Several days ago, I happened upon a video called “Against Empathy”, by Paul Bloom… it’s a promotional video for a book of the same name, which I would guess is probably an interesting read, but I have not read.  I am coming at this mostly as my intellectual response to what is in this video after letting it simmer for several days.

That said, I feel it is important for you to watch the video before proceeding, and so I am including it here:

After initially feeling that I simultaneously agreed with most of what he was saying but being a bit put off by the idea that empathy is altogether bad, I began to suspect that he’s not really saying the latter.  He is challenging the notion that empathy should be the highest good or our absolute guiding star.  I expect that in the book he probably more elaborately explains that… the video here is meant to be a bit more provocative.  That said, there is a lot worth addressing here.

The idea that putting yourself in the shoes of another, and acting on feeling their pain can blind you to the long-term consequences of your actions to better their situation is one that has gotten us into a number of quandaries in the political realm.  Not the least of which are the wars he mentions in the video.  But just look at what we got with Obamacare.  By any objective standard it has failed, but a lot of people will read that and respond emotionally saying “but more people have health insurance!”  True, but is the insurance worth a damn?  I’m not saying there are no individuals who are better off than they were before, but for the most part, people are paying more money than they should be for less care than they should be getting.  We have the system we have (and even what we had before Obamacare) because of empathy.  And it’s garbage.  (As an aside, we should have a system where insurance is fully optional, and most people would simply purchase catastrophic health insurance…  and pay for things like doctor visits and generic medications out-of-pocket.  When you get insurance companies out of the equation and doctors need to compete, watch how fast prices drop.)

I actually really like his example of the level of care we give to something like a baby trapped in a well vs something like climate change… and it brings to mind the quote: “The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic,” which may or may not have been uttered by Stalin.  In terms of how the human mind processes it, there is truth there.  Small-scale, relatable issues, especially if they are close to home, are what we tend to feel the most empathic about.  This causes us to misdirect our efforts.  We spend all our resources trying to get a few babies out of the well rather than directing them toward things that are actually much more likely to effect us all.

Warm glow altruism is another major problem, not only as it relates to charity, but as it relates to politics.  People choose their activism based on what makes them feel good.  And so if they can find a person who claims to be oppressed, defending that people gives them that endorphin rush they’re looking for.  I’m not going to call out anything specific here, but the oppression olympics that is American politics needs to stop.

At one point in the video, he calls empathy “selfish moralizing”.  I can’t help but draw a parallel here to the Randian ideology of Objectivism.  To Rand, all people act out of selfishness, and even an act of love is one made out of self-interest.  (If you’re curious, I find objectivism fascinating and think there is often truth in it, but, I certainly don’t agree with Rand on all points).    I do think that is what is happening here.  It feels good to react to everything according to your emotions and simply let them be your guiding star.  However, what feels right is not always the best thing.  What feels right may be illogical.  What feels right may be harmful in the long-term.  Doing what is best for people may not feel as good as doing something that seems good but is unsustainable.

Empathy has a place in our mind.  In terms of day-to-day how we treat people, we should definitely still follow that golden rule.    However, empathy can’t be our highest standard.  We need to temper our empathy with logic and reason, and be cold-blooded when we need to be.  Sometimes the best thing for someone is to not give them what they want.  It can be hard, especially if it is someone close to you, but it’s worth it in the end.

Everything should be made as simple as possible … but not simpler.
-Albert Einstein

Simple style is like white light. It is complex, but its complexity is not obvious.
-Anatole France

All political movements are like this — we are in the right, everyone else is in the wrong. The people on our own side who disagree with us are heretics, and they start becoming enemies. With it comes an absolute conviction of your own moral superiority. There’s oversimplification in everything, and a terror of flexibility.
-Doris Lessing

One of the great detriments to our society is our tendency to over-simplify… well… everything.  It’s an understandable tendency, as simplicity is nice and easy.  When there’s a clear-cut right and wrong, you can be sure about something, and it feels good to be sure about something.

