IVN (Independent Voter Network) has
published a Dissident Politics article that advocates an objective-rational political ideology in place of the subjective-intuitive ideology that American politics is based on.
The
article is here:
http://ivn.us/2015/08/21/opinion-america-needs-move-past-flawed-two-party-ideology/.
Criticisms of and responses to objective politics ideology (values or morals) are described below. This post is long, over 10,000 words, so scanning for criticisms of interest and the responses may make sense. The point of this post is to convey the strongest criticisms and defenses of objective politics, i.e., politics that is mostly objective-rational, to begin to replace America's current subjective-irrational/intuitive politics. For people who do not believe that two-party politics is mostly subjective-intuitive, i.e., based mostly on intuition, false facts, emotion, flawed logic and spin, this might not make much sense.
Summary of objective politics; Three core ideological values
As explained in the IVN article, objective politics is defined to rely on three core or fundamental ideological values, i.e., morals or principles:
1. Fidelity to unpsun facts, i.e., rejection of spin in favor of honest truth whenever unspun facts or truth can be found among all the lies and deceit;
2. Reliance on unbiased logic to the extent one can do that in spite of unconscious but
powerful but normal human biases, e.g.,
motivated reasoning,
confirmation bias, etc., that tend to
distort both facts and logic unless a conscious effort is made to reduce that normal human source of subjectivity and error; and
3. Assessing and picking policy choices that best serve an objectively defined public interest, e.g.,
as described here, based on unspun fact and unbiased logic.
The point of rejecting subjective politics for objective is to (i) better ground politics in reality and logic so that policies are less wasteful and (ii) shift the balance of power from special interests to the broader public interest, which would reduce political corruption. Political corruption is defined as (1) illegal bribery or malfeasance in office and government operations, and (2) legal "
institutional corruption" and use of legal or illegal spin* (
discussed here) to
improperly advance partisan agendas, deceive the public and/or as a basis to assess or justify policy choices. Obviously, Dissident Politics' definition of corruption is broad. It includes essentially all of subjective politics, including nearly all partisan rhetoric and the alleged "facts" and rationales that underlie most policy choices.
* Political spin defined: Spin is speech that consciously or not, is based on or includes one or more of
(i) lies, (ii) deceit, (iii) misinformation, (iv) withholding,
distorting or denying inconvenient facts or arguments, (v) unwarranted
character or motive assassination, and, (vi) conscious or not, the use of fact or
logic that is distorted by ideology, self-interest and or another innate
cognitive bias.
Subjective vs. objective politics: The fundamental difference
Dissident Politics argues that subjective politics distorts fact and logic and therefore policy rationals to conform to the principles or values that subjective ideology demands. By contrast, the principles or values of objective politics are used to find unspun or "real" facts and apply subjectively unbiased logic within a larger intellectual framework of serving the public interest. With the possible exception of centrism, objective politics is profoundly different than any significant political ideology at play in American politics today, including liberalism, conservatism, libertarianism, socialism, communism, capitalism, environmentalism, Christianity and Judaism. All the other ideologies are mostly or completely subjective and can be thought of as old, i.e., Politics v. 1.0. By contrast this new brand of objective politics strives to be as objective as possible with regard to (i) fact and logic and (ii) how to use fact and logic in service to the public interest, i.e., Politics v. 2.0.
Criticisms and defenses of objective politics
Criticism 1: Liberals, conservatives and most everyone else will
never question, much less change, their own ideology, common sense and morals
or values. Proposing an objective ideology for politics is an academic
curiosity at best and an absurdity at worst.
Response: There is some truth in that criticism, but it isn’t the
whole story. Critics on the left and right might see political values and
policy choices based on unspun fact and unbiased logic in service to the public
interest as necessarily far removed from what standard liberal and conservative
values would arrive at. However, that isn’t true. While perceptions of reality
(facts) between the left, right and objectivists would often would differ, it
is not true that a policy choice arrived at objectively has to differ much from
a liberal or conservative policy choice.
Objective political policy choices
are independent of standard (subjective) ideology. Objective choices can be
liberal, centrist, conservative or something else. There are vast differences
in how the left and right usually see reality (facts) and apply their own values
and versions of logic or common sense to those vastly different facts to get
vastly different policy choices. Objective politics cannot be any more flawed
than that. But it can be better, if one believes that unbiased facts and logic will
usually be different and “better” for the public interest than facts and logic
that unconscious human biases tend to conform to subjective values, common
sense (logic) and ideology. There is no rational basis to judge society’s
response to objective politics. Until recently, objectivity has not been
described or advocated in mainstream political discourse. One version of objective
politics,
paternal
libertarianism, has been initially tested in the real world. So far it
has been very successful
from the point of view of an
objectively
defined service to the public interest, e.g., objective policies are
cost-effective and simple to administer.
Criticism 2: Objective politics ignores and cannot affect the power
of special interests with money to unduly exert influence politics in their own
interests. Any ideology is beside the point.
Response: Despite to overwhelming power of money in politics, this
criticism misunderstands how objective politics would affect all aspects of
politics, including its corruption* of both parties by special interests. It is
true that special interests with money dominate American politics. The single
most powerful influence in politics, or “political principle” is service to demands
by “
economic
elites” and/or organized interests with money. Aside from some social
issues, e.g., abortion, American public opinion is mostly irrelevant. Overall,
American public opinion has no impact on federal policy decisions, i.e., public
opinion has a “
statistically non-significant impact”. In terms of affecting policy
choices, service to special interest money is far and away the most influential
political value there is in U.S. politics. All other political principle or values
are minor or irrelevant.
* Political corruption objectively
defined: 1. Standard illegal quid pro quo bribery, theft and/or other
actionable malfeasance; and 2. Intentional or not, deceit of the public via
lies, misinformation, unwarranted opacity, withholding of relevant facts,
distortion of fact or logic, e.g., by biases or self-interest.
A key reason for proposing objectivity
in politics, including a focus on objectively defined
service
to the public interest is to address political corruption (defined above). That
includes special interest corruption, which
dominates
U.S. politics. Corruption of politics includes free speech that, intentional
or not and conscious or not, is objectively untrue or ambiguous but passed off
as truth. That can be fairly called spin or dark free speech. It can be legal
or illegal. When unspun facts, unbiased logic and the public interest are the
key focus of thought and debate, it will be much harder for any special
interest, including individual politicians and partisan pundits, to spin their
arguments as best for the public interest. Spin or dark free speech includes
intentional
lies that damage or destroy a candidate’s run for elected office. Dark free
speech
imposes
significant costs on American society and its economy.
Incumbents and candidates for
political office all say that their ideology, principles and policy choices are
best for the public interest despite their radically different policy choices.
