Regarding Police Unions, Politicians and the Public Interest

A 1975 pamphlet circulated by the New York City police union --

similar leaflets were later created in Newark and Boston

A New York Times article, Police Unions Won Power Using His Playbook. Now He’s Negotiating the Backlash, gives a bit of insight into police unions. This one will curdle your milk if it isn't already cottage cheese. The NYT writes:

Ron DeLord, a fiery former Texas cop turned labor organizer, has long taught union leaders how to gain power and not let go. He has likened a police union going after an elected official to a cheetah devouring a wildebeest, and suggested that taking down just one would make others fall in line.

He helped write the playbook that police unions nationwide — seeking better pay, perks and protections from discipline — have followed for decades. Build a war chest. Support your friends. Smear your enemies. Even scare citizens with the threat of crime. One radio spot in El Paso warned residents to support their local police or face “the alternative,” as the sound of gunshots rang out.

“We took weak, underpaid organizations and built them into what everyone today says are powerful police unions,” Mr. DeLord said in a recent interview. “You may say we went too far. I say you don’t know how far you’ve gone until you’re at the edge of the envelope.”

That moment may be now.

A slide from a presentation Mr. DeLord gave to union officials --

the Cheetah (a police labor union) is chewing on a wildebeest 

(politician) it chased down and killed while other chickenshit

wildebeests in the herd look on in horror at the prospect of the next election

THIS IS WHY A LOT OF AMERICANS OPPOSE 

OR HATE PUBLIC SECTOR LABOR UNIONS 

AND POLITICIANS GENERALLY

WHERE IS THE PUBLIC INTEREST IN ANY OF THIS??

THE PUBLIC INTEREST IS MOSTLY DEFENSELESS

Unions — many of which have dug in despite the protests and challenged officers’ firings in high-profile incidents — are also increasingly seen as out of step with the public. Officers in big cities can earn more than $100,000 a year, far more than citizens they are assigned to protect. That success has stoked a backlash. Many cities say they are unable, or unwilling, to pay for ever mounting police costs.

The president of the Dallas police union sent a campaign 

mailer targeting a local councilman

Union and city leaders are especially watching negotiations in San Antonio. Years ago, officers there locked in some of the most highly coveted perks and protections of any department in the country: rules that helped shield officers from discipline; fat pensions, Cadillac health insurance plans, even taxpayer-funded payments for divorce lawyers. Their success became a case study for unions nationwide.

During the last negotiations, city officials claimed the contract would bankrupt San Antonio. Now, city officials are focused on undoing some disciplinary protections. Adding pressure, a May ballot measure in the Texas city could eliminate the union’s ability to bargain — a devastating blow.

Toby Futrell’s copy of the police unionizing guide Mr. DeLord wrote 

with a fellow organizer and a political consultant

Elsewhere, police and city officials studied the book. “After I read it, I understood we were in over our heads,” said Toby Futrell, a former Austin city manager. “Even though we knew what the playbook was, we had never played — it’s one thing to read the football rules and it’s another to play football.”

An unexpected voice urging police unions nationwide to compromise is that of Mr. DeLord, who is the chief negotiator for the San Antonio union. “The unions need to bend,” he said. “They need to be prepared to bargain over things that their community thinks are fair.” Unions that don’t understand are “tone deaf,” he added.

The 1997 book Mr. DeLord wrote with a fellow organizer, John Burpo, and a political consultant, Michael Shannon, “Police Association Power, Politics, and Confrontation: A Guide for the Successful Police Labor Leader,” is pugnacious. The book repeatedly urges union leaders to ignore the “losers,” “whiners” and “naysayers” in their way. “A police association leader must throw out all those traditional notions of right and wrong,” it exhorts. “So long as it’s legal, you do what you gotta do to get where you’re going!” It also quotes one San Antonio union official saying, “If all else fails, we’ll drop the bomb and live in the ashes.” (emphasis added)

Does any of that sound familiar? Rhetoric arguing that despite losers and whiners, a leader must throw out all traditional notions of right and wrong smells an awful lot like the modern FGOP (fascist GOP). So is that argument persuasive that so long as self-interest is legal, you do what you gotta do to get where you’re going, even if the public interest and racial minorities are shafted? Also reminiscent of the modern FGOP is the admonition, if all else fails, we’ll drop the bomb and live in the ashes.

