Vote For Humanity

 By Best in Moderation

The year was 1940, in the month of June. The Netherlands had suffered a major defeat in the flattening of Rotterdam and surrendered to the German Army a mere five days after the invasion began. My grandmother was pushed out of her family house, which became a Nazi barracks and was later blown up. She and several other younger children were sent to Sweden on some of the last trains that would be allowed to leave the nation not headed for German labor camps.

My grandfather was not so lucky. As a member of the Dutch scouting program and a resident of Haarlem-Heemstede, he was considered a risk and carefully monitored and often brought in for questioning. While in German stations he witnessed families being separated from one another, with men going to labor camps, women going to lock up or serving the soldiers, and children being cast out into the street or orphanages if they were lucky. Many never saw their parents again, and many parents were not reunited with their children in time to save them from the post-war starvation.

I tell you this not to try to Godwin my way into a discussion of politics today, but to give context to the visceral reaction many people have to the forced separation of families with no plan to reunite them that you may hear today. Not a one of us who have experienced this before or have family who has experienced this before can hear this and not shudder. And that’s just from my family history. Try thinking about minorities who were separated and sold for generations. Try thinking of entire generations without families due to religious persecutions and genocides. When it comes to family and the forced separation of them, there is no event in history where the people who did this come out looking like any sort of moral person.

So what then must we think about an entire administration who not only willingly did this, but did this to a zero tolerance degree with no intention of reuniting anyone, no matter the age, circumstance or needs of the people? What can we possibly think of the people who while a pandemic rages through the nation still cram in hundreds of asylum seekers into detention camps, without proper hygiene? What should we think about an administration who ignores or even tries to justify alleged medical experimentation on women, literally mutilating their bodies by removing their ovaries? And what should we think about a group of people who would ignore all those things because it might save them a few dollars somewhere down the line?

Where is the moral outcry over throwing honorable serving soldiers out of the military just because of their gender identity?

Where is the moral outcry over a woman getting shot in her own home because someone thought a door open in the middle of the day was suspicious?

Where is the moral outcry over a woman getting murdered by police in her apartment because of a person she dated?

Where is the moral outcry over all the blatant and useless lies and hypocrisy?

Where is the moral outcry over supporting leaders who imprison, starve, and murder their own people?

None of this is necessary. We do not need to accept any of it. None of it helps our nation one bit. There is no benefit to be had in selling our souls.

This election stopped being about political ideology a long time ago. It was always going to be a referendum on who we are as a people. What we are willing to accept. What we punish. Whether there are consequences and whether those consequences are just.

It’s not a game. It’s not about teams. This is about the basic question of right versus wrong.

Children should not be permanently separated from their families and abandoned. It should never happen to one, let alone 545.

If you cannot agree on this, then you are not a part of any society that is fit to lead. Every single group who accepted this before has gone down as the example of evil in our history.

Don’t support it any longer, or anyone who would push for it.

I would never ask you to abandon your conservative principles. I am pleading with you not to abandon your human principles.

Do not stain your soul for one more day by supporting this kind of thing ever again.

Some Thoughts on Psi Phenomena or Supernatural Events (and Politics)

Steven Novella at the NeuroLogica blog posted a great discussion about what is going on when science finds what appears to be solid evidence of Psi phenomena or something supernatural. Novella writes:

“In 2011 Daryl Bem published a series of ten studies which he claimed demonstrated psi phenomena – that people could “feel the future”. He took standard psychological study methods and simply reversed the order of events, so that the effect was measured prior to the stimulus. Bem claimed to find significant results – therefore psi is real. Skeptics and psychologists were not impressed, for various reasons. At the time, I wrote this:

Perhaps the best thing to come out of Bem’s research is an editorial to be printed with the studies – Why Psychologists Must Change the Way They Analyze Their Data: The Case of Psi by Eric Jan Wagenmakers, Ruud Wetzels, Denny Borsboom, & Han van der Maas from the University of Amsterdam. .... They hit the nail absolutely on the head with their analysis.

Their primary point is this – when research finds positive results for an apparently impossible phenomenon, this is probably not telling us something new about the universe, but rather is probably telling us something very important about the limitations of our research methods.

.... Bem had previously authored a chapter in a textbook on research methodology in which he essentially advocated for p-hacking. This refers to a set of bad research methods that gives the researchers enough wiggle room to fudge the results, enough to make negative data seem statistically significant. This could be as seemingly innocent as deciding when to stop collecting data after you have already peeked at some of the results.

