The great social and political value of reaching stasis in political disagreements

Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas

Most people who engage in politics anywhere have come to understand that minds in disagreement usually do not change. Citing facts, truths and laying out reasoning rarely convinces anyone to change their minds. Often, maybe usually, inconvenient facts, truths and reasoning are mostly or completely rejected as lies, deceit and self-serving and/or partisan nonsense. 

In my experience, ideologues on the left and right tend to apply motivated reasoning, not sound reasoning, to the facts and truths they accept as real. That tends to make much of the rhetoric of disagreement irrational. The end result is that political disagreements usually melt down into people getting angry and talking past each other without ever reaching true mutual understanding. The end result is, in my opinion, usually more damaging to democracy and society than helpful. Generally, little light is shed and little or no humanizing understanding comes out if it. Instead, dehumanizing misunderstanding is common and society continues to polarize and distrust.

A few years ago, Mike Austin wrote a short article for IVN about the political and social value of getting to stasis in political disagreements. Stasis is the point at which people in disagreement understand and can state why they disagree. This end result clarifies the facts, truths and reasoning that provides the basis for disagreement. Onlookers can then decide for themselves what, if anything, to believe about the disputed issue. Austin's article has stuck with me because it gets at major truths about political disagreements and the value of clarity in political arguments. Austin wrote:

When Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas held their famous debates in their 1858 Senate contest, there was only one issue in the country that mattered. The debates were entirely about slavery.

But there were not just two positions that one could hold about slavery. Nearly all of the American politicians in the first half of the 20thcentury took a position somewhere in between William Lloyd Garrison (who felt that slavery was an indisputable moral evil that should be eradicated from the face of the earth) and John C. Calhoun (who wrote that slavery was a positive moral good for blacks and whites alike and should be required in every state).

Emancipation was not even on the table in 1858. The major question at issue was how to handle slavery in the new territories that were then coming into the union. Douglas had hitched his star to “popular sovereignty,” or the position that each territory should decide for itself whether or not to allow slavery. Lincoln argued that while the federal government should not interfere with slavery where it existed, it should not allow expansion into any new territories.

These two positions dominated the Lincoln-Douglas debates, which were conducted in a format that we have never seen since. One candidate gave a 30-minute introduction, followed by a 90-minute speech by the other candidate, and a 60-minute rebuttal by the first. They were three-hour debates, and they required a lot more than sound bites.

But for all of that, Lincoln and Douglas spent most of the first four debates talking past each other. They both ignored the nuances of the other’s position and spent their time beating up the kinds of straw-man arguments that result from trying to force an opponent to defend the most extreme characterization of the position that they hold.

In the fifth debate, however, Lincoln changed his approach—and the course of American history forever—when he simply clarified the real terms of the argument:

"I suppose that the real difference between Judge Douglas and his friends, and the Republicans on the contrary, is, that the Judge is not in favor of making any difference between slavery and liberty-that he is in favor of eradicating, of pressing out of view, the questions of preference in this country for free or slave institutions; and consequently every sentiment he utters discards the idea that there is any wrong in slavery. Every thing that emanates from him or his coadjutors in their course of policy, carefully excludes the thought that there is any thing wrong in slavery. All their arguments, if you will consider them, will be seen to exclude the thought that there is any thing whatever wrong in slavery."

This was a very simple shift in a debating tactic, but an enormous shift in emphasis. Douglas did not disagree. He couldn’t. Even the suggestion that he felt that slavery was morally problematic would have cost Douglas any chance at the Democratic presidential nomination in 1860.

However, from this point on, rather than arguing about possible policies, or the intentions of the Founding Fathers, or the various implications of the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision, or any of the other things that they spent most of the first four debates discussing, they spent much of their time in the last three debates talking about the most important moral question of the century: Is slavery wrong?

Lincoln lost the election, but he created a sense of moral and intellectual clarity that guided him, and the Republican Party, through the 1860 election and the Civil War.

And this is the power of clarifying what an argument is really about. Very few political arguments today reach what rhetoricians call the “point of stasis,” where the parties fully agree about where they disagree. When an argument has not reached a point of stasis, participants almost always push past each other and argue about glaring generalities, ridiculous extremes, and culturally prominent straw-men. When an argument reaches stasis, however, political arguments become capable of revealing positions, changing minds, and doing the hard work of democracy.