Once again, the American people and the public interest have been royally screwed to the tune of hundreds of billions (probably trillions). Once again, we face betrayal of democracy and the accountability of police power. This time, the political betrayal looks to be mostly bipartisan.

Questions: What comparable power is always present and as effective in defense of the public interest? The FGOP? The democratic party? No one and nothing? Who the hell is defending the public interest? Or is it the case that unless what Dark Lord DeLord and his ilk got for the patriotic thin blue line was necessary to get this level of police protection, racist or not, cost-effective or not?

Random thoughts: 

1. Some data (disputed) indicates that former military are better cops because they have been trained in Iraq and Afghanistan where telling civilians from enemies is very hard and requires restraint before blowing people away with their guns. It is time to reassess all police training?

2. The FGOP is arguing strenuously that democrats do not adequately support the police. Is that a reasonable argument everywhere, some places or nowhere?

3. Since T**** and the FGOP lost power after the 2020 election, it seems that America's social and political situation has deteriorated, not improved. Bitter disputes over policing is a core source of social and political discord. Is that wrong?

4. Some data indicates that Eugene Oregon's CAHOOTS program[1] is highly cost effective and results in less violence and deaths. Is it time to intensify research into alternatives to police in appropriate situations, regardless of how much police unions hate diversion of money from them to possibly more cost-effective and less deadly options?

5. Is it unreasonable to be angry at police unions, or is the situation just a matter of competition in free markets where politicians are incentivized to not lose re-election, even if it means screwing the public interest to serve their own interest? Or, is that too cynical a view of reality?

Footnote: 

1. One source comments:

"CAHOOTS calls come to Eugene’s 911 system or the police non-emergency number. Dispatchers are trained to recognize non-violent situations with a behavioral health component and route those calls to CAHOOTS. A team will respond, assess the situation and provide immediate stabilization in case of urgent medical need or psychological crisis, assessment, information, referral, advocacy, and, when warranted, transportation to the next step in treatment.

White Bird’s CAHOOTS provides consulting and strategic guidance to communities across the nation that are seeking to replicate CAHOOTS’ model. Contact us if you are interested in our consultation services program."

Free Elections Are Falling to the Rise of Voter Suppression

An analysis of about 250 state laws proposed by republican lawmakers indicates that a massive push to suppress voting nationwide is well underway. These laws are going to pass in states controlled by the fascist GOP (FGOP). They will not pass in states that democratic lawmakers control. The analysis indicates that 116 million people, about 73 percent of the electorate, cast their ballots before Election Day on Nov. 3, 2020. The most common measures impose limits on early and/or absentee voting. Such proposals are pending in 33 states. The Washington Post writes:

The GOP’s national push to enact hundreds of new election restrictions could strain every available method of voting for tens of millions of Americans, potentially amounting to the most sweeping contraction of ballot access in the United States since the end of Reconstruction, when Southern states curtailed the voting rights of formerly enslaved Black men, a Washington Post analysis has found.

In 43 states across the country, Republican lawmakers have proposed at least 250 laws that would limit mail, early in-person and Election Day voting with such constraints as stricter ID requirements, limited hours or narrower eligibility to vote absentee, according to data compiled as of Feb. 19 by the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice. Even more proposals have been introduced since then.

Proponents say the provisions are necessary to shore up public confidence in the integrity of elections after the 2020 presidential contest, when then-President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of election fraud convinced millions of his supporters that the results were rigged against him.

But in most cases, Republicans are proposing solutions in states where elections ran smoothly, including in many with results that Trump and his allies did not contest or allege to be tainted by fraud. The measures are likely to disproportionately affect those in cities and Black voters in particular, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic — laying bare, critics say, the GOP’s true intent: gaining electoral advantage [that is, FGOP advantage gained by voter suppression].

In many states, Democrats are trying to make those expansions permanent — and broaden voting access in other ways. Congressional Democrats are also pushing a sweeping proposal to impose national standards that would override much of what Republican state lawmakers are trying to constrict, including measures that would provide universal eligibility to vote by mail, at least 15 days of early voting, mandatory online voter registration and the restoration of voting rights for released felons. The measure has passed the House but faces steep opposition in the evenly divided Senate.

Republican state legislators, meanwhile, echoing Trump’s false claims that the election was stolen from him, are pushing hard in the other direction.

