Corporatism, Fascism, and Confirmation Bias

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s had three Vice-Presidents during his four terms in office. Henry A. Wallace replaced John Nance Garner in 1941, and was replaced by Harry Truman in 1945. Of the three, Wallace was by far the most articulate in his condemnation of the corporatist agenda that was the Republican Party platform.

In 1944 Wallace penned an opinion piece that would be published in the April 9 edition of the New York Times. The Republicans have never ceased in that agenda, and Wallace's words of over 70 years ago lend perspective to why we find ourselves with the current president, and why his often otherwise reasonable supporters cling so ferociously to the lies that were drummed into their heads.

“The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity…"

"American fascism will not be really dangerous until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information, and those who stand for the K.K.K. type of demagoguery..."

The full piece, entitled The Danger of American Fascism, along with other of his works, may be found at the FDR Presidential Library & Museum website.

I doubt any of my biased Republican friends will read it, or anything that might disagree with what they want to believe, but who knows? They are not necessarily stupid... just confirmed in their bias.

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Liberalism, Libertarianism and Neo-libertarianism

Or how an otherwise intelligent segment of American society has swallowed hook... line and sinker

Our Founders intent was to create a society based on their personal belief that human happiness was intimately connected with personal freedom… and joined at the hip with personal responsibility. Thus we find as the basis of our Constitution the “twin pillars” of limited government and the protection of individual rights. This author is fond of our Founders’ work, which would make me a classic liberal. The authors of our Constitution were called liberals. Folks just like them in Continental Europe are still called liberal. Over here we're often called “libtard” and “socialist”.

It is just unfortunate that the definitions of some words change across educational and political spectra to end up meaning whatever uninformed folk want them to mean… kinda like what they do with the Qur’an or the Bible.  

In this country to be known as liberal is to be branded with a sinful belief in big government and the welfare state… while folks calling themselves libertarian tend to claim the mantle of what was classically known as liberalism… and they do so with a distinctly draconian twist.

In fairness, the other political descriptors have suffered similar meaning morphing. Neither “conservative” nor “liberal” mean what they once meant. But It isn't those “wings” this author wishes to chap. The deluded neo-libertarian is in my sights tonight.

From this author’s perspective, contemporary libertarianism (neo-libertarianism) is a pie-in-the-sky hallucination of a thankfully tiny segment of the population that they should be allowed unfettered individualism even at the expense of our others... and even though the blood, sweat and tears of those very others helped pave the way for our deluded neo-lib to get where he wants to go and gain whatever he wants to get without having to pay his share of societal maintenance. 

It doesn't matter to the neo-con that the contribution of civil society in the form of taxes paid have funded the paved roads, water and sewer systems, public safety, health and education… because we knew those things would bring benefit and progress to our society.

These things don't matter to our neo-con, because yes indeed… he certainly *did* build it himself… and by gawd his kids have already graduated so why should he have to pay taxes to school those grubby urchins churned out by the dozens on the other side of the tracks?

Hell! That’s socialism!

Unfortunately, this *is* modern libertarianism… or more accurately… neo-libertarianism. These selfish fools strive so mightily to take on the mantle of Madison, Jefferson, Hamilton, Morris and Henry, yet they haven't a clue as to just how offensive that idea would be to those men. 

Our neo-cons know not what they do and certainly don’t know what they are saying. They want so badly to keep what they've got that that they are willing to sacrifice the future of society and even that of their children. They expend copious fallacies in their quixotic effort to justify nothing less than base selfishness.

The inverse of neo-libertarianism is classic libertarianism… which actually agrees with our neo-con in the belief that every individual has the right to live life in any way they choose up to certain limits. But depending on which of the various definitions to which you subscribe, that pretty much is where the comparison diverges. 

Unlike the neo-con, the classic libertarian cares for the safety and security of society and of the individuals from which that society is composed. A classic libertarian would be willing to defend the right to life, liberty, and property-rights for all individuals. The classic libertarian recognizes the need for a government to protect and provide security of society, while interfering in individual liberties to the least extent possible. The classic libertarian has no argument with a government established “safety net” for folks falling on hard times under circumstances not of their own making... because they recognize that society is composed of individuals and that at any given time it might be them needing that safety net.

