Some thoughts on ideology in politics, cognitive biology and pragmatic rationalism

Context

My ideology, pragmatic rationalism, is intended to function as an anti-biasing, anti-ideology ideology. The core concepts are based on what human social behavior and cognitive science tells us about sources of flawed politics and policy such as bias, error, irrational distrust, false beliefs and flawed reasoning (motivated reasoning). Political, religious and/or economic ideologies, constitute major sources of flawed politics. With the dominant ideology-based mindset, politics and policy are largely grounded in ideology and competition for ideological influence. In the pragmatic rationalist mindset, the hope is to shift politics and policy from mostly ideology-based to somewhat more empirical evidence and sound reason-based. Nothing can be perfect, but it's at least theoretically possible to do better. That's the hope. Some evidence supports this possibility for at least some people.

Ideologues of all flavors of ideology strenuously claim (1) they are empirical evidence and sound reason-based, and (2) political opposition and opposing groups and institutions are not. Evidence from social science convincingly shows that is simply not true most of the time for most issues. Politics usually significantly disconnected from evidence and sound reasoning is settled science. Like human-cause climate change, this not something that experts still dispute. 

A 2013 research paper 

The concept of ideology can be difficult to reconcile with empirical research on political knowledge and belief system organization. First, ideology is a construct that is used at multiple levels. Political ideologies exist as formal systems of political thought. Texts on Marxism, liberalism, conservatism, and fascism develop elaborate interpretations of social, economic, and political arrangements and offer prescriptions for political actions. In somewhat less structured ways, ideologies operate at the societal level to organize political debate by allowing political parties to offer more or less coherent policy platforms. And, in the primary focus of this chapter, ideology is also used to describe the ways in which people organize their political attitudes and beliefs. It is easy to introduce confusion into discussions of ideology by blurring the lines between these levels of analysis. Some connections between these levels should exist, but we must not make the mistake of assuming that there are straightforward relationships between these varied uses of ideology. While I will review a great deal of important research on the structure and determinants of political ideology in this chapter it is important not to lose sight of the implications of low levels of political knowledge, instability in measures of issues preferences, and multiple dimensions of issue preferences when evaluating research on individual-level political ideology. At a minimum, these findings encourage us to consider models of ideology that do not require a great deal of sophistication from most people and to be aware of the limits of ideology among nonelites. --- Feldman, S. (2013). Political ideology. In L. Huddy, D. O. Sears, & J. S. Levy (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of political psychology (pp. 591–626). Oxford University Press.

What that says is that average people generally do not apply ideology in sophisticated or consistent ways. My interpretation is that ideology can be used as a glue to help hold groups of people together, while at the same time be a framework lens to inform or misinform people and to divide societies by creating in-groups (e.g., Republicans) with credibility and trust and out-groups without (e.g., Democrats). 

Another 2013 research paper 

Decision scientists have identified various plausible sources of ideological polarization over climate change, gun violence, national security, and like issues that turn on empirical evidence. This paper describes a study of three of them: the predominance of heuristic-driven information processing by members of the public; ideologically motivated reasoning; and the cognitive-style correlates of political conservativism. The study generated both observational and experimental data inconsistent with the hypothesis that political conservatism is distinctively associated with either unreflective thinking or motivated reasoning. Conservatives did no better or worse than liberals on the Cognitive Reflection Test (Frederick, 2005), an objective measure of information-processing dispositions associated with cognitive biases. In addition, the study found that ideologically motivated reasoning is not a consequence of over-reliance on heuristic or intuitive forms of reasoning generally. On the contrary, subjects who scored highest in cognitive reflection were the most likely to display ideologically motivated cognition. These findings corroborated an alternative hypothesis, which identifies ideologically motivated cognition as a form of information processing that promotes individuals’ interests in forming and maintaining beliefs that signify their loyalty to important affinity groups. 