They also all strongly argue that they are not unduly influenced by special
interest money. Overwhelming evidence refutes that spin. In American politics,
money talks and public opinion walks.
Criticism 3: Governing from an ideologically objective point of
view is impossible because liberals, conservatives and others are not going to
acquiesce in politics without human intuition or “soul”. Objective politics
will cause gridlock.
Response: That criticism misunderstands what is being proposed.
Objective politics will not govern anything if the concept doesn’t gain public
acceptance and a way to translate support into political power. Very few or no hard
core conservatives, liberals, libertarians, socialists or believers in other
subjective ideologies will be persuaded by anything said in defense of
objectivity, maybe other than to defend their own beliefs as objective while attacking
other beliefs as subjective. On the other hand, if enough voters do support objectivity
and that can be translated into political power, then the criticism will have
been proved wrong. Like any other competing concept or policy option in
politics, it will be judged on public acceptance and political power. Objectivity
cannot be rationally assessed or criticized now.
As far as gridlock goes, the
federal government already is gridlocked. Nothing in two-party politics or
rhetoric suggests any change. For the time being, gridlock rules. Adding an
objective point of view to the mix changes nothing until credible evidence shows
it got something unstuck, made matters worse or had no measurable impact on anything.
Criticism 4: Politics based on an objective ideology is not going
to be perfect because humans are not perfect. Even if occasional mistakes do
arise from ideologically-driven fact or logic errors, it is human to err and
arguing that an objective ideology will not change that. Why even consider it?
Response: The two-party system and the ideologies and values it relies
on to guide policy choices have not performed impressively. Consider where
completely destroyed, bankrupt, poverty-stricken countries such as Japan and Germany
came from since the end of World War 2 and where they are now. Despite
infrastructure, public education, resource and financial dominance, American progress
since the 1940’s was bought at the expense of a negative balance of trade
every
year since 1977, a current federal debt of
about
$18.2 trillion and
unknowable
trillions more in unfunded future debt obligations. Defenders of the status
quo can claim exceptionalism or whatever they want, but a cold, objective look
at U.S. progress since the end of World War 2 is arguably not particularly
exceptional. Relative to other industrialized countries, America’s current situation
may be as much or more a matter of
regression to
the mean than exceptional political ideology.
To err is human, but there are no compelling
reasons to believe that performance of subjective ideology has been acceptable
or that objective ideology could not do better. No one can argue that politics
based on fact distorted by ideology and the unconscious but logic-destroying
motivated
reasoning it generates. If nothing else, logic argues that ideology
constrained by fact and logic has to be superior to ideology constrained by
great liberal or conservative principles and values. There is no objective
basis to believe that objectivity will not be better than the corruption and
subjectivity that America now relies on.
Criticism 5: There is no explicit basis in the Constitution, Bill
of Rights, Declaration of Independence, Bible, Federalist Papers or any other
significant relevant authority that supports or advocates an objective basis
for political morals or ideology.
Response: That is true. There is also no explicit basis in any of
those authorities that unequivocally rejects objective politics. Objective
politics is just as constitutional as liberal, conservative, libertarian or
communist politics. Nor is there a logical basis to believe objectivity would,
in the long run, fail to equal or better the outcomes the two-party system
delivers. Objective politics is on the same legal footing as any significant
American ideology. What differs is not legal or moral authority but numbers of
supporters and political power.
Criticism 6: American politics is not based on subjective
ideologies. Liberalism, conservatism, libertarianism, centrism, socialism,
capitalism, and other ideologies are all based on fact and logic. Citing a few
psychologists or other researchers cannot alter that basic fact. Looking
honestly at the vast complexity and wealth of American society makes it clear
that humans are mostly rational-objective and cannot possibly be mostly
intuitive-emotional.
Response: This criticism is wrong. Evidence of that includes the certain
knowledge, not just belief, of many liberals
and
some others that some or most conservatives are self-deluded and
disconnected from facts and logic, while many conservatives believe the same about liberals and socialists. There are different sets of facts and different common sense (logic) that belief in subjective ideologies generates. The only way opposing sides can be correct is to believe that there can be
two different, incompatible policy choices based on different sets of fact and logic that applies to disputed
political issues. Unbiased reason is clear that for any given issue liberals, conservatives or both,
along with their facts, logic and policy choices must be mostly wrong. Both cannot
be mostly right.
Although many Americans would
disagree, ideologies that materially affect American political thinking and
debate, include (1) irrefutably purely subjective ideologies and the policy
choices they create, e.g., Christianity and Judaism, and (2) mostly subjective*
but narrow or issue-focused beliefs or “knowledge” of what best serves the
public interest. Examples of narrow subjective beliefs include belief (i) for
or against public sector labor unions, (ii) that climate science is immature flawed
or a hoax and its climate change warnings should be should be rejected, (iii) that
more and unrestrained free political speech is always better than less free speech
and (iv) abortion, same-sex marriage or a personally objectionable
constitutional amendment cannot ever be constitutional under any circumstance. This
argument accords with clear evidence that people’s beliefs are often “
poorly
connected to objective facts” and that necessarily means that such beliefs
are subjective. American politics is clearly more subjective than objective.
* What is “mostly subjective”
depends on whether there is sufficient information or data to objectively
assess the truth from the point of view of an objectively defined public
interest. From the point of view of the typical liberal or conservative, none
of the listed beliefs they agree with is subjective because their respective
perceptions of reality (facts), common sense (logic) and their subjective definitions
of what best serves the public interest conforms to their personal opinion.
Criticism 7: Objective politics focused on service to the public
interest, at least
as
Dissident Politics described it*, is nothing more than liberalism or more
likely, socialism or communism, in disguise. This description accommodates
unlimited growth of government. The whole concept subordinates individual
freedom and economic activity to the public interest, so socialist or communist
tyranny will be the ultimate result. The concept of serving the public interest
is a certain path to economic ruin. This concept is completely impractical and
anti-American.
* Governing in the public interest
means governance based on identifying a rational, optimum balance between
serving public and individual or commercial interests based on an objective, fact-
and logic-based analysis of competing policy choices, while (1) being
reasonably transparent and responsive to public opinion, (2) protecting and
growing the American economy, (4) fostering individual economic and personal
growth opportunity, (5) defending personal freedoms and the American standard
of living, (6) protecting national security and the environment, (7) increasing
transparency, competition and efficiency in commerce when possible, and (8)
fostering global peace, stability and prosperity whenever reasonably possible,
all of which is constrained by (i) honest, reality-based fiscal sustainability
that limits the scope and size of government and regulation to no more than what
is needed and (ii) genuine respect for the U.S. constitution and the rule of
law with a particular concern for limiting unwarranted legal complexity and
ambiguity to limit opportunities to subvert the constitution and the law.