And this is why, in my opinion, the most important thing that Abraham Lincoln did in 1858 was to clarify the terms of the most important argument of the nineteenth century.

Trying to get to stasis is why I sometimes ask people for information and clarity in their reasoning. It's not to change minds. Instead, it is to get to understanding for myself and onlookers. Clarity of understanding tends to be humanizing. Misunderstanding tends to be dehumanizing, which tends to leads to polarization and distrust. Both are seriously damaging to democracy and social comity, maybe lethal.

Gun-Wielding St. Louis Attorney Joins Crowded GOP Field for Senate Seat

 REMEMBER THIS COUPLE?

Mark McCloskey became a conservative folk hero after confronting protesters in front of his mansion last summer with an AR-15.

ST. LOUIS (CN) — An attorney who waved an AR-15 rifle at civil rights protesters in front of his St. Louis home last year has announced his candidacy for U.S. Senate, telling Fox News on Tuesday night that “God came knocking on my door last summer disguised as an angry mob and it really did wake me up.”

Mark McCloskey joins an increasingly crowded Republican field vying to replace Republican U.S. Senator Roy Blunt, who announced he won’t seek reelection in 2022. Disgraced former Missouri Governor Eric Greitens and Attorney General Eric Schmitt have already announced their candidacies. Greitens stepped down as governor in June 2018 amid an affair scandal and criminal computer-tampering charges.

McCloskey, and his wife Patricia gained national notoriety last summer after waving guns at protesters in front of their St. Louis mansion. Mark, 63, and Patricia, 61, were each indicted for unlawful use of a weapon, a felony, and tampering with a weapon, a misdemeanor.

The McCloskeys claim the charges were politically motivated and successfully had St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner dismissed from the case, though it is still pending with a special prosecutor. Missouri Governor Mike Parson, a Republican, has vowed to pardon the couple if they are convicted.

The incident made the couple folk heroes in conservative, pro-gun circles. They became outspoken supporters of former President Donald Trump and spoke at the Republican National Convention last summer.

In a brief video titled “Never Back Down” posted to his website, McCloskey uses Trump’s tough-talk rhetoric to appeal to the former president’s base. The video is set on a farm with McCloskey on a tractor, a stark contrast from his mansion in a private gated community in St. Louis.

“When the angry mob came to destroy my house and kill my family, I took a stand against them,” McCloskey said to begin the video, echoing claims he and his wife repeated to justify their actions last summer.

The Black Lives Matter protesters were on their way to then-Mayor Lyda Krewson’s house to demand her resignation when they were confronted by the McCloskeys.

The video shows still pictures of the McCloskeys during the confrontation with weapons drawn.

“Our nation is under attack,” McCloskey said. “Big tech, big business, the swamp in D.C., are all working together to destroy our God-given freedom, our culture and our heritage.”

McCloskey continues by saying the country needs defenders, but all politicians do is divide. He claims they teach us to hate each other over political, racial and economic differences.

The attorney then echoed Trump’s stance as a political outsider, stating he’s never run for office before. He quickly followed that by playing to the fears many in rural Missouri’s predominantly conservative voting base have.

“The mob is coming for all of us,” McCloskey said. “Cancel culture, the poison of critical race theory, the lie of systemic racism backed up by the threat of mob violence, attacks on the Second Amendment, erosion of election integrity are all intentionally designed to destroy all we hold near and dear.”

Blunt, 71, surprised the political world with his announcement earlier this month that he won’t run for another term next year. Before being elected senator in 2014 and again in 2018, Blunt served seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.

https://www.courthousenews.com/gun-wielding-st-louis-attorney-joins-crowded-gop-field-for-senate-seat/

The citizen's Grand Jury

Madison Smith and her mother, Mandy, in front of 

the McPherson County Courthouse - Mandy says she was was raped

An article the Washington Post published today describes a story of a woman, Madison Smith, who she alleges was raped. The local prosecutor declined to prosecute for rape and so Smith convened a grand jury on her own. Kansas law allows for that.

This discussion relates back to the recent post here about the history of mass incarceration and the vast power that prosecutors have to prosecute or decline to prosecute.

