The Problems with Liberalism, Part 3

3. A liberal believes that education is a basic human right.

• I won't reiterate the logic about who bestows a "right" if there is no higher authority than government. There is no John Rawls for education.
• Is there a basic human drive to educate? Probably. But even more basic is the drive to learn. Children emerge from the womb ready to learn. Some believe that babies learn some things before emerging. Do they hear voices, music? They certainly can react to what the mother consumes. Just see how the baby of a alcoholic or druggy mom appears upon arrival! Yes, babies soak in information in all sorts of way. But particularly, they learn from those closest to them. By the time the formal government-funded education system gets its hands on your child, a good amount of learning has already occurred. No matter how equal or unequal schools may be, children are already greatly unequal by kindergarten. Indeed, reading skills by the end of first grade predict how a child will do all through schooling. "The System" has had only 1 year of impact, but parenting has had at least 6. Much of the good or harm is already done by the time the child enters school. Can good and great teachers help? Absolutely! But relying on an education system to somehow overcome bad parenting is not substantiated by longitudinal studies.
• For the liberal, it all boils down to what "education" means. And they want to define it for everyone. Should school be where the spin stops? Is a school system that teaches one universal interpretation better than one that teaches another? Should education be practical or based upon principles? Should education be outcome based or process based? Do you want to produce good citizen-clones or independent thinkers? What values should we instill into students? What behaviors? What skills? All this assumes that the teachers have the upper hand, but do they?
• Think about this story. A young girl is born into a family where, for generations, the women in her family made pottery. Their pottery is famous for its beauty and utility and the women enjoy a degree of fame and respect for their mastery of their craft. It is expected that, as she grows up, she will also be a pottery maker. But, she rebels, as did her mother. Her mother, in less permissive times, was forced by her mother to work in the pottery business and eventually came to love what she did. But now it is modern times. The young girl, determined not to be a pottery maker and encouraged by what she learns in school, decides that being a pottery maker is not for her. Her parents, also now more modern, send her off to college, then graduate school, then another graduate school as she desperately tries to find her "true purpose" in life. Along the way, she experiments with her life, trying different cities, countries, foods and drugs. Just trying to see where she might fit in, but she just can't seem to find the one true purpose for her existence.
• I am not even going to touch the concepts of how different students learn differently, disrespect of the teachers by children and parents, disorder in the classroom, lack of ability to discipline, and propaganda based curricula. The best and the brightest do not dream of sending their children to public schools, but that is exactly where most of the brightest people I know from my generation got their start. My high school had the motto: Know Something, Do Something, Be Something. Does anyone believe or teach that anymore?
• Note to liberals: everyone learns, but not everyone learns what you want them to learn or maybe what would be best for them. To "educate" everyone equally and fairly, you need to take all children away from their mothers at birth and place them into facilities to make sure that no one gets a head start, a different perspective, a contaminated world-view. And, of course, those caring for these children cannot be human, as they might develop emotional bonding to some children but not others, leading to an institutional bias.

In summary, we all have the internal drive to learn. Learning best serves mastery of purposes that lead to higher levels of accomplishment and existence. Parents, siblings and other relatives and friends are feeding the heads of children long before "Big Brother" can get its hands on them. The truly happy people understand their purposes in life, see their individual purposes as part of a bigger picture, and have the skills and freedom to pursue these to mastery. No central command and control can make that happen. It is the freedom of individuals, guided by those closest to them, that leads to the exceptional success stories that make us a great country. It is the exceptionalism of the individuals pursuing their individual life purposes, sometimes doing this together with others who share their dream. Teachers and schools play a role, but are only part of the story, and likely not the most important part.