Response: This criticism raises separate issues that require
separate responses.
1. Arguing that objective politics
in service to the public interest as described here is liberalism or communism
is incorrect. The public interest description expressly includes limits on
government to only what is needed, i.e., right size government, and concern for
fiscal sustainability, individual freedom and the economy. Those concerns are
conservative principles or values. Government has grown under both liberal and
conservative control. Conservatism has a dismal track record in defending its
own values. By shifting focus from fights between liberal vs. conservative
political ideology and values to assessing unspun fact, unbiased logic and the
public interest (the “core values”), this proposal better defends conservative
principles than conservatism itself. For people who accept objective politics,
the core values force liberalism to defend itself on the merits instead of
based on spin and deceit. Assuming that conservatives really believe in the
superiority of their own ideology or values, perceptions of reality, and common
sense (logic), this proposal supports them and their ideology by (i) leveling
the playing field and (ii) not caring about what policy choice wins, regardless
of whatever ideology a choice might be considered. Objective politics described
here is ice-cold neutral to what subjective label applies to a policy choice
that wins an honest, transparent, fact-and logic-based competition.
2. America has over 300 million
citizens and residents and planet Earth has over 7 billion. From an objective
point of view, arguing that the conservative value of unbridled personal
freedom makes no sense. Individuals always cannot do whatever they want without
impacting other people, e.g., an entrepreneur cannot build a heavy industry
factory or strip mine in a residential zone and an individual cannot fish
without regard to sustainability and catch limits. People who fly their radio
controlled drones over a busy airport or a wild fire, will necessarily affect
the rights of others, e.g., the right of people to be safe from drone
collisions when landing in or taking off from that airport or when operating
fire control aircraft over the wild fire. Somebody’s rights have to give or,
sooner or later, there will be airplane-drone collisions. As human population
increases, these concerns necessarily become more acute.
This proposal better defends
conservative principles of freedom than conservatism itself for the same
reasons argued above, i.e., it forces more honesty and objectivity into debate
and, if conservatives really believe in their own rhetoric, principles, facts
and logic, their ideas will win and policy choices will shift over time to what
conservatives consider the proper ideology and governance principles. In that
case, objective politics would just call those policies the ones that best
serve the public interest. Objective politics operates without regard to any
subjective ideology or policy choice other than impacts on the public interest.
The concern is objective facts and logic, not subjective ideology.
3. Arguing that objective politics
in service to the public interest as described here unduly restrains
capitalism, economic freedom and/or economic activity is incorrect. This
proposal better defends conservative principles of effective governance,
capitalism and economic freedom than conservatism itself for the same reasons
argued above, i.e., it forces more honesty and objectivity into the debate.
Tipping the balance of power to the public interest from special interest
dominance will impede unjustifiable economic interest demands, but that fully
accords with effective governance or the belief that policies should win on the
merits. It is not the business of the private sector to defend the public
interest and it is unrealistic to even expect that. Shareholders and owners are
there to make money, not necessarily to make the world a better place. Special
interests take whatever their money can buy from the two-party system,
regardless of the merits and of impacts on the public interest.
Despite that corruption, a
betrayal of the public interest, it is the business of government to balance
competing interests with an eye to maximizing benefits to all affected
interests while minimizing costs and/or limits on freedoms. If
conservatism or any other subjective ideology truly believes in the value or
principle of real laissez-faire capitalism, i.e., a complete separation of
economy and state, then that reflects a value or moral that conservatives must
be honest about and then win public support for. Dissident Politics does not
believe that most Americans truly understand what government based on laissez-faire
capitalism is or its implications for how that would affect their lives.
Nonetheless, if a laissez-faire capitalism policy for one or more issues wins
an honest competition for what objectively best serves the public interest,
then that is what objective politics would support. Again, where the best ideas
come from is irrelevant to objective politics. What counts is finding those
best ideas regardless of the subjective ideology behind it.
Criticism 8: Regardless of political or religious ideology,
politics is a brass knuckles street fight with no rules, no ethics and
no regard for impacts on anything other than electing or destroying a
candidate, politician or a hated ideology, entity or group. The only limits are
laws, which are usually ambiguous, easily circumvented, not routinely
enforced and/or almost impossible to enforce due to the
near-impossibility of proving illegality in court. White collar crimes
are a perfect example - they are almost impossible to successfully
prosecute in court. That is why insider trading is a fun, popular and
probably profitable criminal activity. The risk of getting caught is low
and the risk of being convicted is also low, i.e., the probability of
guilt proven in court is: low (e.g., 0.01) x low (e.g., 0.01) = (i) very low (0.0001) or, (ii) because law
enforcement agencies are budget-constrained, nil (~ 0.0). Ethics-related political laws are no different.
On top of that intractable mess, politicians or their partisans or surrogates routinely spread
lies or misinformation to destroy opponents and
deceive the public. Partisans deceive themselves (or just don't care) and ethics is so irrelevant that ethical considerations, e.g.,
conflicts of interest, are completely ignored. "There's no shame anymore. . . . We've
blown past the ethical standards;
we now play on the edge of the legal standards. . . . It's all about
winning, it's not about governing anymore." Objective politics will have
no impact on moral bankruptcy or policy choices. Objectivism,
subjectivism, Christianity, atheism and everything else is irrelevant.
Response:
It is true that ethics in subjective politics is mostly an obsolete,
irrelevant concept. However, that is true for subjective politics, not
objective politics. Politics based on the three core values as proposed
here* is an entirely different beast. Based on modern knowledge of human
behavior and cognitive biology, there are good reasons to believe that
ethics in an objective framework will have real relevance and impact on
both ethics and policy.
* Objective politics' three core values: (1) Fidelity to unspun fact or reality, (2)
conscious reliance on logic as unbiased as humanly possible, and (3) a
focus on the public interest over narrower interests such as political
party, political ideology, politician self-interest and special interest
demands backed by campaign contributions.
First,
because two of the three the highest values or morals of objective
politics are finding unspun fact and applying unbiased logic to those
unspun facts, it will be harder in that intellectual framework to twist
reality and common sense into seeing unethical behavior as ethical. With
subjective politics, what is considered ethical is almost purely
subjective, i.e., it usually differs greatly in the eye of the
protagonist, target or beholder. All three of those points of views can
see a given action the same or very differently, e.g., a subjective
ideologue politician appointing bureaucrats with conflicts of interest
to a government agency to serve the dictates or values of the subjective
ideology with its subjective version of "facts" and "logic".