Simple is not always wrong, of course.  Some things are quite simple, and on those issues there tends to be very little diversity of opinion.  For instance, on the subject of murder, you would be hard pressed to find many who would consider it a moral good.  But, when you loosen it up a bit, diversity of opinion, and thereby complexity, will become manifest.  What about, not murder, but killing in self-defense?  In defense of others?  In war?  As punishment for murder?  There are many arguments for and against each of these.   Even with simple beginnings, complexity will arise.

In the current American political arena, I see the oversimplification of ideas on a nigh constant basis.  Presently, I mostly see it on the left, but, to be sure, the right has done so in the past, they will likely do so in the future, and there is probably some issue on which they are doing so now.

The most prominent example of political simplification that I can think of is the issue of illegal immigration, specifically as it relates to Donald Trump.  Ask a leftist why Trump wants to build a wall, and their answer should be obvious to you by now….  “Well, because he is a racist, of course.”  Ah, the height of oversimplification.

Now, I can’t prove that Trump isn’t a racist, though I would assert the burden of proof is on the person claiming that he is, but even if he were, this argument is a bit of a non sequitur.  There is no doubt that America has an immigration problem, and it needs to be resolved.  Will building a wall solve our immigration problem?  No.  That would be an oversimplification.  But (and I’m not saying I think the wall is practical or will be effective), perhaps it is a place to start.

Here is the complexity.  We have many, many laws related to immigration, and these laws are being broken every day.  In many cases, they are being broken by people who are otherwise obeying the law, and that probably most of us would consider to be “good people” if we were to come to know them personally.  However, a law that is unenforced effectively might as well not even be there.  Borders are only meaningful if they are enforced.  Well why should we have a border?  There’s a lot of social safety nets in our country that people could come and take advantage of without ever paying into the system.  It may sound humanitarian to help them, but it wouldn’t take long for the whole of the system to collapse under the weight of it.  You can’t divorce people from their beliefs and culture, and a concentrated flood of a group of people from one location to another would necessarily alter the culture of the destination.    That’s not to say that there is no argument to do away with borders.  Philosophically, I would agree that they are meaningless, just imaginary lines, and that people should be free to live where they choose.  But perhaps this is an idea whose time has not yet come.

Further complicating the issue, there are those who decide to be willfully obtuse, and say things like “people are not illegal” when someone comments on what should be done about illegal immigrants.  Of course people are not illegal, but no one is saying that, and you don’t really think they are, you’re just trying to be clever.  “Illegal immigrant” is obviously shorthand for “Person who entered the country without following immigration laws.”  Such a person is by definition a criminal.

Now, there are certainly circumstances under which a person who came here illegally perhaps should be allowed to stay, but probably in the vast majority of circumstances, they should not.  By the way, I mean this in terms of “going forward”, I think that we have ignored the issue for such a long time that anyone who is here now and is an otherwise law-abiding person should be allowed to stay, if for no other reason than that it would be impossible to deport that many people.  There are also of course an abundance of complexities as many have had children here, and have well-established lives here.

Do you see how it isn’t anywhere near so simple as “people are against immigration because they are racist”?  Hell, it’s not even as simple as “people are against immigration”.  Most everyone thinks that people should be allowed to immigrate here, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be done with no regard for law.  Anyone making these arguments that we are a country of immigrants is making the wrong argument.  No one disagrees with the words they are saying, but they do clearly disagree with what the person means to say.  If you want to abolish borders so that anyone can enter with no controls of any kind, well then, you should be making the argument to abolish borders, not to allow immigration.

These same principles can be applied to refugees and the “muslim ban”, and to things like gun control, healthcare, economics, and nigh any issue you can think of.  If the issue seems simple and without nuance to you, perhaps you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what those on the other side(s) of the issue really believe.

