The Myth of a Secular/Neutral Government.

Most Americans espouse a belief that government should be secular or neutral.  They believe the government should not favor any one group or institution over another and should treat them all fairly.  It shouldn’t favor Christians over Atheists or heterosexuals over homosexuals.  Unfortunately, that is impossible.  Given what the government is expected to do (make and enforce laws), it will always have to marginalize and discriminate against some groups over others.

While the idea that the government should stand as a neutral entity is appealing, it is impossible.  There is nothing that relates to people that is “worldview free” and this includes the government.  Every time the government does X, it discriminates against and marginalizes everyone who believes differently or thinks that X is wrong (I am using X as an all-encompassing term for a real or factious thing).

When the Federal Government legally recognizes heterosexual marriage and fails to recognize homosexual marriage, it is discriminating against and marginalizing everyone who wants/thinks/believes in homosexual marriage.  When the State of New York legally recognizes homosexual marriage, it is discriminating against and marginalizing everyone who thinks/believes homosexual marriage is wrong.  Even if the government took a stand off approach of not legally recognizing any marriage (A view I am sympathetic to), that would marginalize everyone who believes the government has a responsibility to promote a good society through the promotion of a marriage based family unit.  Every time the government makes a law against X, it is discriminating against everyone whose worldview supports X.  The opposite is also true.

When the government takes one position, it is by the nature of this act excluding everyone who believes something contrary to this position.  This is the true not just with homosexual marriage, but with virtually everything.  It’s true with important issues (promoting/allowing abortion rights marginalizes Pro Life people) and frivolous, stupid ones (declaring that the Earth is a sphere marginalizes the Flat Earth Society).  In fact, I’m marginalizing the Flat Earth Society by declaring that it is based on a stupid issue.  To some degree, it’s not a big deal for me to marginalize certain people and groups (like Mac gamers and decaff. drinkers) because I have no authority over them.  It doesn’t substantially affect Mac gamers and decaff. drinkers if I call them stupid.  It does affect people when the government marginalizes them because the government has authority over them.

The reason for this is that the government must make judgments about behavior (make and enforce laws) and it is impossible to make a “worldview free” judgment.  

A worldview is the framework of ideas and beliefs through which we understand and interpret the world.  Every person has a worldview, so there are a lot of different types of worldviews.  “Worldview” is a larger and more encompassing term than “religion” and so it is far more useful here.  Every religion has a (or multiple) worldviews, but not every worldview is religious (Atheism is a worldview, but no atheist who is worth anything wants to be called religious).  It’s analogous to “religion” being a larger and more encompassing term than “Christianity.”  It is far more useful and accurate to refer to dividing up worldviews, than it is to divide up religious and non–religious beliefs.  Whether a worldview is religious or non-religious it will always make metaphysical claims or axioms that cannot be proven (or at least are very very difficult to prove).  This is the main point and the main problem.

All worldviews start from axioms.  An axiom is a starting point that worldview argues from in order to get to its other beliefs.  Axioms are the foundations of worldviews.  Every worldviews has them and almost none of them can be proven.  For example, my worldview has an axiom that everything that exists is logically possible and as such, contradictions do not actually exist in the real world.  From this axiom, I build up to the belief that things like the laws of reason, causality, and logic are valid.  I cannot prove this axiom; I must use logic to demonstrate why it is valid.  But it is logically fallacious for me to use logic without first proving logic is valid.  I must “beg the question” and assume the existence of the thing I am proving in order to prove it.  This is why I cannot prove logic is valid and why it an axiom (or a properly basic belief).

So how does all this tie into the myth of secular government?  Simple, as the Government must make judgment calls (make and enforce laws) it must operate in a worldview.  Yet this fact is the very thing that a lot of Americans and American politicians don’t want the government to do.  All the calls for the government to be “fair” and “impartial” are really quite stupid and irrational.  Fair and impartial in sense of not discriminating between worldviews is impossible.

