What is Nazi Word Association?

It is a game I made up – based on the game Word Association. I made that one up too – many years ago – although I understand that others play similar games.

When you grow up an only child – which I did – you have to find ways to entertain yourself. I invented the game Word Association to help fill those lonely hours. The game can be played alone, or with others. Alcohol can make it more entertaining.

Here is how it works. Choose any two things – preferably things that are very different from each other. Then, using a process of word association, find a link between them.

For example, let’s find a link between the song “Suzie Q” and the “Queen Elizabeth.” Here goes:

Suzie Q

1) Creedence Clearwater Revival (band that covered Suzie Q)

2) Born on the Bayou (another song by Creedence)

3) Louisiana (bayou is a major geographical feature of Louisiana)

4) Deepwater Horizon (oil rig off the coast of Louisiana)

5) British Petroleum (company that leases Deepwater Horizon)

6) Great Britain (home country for British Petroleum)

7) Queen Elizabeth (Queen of Great Britain)

I am sure that there are faster ways to get from Suzie Q to Queen Elizabeth – there are many possible paths and some paths probably have fewer links. In my version of the game, however, I value pathways including unusual or creative connections. Convoluted pathways with interesting associations are preferred over short pathways with mundane associations.

So – that is Word Association – but what pray tell is Nazi Word Association?

Essentially, it is the same game – except the goal is to take any random thing and find a pathway back to Nazi or Hitler. This variation of the game was inspired in a conversation with Fakename2 over on my Paris Hilton thread – a thread in which she managed to bring up Nazis and Godwin’s Law. It set me to thinking – what is the maximum number of links required to connect any word or thing back to Nazi?

I don’t have an exact answer – but I am convinced it is in the range of “not very many.”

Believe me, I have had quite a bit of time to study the issue over the past 10 days. During that time I drove my family to Florida and back (about 18 hours each way) and stood for many hours in roller coaster lines – so I had lots of times to play little mental games to entertain myself.

Paris Hilton was the original inspiration for the game, but she is way too easy. Germany invaded France and occupied Paris in WWII. Let’s try some others instead.

How about Miley Cyrus and Nazi? Here is one possible path:

Miley Cyrus

1) Hannah Montana (character played by Cyrus)

2) Hannah Arndt (author, sharing a first name with Hannah Montana)

3) Adolph Eichmann (subject of a famous book by Arndt)

4) Nazi

Four links – including one that I would label interesting (Hannah M. to Hannah A). Not bad. We could even skip the Eichmann link since Arndt wrote many books about Nazis.

Here is a favorite: Let’s try George W. Bush to Nazi. I realize some readers will want to make the jump in one link – but I am not going to allow that. Let’s also try for a pathway with some fun links rather than just looking for the shortest path. Here is one pathway (the point system will be discussed below):

George W. Bush

1) Bush league (shared name AND a description of the Bush administration – 1 point)

2) Baseball (game from which the term “Bush League” originally arose – 2 points)

3) Baseball Bat (item used in the game of baseball – 2 points)

4) Ash (a type of wood used to make baseball bats – 2 points)

5) Hickory (another type of wood – 2 points)

6) Old Hickory (shared word – nickname of Andrew Jackson – 1 point)

7) Andrew Jackson (President and general with the nickname “Old Hickory” – 2 points)

8 ) War of 1812 (War in which Jackson was a general – 2 points)

9) 1812 Overture (classical music – though not referring to the war of 1812 – 1 point)

10) Tchaikovsky (Russian composer of the 1812 overture – 2 points)

11) Shostakovich (another Russian Composer – 2 points)

12) Shostakovich Symphony #7 (obviously composed by Shostakovich – 2 points)

13) Nazi (The Nazi invasion of Russia is the theme of the 7th symphony – 0 points)

Yeah – there are many shorter pathways available. For example, we could skip directly from Bush to Jackson based on their status as former Presidents – but doing so would have skipped some fun links. Likewise, we could have gone from 1812 Overture to Napoleon to Hitler based on their shared status as would-be world conquerors and failed invaders of Russia – but again that skips some creative stuff.

