Half an Investigation? UPDATE

I, along with many others, have argued that it is a huge mistake to limit the investigation of detainee abuse to those who went beyond what was authorized by the Bush administration - to those who used excessive water in their waterboarding, or brandished a power drill. This article explains our position as clearly as any article has to date.

Joe H.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan's quote of the day provides the upside of Eric Holder's decision.

Christian Herd Mentality

In my previous post, I quoted Andrew Sullivan's observation regarding Bush and Cheney's accomplishments, in which he said:

"But what they did to the culture - how they systematically dismantled core American values like the prohibition on torture and respect for the rule of law - is the worst and most enduring of the legacies."

I utterly and completely agree with these sentiments. It is also worth noting that it was possible for Bush and Cheney to do so much cultural damage only because evangelical Christians became cult like worshipers of these men. Evangelical Christians remain largely supportive of Bush and Cheney - despite all that has been revealed about their conduct while in office. Had we had any concern for basic human decency, had we any Christian concern for our neighbor - whom Jesus told us to love as much as we love ourselves - we would have abandoned Bush and Cheney long ago and insisted on accountability. But because these were our guys, we supported them against the evil forces arrayed against them. Defending torture and a overlooking a lawless government were simply costs of our allegiance - and we paid these costs eagerly.

Think about it. We abandoned core American values rather than admit that we'd been duped by a religious con. And we continue to do so.

I'm completely and utterly embarrassed that Christians are still largely supportive of these men, and want them to be protected from prosecution. God help us - we've lost our minds.

Joe H.

New Torture Revelations

Hi everyone,

Blogspot locked up my blog for a few days - something made them think this was a spam blog. Anyway, I'm back.

I've been wanting to write something about the CIA report released yesterday. Its not so much that this information is new, although some of what the CIA did in our names is truly horrifying. However, I was reading Andrew Sullivan's blog this morning, and he expressed my feelings perfectly - so I'll let him speak for me.

Andrew Sullivan, August 25, 2009:

"This is what Bush and Cheney truly achieved in their tragic response to 9/11: two terribly failed, brutally expensive wars, the revival of sectarian warfare and genocide in the Middle East, the end of America's global moral authority, the empowerment of Iran's and North Korea's dictatorships, and the nightmares of Gitmo and Bagram still haunting the new administration.

But what they did to the culture - how they systematically dismantled core American values like the prohibition on torture and respect for the rule of law - is the worst and most enduring of the legacies.

One political party in this country is now explicitly pro-torture, and wants to restore a torture regime if it regains power. Decent conservatives for the most part simply looked the other way. Unless these cultural forces in defense of violence and torture are defeated - not appeased or excused, but defeated - America will never return the way it once was. Electing a new president was the start and not the end of this. He is flawed, as every president is, but in my view, the scale of the mess he inherited demands some slack. Any new criminal investigation which scapegoats those at the bottom while protecting the guilty men and women who made it happen is a travesty of justice. If it is the end and not the beginning of accountability, it will be worse than nothing.

But it need not be the end of the story. Indeed, it can be the beginning if we make it so. We cannot stop this sad and minuscule attempt to restore a scintilla of accountability to some individuals low down on the totem pole. Eric Holder is doing what he can. But we can continue to lobby and argue for the extension of accountability to the truly guilty men who made all this happen and still refuse to take responsibility for war crimes on a coordinated scale never before seen in American warfare, and initiated by a presidential decision to withdraw from the Geneva Conventions and refuse to abide by their plain meaning and intent.

Our job, in other words, is to raise the core moral baseline of Americans to that of Iranians. That's the depth of the hole Cheney dug. And it's a hole the current GOP wants to dig deeper and darker."

Thanks Andrew.