Unlike the cowards, corrupt sleazeballs and cockroaches that run the modern corrupt, immoral Republican Party, Ms. Smith appears to have real guts and an actual moral compass. The WaPo writes:

For three years, the local prosecutor has resolutely refused to make her case: that what began as consensual sex in a college dorm room became a rape, and that she was unable to say “stop” because her classmate was strangling her.

But Smith invoked a vestige of frontier justice that allows citizens in Kansas to summon a grand jury when they think prosecutors are neglecting to bring charges in a crime. The law, dating to the 1800s, was originally used to go after saloonkeepers when authorities ignored violations of statewide prohibition. The 22-year-old graduate is believed to be the first to convene a citizen grand jury after a prosecutor declined to pursue a sex-crime charge.

Only five other states, all in the Great Plains or the West, have similar laws still on the books. The Kansas statute requires an individual to gather a certain number of signatures of support, which forced Smith to relive her trauma over and over in conversations with strangers.

For three years, the local prosecutor has resolutely refused to make her case: that what began as consensual sex in a college dorm room became a rape, and that she was unable to say “stop” because her classmate was strangling her.

Statistics show that most sex crimes don’t result in charges. Victim advocates blame cultural issues, halfhearted investigations and the broad discretionary power of prosecutors. “This is a problem across the nation,” said Kathy Ray of the Kansas Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence. “There are gaps throughout the system.”

Unlike Smith, most victims have no way to seek justice when they feel a blind eye is being turned toward a crime. Only five other states, all in the Great Plains or the West, have similar laws still on the books. The Kansas statute requires an individual to gather a certain number of signatures of support, which forced Smith to relive her trauma over and over in conversations with strangers.

“The one person who I believed was supposed to fight for the victim on the legal side has pushed me aside, stalling, and waiting for me to give up,” Smith wrote in one statement to the court. “This is a common tactic used by defense attorneys, but now the prosecution. I won’t ever give up. Ever.”

It happened at Bethany College, a small Christian liberal arts school in Lindsborg, an hour north of Wichita. She had bumped into a friend, Jared Stolzenburg, while doing laundry in a dorm. They went to his room, talked some, started kissing. They progressed to sex — by mutual consent, she acknowledges.

Almost immediately, Stolzenburg began slapping her face and strangling her while continuing intercourse, according to court records.

“I tried to initially pull his hands off of my throat, and he squeezed harder every time,” Smith recounted in one court hearing. “He would strangle me for 20 to 30 seconds at a time, and I would begin to lose consciousness. When he would release his hands from my neck, the only thing I could do was gasp for air.”

The day after the assault, the college freshman stood in the driveway of her parents’ house three blocks from campus. “I was raped last night,” she told them, tugging down the collar on her hoodie to reveal a necklace of purple bruises.

Her parents called police and drove her to a nearby hospital for a forensic exam. The report noted the bruising and abrasion on her neck, as well as bruising inside her mouth. 

“Me taking his hands off of my throat is affirmative enough,” Smith shot back. “I couldn’t speak. How can I say ‘no’ if I can’t speak, if I can’t breathe?”

A former Minnesota prosecutor reviewed Kansas law for the Smiths and concluded that the attack qualified for a rape charge.

“I would contend that it is clear that if while strangling someone, they are pulling on your hands and gasping for breath, and they are crying, none of that sounds consensual to me,” said Julie Germann, who specialized in sexual assault cases. “I would not have a hard time taking that case to a jury at all.”

In my opinion, this case shows how limited the reach of the rule of law often (usually?) is. Nothing humans can design will be flawless. Science makes the reasons clear. The human mind is not a rational thinking machine. It is a biased, rationally flawed reality-distorting machine that evolved to make inconvenient facts, truths and reasoning go away as much as possible, thereby reducing cognitive dissonance (psychological and social discomfort) as much as possible.

Questions: Is it time to try to at least partly counteract the grossly excessive power and discretion of prosecutors by allowing all Americans to convene their own Grand Juries when they are denied justice? Or, is the "presumed innocent" deck so heavily stacked in favor of criminals, racists, rapists, and biased prosecutors and police that it is pointless? 

How can Ms. Smith prove that she was crying and trying to remove Stolzenburg's hands from her throat because, after all, that is just a he said, she said situation, i.e., the law does not allow a conviction of the frisky (or vicious) Mr. Stolzenburg? Does anyone see the severe limits of the reach of the law here? Are we forever hobbled by the he said, she said stalemate that almost always leads the male to being acquitted? Compared to the converse, not many women rape men.

