Lately I have been contemplating suicide. No not commiting it, the idea
of it. The nature of those who commit it and why and how they come to
do such things. I am thinking about this lately because my mind has
recently been turned to the case of a guy who died less than half a
year ago. I didn’t know him personally. I’d never even conversed with
him online or in person. Indeed all I knew of him was that he wrote a
story so extroardinary that I have never yet found the words to
describe it to anyone. And he posted this story online in segments
where I was priveleged enough to be one of the few who got a chance to
read it. The story overall inspired in me a deep sense of awe, and even
though I only read most sections once there are scenes that I can
honestly say I’ll never forget.  I shared this story to some
people I know by pointed them to it in an email but I never really
talked about it.  Words just didn’t seem to do it justice.

Now I know that this writer with so much talent and a future I was sure
was destined for greatness commited suicide. He died just like anyone
else dies and of his own volition. I can’t understand it! It drives me
nutts! There is no other mystery that I would rather solve than that of
the question of why genius should choose to die. It is so antithetical
to my world view that everytime I think about it I am forced to wonder
if all that I had ever believed was false and flawed and foolishly
naive in the face of the realities of what makes people make decisions.

However… I don’t believe in the things that people normally say about
suicide. I don’t agree with the idea that it is completely senseless
and irrational and that nobody will ever understand it. I would never
want anyone to say that of me if I were to choose to die. I wouldn’t
want people to say that I was just being emotional and irrational. I
have no idea what could possibly motivate me to commit suicide and I
strongly suspect it is a strict impossibility but I know that if I did
make that decision I’d either want people to work toward understanding
my actions or if not to at least acknowledge that maybe I was thinking
rationally even if you yourself cannot understand it.

And to be sure I don’t understand any suicide I’ve ever heard of. I
don’t understand it when I see it in films or read about it in stories.
It does seem wholly irrational to me. But I’ve got to believe that the
world is not wholly irrational and that it doesn’t just throw away
extroardinary potential just on a whim or for foolish reasons. I think
that there is a story in each case. One that is worth understanding and
that will make us all better people if we can really come to grasp it.

Thinking about this case has lead me to one small conclusion about the
kinds of people who commit suicide. Before in my confusion I would
assume that those who commit suicide must be somehow detached from
life, feel removed and disconnected and not really there.  I used
to assume that to embrace an unreality you must feel that there really
isn’t much different between your reality and that unreality.

Now I really don’t think so. In fact I think it is probably just the
opposite. A person can’t really despair if they don’t believe that the
things that would make them despair are real or matter. It seems then
likely that the people who are likely to commit suicide are those with
the deepest connections to life. They might not be the normal ties that
most people have to things they care about. They may seem weird and
erratic to the external mind, but I wonder if they aren’t stronger and
more deeply meaningful to the person than the ties the rest of us form
that bind us.

That’s romantic nonsense of course. But the idea of the fully detached
suicide is equally oversimplified. There is no easy way to understand
the minds of others. Only hard work and deep analysis will yield to
real comprehension. It is analysis that must take place. We just can’t
afford to keep losing genius.

Every once in a while I get into these useless arguments. I don’t know
how I get into them and I don’t know why I persist in them as they in
no way increase my knowledge or understanding of anything. Well I
suppose they are a little fun  though ultimately meaningless.

The odd thing is I don’t even know how I get into them. I don’t look
for them and I don’t ask for them. Though I enjoy formulating arguments
I have never been inclined to argue. The back and forth, thrust and
parry rhythm of the debate has never been more that a slight
distraction for me. It is the act of figuring out the ideas that serve
as the foundation of debate that matters to me.

These arguments always begin with me stating in passing some sort of
strange proposition that I either believe or am on the verge of
believing. Someone of a thinking sort though perceives for some reason
some sort of contradiction in my words with some fundamental principles
they believe or often have been taught to be true. They then,
understandebly object to my proposition stating their pricinciple and
the facts behind it as evidence for their objection.