Let me also add that I wholeheartedly agree that Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to limit the special prosecutor's investigation to CIA officials who went beyond what was authorized by the OLC "torture memos" is a grave mistake. First, the memoranda produced by the office of legal counsel contained badly flawed legal analysis - so badly flawed that only a complete ignoramus could have relied on it in good faith. Consider just the fact that the memoranda authorized waterboarding without ever mentioning that this conduct had been repeatedly prosecuted by our own government. Not one government official, either within the CIA or without, genuinely believed that chaining people in stress positions, naked, in a 54 degree room, was legal conduct. The idea that they acted in good faith is absurd.

Not only is it absurd, it is refuted by the CIA report itself, which discusses the worries of particular CIA officials that the conduct they were engaged in would lead to future prosecutions. You only worry about prosecutions when you think what you're doing is illegal.

Second, and far more important, allowing the torture memoranda from the OLC to immunize government officials from prosecution, despite the fact that these memoranda were so obviously flawed, will cement the proposition that the President is a law unto himself - that the executive can exempt itself from any laws passed by congress simply by appointing a lackey to the OLC and instructing him or her to write a legal memorandum stating that whatever he wants to do is legal.

If we accept that precedent - we're done. Its just a matter of time.

Joe H.

Three Cheers for Non Ideological Sanity

Compare this clip to this clip and you have a starkly vivid illustration of the effect of ideology on a person's sanity. Three cheers for the secret service guy who, without yelling or calling anyone names, stated the obvious.

Joe H.

Progressive Revolt

I have experienced growing despair about Obama's presidency. Part of the reason, I think - I'm still sorting out my own psychology - is that I was so horrified by the Bush presidency, that I was willing to believe that Obama felt like I did when he said all the things that he said during his campaign. I believed that he genuinely opposed Bush's illegal spying program and immunity for the telecoms who participated in it. I believed that he understood the importance of the rule of law, and would hold Bush administration officials accountable for their numerous illegal acts, including warcrimes and abuses of power, just as he promised. I believed that he would champion reform of the health care system and, in particular, never compromise on the idea that there should be a public insurance option. I believed that he would end the use of the State Secrets privilege to squash lawsuits and cover up government participation in torture. On and on.

But none of this has happened. There is precious little change of the sort Obama promised in his campaign. What's more, no matter how intractable the political opposition is, no matter how clear it is that Republicans have no interest in cooperating with Obama and have, as their only goal, the destruction of his presidency, and no matter how truly insane their behavior is - Governor Palin warning, and Senator Grassley affirming, that seniors should be worried that health care reform will try to kill them - Obama still believes that working with Congressional Republicans is important.

What a sucker I was!

Turns out, I'm not alone in my despair. Read this article and this article and this article and especially this article and you'll get a sense of why it is so important that progressives assert themselves on the health care legislation. This betraying of the people who got Obama elected has got to stop. It is preceisely this sort of betrayal that led to Nader's third party run from the left in 2000 - which put President Bush in the whitehouse.

Digby summarized my feelings and worries about as well as anyone when she wrote:

"After 2000, what is it going to take for the Democrats to realize that constantly using their base as a doormat is not a good idea? It only takes a few defections or enough people staying home to make a difference. And there are people on the left who have proven they're willing to do it. The Democrats are playing with fire if they think they don't have to deliver anything at all to their liberal base --- and abandoning the public option, particularly in light of what we already know about the bailouts and the side deals, may be what breaks the bond.

It's really not too much to ask that they deliver at least one thing the left demands, it really isn't. And it's not going to take much more of this before their young base starts looking around for someone to deliver the hope and change they were promised."

If you're looking for people who are willing to defect - sign me up!

By the way, in Greenwald's post there is a link to a fund raising effort to embolden progressive legislators to stand firm on the public option - and, more importantly, to change the political dynamic of our politics. I fully support this effort - I gave $50 on the spot. I know, that's not a lot for a lawyer, but I live in Hawaii, so shut up!

Just kidding - If you agree I hope you'll contribute a small amount.

Joe H.

Christian America

This article by Cynthia Boaz is a must read for anyone who believes that the United States is a "Christian Nation" and/or was founded on Christian principles.