Much more perplexing, however, are the ubiquity and ferocity of ideological conflicts over facts that turn on empirical evidence. Democrats (by and large) fervently believe that human activity is responsible for global warming, Republicans (by and large) that it is not (Pew Research Center, 2012). --- Ideology, Motivated Reasoning, and Cognitive Reflection: An Experimental Study; Judgment and Decision Making, 8, 407-24 (2013) Cultural Cognition Lab Working Paper No. 107 Yale Law School, Public Law Research Paper No. 272

Clearly, even before the ex-president rose to power, researchers were well-aware of the phenomenon of people fighting over empirically true facts. Political observers had written on that years ago. The data here indicates that this does not have anything to do with differences in cognitive ability, roughly intelligence. It is grounded in psychological and social factors such as tribe and ideology.

A 2015 paper abstract

In this commentary, we embed the volume’s contributions on public beliefs about science in a broader theoretical discussion of motivated political reasoning. The studies presented in the preceding section of the volume consistently find evidence for hyperskepticism toward scientific evidence among ideologues, no matter the domain or context—and this skepticism seems to be stronger among conservatives than liberals. Here, we show that these patterns can be understood as part of a general tendency among individuals to defend their prior attitudes and actively challenge attitudinally incongruent arguments, a tendency that appears to be evident among liberals and conservatives alike. We integrate the empirical results reported in this volume into a broader theoretical discussion of the John Q. Public model of information processing and motivated reasoning, which posits that both affective and cognitive reactions to events are triggered unconsciously. We find that the work in this volume is largely consistent with our theories of affect-driven motivated reasoning and biased attitude formation. --- Why People “Don’t Trust the Evidence”: Motivated Reasoning and Scientific Beliefs, Patrick W. Kraft, Milton Lodge, Charles S. Taber,[1] The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2015

Here, the concept of motivated reasoning is seen as central to ideologue thinking when empirical evidence is rejected. Ideologues tend to treat their political and economic beliefs as as both sacred in a religious sense and correct and thus not open to question. Religious ideology, of course, is usually seen by the believer's mind as sacred and infallible.

Footnote: 

1. Lodge and Taber wrote the 2013 book, The Rationalizing Voter. A non-technical book review is here and a technical review is here. Lodge and Taber focused a lot on affect or feelings and how they influence perceptions of reality and thinking. This aspect of the how the human mind operates seems to be central to politics.

A 2009 research paper, Affect as a Psychological Primitive, described emotion and feelings like this:

Historically, “affect” referred to a simple feeling—to be affected is to feel something. In modern psychological usage, “affect” refers to the mental counterpart of internal bodily representations associated with emotions, actions that involve some degree of motivation, intensity, and force, or even personality dispositions. In the science of emotion, “affect” is a general term that has come to mean anything emotional. A cautious term, it allows reference to something’s effect or someone’s internal state without specifying exactly what kind of an effect or state it is. It allows researchers to talk about emotion in a theory-neutral way.

The phrase, 'internal bodily representations associated with emotions' reflects a belief that some or all of the human body can contribute to feelings in the mind. Some researchers occasionally refer to this as speaking directly to the gut, not the mind. The point is that there is evidence to believe human emotions and feelings are powerful influencers of perceptions of reality and thinking about whatever reality individuals think they see, including when the reality is false. Strong ideological beliefs tends to make it easier to deny, distort and/or downplay inconvenient facts, truths and sound reasoning. 

The ties that bind…

 

 

This OP is mostly directed at U.S. bloggers here, but please, all feel free to chime in with your opinions/insight. 

Afghanistan is in the news a lot lately. Understandable, in light of the final withdrawal of our military troops there. Provinces are falling daily with an almost complete Taliban takeover of that country. 

Reasons we’ve heard for the major takeover have included government corruption, self-preservation in the form of submission to the ever-encroaching dangerous enemy, resentment for being “abandoned,” equipment malfunctions, etc.  Things are looking beyond bleak for the Afghan people/citizenry.  No… democracy did not come to fruition there, in spite of Herculean efforts of blood and treasure.  