Why is so much fornicating going on in morally pristine Christian colleges? Are at least some Evangelical Christian students just garden variety immoral hypocrites, including Ms. Smith? Does it matter if people like me who are sympathetic to Smith raise these questions or (i) people who reflexively see Smith as a liar, or (ii) point to the impossibility of deciding in cases of he said, she said under current law?

On balance, are prosecutors enemies of the people?

The end of abortion rights is on the horizon

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/06/about-six-in-ten-americans-say-abortion-should-be-legal-in-all-or-most-cases/

The Republican supreme court agreed to hear an abortion law case from Mississippi. The MS law prohibits abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, which is clearly unconstitutional under existing law and precedent of the last 48 years. In the past the supreme court declined to hear such cases and let stand appeals court decisions that struck down various laws from various states that were too burdensome on the right to abortion as outlined in Roe v Wade in 1973. That the court decided to hear this case indicates to me that it has found a set of facts it wants to use to overturn the Roe decision. 

The question the court will decide is whether there is a constitutional right to an abortion. The specific question the court will answer is this: “whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional.” In other words, is any elective abortion constitutional? If the answer is no, then that's the end of all abortions based on a woman's choice to abort. 

It is reasonable to believe that the answer will be no, with about a 90% chance of that by my personal assessment. If the court does not overturn Roe, then taking up the case makes no sense because there is no disagreement among appeals courts about abortion law. To me, this is a clear signal that Roe is going to be overturned.

If it is no, the next question is how far will the court will go? It could leave abortions up to individual states, more or less restoring the old pre-Roe status quo. Or, maybe it would go further and declare that all abortions of choice are unconstitutional in all states. If it choses the latter option, then nearly all abortions in the US will be illegal. I do not have a feel for how likely the nationwide ban option is. Maybe it is unlikely, but probably not impossible given how radical the Republicans on the court are and how much they hate abortion. 

Given how the question is worded, if the answer is that no elective abortion is constitutional, then only reliance on state's rights would prevent the ruling from being nationwide. Maybe a nationwide abortion ban is the most likely outcome.

Republicans judges were put on the court specifically to overturn Roe. There has been a litmus test for Republican judges decades and it was Roe and abortion rights. Now the time of Roe is coming to an end.

America after Roe

Given the deep animosity of some or most republicans (and nearly all republican politicians and judges) to abortion, one can reasonably believe that laws will pass in republican states making essentially all abortions illegal in their states. They will probably also make it a criminal offense, e.g., murder or manslaughter, for a pregnant woman to leave or try to leave the state to get an abortion outside the state. If the supreme court says that abortions of choice are unconstitutional in all states, then pregnant women will have to travel outside the US to get an abortion and risk whatever punishments their states impose to try to stop them.

As usual, rich and most middle class women will usually be able to get abortions and poor women will usually be forced to have babies they do not want. Some women will try to get illegal abortions and some of them will die because of it. The lives of some women will be ruined. 

What the Republican court is probably going to do to Roe is not what most Americans support. That's no surprise. The fascist GOP usually rules without regard for public opinion. This case is no exception. That most Americans want to see Roe stay valid is of no concern. To head off a grumpy public response, the GOP might decide to crank up its massive anti-abortion propaganda, lies and slander machine to soften the blow. How successful that potential propaganda push might be is an open question.

If the court follows precedent for controversial decisions, the decision will be released at the end of June in 2021 or maybe 2022. That is when the court term ends, allowing justices who don't want to face big protests a chance to get the hell out of town and hope the backlash dies down before the next term starts in October of 2021 (or 2022).

On the positive side, it is reasonable to think that the number of unwanted pregnancies will noticeably decrease. Presumably most women will be very careful about birth control or abstinence from sex. Of course, that assumes that women are educated about sex and birth control methods. If they aren't they could be in for some nasty, life-changing surprises.

Question: Can one reasonably see this as another aggressive theocratic intrusion of Christianity into government, the law and society generally?

