Blind Certainty

One of the harmful effects of Americans' response to Covid is that we've lost our sense of probity. Integrity, honesty, and trust have all been victims, whether we want to admit it or not. It's not just the politicians and bureaucrats, but some of our most important and trusted institutions. And many in the general population have paid and are paying the price. Almost from the start, misinformation, disinformation, and lies (You can sort out the differences yourself.) were started and repeated, fed to the American people. Some of this was just because there was much "the experts" didn't know. I understand. They were making their best guesses. But some of it, I am convinced, was deliberate for whatever reasons. Social distancing (I still hate that term!) and masks were initially intended to "flatten the curve," that is, to prevent our medical facilities from becoming overwhelmed. They weren't meant to prevent Covid, but to let more people get sick later. Again, the concern was overwhelming hospitals and medical personnel. What was it, "fifteen days" to do so? We all know how that went. We bought into the most obvious misinformation. I guess individuals can decide for themselves how disingenuous or untruthful it was, deliberate or honest mistakes. Contradictions and lies repeatedly showed themselves, but no matter. People stayed away. They put on ineffective masks. Much of America was shut down by overzealous (eager?) politicians and bureaucrats. Covid aside, how many businesses were destroyed with the accompanying financial devastation weighing on millions of people? Our children were far more dangerously hurt--socially, psychologically, educationally--than by anything the virus was going to do to them. Yet, undergreat pressure from "the experts," including the media, we agreed and consented to the dishonesty. Americans seem to no longer possess the ability to challenge. They are told obvious untruths and willingly repeat rather than question them. The many flip flops didn't lead them to ask, "Hey, wait a minute? You said something and now that that isn't so, you changed your tune." In effect, they are cooperating or at least condoning evil, perpetuating it. Those who resist(ed) are and were, if not ignored, at least marginalized or ridiculed. Some of the resisters were not quacks, but highly qualified and recognized experts in the medical community. (Well, at least they were!). For many people, their ability to recognize reality, especially to tell right from wrong, has been eroded. So readily, without thinking about the consequences it seems, Americans have made it relatively easy for the powers-that-be to control them. This was something about which both George Washingto =n and Abraham Lincoln warned us. Perhaps worse, our beliefs that have been molded by misinformation and disinformation have become embedded in certainty. Go ahead, try to have a serious conversation about all this, the last two years or more under the Covid dictatorship. How many people who challenged the new status quo, regardless of its very tenuous assumptions and results, have been "canceled?" They and their thoughts are not to be taken seriously, if considered at all. This blind certainty to follow, again often blindly, what we are told has helped to create a more and more close-minded society. That is very dangerous to a country founded on the principles of our Founding Fathers. The late novelist David Foster Wallace once described this as "amounting to an imprisonment [of the mind] so total that the prisoners don't even know they are locked up." Frightening indeed! We have become not only dismissive, but disdainful of opposing, contrary ideas. The ability or willingness to listen to differences of opinions (in all areas, not just Covid-related) has disappeared. Opponents and challengers have had their character questioned. How hilarious (but not really) that is in that what we have come to not only accept, but embrace--that is, the worse of character--from our political and other leaders, including Presidents, and institutions. It takes courage to listen, especially to challenges to our "blind certainty." That is one of the most disturbing developments about the evolution of our educational and cultural institutions. One step that needs to be taken is to realize that sometimes there are no definite answers. I have repeatedly written and said over many years that believing is not the same as knowing. Related is that we think we have the ability to always identify "the right people," that is, "the experts," who can provide definite answers, which may not even exist. Not only might we not be right in our thoughts and beliefs, but those "right people" might also be wrong. Sometimes, has history teaches us, the truth is where we find it, not where we want it to be. OF course, some folks might hold opposing views out of ignorance or even to promote an agenda, perhaps with nefarious or evil motives. But we might also do well to remember and accept that differing opinions can be the results of principled reasoning. We may or may not know or even guess a person's motives. But history also teaches that people can legitimately interpret experiences and evidence differently. Or something like that......

