Trust Political Pollimg

This is the quadrennial season when we get weedy about political polling.  This is also the season when, because it is political polling, some mug feels obliged to question the authenticity of the polls.  The polls are subject to the same defamation that infects most political discourse these days.  There are voices that expect a certain blind yassuh-boss gulping-whole of whatever drivel they’re selling.

Cynicism is easy.  Uncomfortable facts, we think, can be explained away.  Facts are not like that.  Facts are stubborn and ignored at our peril.

All we need is a little perspective.  Perspective in this case requires that we paid attention in math class and have a nodding acquaintance with the rules of logic.

That’s a tall order.  After all, ignorance is honored on many soap boxes and is a prerequisite to membership in some political movements.

That said, everything we need to learn is available to us stress-free.  Neither is it something we can’t learn in an afternoon.  Not that it comes cheap.  You don’t get to criticize if your basic knowledge is informed by half-assed opinion, wishful thinking or the utterances of those who aren’t clothed with expertise in the topic.

Terms like Margin of Sampling Error, Push Poll, Shy Tory Effect, Bradley Effect, Social Desirability Bias and Weighting will get you a long way.

Similarly, logical fallacies such as Post hoc ergo propter hoc and her kissin’ cousin cum hoc ergo propter hoc are useful principles as well.  They mean that just because events happen sequentially or at the same time doesn’t mean they can be linked. In the world of political slander these adages rank highest among the fallacies manifestly deserving of caution.

While we’re at it, correlation is not causation.  It’s the first thing one learns in logic class and the one thing least honored in the world of political gibberish.  Pundits have a way of filling-in-the-blanks between facts.  Two irrefutable facts thereby bookend a narrative of refutable humbug.

Take a look at this chart.  It appears to be all sciencey comparing the age of Miss Americas and homicide by hotness.  Maybe it is a silly example but you can easily see how false equivalence and mean spiritedness can conspire to produce an elegant lie.

When properly designed, polls do not lie.  Pollsters lie.  Poll respondents lie. Poll analysts lie.  Polls do not lie.  The adage attributed to Mark Twain is

particularly apt here: “Figures don’t lie liars figure”.

Here is an analysis of poll data that I call The Bowel College.   It purports to show one Electoral College victory path for Mrs. Clinton.  Mighty goofy but solid design by Nate Silver, It is included here because polls can be fun too.

So … armed with the healthy sort of skepticism and some basic knowledge, we can trust the polls.  With that trust, the news can be more about information and less about being hoodwinked.

Lying Through Our Teeth

In the abstract there may be some excuse for a lie.  As a matter of fact, certain lies are enshrined in law and used every day.  It is okay to lie to a criminal suspect, for instance.  Lies are all around us as claims of “the best” and the “most effective’ swirl around advertising and advocacy of all kinds.  Lies are generally permitted when national security is genuinely involved.

It is more difficult to justify or countenance lies in public and political discourse.  Few of us would even try to say that lying is a good thing in the context of political speech.

If very few of us can find an excuse for lying, what is our response when our guy is caught in a lie?

Mostly, we just change the subject.  We employ a mechanism that essentially says: “You say my guy is lying but your guy lies too.”

See?  There is no justification made here for the lie.  We merely arrange the question in such a way as to divert attention from my guy’s lies to your guy’s lies.  By this mechanism, we don’t bother with some lies by pointing out other lies.

Let me propose that lying is generally both wrong and unjustifiable.  Lies do not cancel one another out.  Rather, each specific lie, no matter the speaker, stands alone and naked as wrong.

The ditty we learned in our youth is instructive here: “Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive”.  In Walter Scott’s epic poem, the lie first told to justify an indiscretion within a love triangle, finds its way inevitably and assuredly to a fight and loss of life that could have been avoided absent the lie.

Lying is bad for us. Just so, tolerating a lie implicates us in that lie.

Echolalia

My friend Mark Harris Virshbo knows the name for everything especially if that thing is a malady of the mind.  One day he told me about echolalia.  Echolalia is the repetition of a word or phrase spoken by another.  Infants do it as they are learning the meaning of sounds.  Otherwise it’s the immediate, meaningless and mechanical repetition of a word or phrase spoken by another.

In psychology, which is Mark’s place of business, echolalia is what crazies do as they walk down the street muttering to themselves or broadcasting some mumbo-jumbo as if there was something soothing or significant in the retelling.

There is no end of echolalia in our public discourse as well.  No sooner has some pundit or other public person characterized an issue, there are those who will parrot it.  Never mind that most of the time these words and phrases are for the purpose of defamation. Never mind that these characterizations are often the output of a focus group with the single charm of dumbing-down an issue of importance.

Reducing issues of importance to short, mostly meaningless words and phrases is bad for us.  It relieves us of studying the matter for ourselves.  It elevates the importance of coining such catchphrases.  And, when they are revealed to be baked in a bull, we have nothing invested. We can let them go as if we had never said them over and over and over and over and over and over.

Gobblefunk*

You was whoopsy-spunkler¹ if you was took kiddlers² see BFG³. It be jumpsquiffling⁴. Frightsome⁵ may be you that kiddlers do zip-fizzing⁶, trogglehumper⁷ or say filthsome⁸. Offer enormous

frobscottle⁹ makings of snozzcumbers¹⁰ exundly¹¹ does phizzwizzards¹¹.

Mark Rylance be time-twiddler¹² fizz-whizzing¹³. Whizzpopping¹⁴ fun.

^{********************}

^*Language of Roald Dahl across his literature  ¹Fantastic  ²Children  ³Big Friendly Giant  ⁴Collossal  ⁵Yucky  ⁶Running Away  ⁷Nightmare  ⁸Dirty  ⁹Downward Bubbling Drink Made From Snozzcumbers ¹⁰Disgusting Vegetables  ¹¹Beautifull Dreams ¹²Immortal Giant  ¹³Brilliant ¹⁴Farts Jokes

Smart Coffee

There are between 6.5 and 7.25 billion people on the planet. All of them are different. Each of them is different from every other one of them. That’s hardly a new thought but one that is comforting.

