower has given the world bold proposals for mutual arms reduction and protection against aggression through flying sentinels in an "open sky."

We support this and his further offer of United States participation in an international fund for economic development financed from the savings brought by true disarmament. We approve his determined resistance to disarmament without effective inspection.

We work and pray for the day when the domination of any people from any source will have ended, and when there will be liberation and true freedom for the hundreds of millions of individuals now held in subjugation. We shall continue to dedicate our best efforts to this lofty purpose.

We shall continue vigorously to support the United Nations.

We shall continue to oppose the seating of Communist China in the United Nations.

We shall maintain our powerful military strength as a deterrent to aggression and as a guardian of the peace. We shall maintain it ready, balanced and technologically advanced for these objectives only.

Good times in America have reached a breadth and depth never before known by any nation. Moreover, it is a prosperity of a nation at peace, not at war. We shall continue to encourage the good business and sound employee relationships which have made possible for the first time in our history a productive capacity of more than $400 billion a year. Nearly 67 million people have full-time jobs, with real wages and personal income at record highs.

The farmers of America are at last able to look to the future with a confidence based on expanding peacetime markets instead of on politically contrived formulas foredoomed to fail except in a wartime economy. The objective is to insure that agriculture shares fairly and fully in our record prosperity without needless Federal meddlings and domination.

Restoration of integrity in government has been an essential element to the achievement of our unparalleled good times. We will faithfully preserve the sound financial management which already has reduced annual spending $14 billion below the budgets planned by our Democratic predecessors and made possible in 1954 a $7.4-billion tax cut, the largest one-year tax reduction in history.

We will ever fight the demoralizing influence of inflation as a national way of life. We are proud to have fulfilled our 1952 pledge to halt the skyrocketing cost of living that in the previous 13 years had cut the value of the dollar by half, and robbed millions of the full value of their wages, savings, insurance, pensions and social security.

We have balanced the budget. We believe and will continue to prove that thrift, prudence and a sensible respect for living within income applies as surely to the management of our Government's budget as it does to the family budget.

We hold that the major world issue today is whether Government shall be the servant or the master of men. We hold that the Bill of Rights is the sacred foundation of personal liberty. That men are created equal needs no affirmation, but they must have equality of opportunity and protection of their civil rights under the law.

We hold that the strict division of powers and the primary responsibility of State and local governments must be maintained, and that the centralization of powers in the national Government leads to expansion of the mastery of our lives,

We hold that the protection of the freedom of men requires that budgets be balanced, waste in government eliminated, and taxes reduced.

In these and all other areas of proper Government concern, we pledge our best thought and whole energy to a continuation of our prized peace, prosperity and progress.

For our guidance in fulfilling this responsibility, President Eisenhower has given us a statement of principles that is neither partisan nor prejudiced, but warmly American:

The individual is of supreme importance.

The spirit of our people is the strength of our nation.

America does not prosper unless all Americans prosper.

Government must have a heart as well as a head.

Courage in principle, cooperation in practice make freedom positive.

To stay free, we must stay strong.

Under God, we espouse the cause of freedom and justice and peace for all peoples. Embracing these guides to positive, constructive action, and in their rich spirit, we ask the support of the American people for the election of a Republican Congress and the re-election of the Nation's devoted and dedicated leader—Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Verbatim