Two Quick Thoughts

I have had two thoughts, inspired by Abraham Lincoln, the past week or so. First, if we were to have a Meeting of Minds dinner, here is a question I'd ask of him. Were an escaped/runaway slave to show up at your door, what would you do? Lincoln was a Constitutionalist and a legalist. He believed in the sanctity of the Constitution as a precious document. He was also devoted to the law. Throughout the years of his Presidency he struggled with the problem of how to abolish slavery in light of its protection in the Constitution (Article I, Sections 2 and 9, and Article 5 if I recall without double-checking) and Fugitive Slave Laws passed in 1793 and 1850. Lincoln and other Americans were required, by law, to aid in the apprehension and return of runaway slaves. Given his hatred of slavery and all it encompassed, yet his strong penchant for following the Constitution and obeying the law, what would Lincoln do in such a situation? We obviously will never know, but it is interesting to speculate in light of his conflicting and evolving views. Yep, that would be a question I'd ask him. The second is more convoluted. It deals with my lack of comprehension of a significant or at least vocal portion of Americans. Why are there so many anti-capitalists and even anti-democrats (not the political party) in academia and politics and increasingly so in the corporate world? I just don't understand them. They have prospered under the freedoms of democracy and capitalism. Why don't they celebrate American culture, founded not on geography, racial or ethnic lines, and/or out-and-out political and military might, but on the ideas and ideals of Enlightenment thinkers? These Enlightenment ideals were radical/revolutionary, that people could rule themselves, that they had natural rights not granted by government but to be guarateed by it, etc. I think far too many people conflate or actually confuse two terms: equality/egalitarianism and equity. The former, in general, refers to equal opportunities, to having those opportunities protected by government/law. The later has come to mean equal outcomes. I am, of course, generalizing with this. But I don't think I'm misrepresenting what has come to pass. There are egregious examples of evil being perpetrated under the protections of the Constitution and American law. Two obvious ones are slavery and corporate/capitalist exploitation of workers/labor. But on the whole, mischaracterizations of the 1619 Project withstanding, the United States has provided for far better lives for its citizens than any other civilization/society. Therein lies the issue, the difference between a real America and and ideal America. Returning to Lincoln and his wisdom, re-read the Gettysburg Address. "Four score and seven years ago, our Fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." The word "proposition" and is key. Too many people do not understand this. Lincoln did, though. "All men are created equal" is a "proposition." It is not theorem or, in effect, a law. The US, as Lincoln well knew, was not perfect, not in practice. But it was always directed toward perfection. In fact, that's how he viewed the Civil War, even with all of its horrors and devastation. Who is ignorant enough to believe in utopia? Even Thomas More, whose book Utopia, forms the basis for the concept of utopia, "an ideally perfect place." More knew the derivation of the word utopia, from Greek meaning "nowhere or no place." Utopia, that is, a perfect society doesn't exist and, except to the most naive, never will. But as Lincoln went on to explain at Gettysburg, we still strive to attain perfection. He said, "I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday." That is, be a better person today than you were yesterday.