So here I am having a smart coffee at a cafe on a busy intersection in one of the world’s great capitols with nothing better to do.  People are going by showing off their differences.

That guy standing near the street sign wrangling a schnauzer is not just a lapsed Catholic.  He is not just a 35-year-old with a Ben Gurion haircut.  He isn’t just fond of blueberry smoothies.  He is not just a thousand other things he is not just being or just being.

For, if everyone is different it must also be true that everyone who ever lived is different from everyone else who ever lived.

I doesn't take much to figure that everyone who did live beat some spectacular odds. There are so many permutations that we will soon run out of zeroes to calculate the odds over the generations for any of us with all our unique differences to have been born at all.

The mere act of you being you and me being me requires beating the odds starting at one in 400 trillion (4×10¹⁴); essentially zero. The math is easy with a few assumptions but zero in every case.

And … to make one phenomenon a paradox of another … we mostly come in pairs.  We are drawn to be in relationship with at least one other person.

Okay. I'm just one guy enjoying a smart coffee in a cafe on a busy intersection in a world capitol. All those people going by and I share a special something of incalculable proportions while being utterly unique and paired up to boot.

It’s true occasion for gratitude.

Just Sayin’

Betting On Goliath

Last night we watched a terrific documentary film about Ricky Jay, a scholar, actor and magician.  The documentary is called Deceptive Practice.

In the movie, a martial arts teacher told us about Jay’s tremendous focus illustrating it with a story of some artifice Jay did at a dinner with his fellow Aikido students.  The trick involved folding two one dollar bills together to produce a two dollar bill.  Everyone at the dinner begged Jay to tell them how the trick was done.  Jay, of course, refused.  Just so, he refused on many other occasions to say how it was done. A certain mythology developed about what circumstances it could be done or not done. The students puzzled over how they could con Jay into a position of being unable to perform.

They saw their chance when, after a workout, they presented Jay with two ones while he was nude and showering.  The picture is priceless.  Jay is roundish and gnomish with a slight speech impediment.  Still, Jay performed the trick flawlessly.  To this day, the sensei carries around the two dollar bill to remind himself and his students about the power of focus and of their own inability to tease out how it was done.

The story reminded me of David and Goliath.  The story is well known, so I won’t repeat it here.  Suffice to say that a Philistine giant challenged the Israelite army to single combat to settle certain territorial claims.  Goliath had been causing trouble all during the opening skirmishes in a valley between two mountains.

David was a slinger. Incredibly, when David told Saul he could rid him of this pesky hulk he never mentioned the sling.  Rather, he told Saul he was a bear and lion fighter.

Goliath was accompanied to the valley by a shield-bearer. Upon seeing David, he began taunting calling him a mere boy carrying sticks.

David prevailed that day because Goliath was slow, dim-witted and probably visually impaired.  That’s why Goliath had to be led out. David had one stick (a shepherd’s staff) and hid the presence of the sling.

David ran toward Goliath who was dumbfounded by the move.  When it was too late David produced the sling and fired off one of his smooth stones.  Goliath went down.  David finished off Goliath with Goliath’s own sword.  The Philistines took flight and were routed by Saul’s forces.  The Philistine camp was looted and many invaders died.

David appeals to us even today because he is one of those prized people who was both a warrior and a poet.  This story also shows him to be shrewd and exceedingly blessed.  David’s lineage puts him as a direct descendant of Ruth, the Moabite woman.  It’s important to note that the Moabites were an unsavory lot.  Despite his questionable purity, David was a forebear of Jesus.  David was anointed King when Saul failed.

In the case of Ricky Jay’s deceptive practice, he depends on our slavish regard for both the usual measures of success and insistence on believing only those things we can see.  The story of David and Goliath points to the folly of a slavish regard for the usual measures of success and an insistence on a belief only in what we can see.

 

I’m Just Sayin’,

 

Poppy

Texas Sharpshooter: Adventures in Logic III

Dear Children:

This may be new to you, but bear with me. You will be rewarded.

Correlation does not imply causation (cum hoc propter hoc). That is Latin for "with this, because of this". It is a term used in science and statistics to emphasize that a correlation between two variables does not necessarily imply that one causes the other. Many statistical tests calculate correlation between variables. A few go further and calculate the likelihood of a true causal relationship.

The opposite assumption, that correlation proves causation, is one of several logical fallacies by which two events that occur together are taken to have a cause-and-effect relationship. This fallacy is also known as cum hoc ergo propter hoc, Latin for "with this, therefore because of this", and "false cause". A similar fallacy, that an event that follows another was necessarily a consequence of the first event, is sometimes described as post hoc ergo propter hoc (Latin for "after this, therefore because of this").

You only have to remember the gist: one thing does not cause the other because they occur near, before or after the other thing.

One interesting version of this is in the news every day; the medical news. It’s called The Texas Sharpshooter fallacy. Sorry, there is no Latin word for Texas.

This fallacy posits that if there are at least two factors that present themselves in a large sampling of data, the same conclusion may be drawn as from the whole sample. It’s as if someone shot a million .45 rounds in the broad side of a barn. After examination of the bullet holes, our gunman draws a target around two of them claiming a medal for marksmanship.

It would be funny if it didn’t have tragic consequences. Our brains are wired to look for patterns. That’s how we recognize faces for instance.

Thousands of parents have refused to have their children vaccinated because of this cruel fallacy. A child has autism, that child got vaccinated; vaccination causes autism. It’s not as if parents were making a tragic mistake for their own children but they are also risking exposure to Rubella, for instance, to their children’s classmates. Remind me to talk about Moral Hazard some day.