At practical level, everyone does understand this.  Whenever someone looks at a group of people and says that something they are doing/believing is wrong, that person is judging between worldviews.  When I say it was wrong for Nazis to kill Jews and it was wrong for the Aztecs to perform human sacrifices I am saying that my worldview (which says anti-Semitism and human sacrifice are morally deplorable) is superior to the worldview of the Nazis and the Aztecs.  By saying they are wrong, I am marginalizing and discriminating against Nazis and the ancient Aztecs.

By “secular,” some people actually do mean things that are non-religious.  However, a secular government in this sense is an even worse idea.  That type of secular government will end up marginalizing all the religious worldviews and promoting secular worldviews for no other reason than that they are religious or secular.  As all worldviews start from axioms, discriminating among them based on whether they are traditionally religious or not is stupid.  It’s not as if a secular worldview can be “proven” and a religious worldview cannot be.  Neither of them can be “proven” in this sense.

Some people, like the late philosopher Richard Rorty, suggest that in light of these points, we should forget about worldviews and just work together for the common good.  The problem with that is your worldview informs what you believe the common good is.  A strictly Christian worldview will condemn Abortion as a great moral evil because it is taking human life.  An agnostic or atheistic worldview would not strictly condemn it, but try to assess whether it is a useful tool for controlling population and other such things.  The point is that there are lots of places and issues where the very idea of what is good is informed by your worldview and as such, you cannot achieve consensuses with conflicting worldviews.

So the government cannot be neutral (unless it stops passing and enforcing laws), it should not be secular (that assumes secular worldviews are superior with no justification), and it cannot simply work for a “common good” (there is no shared “common good” among worldviews).

This is much more of a problem now than it used to be.  To a large degree, most people in America used to operate from a quasi-Christian worldview.  I question how “Christian” some aspects of it were, but there was a general level of consensus about most basic things.  Now there is not.  It is easy to be fair when most everyone agrees.  In order for the government to function, it has to discriminate against and marginalize some people.  Right now, it does this to murders, rapists, certain types of drug users, and other criminals.

To a large a degree what most of the American electorate is asking for (that the government not discriminate between pro and anti gay marriage/drug use/abortion worldviews) is impossible.  There is no solution or counter to this problem, because it is a simple fact of reality.  We have to discriminate between worldviews in order to survive and function, so does the government.

The lesser of two evils is still evil: Why the vote is flawed and how it can be changed.

One of the most common phrase I hear in reference to voting is "vote for the lesser of the two evils." Since neither party is any good and both are likely to cause problems I should determine which one is going to do more damage and vote against them. While there seems to be some sense in this, the problem is that the lesser of two evils is still evil. A choice between evil and evil is not really a choice. Would you rather be stolen from or treated abusively? Would you rather I cut out your left eye or your right eye? Would you rather I take away your right to eat the food you want or your right to do whatever you want in your own home? If the only real criteria we have for choosing is which option is "less wrong," then clearly there is something wrong with the process or institution that lead us to the choice.

So in that light I purpose that something completely different be done with voting. We should make voting an earned privilege rather than a fundamental right. In practice this would mean that people have the right to vote only after demonstrating that they are capable and worthy of doing so. It would be similar to how driving is presently handled.

In order to have the right to vote we should be required to meet and maintain certain criteria. Here I will explain why regarding voting as a fundamental right is foolish, why voting should be an earned privilege, what the criteria for the right to vote should/can be, and how this change will have positive effects and diminish the chances of choosing between two evils.

A vote is an act of political power. While it is certainly true (as I've argued before) that a single vote is not very much power, it is still power. Political power should not be given freely and indiscriminately. I do not deserve political power by virtue of my existence and neither does anyone else. We don't want to pick Senators and Presidents out of a random line up of people because we understand that political power should only be bestowed after some merit has been displayed or some criteria has been met (like winning an election). And yet giving the right to vote to everyone is doing exactly the opposite. It is saying that someone is granted political power (however small and limited) only by the virtue of their existence. We certainly don't apply this type of logic elsewhere. No one has the "right to drive" by virtue of their existence.

We all are granted the privilege of driving after we meet a certain standard (passing a driver's test) and provided we continue to meet certain criteria (we maintain liability insurance). If we don't meet the criteria or fail the test we don't get to drive. Nearly everyone can acquire the privilege to drive and the people who cannot are unable to do so for good and obvious reasons (like not having arms and legs or being clinically insane).