I have tried hard to come up with some type of scoring system for all of this. If we just go with the shortest pathway that would be easy – but I prefer longer pathways with creative and interesting links. Here is one possible scoring system:

Mundane link: 2 points
Moderately creative link: 1 point
Wacko creative link: 0 points

To get a final score, simply add up the point values and divide by the number of links – with the lowest score being the best. Obviously, the scoring system is entirely subjective – but hey – it’s my game!

The score for the above Bush to Nazi pathway is 1.61. It shouldn’t be hard to beat. Go for it.

Let’s do one more example. In the interests of political fairness, let’s do Barak Obama to Nazi.

Barak Obama

1) Kenya (country where some claim Obama was born – 2 points)

2) South Africa (another country in Africa – 2 points)

3) Desmond Tutu (South African political figure – 1 point)

4) Bishop (position Tutu held in the church – 2 points)

5) Chess (game featuring a bishop as a playing piece – 2 points)

6) The Seventh Seal (movie in which chess is an important plot element – 0 points)

7) Ingmar Bergman (Swedish director of the movie – 2 points)

8 ) Ingrid Bergman (Swedish actress with curiously similar name – 2 points)

9) Casablanca (film in which Ingrid Bergman starred – 2 points)

10) Nazi (Nazis are integral to the plot in Casablanca – 1 point)

Final score: 1.6

I suspect that will be easy to beat – go for it.

Again, there are lots of shorter paths available. For example, we could have jumped directly from Obama to Tutu based on both being winners of the Nobel Prize. Or, could have gone from Kenya to Morocco to Casablanca and been done with it – but that wouldn’t have been as much fun – at least to me.

For those of you looking for a deeper political message in this post, there isn’t one. It is merely the product of having too much “thinking time” on my hands.

But, do play along and enjoy the game.

Here is a challenge to get the ball rolling:

William Shakespeare to Nazi

I can do it in 3 links. Have fun!

For close to a year now I have been calling on the Tea Party movement to distance itself from the overt racists in their midst.

Here is one of my posts on the topic.

Here is another….

No – I am not trying to pump up the hit counts to my own blog posts. I am just pointing out that I have been calling out racists within the Tea Party movement for a long time.

If you read political blogs, I am sure you know the typical responses…

“We don’t oppose Obama because of his race – we oppose his policies….” (Then why didn’t you attack Bill Clinton with so much vigor – Clinton’s policies were as far left as Obama’s – perhaps even farther.)

“You can’t condemn an entire movement because of a few crazies!” (True, but the Tea Party seems to attract them by the hundreds and up until now has done nothing to distance themselves.)

“You didn’t complain when people did that to Bush!” (Ummm…. I don’t remember people saying racist things about Bush – but this is the standard comeback from the right these days…)

You are just playing the race card! Calling Obama a raghead isn’t racist… nor is depicting him as a gang member stealing purses…. nor is calling him a lyin’ African…. nor is calling him Bongo or Al Thuggy… nor is emphasizing the “otherness” of his middle name…. (yeah…. right…. whatever… )

Finally, over the last 48 hours, we have admission by the Tea Party that there are substantial racist elements within the movement. How substantial? Well, as high up as Mark Williams – founder of the Tea Party Express. You may recognize the Tea Part Express – they probably came through your hometown last summer carrying their racist signs. As of today, Williams and his Tea Party Express have been kicked out of the larger National Tea Party Federation.

The full story is here:

It would be nice to think that other conservatives – both politicians and conservative media personalities – would follow suit and condemn the overt racism. Don’t hold your breath, though. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has already refused to comment. Just wait until Limbaugh and Beck get hold of this. You can be sure that Mark Williams will be praised as some kind of hero…

All I can say is I told you so…..and it’s about time.

Ready?

Paris Hilton has never done a productive thing in her life.