Excluding her pacifism argument, I agree with everything she said.

Joe

Remember When You Ran Away - Redux

Here is another good summary of the mental health breakdown of the Republican party since losing to President Obama. I think the political advice is spot on.

Joe H.

Using Informal Fallacies

This email advertisment for a legal publication just arrived in my email inbox"

"In litigation, an effective argument is essential to winning the case. Legal arguments, just like ordinary arguments, occur in patterns and recognizing these patterns, and understanding their strengths and weaknesses, are the keys to winning an effective argument.

This book uses the Legal Logic Flow Chart and the understanding and use of informal fallacies to help you craft your argument. No matter what area of law a lawyer practices, informal fallacies are readily applicable. Learning to use, and defend against, informal fallacies are the keys to effective argument, and this valuable resource will give you the tools you need. This book is ideal for any lawyer who wants to craft a flawless argument."

For the uninitiated, "informal fallacies" are arguments that are psychologically persuasive but logically unsound. The intentional use of an informal fallacy is known as a . . . manipulative lie.

Somebody should be embarrased by this ad.

Joe H.

Executing the Innocent - UPDATE

Yesterday, the US Supreme Court ordered a Federal District Court to conduct an evidentiary hearing to determine whether there is credible evidence exonerating Troy Davis, a man convicted of first degree murder in Georgia in 1979, and sentenced to die.

Rather than focus on the facts of this case, I want to focus on a statement made by Justice Scalia in his dissent. He noted:

"This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who had a full and fair trial, but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent."

This is quite a remarkable statement. If I understand Scalia correctly, he seems to be willing to allow executions of convicted defendants who later prove that they are "actually innocent."

Some background. Our criminal justice system is a system of "imperfect procedural justice." This is in contrast to a system of "pure procedural justice" or "perfect procedural justice."

Pure procedural justice applies to circumstances where there is no identifiable just outcome. In such circumstances, the rules governing the relevant activity render the outcome that emerges just. There is no just outcome of a golf tournament. Any outcome is just - regardless of who wins or looses - if the rules are neutral and are applied fairly.

"Perfect Procedural Justice" applies to circumstances where a just outcome can be identified and there is a procedure guaranteeing the outcome. For example, if six equally hungry people pay equal amounts for a pizza, a just distribution of the pizza is equal shares. The procedure guaranteeing this outcome is letting the person who divides the pizza take the last slice - the best the slicer can do is an equal share.

"Imperfect Procedural Justice" is applicable in circumstances where a just outcome can be identified, but there is no procedure capable of guaranteeing the outcome. Justice would prescribe that the most efficient employee get the raise. But there is no way to guarantee this outcome, even if the boss wants it. The best a boss can do is set up a review procedure that makes the just outcome as likely as possible.

Criminal prosecutions fall into the last category. A just outcome is that all and only guilty people are convicted, and all and only innocent people are acquitted. Unfortunately, there is no procedure that can guarantee this outcome. Instead, we set up a system designed to generate this outcome as often as possible - while also protecting certain fundamental rights of accused persons. We then respect, as a matter of law, the results of this procedure, whatever they are, and count them as justice.

However, any system of imperfect procedural justice is going to face practical constraints, one of which is the need for finality. Our justice system incorporates numerous safeguards for criminal defendants, including the right to appeal and the right to file a writ of "Habeus Corpus" and present evidence to a court that you are being wrongfully imprisoned. However, judicial resources are finite. At some point the process must end. At some point we have to say, the process was fair so the result must stand - knowing full well that in many individual cases, the result will be incorrect.

I'm okay with all that. And I suppose that, as far as it concerns the issue of finality, Justice Scalia has a point.