But I always agree with those facts. I almost always agree with the
principle. At the very least I see that principle as one of many
possibilities equally plausible to explain the phenomenon at
hand.   This leaves me in a rather pricarious position in the
arguments. My opposition is absolutely certain of their pricniple and
will argue to no end in the rightness of it. Their goal is to convince
me that my original statement cannot possibly be right because of the
obvious truth of the principle. They often perceive the very act of my
making my statement as an attack upon their principle. Other times they
see my statement as evidence that I don’t understand something very
basic and thus seek to ‘enlighten’ me of the obvious truth.

This happens all the time. With people I respect greatly and those I
don’t care so much for. People I once respected and people I learned to
care about. Every time the feeling I have is the same. I think, how did
I get into this mess? My opponent in this debate will do everything in
his or her power to get me to argue against some principle that I don’t
even disagree with in order to be able to ‘win’ the argument by
nevertheless convincing me of the principle or making me back down to
the claim.

The problem is, it’s just not that simple to me. I see shades of gray,
possibilities and probabiltiies and uncertainties.  Usually in
these arguments I don’t see how the statement I made and the principle
my opponent espouses are in contradiction.  I see that both can be
true if you simply perceive the ideas in a slightly different light. So
I almost always start off trying to reveal the connection. But my
opponent will never have any of it. The whole reason they engaged in
the argument was because they perceived a contradiction. They will see
just about any statement I make as a statement against their position,
a statement trying to prove something otherwise.  I have often in
these arguments used the words “I agree with you” and “I agree with
that” or “Nothing you’ve said seems incorrect to me” or “Yess that’s a
plausible explanation” but these words never seem to begin to end the
argument. They seem to goad my opponent to argue all the harder.
Perhaps because I always follow those statements with a “but” or a
“however” and try to explain why my initial statement can still hold.
It seems as if they always cease upon the “but” and never really accept
my statements of agreement.  In their minds the two statements are
so clearly in contradiction that it is simply impossible for a person
to hold both and they blithely ignore any arguments to the contrary.

Its not just that they ignore these arguments. Its specifically how
they ignore it.  An argument that two principles do not contradict
is a hard thing to put forth. It will have a fundamentally different
form than an argument for or against something. Indeed since in many
ways it is a pre-emptive argument one that should not even be raised
until the contradiction has been proven to exist, it ends up taking the
terms of hypotheticals and sounds more like a lecture than an argument.
In other words I am trying to guide the person to a new way of looking
at things not trying to demonstrate a demonstrable truth.  But my
opponents will have none of that. They will take any statement I make
that hints at being contrary to their beliefs as an argument against
those beliefs. This makes the argument much easier for them actually.
They don’t need to prove the contradiction, they only have to pick
apart precisely half of what I am saying and show that it does not
contradict their position. Not surprisingly that isn’t hard since I
wasn’t trying to contradict them in the first place!

To make matters worse there are layers upon layers of uncertainty here.
For one thing my initial statement was almost never made in absolute
terms in the first place. If I did make it in absolute terms I will
always always immediately admit that I misstated it if pressed.  I
almost always say something like “It seems likely” or “I think it could
be possible” or “A good explanation might be” etc.  In those cases
where I do speak in absolutes and won’t detract them then it is because
the absolutes are an inherently subjective statement that is beyond
contradiction because it is a statement about what I am thinking then
and there and usually about something as changeable as my feelings
about one thingo r another.  I will be the first person to tell
you that my beliefs can change in an instant and I hold very little as
so fundamental that I would fight to hold on to it in the face of
changing evidence.

 And then there’s the opposing principle. My opponent always
states these things in such glaringly absolute terms that it makes me
wince every time. I almsot never think of these principles as being so
set in stone as my opponent. I usually see several alternatives or
variations that my opponent does not or will not see.  Or perhaps
my opponent has seen them but has already dismissed them as impossible
and already considers himself to have certain proof of their
inaccuracy. I don’t. Maybe I’m just not privy to the same good
arguments my opponent has seen. Or maybe I just think the world just
isn’t very simple. More often than not though I do think the principle
my opponent guards so vehemently is at its core the most likely to be
true or the best of the possible principles that I have encountered
thus far.

Often and more often now than in the past I grow tired of these
repetitive patterns of arguments where I am fighting not to lose a game
where the rules are defined by my opponent and I never wanted to play
anyways. So I start to play my own game and define my own rules. The
games I play are different each time, but they are each an attempt to
gain some value out of the debate I got thrust into without engendering
any ill will.