Not that there aren’t hilarious examples of this as well, Sports radio is full of it. Some talking head notices that Bruiser’s ERA seems to fluctuate with his picture on the first page of the sports section of the paper. That’s fun but no less a load of equines puckes.

I’m just sayin’

Poppy

So’s Your Old Man: Adventures in Logic II

Dear Children:

In the study of logic, there is a fallacy called argumentum ad hominem (against the person). Of course it is often a personal attack but more often it is an attack made against an adversary’s associations, lifestyle, education and parentage. It is a fallacy because such an attack does not speak to the validity of a proposition. Girls aren’t supposed to know anything about math or science. Short people don’t know basketball. Plain people should not be giving fashion tips. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts. You get the idea.

There are many specific brands of the ad hominem fallacy such as Circumstantial when a claim is made by someone who has special or secret knowledge. When someone says they have secret knowledge, that claim may be true or false but the speaker’s credibility is nonexistent.

A proposition may be attacked when the source appears to have a Conflict of Interest. For a source to be authoritative it must be both objective and impartial. The evidentiary weight of an argument diminishes with the benefit that accrues to the source.

Guilt by association is also a fallacy in this category. There is no bearing on the validity of a statement concerning crime from the mouth of a criminal.

But, it’s another special kind of ad hominem fallacy we see around us the most. It is called Tu Quoque; literally “you too”. This, finally, is a subject dear to the hearts of us all; hypocrisy.

We are highly sensitive when it comes to hypocrisy. “Do what I say, not what I do.” We don’t listen to those who fail to practice what they preach. We know for sure that “If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas” attributed to Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac. In modern political parlance, we call such people flip-floppers or worse. You are sensible to be suspicious of such people. Unfortunately, your suspicion does not amount to a refutation of their claim.

Please understand that it must be this way. No less a figure than Jesus has asked us to examine our hearts to see if we are righteous enough to cast the first stone (John 8:7). In logic, too, the sins of a speaker do not say a true thing about the speaker’s words.

If a speaker is wrong, we’ll just have to prove it another way.

I’m just sayin’

Poppy

Straw Man: Adventures in Logic

Dear Children:

Recognizing specious argument isn’t easy. Moreover, we often know something is wrong but we have no name for it. This begins a series about the various ways arguments are distorted.

Now don’t get me wrong. Some things aren’t open to examination by logic. Take matters of faith for instance. If you say you believe in Unicorns you have expressed a belief. No one can tell you that you don’t believe in Unicorns. Nowhere in all the rhetorical arts is it possible to fully know another person’s mind.

And, there are other statements of fact that do not have to be proved-up logically in order to be true. You say it is in the paper today that Bruiser hit two home runs. Such a statement is likely to be true.

It’s the statements that are offered up as reasoned and true that I want to discuss here. In these cases, statements used to argue a particular position are always subject to the crucible of logic.

One of my favorites is called Straw Man. It is a fallacy one finds everywhere. But first, let’s understand a principle of logic called argumentum ad logicum (argument to logic). A proposition is not false because the logic used to prove it is invalid. In other words, we cannot say that something is false and base it on the notion that the proposition was not proved with impeccable logic. That’s just fair. Understand that a statement may be valid even though it was wrongly argued.

That's right.  We are in the business of arguing such points rightly so that we can make a judgment about validity.

That’s where Straw Man comes in. Straw Man is a particular version of argumentum ad logicum that refutes an extreme version of someone else’s argument rather than the actual argument he or she has made. For instance, if some outrageous description of the other’s statement is false, what he actually said must also be false. Politics is rife with this fallacy.

Senator Snort: This fighter jet strikes me as frightfully expensive.

Senator Blather: Senator Snort is such a penny-pincher. He would leave our country defenseless.

Do you see? Senator Blather has fashioned a cartoon version of what Senator Snort had to say. Then, because penny pinchers and those weak on defense are silly, we needn’t listen to him. In no way did Senator Blather actually engage Senator Snort’s statement.

Here’s another one: “We know that evolution is false because we did not evolve from monkeys”. Never mind that evolution does not aver that humans evolved from monkeys. That’s a straw man. Make up something false to knock over and, in so doing, belittle someone who wants to engage on a serious topic.

With a little practice you will recognize this fallacy in everyday life. See if this one is familiar:

Mom: Today we’ll clean out the closets. They are looking messy.

Kid: We cleaned out the closets last Easter. Must we clean them every day?

Mom: Who said anything about every day? You just want to keep your crap forever. That’s ridiculous.

There are two straw men in one short argument. The important thing to note here is that nothing was accomplished.

I’m just sayin’

Poppy

Tramp Gramp

Dear Children:

It’s been more than seventeen months or so since a posting on these pages.

My intention was to blog the zany stuff that happened in the 112th Congress. Instead, we were treated to the most numbing disappointment possible. It no longer looked like any fun. Instead of law-writing shenanigans we got parliamentary shenanigans. Instead of enjoying the more colorful characters, we heard from the ideological and dim ones. Instead of the tax and deficit-reduction debate we were promised, we got a repeat of the culture wars fought in the seventies and eighties as well as well as contempt for the settled law of that period. Instead of tossing out Speaker Pelosi for her arrogance, we got a new parboiled Speaker. Instead of a lively debate turning on the role of government, we got buzz words and irrefutable proof that liars can figure.

Instead of a reverence for The Constitution we got the fifth grade Readers Digest version of The Constitution. It has been carefully bowdlerized for our protection. Instead of principled discourse about religion's place in the public square we got the Sunday school song version and a hundred-word-vocabulary rendering of the Judeo-Christian scriptures. Islam and Mormon teachings get less attention. We're burdened with bumper sticker insights, cruel jokes, inside snides, snark and a wink/wink mentality when it comes to polite conversation. Our public manners are atrocious.

Help! This is stuff we do not need. The language has gone all twisty and uncertain.