OK – if I have somehow managed to snag some Paris fanboys/fangirls – I thank you for increasing my hit count. You can now leave. I am not going to debate Paris’ merits as a human being.

Seriously, what is there to debate? What has she done with her life?

Well… she made a sex tape.

Oh – I know – fans will claim that she is a model and an actress and a singer and a songwriter. Yeah. A model? The woman has the face of a llama. A singer? A songwriter? Have you actually heard any of her recordings? An actress? A few guest appearances and a publicity-stunt reality show does not an actress make.

She is a high school dropout – and lets admit it, she is just plain dumb. She seems to have absolutely no clue how dumb she is. She has gone so far as to claim that she is the “iconic blonde” of her generation – putting herself on the level of Princess Diana and Marylin Monroe.

Fortunately, most people see through this ruse. The Guinness Book of World Records has even named her Most Overrated Celebrity. To borrow a cliche, she is famous for being famous… and rich. Let;s not forget rich.

Seriously – what does she really do?

She goes to parties. She gets her picture taken by paparazzi. She plays with little rat-dogs.

Oh – and of course we have to mention the drug busts (the latest just last week – in South Africa – where she was on display at the World Cup), the DUI, the jail time.

What she really does, of course, is spend grandpa’s and great-grandpa’s money – though she has apparently been cut out of quite a bit of her inheritance, perhaps because of her bad behavior?

Believe it or not, however, the purpose of this post is not to bash Paris Hilton. I could have chosen any number of other spoiled rich kids – perhaps the Kardashians, or the kids on the MTV shows Sweet Sixteen and Teen Cribs. There is no shortage of spoiled rich kids out there.

You want to know what Paris Hilton really is?

She is a welfare queen.

I will pause a moment while you absorb that. Paris Hilton – welfare queen?

So – what is a welfare queen? The stereotype welfare queen is someone who sits around and does nothing productive and lives off of money they didn’t earn.

That certainly describes Paris – and a lot of other spoiled rich kids too. The only difference between Paris and the stereotypical welfare queen is the source of the money.

Oh – I know – some of you are already screaming that Paris’ granddaddy and great-granddaddy earned that money and it is theirs and they have every right to pass it on to their heirs…. Regardless of how badly those heirs behave. Yada yada yada. That is not the point I am trying to make.

The point I am trying to make involves work, wealth, and productivity.

Critics of our welfare system will claim that welfare recipients are unmotivated to work because they get money from the government. We call them lazy. We say derogatory things about them – beginning with the term “welfare queen” itself.

It probably true that, at least to some extent, free money does reduce the motivation to work. Theories in both Economics and Psychology predict exactly that. However, those theories will also tell you that the source of that free money doesn’t matter. People who get money without having to work for it will – surprise surprise – not work very hard. It doesn’t matter if the money comes from the government, or from your inherited trust fund.

So, Paris Hilton is really no different from a welfare queen – except some people in our society despise the welfare queen. Paris – well – some people make her a celebrity. Is she a better person? No – and by a variety of measures she might even be a worse person. But – wealth can buy a lot of popularity.

Let’s finish with some thoughts on taxes – always a favorite topic on political blogs. Conservatives commonly complain that high taxes on the rich will remove their motivation to work hard. After all – if the government is getting a big chunk of your money, what is the point of working at all? No – conservatives will tell you the rich should be allowed to become richer and richer and richer – and only that will keep them motivated to work.

Of course, that is absolutely wrong. The prospect of future wealth will perhaps motivate someone to work – but beyond that? Extreme wealth simply creates another generation of Paris Hiltons. Think about it.

What is the solution? Obviously, anything I suggest involving taxes will be condemned as socialism. So – let’s not go there at the moment. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have recently announced an initiative in which they are encouraging American billionaires to give at least half of their wealth to charity. The story is here, in case you haven’t seen it. It sounds like a good idea to me. We might have a few less Paris Hiltons to deal with – and who knows – with all that money going to charity we might have a few less stereotypical welfare queens too.