Second,
because the third of three the highest values or morals of objective
politics is service to an objectively defined public interest, the power
of special interest demands and money to dictate political actions
would (i) necessarily be constrained or (ii) the political actor would
not hold service to the public interest in high regard, i.e., that
political actor would be a traitor to one of the actor's professed three
core values. That actor would thus not be walking the objective
politics walk. That person would only be talking the talk.
An
example helps to explain the situation. Under routine subjective
two-party politics, politicians and bureaucrats often appoint
bureaucrats and/or contractors with conflicts of interest or other
issues that preclude suitability for the job. Political appointees are
sometimes consciously chosen to
undermine a political agency's core function due to ideological (values)
disagreement with the agency's function. That passes for ethical, or at
least acceptable, behavior under subjective politics, but not under
objective politics.
For example, under the
Bush-Cheney administrations, conservatives and republicans had staffed
the now defunct federal Minerals Management Service with former coal and
oil executives and employees. The MMS's mission was to administer and
oversee licenses for coal and oil on federal land, in part to collect
"royalties on
behalf of the American Public"
and partly to oversee safety. Given its conservative, pro-oil and
pro-coal ethical framework, what did the MMS deliver to the American
people? It delivered what one would logically expect. The MMS allowed
private companies to take federal oil with little or no meaningful
regulatory oversight, e.g., for safety. The conflicts of interest were
overwhelming and
MMS's ethical and regulatory laxity preceded and probably caused the
2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
That oil spill and the extinction of the MMS in its wake is solid
evidence that MMS's ethical and regulatory laxity was largely due to
conflicts of interest that were acceptable to conservatives and their
ideology and definition of what is ethical and what isn't. If those
ethics were not ideologically acceptable to conservatives, then the
unethical situation at MMS would never have degenerated to the breaking
point it finally arrived at.
If the three key
morals or values of objective politics as defined here, i.e., facts,
logic and the public interest, are taken seriously, that sick MMS sort
of ethical and incompetence situation could never have happened from within an objective politics
intellectual framework. No matter how strenuously any ideologue or
partisan denies it, the MMS story reflects the astonishing moral bankruptcy of
the two-party system and its participants.
Criticism 9: Resort to an objective political ideology will not
make disagreements go away. Nothing much will change. Arguing for a preferred
policy choice and the underlying perceptions of reality (facts) and the common sense
(logic) that ideology fosters are all matters of constitutionally protected
free speech and human biology. Trying to suppress any of that free speech is both
legally unconstitutional and biologically irrational.
Response: Objective ideology is not intended to make all
disagreements go away or suppress any constitutionally protected free speech,
regardless of how subjective personal opinions may be. Even with objective
politics to reduce distortion of fact and logic, overwhelming agreement about
facts, logic and policy choices will probably never happen. The biology of
human cognition, i.e., its intuitive-subjective nature, insures that there will
always be some level of disagreement. What objective politics will do is reduce
disconnects between reality (real facts) and perceptions of reality (perceived
facts) and the flaws that false fact beliefs generates.
Key reasons for proposing
objective politics include (1) raising public awareness of the biology of human
cognition,
human
biases and why intuitive perceptions of reality (facts) are surprisingly
susceptible to (i) error or
false
fact beliefs and (ii)
manipulation
by special interests, and (2) challenging standard subjective political
ideology or values as inferior to objective ideology or values of (i) fidelity
to unspun fact and (ii) unbiased logic in service to (iii) an
objectively
defined public interest. If the a significant portion of the American public
comes to accept objectivity in politics, there is every reason to believe that
differences of opinion will appreciably narrow because the range of what passes
for reality (fact) and logic (common sense) will narrow and so will differences
in competing policy choices.
This proposal provides a point of
view from which partisan arguments can be seen more objectively and, when
possible, tested in an attempt to fairly assess and prove or disprove competing
hypotheses or policy choices. Much of the basis for the bitter disputes between
the ideologies of the left and right are unresolvable, significantly or mostly
irrational and more harmful to
the
public interest than helpful. That must be logically correct if one
believes that (1) ideology in politics exerts roughly the same effects on
perceived reality and common sense as religious ideology has on religious
reality and common sense, and (2) matters of faith, either religious or
political, can never or only rarely be resolved by facts, logic and rational
debate. The latter is a point that has been
made by
others,
more
than once, including in the
context
of political disagreement. The hope is that unbiased experimentation with
up front definitions of key terms, e.g., the public interest, success and
failure, could soften some of the intractability in the endless, subjective
left vs. right ideological fights.
Criticism 10: Politics based on an objective ideology will not
result in the creative progress that came from competing ideologies. Competing
subjective ideologies coupled with normal human intuition drive progress and
that is what made America great. Vigorous competition in an honest, transparent
marketplace of ideas is a key driver of American greatness.
Response: An assertion that American politics is mostly based on
competition in an honest, transparent marketplace of ideas* is false. Political
ideas and disputes are argued based on spin and deceit, not on facts and merits
that flow rationally from unspun reality.
* Defined objectively, the
marketplace of political ideas has unspun fact and unbiased logic competing in
support of policy choices. Fact checkers prove
time
and
again that
American two-party politics is based significantly, if not mostly, on spin or
deceit. That accords with opinion by liberals and conservatives that the other
side (1) is self-deluded or otherwise out of touch with reality, (2) has no
common sense or logic, and (3) bases their politics on the wrong set of political
morals or values.
Objectivity in politics cannot add
to the existing distrust and contempt the two sides have for each other now. If
nothing else, room for reasonable disagreement, which is astoundingly wide now,
should decrease. “Reasonable” mainstream political disagreement includes, e.g.,
arguments that (i) climate change data and climate science itself is a hoax based
on non-science and/or corrupt, self-interested scientists and (ii) climate
science and its warnings about climate change is a rational basis for policy
debate. Differences of opinion over climate change and many other issues cannot
possibly get any farther apart.
One side has to be closer to the
truth than the other. For some issues, e.g., universal background checks for
gun purchases, it is possible that both sides can be more wrong than right. Given
those drastic differences of opinion and their failure to shed more light than
blow smoke, progress has probably come as much in spite of the two sides as
because of them.
For those who disagree with that description
of reality, consider where destroyed, bankrupt, poverty-stricken countries such
as Japan and Germany came from since the end of World War 2 and what their
governments have accomplished compared to the U.S. over the same time. If two-party
U.S. politics and what it delivered was truly exceptional, then the American
standard of living and its economic dominance would be far more exceptional
than it is. At the same time, the two-party system started with massive
advantages, including the U.S. constitution, world class innovation and higher
and public education, natural resources, independent courts and world class
infrastructure.
How well or badly something has
been depends on the context. The two-party system will never hold their
accomplishments up against a reasonable historical context like that. It makes
both sides and their politics look bad and ineffective. If there were great
insights and policies that the hot fire of competition between competing
ideologies gave us from 1945 until now, it is hard to see the brilliance when
compared to what other major industrialized countries starting with much less have
been able to do for their people.