The only difference between this and my own story is geography and about five years.

~~~~~~~

Why I left the Republican Party

By Manny Schewitz

April 8, 2013

I was raised in a very conservative family in a very conservative part of Virginia, a place where there still isn’t a strip club within at least 100 miles but there’s a church on almost every corner. This is old Dixiecrat country, not far from the snake handling and moonshine country that covers both sides of the Virginia/West Virginia state line. Kudzu vines cover old mom and pop gas stations that were put out of business by Wal-Mart at least a decade ago.

There are very few decent jobs here unless you work for the state or were lucky enough to get a management position at one of the local factories. Teen pregnancy, poverty and meth labs are the norm, not the exception. The factory jobs which allowed for single income households just a couple of decades back–they’re just a distant memory now.

But if you ask what went wrong, most people won’t blame corporations and the endless search for cheap and unregulated labor. They’ll point their calloused fingers at liberals, labor unions, immigrants, regulations and the government. They’ll blame just about anything other than the companies and their lobbyists who moved the jobs to China or somewhere else they could get away with paying a few cents an hour.

I watched the family owned hardware stores shutter up and the weeds grow through the cracks of the textile mill parking lots. The few factory jobs that were left, they usually started just north of the minimum wage and we were told we should be happy to have that.

All this time, I voted Republican and worked on state and national campaigns for them from an early age. After all, it was the way I was raised. We were told that Democrats had sold us out; that they were for the illegals who were “stealing” our jobs, that they were “fag lovers” and perverts who were out to indoctrinate kids and take away our guns. The “re-education camps” and black helicopters conspiracy rhetoric you hear from the lunatic fringe today? It’s nothing new; it comes out with a new spin and a fresh coat of paint every time a Republican isn’t in office.

I’m not sure when the switch flipped–when I chose the red pill over the blue pill, so to speak. I do know one major factor was the cutthroat tactics used by the Bush camp in 2000 to shoot down the McCain campaign. Another was the jingoistic, drum-beating way we were sucked into Iraq post-9/11, or the “Freedom Fries” gimmick, or the time I had my vehicle vandalized for having an anti-Bush sticker on it, and the list goes on.

The thing is, to be a member of the GOP base, you have to be afraid. Afraid of minorities having the same rights as you, worried that some government boogeyman is going to come and take your shotgun away or force your child into gay marriage.

As I got older, I found that everything and everyone I was supposed to be afraid of wasn’t a threat at all. I lived in a 99% poor, black community, worked 2 or 3 jobs to make it in college and realized I had more in common with the people the GOP liked to demonize, instead of the GOP itself.

I believe a real tipping point was the Iraq War. Watching your military friends come back suffering from PTSD (one killed himself) from a needless war we were lied into, that’s a hard thing to deal with.

These days, I’m registered NPA (No Party Affiliation). I don’t like any party to think they can automatically count on me for a vote in an election. Usually, my vote goes for a Democrat, so long as they’re a good choice. Democrats aren’t perfect in my book, not by a long shot, but their policies tend to work for me a lot better.

I’ll sometimes cringe when people like Harry Reid or Joe Biden say something dumb. I voted for President Obama both times and he has disappointed me on some things, but all I need to do is turn on Rush Limbaugh or Fox News to remember why I’ll never again be a member of the Republican Party.

###

The root of all political evil, or Why Conservatives Really Aren't

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”

Although it is universally attributed to John Kenneth Galbraith, other than from Richard Parker’s biography of the great economist and political philosopher, I've been unable to find this quote in context.

Galbraith died in 2006 without having the opportunity to comment further on the continued regression of the once Grand Old Party, but it appears that even some within the Republican inner circle are ready to speak up about the extreme turn that “conservatism” has taken. To understand just how far to the extreme the GOP has traveled one merely has to gaze back a few decades to the pre WW-II, Great Depression days.

Republican Warren G. Harding assumed the office of President in 1921. Four years later saw the ascendancy of another Republican, Calvin Coolidge, followed in March of 1929 by yet another one-term Republican, Herbert Hoover. This period of time ushered in a brief period of laissez-faire economic policy and Poor Hoover was the sucker unlucky enough to occupy the White House on October 29, 1929… Black Tuesday. The Great Depression fell squarely in Herbert Hoover’s lap and led to the rise of the Rooseveltian Democrats and several years of liberal, humanistic leadership in the White House.

The post WW-II Republicans of the 50s took the lessons learned by the failure of free market right-wingers and managed a rebound from two decades of futility. Roosevelt’s New Deal and successful management of the war had done much to strengthen public resolve against the Republicans, but still the GOP continued to hammer the Democrats with charges of socialism and too extreme liberalism.

Sound familiar?

But the Republicans of the 50s were a far cry from the modern extremists seen on Sunday television railing against gays, women, and “entitlements”. As strange as it may seem, there were GOP politicians in those days more interested in the survival and success of a country and her people than the enrichment of a plutocracy. Those Republicans were statesmen with the memory of Hoover still fresh in their minds.

From the 1956 Republican Party platform we find a strange dichotomy of ideas when compared to modern conservatives:

“Our Government was created by the people for all the people, and it must serve no less a purpose.