Game 1:  Argue against the principle.  Here I try my hardest
to prove the principle is just fundamentall untrue. The goal here is to
perceive what kinds of arugments can be made in defense of the
principle and to practice my skill at argument. In the end the results
of the discussion mean nothing to me, I merely use it so that I might
gather data in the form of certain arguments that I can examine later
when I meditate on the subject in more depth. 

The consequences of game 1 can sometimes be negative as my opponent can
sometimes come to the conclusion that I am either an idiot, or
hopelessly stubborn, or, if the discussion is on a moral issue a
fundamentally evil being.  But with the exception of the moral
issues the results I can usually live with. My opponents come away
assured of their superiority but that often makes them surprisingly
amicable to me. Sometimes though for those truly bound to their
position they will come to despise me as one of ‘those people’ meaning
those that don’t admit to the truth of the obvious. This is rather bad
for future friendship but quite worthwhile a thing to know about a
person.

Game 2: Argue for alternatives to the principle:  Here the goal is
to bring forth as many alternatives as possible and force my opponent
to argue that his principle is the best choice.  In this case the
goal is to broaden the outlook of my opponent while at the same time
exercising my creative ingenuity in discovering alternatives to what
may seem obvious. Often I get to invoke arguments by writers I don’t
agree with in defense of my outlandish claims. This makes me understand
their positions all the more and is an activity of great worth to me.

The negative potential consequence is that my opponent sometimes comes
to think of me as not sticking with any position, of being unwilling to
come to a belief and defend it. Alternatively they may see me as stupid
AND stubborn. i.e. the kind of person who will, rather than admit they
are wrong, keep bringing up new arguments to try and prove my
point.  However, usually due to the breadth of the discussion my
opponents don’t ge the impression that I am all that dumb and often
gain a respect for the depth of my knowledge of the subject or at least
of my creativity in coming up with alternatives. In the end I think my
opponents end up having fun when I play this game and that makes sure
that in the end they are rarely left hostile to me.

Game 3: Reveal the underlying questions that no one knows the answer
to.  The other two games can safely be called exercises in
rhetoric. Only in this game do I consider it true philosophy. There is,
in nearly every argument, always something deeper hiding behind the
surface. Usually even in the most grounded of principles there are
presumptions that my opponent and I and everyone else have made that
may not be as solid in nature as we may think. A deeper examination can
reveal surprising things and can often become the root of a deeper and
more valuable principle. Sometimes we can even go the full circuit and
ultimately see how a broader principle based on fewer unfounded
assumptions can be accepting of many different statements including,
tada, my original statement. Other times we can even go deper and I
perceive how incorrect or incomplete my original statement was and what
broader statement may better realize the sentiment behind my initial
statement.

There are no real negatives to this game. The only problem is, it’s
hard. I cannot do this so well on the spur of the moment. Many times
the principles we are discussing are pretty low level and hard to break
down into their component parts. It takes me time and thought to look
at an issue and even begin to ask the questions that might lead to
deeper enlightenment. Sometimes I don’t even know if there is a deeper
level, though I almost always believe that there is. So usually I can’t
do this unless I’ve already done considerable thought on the subject in
the past and usually not until after I have done both of the analysis
implicit in games one and two either in an internal debate or with real
people. In any case although I have gut feelings above where the
complexities lie in an issue being able to guide someone through them
in a discussion requires effort and study. Really it requires a
lifetime of study…

The other problem is that it is sometimes a path that it is hard to
lead my opponent down. Sometimes they will stubbornly refuse to discuss
the other questions, sometimes they will accuse me of trying to
distract from the issues at hand for my own selfish gains, othertimes
they’ll just get bored with it. In any case its fine by me as I can
always look at these questions on my own time and I never really wanted
to get into the argument in the first place.