For those who are pathological on the left or right, let me hasten to add that all our political and religious wings have nurtured this nonsense and delighted in its fruit. We make up things our founders might have said if they lived in our time. We leech all context out of what our founders did say. In fact, every dead politician is fair game for those who have a point to make and don't care whose graves are trampled in the process.

Consider this singular fact: the buzz words we use come from the buzz word factory; mass produced in such quantities that they appear as if from nowhere and linger only for as long as they are needed. "Job killing legislation" leaps to mind. "The backs of seniors" qualifies as does "the right side of history". The marketplace of ideas has been replaced by a spigot of hot-button words.  Check that: it’s more like a fetid puddle of hot-button words.

Only the fringes of issues are supported. Whole industries have sprung up in Washington, DC and the state capitols to protect some corner of some issue and to influence policy, law and regulation. No assault however thin goes unchallenged. Positions are hardened and re-hardened to the point that only adherence to the most stringent formulations of the issue are permitted. By this time, if you want any representation on any issue, your only option is to sign on with the fringe. Do not try to find a middle-ground. There is none.

If you feel manipulated: congratulations. Informed people do not like feeling manipulated. It is also true that caring people will not enslave or be enslaved. Thoughtful people will cling to the hard kernel and practical applications of their faith; charity, honest dealing and worshipful decision-making. Strong people are servants to the weak.

So what? None of this is new. Political, ethical, religious and social thinkers have espoused these ideas for millennia. Unfortunately, caring and ethical ideas are rendered toothless by what passes for advocacy. Grasping for and service to power is both brutal and normative.

Just so, those same sages have discussed why an ideal in government and public business gets brushed aside so often. After all, these ideals are meant to be liberating.

We have come to the cruel understanding that it is good people trying to live their lives in peace who enable the cynical manipulators. Manipulators rule because concepts of peaceful order are messy and unreliable.

How sad. If it is true that the manipulated have a hand in their own oppression, what force can prevail in opposition? How can we both live our lives in peace and keep the manipulators at bay?

Consider the hobo; men who, during the first third or so of the twentieth century, looked for work all over the country. They got around by the dangerous expedient of empty railroad box cars. That was roughly all I knew about Hobos until I was given 300 cigar boxes

The ensuing panic about what to do with so many otherwise useless containers has led to an interest in so-called tramp art or hobo crafts. The jug band guitars, the purses, frames and such we’ve made recently is reflective of that. It has also led to the discovery of the wonderful world of cigar box illustration,"travlin'" songs, much of our rich chain-gang music and songs about heaven like "Big Rock Candy Mountain".

The hobos also left signs on buildings and fences for their brothers who followed behind. The signs were deeply practical like the one that means "judge lives here, you will be beaten".

One graffito in particular caught my eye. It was the sign of The Cross of Christ. This is a universal symbol of a faith community; followers of Jesus. In this context, the meaning is quite different and not-at all-subtle. It means "Religious talk will get you a hand-out". For some people, merely hearing the right words is sufficient reason to give up thoughtfulness and free will. After all, charity is a duty. Cooperation with a manipulator, on the other hand, is a breach of good sense.  Do you catch the difference?

As difficult and unclear and squishy as that is, take a lesson. Know when you are being shucked and jived even if the shucking and jiving makes you feel better. A manipulator may be at work.

I'm just sayin'

Poppy

www.poppylbs.blogspot.com

Catch XXII Redux

Dear Children:
It didn’t get much ink given the sturm und drang of the last two years, but Senate leaders have come to an informal compromise over Rule 22; the rule covering the use of the filibuster discussed previously. Don’t think that tenderheartedness has broken out, though. The accommodation results from a new situation on the ground, so to speak. This Senate now has 53 Democrats and 47 Republicans which puts the possibility of cloture out of reach for both parties. Filibuster as a delaying tactic as opposed to a killing tactic is off the table. In other words, a filibuster would take the form of the filibuster of old where a member needs to identify himself and hold the floor for the tactic to work. The chance of it becoming a party-wide tactic is diminished.

Mr. McConnell and Mr. Reid looked out from Lookout Mountain and saw a Senate where nothing gets done. This was the situation that existed in the second Clinton administration and directly resulted, along with a booming economy, in the paying down of the national debt at an extraordinary pace. God forbid that should happen again.

So they tried it out on the Aviation Policy Bill. Aviation Policy has been bouncing around the Congress since Mr. Reagan broke the Air Traffic Controller’s Union.

You’ll be happy to know that Chicken Little was wrong. When the measure came up, Mr. Reid permitted a flood of amendments from the floor including repeal of healthcare. None of the amendments passed because the Aviation Policy bill had been thoroughly vetted in committee over the last two and a half decades or so.

This was just the first try of what Senator Schumer called procedural civility.

There are a number of things in its favor, not the least of which is the Presidential election. For the mid-terms, most Republicans ran against Nancy Pelosi’s heavy-handed tax/spend ways and healthcare. Mr. Obama is the likely issue in 2012.

Anything can and will happen. For now, though, a little peace is welcome.

I’m just sayin’

Poppy
http://www.poppylbs.blogspot.com/

Characters Welcome: Ralph Hall

Dear Children:

For those of you who prefer a few facts to inform your positions, Ralph Hall Republican from the 4th District (Rockwell) of Texas, may not be your man. That’s nothing remarkable in the lower chamber and would not warrant our attention if he weren’t the new Chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee. That particular committee is charged with encouraging “scientific advancement" as "one of the keys to U.S. competitiveness in a global marketplace." We will look into the specifics later.

For now, attend to the notion of a reliable vote in Congress. We have already learned how the seniority system works. Please apply all the negative aspects of that system to this character. Believe the hype. A reliable vote coupled with a chairmanship is the most valuable thing a lobbyist can own short of the Speaker. Do not think, however, that Congressmen are “owned” in the sense that they are obliged to do whatever their lobbyist “owner” requires. The system is much more subtle than that. In your mind form an atom with a nucleus and orbiting electrons. The dense material is a vote while the electrons that circle are The Congressman, the lobbyist or interest group and money.