Richard Wiseman, who was one of the first psychologists to try to replicate Bem’s research and came up with negative results, recently published a paper discussing this very issue. In his blog post about the article he credits Bem’s research with being a significant motivator for improving research rigor in psychology:

Several researchers noted that the criticisms aimed at Bem’s work also applied to many studies from mainstream psychology. Many of the problems surrounded researchers changing their statistics and hypotheses after they had looked at their data, and so commentators urged researchers to submit a detailed description of their plans prior to running their studies. In 2013, psychologist Chris Chambers played a key role in getting the academic journal Cortex to adopt the procedure (known as a Registered Report), and many other journals quickly followed suit.”

Novella goes on to note that Bem actually participated in a large scale replication of his experiment using preregistration of his protocol to prevent p-hacking. Bem truly believed that his data proved ESP (extrasensory perception) was real and this major replication would confirm it. Unfortunately for Bem, the preregistration of the protocol did prevent p-hacking. It showed that the existence of ESP was not supported by the data as analyzed by the method specified in preregistered protocol. In short, ESP did not exist based on the research and data analysis protocols that were used in the replication experiment.

Bem had spent most of his research life trying to show that ESP was real. He refused to accept the results. Instead, he broke the analysis protocol and used a different statistical analysis on the data. That exercise resulted in a finding that the evidence showing the existence of ESP as a real phenomenon was ‘highly significant’. Bem had reverted back to p-hacking to get the result he desperately wanted.

This is a clear example of a trained scientist like Dr. Bem who is aware of the subtle pitfalls of doing science and coming to the wrong conclusion. He could not escape the trap his mind created. He wanted very much wanted ESP to be real. So, what chance does the average American non-scientist have in escaping the trap that relentless political dark free speech can so effectively create in their minds?

The point here is to try to exemplify how the human mind can effectively but subtly lead people to believe things that are false, even in the face of powerful contradictory evidence. It happens to scientists. It also happens to everyone else, me included.

The best defense? Adopting and applying critical thinking skills is probably about best one can do. It imposes a high cognitive load and I suspect that most people are unwilling to engage in it. That appears to be the case despite the fact that most people already do believe they are critical thinkers. That mostly false belief is yet another persistent illusion that dark free speech creates and maintains in the minds of many people, probably including me at least sometimes. 

False Conservative Talking Points

The GOP, the president and at least some of his supporters are making various false allegations in advance of the election. That is no surprise. It continues what has been going on at least since the 2016 election.

One false allegation is that democrats hate American because they are unwilling to compromise on a coronavirus relief bill. In fact, senate republicans are unwilling to compromise because they fear political blowback in the election. The New York Times writes:

“Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, privately told Republican senators on Tuesday that he had warned the White House not to strike a pre-election deal with Speaker Nancy Pelosi on a new round of stimulus, moving to head off an agreement that President Trump has demanded but most in his party oppose.

Mr. McConnell’s remarks, confirmed by four Republicans familiar with them, threw cold water on Mr. Trump’s increasingly urgent push to enact a new round of pandemic aid before Election Day. They came just as Ms. Pelosi offered an upbeat assessment of her negotiations with Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, telling Democrats that their latest conversation had yielded “common ground as we move closer to an agreement.”

The cost of their emerging compromise on a new round of aid to hard-pressed Americans and businesses has steadily climbed toward $2 trillion, inching closer to Ms. Pelosi’s demands even as it far exceeds what most Senate Republicans have said they can accept.”

Other republican lies include the false allegation that Joe Biden is a criminal and that Biden has, as one crackpot put it, taken a $1 billion dollar bribe from China. No source for the billion dollar bribe was given, but the president is now hinting at some evil afoot between Biden and China. As we now know, he source for the Biden is a crook, LOCK HIM UP!, allegation is the treasonous crackpot liar Rudy Giuliani, the always liar Russians and the radicals at the lies and propaganda New York Post. 

On the other hand, people are now starting to question the president's previously hidden financial ties with China. The New York Times writes:

“As he raises questions about his opponent’s standing with China, President Trump’s taxes reveal details about his own activities there, including a previously unknown bank account.

President Trump and his allies have tried to paint the Democratic nominee, Joseph R. Biden Jr., as soft on China, in part by pointing to his son’s business dealings there.