The outcome of dueling efforts will vary depending on partisan control of statehouses. The same party controls both legislative chambers and the governorship in 38 states — 23 of them Republican and 15 of them Democratic. Many of the most restrictive proposals have surfaced in states where the GOP has a total hold on power, including Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina, Missouri and Florida. (emphasis and commentary added)

WaPo goes on to comment that scholars and historians believe that the proposed restrictions would lead to a dramatic limit on ballot access, comparable to the late-19th century, when Southern states subverted the 15th Amendment’s prohibition on denying voting based on race. Those states enacted poll taxes, literacy tests and other restrictions. Almost all Black men were disenfranchised. The FGOP is doing the same all over again, but now wants to exclude a much broader swath of voters, i.e., democrats, racial minorities and hated out-groups, especially the LGBQT community.

From here on out, at least for the foreseeable future, the FGOP will contest presidential elections that a democrat wins. That assumes that a democratic candidate can win the White House if the proposed FGOP laws pass -- Biden won by a mere 43,000 votes spread among three states. These voter suppression laws could suppress tens of thousands in each affected state. That party and its still-toxic ex-president have, for many Americans, successfully undermined public trust in elections on the basis of no valid evidence. The magnitude and importance of that accomplishment of dark free speech cannot be overstated. That lie has opened a gaping wound in American democracy, politics and society. The FGOP can and will throw salt on that open wound at will as it deems fit.

Some Reasons to Fear Republicans and the Republican Party

Deadly political war

Here's some delightful back and froth (not forth) on a recent thread here.

Commenter: If a political figure, such as Charles Murray, is invited to speak on a college campus, and a mob of leftwing students turn up and destroy the meeting by physically attacking him ..... is this authoritarianism?

Germaine: If a mob of leftwing students turn up and destroy a meeting by physically attacking anyone, LOCK 'EM UP!! LOCK 'EM UP!! LOCK 'EM UP!!

Lawbreaking, especially if anyone is attacked and harmed is bad, immoral and not tolerable. LOCK 'EM UP!!

That said, about 0.001% of the left might participate in that kind of illegality. Does that mean the other ~99.999% are just the same?

Because the people who carried out the 1/6 coup attempt were T**** supporters, does that mean that all T**** supporters are fascists who want to overthrow the government by force so they can install a corrupt, mendacious, treasonous dictator for life? I don't think so. Do you?

Commenter: Well, we agree here. Lock 'em up! And I also agree -- as a conservative and not a 'Never-Trump' conservative (although one who was'/is not happy to have this man in the leadership of American conservatism) -- that the US is entering a dangerous period, where authoritarian, or worse, 'solutions' could appear increasingly popular to a lot of people, both Right and Left.

Given a major American military humiliation by a newly-dominant China, combined with a major economic crisis, perhaps caused by the ending of the dollar as the world's reserve currency -- anything is possible.

However, I don't think the problem is confined to the Right. Liberals used to be for free speech -- in fact, they were better on this issue than conservatives. Now, liberals who speak up for free speech are a dwindling minority.

Then there is the race issue.
Here's a question for you: if one race has been dominant for a long time in a country, and is supplanted in this position by the previously-non-dominant race ... do the previously-dominant ones have anything to worry about? If they are unhappy about this change, are their fears rational?

Here's a related question: Mexico has a certain political culture. This culture is independent of which party is in power, and is persistent. It's rather like the mass culture of Sicily, with respect to the Mafia: for some, active support, for economic reasons; for others, passive acceptance; for others, weary acceptance reinforced by fear if they are seen not to accept it.

So, in Mexico, if you speak out against the drug cartels, your life may be in danger. It's even possible in some areas for the cartels to defeat the Mexican army. Lots of money (due to America's wealth and appetite for drugs) plus utter ruthlessness make the cartels, evidently, unremovable. So their existence and great power is accepted. The culture of the bribe, of corrupt police (and teachers unions) ... of people who are murdered if they get too uppity about these things -- it's just accepted, perhaps not eagerly embraced but ... accepted. If large numbers of people did NOT accept it, it wouldn't last.

Question: if large numbers of people who have grown up under this system transfer their citizenship to another country, is it guaranteed that they will leave this aspect of their culture behind them? Is it racist to assume they will, or to demand that they do? (After all, you're saying that this aspect of their culture is bad and you're demanding, or hoping, that they will embrace yours.)

Germaine: 

Now, liberals who speak up for free speech are a dwindling minority.