The Republican Party was formed 100 years ago to preserve the Nation's devotion to these ideals.

On its Centennial, the Republican Party again calls to the minds of all Americans the great truth first spoken by Abraham Lincoln:

‘The legitimate object of Government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves in their separate and individual capacities. But in all that people can individually do as well for themselves, Government ought not to interfere.’

Our great President Dwight D. Eisenhower has counseled us further:

‘In all those things which deal with people, be liberal, be human. In all those things which deal with people's money, or their economy, or their form of government, be conservative.’

While jealously guarding the free institutions and preserving the principles upon which our Republic was founded and has flourished, the purpose of the Republican Party is to establish and maintain a peaceful world and build at home a dynamic prosperity in which every citizen fairly shares.”

The document continues:

“We are proud of and shall continue our far-reaching and sound advances in matters of basic human needs—expansion of social security—broadened coverage in unemployment insurance —improved housing—and better health protection for all our people. We are determined that our government remain warmly responsive to the urgent social and economic problems of our people.

To these beliefs we commit ourselves as we present this record and declare our goals for the future.”

This a far cry from the Ryans and the Rands and the Goodhairs of the modern GOP. One of the most strident conservatives of the post-Eisenhower era was former AZ Senator Barry Goldwater. In a September 16, 1981 speech from the floor of the Senate Sen. Goldwater placed the blame for the rising extremism within his party squarely where it belongs, and he names a particular group that should be held responsible for the mess we now see in Washington, D.C. and statehouses across the nation:

“On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being.

But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.

I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C" and "D." Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?

And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism."

The Republicans at present are facing a similar challenge as the Republicans did toward the end of the 50s. Sen. Goldwater efficiently identified the threat and the modern GOP is perhaps finally recognizing their failure. The Republicans of the 50s were able to wield Truman’s failure to institute more progressive policies and leverage Eisenhower's war record into a win for reasonable conservatism.

At the end of Eisenhower’s eight years Democrats demonstrated that liberals like John Kennedy could lead as ably as a reasonable conservative and did a good job of painting “Tricky Dick” Nixon with the stain of McCarthyism.

But the level-headedness wasn't to last. With the Kennedy assassination and the moves toward racial equality by the LBJ Administration, followed by the defection of the old, Confederate south, Nixon managed to finally gain the White House and the modern age of Republican dirty tricks became enshrined. Nixon and the Republicans of the 70s gladly welcomed the fleeing religionist racists that were once the Democrat base in the south, and over the subsequent four decades the GOP has allowed the bigots to entrench.

The Democrats, in their success, are again fracturing. We are seeing much the same divisions between the far left liberals and moderates in the party that enabled the rational Republicans of the 50s to gain power. The ball is again in the red end of the court. Between now and when this president’s term runs out in 2016 the GOP can choose to push back on the racists… the bigots… and the religionists.

It will take work and determination, but if the reasonable wind of the GOP can shed the “GOPer” cloak, rational conservatism can again rise and once again hold the mantle of the Grand Old Party of Lincoln.

The tail is wagging the dog, conservatives. You have the opportunity. If you want a change it’s up to you to clean your own house.

###

... and speaking of right-wing extremest nuts in the Republican Party...

###

A paucity of sanity

Kooks, buffoons and dangerous idiots.

Vote or die?

Police: Gilbert wife runs over husband with SUV after fighting about Obama's re-election

I'm sure this is only because it's deer season.
Gun store's sales up 400 percent after President Obama re-elected

No worries about this guy buying any guns.
Obama's re-election drives Key West man to suicide, cops say

There is a large disturbance in the force with these people.

###

Where voter ID bills come from, and why they are a bad idea

To begin with we must ask why we are even having this discussion. In the constitutional, democratic republic of the United States of America, we should all hope that the will of the people be represented at the ballot box. Instead of thinking up schemes to deny access, we should be working overtime to ensure that every eligible voter has unfettered opportunity to cast their ballot.

So why are voter ID bills designed to limit access to the ballot box popping up in so many states? Those promoting these bills raise the specter of voter fraud, but so far have failed to produce evidence of wide spread or organized efforts to illegally vote. The few incidences cited certainly do not justify laws that may disfranchise millions of voters.

I’ll grant that there is evidence of isolated instances where fraud has been alleged, but where are the trials and the convictions? Besides, there are laws already on the books to punish voter fraud that are severe enough that they should deter such activity.

Currently there are 23 states and the District of Columbia that allow voters to show either photo and non-photo IDs. Accepted forms of ID include utility bills or bank statements. In these jurisdictions there has been no evidence presented that voter impersonation fraud is occurring.