The reliable vote attracts and holds the Congressman, the money and the lobbyist. It forms a very stable system. Everything is in balance and no one can tell what brings about that balance. Did the Congressman come first with his natural political inclinations and moral gyroscope or did the lobbyist make a persuasive case for one position or another? Or, is money the stabilizing force as between Congressman and lobbyist? I don’t know and I don’t care.

The fact is that a set of circumstances have come together to make a reliable vote possible. That reliable vote, in its turn, replicates itself endlessly over the thousands of issues that bawl and holler for attention each year over the 30 years since Mr. Hall went to Washington.

Figuring all this out can be daunting. The National Rifle Association and the Israeli Political Action Committee are well known as is the National Education Association and The American Hog Producers. They each have their own ratings that are a pretty good at clueing us to reliability on the gun, Zionist, teacher and oinker fronts. But what is The Eagle Forum and (I dare you) what is the Alliance to Stop the War on the Poor? Maybe you can guess what Arc is up to.

Whatever you may think these outfits are about, their ratings are very important in the reliable vote sweepstakes. Mr. Hall is a prince among reliable voters. To be sure, most members of Congress are reliable voters. The system works to make the money flow, the lobbyist employable and counting the Congressman’s nose in advance of a vote is made tranquil and effortless.

It also obviates the pesky rigors of persuasion, attentive listening or thoughtfulness. That’s where Ralph Moody Hall comes in. To put this particular character in the chair that oversees the government’s science and technology effort is a painful reach. He was once quoted as saying that he could do anything his grandson’s computer could do – wait for it – only slower. He was also the elegant gentlemen who got perilously close to killing the Science and Technology bill last year by inserting a provision that permitted federal employees to view porn on their office computers. He has serious questions about global warming fears. Why? You see, he has these serious questions and doubts man’s activities could affect nature one iota.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t know nothin’ about no global warming. I do expect more from those whose decisions will affect your Hawaiian Tropic expenditures.

I’m Just Sayin’

Poppy

www.poppylbs.blogspot.com

Characters Welcome: Fehlleistungen

Dear Children:

It’s amazing what one can learn flipping through an old and familiar book. In this case the flipping was motivated by some initial flipping through a book picked up absent-mindedly. One thing led to another. Clear?

Anyway, all that flipping lead to the conclusion our Congressmen and Congresswomen don’t deserve close scrutiny. As much fun as snark can be, it only works when we presume the butt of the joke had it coming. They don’t. Your standard Congressunit is a rather ordinary person equipped with an outsized ego in much the same way as strippers are ordinary people with underdone egos. Both stimulate assumptions that are mostly false.

Winston Churchill, when he was elected Prime Minister already had thirty electoral campaigns under his belt spanning the forty or so years he spent in politics. He reported a great regret. He had wasted a whopping eighteen weeks of his life on the stump. Winston Churchill was never ordinary and was never over worked like our politicians. Over working our Congress makes it worse. Asking them to raise money every waking moment compounds the folly. The folly issues from the need to be a reliable vote to some interest group that can vouchsafe one’s reelection. The system is nuts. No wonder much of what comes out of their mouths is garbled, monotonic and middling. It’s no wonder we can’t seem to cooperate. When there is little oxygen to the brain and one’s sense of self resides in a K Street ledger it’s hard to be thoughtful.

And, we get a big slice of parapraxis. Parapraxis is coinage from a translator to convey “fehlleistungen” a German word that literally means “misperformance”. Most people call it a Freudian slip. It’s a condition brought about by a repressed urge finding outlet in speech. A man may say to a woman, “Yes, I want bed and butter”. Dr. Freud found these utterances highly significant and worthy of our attention. We don’t give it much heed of course because it’s poor manners to point out such things in polite company. Still, one sees it every day when someone has their mouth on auto pilot – like in the Congress.

Did you hear the Congressman say, “I resent the gentleman questioning the Speaker’s mendacity”? Of course he wanted us to hear “veracity” but he said mendacity too many times, like little people exiting a clown car.

Maybe you heard a Congresswoman say, “Everyone should be an affectionado of California wine.” If affectionado were a word it would mean the same thing except the lady was so abashed, she left the lectern. Hmmm.

This stuff doesn’t happen when we write our own speeches and pore over our word’s effect on others. It happens when parrot -reading a tone poem of some junior staffer or mouthing the bullet points of a lobbyist. Just so, the conditions persist when interviewed by a talking TV head – eyes fixed on the middle distance, blinking like crazy and, God forbid, don’t answer the question directly.

We need to free up our representatives to think, discuss and agree. The corrosives effect of campaign money needs to be taken out of play. The 15 and 30 second spot needs to go the way of Mr. Ed. The campaign bus with its bloated entourage and trailing reporters is plain silly. We are wearing our leaders to a frazzle.

Let’s get our political leaders flipping though some old books to see what new might be there. Think of the potential; informed, internalized Churchill, Freud, Amos and Hosea. Let’s switch our demands from telegenic to thoughtful. Maybe we could value reasonable over intimidation. We may get those things if we turn off those soul-stealing cameras. The posturing and the vapidity just might go with them. We can’t properly judge them until they write their own speeches to justify their votes. Then we’ll have the complete package.

I’m Just Sayin’

Poppy
http://www.poppylbs.blogspot.com/

Characters Welcome: Spencer Bachus

Dear Children:

Today we begin in earnest to examine the potential shenanigans in the 112th Congress. At the risk of appearing partisan, we’ll start with a few of the incoming chairmen in the House. As you know, the House is a stickler for the rights conferred by seniority. The tradition can be defeated after great pains and is usually granted to a less senior member because the ranking member passes or is egregiously and publically incompetent.

There are few committees this term where seniority works to evoke that gesture with the shoulders and palms up. You remember that gestures from when Michael Jordon sunk three three-pointers in a row. It says, “Don’t ask me.”