There are three kinds of free speech, all legal as I define them, honest free speech, ambiguous free speech and dark free speech. Sometimes the line between honest and dark can be fuzzy, so that's ambiguous speech, e.g., because some relevant facts are not known or are unknowable.

Dark free speech: deceit, lies of omission and commission, irrational emotional manipulation (unwarranted fear, anger, distrust, bigotry, etc.), unwarranted character assassination and flawed motivated reasoning.

My read of the history of tyranny, demagoguery, kleptocracy and failures of democracy, is that the most common way for authoritarianism and corruption to rise to power is to rely heavily on dark free speech.

Maybe some liberals are becoming intolerant of dark free speech. I don't blame them. I don't want to tolerate it any more either. T**** and decades of vicious GOP and conservative dark free speech (Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, Breitbart, InfoWars, etc.) has torn American society apart and severely damaged democracy and honest governance. In other words, American society, democracy and the rule of law are all under a ruthless, sustained attack by authoritarian radical right dark free speech.

The GOP is now hell-bent on massive voter suppression because republicans can't win elections without vote suppression any more. That is pure fascist authoritarianism. The GOP leadership and apparently most rank and file has come to accept that the free press is the enemy of the people, democrats are evil, inconvenient science is lies, bigotry is acceptable, convenient lies are truth and inconvenient truths are lies, the 1/6 coup attempt was just a little kerfuffle of no major import, and corruption in government is tolerable, at least for corrupt republicans like T****. I do not see anything close to equivalence coming from the left.

What are the top three threats you see coming from liberal extremists? Do you think Biden is a liberal extremist, as T**** and the rest of the GOP leadership and conservative punditocracy says? What exactly are the liberal threats? I don't get it. The left can be nutty but they aren't out to install a corrupt, incompetent, mendacious (dark free speech-dependent) dictator like T****.

.... do the previously-dominant ones have anything to worry about? If they are unhappy about this change, are their fears rational?

Excellent questions. Perfect. That nicely encapsulates the irrational fear and White grievance mindset. Let me start start with this insight:

If, democracy and the rule of law were to be respected, which they are not under current republican authoritarianism, the previously-dominant ones (White people) would not have anything to worry about. Some or most of those White people who are unhappy about this change, are feeling race- and social change-based fears that would be irrational in a democracy that operates under the rule of law.

But since the republican mindset is now open to a fascist demagogic dictatorship, they see how that kind of bad government and society could blow back on them in the form of oppression. Some or most White conservatives fear the same kind of oppression what White people have inflicted and still inflict on racial minorities, women and hated out-groups such as the LGBQT community.

In other words, some or most republicans fear what could happen to them if minority people start to gain social and political power. So they are now rushing to destroy democracy, the rule of law and establish a demagogic dictatorship under the rule of the dictator who promises to protect privileged White people and their privileges.

if large numbers of people who have grown up under this system transfer their citizenship to another country, is it guaranteed that they will leave this aspect of their culture behind them?

Yes, it is guaranteed if this country remains a democracy that operates under the rule of law. To the extent any aspect of an imported culture conflicts with the rule of law, it gets shut down by the law when conflicts arise. That is how the rule of law is supposed to work in a democracy.

In essence, what republicans are saying is that they have lost faith in democracy, the rule of law, social tolerance and social trust. That is the kind of poisonous wound that decades of authoritarian radical right dark free speech has inflicted on American society and governance. Millions of minds have been poisoned.

My assessment:
T****, the GOP leadership and rank and file republicans: ~85% responsible for the damage to democracy, rule of law, social comity, respect for truth, etc.
Everyone else: ~15% responsible

All of the foregoing is why the radical right terrifies me, but not the radical left.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And so it goes. Hand to hand combat. One mind at a time. Very few moments of mutual understanding. No mind changes. This is hard work, grunt, grunt. Dang, I need a pay raise.

Happily at work

Lies. Liars and Truthtellers

 You have seen the claims. Masks and distancing are not necessary. Just pray to God, and he will protect you from the virus…and oh, by the way, come to my church and put lotsa money in the collection plate.

The lies continue. Trump was chosen by God to be President. Satan helped Democrats cheat him out of his re-election, but don’t worry. God is gonna fix it, expose all the cheaters, and restore Trump to his rightful place as leader of our nation, anointed by God. When will this happen? Hand-waving. Maybe two weeks, maybe two months, maybe longer. Be patient. And meanwhile, keep feeding my collection plate.