So that’s about it. Those are my three most common strategies for
dealing with this situation where I get into a one sided arguement
wherein I am being maneuvered into arguing for something I don’t
believe in.  There are of course other games. Some more
manipulative, some  somewhat more honest. And there are games
within games within games. But these three are the ones I use most
often. So next times you get into an argument with me about something
and you find yourself espousing a pretty fundamental principle and I
suddenly go silent for a while rest assured that I have just concluded
that this argument has gone into a realm whereby in its current form it
holds no value for me and I am trying to pick the gameplan that will
shift the argument into a form that is most likely to provide me with
the most value with minimal negative consequences.  If I stay
quiet it means I couldn’t come up with a plan or I decided it wasn’t
worth the effort.

grr… Tech Support!

I despise calling these stupid tech support numbers. They are the
epitome of exercises in futility. It is very much clear to me that many
of the people answering the phone don’t have a clue in what they are
doing.  That alone wouldn’t be so bad if the tech support guys had
the good graces to recognize when the person they are talking to is as
or more knowledgeble than they are.  If the person would just do
that then maybe he can combine his specialized knowledge of the way the
particular system works and greater access to data and information with
the callers own intellectual abilities to come to a real
solution.   To make matters worse the tech support guys
almost always seem somewhat bored or in an incredible hurry to settle
the user’s problem with the easiest and quickest (and thus often the
worst) possible solution.

A case in point, today I ended up on the phone with a tech support
person about why a particular website was malfunctioning. Why I even
bothered I don’t know. It would have taken me much less time to just
use trial and error.  Anyways the person of course stepped me
through a bunch of obviously incorrect things like asking me if I’d
entered the correct data in each and every field.  I obviously had
and told him that right away. What’s more I characterized the problem
in such a way that that shouldn’t have even been a consideration, as I
described how the entire page was unresponsive. Finally the tech
support person concluded that he didn’t know what the problem was
unless I wasn’t using “Internet Explorer”.  Of course I wasn’t. I
never use internet explorer if I can help it. When I said no, he said
“what are you using netscape?”  Netscape! Why would that be the
first thing to come to mind? These days netscape’s market share is less
than Opera and various Mozilla browsers and probably less than
safari/khtml based browsers too. Of course when I said “mozilla
firefox” the person did not give any evidence to knowing what I was
talking about. 

So in the end I didn’t even try to pursue working with this person
through trying to figure out exactly what security settings in firefox
might be keeping their poorly designed site from working correctly.
Instead I just switched to IE long enough to get it to work so that I
could get off the phone and then continue my own experimentation. To
know surprise to me a little later I had it working in firefox. 
Why had I even bothered?

Tech support is a worthless idea. They should not hire people who don’t
know much to explain things while presuming that the people they are
explaining it to don’t know anything. We should just get direct access
to the creators of the system. What’s the point of the middle person
anyways? Better yet they should just put all the sourcecode, including
server side code, on a big visible link on the site, and access to an
interactive debugger, so that anyone can just debug it themselves.

One of the funny things I’ve noticed in the political season is that
some of the quotes used most often as an attack on John Kerry are
actually amongst the very few quotes that make me find him at all
interesting.  It’s not so much what he said but the subtle nature
of the words he chose to use when saying it.

There are two particular examples I’m thinking of right now. The first
is the way Kerry speaks about his vote to authorize the use of force in
Iraq. He says that he voted for it because he thinks “that’s the right
kind of authority for a president to have.” Many people think that’s a
stupid evasion, trying to step away from his commitment or trick people
in some way. I don’t. It seems a very clear and interesting principled
decision. In other words he voted to give the authority on the basis of
theoretical considerations about the balance of powers and the role of
Congress in a time of crisis.  That’s exactly the kind of decision
making I greatly respect. It is much the way some justices will issue
their decisions based on the practical implications of their decisions
whereas others on the basis of theory and ideology.  Now obviously
it would be absurd for any person to make all decisions on either
extreme, but persons who consider the larger consequences of their
actions seem more rare than the skilled practicalist.

That being said, I don’t know whether it was all that reasonable to
vote to give the President the authority for war in this case. Sure it
was a good potential bargaining chip on the US’s side. Sure it very
likely might have given the President enough sway in international
negotiations  to push more aggressively against Saddam… But that
only works if you had good reason to believe that the president would
be seriously engaging in the diplomatic process. Also of course, there
are lots of considerations about the scope and duration of the powers
granted by Congress as well. In hindsight it looks like the president
may not have used this power quite as well as he could have. Could
Kerry have seen how things would unfold? Certainly not. Could he have
guessed? Maybe. Even so I wouldn’t blame him for not being all seeing,
just as in truth I don’t blame Bush for not knowing immediately that
Saddam didn’t have WMDs. The explanation for what Kerry was thinking
when he made the decision though makes perfect sense to me and its
exactly how I should hope a great many senators think.

