Do as I say, not as I do…but actions speak louder than words

On By Hitting BregmaIn Donald Trump, Economy, How I see the world, politics, societyLeave a comment

The scientist in me craves information. I want to know what’s going on and why. It’s undoubtedly what made science so attractive to me. It’s also what makes research with human subjects so unappealing to me. People lie, and can’t be trusted (of course I know that’s not entirely true, but when it comes to research, it’s a real problem and I’m continuously impressed by those who take on those problems). We know people lie because we see it all the time. This isn’t a misanthropic judgement, it’s just a statement about who we are. Most of it is unintentional, and we even lie to ourselves. How many times do we say that we don’t want to eat that last chocolate, but we eat it anyway? We say that we wanted to go to the gym, but we stayed on the couch instead. We become living contradictions. We have the verbal report (even the voice in our head) saying that want something (or don’t want something), but our behavior tells the opposite story. When faced with this contradiction, if we’re trying to figure out which is the real version (the not wanting to eat the chocolate, or the eating the chocolate), I think the behavior tells the real story. We may say or think that we don’t want to, and a piece of us might not want to, but if we eat the chocolate, we clearly wanted to more than we didn’t want to. To make it worse, how can I know if somebody is lying when they say that they don’t want to do something, but they do it anyway? Until we invent a mind-reader, and can be sure that we aren’t lying to ourselves, all I have is the action, and, to be as cliche as possible, actions speak louder than words. What makes me say this today? Sanctuary cities. It’s a stretch, but follow along if you want.

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How often do we see ourselves in others?

On By Hitting BregmaIn How I see the world, politics, racism, Religion, societyLeave a comment

I’ve used this blog in several different ways since it started. Mostly as an outlet for whatever random thing that might have crossed my mind that day or morning or evening or in the depth of night. I find myself more excited to write about things that defend a move by government with which I agree, and less excited about criticising moves that I don’t like, so it shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody who has read anything else I’ve written that I’ve been less excited about writing lately. This shows up in what’s come out of me on this page lately. An article about our priorities, about the flaw in word usage that might have hurt women’s rights, a jobs policy that sounds good to me. All of this while there are a million ways I could express my dissatisfaction with the current government, and complain about the moves they are or aren’t making. But that clearly doesn’t make me want to write as much as other times. In fact, I’ve been uninspired, actively seeking things to write about, and have been mulling this idea for a while. Some of it is obvious, and some might only be a partial explanation, but as a scientist, I’ve learned to live with partial explanations, and fully recognize that the whole explanation is often too complicated, so we make do with parts. So this is the “part” that I’m thinking about this morning, as I’ve thought out for several mornings over the past couple of weeks:

Can we infer somebody’s inner sense of the world by attributes they ascribe to others? In other words, how deep does the psychological construct of projection go?

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Do our priorities expose moral flaws?

On By Hitting BregmaIn Economy, Health and Healthcare, How I see the world, politics, society1 Comment

The GOP is busy trying to repeal and replace Obamacare. They’ve proposed the American Health Care Act as a means to that end. To be honest, I can’t seem to find the bill online anywhere, but the CBO has released its estimates of the impact (the CBO says it combines legislation, but it doesn’t say what legislation it combines). As an aside, in my search for the bill on congress.gov turned up H.R.277 (American Health Care Reform Act) that has collected 29 cosponsors), but also turned up H.R.1275, which has a much better name: “World’s Greatest Healthcare Plan.” I’m quite sure it’s not, but it’s still a great name.

I am not going to get into details about the CBO score, but the summary is that the plan will save Americans $337 billion over 10 years, at the cost of increasing the number of uninsured by 24 million. The CBO says that 14 million people will become uninsured by 2018, mostly because they will opt out of coverage after the mandate is repealed. People speaking in support of the plan have said that it will maintain coverage for pre-existing conditions for people who maintain continuous coverage, so it looks like these 14 million will lose that benefit of the ACA. By the end of the ten year estimate, the CBO says a total of 24 million more Americans will be without insurance, bringing the total uninsured to 52 million Americans. The impact of this could be devastating to those Americans, and we will watch them suffer, all to save some money. I think that’s a moral failure.

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A feminist by any other name…might be an equalist.

On By Hitting BregmaIn Famous quotes, How I see the world, politics, racism, society, Women's Rights3 Comments

Today is International Women’s Day 2017, and it’s probably not a coincidence that I had a thought about being a feminist this morning while driving to work. It’s surely a thought that many have had, and, like everything else I write about here, it’s coming from a complete amature position, so take it with a grain of salt. I consider myself a feminist, and have written before about being a male feminist. There are many people out there who are turned off by that word, and people who I consider feminists who might refuse to call themselves that. It made me wonder if there was something about the word itself that people rejected. And that thought got the figurative wheels in motion while the literal wheels were moving under me.