Mr. Spencer Bachus, a 62-year-old lawyer and Republican Representative from Alabama’s sixth Congressional District has toiled without complaint for 18 years to rise to the chairmanship of the House Financial Services Committee. Take note here of the Alabama connection. The great State of Alabama has a lock on financial services legislation and oversight of financial services regulation. Richard Shelby Senior Senator from Alabama is ranking member of the Committee for Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. Alabama has a financial services sector that would fit into the odd file drawer on Broad Street. Both Houses have these committees tasked:

"[To oversee] all components of the nation's housing and financial services sectors including banking, insurance, real estate, public and assisted housing, and securities."

Mr. Bachus makes no bones about the silliness of that task:

“In Washington, the view is that banks ought to be regulated, but my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks.”

We ought to offer the benefit of the doubt and assume that this is a principled position on the issue. Maybe we should also ignore that Mr. Bachus (like no other Representative) relies heavily on financial services campaign contributions. And, maybe we should ignore that Mr. Bachus runs mostly unopposed making it possible for him to use those millions he gets from Wall Street every year to subsidize his poor relations in the House. This has the effect of buying him influence greater than his grasp of the job and, frankly, his reputation as an intellectual lightweight. He just beat back a chairmanship challenge from Mr. Ed Royce of California on just that basis.

It isn’t those things at all. He is one who has toyed with the idea of shutting down the government this spring or summer. Never mind that a resolution to freeze the debt ceiling or failure to pass a budget has little chance of passage. Never mind that just the prospect of that sort of vandalism is enough to roil markets for months. Never mind that the American people deserve better. The suggestion is, at once, hair brained and deeply condescending.

Legislators should legislate, not be an instrument of policy. The same people (Mr. Bachus among them) who rail against activist judges are guilty of chipping away at the power of the Executive, not through law or threat of law but through harassment and disapprobation. The challenge has been laid down several times: If you haven’t got a workable solution to the debt crisis, sit back quietly until one comes along. We ought to have had enough by now of the cant and rant which offers fixes that can’t be done, won’t be done or assigns blame by the ton.

The only answer is for the adults in the Congress to put their heads together with the adults in the Administration and hammer out a program that we can follow together. The time is now.

I’m Just Sayin’,

Poppy
http://www.poppylbs.blogspot.com/

Characters Welcome

Dear Children:

Soon we will begin a series of posts about the committee chairmen in the House of Representative as well as some of the more colorful characters who are ranking members.

For those of you waiting for snark, this will be the the place.

I'm Just Sayin',
Poppy
www.poppylbs.blogspot.com

The King's Speech

Dear Children:
I’m convinced that Mr. Bush would have been more or less universally lauded for his mugging of Iraq had he been able to control civil society once Saddam Hussein was on the run.

You may remember the welcome our troops received on the streets of Baghdad; the triumphant pulling down of the statues and the revelation of opulent palaces. Also remember that days after the welcome, government ministries and other corporate offices were looted rather thoroughly and irreparably. Shortly after that, some old religious scores began to be violently settled. It started with Christian liquor stores and quickly spread from the Shiite slums to leafy Sunni neighborhoods and hasn’t yet stopped.

Into the chaos leaped Iran (Shiite protection) and Saudi money (Sunni and Wahabi protection) and criminals (the protection rackets and others) as well as al Qaeda (all purpose nut jobs). It made for a heady brew.

In fairness, Mr. Bush’s hands were tied because he didn’t have the manpower. Among the lies he was told was that we could leave the people without an army, without police and without civil institutions because a shadow government was already in place. He also couldn’t disarm the populous because the populous was accustomed to doing without. Oh yes, don’t forget the mantra: “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people”. He was also told that Iraqi oil revenues would pay for the war. He was told there were weapons of mass destruction on the premises. He was told all manner of malarkey and he told it to us.

Just so, Saddam Hussein made sure everyone had a gun and a triple dose of paranoia after his policy of lies and half truths failed.  Tehran licked it's chops from the beginning.  The Saudis was delighted to see Syria shut off from Iraqi oil.

Be that as it may, criminals, religious zealots, politicians with guns and kids with a zest for havoc met no opposition. A culture that raised Stone Age cities, conceived the first agriculture and actually saw the bosom of Abraham was stripped of her leaders and professional class, looted of her artistic patrimony and burdened with the burial of her dead.

To think that such destruction issued from a few words spoken in a few capitols around the globe (including Baghdad and Tehran) is no intellectual leap. In fact, to think that the damage issued from something other than words is whistling Dixie. Everything save hurricanes and bear attacks issues from words.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The quotation comes from The King James Bible John 1:1. Curiously, there are no competing translations. It means, I hope, that Moses’ big idea was that words are the source of all things. Consider Genesis 1:1-5

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Don’t get your panties in a bunch, kids. Poppy is unqualified to make a theological argument. I am arguing that the current debate about the consequences of words was settled a very long time ago. A "word" is that by which we communicate our will; by which we convey our thoughts; or by which we issue commands; the medium of communication with others.

Nor do I subscribe to the idea that anyone in particular ought to take the fall for recent events. And, while we must unreservedly protect from prosecution ugly public words on First Amendment grounds, we need not condone them. Similarly, excusing incendiary speech on the basis of frustration, anger or grief begs the question. Words matter.

I’m just sayin’,
Poppy
http://www.poppylbs.blogspot.com/

Comments on Comments

Dear Children:

It’s natural to be upset about the recent events in Tucson, Arizona where a gunman killed six people and wounded a dozen more. While the police may know his motives, we know this gunman went to a public place with the intent to commit murder.

We also know from his writings in social media that he exhibits a deeply muddled sense of causality and discrimination. But, being confused does not make for murderous intentions. Don’t look over here for an explanation of murderous intentions.