The classic libertarian recognizes the need for the rule of law yet feels that individuals should be allowed the freedom of opportunity, and allowed to form relationships without the interference of law.  They wish the law to confine the use of force by the government to very narrow structures, as it might be when wielded against miscreants who have themselves employed force… as in the case of murder, rape, robbery, kidnapping, fraud and a few other cases.

- - -

Lets look at a few “dictionary” definitions of libertarianism…

Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy

'The heart of liberalism is the absence of coercion by others; consequently, the liberal state's commitment to protecting liberty is, essentially, the job of ensuring that citizens do not coerce each other without compelling justification.'

The Libertarian Reader edited by David Boaz (Free Press, 1997)

'It is easier to define libertarian ideas than to agree on a proper name for those ideas. The advocacy of individual liberty against state power has gone by many names over the century . . . In the first years of the 19th century the term liberalism came into widespread use in France and Spain and it soon spread, but by the end of that century the meaning had undergone a remarkable change. From the leave us alone philosophy, it had come to stand for advocacy of substantial government intervention in the marketplace. Eventually people began to call the philosophy of individual rights, free markets and limited government - the philosophies of Locke, Smith and Jefferson - classical liberalism.

For classical liberals, liberty and private property are intimately related. From the eighteenth century up to today, classical liberals have insisted that an economic system based on private property is uniquely consistent with individual liberty, allowing each to live their life - including employing their labour and their capital - as they see fit.'

What it means to be a Libertarian by Charles Murray (Broadway Books, 1997)

'The American Founders created a society based on the belief that human happiness is intimately connected with personal freedom and responsibility. The twin pillars of the system they created were limits on the power of the central government and protection of individual rights . . . We believe that human happiness requires freedom and that freedom requires limited government.
The correct word for my view of the world is liberal. "Liberal" is the simplest Anglicization of the Latin liber, and freedom is what classical liberalism is all about. The writers of the nineteenth century who expounded on this view were called liberals. In Continental Europe they still are . . . . But the words mean what people think they mean, and in the United States the unmodified term liberal now refers to the politics of an expansive government and the welfare state. The contemporary alternative is libertarian . . .'

Social Justice: Fraud or Fair Go? edited by Marlene Goldsmith, chapter by Andrew Norton (Menzies Research Centre, 1998)

'Classical liberals have a strong commitment to individual freedom. This commitment has, I believe, two sources. First there is commitment to freedom as an intrinsic value, as something important in itself. One idea here, an idea that finds support in the psychological literature, is that well-being is associated with a sense of being in control of one's life. Being coerced to do something, even if it is something you would do anyway if you had a choice, is bad for your well-being.

The second source of classical liberalism's commitment to individual freedom comes from its recognition of freedom as an instrumental value, as a value that leads to well being even if it does not of itself provide it. This is mostly an argument about institutions, and especially the claim that the market, a device which coordinates action by facilitating voluntary interaction, has enormous power to enhance well-being. ...'

On Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism by Norman Barry (Macmillan, 1986)

'The classical liberals, from Hume and Smith through to Hayek, are concerned with the construction of a social order in which individual liberty can be maximized; social order and liberty do indeed develop conterminously. Principles and processes emerge (almost accidentally) from individual action but the individual is never abstracted from social processes, whether as a rights-bearer or, even, as a utility-bearer.'

Free to Choose by Milton Friedman (Penguin Books, 1981)

'Our society is what we make it. We can shape our institutions. Physical and human characteristics limit the alternatives available to us. But none prevent us, if we will, from building a society that relies primarily on voluntary cooperation to organize both economic and other activity, a society that preserves and expands human freedom, that keeps government in its place, keeping it our servant and not letting it become our master.'