That got me wondering, when we (when I) zoom out to the 30k-foot level, are there not similarities between those people and our own, here in the U.S.?  We also have:

Religious and cultural differences and attempts at imposition (e.g., WCN and its many tentacles), dysfunction, scandals and corruption shenanigans, extreme political tribalism, etc.  Does not the U.S. currently experience the same kinds of things?  Spoiler alert: Gotta give that a “Yes.”

When those nasty dominoes fall, they tend to take down all around them. There is no special magic, no super-glue, that steadfastly holds the US together.  Personally, I think that’s just a starry-eyed rumor that we keep telling ourselves.  Dysfunction, in the forms mentioned above, abound.

So, my question:

What is the specific glue that binds us, here in 2021?  Are we not barrelling down the same paths as other dysfunctional countries?  If you say “no,” tell me what you base that on, because I’m not that hopeful/convinced.  Be as specific as you can.

Thanks for posting and recommending. 

Why Afghanistan's military is collapsing

Out of food, out of ammo, gun broken

The main reasons are Afghanistan government corruption and incompetence and US government incompetence. The New York Times writes:

Building the Afghan security apparatus was one of the key parts of the Obama administration’s strategy as it sought to find a way to hand over security and leave nearly a decade ago. These efforts produced an army modeled in the image of the United States’ military, an Afghan institution that was supposed to outlast the American war.

But it will likely be gone before the United States is.

How the Afghan military came to disintegrate first became apparent not last week but months ago in an accumulation of losses that started even before President Biden’s announcement that the United States would withdraw by Sept. 11.

It began with individual outposts in rural areas where starving and ammunition-depleted soldiers and police units were surrounded by Taliban fighters and promised safe passage if they surrendered and left behind their equipment, slowly giving the insurgents more and more control of roads, then entire districts. As positions collapsed, the complaint was almost always the same: There was no air support or they had run out of supplies and food.

But even before that, the systemic weaknesses of the Afghan security forces — which on paper numbered somewhere around 300,000 people, but in recent days have totaled around just one-sixth of that, according to U.S. officials — were apparent. These shortfalls can be traced to numerous issues that sprung from the West’s insistence on building a fully modern military with all the logistical and supply complexities one requires, and which has proved unsustainable without the United States and its NATO allies.

Soldiers and policemen have expressed ever-deeper resentment of the Afghan leadership. Officials often turned a blind eye to what was happening, knowing full well that the Afghan forces’ real manpower count was far lower than what was on the books, skewed by corruption and secrecy that they quietly accepted.

And when the Taliban started building momentum after the United States’ announcement of withdrawal, it only increased the belief that fighting in the security forces — fighting for President Ashraf Ghani’s government — wasn’t worth dying for. In interview after interview, soldiers and police officers described moments of despair and feelings of abandonment.

On one frontline in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar last week, the Afghan security forces’ seeming inability to fend off the Taliban’s devastating offensive came down to potatoes.

After weeks of fighting, one cardboard box full of slimy potatoes was supposed to pass as a police unit’s daily rations. They hadn’t received anything other than spuds in various forms in several days, and their hunger and fatigue were wearing them down.

“Unfortunately, knowingly and unknowingly, a number of Parliament members and politicians fanned the flame started by the enemy,” General Tawakoli said, just hours after the Taliban had posted videos of their fighters looting the general’s sprawling base.

“No region fell as a result of the war, but as a result of the psychological war,” he said.

“We are drowning in corruption,” said Abdul Haleem, 38, a police officer on the Kandahar frontline earlier this month. His special operations unit was at half strength — 15 out of 30 people — and several of his comrades who remained on the front were there because their villages had been captured.

“How are we supposed to defeat the Taliban with this amount of ammunition?” he said. The heavy machine gun, for which his unit had very few bullets, broke later that night.

As of Thursday, it was unclear if Mr. Haleem was still alive and what remained of his comrades.