Still, it is awfully disturbing that a sitting justice of the United States Supreme Court could coldly state, without even a hint of regret or remorse, that that there is no constitutional rule against the government executing a person who has new evidence sufficient to convince a federal judge that he is actually innocent.
One would think that, regarding executions, which are irrevocable, evidence of actual innocence in particular cases would trump our systemic and general need for finality. And if there's no constitutional rule preventing the execution of actually innocent people, there sure as hell ought to be.

In fairness to Scalia, he doesn't think Gray's evidence is any good. But that doesn't change the fact that Scalia apparently thinks that it is okay if manifestly innocent people are executed, if that serves the system's need for finality.

Joe H.

UPDATE: For those of you who are interested, here is an excellent discussion of Scalia's "actual innocence" remark. It relates to a specific legal application of the "imperfect procedural justice" analysis described above.

Gun Toting Protesters

I just read that as many as a dozen people in the crowd outside President Obama's health care town hall in Arizona were noticibly armed - two were carrying AK-15 semi-automatic assault rifles.

Granted, Arizona has an open carry law, so there was nothing illegal about this conduct. I'm also confident that the wing nuts among us will insist that the carriers merely wanted to make a statement about freedom - that there was no intention to intimidate or indirectly threaten.

But you'd be hard pressed to convince me that the Glen Becks, Sarah Palins, and Rush Limbaughs of the right aren't whipping vulnerable people into a frenzy of zenophobic fear and hatred, and that some on the right are beginning to consider threats, intimidation, and even violence as legitimate tools of policy influence.

Here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Sure, our friend Joe the plumber will deny that he was suggesting that someone actually physically attack the Speaker of the House of Representatives. But if he's not recommending violence as a legitimate political response, he sure as hell sounds like it to me.

Conservativsm is a perfectly respectable political philosophy. It has a lot to teach us, as does liberalism. But this kind of behavior has nothing to do with conservatism. This is sheer ugliness hiding behind the mantel of conservatism.

I'm beginning to worry that things are getting out of hand and that we're going to start seeing inidividual incidents of violence, followed by armed rebellions.

God help us.

Joe H.

Conservative Anger

This piece summarizes the origins of conservative anger about as well as anthing I've read.

By the way, one of the things about blogging that I like is being able to point people to others who have more time to think than I do.

Joe

Dose of Sanity That Exposes Insanity

Here's a dose of sanity regarding health care reform.

Joe

Conservative Straight Talk - Misplaced Rage

I'm not a political conservative, but the author of this piece, Bruce Bartlett, is a well known conservative. His advice to fellow conservatives is the most sensible advice I've read in quite awhile.

Highly recommended for all, but especially my conservative readers.

Joe H.

Joe Republican And Liberal Achievement

One of the problems faced by current liberals/progressives is that so much of what we wanted to accomplish is already "baked into the cake." It is difficult to motivate people to political action when you've accomplished most of your goals.

The point being made in the clip is that onservatives enjoy the benefits of the many progressive victories over the last century, but think of the realities that these victories created as the organic products of a free market capitalist system. But they are not organic products of free market capitalism. They are the results of a progressive vision to modify capitalism to make it fairer and safer - a vision pursued with energy, perserverence, and courage over the course of a century of time.

This clip does not mention the vastly improved status of children, non-whites, and women, so those victories should be added to list.

Joe H.

Astroweeds?

Thomas Shaller just posted a very good analysis of the current "town hell" phenomenon. He noted that there have traditionally been two types of activism/lobbying. Grassroots and Astro-turfing.

Grass-roots activism is a spontaneous uprising of the masses. Such activism is generally not well cooridnated, may be uninformed, and can get messy. But it has the virtue of being authentic and comming across as authentic.

Astro-turfing is activism directed from the top. A well funded group or organization specializing in a cause will find citizens whose stories are compelling and make them public representatives of why action on the cause needs to be taken. Such activism is carefully scripted for public consumption which increases its effectiveness. But the fact that it has been staged diminishes its force to a certain degree.

Shaller says that if these two types of activism are the poles, what we're seeing in the "town hell" phenomenon is a hybrid of the drawbacks of both types of activism - a top down stirring up (and funding) of angry misinformed people wwithout any effort to package their message.