Success mediocrity and failure is
in the mind of the beholder. The question is whether the mind is a subjective,
intuitive partisan or an objective, rational partisan.
Criticism 11: This proposal pretends to be something else, but it is
just an argument for the libertarian party and its ideology.
Ayn Rand
invented objectivism or objective politics in the 1940’s and 1950’s.
Objectivism
is the basis for
libertarian
political ideology that organizations like the
Atlas Society, the
Cato Institute and the
Ludwig von
Mises Institute base their libertarian politics on. Libertarians believe
that their ideology is based on unbiased logic and reason based on “
rational
individualism” as the guiding principle. Logically, that means that libertarian
perceptions of reality (facts) that are also presumably not distorted by their
own ideology. This proposal is no different and offers nothing new.
Response: Whether what is proposed here is new or not, it is not
libertarianism. No claim to novelty is being asserted because some or all
of this proposal may not be new. Despite some similarity in (improper and/or misleading) labels, that perception of
what is being proposed here is incorrect.
While libertarianism does claim to
be rational or objective as a value, it is also based on the values of (i) firm
to absolute belief in laissez-faire capitalism, i.e., complete
separation of economy and state, and (ii) the overriding
moral
of personal liberty or rights, including essentially unrestrained free
speech, regardless of impacts on the public interest, good, bad or indifferent.
The kind of objectivism or objective politics is profoundly different from what
is proposed here.
To be clear,
objectivism
or rational individualism, which are synonymous with modern libertarianism, is
based on the key morals or principals of pursuit of happiness via individual
achievement, individual freedom and laissez-faire capitalism is not the same as an ideology based on the
morals or principals of fidelity to unspun fact and unbiased logic in service
to an objectively defined public interest. The two ideologies are about as far
apart as the two sides in the endless left vs. right fights over climate
change, abortion or tax policy. Any similarity is purely superficial and based
on words such as objective and rational.
Libertarian ideology and the
ideology proposed here are not even slightly similar in defining what it means
to be objective or rational. One way to think about the difference is to view
libertarianism as politics shaped mostly by individualist and capitalist values
or morals, while the politics proposed here is shaped by fact, logic and public
interest concerns with concepts of individualism, personal freedom and
capitalism being included among competing interests or political theories.
Libertarian ideology limits policy
choices to one that generally conform to concepts of individual freedom and laissez-faire capitalism. The objective politics proposed here limits policy choices to
one that generally conform to what objectively appear to best serve the public
interest. For example, after a fair, unbiased analysis of available data, the
objective brand of politics proposed here might conclude that, e.g.,
single-payer or socialized medicine best serves the public interest. To a libertarian,
socialized medicine is not laissez-faire capitalism and therefore the idea will
be rejected out of hand by most or all libertarians. That would be true even if
unspun data heavily suggested that single-payer would be much less complicated
and expensive and far more cost-effective than the current or even America’s pre-ACA
health care system. In short, despite claims of objectivity,
libertarian
politics is more subjective than objective. It is not close to what is
proposed here because its ideological constraints on policy choice are at least
as restrictive as liberal or conservative ideological constraints, if not more
so.
Libertarian ideology like other
subjective ideologies distorts reality or facts and therefore the logic that
flows therefrom. One staunch libertarian with the self-awareness to see this
and the moral courage to admit it, put it this way: “
My
libertarian beliefs have not always served me well. Like most people who
hold strong ideological convictions, I find that, too often, my beliefs trump
the scientific facts. This is called motivated reasoning, in which our brain
reasons our way to supporting what we want to be true.” The objectivism here is
based on understanding that reality could not care less about anyone’s ideology
or perceptions of reality. Reality just is what it is, so basing politics on
that is more rational than basing it on subjective ideals or principles. That
is why the focus proposed here is on the public interest which reflects what
the American people want their country to be, while special interests have to
compete within that intellectual framework.
Criticism 12: Politicians are not going to sacrifice or even
endanger their careers to serve some version of the public interest that no one
has ever heard of. Politicians are just as self-interested as any other special
interest or person. If re-election is at stake, politicians can and will often
or always
vote the
wrong way, with little or no regard to impacts on the public interest. The
whole idea is crackpot and too narrow in scope to merit consideration.
Response: That logic is flawed. True, objective politics alone will
not change the self-interested nature of politicians. Maybe except for a few
people like Mother Theresa, self-interest is just a part of human nature that
is part of all humans to some degree or another. It isn’t always a bad thing,
either. Nonetheless, objectivism in politics should make it somewhat more
difficult to hide and justify at least egregious instances of political
self-interest over the public interest. For example, when a politician votes
based on self-interest, it is easier to get away with that when the underlying
political issue has been spun, distorted and sold to voters as the best option,
when objective assessments say otherwise. People’s political beliefs are often
poorly
connected to objective facts. In that milieu, it is easier to sell a
self-interested vote as one that best serves the voter’s interests.
Criticism 13: Arguing that liberals, conservatives and other
ideological believers are alike constitutes a false equivalence argument that
liberal, conservative, libertarian, socialist and other mainstream ideologies
are the same in terms of how their biases affect fact and logic. Those
ideologies do not have the same effects on facts and logic. Those ideologies do
not have the same effects, good, bad or ambiguous, on facts, logic or their
impacts on the public interest.
Response: Nothing in the proposal to move abandon subjective for
objective politics states or is intended to imply that ideological biases have
the same impacts of fact and logic.
Some
opinion and
evidence
suggests that
conservatives
and/or conservative ideology tends to resist objective fact and science more
than liberal ideology. That may be objectively true. Of course, conservatives
vehemently
reject that. Conservatives argue that liberals are self-deluded, out of
touch with facts and lack common sense or logic.
Sufficient subjective evidence to
definitively resolve at least the relative degree of differences between ideologies or groups may or may not exist. This proposal
acknowledges the bitter disagreement and the possibility that conservatives as
a group, not necessarily as individuals, may very well be more, maybe much more, unspun fact- and
unbiased logic-challenged than liberals. Assessing this partisan dispute in detail is
beyond the scope of this proposal.
That dispute aside, there is no
compelling reason to believe that all ideologies have to undermine fact and
logic to the same extent for different people or groups. However, there is good
reason to believe that all subjective ideologies undermine fact and logic to at
least some extent. Social science is clear that we use reason or logic “to find
the best possible reasons why
somebody
else ought to join us in our judgment”. Besides an attempt to convince
others, political reasoning is usually applied to
justify
personal political belief or judgment, not to critically assess its factual
truth or logic.