So there it is. No food, no ammunition, broken weapons, no government help. Afghan government corruption and incompetence and US government incompetence are undeniable. The US failed after 20 years and tens of billions spent. The US tried to build a modern military force in a place where such a thing is not buildable or sustainable. That is gross incompetence. Afghan government corruption and incompetence are clear.

As usual, there will be few or no repercussions. Maybe the US military will fire an officer or two as the designated scape goats, but that will be about all the accounting us dumb taxpayers can expect. As late as yesterday, in an interview in NPR with a US official, the US government was lying and spinning the situation from what it is to one where there will likely be some good outcome. Just a couple of weeks ago, the mindless former president Bush said it was a huge mistake to withdraw now. Maybe it was a mistake, but was it also a mistake to stay there and arguably even go there in the first place? The US never understood the situation it was in and, based on what what it keeps telling us, it still doesn't understand.

Questions: How stupid does the US government think the US public is, just plain stupid or really, really stupid? Can the lies about Afghanistan the US government has fed the public over the years be considered to be a form of corruption, e.g., because so much money was knowingly wasted and the government tried to hide that fact from us? Would it make any difference of the US government had not deceived for years?[1] Will there be a moral stain on the US from the thousands of Afghan allies we will leave behind for the Taliban to hunt down and slaughter?

Footnote: 

1. I strongly suspect that the US would have been out of Afghanistan years ago if the US government had been honest. How could the war be kept going if we were told it was a failing effort once that became clear (just like Vietnam)?

Chapter review: The Undrained Swamp Loves an Autocrat

The Undrained Swamp Loves an Autocrat is chapter 9 of Sarah Posner's 2020 book Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump. This chapter constitutes a long, detailed and frightening recitation of the influential people and tactics that America's fascist right used and still uses to advance the sacred fascist agenda. America's fascist right includes nearly all of the Republican Party. Dissent within the party has been mostly RINO hunted out. The FGOP (fascist GOP) leadership is now remarkably monolithic in (i) its ideological opposition to democracy and civil liberties for the unworthy and its support of autocracy, and (ii) its heavy reliance on deceit, lies and divisive emotional manipulation to appeal to base instincts of its rank and file followers and supporters. 

Due to its well-funded and constant propaganda, most of the rank and file (~95% ?) sincerely believe that they are defenders of democracy and civil liberties standing in staunch opposition to autocratic secular liberalism and its evil, degenerate moral values, especially rights for the hated LGBQT community and tolerance of alternate family structures, i.e., same-sex marriage. To the extent it ever was a real thing, the old Christian deflection from its core hate and intolerance, “hate the sin, love the sinner,” is replaced by “hate the sin and oppress the sinner into submission,” or something about like that. These powerful, mostly wealthy Christians are not messing around. They want power, wealth and social submission. They will crush democracy and install fascism to get it. They will lie, deceive, polarize and divide to get it.

Posner opens chapter 9 with this:

Despite his attempts to be seen as bringing fresh thinking to outdated foreign policy, his description of the European Union as a “foe” and NATO as an “obsolete” relic that should be discarded, are not harmless pronouncements of an outside, renegade president shaking up the wonks of the “deep state.” Nor is his affinity for Putin a consequence of simply his business ties to Russia, of his lust to see its hacked Hillary Clinton emails arrayed in public view. Trump means it. But he did not invent these changes. He is less a leader than a vehicle for a global assault on democratic institutions and human rights, assaults that began in Washington well before he became president, in the seamy world of unscrupulous political strategists and lobbyists --- the denizens of the swamp that Trump had disingenuously promised to drain. 

None of that is hyperbole or lies. The rest of chapter 9 provides evidence from the public record of what most of America’s radical right Christian leadership and radical autocratic conservative White power movement has been wanting for decades, at least since the 1950s. There are a lot of powerful, determined fascists in our midst. They are hell-bent on overthrowing democracy, civil liberties and the rule of law so they can install fascism with uncivil liberties and the rule of the tyrant and plutocrat. That is not an opinion, joke or misrepresentation. It is truth.