Nevertheless, I was struck by a couple things found in CNN,s “This Just In”. You may know that This Just In puts out raw and unfiltered reports about breaking news stories for those people who like to be up-to-the-minute. It also provides a place for people with a computer to put their two cents worth in. I almost never look at This Just In for those very reasons. Still, I was motivated to both go there and to read the comments.

The local Sheriff rated a paragraph:

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik used a nationally televised press conference to condemn the tone of political discourse in his state. He charged that public debate is now "vitriolic rhetoric," which has rendered Arizona "the mecca for prejudice and bigotry." Dupnik suggested that such rhetoric can have deadly consequences.

At first glance it seemed incredible that a Sheriff answerable to the voters would use such words to describe his community. Plus, after all we’ve been through with hypersensitive Muslims; somebody used a holy place to describe a magnet for prejudice. But nope, come the next day, he upped the ante:

“I think we're the tombstone of the United States of America," Dupnik said of The Granite State … “

He also had lots to say about ideology-based radio and television. We’ll save the question of idiot fringe media for another day. On the question of whether Pima County residents are particularly susceptible to vitriolic rhetoric he is clearly and naively wrong. We know that because of what’s in the comments -- hundreds of them. Loonies are found in every county, city and hamlet in this land.

There is no way to characterize the commentary on political grounds. Of course there were conservatives, liberals, libertarians, LaRoucheys, trivializers of all stripes, strict constructionists, very strict constructionist, super strict constructionists, progressives, populists and maybe even a whig or two. What can be said about a super majority of them is a meanness of spirit; that vitriolic rhetoric Sheriff Dupnik was talking about. Their purpose is blame. Their currency is blame. Their scriptures are blame. Someone or some system must carry the responsibility for anything that works contrary to their wishes.

Boy oh boy, do they have their stories. Sarah Palin is to blame because she “targeted” the 20th Congressional District of Texas. Progressives can’t stand the Bluedogs. Psychiatry coddles the dangerous. The cops have been disarmed by bleeding hearts. Conservatives are heartless haters. Schools have let us down. Churches are no longer relevant. The patriot movement preys on the weak. Government is too intrusive or not intrusive enough. There was a lot of blather about guns. Television, video games and popular music are tearing at the fabric of society. Glen Beck is a cretin. If only we’d listened to Glen Beck. You get the idea.

What was missing in these comments was a sense that something dreadful had happened; namely murder and maiming by glock and narcissism. Beyond ruining too many lives, no ideological, political, religious or social purpose was served. And, while there were strictures offered there was no horror at the gravity of the crime.

There was plenty of thoughtful reaction by our political leaders. Make no mistake, though, a way of speaking has taken hold that is ugly and pointless. The republic is the lesser for it.

I’m Just Sayin’

Poppy
http://www.poppylbs.blogspot.com/

The Woods are Lovely, Dark and Deep

Dear Children:
Our politicians don’t quote poetry any more. Senators Everett Dirksen, Robert Kennedy, Alan Simpson and Robert Byrd were about the last of those who could be counted on for appropriate verse.  We’re not sure whether this state of affairs is a result of current politico's assessment of our capacity to understand the art form or if they’ve taken an assessment of themselves. Either way, the loss to political discourse is profound.

Granted, poetry requires learning a short glossary. Let’s be confident, though, that anyone who can learn fo’ shizzle, gym hares and ROFL can learn metric foot, consonant cluster and synecdoche.

Nor is poetry inaccessible. It doesn’t have to be snooty. Consider Ogden Nash,

Praise the spells and bless the charms,
I found April in my arms.
April golden, April cloudy,
Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy;
April soft in flowered languor,
April cold with sudden anger,
Ever changing, ever true --
I love April, I love you.

Or Louisa May Alcott

Little shadows, little shadows
Dancing on the chamber wall,
While I sit beside the hearthstone
Where the red flames rise and fall.
Caps and nightgowns, caps and nightgowns,
My three antic shadows wear;
And no sound they make in playing,
For the six small feet are bare.

Or that master of the clerihew form, the champ

Who floats like a butterfly
And stings like a bee?
It is me
Ali

Poetry celebrates paradox and recognizes ambiguity as natural. Maybe that’s why we don’t hear it so much. The holding of paradox in one’s mind might be the definition of maturity; to at once adore the beauty of God’s creation and recognize the importance of competing responsibilities. Robert Frost inspired a generation of political leaders on both sides of the aisle with words like these:

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

As the mouth fills with stunning sound and the mind fills with the ache of  contradiction each of us knows so well, we have the stuff of poetry.

This is just a thought: Poetry requires carefully chosen words as well as an appreciation for carefully chosen words. Maybe we should settle for a little thought before we demand that any of it rhymes.

The opening ceremonies of the 112th Congress had a certain – let’s say – inanity the Sominex people would love to bottle. If the words were carefully chosen, they were arranged leached of all soul, promise and meaning. Wallpaper music, stripped of melody, drooled from the podium of the House to form a puddle of vapid insignificance. There was no poetry and nothing quotable.

I’m Just Sayin’

Poppy
http://www.poppylbs.blogspot.com/

Crowd Control

Dear Children:

Many times on these pages I have asked you to watch out for certain people. Mostly we have talked about the avatars, those with special knowledge, the simplifiers, the slick promoters, the bowdlerizers and those whose only plea is to trust them. This is an important topic and, if you’re tired of hearing about it – tough. The world is ripe.

History is rich with guidance in this matter. Too many times we have looked back at those we followed so blindly and asked: “Why did we do it?” One supposes that to be a legitimate-enough question. A question more likely to get at the truth is, “Why did we love him so much?” Do you get the distinction? Categorical obedience comes from love, unenthusiastic obedience issues from cynicism or gutlessness. Put that way, it’s easy to pick oneself out. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a churchman and great conscience of the mid-twentieth century, put it this way from his Nazi prison cell:

"If we look more closely, we see that any violent display of power, whether political or religious, produces an outburst of folly in a large part of mankind; indeed, this seems actually to be a psychological and sociological law: the power of some needs the folly of others. It is not that certain human capacities, intellectual capacities for instance, become stunted or destroyed, but rather that the upsurge of power makes such an overwhelming impression that men are deprived of their independent judgment, and ... give up trying to assess the new state of affairs for themselves."