It is tempting to lump all Christian evangelical pastors into one stinking putrid pile of excrement and condemn them as liars who are cynically duping their followers so that they can extract money and gain power. There are a number of those, but not all of them are stooping to such levels of despicable dishonesty, as an article in the LA Times pointed out today.

One pastor from a Baptist church in rural Michigan described a recent encounter with a member of his church. After he gave a prayer that lamented the attack on the Capitol, she told him that it was “too political.” She followed with a barrage of conspiracy theories: The election was a fraud, the attacks were incited and led by Black Lives Matter and antifa, and the FBI was in on it all. She finished by telling him that the day would soon come when all the evil, the corruption, would come to light, and the truth would be revealed.

The pastor was so startled by the attack that he was moved to tears. He told her, “You have been lied to. You need to know how crazy this is. You have been with my family, in my home, and I care for you. You are dabbling in darkness. You are telling me it is giving you hope. I am telling you, as your pastor, that it is evil.”

I suspect that he lost a church member. She has not spoken to him since. The pastor should be praised for his honesty and courage. The area where his church is located voted for 2-1 for Trump. His honesty will probably limit his tenure at the church, and worse yet (horrible thought) put his life at risk, just as Democratic Senators are in great danger. The assassination of a single Dem Senator from a state with a Republican governor could change the balance of power in the Senate, and allow Republicans to stonewall everything that Biden tries to accomplish.

The pastor spelled it out: “Something disturbing has happened with evangelicals in this country, where we have become prone to conspiracies and believing the worst about our enemies, where we end up placing the Republican Party and ourselves as Americans first before true Christianity,”

Some Christian leaders are pushing back. A group of more than 500 influential evangelical pastors and faith leaders published an open letter recently titled “Say No to Christian Nationalism.” The letter condemned “radicalized Christian nationalism,” and the rise of “violent acts by radicalized extremists using the name of Christ.”

As the Times article noted, the spread of disinformation is not exclusive to religious organizations. But because Christianity is the largest faith in the US, and churches are places where ideas spread, pastors are instrumental in forming the substance of those ideas. When they spread lies and conspiracy theories to the members of their churches, it has a magnifying effect because of their stature as religious leaders.

Andrew Whitehead, a sociologist at the University of Indiana and Purdue University, describes Christian nationalism as the “fusing of Christianity with the belief that we are a Christian nation, one that God has chosen specifically for success and a particular Christian path, one that has been tied to the Republican Party and being white.” He goes on to say that this joining of politics and faith “has been influential for decades but was given a much bigger megaphone by Trump. We’ve seen that those who embrace Christian nationalism are also more likely to believe in conspiracies.”

Mark Fugitt, a Baptist pastor in Missouri said he has battled against conspiracy theories in his congregation of 300. He listed a number of ideas his church members have shared: face masks cause carbon dioxide poisoning, germ theory is fake, 5G networks are part of a ploy for mind control, and the theory of a child sex trafficking ring with connections to Hillary Clinton and her allies was being run out of a Washington pizza shop. After seeing a recent post by a pastor who said who said rolling blackouts in Texas were the federal government “trying to condition us for communist control,” he was at a loss. He didn’t respond, he said because he “didn’t think he could change any minds.”

For some pastors, the craziness is too much to bear. Vern Swieringa, a Christian Reformed Church pastor left his post in the small western Michigan town of Hamilton after months of disputes with his congregation over his requirement that they wear masks, but he says there was a lot more. “Elderly church members shared videos claiming that Democrats were going to turn the country to socialism, that they were evil and that QAnon was right.” He moved to a church in South Haven, Michigan where masks are mandatory. (See Note)

Jared Stacy, a Southern Baptist pastor in Virginia, had a similar experience. Over the four years of the Trump administration, he observed a gradual increase in conspiracy theories that was dividing his congregation, especially the sex trafficking conspiracy promoted by QAnon.

“It’s like 2020 just exposed so many undercurrents that were already there and growing,” he said. “How could I compete with an hour sermon on Sunday, with a person who was committing hours and hours to media and information on YouTube and Facebook?”

Stacy left the church in November. Today he lives in Scotland, where he studies theology at the University of Aberdeen. He hopes to return to the US someday.

“the year 2020 drove my family to take a distance from America,” he said. “Christianity is global. Evangelical Christianity is global. When you look at US Christianity from the outside, you wonder what happened.”