The Problems with Liberalism, Part 2

2. A liberal believes that health care is a basic human right.

• As liberals do not accept that God definitely exists, where do they get the referential source of their belief in "rights"? A right bestowed upon humans by...who or what? Natural law is basically the law of tooth and fang, the law of primitive drives, is self centered and perhaps in some species tribal, but not universal, unless we believe in the exceptionalism of homo sapiens. And why would WE be exceptional? Are we not just another species? Could it be merely a right of power, that those in power command upon those not in power? A right that can be denied by the next ruler who sees it differently? Not an absolute, but a matter of force, of might making right? Of the will of the majority crushing upon the minority? No more or less a right than the right to own slaves? Our Declaration of Independence refers to the Creator, which cannot be scientifically proven to exist and therefore exists outside the liberal referential authority. Do we rely upon the great thinkers to tell us what our rights are? Who decides what thinker is the great one?
• Every right carries with it a responsibility. If a person has a right to health care, then another person has the responsibility to provide that care. Every right that takes, to some extent, enslaves another person to give. Health care is no exception.
• Where is the basic human responsibility to live as healthy a life as one can, so as to impose as little burden upon others to provide for one's health? That responsibility is passed on to others, to provide care for preventable disease and injury that the one with the "right" to care felt no duty to prevent.
• As usual, Liberals have this all backwards. Again, their failure is due to a lack of understanding of the scientific underpinnings of human nature and a desire for command and control rather than optimizing the true good nature of humans (yes, as documented in scientific experiments...look it up if you don't believe me).
• The Reality: Some people have the drive to help others, to feel pleasure or happiness from providing care, if not cure, for the ill. They feel in the zone when they are focused on helping or upon studying to master their craft. Creating an environment that encourages and optimizes these individuals leads to more and better care for all. Ideally, making these individuals financially secure would lead to a drive to personal excellence in helping others. Care would then flow from those who love to provide it to all who are in need. (No, financial security would not lead to laxitude. That is not what the science shows, although it might be what you believe if you are a brainwashed liberal who does not believe in science...this has all been established by the scientific method...look it up).

In summary, if you want to remain on this planet for a while, take good care of yourself. Nothing in medicine beats prevention. When you are unfortunate enough to become injured or ill, as we all have or will, you can rely upon those who feel the need to be experts at taking care of you. They will be there for you, whether or not you have money to pay them, providing the government has not poisoned the system thru onerous burdens that sap the will of those who would love to help heal you. And remember that insurance companies exist by the good graces of government. The licensure that insurance companies obtain from government provides a barrier against competition and is one of the sources of the higher costs. If you look carefully at how expensive health care is in America, it is government that has made it so. It is the use of untested rules and regulations that have fouled up delivery and raised costs. Yes, much of the blood and treasure lost in the pursuit of health care are due to government chickens coming home to roost.

End of Part 2

The Problems with Liberalism Part 1

While DocBrain could summarize the problems of liberalism in a pithy statement or two, I thought it would be best to take it apart piece by piece, showing the fallacies of the liberal mindset. Liberalism is to reality what cult is to science. Liberalism is based on beliefs that do not hold up upon inspection but sound profound to those looking for an easy answer. Without further ado, lets delve into the basic tenets of liberalism.

Introduction

DocBrain has scoured the web to find how liberals define themselves. If you think I miss any of their defining points, please add a comment. Also, if you have any additional ideas to support or refute liberalism, please let me know.

1. A liberal cares about other people.

• Does this mean that all liberals care about others, or that if you care about others you are a liberal? Discuss!
• This idea of caring was given a good jab in the ribs by Rado and Ragni in the rock musical HAIR "Do you only care about the bleeding crowd? What about a needing friend? I need a friend..." Some of the most liberal people I know have the ability to spit venom when they are crossed or when some names are brought up (ie, Bush, Palin, O'Reilly, Fox News). Caring begins in the home and in your social network.
• Is caring always letting people do what they want? By the liberal litmus test, neither the rich person who desires to hold onto all his money nor the poor person who desires to sit at home idly instead of contributing to society are liberals.
• Is caring about others about yourself, about feeling good about your caring, about using your power to force others to contribute to the welfare of others? Or is it about actually helping other people achieve greatness? About watching the student become the master? What if the steps to mastery are hard, require personal grit, determination, perseverence in the face of adversity?
• Is it caring to say "Don't worry. You don't have to. I will carry your burdens for you." Or is it "You can do it! When you see the view from the mountaintop, you will find it all so worthwhile!" Science says: the second answer is the correct one. Don't believe me? Look it up! ("Why should I look it up? Why don't you put your references here DocBrain?" Read this entire bullet again, Grasshopper.)

So, the summary is that liberals care about the feeling they get when they think about the misery of other people. Perhaps some even care about the feeling they get when they are able to coerce others to contribute blood or treasure towards what they believe will help reduce the misery of others. Reality is that other people who live lives of misery live in their own realities that require adjustments to achieve happiness and most of the adjustments are internal (no, they are NOT mostly external...look it up). The little good that coerced external changes do is undone by the coercive factor and the flaws in "The Plan".