- - -

Pretty much a scatter shot of definitions speaking to just how difficult it is to pin political or philosophical labels on others. In the end it comes down to a great debate much like the contest between the philosophies of Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine… between the politics of progress and that of conservation... with neither fully addressing the real threats faced by our society.

But it is probably too late in the progress of this nation to turn our sights on the real threat, regardless of political bent. Our thoroughly liberal Founders, particularly Jefferson, were never so confused. They knew exactly from whence the biggest threat to our society would come. Their fears and predictions have materialized, and just as they feared, American society is suffering dramatically because of it.

Our modern neo-con is the real life… in your face representation of that fear.

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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

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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.

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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:

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Past Lessons Remembered

“…we know without a doubt that Republican ideas of more freedom and less taxes — while sounding good and repeated by any and all candidates – are in fact, worth no more than the paper that they are written on.”

These are words written by 13 life-long members of the Maine Republican Party… officials within the party… as they resigned that membership and walked away from the former Grand Old Party.

In the letter (full text below) dated August 18, 2013, the former Republicans outline many of the same grievances expressed over the past several years by this writer. The defectors feel that the party of their fathers has lost sight of the goal; that there is an element within the modern GOP that has forsaken the true meaning of conservatism and steered the party into the netherworld of bigotry, divisiveness, social engineering, irrational spending and blatant unconstitutional actions. 

That last sentence at one time described Southern Democrats… The Party of Jackson... but those roles reversed shortly after Jack and Bobby Kennedy went to Washington.

The campaign for the Presidency in the waning years of the Eisenhower Administration illustrated all to well a schism within the Democrat Party… with much of the divisive rhetoric emanating from Southern Democrats. Jack Kennedy was Catholic, and there had never been a Catholic elected to high office. The last one to try was Al Smith in 1928. Fear mongers mindlessly and endlessly promoting the trope that the Pope would be running the White House if Smith won proved effective. Southern Democrats sat out the election and Smith was crushed… Hoover took the White House and the nation sunk into the Great Depression. The only winner in that election was bigotry.

32 years later another Catholic found himself fighting the very battles that sunk Al Smith. The dirty tricks weren’t as effective this time and Mr. Kennedy went on to win the Presidency in the closest election in history. Mr. Kennedy won 49.7% of the popular vote to Nixon's 49.5% with Kennedy polling only about 100,000 more votes than Nixon out of over 68 million votes cast. Nixon won more states than Kennedy but the Electoral College awarded the election to Kennedy by a 303-219 margin. The only southern states not called for Nixon were Mississippi and Florida. Anti-Catholic bigotry is blamed for a million and a half lost votes.

Three assassinations, two paradigm changing bills, an impeachment leading to the only resignation of a sitting president and a whole bunch of cross burnings later finds the freedom loving folks of the U.S.A. still fighting the battles of social injustice and fiscal conservatism. The political party names and the memes spouted haven’t changed, but the demographic certainly has. The once fiscally conservative GOP still proudly wears the mantle of conservatism, but has forgotten what that word really means. Many of those calling themselves Democrat still shout for social justice, but their actions seem more inclined toward social control.

Where once the southern bigots were the tail wagging the Democrat’s dog, following a decade of country-shaking events they abandoned the Democrats for the GOP. The Party of Eisenhower became infested with the parasites of the Party of George Gordon and John Clinton Porter.

Those of us in the middle… moderates yearning for a day when the search for social consciousness, constitutional justice and conservative fiscal policy can be balanced by compromise… find ourselves politically homeless.

Of the two available options, some choose simply to check None of the Above, but is that a logical option? The pragmatist’s answer is a resounding NO! Opting out and wasting a vote may make a valiant statement, but it solves no problem. The only real solution is to hold nose, vote for a candidate with whom one cannot 100% agree because that candidate represents a less oppressive path, and then work from within to weed out blind partisanship and taking a stand against hatred, bigotry and divisiveness.