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2021/03/06/lies-liars-and-truthtellers/

Regarding Research on the Morality of Atheists

I do not myself believe that many people do things because they think they are the right thing to do . . . . I do not think that knowledge of what is morally right is motivational in any serious sense for anyone except a handful of saints. -- federal judge Richard Posner, referring to the power of social situations to compel behavior, moral or not, rational or not

Moral consequentialism (moral utilitarianism): morality is assessed by looking only at the consequences of an act or the state of the world that will result from what a person does; that absolutist attitude is persuasively criticized as not always the best way to do moral reasoning, but it is a reasonable way to include consideration of regarding moral dilemmas before arriving at a moral judgment

CONTEXT

An interesting research article, The amoral atheist? A cross-national examination of cultural, motivational, and cognitive antecedents of disbelief, and their implications for morality, examines the stereotype that atheists are untrustworthy and lack a moral compass. The paper looked at differences between believers and non-believers. The hypothesis was that social distrust of atheists was a major source of negative attitudes toward atheists and their perceived lack of morality. The research surveyed people in a religious country, the US, and a relatively non-believer country, Sweden. 

A 2019 survey generated data showing that 44% of Americans think that belief in God is necessary for morality. Many Americans believe that atheists are least in agreement with their vision of America compared to all other groups because they do not share their moral norms and values with 'normal' people. Some research has found that some atheists also believe that atheists are immoral, so there is solid evidence that this belief is common in most countries.

The results

The survey data indicated that compared to believers, disbelievers or atheists are less inclined to endorse moral values that serve group cohesion. By one hypothesis, those morals are socially binding moral foundations or values. Only minor differences were found in endorsement of other moral values referred to as individualizing moral foundations (care/harm and fairness/cheating morals) and epistemic rationality (something that some people do not believe is a moral value, but is the central moral value of pragmatic rationalism). The data also indicated that atheism correlated with cultural and demotivational antecedents (limited exposure to credibility-enhancing displays, low existential threat***) are associated with disbelief. Those moral beliefs correlated with weaker belief in binding moral foundations in both countries. The results also correlated disbelievers (vs. believers) with a more consequentialist source morality in both countries. Moral consequentialism was also correlated with analytic cognitive style, which is another hypothesized antecedent of disbelief.

*** Credibility enhancing displays (CREDS) were assessed by survey questions such as “Overall, to what extent did people in your community attend religious services or meetings?” (1 = to no extent at all, 7 = to an extreme extent). A low CREDS score is believed to constitute an antecedent or path to religious disbelief. Existential threat perceptions were assessed by questions such as “There are many dangerous people in our society who will attack someone out of pure meanness, for no reason at all”, and “Any day now, chaos and anarchy could erupt around us. All the signs are pointing to it” (1 = Completely disagree, 7 = Completely agree).

Commentary

As usual, the situation is complicated and data needs to be (i) considered with caution, and (ii) replicated to confirm and further explore the results. There multiple concepts discussed in this paper that I am not familiar with, e.g., measurement and interpretation of CREDS, antecedents to disbelief and analytic cognitive style. 

The authors speak of associations or correlations, not causal relationships. In addition, other research has shown that religiosity is positively related to some morally relevant behaviors, but unrelated or negatively related to others. Also, acting in a way that can be considered moral does not imply that the behavior was morally motivated. A behavior can arise from multiple motivations. For example, behavior is well-known to usually be variably, often strongly, influenced or even dominated by different social situations or contexts.

If the results hold up, they arguably point to a social and political weakness and strength in atheism and pragmatic rationalism. The weakness is the a mindset-ideology that is insufficient for good social cohesion and trust. The glue in the mindset-ideology may be too weak to sustain a liberal democracy, especially a racially diverse one. Although it's counterintuitive, that possible weakness suggests that atheism and pragmatic rationalism probably need to find some sort of spiritual component, e.g., Buddhism, that can afford some social glue. Atheists seem to be more like a herd of cats than any united kind of cohesive human group. If there are non-spiritual sources of pro-democracy social glue, they are not apparent to me. 