Wait…. Almost born on the Fourth of July?

Yup – that’s me. My birthday is close enough to the Fourth of July that it always ends being celebrated on the Fourth. The upside is that I typically end up getting presents from people who would otherwise forget me. The downside is that sparklers should never be used in place of candles on a birthday cake – unless you like your cake to have a fine coating of metallic dust. You can’t blow sparklers out, either.

In honor of almost being born on the Fourth of July, I am going to make an almost patriotic blog post.

Let’s start with the patriotic part. I love my country. It is a beautiful, wonderful, diverse place where freedom does indeed ring. Until such a time as Sarah Palin were to become President I wouldn’t even consider living anyplace else. We are indeed a great nation, and we should celebrate that each and every day – not just on the Fourth.

Now, please remember the above paragraph when I move on to some of the less patriotic parts below.

America is a great nation – but why is that? What is about our country that makes it so great? Think about it for a few seconds. What makes America so great?

Some people would mention our Constitution, and the wisdom of the Framers who gave us that Constitution.

Some people would mention the form of government described by that Constitution – a participatory democracy – a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

Still others would emphasize the freedom we enjoy as Americans – a freedom embodied in the words of that Constitution.

Some would claim it has been our relatively lazzie faire economic system – a system that has allowed the emergence of our strong capitalist economy and provided us with immense riches as a nation.

Finally, some would claim that it is American exceptionalism that makes us great – that there is something intrinsically different about Americans that has in turn resulted in this great nation of ours.

With the exception of the last, I agree that all of these have been contributors to American greatness. For that matter, I also believe that Americans are in general a wonderful people – though not more so than the residents of many other nations.

I would like to make a suggestion that is not included in the list above.

Geography.

In part, America has become a great nation on the basis of its geography.

As a nation, we have historically been blessed with plentiful natural resources – forests, precious metals and minerals, fertile land, wildlife – plus abundant room into which we could expand. Is it any wonder that America the Beautiful begins with:

Oh beautiful, for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties,
Above the fruited plain!

It is a celebration of our resources – the abundance with which our country is blessed.

Sadly, it is also an abundance we have come to take for granted. We have polluted our rivers and ravaged our forests. Our skis remain spacious, but above our cities those spacious skies are tinted an ugly brown haze. We have over-harvested our fisheries and at this very moment our lust for oil is destroying one of our must abundant fisheries.

As we celebrate our independence, it would be helpful for us also remember the abundance we received with that independence. That abundance has been one of the important components in our ascent to greatness. If we forget this – and continue to consume without conserving – the unhappy result will indeed be a fall from that greatness.

Let us consider another aspect of our geography – our relatively secure borders. Over our history we have been relatively free from the threat of foreign invasion. Our location in the New World made it strategically difficult for Old World powers to threaten our security, and the other New World powers were themselves in the process of developing and posed less of a threat. Compare this situation to that of Europe, which has experienced near constant warfare over the last few centuries.

Constant warfare is costly – not only in lives but in infrastructure. Major cities in Europe have been repeatedly devastated in the wars – so they are built, destroyed, rebuilt, and then destroyed again. It has been almost 150 years since the end of the American Civil War, and in that time damage to our domestic infrastructure has been a Naval base and a few blocks of buildings in New York. This is by no means to downplay the importance of Pearl Harbor or the 9/11 attacks – but it is good to remember that during the same time other nations have lost entire cities, on multiple occasions.

Rebuilding after a devastating war is costly. It is a drag on the resources of a nation and costly to their economy. We have been able to avoid such rebuilding – and in fact we have profited by helping other nations to rebuild.

We should not forget that the relative safety of our borders has been a factor in the greatness of our nation. We are a rich nation with a robust economy in part because we have not been forced to repeatedly rebuild our nation.

Here is the controversial part. I am sure some people will call me a traitor, or a communist, or question my patriotism. None of these criticisms would be fair. Remember what I said at the top: America is a wonderful place and we have a right to be proud. We have a right to celebrate its founding.