Arthur J. Finkelstein (AJF)

Posner writes about an influential Republican public relations (propaganda) expert and political strategist, AJF (1945-2107). This man was intelligent, data-driven and effective. He understood human cognitive biology and social behavior, both of which are prerequisites for expertise in modern public relations and political strategy. His professional experience included polling science, political strategy, messaging, media and ad placement, and campaign management advising. His favorite pejorative insult was “Clinton is a liberal.” His key advice to clients always was that a winning political message was one that would, in his words, “polarize the electorate.” 

A number of his proteges, called “Arthur’s kids,” wound up working with the ex-president’s 2015-2016 presidential campaign. One was the self-described “dirty trickster” Roger Stone. Stone is a felon, perjury and obstruction, who the ex-president pardoned. Another of Arthur’s kids, polling expert Tony Fabrizio, claims to have devised the critically important strategy of targeting and winning Wisconsin and Michigan, which was necessary for the ex-president’s electoral college win.

In addition to poisoning American politics, AJF sold his talents to fascist movements and leaders outside the US. He appears to have been instrumental in resurrecting the political fortunes of the fascist Viktor Orban and his fascist Fidesz Party. AJF helped engineer Orban’s election wins in 2004 and 2014, cementing his power in Hungary. Posner comments on how Orban used his power to attack democracy in Hungary:

When Fidez and Orban scored another resounding victory in the 2014 elections, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) --- another transnational democracy-promoting organization in the crosshairs of Europe’s far right nationalists --- charged that a number of factors provided undue advantage to Fidesz, including “the manner in which a large number of changes to the legal framework were passed, restrictive campaign regulations, biased media coverage, and the blurring of the separation between the ruling party and the state.” Barack Obama’s State Department, in its annual human rights report for Hungary for that year, made note of the OSCE criticism as well as “serious governmental and law enforcement actions against civil society organizations, continued curtailment of media pluralism, .... the systemic erosion of the rule of law, checks and balances, democratic institutions, and transparency, and of increased intimidation of independent societal voices.”

In undertaking a coordinated assault on democratic institutions that would become a model for other European autocrats, Orban was not only directly snubbing the EU, of which Hungary had only recently become a member. He was also sticking his finger in the eye of the established, bipartisan American foreign policy consensus.

That sounds an awful lot like current FGOP tactics and its anti-democratic political goals. The parallels are about as clear as parallels in politics can be. In essence, American fascists are exporting their expertise in establishing fascism to attack other democracies, democratic institutions and human rights throughout the world. This is not just a local political movement.

Another point about AJF is important to note. Posner writes: “The most important political point for an aspiring political strategist to remember, was that because ‘no one knows anything about anything,’ a consultant’s job was to tell people what they should know and ‘make it interesting.’” Posner goes on to cite a political attack ad that AJF dreamed up for an Albanian fascist politician insinuating that the fascist’s opponent knew nothing about Albania. The reaction from the attacked politician made everyone want to see the ad, which helped the fascist. 

Posner then draws the obvious parallel with US politics: “To see the impact of this same vapid political strategy in the United States, one need look no further than Trump’s Twitter feed, where he can dictate the course of a day’s news coverage with a false, misleading, racist, sexist, or simply insipid Tweet. Distracting people from what really does matter --- and steering them into thinking meaningless conflict is what matters --- is the point. Meanwhile, democracy is in tatters.” 

Other fascist groups and sleazeballs and their anti-democratic antics that Posner discusses include the pro-Putin Paul Manafort, the pro-Putin, pro-Orban, Republican representative Dana Rohrabacher, fascist mercenary lobbyists on K Street, including former congressman Connie Mack IV (worked for Orban), the ex-president, the fascist Jeff Sessions, the fascist idiot Devin Nunes, the fascist Heritage Foundation (a tax subsidized fascist organization pretending to be a pro-democracy think tank), the radical Christian nationalist and staunch democracy hater Mike Pompeo, White Supremacist and former Iowa republican representative Steve King, fascist former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and a slew of other fascist democracy haters and pro-autocracy groups.