End of Part 1

Why socialism and communism cannot succeed

Most forms of government make it possible for people to satisfy their basic needs for food and shelter (the other basic need, sex, is generally not satisfied by government unless you consider screwing the public). So, this issue is not relevant to the discussion of governance.

Wealth control, or the carrot and stick, is the way that governments control their people. Tax this one; give to that one. However, what happens is that the carrots and sticks become less effective over time and can lead to a need for more carrots and more sticks to accomplish the same purpose or even to reverse behavior in the long term.

Social acceptance, or being with the "in" crowd only lasts as long as the "in" crowd stays true to the government.

This leaves us with the internal controls: the desires for autonomy and purpose. Regardless of what a government may want, people want to be the boss of themselves, to be something more than a number. They want to have a purpose in life beyond struggling for shelter, money or social acceptance. They want to be someone; to accomplish something. This striving for exceptionalism is innate, not some made-up theory.

Exceptionalism can only exist where people are seen as individuals, not members of groups to be fed, paid or wooed. Everyone who reads this blog believes that in some way, he or she is exceptional, capable of knowing, doing or being something special that reflects their own perspective.

The American experiment, to let anyone be individually exceptional, is the core value that has fueled the success of our country. You diminish yourself by letting yourself be bought by food, shelter, sex, money or social acceptance. Being true to your individuality will lead you to the heights of happiness. This is the pleasure that cannot be derived from communism or socialism.

Are you responsible for what you do?

1. The original equation was that you were free to choose what you did, and that you were responsible for your choices.

2. Next came the belief that perhaps we are not as free at it seems. Genetic alterations can make a person more aggressive (or more passive). What about how we were raised? What about how society treated us? What about our core "values"? In the end, how can we be responsible for what we do, since we all are the product of our DNA and environment? And what about a new medical disorder that describes your choice as an illness? Who can find a victim of an illness to be wrong or evil?

3. But, once you accept 2 as true, then you change the equation. A person, in deciding what to do in any situation, will know that no matter what choice, there will be no individual responsibility. The proponents of the safety net of dna, disease and demographics will save them from being wrong or evil. And this knowledge changes the decision itself, making the decision not so much a reflection of the internal struggle between good and evil as much as the softer choice between internal desires and how big a pass will he get on external responsibility. The knowledge of no responsibility changes the internal value of the choices, making choices actually more personal and less reflexive. As we come to grips with this loop of logic, I believe there will be a return to personal responsibility. This will create an environment where poor choices in terms of right, good and ethics will come home to roost.

Indeed, this morning, I heard four comedians on a talk show. A man made a joke. An African-American said, "Listen white boy..." Before she could say another word, another comedian on the show interrupted "Listen, why didn't you just say 'Cracker'?". The pass in putting someone down on the basis of race is becoming less acceptable, regardless of your place in society. In DocBrain's opinion, this is definitely a step in the right direction.

More fallacies

The Myth of Equal Opportunity

No such thing. Perhaps equalish opportunity. No two people are quite the same. Many factors beyond government control will unequalize opportunity (birth sequence, month born, intelligences, emotionality, baseline mood, focus [ie, detail vs overview], to name but a few). The book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell pretty much explodes they myth of equality.

Artists Should Be Liberal/Progressive

If all writers are equal, why should I buy your book? If all painters are equal, why should your painting have any special meaning to me? If all songwriters are equal, why should your song have any special meaning for me? If all actors are equal, why should I want to see any movie you are in? You see where this is going. While not all the cream rises to the top and not all at the top is cream, there certainly is a tendency for the talented (as judged by their audience) to rise. So, great art is about exceptionalism, not equality. Freedom of expression is important and a key element of an open society. The ability of any art form to shock, offend or even repulse its audience is not a reason to prohibit it. However, not all cutting edge art is good, and not all mainstream art is trite. Art is about freedom to be exceptional, to be noticed, to say something impactful to someone else.

The Myth that Change is Good

Just because something is new doesn't make it better than before. Just ask anyone who used Microsoft Vista or Me. Often it is the devil you know vs the one you don't. Just because it sounds good doesn't make it so. "New and Improved" often is recalled or updated.