Oh yeah….. the controversial part.

Geography is largely a matter of luck.

We have been lucky to have the abundance of resources we have. We have been lucky to have a strategically secure location. To the degree that geography has contributed to our greatness, then indeed some of our greatness can be attributed to luck.

What is to be taken from this?

Recognition of our luck might give rise to a bit more humility. Indeed we were founded by group of wise people – people who fashioned a Constitution that gave us the freedom that has allowed our nation to thrive. We are rightfully proud of this. But we should also remember that some of our success is based on our fortuitous geographical location. For that we should be humble, and thankful – and we should never take it for granted.

“I have no patience for a lying propagandist like you!”

Sheesh. I particularly like that last one. Apparently I am not only a liar but a propagandist too.

I have been getting this a lot recently – accusations that political positions I take are not only wrong – but that I am actually lying when I put those positions forth.

Perhaps I misunderstand what people mean by a “lie” or what the act of “lying” entails. Hmmm…. lets page through some dictionaries…. Hmmmm…. no…. the definition of “lie” is pretty much what I though it was – a lie is a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive.

Let me emphasize it once again: Lying involves a deliberate intent to deceive.

This is my 47th blog post. I have also made several thousand comments – on my own blog and other blogs. Perhaps I am delusional, but I do not believe that I have even once made a false statement with the intent to deceive. Honesty is a core value for me – and I have on occasion been accused of being brutally honest. Feel free to disagree with what I say, but don’t call me a liar.

Oh – I most certainly can be wrong about something. In fact, know I have been wrong about things on occasion. But, being wrong about something does not mean that you are lying about something – it does not mean that you are saying something knowing it is wrong.

So often, accusations of lying don’t even involve disputed facts – they involve disputed opinions. How can an opinion be a lie?

For example, I have stated many times that I do not believe that the Bush administration had sufficient justification for invading Iraq, in the absence of WMDs. That is my opinion on the matter. You are perfectly welcome to argue against my opinion. You can say, “Au contraire, I believe that there was sufficient reason to invade Iraq….” We might even go on to have a reasonable discussion of our differences.

But you don’t get to say “You lie! Bush did too have sufficient justification!”

Feel free to disagree with my opinion, but don’t you dare call it a lie.

The “liar” accusation is a powerful rhetorical tool – but powerful in a bad way, not a good way. It immediately puts the accused on the defensive – so instead of discussing the issues the accused is forced to defend his or her personal integrity. It is a great way to aggressively shift the discussion away from the actual facts.

I need to be clear that this tactic – this rhetorical tool – is not restricted to one side of the political spectrum. People on the right do it to me – but I have seen people on my side of the aisle do it as well. I have heard some of my conservative friends complain when the tactic is used against them. It is bad either way – neither side should use it.

Political discussion in our modern era has deteriorated into a shouting match. We often fail to address the issues. Instead, we concentrate our attacks on the integrity of our opponent. Such tactics inevitably fail. Emotions are aroused, but opinions are not changed.

Perhaps we would all be better off if we could only remember the following: It is possible for two honest, well intentioned individuals to disagree on an issue and for neither of them to be lying.

Honestly, people!

By 1981 I was off to graduate school. By that time, I was a social liberal and an environmental wacko, but I was still strongly conservative on foreign policy and economics. How strongly conservative? Well, I rooted for the Hawks in virtually every military action up to and including the invasion of Iraq. On economic matters, I could spout conservative talking points with the best of them. I believed in supply-side (i.e., trickle down) economics. I would claim that people who don’t succeed economically just don’t work hard enough, and I believed that unions were merely an excuse not to work.

Mind you, these are not popular opinions in an academic environment – but I have never been shy about my opinions. I took a fair amount of heat from my professors and later from my faculty colleagues over these views. That is, heat in the form of teasing and some heated but friendly arguments. Conservatives will tell you that conservative thinkers dare not air their views on a university faculty. I can say from experience that this is not true. Never did I feel that my status on the faculty was endangered by my political views.