Criticism 14: On balance, subjectivity is more cost-effective and
responsive to the will of the people and therefore subjective ideology best
serves the public interest.
Response: This argument is objectively wrong. Research data shows
that the will of the American people in affecting policy is irrelevant: The “preferences
of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero,
statistically
non-significant
impact” on public policy.
False perceptions of reality (
false fact
beliefs) and the logic applied thereto cannot, except by accident,
logically generate policies that are more cost-effective than policies based on
unspun fact and unbiased logic. If the true nature of a political issue, i.e.,
the facts, are understood, then policies that address the issue can be
rationally tailored to keep costs down while remaining acceptably effective.
An analogy is helpful. If your car’s
air conditioner is blowing warm air but the mechanic replaces the condenser
when the evaporator is bad, then the solution is ineffective until the
evaporator is fixed or replaced, i.e., until the mechanic knows the what the problem
is, solutions will be hit or miss with most or all of the expense being wasted.
Failure to understand the true reality (facts) of a political issue, e.g.,
public health
impacts of legal gun ownership and use, due to subjective ideological
opposition tends to (1) generate needlessly ineffective policies and/or (2)
delay or
completely
prevent a rational response when making a response is objectively rational
based on available data.
This proposal is not an argument that
objective politics will be perfect or that mistakes will not happen. The
argument is that in the long run and on balance, objective politics based on
the ideology (morals or values) of (i) fidelity to unspun fact, and (ii) application
of unbiased logic to the facts in service to (iii) an objectively defined
public interest, will be among other things more cost-effective and responsive
to the will of the American people. There is no compelling rational argument
that requires changing that conclusion, especially when American public opinion
is irrelevant to two-party politics.
Criticism 15: The two parties and their publicly stated ideologies
control policy choices and they both sincerely work to best serve the public
interest as they see it. Explicitly or implicitly arguing otherwise is an
outrageous, inexcusable insult to the people who have worked long, hard and
sincerely in service to the public interest to make America into what it is.
Response: Nothing in this proposal to begin to replace
subjective-intuitive politics with objective-rational politics is intended to
impugn the sincerity of the efforts that millions of honestly sincere Americans
who have invested effort and/or resource in whatever their own ideologies have
led them to support. Honest participants see themselves as the champion of the
American people and serving the very best in American ideals. This proposal is based
on the belief that, most participating “average Americans” are sincere and
mostly altruistic in their service or participation. Arguing for objective
politics may be uncomfortable for many average Americans, but that is not intended
to denigrate their efforts or question their motives in wanting to serve the
public interest as they see it.
By contrast with participation by “average
Americans”, this proposal is does question the sincerity and dominant motives
of both major parties and most or all of their high level politicians and
active hard core partisans/pundits and the major financial backers of the
two-party system. Partisans include all of the partisan media/infotainment/misinformation
industry. Most participants in the participant or elite group are arguably far
less interested in service to the public interest than their interest in
serving their own narrow, self-interests, e.g., re-election for politicians or ideological dominance and policy for ideologues.
The evidence shows that the elite group ignores the will of the American
people: The “preferences of the average American appear to have only a
minuscule, near-zero, statistically
non-significant
impact” on public policy. For the elites, money, power and self-interest
talks, while the will of the people, the public interest and ideology or morals
other than service to special interests walks.
Criticism 16: Objective ideology based on the alleged “morals” of
fidelity to unspun fact and unbiased logic to serve the public interest amounts
to governing without any morals at all. Morals cannot come from something as
abstract as an “objective ideology”. Proof of that is the fact that using fact
and logic as the basis to serve an allegedly objectively defined “public
interest” could lead to a liberal, centrist, conservative, libertarian,
socialist, capitalist or other policy choice. It could even lead to policy
choices that fits none of those ideologies or even more than one. That is no
belief in anything and that is not just unacceptable, it is irrational and
evil.
Response: Based on data showing that policies that what most
average Americans want are
not
what they get (except by coincidence), demands by special interest money arguably
constitutes the single most powerful “moral” or “value” that underlies far more
policy choices than any other ideological source: “. . . legalized bribery has
become part of the culture. [Members of Congress] rarely legislate; they
basically follow the money. . . . They're spending more and more time dialing
for dollars. . . . It's all about winning,
it’s
not about governing anymore.”
It is true that objective politics
can lead to a policy choice that is liberal, conservative or something else.
That isn’t a basis for criticism – it reflects the power and intellectual freedom
that true objectivity has in politics. Objective politics will align with any
ideology that just happens to want the same or roughly the same policy choice. Those
alliances will likely change from issue to issue. If liberal, centrist and
conservative ideologies constitute the three points of view, objective politics
is a fourth point of view that can align with one or more of the other three.
If there are more points of view, e.g., those three plus libertarian,
socialist, laissez-faire capitalism and Christian, then objective politics is an
eighth political point of view that can align with any or none of the other
seven. That is nothing remotely like politics from any other major American
political intellectual framework, group or ideology.
Criticism 17: Ideology such as liberalism or conservatism helps to
elucidate reality, not obscure it. Objectivity will fail to see all possible alternatives
based on the facts. Humans and their creativity are significantly driven by
incentives and a strong faith in an ideology incentivizes believers to find the
facts and use that to formulate the best political policies that conform to
their ideology, while best serving the public interest.
Response: As discussed above, the data, including political policy
choices, contradict this criticism in regard to both seeking reality or unspun
facts and applying logic. Ideology does in fact tend to mask reality and
distort logic. The evidence is clear that people’s beliefs are often “
poorly
connected to objective facts” and a strong faith in a subjective ideology
is a significant driver of those disconnects from reality: “Like most people
who hold strong ideological convictions, I find that, too often, my
beliefs
trump the scientific facts. This is called motivated reasoning, in which
our brain reasons our way to supporting what we want to be true.”
As far as facing reality goes, the
mind set of the typical ideologue and maybe even average non-ideologue is to
ignore or reject facts that undermine their ideological belief or values: “. .
.
we
are dreadful at seeking out evidence that might disconfirm” our judgments
or beliefs. Unspun facts are can be irrelevant or worse: People faced with
unspun facts, e.g., about the health value of vaccinating their kids sometimes
“. . .
fight
back against the new information. [They] try and martial other kinds of
information that would counter the new information coming in.” That can happen
because information that contradicts belief is damaging to self-esteem and
defense of self-esteem can then trumps facts.
Criticism 18: Our situation cannot be better than it is, especially
in view of how hard it is to govern with three separate branches of federal
government in the face of bitterly antagonistic competing ideologies, diverse,
often opposing state agendas and special interests with money quietly acting in
the background. Advocacy of objectivity in politics is a futile waste of time.
