Thursday, January 26, 2017

Loyalty to the truth versus loyalty to the team


Which picture has more people in it?


In a survey conducted on the Sunday and Monday after Pres. Trump's inauguration, 15% of Trump voters said the one on the left. Only 2% of Clinton voters, and only 3% of nonvoters, said the same.

I do not believe that Trump voters can't count, nor that they have bad eyesight.

Rather, they are deliberately giving a false answer – what psychologists euphemistically call expressive responding – to show their loyalty.

Sadly, it appears that they have greater loyalty to their team than to the truth.


Sunday, January 22, 2017

The three things we can count on the business party to do


I used to think that there were two things we could count on the business-oriented party to do whenever they were in power. First, reduce taxes on the rich. Second, reduce regulations on corporations.

I have come to realize that there has always been a third objective: privatize government functions so for-profit corporations could rake in tax money.

The business party presents privatization as a way to do things more efficiently. What usually turns out, though, is that the government was doing it about as efficiently as private industry would. What the government doesn't have to do, though, is make a profit at.

Therefore, what privatization amounts to is giving businesses the governments cost of achieving a public end, plus a guaranteed profit.

Oh, and the privatizing businesses are always big donors to the business party.