The global war on democracy and human rights

One last thought. Posner discusses common beliefs among the fascists and autocrats in different countries as a possible common ground or glue to bring dictatorships and democracies together. One shared concern on the radical right is worry about families and the usual family structure. The hope is that by scaring the public into accepting and engaging in overt bigotry against same-sex and other non-traditional family structures, countries such as the US and Russia can be drawn together into a close alliance. To the extent they could, people like the ex-president, Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo dismantled US efforts to defend democracy. When he was in charge of the State Department, Tillerson was as blunt about this as he could be. He told State Department employees that promoting human rights and democracy is an “obstacle” to advancing American interests. If that isn’t anti-democratic fascism, then what is it? The ex-president did his best to neuter the State Department in this regard, as Posner writes:

Midway through his presidency, Trump had yet to name a nominee for fifty senior posts within the State Department, nearly a third of the total political posts requiring Senate confirmation. Trump’s base of Christian right and nativist supporters not only doesn’t care --- it actively cheerleads the denigration of democracy and human rights, the rise of autocrats whipping up the grievances of right-wing populists, and distain for what America once was.  

All the bureaucratic and policy changes are driven not by Trump acting alone but by a profound rightward ideological shift within the Republican Party.

Questions: What do you think -- do we face a serious, imminent fascist threat in the US, or is that exaggerated to the point of being nonsense? Or, do you need more evidence to form an opinion? Is it reasonable to believe that no one knows anything about anything, leaving propagandists with a big pool of minds potentially at least partly open to what information the propaganda delivers, even if it is mostly or completely lies, immoral irrational emotional manipulation and/or crackpot motivated reasoning?  

Republican Party campaign morality: “There’s no obligation to tell the truth”

I've argued repeatedly here that FGOP (fascist GOP) campaign tactics are completely unconcerned about lying, deceiving, slandering, irrational emotional manipulation (unwarranted fear, rage, hate, bigotry, distrust, etc.) and crackpot motivated reasoning. The only moral principle is winning power and wealth. All means, legal or not, justify the ends. The following is a beautiful example of how utterly irrelevant truth is to FGOP operatives and insiders. The Washington Post writes about comments made by Rudy Giuliani and his partner Marc Mukasey made to FBI agents in 2018:

Rudolph W. Giuliani’s promise of a “big surprise” to help Donald Trump’s election in October 2016 led to Democratic accusations the FBI was feeding him secrets about an investigation of Hillary Clinton.

But a newly obtained transcript shows the former New York mayor told federal agents it was okay to “throw a fake” when campaigning, to which his then-law partner added, “there’s no obligation to tell the truth.”

Giuliani’s private defense of his actions has come to light as he and other Trump lawyers face discipline and possible court sanctions for their unfounded statements surrounding the 2020 election, raising questions about lawyers’ integrity in a democracy.

“In the heat of a political campaign, on television, I’m not saying Rudy necessarily, but everybody embellishes everything,” Mukasey said.

“Oh, you could throw a fake,” added Giuliani — who in addition to serving as mayor of New York from 1994 to 2001 also spent eight years as a federal prosecutor in the city.

“You’re under no obligation to tell the truth,” Mukasey replies, according to the transcript. To which Giuliani repeats, “You could throw a fake.”

An agent then said, “Fake news, right?”

Mukasey replied, “Right.”

There you have it fans of truth in politics. Spewing fake news is OK, because there is no obligation to tell the truth. That summarizes the morality of lying FGOP liars as they lie to the American people in their relentless anti-democratic quest for power and wealth. And, we all know who else this morality applies to in spades, i.e., the ex-president and his lying liar cadre of felons, thugs and crooks.

I know most everyone is aware of allegations like these. It just make sense to show some of the undeniable evidence when it crops up from time to time.