Response: There are good reasons to believe that America’s
situation could be better than it is. It is true that governing, at least at
the federal level is difficult and politics is complex. Despite the difficulty
and complexity, there is no rational or objective basis to believe that America
could not have done much better than it has. There is no rational basis on
which to reject objectivity in American politics. Other countries have done
comparably well despite constraints that are more severe than those applicable
to America.
Compared to some industrialized
countries, American progress since the end of World War 2 until now has been insufficient
or too slow. By the end of that war, other major industrialized or large countries
were destroyed, bankrupt, governed by insane or murderous leaders like Stalin
or Mao, and/or constrained by cultures that were grounded more in past
centuries or millennia than in the 20
th century. Viewed in that
context, American progress arguably has been mediocre or even sub-par relative
to the starting place of other countries at the end of World War 2. Based on
well-being, individual wealth or other measures, the U.S. is well off, but not overwhelmingly
exceptional, e.g.,
5th
in overall human development,
17th
in public education,
17th
in overall happiness, and
37th
in health care (but 1
st in health care cost).
Advocacy of objectivity in
politics is the most promising way out of America’s stagnant, corrupt,
self-absorbed, ossified two-party political situation. The two-party system is
offering nothing new. It has no response to the continued, accelerating shift
from human labor farther up and down the economic food chain. Liberal blithering
about training for STEM jobs is as absurd as conservative drivel about mindless
tax cuts to grow the economy despite relentless economic forces that keep
driving economic efficiency at the expense of jobs and the American standard of living. America’s two-party system and neither liberal nor conservative ideology has any real answer to that. The two parties are a morally bankrupt, ideologically
blinded dinosaur hopelessly mired in its own navel gazing and pointless
bickering over unresolvable ideological left vs. right arguments. Subjective politics is in
far over its head and incapable of even recognizing its own plight. Trying
defend that subjective, status quo cesspit doesn’t make much sense from an objective point of view.
This point cannot be overstated: Subjective ideological political disputes are not much different than subjective ideological religious disputes. To the extent that any dispute involves sacred or infallible beliefs or political (or religious) principles, morals or values, those things cannot be rationally debated. Matters of faith are just that - matters of faith. Debates of religious belief, e.g., creationism, vs. science, e.g., evolution, are
not rational because the religious side is based on faith with fact and logic twisted to conform to that infallible belief. The same as rigid subjective beliefs in socialism vs. laissez-faire capitalism (separation of economy and state), which may be an even more irrational framework than science vs. religion disputes. In those kinds of political fights, because both sides argue over beliefs that are almost completely subjective. Those disputes are essentially unresolvable. Fact and logic usually have little or no impact because both are usually bitterly disputed. When an ideologue changes their mind in those fights, it is a very rare miracle.
Criticism 19: Who is going to define the public interest? By what
authority? A one definition fits all approach will necessarily limit the
thinking and creativity that comes from competition between different
ideologies. An objective view sees ideology as defining the basic structure of
society and will therefore place more emphasis on society at the expense of
individual freedom, which will necessarily suffer. That will necessarily lead
to far more government and spending than is needed. Not only will most people
reject any single public interest definition, there is no evidence that such a
thing can even work.
Response: Arriving at a definition of the public interest will be
contentious. Believers in all ideologies argue that what they want and their
ideologies best serve the public interest. Given that the authority behind this
proposal is just as great as any other. Supporters can argue that the core
values of objective politics* are better than the core values of any subjective
ideology. Even with an accepted description of service to the public interest,
differences of opinion among objectivists will not fully resolve. Despite
differences in perceptions of reality, an objectivist focus on fact, logic and
the public interest will (1) lead to smaller differences in fact perceptions and
(2) be much less psychologically threatening to personal values that are based
on fact, logic and the public interest than on subjective liberal or
conservative values, which are easily threatened by anything outside what is
deemed ideologically acceptable in the believer’s mind. Policy choices that
fall outside ideologically acceptable bounds are usually and thus rejected out
of hand without a second thought of the merits.
* The three core values of
objective politics as defined here are fidelity to (i) unspun facts and (ii) unbiased
logic in service to (iii) the public interest defined objectively. A potential
fourth core value would be commitment to political practicality, i.e., doing
what can politically be done, e.g., supporting or compromising with allies of
any ideological group, to move policy choices closer to an objective ideal. If
there is going to be any chance of getting anything done in the current
political climate, political pragmatism is necessary.
As
described before, the public interest definition can include fair regard
for defending individual freedom and fiscal restraint. Regard for fiscal
restraint would limit the size, scope and cost of government to what is
affordable and best serves the public interest. An objective conception of how
to serve the public interest necessarily balances competing interests. The
point of an objective public interest definition or description is not to
unreasonably ignore or weight competing interests. Instead it is intended to
(1) shift the power and focus of governance from special interests to the
public interest without ignoring major concerns such as personal freedom,
fiscal sustainability and (2) rely on unspun fact and unbiased logic to give a
fair and neutral assessment of what special interests want based on their
public interest merits instead of being based on subjective ideological values
or morals. That is a fundamentally different, neutral way of seeing and
assessing competing policy choices.
For example, if the definition of
the public interest includes due consideration for national defense, environmental
protection and personal freedoms, liberal and conservative ideologues will read
into those things the exactly same things they see now. In that regard,
ideologue believers in any subjective ideology are lost causes for the most
part. By contrast, objectivism provides a basis in fact and logic against which
their other values are tested for impacts on the public interest. Instead of
believing that liberal or conservative proposals are the only choice,
objectivists would be more open to neutral assessment of any serious policy
choice - that should reduce motivated reasoning or confirmation bias and the
distortion of fact and logic that it causes.
Switching from subjective to
objective politics would enhance creativity, not reduce it. Less ideology should
enhance creativity because ideological constraints on what is ideologically
subjectively acceptable and what isn’t would be reduced or. Objectivists would
operate from an intellectual framework (point of view) that is ideologically open
to solutions that are conservative, liberal, capitalist, socialist or a
combination of labels that subjective ideology would apply to various options.
Instead of calling policy choices liberal or conservative, objectivism would be
pragmatic and simply look to competing policy choices for real world and
political practicality and cost-effectiveness in serving the public interest at
lowest detriment to all affected interests. That mind set affords much far more
freedom for creativity than, e.g., liberal or conservative ideologues who are
generally limited to seeing or seriously considering only policy choices that
fits within their ideological limits.
Results from the few
real
world political experiments that have been tried show that politics based
more on objectivity than subjectivity can be highly effective in terms of simplicity,
cost and effectiveness. That is objective evidence that successful politics can
be based on fact and logic instead of standard liberal, centrist or
conservative ideological belief or values. Critical analysis of expert
political judgment shows not only that ideological biases are real, they tend
to make policy choices less effective. By contrast, some
analytical
models routinely outperform the very best human experts by a wide margin.