Where we get into the heart of this effort is that government-issued photo identification requirements have a disproportionate impact on minority voters – voters who might not select a certain political party at the ballot box. The real reason for the voter ID bills is the same as the poll taxes and literacy tests of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries – to deny the right to vote to those not likely to vote for the current ruling party.

A 2006 nationwide study of voting-age citizens by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law found that African-Americans are more than three times as likely as Caucasians to lack a government-issued photo ID, with one in four African-Americans owning no such ID.

In Missouri, the Secretary of State identified nearly 240,000 registered voters who are mostly elderly, disabled, poor, and minorities, who also lack a government issued photo ID. In March of this year a Federal Judge struck down the Republican-backed ballot measure because it would unfairly deny a basic right to a large segment of Americans.

Very much the same thing is happening in multiple states. Already this year strict photo ID requirements have been introduced in well over half the states and have been passed in Kansas, Tennessee, Texas, South Carolina, and Wisconsin.  Bills are going on the ballot in Mississippi, Missouri and most likely Minnesota and is pending in Maine, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.

In each and every case the evidence used to promote the bill is thin and the resulting disenfranchisement is broad. Minorities and the elderly will be the disproportionately affected by photo ID laws.

In every case the bills are Republican backed. Prior to 1964 every effort to disenfranchise voters was Democrat backed. That changed when LBJ signed the voting rights act in 1965. A whole bunch of a certain group of citizens jumped parties that year, but the tactic hasn’t changed – and neither has the intent.

###

Suggested reading:

Davidson, Chandler, Quiet Revolution in the South, The impact of the voting rights act, 1965-1990, Princeton, 1964

Brennan Center for Justice, Citizens Without Proof: A Survey of Americans’ Possession of Documentary Proof of Citizenship and Photo Identification (Nov 2006)

###

The tea bag rebellion yet to come

From a compilation of views on Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar’s loss to Tea Party favorite, former state Treasurer Richard Mourdock…

"If Mr. Mourdock is elected, I want him to be a good Senator. But that will require him to revise his stated goal of bringing more partisanship to Washington.

He and I share many positions, but his embrace of an unrelenting partisan mindset is irreconcilable with my philosophy of governance and my experience of what brings results for Hoosiers in the Senate.

In effect, what he has promised in this campaign is reflexive votes for a rejectionist orthodoxy and rigid opposition to the actions and proposals of the other party. His answer to the inevitable roadblocks he will encounter in Congress is merely to campaign for more Republicans who embrace the same partisan outlook. He has pledged his support to groups whose prime mission is to cleanse the Republican party of those who stray from orthodoxy as they see it.

This is not conducive to problem solving and governance. And he will find that unless he modifies his approach, he will achieve little as a legislator. Worse, he will help delay solutions that are totally beyond the capacity of partisan majorities to achieve."

Mourdock will have a tough row to hoe. Indiana Democrats are hopeful of gaining that seat by running the fiscally conservative Rep. Joe Donnelly, and they have a very good chance of achieving that goal. Mourdock is rather badly disliked by all but the rabid Palinites of the state. While this element seems to represent a majority of Indiana Republicans, there are large numbers of potential moderate GOP defectors.

Mourdock, in his best myopic zeal, spent $2 million of taxpayer money on a failed lawsuit opposing the Chrysler restructuring plan. Had he prevailed in that lawsuit 124,000 Hoosiers would have lost their jobs. Mourdock voiced opposition to the entire auto industry rescue, which Lugar supported. Without that rescue a total of 140,000 Hoosier jobs could have been lost, not to mention the collateral damage to that state’s economy.

My opinion? Lugar would make a pretty good Blue Dog Democrat.

###

Observations of a moderate Democrat

There are some within Congress who act as if it would be a better fate for the United States to collapse in ruin than to allow for even the possibility of a second Obama term.

"I’m sure every member of Congress believes they are doing the right thing, but too many see this as a zero-sum game, where winning requires that the other side loses."

The reining suicide bomber of the House is Eric Cantor (R-VA). In this opinion piece appearing in The Hill, Rep. Dennis A. Cardoza (D-CA) illustrates how one man's petty jealousy has helped lead to the lowest public confidence levels in history, and why the Republicans are their own worst enemy.

"Boehner is captive to this rivalry only because he has no choice but to constantly watch his back. Cantor feeds and exploits the most radical factions in the Republican Caucus, and his jealousy often mires his caucus in ideological impotence. Of course, Democrats are always grateful!"

Events have turned, and because of Cantor's childishness the majority GOP House is being held accountable for the lack of progress its mulishness has caused. Speaker Boehner may be getting tired of it.

"Notably, the offer was issued by both House Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican, and his deputy Eric Cantor, who has often taken a more hardline approach in budget negotiations with Democrats over the past year."

Democrats know what happened, and Rep. Cardoza was being very kind in his The Hill piece. Others have not been so kind (love the photo, Kirsten), and I figure the voters won't be all that kind to the Grand Old Party come November. With a bit of good luck the voters in Cantor's district will recognize how one man's pettiness has very possibly wrecked the House GOP majority, and most certainly prolonged the economic quagmire.

His efforts now appear to have failed, and Mr. Cantor and his Tea Party faction owe a severe debt to a bunch of Americans who have suffered needlessly for the sake of one man's ambition and the focused ignorance of his misguided supporters.

###