Questions: Is it true that “in the heat of a political campaign .... everybody embellishes everything”? Or is that a Republican lie to deflect from (i) the FGOP's endless stream of whoppers and fake news, and/or (ii) the possibility that FGOP candidates lie significantly more than most Democrats in most campaigns? Is it just me, or does anyone else notice that the allegations that the FGOP and its goons level at others, e.g., “everybody embellishes everything”, is something they do themselves in spades, but almost always sanctimoniously deny it when they are called out on their immoral sleaze?

Rudy's credibility

More vaccine regret stories: the lesson still has not sunk in

The New York Times reports on the situation in unvaccinated Texaslandia, where hospitals are on the verge of being overwhelmed:

Dr. Abhishek Patel, who works in the hospital’s pediatric I.C.U., walked in and out of a room where a 6-month-old and a 2-month-old were battling severe Covid-19 infections and were breathing with the aid of supplemental oxygen. This week alone, he said, two teenagers, who had other underlying health problems, succumbed to the virus.

In a room nearby, Cerena Gonzales, 14, moaned in pain. Last week, she was an excited teenager looking forward to starting her freshman year in high school. On Tuesday, she was surrounded by hospital equipment. She and her younger sister got sick after their parents, Carlos Gonzales, 47, and his wife Elizabeth, 42, began developing Covid symptoms and were taken to the hospital. None of them had been vaccinated, Ms. Gonzales said.

“We hesitated,” Ms. Gonzales said. “We were all a healthy family.”

As soon as she was discharged, Ms. Gonzales, still breathing with the aid of two portable oxygen tanks, rushed to her daughter’s side. She caressed her daughter’s forehead and tried to keep her upbeat. She recalled in tears the harrowing scene days earlier when doctors put her on a speakerphone so that she could hear as her daughter was intubated. “I thought I was going to lose my mind,” Ms. Gonzales said. “I could not be there with her.”

By Tuesday afternoon, Ms. Gonzales said she believed the worst of the crisis was over. She untangled her daughter’s thick black hair from IV tubes and gently encouraged her to drink orange juice.

Several members of her family had been ravaged by the virus, she said, and so she now plans to organize a family excursion to get vaccinated. “There is no reason any parent should go through this,” she said.

So there you have it, rationality fans, lots of irrationality sometimes sprinkled with hints of rational hindsight. The family was healthy so therefore, don't get vaccinated. No reason any parent should go through what they set the family up to go through? Hardly. There was a darned good reason. A knowing choice to not get the family vaccinated. 

Texas governor Greg Abbott continues to stick with his opposition to telling people to get vaccinated. For him, it's a matter of personal freedom, not public health. He also continues to oppose mask mandates and has made it illegal to do so in the state. But also at the same time, he is looking for outside help. As the NYT puts it: "To help manage the surge, Mr. Abbott appealed this week to health care workers outside the state to travel to Texas and help the overloaded hospitals."  

Why on Earth would anyone want to go to Texas to help? Texas can fend for itself and is proud of that tradition of independence and rigid fealty to unfettered freedom, as enshrined in the state meme we all know and love, 

DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS!

The people of the state of Texas voted for Abbott and the fascist Republican Party. They deserve what they asked for, namely incompetent fascist Abbott and the rest of the incompetent, corrupt fascist Texas GOP. Personally, I would not want to mess with Texas. It's doing just fine on its own. Sort of.

Questions: Is it fair to lay most of the blame on Texas voters for the mess, or do elected leaders share some of the responsibility for the suffering, deaths and economic damage the new surge is going to inflict on the state? Whatabout Texans who get infected and leave the state, e.g., and go to Sturgis South Dakota, and spread their germs around in other states and other people? Is it needlessly or morally unacceptably cruel to not much care about the disaster that Texas is going to experience and knowingly asked to experience?

Cleaning the room after a teenager just died from COVID

Children's Hospital of San Antonio, Texas