Do these sound familiar?

If A then B is the rule of cause and effect. You believe that B should follow A. You do A, but when B doesn't happen, how can you justify continuing to do A and not admitting that your initial assumption/belief was a fallacy?

Time and Resource Argument

• We just have not given it enough time.
• We have helped, but have just not done enough or spent enough yet.
• The concept is based on a belief that the occurrence of B in relation to A is not linear, but on an S shaped curve (little to show for A early on until a critical threshold is reached, then B starts and accelerates to a maximum effect).
• The relationship between A and B as an S curve both should be known in advance and accounted for at the beginning. In medicine we occasionally see S curves (oxygen saturation in the blood, some medication and enzyme activity). In the world, we can see it as a population curve.

If you find someone who is in misery and A would help that person achieve B, then A is good. This is the so-called misery argument. Lets assume that B is a desirable goal.

• Mrs. Jones cannot afford her medications. If we have free medications for everyone who cannot afford them, Mrs. Jones will be able to afford her medications. How can you be against free medications for the poor?
• The hypothesis is that if A then B does not preclude if C then B, so it does not prove that A is the only way to achieve B, nor does it prove that A is the most efficient, effective, ethical or least onerous way.
• Mrs. Jones has mild hypertension and adult onset diabetes. Mrs. Jones is 100 lbs overweight. If Mrs. Jones went on a diet and exercised and lost 50 lbs, she would self-correct and not need medications. The food required for her diet is actually less expensive than the foods she now eats. She lives near a park and can exercise for free. Mrs. Jones hates pills and will not be adherent to therapy. However, Mrs. Jones believes that she should never disappoint anyone, so she faithfully refills her meds and throws them in the toilet. Now, does the first bullet still make as much sense?

Watch for these arguments as justifications for controlling you and staying stuck on stupid.

Note: when you take the S curve and open it up, you get a Laffer curve. For an interesting take on the welfare state from the statistical perspective, follow the link below.

www.holisticpolitics.org/WelfareThatWorks/

First of its kind?

There are blogs.

There are blogs about blogging.

Then there are blogs about blogging about blogging.
www.dailyblogtips.com/top-25-blogs-about-blogging/

Unless I have missed it, this is the first blog about blogs about blogging about blogging.

The President is Black!

Only two problems with Obama declaring himself a racially pure Black.

• It disrespects some of his ancestors.
• It isn't factually true and he knows it. The Census is a legal government document, where failure to complete it honestly is perjury.

As the President of the United States, it is his duty to lead by example. The example is that you are what you believe yourself to be rather than what you are, irrespective of how this impacts others and irrespective of whether or not this falls within the confines of the law.

Obama has never said that he was interested in reality. His message has always been belief and change. He believes he is racially pure Black and changed his reality to reflect it. The only rationale for denying the truth is loyalty. He displayed his loyalty to his father, to Blackness, over the truth. He wants to maintain, even if only in his own mind, the myth that he is 100% Black, even at the expense of violating a law of the land.

Whether this represents a pride in having Black ancestors or a shame in having White ones, it is an example of racial bias in the man who many felt would lead us in this post-racial age in America. It clearly indicates his own internal conflict: the son of a white American woman (with ancestry back to the old South) and an aristocratic Kenyan man (possibly with ancestry back to slave traders) trying to include himself in the African-slave blood-American demographic.

Of course, this could all be a Clinton flashback...it all depends upon what "Black" means. But Obama is smart enough to know that most people aren't going to buy that rope a dope anymore.

The most favorable interpretation would be that Obama lied purposefully to help encourage the young, truly Black Americans, that they, too, someday can be President, by building on the myth that he is the first African-American President. Caring about others should matter, but not more than the truth.

Hyphen

DocBrain may have blogged on this before, but in the wake of our President declaring himself an African-American, a restatement is in order.

DocBrain is offended by anyone who uses the format *-American to describe himself. A person can have only one supreme master philosophy or value system. That value system ideally should be tied to the country in which you are a citizen. Any other attributes should be of secondary importance. This is particularly true in America (see my prior post).

So, how should a person define himself? First of all, as an American. Then, if you wish, some superficial designation of lesser significance.