The promise of Eisenhower conservatism has been lost in the swill of religio-political rhetoric, as the modern GOP has become the spend-spend-spend party of no compromise tirelessly struggling to elevate the almighty corporation to the tyrannical level we see today. Damn near every major Republican effort since the McCarthy/Nixon era has concentrated on things and people of which we should be afraid, why we should hate certain elements within our own house, constantly starting wars justifying the need to give more money to the defense industry corporatists.

Every Republican Administration from Reagan through George W. Bush has dramatically increased the war budget, increased the deficit and pushed the country into further debtor status, yet the echo machine perpetuates the myth that the Democrats are the party of tax & spend and the meme that the deficits created by their own party are actually the responsibility for the Democrats. Facts prove this to be a lie, but corporate puppets never let facts get in the way of a good myth while blinder-wearing sheep wag tail and follow.

Last month a Pew study found 54% of self-identified Republicans believed that the GOP should “move in a more conservative direction” and 35% feel that Republicans compromise “too much” with Democrats. Less than half of GOP voters, 40%, say they feel the GOP should become more moderate and 27% felt their party hadn’t compromised with Democrats enough.

The reason we are seeing high profile defections from the GOP is represented by that poll. No reasonable human can fail to notice the blinders of a demographic a third of which believes Republicans compromise “too much”.

Further evidence of the blindness endemic in the GOP herd was evidenced in the results of a Public Policy Poll of Louisiana residents in which a greater number of respondents blamed Barak Obama for the poor response to the hurricane Katrina disaster than blamed George W. Bush.

The full text of the letter referenced above follows. Emphasis I've added it to illustrate where I find agreement. My more liberal friends will likely take issue with the fact that I agree with them on the gun legislation and that the FDA sometimes oversteps, but if so you need to understand that being a moderate means supporting our Constitution, regardless of emotion. 

August 18, 2013

To Maine State GOP Secretary Chuck Mahaleris:

There are times in your life when you must choose between two paths.

The first path, if taken, would require us to remain within the Republican Party despite the fact that we know without a doubt that Republican ideas of more freedom and less taxes — while sounding good and repeated by any and all candidates – are in fact, worth no more than the paper that they are written on.

The second path leads to a principled preservation of our individual integrity, helping out our fellow citizens at the local level, and doing our level best for our Creator, our families, and our friends.

We have therefore chosen to follow the path of the latter.

Effective immediately, we the undersigned are unenrolling from the Maine Republican Party. Furthermore, those of us who hold official Party positions, be they at the Republican National, State, County or even Town Committees, hereby resign. Our reasons for doing so are as follows:

The RNC:

At the RNC, we have fought the good fight and kept the faith with regards to the rules. The Resolution that was passed in January 2013 by the Maine Republican State Committee put the RNC on notice that the grassroots were listening (and watching), leading to the rules battles which have taken place consistently since the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa. The duplicity and lack of political courage which has been on display in this matter has sealed the fate of this Party.

Furthermore, it has become clear to us now that the RNC has no intention of reforming and would rather fly under invalid rules than to right the wrongs of Tampa. We therefore cannot, in good faith, support or defend the actions of the RNC. To violate our consciences and support those actions would make us part of the problem – especially after we clearly provided and handed the RNC the solution which was flatly rejected. The RNC now owns their demise.

Congressional Republicans:

In the House of Representatives, the cowardly leadership of John Boehner reached a new low in December 2012 when he purged the most fiscally conservative GOP members from leadership positions, citing their “unwillingness to be team players.” Political punishment such as this from Speaker Boehner has garnered justifiable rage from conservative groups, and from us, as we expected better.

Furthermore, the House Republican leadership’s utter disdain for the United States Constitution, specifically the 4th Amendment, was on full display as they worked overtime to kill the Amash Amendment which would have gone a long way toward constraining the NSA to the boundaries of the Constitution and seriously curbed their ability to conduct mass surveillance of Americans. Be it known that we cannot and will not support nor defend these actions.

In the United States Senate, we see Republicans all too willing to pass unconstitutional bills related to subjects such as the Internet Sales Tax and Immigration. Whether through arrogance or ignorance, they fail to understand the simple fact any revenue generating legislation must originate in the House of Representatives.