Mass incarceration: A tale of cruelty, racism and closed-mindedness

CONTEXT

To us, the Declaration of Independence is a glorious document and an affirmation of human rights. To the British, on the other hand, it was a statement notorious for its deceit by omission. In the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Particulars attesting to the reasons for the Revolution cited all the injustices which the colonists felt that England had been guilty of, but listed none of the benefits. .... The Declaration of Independence, as a declaration of war, had to be what it was, a 100 percent statement of the justice of the cause of the colonists and a 100 percent denunciation of the role of the British government as evil and unjust. -- Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals, 1971

Germaine: Lies of omission: Deceit by intentionally omitting relevant facts, truths, and/or sound reasoning with intent to deceive. Lies of omission can be based on disclosed information that is 100% accurate and reasoning that is sound, but what is intentionally left undisclosed is what gives the lie to what is disclosed. Like lies of commission, lies omission requires intent to deceive on the part of the speaker or information source.

Wikipedia: Lying by omission, also known as a continuing misrepresentation or quote mining, occurs when an important fact is left out in order to foster a misconception. Lying by omission includes the failure to correct pre-existing misconceptions.

As time passes, it becomes clearer to me that (i) my American history education in high school was more propaganda than fact, and (ii) what I have heard about America since high school was also more propaganda than fact. Apparently, mostly because of lies of omission. 

America's cruel mass incarceration experiment

One of the more discouraging bits I encountered in the last few years came last weekend from an NPR broadcast (original broadcast, Aug. 2019) of the program Throughline. Throughline focuses on analysis of American history to look for antecedents in our past to at least partly explain the present. 

This broadcast is a close variant of the history that Throughline focused on regarding the history of American policing a few weeks ago (discussed here). But this is even worse than that one was. The programs is about 49 minutes.

A summary of a few points I adopted from the transcript or the photos:

1. Eastern State Penitentiary (ESP) opened in Philadelphia in 1829 and it remained a functioning prison until 1971. It was part of the movement that laid the foundation for America's penitentiary system and it influenced prison design in other countries.  When it was first built, it was the largest public building in the U.S. The building had indoor plumbing before the White House. Today, it's a museum in the Fairmount neighborhood of Philadelphia. ESP is a central building with five corridors protruding from each side. Prison cells line the walls of each corridor. 

2. The designers of of the prison believed that all human beings regardless of their behavior have good in their hearts. Built on this optimism and faith in human character, they believed that ESP would inspire similar other prisons. The broadcast mentioned no empirical data to base that belief on, probably because there was none. The designers just made it up, most likely because what is what their minds wanted to believe. The prisoners were all kept alone in their cells for long periods of time.

3. ESP was a key part of the foundation for America's penal system. That approach to systematic imprisonment created the conditions for a huge mass incarceration problem that more than a century later. But initially, it was an idea based on arguably good intentions. The founders of the prison were Quakers. They believed the purpose of punishment was penance and rehabilitation would follow. The creators of ESP tried to make a more humane prison by moving prisoners into individual cells, giving them time to reflect, work and read the Bible. Again, no data, just faith, ideology and/or whatever led to that mindset. It turned out to be about as cruel as anything the Nazis came up with during their reign of horror and savagery.

4. Alexis De Tocqueville: Nowhere was this system of imprisonment crowned with the hoped-for success. It never affected the reformation of the prisoners. In order to reform them, they had been submitted to complete isolation. It destroys a criminal without intermission and without pity. It does not reform. It kills. De Tocqueville came to America from France to analyze the new solitary isolation prison design the Americans had come up with at ESP. Failure and cruelty was his assessment of the experiment. His analysis was ignored. A modern expert opined: "Eastern State is, without a doubt, the most influential prison that was ever built." 

5. Later prisons modeled on the flawed ESP ideology spread the idea that people who break laws are criminals who have an affliction and need rehabilitation. Prison was the cure. But we now know the remedy of isolation and contemplation failed.

PART 2: Pivot to the late 1800s and 1900s: The Birth of a Nation (1915) 

6.  The Birth of a Nation was a socially polarizing but very popular movie by the Klu Klux Clan. It significantly helped cement the idea among Whites that Black men were violent, dangerous criminals. President Woodrow Wilson screened the film at the White House and reportedly said, "it's like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true." The fly in that ointment, assuming Wilson actually said it, was that it was so terribly false.

7. That  false belief was used to justify the racist idea that black people were more likely to be in prison than white people. This idea comes up again and again. More black people are in prison, so black people must be more criminal. It seems logical, but this ignores another fact - that black people were ending up in prison because an entire system was created to target them and make them into criminals. 