Those models make average human experts look shockingly inept, which is
probably why the CIA relies to some extent on
modeling to predict
future trends.
Criticism 20: If humans are subjective, that presumably includes
being spiritual or religious, it is obvious that politics has be based on the
high principles, ideals and morals that underlie political and religious
ideology. Asking people to forsake those principles or morals is asking people
to be something they are not. Objective people cannot deny their own biases and
intuitive biology.
Response: Humans are spiritual or religious and they have been that
way for at least
tens
of thousands of years. In a way, ideological politics is a religion with political
and/or religious ideological values, morals or principles acting as sacred
and/or infallible ideology or values. The objectivism proposed here does rely
on an ideology consisting of three or maybe four high ideals or beliefs, i.e., (i)
unspun fact, (ii) unbiased logic, (iii) the public interest and (iv) maybe
recognition of human fallibility and thus a willingness to compromise or at
least objectively test competing options when feasible.
This does ask people to accept
these three or four ideals or values, but not necessarily to be something they
are not. For people, e.g., people 16-30 years old, with no rigidly fixed
political ideology, they can adopt this intellectual framework for their
politics instead of something else such as liberalism, conservatism,
libertarianism or socialism. In that case, those people would just be what they
choose to be. For a centrists, independents and other discontented people, what
is proposed here may resonate and these principles can integrate into their
belief systems and how they see politics. That does not ask anyone to be
anything they are unwilling to be. For hard core ideologues, this objectivism
proposal is dead on arrival, so they are definitely not going to be something
they are not. Ideologues’ political principles or values are set in stone and
no proposal, rational or not, is going to change that.
People willing to accept objective
politics will, by definition of objectivity, need to accept their own humanity
and the biases and values that are built into human cognition. Because all
humans are subject to unconscious bias and self-delusion does not mean that
that aspect of human character has to dominate. People can and do learn to
recognize this aspect of their own character. Objectivity dominates some
important human endeavors and people who operate in those spheres either learn
to deal with their own tendencies to err in fact and logic or they more or less
wash out. That is true for the “hard sciences” and much of finance and
economics. Physicists who ignore objective data because they dislike its
implication tend to not do well in physics.
That does not mean those
activities are perfect. Failures and mistakes happen all the time, but those
are generally due to reasonable circumstances, e.g., a lack of complete
understanding of a topic such as cancer progression or the nature of dark
energy. And, reliance on objectivity does not preclude acting on intuition or
subjectivity. Some contributions or major advances come from intuitive leaps
even when the underlying theory is not understood or wrong. Sometimes, what
appears to be “common sense” or rational, e.g., the rational man theory in
economics, turns out to be incorrect, but intuition and the action it provokes
can lead to advances. The objective politics proposed here acknowledges (i) the
complexity of politics and (ii) that subjectivity cannot and probably should
not be entirely replaced.
What is proposed here is a
“reasonable” shift in emphasis from intuition and subjectivity to better ground
politics in more the objective values fact and logic than what subjective
ideologies rely on. The goal proposed here is not perfect politics. The goal is
politics that is more rational, more cost-effective and responsive, while being
more honest and transparent. A core belief behind this proposal is the
perception that two-party politics is based mostly on spin (lies, deceit, unconscious
biases, opaque narrow self-interests, etc.) in service to narrow interests. It
is not based enough on truth in service to the public interest.
Criticism 21: People’s political common sense is tied to their
political ideology or values, perceptions of reality (facts) and logic (common
sense). There is no way to change that.
Response: There are ways to change what passes for values, fact and
logic or common sense. Although not common, it does happen all the time. It
boils down to changing people’s political ideology, perceptions of reality
(facts), political values and common sense (logic). That is precisely what
every political ideology tries to do every single day. All people and groups
try to convince all others that they are right: “we reason [apply logic or
common sense] to find the best possible
reasons
why somebody else ought to join us in our [political] judgment. ” When one
of those people or groups succeeds in changing someone’s mind, that constitutes
a change in political ideology, values, common sense and probably perceptions
of reality. People’s ideology and values can and do change over, e.g., some Americans
are slowly drifting from the center to the extremes of the left and right,
which implies that ideology, perceptions of facts common sense and/or values
are also drifting.
Evidence shows that what generally
passes for common sense among liberals and conservatives differ a great deal.
That is why the two sides tend to see the other as irrational or incoherent to
the point of talking nonsense. Liberal political ideology
has been
described as placing value on people or government helping others while
conservative ideology values hard work and self-discipline. Conflicting
perceptions of political reality are often expressed as metaphor. That reflects
the different “common sense” that unconsciously flows from different subjective
ideologies, principles or values. Conservative ideology tends to see government
as a parent, which “has a great deal to do with conservative common sense in
general, as well as with what conservatism is as a
political
and moral philosophy.”
Because of that, what is generally
perceived as common sense to one ideological or moral point of view is often or
usually seen as wrong or nonsense to another. In other words, common sense (logic)
is subjective. Just as with common sense religious beliefs, political common
sense is
a
powerful source of
false
fact belief and a basis for endless, unresolvable disputes between
competing ideologies and the usually incompatible common sense that drives the
misunderstandings. That is largely why liberals and conservatives generally
talk past each other. Hard core ideologues on opposing sides rarely change opposition
minds based on their version of facts, logic and common sense. That makes sense
given the strength of their different subjective faiths.
Criticism 22: This objective politics proposal is just an attack on
religion, which is constitutionally protected. It is constitutionally invalid.
Response: This proposal is not an attack on or rejection of
religious values for personal spiritual needs. Spirituality undeniably is a
part of innate human nature and is important for most people. Spirituality or
religion in some form has been part of human behavior and faith for at least
tens
of thousands of years, if not much longer. Any
per se rejection of religion in American society is pointless,
counterproductive and not what objective politics is intended to do. Freedom of religion remains untouched because, as argued before,
defense of personal freedom and governing according to the constitution and the law, all of which protects freedom of religion, are among the factors on which service to the public interest depends.
That said, this proposal does
question the role of all subjective values, including religious values, in government to the extent it conflicts
with the morals or values of fidelity to unspun fact and unbiased logic in
service to an objectively defined public interest. Those are the ideological
bases or values for the brand of objective politics proposed here. To the
extent there are conflicts between objectivism as defined here and subjective religious faith
in politics, this proposal is one of many competing constitutionally protected
intellectual frameworks or ideologies for how to see the world and do politics.
In that regard, objectivism has just as much moral and legal authority as any
religious ideology that is competing for political dominance. There is nothing
even close to unconstitutional about objective politics.