His analysis is surely worth a read.

Joe

Death Panels Redux

I'm becomming more and more convinced that comedy is far more effective at debunking bullshit than ordinary argument ever could be. At this link, Jon Stewart interviews a panel of "experts" whose remarks illustrate just how insane some of the opponents of health care reform are.

Both clips are funny, but the clip with the panel interview is the best.

Enjoy.

Joe H

Death Panels and Sarah Palin

As most of you are aware, Sarah Palin has accused the Obama health care reform initiative of wanting to institute "death panels" that would deny care to her son Trig, who was born with Down's Syndrome.

Unfortunately, Palin seems completely unaware that our current for profit insurance companies will not insure Down's Syndrome children - they incur lots of medical bills and are too expensive. Most insurance companies exclude victims of Down's Syndrome by citing preexisting conditions - a practice President Obama wants to prohibit. Down's Syndrome children are often covered under their parent's policies at birth, but God help these families if they lose their insurance coverage because their employers drop coverage, or for some other reason.

The irony lost on ideologues like Palin is that government health insurance programs like Medicare and Medicaid help people who are priced out of the private insurance market - sick people, old people, poor people. The point of a public option and subsidies is to insure that these people are not priced out of the insurance market, and that they have access to regular care. Telling these people that their government wants to kill them is astonishingly irresponsible - and down right immoral.

Does Sarah Palin not understand this? What kind of person is she? She's either an ignorant ideologue who will say whatever she thinks will galvanize political support - or she's a completely immoral liar with no feelings for anyone sharing her situation who is not wealthy. Maybe the better question is, what kind of Christian is she? What kind of Christian scares vulnurable people who are the targets of proposed government beneficence?

Here's some good commentary on this issue from Anonymous Liberal.

JOe H.

Torture and the Law

There are reports that Attorney General Eric Holder intends to prosecute low level CIA officials for acts of torture. However, these same reports indicate that prosecutions will be limited to officials who exceeded the guidelines laid out in the legal memorandums issued by the Office of Legal Counsel - the so called "Torture Memos."

On the one hand, it strikes me as unfair to prosecute officials for going a bit too far with these techniques, specifically because the torture memo's were top secret documents that were never seen by CIA field officials. It seems unfair to prosecute an interrogator who used too much water in his waterboarding technique, or who failed to give the required break between sessions, or who kept a detainee sleepless for 11 1/2 days instead of the authorized 11 days, particularly if these measures yielded the intelligence bonanzas that the Bush Administration claims.

On the other hand, I really don't care. No American citizen could have reasonably believed that it was legal to waterboard detainees - we have prosecuted waterboarding numerous times in the past - or to deprive people of sleep for up to 11 straight days, or to high chain them in a 54 degree room while naked for many hours at a time, or to throw cold water on them while they are shackled in such positions, and so forth and so on. No interrogator could reasonably believe that such actions were legal, no matter what they were told be their superiors.

What bothers me is that we're not going to go after everyone involved in this program, from the bottom up to the top. If Eric Holder only goes after people who exceeded the techniques authorized by the OLC, he is implicitly stating that what the OLC authorized is legal - even though it was previously recognized as illegal by all signatories to the Convention on Torture - and even though everyone involved knew that such conduct was illegal.

Worse, Holder will be endorsing the proposition that if a President can find (or place) a functionary in the OLC who will write a secret memorandum stating that a particular behavior is legal, then that behavior becomes legal for that reason alone. Holder will be endorsing the proposition that the President can make his own law and act in ways that the people, through their elected representatives and appointed judicial officials, have determined to be illegal - and that he can do this in secret. Holder will be enshrining the proposition that our Executive is a law unto himself.

As Glen Greenwald recently put it, this is a rather significant development in Western jurisprudence. Had President Nixon or Reagan known about this, they could have saved themselves a lot of trouble.