Additionally, the Senate Republicans continue to support undeclared wars, meet in secret and supply arms to our “terrorist enemies” who we vowed to destroy after 911, and then tell us they love our troops – so long as it’s our kids and not theirs who have to go fight.

Lastly, all too many Senate Republicans are more than willing to pass new “feel good” gun control legislation that would do nothing to stop another Sandy Hook massacre, all the while restricting 2nd Amendment rights of law abiding American citizens. We cannot support nor defend these actions in good faith.

Maine Republican Legislators:

In Maine, the Republican legislators in the House and Senate failed to sustain the Governor’s veto on one of the most important pieces of legislation of the 126th. Maine Republicans were justifiably outraged, especially at those legislators who campaigned on lower taxes.

We have been told that many donors have refused to donate one more cent to the MEGOP due to this budget debacle, but nevertheless we are expected to ignore these facts and get out there and raise funds for the party. This we cannot do in good faith; the Republican Party has lost its way and the donors know it.

The LePage Administration:

Not to be outdone by the legislators, this Administration’s support for Common Core Education Standards, the Internet Sales Tax, the atypical meddling in the business of the Maine State Committee, as well as the vetoes of the Drone and Cell Phone bills left many of us incredulous.

However, the straw that broke the camel’s back for many of us was the veto of LD 1282 (the “Raw Milk Bill”) and those who voted to sustain it: a sad day indeed for the small farmers of Maine. We want our God-given rights to buy, sell and consume what we want protected by the law – not restricted by FDA or USDA directives. These actions we cannot explain nor defend in good faith – the Republican Party has lost it’s way.

Therefore, for the above-stated reasons, we can no longer allow ourselves to be called nor enrolled as Republicans; we can no longer associate ourselves with a political party that goes out of its way to continually restrict our freedoms and liberties as well as reaching deeper and deeper into our wallets.

We instead choose the path that focuses on ways to help our fellow Mainers outside of party politics.

Some of us may be town officers or board members. Some of us may leave all options on the table with regards to running for higher office as Independents.

Some of us may be small farmers and gardeners who desire to help feed their communities.

Others may simply want to just get part of their life back, catching up and spending more time with friends and neighbors.

Sincerely,

Republican National Committee Member:Mark Willis, Washington County

Maine Republican State Committee Members:Thomas Barry, Androscoggin County

Ann-Marie Grenier, Cumberland County

Gregory Hodge, Lincoln County

Olga LaPlante, Cumberland County

Russell Montgomery, Knox County

Violet Willis, Washington County

Maine Registered Republicans:

Sam Canders, Penobscot County

Bryan Daugherty, Penobscot County

Maria Hodge, Penobscot County

Randall J. Grenier, Cumberland County

L. Scott D’Amboise, Androscoggin County

Debbie D’Amboise, Androscoggin County

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The difference between progressives and the clay feet crowd

A friend accused me over the weekend of wearing "rose colored glasses." This came because my friend, a conservative, posted a Facebook meme that made little sense. It was one of those "feel good" things that conservatives like to post to confirm a bias that has little factual basis. This one tenuously tied the amount of foreign aid money in the U.S. budget somehow to our failure to take care of our veterans. 

The connection is garbage and I said so, adding a few easily researched facts to debunk the idea. For that I am accused of a too rosy outlook. So this little thesis is for my friend. Maybe he'll read it, maybe he won't.

The difference between progressives and the clay feet crowd

A scientific perspective

Berkeley professors Jack and Jeanne Block began a landmark study of childhood personality in 1968… a year before I graduated high school. The methodology was a bit unscientific and they didn't even start with the intention of measuring political leanings. They simply surveyed nursery school teachers, asking them to rate children's temperaments. The study involved 100 3-year-olds. 1

In 1989 the Blocks returned to their subjects, comparing the recorded childhood personality traits with the adults and relating it to the political proclivities of the now 23-year-old subjects. What they found was certainly interesting.