Senate Republicans produced a report asserting, among other things, that Mr. Biden’s son Hunter “opened a bank account” with a Chinese businessman, part of what it said were his numerous connections to “foreign nationals and foreign governments across the globe.”

But Mr. Trump’s own business history is filled with overseas financial deals, and some have involved the Chinese state. He spent a decade unsuccessfully pursuing projects in China, operating an office there during his first run for president and forging a partnership with a major government-controlled company.

And it turns out that China is one of only three foreign nations — the others are Britain and Ireland — where Mr. Trump maintains a bank account, according to an analysis of the president’s tax records, which were obtained by The New York Times. The foreign accounts do not show up on Mr. Trump’s public financial disclosures, where he must list personal assets, because they are held under corporate names. The identities of the financial institutions are not clear.  

Mr. Garten would not identify the bank in China where the account is held. Until last year, China’s biggest state-controlled bank rented three floors in Trump Tower, a lucrative lease that drew accusations of a conflict of interest for the president.”

Once again, the president (i) at least has possible conflicts of interest that he hid behind his tax returns until they were leaked to the NYT, and (ii) tries to smear Joe Biden as a crook by pointing to Hunter Biden’s past business dealings. So far, the allegations against Biden have no authentic evidence to support them. One can conclude it is all lies, something that Trump and the GOP is very comfortable with using against political opposition. No moral qualms there.

What is amazing about this is the fact that the president himself, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump all have ongoing for-profit business dealings and conflicts of interest in the US and some other countries. No republican in office or any Trump supporter I am aware of complains vigorously about any that. They all just complain about how awful Biden is. GOP and Trump supporter hypocrisy on this point is just way off scale, off the hook and off the charts.

Other GOP crackpottery includes bogus reasoning based on red herring logic flaws, some of which are themselves lies. For example, one enraptured Evangelical claimed online that because the president tries to fulfill his campaign promises, he cannot be a liar about anything. That poor enraptured soul apparently did not realize that a person can fulfill promises and still be a liar about everything else.

Use by conservatives of the Motte and Bailey logic fallacy to deny climate science has been discussed here before. That false talking point is still going strong among the CCC (conservative crackpot cognoscenti). The lie that we do not know what is causing climate change is a real hit with conservative talking heads and cranks.

And, despite the false GOP claim that we are turning the corner on the pandemic and things are getting better, things are getting worse. Maybe we turned a different corner than the one that the president and his lying enablers had in mind. 

Why Some Voters Are Flipping Away From Trump

“One consequence of our reliance on old definitions is that the modern American does not look at democracy before he defines it; he defines it first and then is confused by what he sees. We become cynical about democracy because the public does not act the way the simplistic definition of democracy says it should act, or we try to whip the public into doing things it does not want to do, is unable to do, and has too much sense to do. The crisis here is not a crisis in democracy but a crisis in theory.” -- Democracy For Realists: Why Elections Do not Produce Responsive Governments, Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels, 2016)

One issue that has been of great personal interest is why some people are walking away from supporting the president in 2020. The New York Times has interviewed some more of these folks and reports:

“For many Democrats and independents who sat out 2016, voted for third-party candidates or backed Donald Trump, Mr. Biden is more acceptable to them in ways large and small than Mrs. Clinton was.

Samantha Kacmarik, a Latina college student in Las Vegas, said that four years ago, she had viewed Hillary Clinton as part of a corrupt political establishment.

Flowers Forever, a Black transgender music producer in Milwaukee, said she had thought Mrs. Clinton wouldn’t change anything for the better.

And Thomas Moline, a white retired garbageman in Minneapolis, said he simply hadn’t trusted her.

None of them voted for Mrs. Clinton. All of them plan to vote for Joseph R. Biden Jr.
“I knew early that Trump definitely wasn’t the guy for me,” recalled Mr. Moline, an independent. But when it came to Mrs. Clinton, “I guess I had a bad taste in my mouth from her husband’s eight years in office.” He voted for Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate, a decision he regrets, and he feels at ease backing Mr. Biden.

The point seems almost too obvious to note: Mr. Biden is not Mrs. Clinton. Yet for many Democrats and independents who sat out 2016, voted for third-party candidates or backed Mr. Trump, it is a rationale for their vote that comes up repeatedly: Mr. Biden is more acceptable to them than Mrs. Clinton was, in ways large and small, personal and political, sexist and not, and those differences help them feel more comfortable voting for the Democratic nominee this time around.