US and international law defined "torture" as the "intentional infliction of severe mental or physical pain or suffering." Contrary to the "specific intent" crowd, sadism is not an element of "torture." The Convention on torture expressly includes the purpose of extracting information within the definition of torture - meaning that such purposes cannot be used a legal defense. These laws were the product of many years of international negotiations and subsequent congressional action. They were signed into law by president Reagan and endorsed by every subsequent American President, including George W. Bush.

No sane person can deny that the techniques were perfornmed intentionally, or that they inflicted severe mental or physical pain or suffering. The plan, after all, according to none other than Vice President Cheney, was to "break" the detainees by "taking off the gloves." And, by their own testimony, this was accomplished.

Nonetheless, we now know that any President can set aside any such laws, and immunize the government officials who break them, by having a functionary in the OLC write a memorandum saying that such conduct is legal. The president doesn't even have to tell us that he's doing this. Apparantly, Obama can get a lawyer in the OLC to write a secret memorandum saying that his Article 1 powers authorize him to order the summary execution of American citizens, and thereby immunize officials who carry out such orders. The Bill of Rights and Federal Statues be damned.

For my part, if there is a more unamerican proposition, I've yet to hear it. And I have to ask, what does our acquiescence say about us and our alleged patriotism? If our exceptionalism, or our nationalism, or political tribalism is so strong that we'll allow criminals to rewrite our constitution rather than hold them accountable, then how much can we really love this country?

Anyway, you should look at this clip which contains readings from the torture memos. It dramatizes just how perverted and extreme the Bush administration became - in secret - and why we should not let these issues die.

Joe H.

Republicans Propagating Falsehoods in Attacks on Health-Care Reform

The title to this post is the title of an article published in today's Washington Post by Steve Pearlstein on Republican lying about healthcare reform. I'm not sure why they used "propogating falsehoods in attacks" instead of "lying," but his points are well made. They are lying.

Joe H.

Thundering Silence - Equating Disagreement With Evil

Organizations dedicated to opposing anti-semitism, as well as our national media elite, expressed immediate and sustained outrage when an anonymous blogger posted a Bush = Hitler comparison on Move-On.org's website in 2004. However, the same cast of characters remained virtually silent this week when Rush Limbaugh provided a detailed - and genuinely ignorant - comparison of Obama to Hitler and the Nazis.

Let me get this straight. An anonymous blogger posts a Bush - Hitler comparison on a liberal website and there are calls for blood in the street. But Rush Limbaugh tells his fifteen million listeners that Obama is just like Hitler and . . . virtually no response from the very same players . . .

That's what I call "Thundering Silence!

In response to an inquiry by Glen Greenwald regarding their non-response, the American Jewish Congress responded as follows:

"The Limbaugh comments comparing Obama ( and Pelosi )to Hitler and the Nazis are grossly offensive and intolerable. They reflect a nasty and hyperbolic tendency on our political culture, one which makes reasoned discourse impossible, confuses disagreement with evil, and which makes it impossible to distinguish evil from ordinary politics. . . . It behooves all participants in the political process to unequivocally disavow the comparison and to make it plain that peddlers of such noxious comparison have no place in our politics, no matter how large their audiences. And all Americans should make plain their disgust at the comparisons by talk show hosts by a prompt use of the off button.

Better late than never, but the fact that this response had to be prompted by a direct inquiry from a prominent blogger tells you something about these organizations, and about our supposedly "liberal" media elites.

However, I'm most interested in the emboldened text. I agree with it wholeheartedly and think these tendencies are growing at an alarming rate. But I have no idea how to combat them. I have been accused of being evil, based on arguments I have advanced. And the people that I have talked to that have this mentality appear to be incorrigibly dedicated to their perspective.

I believe this perspective arises from a witch's brew of inflexible certitude, a sense of entitlement to govern, and a loss of political power. But understanding a phenomenon's causes is one thing - coming up with a strategy to reverse it is another.