8. That system was set into motion when slavery ended. What created the social and economic motive for mass incarceration of Blacks was a profound flaw in the 13th Amendment of the Constitution. Specifically, the 13th allowed for slavery as punishment for crime. States in the South simply made a crime of almost everything a Black person could do. There was no way for Blacks to avoid being criminals. Therefore, they must be criminals because the law said so.

9. One modern expert, Doug Blackmon, commented: "That exception to the amendment was an opportunity for white Southerners, in particular, to resurrect new economic and labor systems that relied on the arrest of large numbers of African American men and the return of them to situations that looked extraordinarily like slavery had appeared before the Civil War." The new laws were called the black codes and they were explicitly intended to reimpose white control over all African Americans. Criminal violations included new vagrancy laws, which essentially criminalized unemployment. It became impossible for any African American man anywhere in the South not to be vulnerable to arrest on some spurious or specious or trumped-up allegation. And, all of this happened when the Ku Klux Klan was born in 1866. For context, the Civil War ended April 9, 1865. It didn't take long after the war for Blacks to go back to slavery.

10. The incarcerated Blacks were literally slaves of the state. The Virginia Supreme Court said in 1871 that such slavery was constitutional. By the end of Reconstruction in the late 1870s, this new slavery had begun to set in over black life all over the South.  Southern states passed Jim Crow laws to end black economic and political progress, which served essentially the same function as older the black codes.

11. Under Jim Crow law, it was a crime for a Black person to walk beside a railroad line, sell the produce of their own farm after dark, speak loudly in the company of a white woman and to leave the employment of one person and move to another without permission. All the arrests increased Black prison populations in Southern states dramatically, e.g., from ~1% in Alabama in the 1850s to ~85% in the 1870s.

12. Southern states were in debt for the Civil War and for loans from foreign investors. It turned out that huge returns on their convict-leasing investments affecting thousands of black men in the South solidified the idea that those convicted of crimes could be used as the state saw fit .

13. The black codes and Jim Crow laws began a culture of assigning criminality to African Americans. By the end of the 1890s, many white people viewed the fact that black people were disproportionately imprisoned at higher rates as indisputable evidence of black criminality. What was going on in the South did not matter to the evidence of this prison problem. White people simply could not see that laws had targeted Blacks who could not escape "criminality."

14. There was an economic angle too. Both white Southerners and Northerners began to see large numbers of genuinely independent black men, sometimes compete with white men for jobs and opportunities. That started a popular depiction of African American men as dangerous and America being safe only if they were somehow brought back under tight control of white society. The black criminality stereotype grew from decades of imprisonment in Southern states. By the beginning of the 20th century, black criminality spread from mass culture to the newly formed field of social science. That field falsely found that in fact, black people are different and inferior to white people and that black men are more prone to violence. The science was biased, untenable and is now discredited.

15. This was the most important way Northern Whites convinced themselves that black people were criminals and therefore they themselves were not racist. So if the North was free of racism, the only way you could explain disproportionate crime rates was to say that black people have an innate crime problem.

PART THREE, Pivot to the politics of modern mass incarceration --- the American Prosecutor 

16. From the opening monologue from the TV show Law & Order: "In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate but equal branches groups - the police who investigate crimes, and the prosecutors who try them." The problem is this description is missing two important parts, public defenders and judges. Both are ignored. The people are not represented only by the police and the prosecutors. The people are also represented by public defenders and judges. But that's not how law enforcement is portrayed in mass media or seen most people's minds.

17. Law & Order TV shows just how much emphasis and power we place in the hands of the prosecutor in America. District attorneys can essentially decide if and how to prosecute cases. They recommend prison sentences, and they have the power to offer plea bargains. The prosecutors also have the police on their side. They're the ones who know how an investigation is proceeding and who gather the facts of an investigation. Defense lawyers are lucky if they have any access to investigators at all. Where's the balance and fairness in any of that?

18. One expert on the power of prosecutors opines: "If I asked you who is the most powerful official in America, many people, you know, would first say the president. .... my answer to that person is the most powerful person in America is the prosecutor." For high levels of Black incarceration, the first thing most people blame is the war on drugs, but the fact is that about 15% of all people are in prison for drugs. The homicide rate now is lower than 1970, and starting in 1991, it started a long, slow, steady decline. So while over the 1990s and 2000s, arrests for serious violent and serious property crime dropped by about 25%, but the number of people being sent to prison kept going up and up.