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Some thoughts on jobs

On By Hitting BregmaIn Bartlet Democrats, Economy, Education, How I see the world, society2 Comments

Once again, I have to start with a disclosure: I am not an economist and these thoughts likely shouldn’t be taken seriously by anybody. Of course a lack of expertise hasn’t stopped me from bloviating about ways to fix the world, and not being an expert certainly hasn’t even stopped Donald Trump from becoming president. With that in mind, I have a dream about a program to help get people to work. It has two main ingredients, and I don’t know if it would work, but it’s fun to imagine anyway.

To think about how to fix the jobs problem in the United States, we have to first think about what the problem is, and who is affected. And then it leads me to the solution that’s been in my dreams lately. It’s a great dream, of a bold initiative, with a practical solution to a pressing problem. Something I could imagine being a crux of the Bartlet Democrat platform.

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Oh Milo

On By Hitting BregmaIn How I see the world, politicsLeave a comment

I have to admit that I haven’t given Milo Yiannopoulos much attention until recently. I’ve read about him, but hadn’t read his own words before this week, and I had never watched him speak or seen a video of him. His appearance on Bill Maher was the first time I watched him speak about anything, and it led me down a YouTube rabbit hole that lasted much of the night. I watched video after video of him making liberals look like fools. I watched video after video of him using classic (dirty) debate tactics to deflect, to create and smash straw men, and I watched him purposefully go over the top to get attention.

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When two things aren’t simultaneously possible…in Trump’s America

On By Hitting BregmaIn 2016 Election, How I see the world, politics, World eventsLeave a comment

I’ve been relatively quiet lately. I’ve had some pretty horrifying things going on in my life that have captured my attention (an old friend with a daughter who has been missing for more than three weeks). Between that and some actual work I’ve needed to do at work, it’s been hard to find time for this. I also started this to write about the things I think are important, and my comfortable place was always defending things that Obama, Clinton, or some other democrat was fighting for. Now we’re in a bit of  different world, and I’m on a less solid foundation. On the one hand, almost everything I’m hearing terrifies me, but I’m also aware of how silly folks on the right looked when they talked about the radical changes that Obama was making to the country. So, just to keep from getting too stale, here’s something that caught my eye today. A perfect case of illogical thinking, that is supposed to be the antithesis of this project. And it all comes from a tweet from President Donald Trump.

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Another missed opportunity

On By Hitting BregmaIn Donald Trump, How I see the world, politics3 Comments

Betsy DeVos was just confirmed by the United States Senate to be the Secretary of Education. She was a controversial choice (understatement), and it was the first time in history that a Vice President needed to use a vote to confirm a cabinet nominee.

Once again, the missed opportunity pains me. President Trump could have seen how much resistance there was against DeVos’s appointment, and said something like, “I hear your voices, I know you’re concerned. I will withdraw this nomination because my number one goal is the unity of the Nation.” And the crowd goes wild. The GOP is happy because they don’t have to support somebody like DeVos (who many of them don’t love), and the democrats are happy because somebody like DeVos isn’t in charge of education policy for the country. He could easily find somebody who feels the same way as DeVos about education, but who has some experience in public education, and that’s the ballgame. He gets what he wants politically, and earns respect while doing it.

It’s a win-win, but only if there’s a shred of magnanimity in Trump…and it’s becoming more and more clear that there isn’t.

Missed opportunities: how President Trump could win over the world, but almost certainly won’t

On By Hitting BregmaIn Donald Trump, How I see the world, politics, Women's Rights3 Comments

I, like many people I know, are watching this administration’s actions and getting more and more frightened for the long-term damage it could do. His inauguration speech was a nationalistic cry to the “forgotten” Americans, and a slap in the face to those of us who see how great the country is, and want it to be better for all. It was a speech describing a zero sum game, where it’s us or them, and that made me sad. That sadness has been balanced, somewhat, by the incredible reaction we’re seeing to the surprising win by Trump. From the women’s march on Washington (and the other marches all over the country, even in other countries) to the stories of large numbers of progressives getting more involved to the incredible rallies that are happening at a moment’s notice in response to actions the administration is taking. This all happens, and I watch with some pleasure, but what I feel most of all is sadness. Sadness that our President could so easily win so many people over, and simply won’t. He’s described by those close to him as somebody who craves good ratings. Who wants to be loved. And he could be, with the simplest moves.

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