When I look at the so called "tea bagger" disruptions to the Town Hall meetings on health care reform, I see precisely these sentiments in play. Note, I don't object to the opponents of Obama's health care policies voicing their opinions or organizing protests. But that's not what these people are doing. They appear to be so certain that they are right - based on what, I don't know - and so certain that their opponents are evil, not just wrong, but evil, that they are working to close down any discussion of health care reform.

On one of the clips of these "town hell" meetings, I heard one of the protesters shout, without any sense of irony, "this is America!"

News flash - shutting down discussion by disruption is not the American way. It is sort of . . . oh, I don't know . . . what's the word . . . fascist!

Damn! I'm now part of the problem!

Any thoughts on how we fix all this?

Joe H.

Bias, Babies, and Embryos.

Yesterday I concluded that "any claim that a person's analysis is biased should have two features - a plausible explanation demonstrating that the allegedly biased person misanalysed the facts and/or arguments, and a plausible identification of the influence(s) that are interfering with the person's analysis."

Two days ago, I noted that a friend of mine who was undergoing in vitro fertilization had referred to the fertilized embryos yet to be implanted in her womb as "my little babies." I further noted that upon hearing that she said this, I replied that her response was "insane" - meaning that no rational person who understood what a "baby" and an "embryo" were would come to that conclusion unless their judgment was biased.

There are many ways of demonstrating that embryos are not "little babies." To pick just one, if embryos were little babies, discarding frozen embryos would constitute an act of mass murder. Discarding frozen embryos does not constitute an act of mass murder. Therefore, embryos are not little babies.

The logical form of this argument is: P implies Q; not Q; therefore, not P. This is a logically valid argument form with its own Latin name - Modus Tollens.

Of course, my friend, and a subset of like minded pro-lifers, will not agree. When cornered by the argument above, they'll reject Q and affirm that discarding embryos is an act of mass murder. This is what's known as "biting the bullet." Virtually no one, including my friend, ever raised an objection to in vitro fertilization on these grounds. This means that virtually no one, including the small set of pro-lifers that I just described, ever believed that discarding non-implanted embryos constituted mass murder - I'm just spitballing here, but I'm pretty sure people would voice objections to mass murder.

However, when this subset of pro-lifers are cornered with the argument above, with its inescapable logic, they simply reject Q and assert that discarding embryos constitutes an act of mass murder.

Why do they do this?

The short answer is, they have no choice. They have to do this to maintain their view that embryos are little babies. They are committed to the "little babies" proposition for ideological reasons. Prior to being confronted with the aforementioned Modus Tollens reductio argument, they were able to keep their contradictory beliefs about embryos, little babies, and mass murder in separate mental compartments. But as soon as they were forced to choose, they choose the option that preserved their ideological conviction. And they chose as they did despite the fact that they now embrace a conviction that they would have rejected as entirely unreasonable immediately prior to being confronted with the dilemma.

Now, I'm pretty sure that my friend's sentiments were, psychologically speaking, far more complicated than this simplistic analysis. My friend and her husband desperately wanted natural children. They were also very conservative Christians who undoubtedly felt (or feared) judgment from others within their community. There probably were other factors influencing her thinking on the issue.

What is unmistakable, however, is that she, and the other pro-lifers who have faced this dilemma and have arrived at her conclusion, were not thinking objectively about the issue. My friend's judgment was influenced by beliefs, commitments, and feelings that had nothing to do with an analysis of the proposition "embryos are little babies." My friend was not only incorrect - she was biased.

Understandably biased - but biased nonetheless.

Any thoughts?

Joe H.