Allowing everyone a fundamental right to vote is foolish.

1. A vote is an act of political power.
2. No political power should be given on the virtue of existence alone.
3. So everyone should not be automatically granted the right to vote. (unless they meet some other criteria.)

Freely giving out power to people who have not demonstrated they deserve it is foolish and irrational. Yet this is what granting a fundamental right to vote does.

Making voting an earned privilege/right puts it on solid rational ground. If I can only vote after I meet some criteria (which I will mention below), then the issue I raised above is solved. A doctor has the "right to practice medicine" because he has met the criteria of education in medicine and the maintenance of a medical license. I have the right to work at my job because I meet the criteria my employer lays down for working at my job. Likewise voters should only have the right to exercise political power after they have demonstrated they are capable of doing so reasonably and wisely (they meet the criteria).

1. Power should only be given to people who have demonstrated they are capable of using it(they meet the criteria).
2. A vote is political power.
3. So only people who meet the criteria should be allowed to vote.

It can seem difficult to determine what good criteria for allowing the right to vote should be. It is remarkably clear that there are people voting who should not be (such as Democrats and Republicans); however it is equally obvious that there are competent, capable, and reasonable people from every group (ethic, political, social, economic, etc) who should be voting. I've heard it suggested the IQ tests should be required to vote. While there is some merit in this idea, that would limit out people with low education. Since education is not in and of itself an indicator of intelligence and virtue that is still too limiting.

The solution is that voting should be a right granted to people after they have performed an act of service to the country or displayed selflessness toward the collective whole. Only after demonstrating a willingness and ability to sacrifice my own needs and wants for the good of the whole country should I be allowed power in the country's political process. There are many different ways that people could demonstrate this. Service in the Military, the Peace Core, certain types of non-profit charities, or perhaps as a police officer or fireman are all examples. People who have actively sought and served in such roles have sacrificed for the good of the whole and as such they meet the criteria for voting (as I have laid it out here). There could easily be other things added to list. It should be logically possible for everyone of sound mind to acquire the right to vote, but first they must demonstrate that they have the virtue of putting the good of the whole above their own needs. Obviously not everyone can serve in the Military, but some of those people should be able to work in non-profits. Getting the right to vote should cost me something.

Changing voting on these lines will have some foreseeable affects:

It will decrease the electorate. Less people will be voting because not everyone will be willing to make the sacrifices necessary to acquire the right. This is a good thing for a number of reasons.

It increases the power of each individual voter. Less people voting means that each vote will have more value.

Less voters has the affect of decreasing the power of the politicians seeking to get elected. As the electorate shrinks politicians will have to appeal to people more directly and individually (provided it shrinks enough). This will make people value their votes more (as individual votes will seem more meaningful) and make the politicians more accountable to the electorate.

It will make it harder for politicians to be disingenuous and dishonest. In large campaigns candidates often use scare tactics and disingenuous tactics to win. In 2004 President Bush's campaign brought up Abortion and Gay Marriage to rally the conservative Christian vote behind him. After the election he did nothing about either issue. In 2008 then Senator Obama made his campaign about "Hope and Change" but rarely offered anything other than vague and disingenuous definitions of what that Hope and Change was. A lot of people who voted for him filled in "Hope and Change" with the "Hope and Change" they wanted, but didn't know what he actually meant (This was a very shrewd and politically wise tactic and it is probably one the primary reasons President Obama won). Both Bush and Obama were effectively manipulating the masses into voting for them by dishonest and disingenuous messages. A smaller electorate that holds its votes in high value would have made it much harder for them to pull this off.

It will increase the average intelligence and virtue of the average voter. This doesn't ensure that all voters will be intelligent and virtuous people, but it greatly increases the chances. Stupid people and people lacking virtue are highly unlikely to meet the criteria. This too will make it harder for politicians to manipulate and lie to the electorate.

