It's all Change™ and Unicorns

What an amazing era of change we live in. Two things:

First Item: The only welfare program that I fully endorse is the WIC (Women, Infant and Children) program. It ensure health and nutrition for women and children from the time a woman gets pregnant until the child is five years old.

If my tax dollars have to go somewhere, why not the helpless and innocent?

Even as a single father, they covered my children and I would have been lost without them.
562 million dollars is being rescinded from the program to pay off fraudulent claims of racist discrimination by the USDA to black farmers. Nice going scammers.

Second Item: The Service Employees International Union is a group I definitely DON'T approve of, but they are there and they are big. Nothing to do but lump it.

They have decided to cut health insurance for 6,000 dependent children because of cost increases related to the new national health care program.

After all their bullying, they are sacrificing their peoples' children. Good job bullies.

Who knew that unicorns hated children. Really, I have been trying to stay at least neutral about this new White House administration, but they make it so damn hard.

Now I see a new sign at the White House. The sign reads "For a Brave New World Full of Goodness for You, Abandon Your Children Here..."

I know, Obama, I know. It's Bush's fault. It's always Bush's fault.

Consequentialism

My brother is a smart guy. And handsome. And I love him lots. So when he started talking about how great this guy was, an author named Sam Harris, I wanted to give him a try.

When first my brother started talking about Mr. Harris' ideas and I thought maybe he was just misrepresenting them. They sounded like pretty poor arguments to me. Then I started reading some things from Mr. Harris in articles and his web site. I am not very satisfied with what he is writing so far. I want to hold out for his newest book, The Moral Landscape, but also wanted to comment immediately on something that I read.

It's called consequentialism. It is the theory that the moral rightness of your actions is not determined by your actions or your character but by the consequences of your actions. It is also known as "The Ends Justify the Means." This is a moral theory that Mr. Harris subscribes to. I do not.

I illustrate the fault of consequentialism with the following hypothetical situation. Say two brothers are celebrating Independence Day. They take their handguns into downtown Oklahoma City and fire dozens of shot wildly into the air. The first brother, in addition to some property damage, hits and disables a terrorist who is about to detonate a dirty nuclear bomb. He just saved millions of lives. The second brother hits a pregnant lady on her way to the hospital, killing her and her unborn child. He is a vile homicidal beast.

According to consequentialism, the actions of the first brother are morally right, because it turned out good. The second brother's actions are moral wrong, because they turned out badly. It does not matter that both brothers were in the same state of mind and doing the exact same thing, one of them is right and one of them is wrong. One of them is good and one of them is bad.

If we were all gods, this might be a good theory for us. However, as men, we cannot have absolute knowledge of the full consequences of our actions. We need a human method of determining the correctness of our actions. In my own personal belief, the best human method of determining the correctness of our actions is to evaluate the action itself. While it is true that bad intentioned people can hurt you doing the 'right' thing and good intentioned people can hurt you doing the 'right' thing, it is the only method by which people of limited knowledge can decide what actions are best to take, and be comforted when things don't turn out well.

Also, a society built upon consequentialism would probably eliminate most law, except tort law. As any action can be morally right, it has to be allowed. Citizens of this society would only be able to seek redress for actions that turned out wrong. Citizens concerned over lawsuits may very well take no actions at all for fear of incalculable results.

I urge anyone who takes a superficial interest in consequentialism due to the support it receives from famous authors to seriously consider it's consequences in general and how it would affect their own decision making.

Suffering

It is natural to avoid pain and suffering.

Once burned, we snatch our hand from the flame before we can be burned again.

So why is there a schism about how adults approach suffering?

Speaking in very broad generalization, conservatives and liberals approach suffering very differently and some say that it predicates their entire notions about life.

Conservatives see suffering as a natural consequence of their lives. To an extent, how they live their lives determines how much and what kind of suffering they endure. They believe that suffering can be honorable, worn like a badge. Suffering can be a challenge, giving greater meaning to their achievements. But most importantly, suffering is an unavoidable condition of being.

Liberals, on the other hand, believe that suffering arises from ignorance, avoidable outside influences and alterable imperfections in humans and human societies. Suffering is to be avoided at all costs.

This difference can be seen when discussing policies that are meant to directly affect suffering like schools shifting focus in sports from competition to cooperation leading all participants to receive awards.

For me, I would rather have the courage to bear my suffering and the genuine sympathy of my companions than an indifferent kindness that removes my suffering. To quote C.S. Lewis

Kindness...cares not whether it's subject becomes good or bad, provided only that it escapes suffering.

While love and kindness are not exclusive of each other, kindness without love leads to cruelty.

The Great Debate...Disappointment

I think very highly of debate and argument. They are powerful tools for elimenating false knowledge and strengthening yet-to-be-proven-false knowledge. Debate serves everyone. When done right.

All too often, I get interested in a debate only to watch it devolve into one of the two most insidious irrelevancies. Those being ad hominen attacks and the misrepresentation of opposition's arguments.

Ad hominen attacks take several different tacks and they are all common and all wrong. Let me highlight a few examples.

Ad hominen abuse. This is where an attempt to invalidate a position takes the form of a personal insult against another person where the insult has nothing to do with the subject matter at all. For example, telling someone they are stupid. By casting unrelated aspersions on the character or virtue of your opponent, you hope that their position has been invalidated.

PZ Myers has been held as a supreme example of a person who uses these kinds of attacks. I am not willing to sift through all of his prodigous blog posts to come up with good examples, but a random poke gave me immediate results with his response to a question as follows (shortened for my post's sake)

...you know zip about biology, isn't it rather arrogant of you to be questioning ... science? Aren't you presuming a bit much to be pestering a biology professor ...