This extends beyond politics and culture and into religion and philosophy as well…  but this is already quite long…  I’ll save that for another time.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
-H.L. Mencken

“In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate-look to his character.”
-Noah Webster

“Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters.”
-Samuel Adams

“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force…Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”
-George Washington

“When offered a choice between two politically intolerable alternatives, it is important to choose neither. And when that choice is presented in rival arguments and debates that exclude from public consideration any other set of possibilities, it becomes a duty to withdraw from those arguments and debates, so as to resist the imposition of this false choice by those who have arrogated to themselves the power of framing the alternatives.”
-Alasdair MacIntyre

I feel like I’ve seen only one thing when I’ve logged into Facebook for the past week:  Endless posts stating why one  of the major party candidates represents a superior moral choice over the other one.  I’ve even seen some headlines talking about making a moral case for either candidate.  The very idea is laughable to me.  You cannot possibly make a moral case for either of them.  After all, we are talking about voting for the most powerful government official in the country…  and when you vote someone into office, you are without question culpable for the things that politician does when they are put into office.  The excuse of “but it would have been worse if the other one was in there!” won’t absolve you of that culpability.

It’s telling when you find yourself in the position of defending a candidates’ grotesque remarks about women.  There were many things that Trump said during the campaign that I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on, but at this point it’s pretty clear it’s not just that he’s an asshole, he’s a misogynist who also happens to be an asshole.  I still don’t believe he’s a racist, but he does lack empathy of any kind.  He is an authoritarian.  He is an enemy of free speech.  He advocates gun control based on the no fly list (a list that you can be put on without any kind of due process or recourse).  He’s a blowhard.  He’s a rich guy that pretends like he has the common man’s interest at heart, and he’ll say whatever he believes will help him get elected.

To the reluctant Trump supporters out there (which I believe is the vast majority of Trump supporters):  Whether you like it or not, a vote for Trump is an endorsement of all of that.  Voting for Trump is an endorsement of the idea that it’s either OK, or “not that bad”, for a guy to treat women, including perhaps your daughter, as a piece of meat, and talk about grabbing them by the pussy.  It’s an endorsement of the idea that one can act without empathy.  That voices of dissent should not be heard.  That government should be given more power.  That rights can be taken away from law-abiding citizens at the government’s whim without due process.   Even if you are correct, and Clinton represents something even worse, a vote for Trump is an endorsement of these ideas.

Glenn Beck’s recent statement that allowing Clinton to win by not voting for Trump is a moral, ethical choice (http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/10/10/glenn-beck-electing-hillary-clinton-moral-ethical-choice/) was one of the things that spurred me to write this.  He of course was misrepresented in that headline as saying that “electing Hillary Clinton” was an ethical choice…  he didn’t say that.  He said:

“If the consequence of standing against Trump and for principles is indeed the election of Hillary Clinton, so be it. At least it is a moral, ethical choice.”

I would add the converse, that “If the consequence of standing against Clinton and for principles is indeed the election of Donald Trump, so be it.  At least it is a moral, ethical choice.”

That aside, for exactly the reasons I outlined above, he is 100% correct in that statement.  Not voting for Trump is a moral, ethical choice.  Of course, to the partisan that refuses to acknowledge that the 2 party system is not mandatory, voting for anyone who is not Trump, or not voting at all, is akin to voting for Hillary.  And of course, the converse is also true when talking to the Clinton camp.  They would tell you that you are therefore morally culpable for what the other does, if elected.  Such a statement is illogical, ludicrous, and not worthy of any serious debate.  Not voting is a perfectly valid choice.  Voting for a candidate you believe in, whose character and ideas you can endorse, is the only POSSIBLE moral choice.

Now, Clinton supporters… especially you reluctant ones (which, again, I believe to be the majority), I hope that you aren’t feeling too high and mighty right now.  Clinton isn’t as rough around the edges as Trump is.  She carries herself better, and has a certain degree of class that Trump lacks…  but really that’s only because she’s been in the political game much longer than he has.