If all the voters have been required to make sacrifices, it will no longer be politically impossible for difficult issues to be addressed. Right now the US's debt and deficient is enormous and likely to cause another recession/depression, or perhaps even a collapse (although this doesn't seem as likely). However both of the major parties are unwilling to do anything about it because it is political suicide to do so. The primary contributors to the debt/deficit are entitlement spending (social security, medicare, welfare, etc) and defense spending. Both parties are unwilling to do anything about this because as soon as they do they will lose elections. No voter wants to loose their entitlement benefits so they vote against any politician who pledges to knock them down (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110525/ap_on_el_ho/us_new_york_special_election). This is a massive and potentially catastrophic problem that the politicians are unwilling to deal with because the voters are too selfish to allow them to and they lack the courage to defy the voters (they want to keep their jobs). If the electorate were a group of people that had made sacrifices and behaved in selfless ways they would likely be more willing to take a few hits (get paid less Social Security money) for the good of the whole (avoid another recession, depression, or a collapse).

Essentially this change will ground political power with people who are better able to understand and use it. It will dramatically increase the odds that the voters and the representatives they elect are intelligent, competent people who are capable of the self sacrifice necessary to lead and solve problems.

To sum up;
1. Voting is political power.
2. People who have displayed a high level of selflessness and virtue are able of using and deserving political power.
3. There are professions and activities that demonstrate such selflessness and virtue.
4. So voting should be granted to people who have been in such professions and activities.

A further check that should be added is that no one is granted the vote until after they retire or withdraw from their particular type of service. A veteran should be able to vote, but not a soldier on active duty. This will help prevent abuse of the system as people will need to complete years of service before they are granted the privilege of voting.

I am convinced that this method of voting would help lead to a better government that is run more efficiently by more intelligent people who can better deal with the problems and issues the country faces. However I am observant enough to know that the odds of this change actually happening are nill? at best. The foolish notion that existence equals political power is too entrenched in US society and culture. If such a change happens it is a long time away, and it may never come in this country.

I cannot claim full credit for this idea. Robert A. Heinlein wrote about a similar method of democratic government in "Starship Troopers" (the book, not that horrifically awful movie) and I'm sure other authors have said similar things.

How not to argue effectively: The SlutWalk

Continuing with last week's theme for how not to argue here is another great example, the Slutwalk.

The Slutwalk is an organized protest of mostly women dressing in "sluty" clothes and parading through the streets for a while for . . . . well it's not entirely clear what they are trying to accomplish (and that's part of the problem).

The first Slutwalk was organized in response to a Toronto police officer's comments that women should avoid dressing like sluts to avoid being victimized. Apparently that was the wrong thing to say, as women in city took streets doing the first "Slutwalk" in reaction to his statement.

Before I say anything else let me be clear, rape is a horrifically evil crime and if I had my way we would execute all rapists. Unlike other crimes which can be moral acceptable under certain circumstances (theft, killing), rape can never in any way be justified. So with that said . . .

The SlutWalk is one of the stupidest things I've ever seen and it actually advances goals that are counter to many of its stated objectives. I'd say it's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of, but I've heard Charlie Sheen explain his philosophy of life and Joe Biden talk about hanging out with people at Home Depot.

The stated goals of the protests are to take back the word "slut" (Wikipedia, huffingtonpost,) and to counter what the protestors believe is a culture that blames the victims of rape rather than the rapist (huffingtonpost, telegraph.co.uk).

Any rational person understands that a rapist is to blame for rape, not the victim. No type of context or circumstance can shift the blame over to the victim. There are examples of judges and other legal authorities partially blaming the victims, (huffingtonpost) but such authorities are wrong. They are behaving in a morally reprehensible way and not honoring their responsibilities to the law and citizens.

The idea that the word "slut" can be "taken back" is absolutely ridiculous. In order for something to be "taken back" you had to posses at some point and then it was taken away from you. Did regular women ever own the word "slut?" No, they didn't. While the entomology of the word does relate to dirt and being dirty in the physical sense the word has never had positive conations. What this is actually about is a group of people who don't want to be labeled anything negative for being sexually promiscuous. The actual idea is that it is wrong to say it's bad for women to be sexually promiscuous. So they want to make the word "slut" a good or neutral word because the connotation it makes is that sexually promiscuous women are morally inferior. God help us all if we say or in any way assume that being sexually promiscuous is morally wrong.