Even as his assassination drew near, Dr. Bonhoeffer put the case mildly. H. L. Mencken, a journalist and anti-cleric, never suffered from such modesty:

"The individual man, cheek by jowl with the multitude, drops down an intellectual peg or two, and so tends to show the mental and emotional reactions of his inferiors. The crowd, as a crowd, performs acts that many of its members, as individuals, would never be guilty of. Its average intelligence is very low; it is inflammatory, vicious, idiotic; almost simian. Crowds, properly worked up by skillful demagogues, are ready to believe anything, and to do anything.
The numskull runs amuck in a crowd, not because he has been inoculated with new rascality by the mysterious crowd influence, but because his habitual rascality now has its only chance to function safely.
What happens when a crowd cuts loose? ... The few superior men in it are not straightway reduced to the level of the underlying stoneheads. On the contrary, they usually keep their heads, and make efforts to combat the crowd action. But the stoneheads are too many for them. ... And why? Because they are suddenly conscious of the power lying in their numbers. The third rate man, though he may wear the false whiskers of a first rate man, may always be detected by his inability to keep his head in the face of an appeal to his emotions. A whoop strips off his disguise."

Just this morning the Mencken quote flew overhead quite by chance as this topic again cried for attention … funny how that happens. And, accounting for the age in which the two quotes were crafted, young ladies may not think it applies to them. It does.

All this talk of the mob and herd-mentality begs the question of the alternative. The truth is that shouting “Heil Hitler” is easy as is drinking Kool Aid offered by some huckster or following a smooth talker to a commune. There are lots of lesser examples not the least of which is empty-calorie partisanship. It is difficult, on the other hand, to be in relationship with another individual person. It is hard to be responsible for a family. Friendship is often dodgy. Sharing can be risky. Faithfulness is not for the faint.

You gotta wonder when you see someone who prefers his dog to human interaction. Wringing one’s hands over the faceless poor is not the same as feeding and clothing real people. Carrying a placard one time in a billion got someone out of jail. These also are pale substitutes for individual responsibility.

Just in case you’re interested, there is much research that confirms the idea that, despite the proximate cause, riots and tumult are generally for fun and profit and have little to do with improvement.

Here again, Dr. Bonhoeffer is instructive:

“Being free means ‘being free for the other,’ because the other has bound me to him. Only in relationship with the other am I free"

Here’s hoping you can hold these words dear. When we free ourselves up to think for ourselves, our thoughts do not turn to the hubbub but to each other with real and addressable needs.

I’m Just Sayin’

Poppy
www.poppylbs.blogspot.com

If You Haven't Got a Ha'penny, God Bless You

Dear Children:

Get ready. The silliness we’ve learned to endure from Congress is about to go into hyper drive. Here is a hint that might help: Whatever name given to any issue in the 112th Congress, the subtext will always be government debt. Of course, there’s the National Debt pushing $14 trillion. Nearly every state, county, municipality, mosquito abatement district and public transit system is swimming in debt. Not for profit social service agencies are borrowed up to their brow ridge because of deadbeat states, counties, municipalities, mosquito abatement districts and public transit systems. What a mess.
The national debt alone is about a year’s wages for the average adult. Paying the foreign portion alone would cost about $200 per month for 15 years or $35 per month for 35 years from every wage earner.
Whatever the reason (elective wars, ill-advised tax cuts, underfunded entitlements, out-of-control healthcare costs, quantitative easing and stimulus payments) we’re in a fix. No one has a perfect handle on the problem. No one has the power to impose a solution, however brilliant. Congress is the least capable forum for any solution. We are not even agreed on a comfortable level of debt let alone agreed on the major reductions that will be required soon.
There are those who will tell you that spending is the sole problem. That is true if we are prepared to gut the social safety net. The people who say that spending is the sole problem are prepared to do that very thing.
Some will tell you that military expenditures are the problem. That is also true if you are prepared to abrogate treaty obligations of longstanding, have an armed force trimmed to meet only imminent threats; a force incapable of backing up foreign policy goals and, at the same time, throw much of the politically unstable parts of the globe into chaos. There are people prepared to risk that too.
Some will say that we should tax and assess our way out of this jam. That too can be done if you are prepared to risk social strife and contempt for the government on an unprecedented scale. Don’t worry, some of our political leaders will risk as much and more.
There is a sizeable slice of political thought that advocates a hands-off approach. Sooner or later, they argue, we will either grow our economy or shrink our economy until all the forces listed above come into balance naturally. Some of those people would merely cancel the foreign portion of the debt to the tune of $9 trillion give or take. Such an action would queer the idea of ever borrowing another penny from foreigners. Heaven help us if we encounter some emergency that would require an infusion of hard currency.
As we understand it right now, whatever we do must be both effective and palatable to a huge fraction of taxpayers. In other words, once we agree on the debt target, the solution is somehow resident in all of the above solutions; a combination of taxes, entitlement efficiencies, military retrenchment and discretionary restraint. The pain will need to be spread as evenly as possible for as short a period as possible.
I don’t know the answer nor do I know anyone who does. That is why we called this meeting. Beware of those who claim to have the answer especially if it’s a simple or painless one. Beware of political leaders who ask you to trust them without revealing their plans. Beware of those who will sell any natural rights in the name of thrift. Beware of those who will sacrifice the poor and the infirm as a political expedient. Beware of those who would impoverish the wealthy and productive. History teaches that none of these ever work.
As these matters come before the 112th Congress, we will examine each in more detail.
I’m just sayin’
Poppy