Types of Bias - Bias Analysis

As I said yesterday, a "bias" is an influence preventing a person from an objective analysis of the facts and/or arguments. It would be impossible to catalogue every type of influence that prevents objective analysis, but some of the more common biases include:

1. Temperament or personality type;

2. Mood;

3. Past experience;

4. Psychological trauma;

5. Persona animus towards an individual or group;

6. Ideology;

7. Partisan zeal;

8. Culture;

9. Various kinds of Emotions - Fear and Love are two good ones;

10. Groupthink; and

11. Our desire to maintain our current beliefs and avoid doubt.

I was tempted to put education on the list, but I think education created biases fall within the other categories. I also like to think of education in the Platonic sense of being given knowledge - as opposed to being misinformed - so I'm reluctant to include it as a biasing influence.

Regarding these influence categories, it is pretty easy to understand how each clouds our judgment - sometimes in tandem. It is also pretty easy to identify tangible measures we can take to minimize or undermine these influences. The exception is "temperament," which is neither well understood (by most people) nor escapable - and yet has considerable influence on the type of arguments and evidence that we'll each find convincing. I also agree with Charles Sanders Pierce, who pointed to No. 10 as the heavyweight biasing influence of human thinking.

At any rate, the reason I enumerated different types of biasing influences is because doing so illustrates an important element of any bias analysis - whether for yourself or others. Biases are influences that can be identified and understood - they can be named. Therefore, any claim that a person's analysis is biased should have two features - a plausible explanation demonstrating that the allegedly biased person misanalysed the facts and/or arguments, and a plausible identification of the influence(s) that is interfering with the person's analysis.

So far so good. Stay tuned.

Joe H.

Obama on Signing Statements - Corrupted by Power

I'm stunned. Obama issued his first signing statement today. He did this after arguing in the most unequivocal terms that Presidential signing statements are unconstitutional and unamerican.

Don't believe me? Watch this clip.

This is why we need to investigate and prosecute Bush administration officials. Their criminality and lawlessness fundamentally changed our form of government. Ambitious men cannot be trusted with unchecked power - it corrputs the best of them.

Obama is either a better liar than Bush, or he is being corrupted by power. I can see why people on the right are afraid of him. But the problem is not Obama. The problem is that they failed to object to the accumulation of extra-constitutional powers in the executive when Bush was president. They lacked foresight - and now they are freaking out.

I'd love to indulge in a little "we told you so." But we need all hands on deck. My hope is that Eric Holder will man up. We'll see.

Bias?

People who enjoy argumentative discussions - discussions in which people debate the merits of propositions - often come to believe that their opponents are influenced by some kind of "bias." By "bias," I mean some kind of influence that prevents a person from "objectively" evaluating the evidence or the strength of an argument.

Anyone involved in litigation is familiar with the creation of bias. Once you've taken on a client, worked up their case, and are ready to go to trial, you're essentially in the bag. And most litigators know it, which is why they frequently consult others who are not involved in the case.

Or if you want to see real bias at work - get into a fight with your spouse. There's precious little objective analysis going on there.

Anyway, I once had a discussion with a friend who told me that a mutual friend was undergoing in vitro fertilization. Our female friend is a very conservative Christian woman who, in a conversation with my friend, refered to the fertilized embryos that had yet to be implanted into her womb as "my little babies."

Upon hearing this comment, I causally and impolitely replied, "that's insane." My use of the term "insane" was hyperbole. What I meant was that no rational person who understood what a "baby" is, and what an "embryo" is, would come to that conclusion unless they desperately wanted to believe it for some other reason - i.e., unless they were in the grip of an influence that completely biased their judgment.

My friend rebuked me. "You can't say the her belief is insane. I can understood how she got there." I thought about this later and concluded that, while I also could understand the psychological processes that created our friend's belief, the belief itself, that an embryo is a baby, is indeed the irrational product of an independent ideological committment.

I stand by that judgment today.

The question is, what entitles me (epistemologically) to say or believe this when millions of people feel just as confident that it is I who am under the influence of something that has rendered my judgment unreliable? Something like "secular humanism" or "liberalism," that is systematically distorting my ability to see things the way they really are?

Good question. I'll be thinking about this out loud during the next few days.

Stay tuned.

Joe H.