There is a valid point in this otherwise ridiculous idea. It is true that no women, even a "slut," deserves to be raped. Yes it is possible for a prostitute to be raped and that is morally and legally wrong. However even a basic amount of thought will indicate that being sexual promiscuous increases the likelihood of a women being raped or harassed. Is a prostitute or a monogamous women more likely to be raped?

It is not "victim blaming" to say "If you engage in these types of behaviors the statistical odds of you getting harassed or raped increase, so avoid those types of behaviors and your odds will be better." This is not fundamentally different than other types of crime. If I prop my apartment door open, leave for the day, and return to find my Playstation and books have been stolen am I responsible? No, the thief is. However my behavior did increase the odds of me becoming a victim. People wouldn't call me a thief, but they would say I was stupid and should have expected that to happen. Likewise people (men or women) who dress provocatively, hang out at college parties, and drink a lot of alcohol are not responsible if they get raped. But they have dramatically increased their level of risk and they are behaving in a foolish way.

Victim blaming is where you say to the victim that they are responsible for what happened to them. If I am "victimized" by my apartment complex (they kick me out) because I didn't pay the rent, then it is appropriate to blame me. I'm clearly at fault. Telling a women that getting black out drunk gave the rapist an opportunity he otherwise would not have had is not victim blaming. It's a fact of reality.

What the SlutWalk proponents are failing to understand is the difference between direct and indirect cause. If I hit a coworker in the face I am directly responsible for it and should be held accountable (unless the coworker deserved it). The coworker is indirectly responsible because he took actions that placed him the position where he could be hit by my fist. Perhaps the coworker couldn't have known that I would hit him, but suppose the coworker knew that I was mad at him and that I had made threats against him, but he still came to work. He is still not responsible for getting punched in the face, but he knowingly took action the increased the likelihood he would be. To some degree the legal system understands this. If I get drunk, try to drive home, and end up killing a bystander when I crash my car I will charged with manslaughter, not murder. My actions lead to the bystander's death, but his death was an indirect cause that I did not intend. So I am not a murderer, but I am responsible for the bystander's death.

What the Toronto police officer was effectively saying is that women who dress "sluty" are more likely to get rapped than women who do not. While some evidence does suggest this is not true (Most people who study crime say that rape is primarily about power, not sex) that hardly amounts to "victim blaming." He was trying to warn women away from behavior that might make it more likely they would be assaulted.

The SlutWalk proponents are ignoring the real problem of rape (the rapists) and going after people who are trying to prevent it (the police officer) or people who have nothing to do with it (the morality police and editors of dictionaries). Instead of cries for tougher prison sentences for rapists or stronger police tactics against suspected rapists, they are demanding that people not tell them how to dress and are trying to say the word "slut" shouldn't have negative connotations. Not only does this completely fail to address the relevant issue (something like one in six American women will be raped and most rapists go unpunished, {houghingtonpost, Wikipedia}), but (if everything I just argued about indirect causation and the relevant statistics are correct) they are adding to the problem by encouraging women to put themselves at a higher risk of being raped. Essentially,

1. Indirect causation exists and can be used to understand how some things happen.

2. Certain factors and contexts (dress, behavior styles, etc) do increase or decrease the possibility of a women being raped.

3. The SlutWalk proponents are encouraging behavior that statistically increases the likelihood of women being raped and so are promoting things that are against their stated purpose.

The point on arguing effectively is simple. Think about what you are doing and saying. Good intentions and good feelings do not excuse bad arguements and poor execution. A little basic thought and questioning reveals the massive holes and fallacious nature of these protests. There are a lot of things the protesters could do that would actually help the issue and make it harder for rapists to commit crimes. Instead they are all "dressing down" and holding signs. I'm quite certain a large number of the protesters actually do care about the high amounts of rape. Just think about what 3,000 people (the number at the Toronto SlutWalk) could have done by working at rape treatment and prevention center or partnering with police to turn in rapists. The poor fools are inadvertently adding the very problem they are trying to fight against.

This is exactly why I never go to protests. Protests accomplish nothing other than making protestors feel better about themselves. Well . . . that might not be entirely true, but that argument's for another time.