Another common fallacious ad hominem attack is the Ad Hominem Circumstantial attack. This one is so common you may be wondering how it could be wrong if it is used all the time. This one is most recently seen in debates about Global Warming. It is used by all sides of the argument. Al Gore is making money off of his position so his vested interests somehow make his arguments false. Deniers are paid by oil companies so that somehow makes their scientific arguments false. The person's circumstances do not in any way validate or invalidate their premises or conclusions.

Another that I would like to point out is the Ad Hominem tu quoque. This is where a person's argument is invalidated because the person acts in a way inconsistent with their point. Attacks against Al Gore serve as another fine example. Citing his huge personal home's energy use and frequent flying as hypocritical proof that he must be wrong.

But the various Ad Hominem attacks can we waded through, like wading through smelly murky swamp water. It's unpleasant and distracting, but it can be done. The worst, and probably most common problem that threatens debate is the Straw Man argument. That is where the opponent's position is misrepresented, making it easier to prove false. For example, the misrepresented premise of Natural Selection's supposed "creative power" as stated by Dr. Hovimd in his Creation Seminar Series. That publication is so full of logical fallacies that I had to use it to educate my son on logic and debate.

Another logical fallacy that I just take for granted is called Contextomy. This is where an opponent is quoted out of context. I am so used to this that I automatically verify all quotes to the best of my ability. Even when someone is quoting themselves. You will be surprised at how poorly people remember what they said as an argument carries on.

Entitlement

Inalienable rights and legal entitlements. What things do we, as humans or Americans have rights to?

We started with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Over the many decades we have added a bit of fluff and we have recently decided that healthcare should be added to the pile of rights.

I like working with absolutes. It frees up the mind from the quagmires of iffy reasoning and rationalizing. I find myself a simple rule and that is my first premise in an argument. It takes a lot of work to get around it.

My simple rules for entitlements is that, first, no one has a right to the products and services of another person. Second, making a law that says it is so doesn't make it so.

I will demonstrate my second point first and then propose a thought experiment for the first point.

Entitlement programs are not coupled with obligatory mandates. Therefore, your rights to services and products do not guarantee that said services and products will be available. Even the most assured resource available to the United States federal government is not in endless supply, tax revenue. It leaves bitter infighting between special interests groups who want their programs fully funded while there is not enough money to fully fund all programs. So, saying it is so just doesn't make it so.

For my first point, that no one has a right to another person's products or services, here are two thought experiments. You could make them real experiments, but if you are honest enough, or watch television programs like Man, Woman, Wild then you shouldn't need to try them.

Strip down a person to their skivvies and drop them in the middle of nowhere. Tadda, they have access to all of their inalienable rights. They don't seem to have welfare payments or health care though.

Now, for all the other entitlements that the legislative body of our government has seen fit to grant us, try this modification.

Drop two folks who don't know each other in the middle of nowhere. Have one individual spend two or three tough days making shelter, providing fire and hunting and preparing food. Have the other individual sit on their butt smoking weed the whole time. On the third day, when the need for munchies completely overcomes the second person, take any weapons the first person may have fashioned for hunting away from them and have the second person demand their entitled portion of whatever the first person has.

It all seems pretty straightforward to me.

Okay, classroom. For homework, read a historical account of Plymouth to find out why William Bradford, one of the leaders of the Pilgrims referred to the redistribution of wealth 'vanity of that conceit of Plato's and other ancients applauded by some of later times'.

Universal Health Care

It's been quite a while since I posted anything. No apologies or anything, that's just the way it is.

I was reading just a few short minutes ago about the resistance to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, colloquially known as Obamacare.

I read one individual's take on this resistance as a fear of change. I don't believe this to be true. Polls, public sentiment, and legislator efforts all point to a nearly universal desire for health care reform.

Another individual's perception, who identified themselves as not an American citizen, viewed resistance as a desire to protect personal wealth and our ability to own more 'stuff'. I also do not believe this to be true and will demonstrate why with figures. Forgive me if you are not American and these figures insult you, but things are what they are.

• Americans lead the world in charitable giving. $306 billion were given by individuals. An additional $38.5 billion in donations were from foundation grants and $15 billion from corporations (2007 figures).
• 39% of Americans volunteer their time for non profit work, second only to New Zealand (2010 figures).
• 71.5% of doctors who work solo or in two-doctor offices offer Charity Care (2008 figures).

Clearly Americans are not as selfish as is popularized by liberal pundits, major media outlets or Hollywood.

Here is my take on it.

My viewpoint is not from a unique circumstance; but perhaps people of my circumstances and perspective are not prone to the vocal outbursts required to weigh in on political issues and be noticed.

Most of my growing up was done in active duty military service. 20 years in the United States Air Force. There are several characterizations that can be given to military communities. Two important ones are a respect for each other, without exception, and esprit de corps. These two elements are decidedly lacking in the civilian community.

Even though our military members are individuals with varying interests, political views and backgrounds, it could be said that they cast one shadow and speak with one voice. Not that they agree with each other on everything, but that they do not divide themselves over these disagreements.

Their civilian brothers and sisters seem so inclined to divisiveness because of a lack of respect and a lack of commonality. While the main ideological divide seems to be personal protections and responsibility versus communal support and security, these are not mutually exclusive positions. But having no sense of group, there has to be winners and losers. Without respect, there can be no appreciation of another's perspective.

The battle is enjoined with buzzwords and rationales, but the battle is not fought because we have ammunition. Sides are drawn over ideologies and we fight because we want to be winners and we want them to be losers.

In an America where citizens respect each other and are united as Americans, we would all be winners, regardless of the value of the legislation. It would either be seen as a small step towards a goal or a large step towards that goal.