Trying to Count Non-Religiosity

Two massive datasets are increasingly divergent in how many people claim to have no religious affiliation, the ‘nones’. The number of nones has been increasing in both datasets from 2008 to 2018, but the divergence in the datasets has been increasing over time.

The Friendly Atheist writes: “For example, how are the questions asked? On the GSS [General Social Survey], the question looks like this: What is your religious preference? Is it Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, some other religion, or no religion?

The CCES [Cooperative Congressional Election Study] asks: What is your present religion, if any? It then offers 11 options — including atheist, agnostic, and nothing in particular (which you can combine to find a total “no religion” number).

Not surprisingly, the latter question gets a higher response from the Nones. I’m not surprised. It’s far more open-ended. It treats “atheist” and “agnostic” like every other option. Even “nothing in particular” may be less grating to some than “no religion,” which could sound harsh or negative.

Burge also notes another important difference between the two surveys, which I believe also accounts quite a bit for the discrepancies: ‘… the GSS is still conducted by a survey administrator asking questions of respondents, while the CCES is computer-based. People are less likely to lie to a computer than they are to a person.’”

Ethics Fades from the Scene

ProPublica reports that federal ethics investigations are fading into irrelevance. Members of congress have discovered that they can simply reject all requests for information by ethics officers and face no penalty or repercussions. The stonewall tactic is bipartisan. Once again, a measure to protect democracy and the rule law turns out to be a toothless mirage.

ProPublica writes:

“Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the freshman Democrat from Michigan, faced allegations that she improperly paid herself a salary from her campaign account, including a bulk payment of $15,500 after the election was over. 

Tlaib told reporters the payments were proper. But when the Office of Congressional Ethics, the House’s independent, nonpartisan watchdog, asked to interview her, the congresswoman refused. So did her staffers who had been involved with the payments. 

Tlaib, who resides on the progressive wing of her party, isn’t alone in this response when OCE came calling. Other lawmakers who stonewalled include a Virginia Republican who allegedly sent his House staff on personal errands, including picking up milk and caring for his dog, and a Freedom Caucus lawmaker from North Carolina who continued to pay his chief of staff even after barring him after accusations of sexual harassment.  

Today, it’s common for lawmakers from both parties to refuse not just some requests for interviews and documents from OCE, but all of them. In the last four years, subjects in 11 of 18 distinct cases refused any cooperation whatsoever. In the six years before that, there were just three such cases out of 43.”

Things like this are what make a third party look appealing and, if one likes honest governance, democracy and the rule of law, necessary. The existing two parties are AWOL and not coming back. They had decades to install defenses of honest governance, democracy and the rule of law, but did absolutely nothing. That’s incompetence.

An Argument for Nuclear Energy

It seems likely that dealing with climate change will require heavy reliance on nuclear power. No other technology can safely deliver power 24 hours a day. Nuclear power is safer than carbon-based energy sources. Solar and wind energy are intermittent and thus not suitable on their own for what is needed. Battery technology is unlikely to ever come close to what is needed to smooth out the peaks and valleys that will forever plague solar and wind energy.

The problem

The problem with nuclear power isn’t safety or technical. It is mostly political. New generation nuclear power plants are designed to be, and will be, even safer than old plants still in operation. People are irrationally afraid of nuclear power. As discussed here before, humans are bad at risk assessment. This applies in spades to nuclear power.

It will require political will and leadership to overcome the fear. The powerful and wealthy carbon energy sector vehemently opposes nuclear power for obvious economic reasons. The carbon energy sector speaks very loudly to politicians via their free speech rights (unlimited campaign contributions and political spending) and very loudly to the public via dark free speech, e.g.,
Natural Gas Industry Blasts Nuclear Power With Fake News : “The American Petroleum Institute has flooded the airwaves in Ohio and Pennsylvania with anti-nuke commercials by pushing fear – fear of higher prices and fear of radiation. Just the opposite of what is true.”

Coronavirus and Politically Unsolid Ground

Things have become so strange with politics in recent weeks that it's hard to get a feel for solid ground under one’s feet. Spin and propaganda utterly dominate facts and reality.

The AP reported yesterday that the White House is muzzling public health officials to make the Coronavirus pandemic look like it isn’t a pandemic or anything to worry about: “NEW YORK (AP) — The White House overruled health officials who wanted to recommend that elderly and physically fragile Americans be advised not to fly on commercial airlines because of the new coronavirus, a federal official told The Associated Press. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention submitted the plan as a way of trying to control the virus, but White House officials ordered the air travel recommendation be removed, said the official who had direct knowledge of the plan. Trump administration officials have since suggested certain people should consider not traveling, but have stopped short of the stronger guidance sought by the CDC. 

The person who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity did not have authorization to talk about the matter. The person did not have direct knowledge about why the decision to kill the language was made or who made the call. 

Administration officials disputed the person’s account. In a tweet, the press secretary for Vice President Mike Pence, Katie Miller, said that ‘it was never a recommendation to the Task Force’ and called the AP story ‘complete fiction.’ On Sunday, Dr. Anthony Fauci — the head of infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health and a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force — said ‘no one overruled anybody.’”

As is often or usually the case these days, the American people are presented with two completely opposed versions of reality. Either the CDC wanted to warn people at risk to not fly, or it did not want to give that warning. Who should be trusted? A narcissistic and self-centered, incompetent, liar president with a track record of well over 16,000 false and misleading statements or a federal agency employee trying to get information out to warn people of real world risks? Who should one trust?

Under the circumstances, including the known and undeniable susceptibility of elderly and physically fragile people to the Coronavirus, it is reasonable to believe that the president is muzzling health care professionals to serve his political and economic interests at the expense of public health.

Given the bumbling incompetence of the president personally and his cowed, inept administration in dealing with the Coronavirus pandemic, it is also reasonable to think it is more likely than not (maybe about a 60% chance) that within about a year, the American people will have herd immunity. The bumbling and fumbling Trump administration is probably going to allow this virus to spread free and wild. That will give rise to herd immunity. Of course, tens or hundreds of thousands of susceptible Americans will die in the process. If that scenario comes to pass, it is fair and balanced to blame the president personally and every single person in his administration who enabled this incompetence and failure.

Actually, since the president neutered America’s capacity to deal with a pandemic by firing the US pandemic response team in 2018[1] and trying to significantly defund the CDC, he and his enablers deserve blame for the death of every single American from the Coronavirus. Based on the facts, one can now reasonably and fairly call our incompetent narcissist president a killer.

Questions: Is calling the president a killer hyperbolic, unfair and/or not reasonably supported by the facts? Or, does a president have limited or no accountability for his actions that later turn out to have been unforced mistakes due to incompetence or any other cause?


Footnote: 
1. “It’s thus true that the Trump administration axed the executive branch team responsible for coordinating a response to a pandemic and did not replace it, eliminating Ziemer’s position and reassigning others, although Bolton was the executive at the top of the National Security Council chain of command at the time.”