Welcome to my blog! Before we begin, I wanted to write a brief preface outlining my central hypothesis, which is a bit complex and counter-intuitive, so please bear with me!
According to decades of research, approximately ninety percent (90%) of all voting decisions depend entirely upon party identification, which almost everyone inherits from their parents. Quite frankly, tell me someone's education level, ethnicity, family income and their parents' party affiliations, and I can tell you how they'll vote with amazing accuracy. (Indeed, once we start talking about groups of people - thereby eliminating individual idiosyncrasies - the accuracy of my predictions regarding the group's voting behavior will rival the Amazing Kreskin's.) Significantly, you'll note that I do not need to know anything whatsoever about the candidates, the economic or political circumstances surrounding the election, or the voters' ideological beliefs. Except for that rare ten percent (10%), none of these variables affect how people vote. To the extent these variables impact elections, they affect people's propensity to vote. [Winning an election is a function of two variables: turnout (aka motivating your half of the 90%) and persuasion (aka winning swing voters). Which variable is more important varies.]
Yet, relatively few people admit to such partisan-voting behavior, and virtually no one in the media acknowledges that partisan ids drive elections. Ironically, the ten percenters are characterized by their indifference to and ignorance of political issues. That is, the typical "swing" voter is not dissatisfied with both parties, nor are they conflicted by cross-party loyalties (ie. the hypothetical pro-life, pro-tax hike voter). Although being "conflicted" seems possible, the reality of human nature proves that most people either bring their beliefs into conformity [often by persuading themselves the conflict is imaginary (ie. the pro-life Democrat who decides "safe, legal and rare" is good enough)], or they decide one value is more important than others (ie. the anti-slavery Democrat who joins the GOP despite its position on tariffs). In practice, therefore, the typical swing voter doesn't know and/or doesn't care what the two parties stand for. For these voters, elections are referenda on the status quo.
Now, if all of this is true, why don't we see these truths reflected in media coverage? In fact, if you relied upon the media for your political analysis, you would think that elections are all about candidates, contemporary circumstances and the like. From my perspective, the gap between reality and the media's depiction thereof confirms my central hypothesis (which we'll get to in a moment). Think of it this way: if elections depend on party ids and party ids depend upon relatively stable demographics, then what are they going to talk about on the news? Reporters must believe that elections depend upon constantly changing variables or they have to concede that their jobs - and, by extension, they themselves - aren't very important. And given the reality that most reporters could have done something else with their lives, you're not going to find a great many people working as reporters who believe reporting isn't very important.
All of which leads me to my central hypothesis: all of us, myself included, are terrible at understanding our own motivations, and we're incredibly adept at deception, particularly self-deception. Consequently, we all say and do terrible things for terrible reasons because we manage to persuade ourselves that we're doing good things (or, at least, acceptable things) for good (or necessary) reasons. Humans survive because we are adaptable, and we kill for the same reason. Granted, a few of us kill because we like killing, but - fortunately - such people are rare. It's tempting to divide the world into good people and bad people, but life's far more complicated than that. The sad lesson of history is that all of us are capable of almost unimaginable evil not because we can be persuaded to embrace evil, but rather because we can be persuaded it's not evil we're embracing. Once we allow our ends to justify our means, we never end where we meant.
In short, this blog will argue that we mis-measure man (and woman!) whenever we rely upon their motives or intentions, and it will demonstrate how and why this mis-measurement consistently produces disastrous results. From my perspective, we are doomed to repeat the tragic errors of our past unless and until we admit that our ancestors were equally noble and well-intentioned as ourselves and, thus, their failures reflect human nature, rather than the failures of individual characters. As we proceed, you'll see that I have various "enemies," but - really - I have just one: the irrational belief that someone (anyone) can be trusted with power.
In the final analysis, of course, society cannot function without rules and, thus, without someone who has the power to enforce them. That said, history proves that power will always and everywhere be abused, even - perhaps especially - by "good" people. My deepest held, most certain belief is simply this: the root of all sin is the desire for power. It is, therefore, the duty of all free people to oppose all concentrations of power.