To put a damper on that though, it also needs to be said that it is
quite likely that the fact that at the time it probably seemed likely
that it would be political suicide to vote against that particular bill
at that time might well have influenced Kerry’s decision making process
whether conscious or not. But who’s to say about such a thing. We
should generally take poeple at their word except when we have good
evidence to the contrary.

The other statement that I like is of course the more recent “Global
Test” statement.  Again the subtlety of the statement appeals to
me. What he said in total was something like: 

“The president always has the right, and always has had the right, for
preemptive strike. That was a great doctrine throughout the Cold War.
And it was always one of the things we argued about with respect to
arms control.

No president, though all of American history, has ever ceded, and
nor would I, the right to preempt in any way necessary to protect the
United States of America.

But if and when you do it, Jim, you
have to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global
test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you’re
doing what you’re doing and you can prove to the world that you did it
for legitimate reasons.”

 There is no way by any logical reading whatsoever that this
can be interpreted as saying you have to ask other countries for
permission before going to war or anything even remotely like
that.  The media has picked this up as if Kerry had said we have
to sit down and take a test designed by  other nations before they
graciously decide to let us go to war. It is utterly beyond my
comprehension to see how you can conclude that from the words that were
spoken.

However, I can see how people might not understand exactly what
Kerry is saying. The basic meaning of the words is clear, but what they
mean when put together is rather more abstract than most people are
willing to deal with. You see this is in many ways a statement worthy
of a philosopher.  It speaks of  a national standard of
justification in an abstract sense. In the simplest interpretation he
could be saying simply that if you go to war the citizens have to know
the reason why they are going to war. You can’t just trick them and go
to war anyway. They have to understand the reasons behind the
war.  That’s actually not even a particularly challenging standard
of justification to meet, unless you presume that he means ALL citizens
which then makes it an impossible standard to meet.  But if he
just means your countrymen, your people in the normal sense, meaning
the bulk of people rational and intelligent enough to consider such
things well then you might even make an argument that we DID pass that
test when we wen to war in Iraq. Most people really did understand the
reasons for war, which were weapons of mass destruction. Most people
really did feel that they could defend the case of war to any observer
whether diplomatic or otherwise.  It just so happens that in this
case, most people were very badly wrong.

So presumably Kerry’s test is somewhat stronger than that. If he
means that the argument must be provable in the real sense. That is,
that the beliefs for the justifications must ALWAYS be true, well then
that standard is very difficult to meet and can never be determined
whether it has been met until after the fact. So it really doesn’t make
sense to critize an administration for not being certain of the truth,
in particular when you have admitted in the past that you didn’t know
the truth and aren’t sure that anyone did at the time.

No. I think the key here in understanding the statement is the word
“global”, the very word that  has made it such a mock-worthy
statement in the media. Global reasonably suggests that the test must
be thorough in a way involves all nations. That is to say, not only
must your own people believe your case is strong and be capable of
trying to prove it, your very proof has to be in some way convincing
enough that others who don’t share your convictions, that don’t exist
within your own internal echo chamber of reflective justifications can
be convinced by your arguments at least to the point that they
understand your decisions even if they themselves would not make the
same.  In other words reasonable people throughout the world
should all be able to conclude that you’ve at least given it a
reasonable degree of reflection. The reasons that you used to justify
your actions the rational people of the world should agree are
legitimate reasons even if they don’t particularly like the outcome.

That seems to me to be what Kerry was getting at.  And it is a
subtle point indeed. Now whether its true is an entirely different
question. I certainly prefer it to a totally unqualified doctrine of
preemptive strike. The Kerry global test doctrine should be one that is
seriously considered as a guide for Presidential action during wartime
not mearly mocked and misinterpreted.