Student Loans

So it seems the Biden Administration is trying to buy votes for Democrats in the upcoming November mid-term elections. The means for doing this is forgiving student college loans. It's not clear if this means complete forgiveness or only a part of the loans. Other than those who will benefit from the freebie, what's there to like about this? I think it was President Herbert Hoover, in opposition to cancelling other nations' debts to the US from the First World War, who famously said, "They hired (borrowed) the money, didn't they?" Pay it back. Total student debt in the US stands close to $2 trillion, not quite, but close. Some economists say student debt repayment is a bigger financial burden than credit card debt and auto loans. Why is there so much college debt? A first place to look is at the federal government. How typical of the federal government to create a problem and then create another problem tryng to "fix" the first one. In guaranteeing payment of student debt to colleges for room, board, and tuition, the feds pretty much guaranteed what happened would happen. Colleges, knowing they'd get paid, kept increasing their bills to students. After all, if the federal government was going to guarantee payment, the schools were sure to get their money regardless of how much it was. Perhaps if students had been forced to get loans not secured by the feds, private lending institutions would have been a bit more circumspect in agreeing to pay colleges for the ever-increasing bills. That is, if the colleges were not absolutely certain they'd get their money, maybe they, too, would have given more consideration to their costs. I do have sympathy for students and parents in paying for a college education. The costs are astronomical and ridiculous. At my college room, board, and tuition for 2022-23 is in excess of $80,000; when I was a freshman, 55 years or so ago, costs were $3,200. I know there is said to be plenty of financial aid, but c'mon..... Nationally, there has been an explosion of administrative positions, often paying upwards of $100,000 annually. And how many tenured instructors teach only two or three courses a term--at full pay? Perhaps a solution might also be to look at the colleges themselves, the ones who jack up tuition, room and board, and the ubiquitous fees. Well, they do have to pay for their diversity officers, chancellors of equity, and vice presidents of inclusion, etc. Those six-figure salaries can add up! Maybe if the Biden Administration called the colleges to task..... After all, I'm guessing the vast majority of students didn't have their education improved one iota by the diversity, inclusion, and equity ministers. And I'll bet the parents who foot the bill would gladly trade lower college costs for elimination of such boondoggle positions. The President's press secretary recently stated "Not a single person in this country has paid a dime on federal student loans since this President took office." She seemed to say that boastfully, as if that was a good thing. Apparently that these students "hired the money, didn't they?" has never occurred to her or the administration. To cheat people out of their money, "people" here often meaning taxpayers, is not a good thing. I don't believe that is true, that "not a single person......" At least I don't want to believe it is true. I'd hope there would be enough students and former students with the character to repay their debts, especially if they could. I concede, in this day and age, I could be wrong. I have no idea how many people default on their loans, but assume the number/percentage is substantial. The reality of such "forgiveness" is that the burden of these loans would fall on taxpayers, most often those who didn't borrow the money. And think about those people who didn't go to college, didn't borrow money, or, worse, already paid off their debts. What about them? Do we just call them "saps" and move on? I won't forget during the Iowa caucuses, an Iowa farmer confronted Elizabeth Warren, a big proponent of debt forgiveness, about this. The farmer had saved for years to put his children through college, sacrificing so there wouldn't be a need for loans. What about him? he asked Warren. She seemed flummoxed and in her arrogant, self-righteous fashion dismissed the farmer. I guess that was her version of calling him a "sap." Once again in this country, people who do things the right way, such as accepting responsibility for their actions and paying their own way, are penalized. And not only are they penalized, but are called names ("saps"). So, for paying off all my student loans, under their terms, on time, I am a "sap." There is a further problem. How can it be that a single person, in this instance the President, can unilaterally wipe out trillions of dollars of debt with his signature? Isn't that why we have a Constitution, so that people like Biden (and Warren and Schumer.....) can't do this? What happened to the sanctity of contracts, which is, in effect, what a student loan is? I know the Constitution protects the inviolability of contracts from intrusions by states, but the federal government, I don't remember. Still, the principle is the same. A contract freely entered into by two or more parties should be inviolable. Yet, on a whim to perhaps buy votes, the President can undo this? If so, what is next? Here's an idea! Instead of forgiving student loan debt, why don't all those in favor of that, instead, pay off some student's loans? These Bozos will get what they claim is good, that is, recent graduates not struggling with debt, while also not passing along the financial burden to taxpayers. It would be nice to "forgive" my mortgage payment. Oh, I forgot. I paid off my mortgage 15 years early. But what about credit card debt? OK, I pay off my credit cards each month, too. Well, what about my auto loan? I could do with that being "forgiven." Mr. President, can you "forgive" that, too? I know, I know. Federal loans (or guarantees) vs private transactions. But once the door is opened, well, ask Pandora.