So – how did I manage to make the change?

One of the most difficult hurdles to overcome was the myth of the liberal media bias. Oh yes – I know I have just caused blood pressure spikes in my conservative readers – but I maintain that the liberal media bias is indeed a myth. I will need to develop that more in a future post. For now just let me concentrate on how I came to lose my belief in the bias.

Believe me, it wasn’t easy. As I mentioned back in Part I, I was raised to believe that the media was out to get conservatives – that they had conspired to take Nixon down, for example. But, I have already talked about how I was able to easily shed some of my youthful conservative beliefs. Why would it be so difficult to overcome a belief in the media bias?

Because belief in the media bias is self-perpetuating and as a result it is exceptionally resistant to change.

I have been arguing that cognitive dissonance is a mechanism that can cause change in political beliefs. I grew up with homophobic beliefs I learned in my family, but all I had to do was actually meet some gay people to recognize that my homophobic beliefs were false. Simple, is it not?

It isn’t so simple with the media bias. I grew up believing that the media was biased to the left. What type of experiences could I have that might disprove this belief? What new information might create cognitive dissonance? It is difficult to think of any. For example, suppose I believed that the US is doing a good job in Iraq. I don’t have any direct, personal knowledge about what is going on in Iraq. All of my information about Iraq comes from the media. If I hear a news story that the US is screwing up in Iraq, I can simply disregard this as an example of liberal bias. My belief in media bias inoculates me against any disconfirming information.

So, how did I overcome my belief in the liberal media bias?

First, I made an interesting observation. As a child, when I moved in conservative circles, all I heard about was the leftward bias. As I began my academic career, and I began to move in more liberal circles, I discovered that liberals complain about a conservative media bias. Remember, this is before the days of FOX and MSNBC. I am talking about a supposed conservative media bias at CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS.

This observation leads to an interesting conclusion: If conservatives complain the media is biased to the left, and liberals complain the media is biased to the right, it probably indicates that the media sits pretty close to center. If both sides are complaining there is good reason to suspect the truth lies somewhere in-between.

Once one realizes that the media is relatively unbiased, it opens the door for critical thinking. To come to rational conclusions about world events it really is necessary to read materials from a wide variety of views without having a knee-jerk reaction to any of them. If you do so – and indeed this is what I try to do myself – it is possible to come to some rational conclusions based on critical thinking. Indeed, some of those conclusions might entail a bias of one kind or another – but an honest critical thinking process will allow you to identify your own biases and see the weaknesses in your own arguments.

All of the above might explain my move toward becoming a moderate – but it does not necessarily explain a move to becoming a liberal. Or perhaps it does. I do believe that reading widely from broadly-selected sources does result in a wider world view. A broader world view, in turn, tends to move one in a liberal direction. Liberals are more likely to embrace a multidimensional view of the world. Conservatives are more likely to embrace a unidimensional view.

I realize I have probably just insulted some of my conservative friends. No insult is intended – but I do stand by the characterization. Conservatives are likely, for example, to embrace an ultra-patriotic “Our system of government is superior to all others and America is always right” view of the world. Liberals, on the other hand, are more likely to recognize that the rest of the world can at least occasionally have a good point. This does not mean we aren’t patriotic and don’t love our country – we most certainly do – but it does mean that we should listen to what others have to say.

The above analysis also provides a partial retort to the conservative claim that students are indoctrinated in college. Students are not indoctrinated. Instead, they are encouraged to read widely and consider ideas contrary to their accepted beliefs. Wide reading and critical thinking can result in a broader world view – which tends to favor liberal ideas.

It is still hard to believe, though, that wide reading and critical thinking alone could push me all the way to liberal. No – something else is probably required. In my case, it involves a series of what I consider to be offensive moves taken by the right wing. Not everyone will be equally offended by these – but it really doesn’t matter. The fact is that I was offended and it was enough to push my overall worldview to the left.