Yet another separate question is whether Bush actually met that
standard when he chose to go to war in Iraq. Since this standard does
not require the truth of your convictions it is possible that Bush did
meet it. But we have plenty of evidence of intelligence informed people
throughout the world and in the United States who challenged whether
the reasons for going to war were legitimate. They argued that the
inspecters were working, the evidence for WMD was flimsy at best, that
Saddam was effectively neutered and that America/the Bush
administration really had hidden secret reasons for wanting to go to
war in Iraq that were even less legitimate, such as our rage over 9/11,
our need to increase our direct influence over that part of the world,
and theoretical interests of the Bush administration both economic and
personal.  Now to say that Bush actually did meet the Kerry
criteria you would have to debunk each and every one of these claims by
showing that there were not real hidden justifications for war and that
the evidence for WMDs was convcing, that the inspecters weren’t
working, and that Saddam really was a threat.  And many people do
argue exactly those points. In so doing they are saying that President
Bush did indeed pass the global test. Those objecters were largely
irrational, mislead, or blinded by their own personal interests or
dislike of America/the Bush Administration.  It’s all interesting
arguments. History will have to say what is true.

It is interesting to note that the reason we have fallen back upon
is perhaps the only one that clearly unequivocally would have passed
the Kerry test had we actually used it as our primary justification
war. That reason is simply that Saddam Hussein was an evil vicous and
cruel dictator that should never have been allowed to have the kind of
power that he weilded.  Now this is an argument that  many
would dislike. It is a justification that many would feel is not enough
to justify the potential negative consquences of such a war, but few
would argue that the reason itself is illegitimate or false in any way.
People would by and large accept this sole justification for the war as
being rational even as they are vehemently opposed to the actual
fighting of the war. 

That seems to be the essence of the Kerry test. Going to war for simple
clear believable reasons such as “because they attacked us” (where the
object is the correct ‘they’) or “in order to defeat a great
evil”  (when the target clearly is that great evil) would
generally pass the test whereas something more subjective and arguable
such as “because he probably has weapons of mass destruction” does not.

Again I think that is the most interesting thing Kerry has said in
public that I have heard since he has started running. A shame that it
is being painted in such a bad light.

Just to throw something in so I can get all of my Kerry defenses out of
the way in one post before I go back to some semblance of neutrality, I
also have no particular problem with the statement “I voted for the 87
billion before I voted against it.”  There seems to me to be
absolutely nothing wrong with this statement. Indeed, this is how the
senate works. PEople propose bills about the same subject and vote on
them until one gets passed or none get passed. If none get passed they
start writing up different bills on the same topic so that they can try
to get one of them passed next time. That’s how it goes. So clearly
Kerry voted for a bill that authorized 87 billion dollars for our
troops in Iraq and it was a bill he felt was justified and the right
way to fund our troops.. It’s just that his bill lost.. And that’s
because his bill involving rolling back tax cuts which nobody wants to
do. 

Now the second bill came up and Kerry voted against it because he
clearly believed it was the wrong way to fund our troops. It is
impossible to logically conclude from that, that Kerry isn’t supportive
of the troops, didn’t want them to get the money, or was being in any
way anti-American by casting that particular vote.  It is in fact
quite possible that another bill could have come up later that really
would have supported our troops in Iraq that Kerry would have voted
for.  That’s how it works. Why should Kerry be denigrated for
voting against Bush’s plan for funding but not praised for voting FOR
his own plan? Especially when they fund the troops to the toon of
exactly the same dollar amount in cash?

That’s generally the problem for running for president when you’ve been
a senator for a long time. During the course of any senatorial career
you can find hundreds of bills voted against that you can get any
particular constituency to agree would have been good for the country,
especially if you don’t describe them in depth and only give them nice
oversimplified terms like “Funding for military/intelligence”, “tax
increases/cuts”,  “education bills”, “medicare/medicaid/welfare
reform”.  Why on Earth would we want representatives who vote for
bills they DON’T agree with or that they believe are downright bad or
wrong just so that they can say that they did “something” about that
subject? That doesn’t make any sense. You want congressmen to be
advocates of the right things that they believe in. Sure you want them
to compromise sometimes but you certainly don’t want them to cave in
when it matters even if that means in a future election people will say
he voted against tax cuts or against military budget or whatever.