• American-African not African-American
• American-Jew not Jewish-American
• American-Christian not Christian-American
• American-Muslim not Islamic-American
  
• American-White not White-American
• American-Gay not Gay-American
• American-Steeler Fan not Steeler Fan-American
  

Your primary overriding loyalty should be to your country, especially one that allows you the freedom to be the second part of your designation.

Ain't that America?

People tend to live up (or down) to the image they have of themselves. These images are based upon both traditions and sentiment. This is true not only of individuals but also of groups of people.

There is the authentic image, the core value or belief system. Then, there are the alternative, competing views held by those who are not part of the mainstream. They gain their own authenticity if they either are excluded from the mainstream or choose to take a different path. If the former, they tend to diminish the truth of universality of the mainstream view; if the latter, they tend to produce growth around the edges of the mainstream.

DocBrain believes that the authentic America contains the following belief system:

• Liberty to be whatever you can make of yourself
• A nation of laws, where law rules, and just laws favor no individual over another based upon anything other than the evidence and the universal values of fellow citizens who sit in judgment
• The right to own property, vote, worship
• The right to speak your mind in the civil discourse that promotes the pursuit of knowledge, comfort and harmony
• The power of a country that does not limit the potential and rights of its individuals to pursue happiness will prevail over any adversary
  
• A duty to preserve the country that defends these rights

Some would argue that there have been individuals deprived of being part of what I call authentic America. These people, shut out of the system, have made it necessary to modify these premises to allow others to be included in America. For example, women, Jews, Asians, people of color, native Americans, and other groups have been excluded from the universal aspects of America at various times in the past.

DocBrain believes that scars from previous wounds do not impair a person's present or future unless one chooses to be preoccupied with them. DocBrain believes that individuals are free to focus on the past if they want to, but does not see this as a reason to modify his core belief system.

There are alternative views. For example, the Amish have not been part of the mainstream of their own choosing. They request no change from us, but do give us a different perspective on life and the relationship with the natural world, from which we perhaps can learn something.

Then, there are the alternative views that pose as ways of helping the victims of earlier prejudices, but really just are alternative mindsets. These include the following beliefs:

• We are all responsible for each other.
  
• No one lifestyle choice is superior to another. If one chooses to be an ant and another the grasshopper, both deserve a fair piece of the pie.
• No one is responsible for who they are or what they do. It is all due to external forces at play
• Religions must serve the purpose of the State. Thus, if the state determines that gay marriage is legal, then religions must honor it.
• Equal opportunity and equal outcome
• Groups are more important than individuals; people need to be considered not as individuals but as members of groups
  

While some of these alternative views may have intrinsic value, they are not America. In America, we should have the liberty to decide who we want to be responsible for, who we want to help, and how we want to relate to spirituality and associate with each other. We should be free to do this as individuals, allowing our choices to promote the welfare of those we value. Without individual responsibility, we cannot reflect the image of America. Without the chutes and ladders of life, we cannot perfect and reinvent to make the world a better place.

Culture, Politics and Economics

The goal of any country is to have all three in harmony.

Culture

• This is the way of life, the customs, beliefs and myths that drive a group of people. Ideally, this is unifying and not divisive. For example, the American Way
• Unless it includes the key values for determining right and wrong, good and evil, ethical and unethical, moral and immoral, a culture is only an empty shell of itself.
• The concept of multiculturalism breaks this unity, especially when each culture has its own value system. By definition, they will be in conflict with each other unless they have been dumbed down by excluding or muting their core values.

Politics

• This is the government, the laws of the land, the way the people are expected to behave and serve others via taxes and public (military) service.
• Politics should express the values of the culture. This becomes problematic when multiple value systems are in play (see above)

Economics

• This is the engine that runs a country. Jobs, income, goods and services.
• This also should be in harmony with the values of the native culture.

While the colorful traditions of groups add to the variety of life, the presence of conflicting core cultures within a single society will lead to conflict and chaos unless they can be unified.

In the USA, we now have a conflict of cultures, a conflict of core values. The myth that I grew up believing was that America was founded by those who believed in individual liberty, you are free to make the most of your life; no one defines you. The new myth is in group identity, getting yourself identified in the most appropriate groups; making sure your groups get their fair share of the pie.

Only when our government reflects the mainstream culture and respects the economic underpinnings valued by that culture will the people respect the government.