19. The expert points out that there was a huge increase in the number of prosecutors and that lead to more prosecutions and jail sentences. Some of those prosecutors went on to be elected as politicians who campaigned that they were tough on crime. In in the 1940s the Republican Party doubled down on prosecutors for both president and vice president.

20. The two parties converged regarding crime. Robert and Ted Kennedy both reflected convergence of Democrats with the Republican Party in being tough on crime because many voters want a tough-on-crime posture in their politicians, even though crime in America isn't widespread. The great majority of Americans never experience crime, but they only feel it second-hand or third-hand through the news.

21. Prosecutors are usually not defeated in getting elected. Part of the reason is because prosecutors understand that the way to get defeated was to decline to prosecute someone in the past, and then that person went out and committed a rape or murder. Then everyone in hindsight second-guesses that prosecutor and blames them for not having been tough on crime. Hindsight's 20/20. Crime policy won't be the way out of mass incarceration as long as the underlying culture in America criminalizes African Americans and hold prosecutors in a social esteem they do not deserve. One expert opines that maybe there's no way out of mass incarceration without reconciling our history and the truths about our biases and prejudices.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States

Questions: Are the connections Throughline draws from the 1800s to today persuasive in terms of of the role of racism in modern mass incarceration? Should defense attorneys have the same access to police and the evidence that prosecutors have? Was or is any significant amount of this material taught in High School? Or is this withheld as lies of omission by school boards and/or is it just matter of something else, e.g., educator ignorance? 

How most vaccine opponents seem to operate: Crackpottery, lies, slanders, ignorance and/or hate

Crackpots, ignorance and liars on parade

An AP article reminds us of the power of social media to poison society, truth and reason. The AP writes today:

Dr. Michelle Rockwell lost a pregnancy in December and shared her heartache with her 30,000 Instagram followers. Weeks later, she received the COVID-19 vaccine and posted about that, too.

By February, Rockwell was getting past the grief and finally starting to experience moments of joy. But then, to her horror, social media users began using her posts to spread the false claim that she miscarried as a result of the shot.

“They said horrible things to me, like how could I possibly get the vaccine, that I was a baby killer, and that I would be infertile forever and would never have babies again,” said Rockwell, a 39-year-old family medicine doctor from Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Even though she knows that research shows the vaccine is safe for pregnant women, she said the posts brought her trauma to the surface and hurt her “to the core.”

From a movie prop master in Texas to a professor in New York, people across the country have found themselves swept into the misinformation maelstrom, their online posts or their very identities hijacked by anti-vaccine activists and others peddling lies about the outbreak.

Sharing other people’s posts or photos out of context is a common tactic in the disinformation playbook because it’s an “easy, cheap way to gain credibility,” said Lisa Fazio, a Vanderbilt University psychology professor who studies how false claims spread.

The people who claim to distrust or refuse the vaccine and attack it based on hate, lies or ignorance online or in real life arguably are no different than any other group who spreads hate, lies or ignorance online or in real life. Facts, truths and reason are clearly not on their side. They have irrational fear, misinformation and crackpottery on their side. Their minds seem to be about the same as most American conservative political extremists in terms of morality related at least to facts, truths and reasoning. Arguably, the vaccine attackers are enemies enemies of the people, truth, reason, democracy and the rule of law.[1] 

Questions: Based on current evidence, is it reasonable to believe that people who refuse to take the vaccine are responsible for ~5% of COVID-19 deaths and long-term illness going forward from about now, say the end of May (or whenever people have had a reasonable chance to get vaccinated), until the deaths drop to some unstoppable level, including none? Is it reasonable to believe they are also responsible for ~15% of economic loss? If not, why not?

Footnote: 

1. Some research indicates that anti-vaxx mindsets (and this) tend to cluster with Republican affiliation, Christian Nationalism and/or authoritarianism. That mindset seems to often or usually be accompanied by deep distrust of elites and science experts. Once again, for the radical right and vaccine crackpots, inconvenient facts, truths and sound reasoning is rejected or distorted into irrelevance. It happens all the time now with right wing political extremists and vaccine attackers. It's the rule, not the exception.