Absentee-ism is a similarly idiotic nonstarter.  Do I want my
representatives who are busy touring the world trying to run for
election or doing whatever else that might keep them away from the
votes but which is nevertheless still very important to still show up
to vote anyway? I don’t think so, especially if they are most likely so
preoccupied with those other things that they can’t possibly have
familiarized themselves with all of the issues involved in these bills.
In that sense it would be downright irresposible for them TO show up to
vote. 

Oh don’t get me wrong, being absent for whatever reason is certainly
nothing to be proud of as it is a truly unique opportunity to be able
to be a part of the process that makes laws that have a profound effect
on the very future of a nation, but nor is it an unforgivable
unexplainable thing. It probably isn’t a fact that should have a
significant influence on how you vote.

Gotta love these debates. The candidates are all just striving to find
opportunities to give their pre-planned speeches in a way that sounds
like their kinda answering the questions and/or responding to their
opponents. Is this really debating? Is there anything spontaneous about
this at all besides the ordering?

Isn’t it interesting how the United States presidential election
coverage is centering so excessively on where the candidates stand on
the scale of certainty?

Now certainty is an interesting thing, it is not quite the same as
honesty or integrity or sincerity. Certainty unlike those others is a
judgement about some form of information you are receiving. 
Generally when you receive a continual consistent set of  good
solid information and are a well reasoning individual then you tend to
be more certain about it, less waivering, less likely to shift in
beliefs unless you receive different reliable informaiton to the
contrary. Good information tends to make you more likely stick to a
course of actions based on that information.  In contrast if you
receive information of varying degrees of quality, sometimes receive
bad information and sometimes receive good information you are not
going to be as certain. You’re going to switch positions sometimes
provided you are a rational consistent being.

The strange thing about this election is that the candidates are
treating “certainty” as if it were an individual trait but what they
are really talking about are the extremes of irrational behavior.
President Bush’s side accusses Senator Kerry of being a “flip-flop”.
They say he doesn’t take a consistent opinion on anything and doesn’t
seem to know what he is doing.  The message is pretty clear. Kerry
is a person who would change his opinion regardless of the information
or circumstances according to the Bush campaign. He just is never
certain about anything.

In contrast on the other side the Kerry campaign wants to complain that
Bush is just too certain about one set of beliefs. The assert that Bush
is stubborn, doesn’t admit mistakes, never changes his mind, and
ignores all information and data to the contrary.

Now obviously both assertions are absurd when taken in the extreme. You
would have to think that President Bush and Senator Kerry are beings
without the most basic capacity for reason to believe that they fit
into these absurd models. But really that’s the point.  You see
politicians have learned that people respond very well to being given
reasons to have no respect whatsoever for the other candidate. It seems
that we’ve learned to enjoy hating the enemy, despising our opponents
and thus pumping our favorites in direct contrast. People don’t easily
get excited about a candidate on the basis of nuanced differences in
specific policies. But they do get excited about a candidate if they
think the other candidate is a utter moron that will lead our country
to its doom.

That’s really messed up and sad but in truth… it could be a lot
worse. Certainty at least is foundationally about how the candidate
reasons about issues. Sure nobody is this extremely stubborn being who
doesn’t ever change their mind and sure nobody really is this crazy
flip flop who never holds a consistent opinion, but at least a person
can make a rational decision on the degree to which the candidates
manifest those qualities.  That is you can maybe think that Bush
is closer to being the stubborn extreme than Kerry is to being the
flip-flop extreme but you might also think that conviction to a few
ideals is more important (right now) than being flexible. Thus you
might vote for Bush. And of course the opposite is equally likely. You
might think that it is much more important that a person be willing to
change their opinion in the face of evidence and hold nuanced opinions
about things than mere consistency with ideals. Such a person might
vote for Kerry even though they think Kerry is more flip-floppish than
Bush is over stubborn.

So yeah its pretty messed up that politics has become a game of paint
your opponent as a mindless symbolic manifestion of an irrational
ideal, but it isn’t quite so bad as it could be. Reason can still
triumph in the face of such spin provided voters use it rather than
give into the fear, distrust, and dislike that the campaigns want you
to feel for the opponent.