The adults describing themselves as having liberal or progressive leanings had been children marked by their teachers as developing closer relationships with other children, having more self-reliance, being more energetic, impulsive, and resilient. In short… these children were far more adventuresome and much less fearful.

Inversely, the adult subjects now describing themselves as conservative had been described by those same teachers as shy, fearful, weak, easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, rigid, and inhibited. These children did not deal well with change and the Blocks hypothesized that they found comfort in tradition and reassurance in authority, which transferred into conservative politics as adults.

Taken as it was published in 1989 the Block study would offer too little from which to formulate a theory, but when combined with more recent and far more scientific studies we may have found a peg on which we can hang a hat.

In a far more recent study 2 researchers reported that conservatives and liberals boast markedly different home and office decor. Liberals were messier than conservatives, their rooms having more clutter and more color, and they tended to have more travel documents, as well as maps and flags from other countries. Conservatives on the other hand were neater, more organized with rooms that were cleaner and less cluttered. Conservatives rooms were also more brightly lit and more conventional. Liberals had more books, and those books covered a far greater variety of topics.

Liberals were shown to be optimistic about life yet skeptical of dogma. Conservatives were more likely to be religious than progressives. Liberals leaned toward classical music, blues and jazz while conservatives were more prone to country music, Elvis and Frank Sinatra. Conservative men were more likely than liberal men to prefer serial television programs, movies and talk radio while liberals preferred news programs, documentaries or just reading. Liberal women were also more likely than conservative women to enjoy books.

So far so good, but likely the most comprehensive review of personality and political orientation to date is a meta-analysis of 88 studies involving 22,000 participants.3 This study found that conservatives have a greater desire to reach a decision quickly and stick to it in spite of new information, have less tolerance for ambiguity, were far more resistant to environmental or situational change, and rejected data that did not agree with opinion. Conservatives tended to believe the world a highly dangerous place and have a greater fear of death. On a positive note conservatives scored higher on conscientiousness, neatness, orderliness, duty, and sticking to the rules.

Liberals, according to the results of this project, rated higher on truthfulness, openness, intellectual curiosity, empathy, sensitivity, creativity, thrill seeking, seeking and savoring new experiences and a craving for stimulation like travel, color, art, music, and literature. They were shown to be more open to honest debate and accepting of factual data. The study's authors also say that Liberals are "more likely to see gray areas and reconcile seemingly conflicting information.” Liberals tend to be less fearful of danger and death.

These differences could possibly be explained in simple psychological terms, but they may also be the product of physiologic variations.  In a 2007 study4 using MRI scans, researchers at University College London found that conservative students had an enlarged amygdala when compared to liberals. The amygdala is a brain structure that becomes active during states of fear and anxiety. The study also determined that liberals had on average more gray matter in the anterior cingulate cortex, a region of the brain that scientists say helps people cope with change and complexity.

So is it fear or the inability to logically cope with fear that produces the political conservative? Is it fearlessness or simple curiosity that produces the liberal? Like all of science we can make conjecture but can we ever know? We’ll just have to keep on studying this and learning more as we go along.

If these studies tell us anything we can hypothesize that liberal scientists will discard old theories in favor of new as fresh data become available, while the conservatives will do as they always have and cling to discredited beliefs with great tenacity.

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1 Block, J., Block, J., (2005) Nursery school personality and political orientation two decades later, Journal of Research in Personality

2 Carney, D. R., Jost, J. T., Gosling, S. D., Porter, J., (2008). The Secret Lives of Liberals and Conservatives, Personality Profiles, Interaction Styles, and the Things They Leave Behind. Political Psychology, 29, 807–840

3 Jost, J. T., Kruglanski, A. W., Glaser, J., Sulloway, F. J., Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition, Psychological Bulletin, 2003, Vol. 129, No. 3, 339–375.

4 Kanai, R., Feilden, T., Firth, C., Rees, G., Political Orientations Are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults, Current Biology, Volume 21, Issue 8, 677-680, 07 April 2011

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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.