Even as Mr. Biden proposes a significantly bigger role for government than Mrs. Clinton did four years ago, some voters view the Democratic nominee as more moderate compared to how they saw her. And they don’t see him as being as divisive a political figure as they did Mrs. Clinton, despite Mr. Biden’s long record of legislative battles.

‘I didn’t like Hillary — I felt that she was a fraud, basically, lying and conniving,’ said Sarah Brown, 27, of Rhinelander, Wis., who regrets her 2016 vote for Mr. Trump and plans to vote for Mr. Biden. ‘I’m not a super big fan of him, either, but the two options — I guess it’s the lesser evil.’

Polling shows Mr. Biden scoring higher than Mrs. Clinton among a wide range of demographic groups — most notably older voters, white voters and suburbanites. But his advantage is stark among those who sat out the 2016 election or backed third-party candidates. 

Mr. Biden leads Mr. Trump, 49 percent to 19 percent, among likely voters who backed third-party candidates in 2016, according to recent polling of battleground states by The New York Times and Siena College. Among registered voters who sat out the 2016 election, Mr. Biden leads by nine percentage points, the polls found. 

Republicans, too, have found Mr. Biden to be a much tougher target. Even now, four years after she last ran for any office, Mrs. Clinton has appeared in more Republican ads attacking down-ballot Democratic candidates than has Mr. Biden, according to data compiled by Advertising Analytics. In the final weeks of his campaign, Mr. Trump has tried to reignite controversy over Mrs. Clinton’s emails, blasting out fund-raising requests with the subject line: ‘HILLARY CLINTON.’”

I have generally shied away from putting much weight on polls because they have been too far removed from Nov. 3. Now that Nov. 3 is about two weeks away, polls start to carry some more weight for me. They will carry more weight for me starting next week.

What worries people?

Once again, I cannot spot a unifying concern among people who are turning away from the president. The concerns that bother me the most center on matters of the his authoritarianism, incompetence, corruption, endless lies (immorality) and toxic demagoguery and social divisiveness (dark free speech or epistemic terrorism). In those things I saw the making of a cruel, corrupt, incompetent tyrant. His supporters see none of that, or are so concerned with their unjustified concerns about being under severe attack, that they continue to support this monster. 

Apparently, the people who have decided to oppose the president in this election also do not see what I see as the major flaws and worries about the president. His endless lies and deceit are never mentioned. The matter of democracy and the rule of law vs. Trump’s authoritarianism and contempt for the rule of law are also never mentioned. His gross incompetence and corruption are rarely mentioned. The only competence related concern is his failure to deal competently with the pandemic.

Clearly, the things I am  most concerned about with politics, most Americans are not. The world of concerns I have compared to people who have flipped on Trump overlap very little.

Once again, human cognitive biology and social behavior is controlling. The NYT article comments on this:

“The quality of Mrs. Clinton’s that emerged as the most appealing in 2016 groups was not her accomplishments but that she had set aside her own ambitions to serve in President Obama’s administration, according to people involved with the campaign.

Winning over female voters entailed walking a particularly tortured path, former campaign aides say.

‘She had to show more experience than they did, but not so much experience that they couldn’t relate to her,’ said Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director for Clinton’s campaign. ‘We kept running into those conflicts in people’s own heads.’

In focus groups conducted by the Biden campaign after he won the party nomination, voters were generally unfamiliar with his achievements but far less conflicted about him personally, strategists said. 

‘Biden didn’t have as much definition as I thought he would have had in the electorate,’ said Steve Schale, a veteran Florida Democratic operative who is chief executive of Unite the Country, a super PAC backing Mr. Biden. ‘They just see him as a nice guy.’”

What are they thinking?

There you have it: ‘We kept running into those conflicts in people’s own heads.’ Some or maybe most women see the role of women as women, not as national leaders. I imagine that some or most men take a dimmer view of women as political, military, social or religious leaders. The Catholic church is on exactly that same page in terms of religious leaders. People see Biden as a nice guy and Hillary as a woman with limits on her place in society. Why Trump supporters do not see him as a very nasty, vicious and/or grossly incompetent guy seems to be grounded in his gender, not his actual personal traits or qualities.

Trying to partially rationalize politics is definitely a very tough nut to crack. Maybe so tough that whatever tool is used to try to crack it will break because it isn't hard enough.

Or, maybe society will get to real equality sometime in the future, but just not now.