Clinton represents the height of government corruption.  You needn’t look any further than the recent Wikileaks releases to see why (but don’t worry, we will).  She privately (which is another way of saying “in actual fact, contrary to what she tells you”) opposes same-sex  marriage and gay rights.  She knows that a no-fly zone will result in the deaths of many Syrians, and she supports it anyway.  In addition to that, a no fly zone would likely initiate World War 3.  The Clinton Foundation has accepted money from the Saudis, despite her acknowledgement that the Saudis fund Isis.  (As a side note, Obama recently vetoed a bill to allow victim’s families from 9/11 sue the Saudis.  I’m pretty sure he was aware of this information too.)  She conspired with the DNC to undermine democracy within the democratic party and edge out Bernie Sanders.  She worked with the media (who many have LONG argued are largely in bed with the democratic party, and are now proven right beyond any doubt) to push Trump into the limelight to help ensure he would get the nomination.  I know you long ago convinced yourself they’re no big deals, but those emails of hers and Benghazi are both really big deals.  She most certainly did harass and verbally attack the victims of her husband’s sexual assaults.   This is without getting into anything where speculation is involved rather than hard facts… and yet you ask me how I can possibly think she’s not any better than Trump?

If you vote for Clinton because “at least she isn’t Trump”, you aren’t just voting against Trump.  You are endorsing each and every one of those ideas.  You will be morally culpable.  For a no fly zone that will kill Syrians and God knows how many people if it leads to a World War, for being in bed with the same people who fund Isis.  For undermining democratic processes.  And for attacking victims of sexual assault when it suits an end desirable to you.

You can tell yourself that you’re doing the best thing you can do by voting for a “lesser” evil.  But evil is evil, and voting for evil is an endorsement of evil.  It’s pretty clear that the only thing stopping a 3rd party from getting elected is the fact that so many people refuse to vote for a 3rd party because they are obsessed with voting for something slightly less evil.  Whichever of the major party candidates you support… deep down, you are reluctant to do so.  You’ve found yourself defending things that you would never defend in a friend or family member.

I can’t make you do anything, but I can beg you to follow your conscience and vote for someone who you can give your full endorsement to.  I’m not going to disown you if you vote for Clinton or Trump, but I cannot possibly understand why you would do so, and I 100% believe you are morally responsible for whatever the consequences are should the candidate you vote for gain office.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
– Martin Luther King Jr.

“Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans strictly as members of groups rather than individuals.”
-Ron Paul

“There is no path to peace, the path is peace.”
-Thich Nhat Hanh

What a week it has been.  What turmoil we face as a nation.

After two highly publicized shootings by police, I already was feeling compelled to write something about what was going on, and then there was the shooting in Dallas.  When a person dies there is no way to describe it other than as a tragedy.  Even when it is justified, but especially when it is not.  The jury is still out on whether the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were justified or not.  Perhaps neither was, perhaps both were, or perhaps only one.  From the knowledge I have gathered, I find it impossible to say in Alton Sterling’s case, and I am inclined to think that in the best case scenario, the situation with Philando Castile was a gross overreaction.  More facts will come to light as time goes on, and I hope that if either killing was not justified that those responsible will be justly punished.  But no matter what, both of those deaths are tragedies.

In contrast, it is quite clear that the killing of 5 Dallas police officers was unjustified.  These officers were not in any way responsible for the deaths of Alton Sterling or Philando Castile.  These men were doing their jobs, and protecting the protest of a group that frequently vilifies them.  The Dallas police department performed admirably in the situation thrust upon them, and to my mind every officer on duty acted heroically.  That we lost 5 brave officers to a coward with an axe to grind is a great tragedy.

How did we get here?  I think there’s a few reasons.  Bear with me, I’ll be addressing both issues of law enforcement and protest movements.

Police brutality is a problem in America.  Don’t react too quickly to this.  Most police officers are decent people who perform admirably.  Much of the time, even if an officer makes mistakes that cost an innocent person their life, the officer is still a decent person.  Obviously, there are outliers.  There are crooked cops, and racist cops, and just outright incompetent cops, but these are the minority.