The strength is an analytic cognitive style that tends toward rationalism (epistemic rationality) as a moral value. Although I believe that mental trait is pro-democratic, anti-authoritarian, anti-corruption, anti-lies, etc., the paper points out that some people do not treat rationality as a moral value.**** The paper's authors comment that research on religious disbelief has also been linked to moralization of epistemic rationality. If that is true, both atheists and pragmatic rationalism may be fundamentally morally different from most significant political, religious and economic ideologies or moral frameworks that compete for influence, wealth and power today.

**** Humans did not evolve to be rational. We are intuitive, biased, social (~tribal) and arguably morally intolerant, unless one adopts tolerance as a moral value. According to psychologist Johnathan Haidt, we are designed by evolution to be “narrowly moralistic and intolerant.”[1] In other words, we evolved to be self-righteous little buggers.

Footnote:

1. The paper refers to morality in the context of Haidt's moral foundations theory. I do not know to what extent researchers have adopted this mental framework for morality research. Morality research is in its infancy. It is fraught with complexity, confounding factors, human biases, p-hacking, raging controversy and general messiness, including skepticism that morality research can ever rise to the level of a respectable scientific discipline. Despite the mess, morality research might reveal ways for humans to tame their innate tendencies to bigotry, hate and self-destructiveness enough that we avoid destroying civilization on a good day or maybe even avoid species self-annihilation on a bad day.

But isn't morality sometimes absent when spirituality is present?

Maybe morality is always necessary, unless it's bad morality

Why can't morality be a kind of spirituality?

Bipartisanship is Dead

The New York Times writes:

President Biden ran for the White House as an apostle of bipartisanship, but the bitter fight over the $1.9 trillion pandemic measure that squeaked through the Senate on Saturday made clear that the differences between the two warring parties were too wide to be bridged by Mr. Biden’s good intentions.

Not a single Republican in Congress voted for the rescue package now headed for final approval in the House and a signature from Mr. Biden, as they angrily denounced the legislation and the way in which it was assembled. Other marquee Democratic measures to protect and expand voting rights, tackle police bias and misconduct and more are also drawing scant to zero Republican backing.

The supposed honeymoon period of a new president would typically provide a moment for lawmakers to come together, particularly as the nation enters its second year of a crushing health and economic crisis. Instead, the tense showdown over the stimulus legislation showed that lawmakers were pulling apart, and poised for more ugly clashes ahead.

Mr. Biden, a six-term veteran of the Senate, had trumpeted his deep Capitol Hill experience as one of his top selling points, telling voters that he was the singular man able to unite the fractious Congress and even come to terms with his old bargaining partner, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader.

Congressional Democrats want far more than Republicans are willing to accept. Anticipating the Republican recalcitrance to come, Democrats are increasingly coalescing around the idea of weakening or destroying the filibuster to deny Republicans their best weapon for thwarting the Democratic agenda. Democrats believe their control of the House, Senate and White House entitles them to push for all they can get, not settle for less out of a sense of obligation to an outdated concept of bipartisanship that does not reflect the reality of today’s polarized politics. 

But the internal Democratic disagreement that stalled passage of the stimulus bill for hours late into Friday night illustrated both the precariousness of the thinnest possible Democratic majority and the hurdles to eliminating the filibuster, a step that can happen only if moderates now deeply opposed agree to do so.

Some observations

Biden was right to tout bipartisanship and to try to engage in it. He would be right to keep talking about it and trying. But he is also right to go ahead and not let republicans slow him down in the two precious years he has before voters put the fascist GOP back in control of the House and/or Senate. That would be return to gridlock. Gridlock favors the fascists and harms democracy. Time is grinding democracy and the rule of law down. It is also grinding down social comity, trust and respect. Trust and respect are mostly gone. Lies, corruption, gross incompetence and crackpot motivated reasoning, e.g., 'the election was stolen' and 'the democrats are pedophilic communists', are now normalized among mainstream majority conservatives. 

Maybe the democrats can modify the filibuster to allow passage of laws that protect democracy and voting. But maybe not. It looks like the next two years could amount to three laws passed by the budget resolution process without a single republican vote, two in 2021 (pandemic relief, infrastructure) and one in 2022 (?). And that would be it. That could easily be nearly the entire Biden legislative legacy. Everything else would have to come from executive power alone.

Despite a growing majority support for key democratic policy goals, the defenses of democracy and the rule of law look to be still slowly crumbling. Time is grinding the American experiment down to an end marked by fascism, corruption, rank bigotry and gross incompetence. At least, that is how it looks now. Maybe by the 2022 elections, things will have significantly improved. Maybe.