It’s important to note that police brutality is not exclusive to black people.  Not accounting for justified vs. unjustified killings, 49% of people killed by police so far this year were white.  24% were black.  The remainder were some other race.  (source: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database)  Yes, statistically, 24% is higher than the relative population of blacks to whites.  However, statistically, black people tend to be involved in more crime and are therefore more likely to have encounters with police.  As I will get to soon, more encounters with police equates to more death at the hands of police (not because the officers are bad people, but because it creates unsafe situations for both the officer and the civilian).  Violent crime rates in 2012-2013, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, place white offenders of violent crime at 42.9%, and black offenders at 22.4%, which is not far off from the percentages of those killed by police.

It is my belief that most of the time (but not all of the time) when a person is killed by police, it is justified.  It is always a tragedy.  And much of the time, despite being justified, it is unnecessary.  To illustrate my point, let’s think about why police pulled over Philando Castile and had an interaction with him that resulted in his death.  It was a trivial matter, a broken tail light.  Because a person had a broken tail light, he was pulled over, and a situation was created that resulted in a man’s death.  Having nothing to go on other than a video of events happening after he was shot, it’s hard to know if a case can be made that the officer who shot him was justified in the decision.  However, regardless of if he was or not, if a traffic stop was never made, Philando Castile would be alive.    Interaction between police and civilians is inherently dangerous to both parties, and should be minimized.  There is no reason that an officer should need to pull over a driver for a broken tail light.  Safety issue?  Ok, send them a letter in the mail.  That sort of traffic stop is often used as an excuse to stop a car when the officer suspects they might find something else.  Drugs is a big issue.  Want to send police/civilian interactions way down (and stop a lot of the unjustified killings)?  End the drug war.

Obviously, I can’t say no police officer has ever killed a black man where he wouldn’t have killed a white man because he was racist.  But I don’t believe that it is a systemic problem.  Innocent people of all races are killed by police too frequently, and we need to do everything that we can to minimize that number without vilifying police officers who for the most part are doing the best they can at an extremely difficult job.

The organization Black Lives Matter is also problematic.  It is problematic for the same reason that the SJWs of the regressive left are problematic.  Under the guise of fighting racism, it segregates people into groups on the basis of race, or gender, or sexuality.

Specific activists within that community are a problem.  There are more than a few who have a clear hatred of white people.  It’s not hard to see why those people would spring up.  BLM demands that white people all admit that they are racist because, being white, they can’t help but be.  The ideology says that minorities cannot be racist, because they redefine racism to be something that only a person with “power” can be (as though all white people have great political and economic power, and no non-white person does).  When you tell someone that ALL white people are racist, and that blacks and minorities CAN’T be racist, then is it any surprise that you end up with a climate in which a black shooter kills 5 police officers and tells police that he wants to kill white people, especially white police officers?  This is the same group that chants anti-police rhetoric at their rallies.  This is the same group who interrupts and holds hostage events of even people who are ideologically on their side and demands that they be allowed to do whatever they want.

Other than private conversations with a few people, I have long been silent on how I feel about the Black Lives Matter movement.  It’s not that I don’t think black lives matter, it’s that the movement is irresponsible and often ideologically dangerous.  No, they did not encourage or condone the shooting last night, but they did, perhaps unknowingly, contribute to the climate that gave rise to it.

I love my black friends.  I would be devastated if any one of them were to die, especially if it was unjust.  But I cannot support that movement.  I will not ever admit to something that I am not (racist).  I will not agree that a minority cannot be racist (I’ve met some who are, and I’ve been hated by them on the basis of my race).

You can’t solve racism by dividing people up into groups based on their skin color.  You can’t do it by dictating that people who have white skin have nothing to contribute to the conversation.

Racism as an ideology will die out with time.  The best thing those of us who are not racist (the vast majority) can do, is to lead by example, and treat everyone as a fellow human, regardless of what they look like.

Every death is a tragedy, and every life matters.