There are dozens of examples I could cite, but that would probably take a few more chapters. I will only discuss a few.

I hate being lied to. Yes, I know, all politicians tell lies and all politicians shade the truth. I am sure many of you can shower me with examples of lies Obama has supposedly told. Still, when a politician lies, it is rare that we can know absolutely for certain that it is a lie because we are not privy to objective information.

Sometimes, however, a lie is so personal that you absolutely KNOW it is a lie – and such instances are particularly offensive.

Sometime in about 1991 I was driving along, listening to talk radio on a Chicago station. It wasn’t even a conservative talk show – but the guest on the show was one of those “the government is wasting your money” budget cutters. The guy was a political aide for a conservative senator. He had a brand new spit- polished poli-sci degree from the University of Illinois and had moved directly into his job in DC. Anyway, I wasn’t listening too closely until I suddenly realized that the guy was criticizing the research of a good friend of mine. He wasn’t just criticizing it – he was ripping it to shreds. Of course, he was ripping it by mischaracterizing it. He had absolutely no idea what the research was really about, but was perfectly happy to make fun of it and call it “worthless.” He was criticizing the work of a highly esteemed scientist – but that didn’t matter. The radio audience would never know.

So, for the first and only time in my life I called into talk radio – and I got right onto the air. I was really curious. At that time I was six years past my Ph.D. and I was just beginning to be confident enough to critique the research published in my specialty area. How did this guy – one year past an undergraduate degree with no specialized training in the field – have anything close to the knowledge necessary to evaluate the research? He didn’t of course, – but instead of answering my line was cut off and listeners were told “see – there is another of those professors justifying the theft of your money….”

Lesson learned – don’t call talk radio and expect a fair hearing. I suspect that others are not as offended about this as I am. Try to imagine, though, a situation in which you hear a politician make a boldface lie in a public forum – a lie you know to be such from direct personal experience, and a lie that is an attack at the very core of what you do. If you can imagine that, you will have some idea of how I felt.

I hate being lied to, and I particularly don’t like lies that kill people.

The Reagan administration’s reaction to the AIDS crisis is one such example. AIDS is a particularly insidious infection because you can be for infected years before showing symptoms. As a result, the infection spread quickly in the early days of the epidemic (the early 1980s), before anyone even knew there was an epidemic. But, eventually scientists and physicians did realize that something was up – and they did the logical thing: They requested money from the government to combat the epidemic.

How did the Reagan administration respond? Remember, these were the prime years of Reagan budget cuts accompanied by tax breaks for the rich. At first the administration ignored the epidemic altogether. It was 1987 before Reagan spoke publically about the epidemic. Meanwhile, administration officials were claiming that AIDS was their top priority – while simultaneously refusing to fund AIDS-related research. As a result, identification of the virus and development of treatments was delayed for years. It is safe to say that tens of thousands – even millions – have died as a result of this delay. But its ok – they were just homosexuals, right? For more information on the failure by the Reagan administration (and others) to respond to the AIDS crisis, you should read Randy Shilts excellent book And the Band Played On.

I hate being lied too, and I particularly don’t like lies that kill people…. which brings us to the second Gulf War.

I said at the top, I supported the invasion of Iraq. I believed that WMDs in the hands of Saddam Hussein were indeed a threat so serious that an invasion was warranted. Other things Saddam was doing were indeed distasteful – but I did not believe them severe enough to justify an invasion. I also believed that the WMDs were there. Seriously – the Bush administration couldn’t be so stupid as to invade a sovereign nation unless we knew absolutely and for certain that there were WMDs and knew exactly where they were. Certainly they couldn’t be so stupid.

Of course, as it turns out, they were so stupid. There were no WMDs. Thousands of US soldiers have died or been maimed – not to mention the tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis killed in the bombings – all of it because of a lie.

I know the response I will get – I have heard it before. “It wasn’t a lie” people will scream “we really thought the weapons were there!”

I have two responses.

First, you do not invade a sovereign nation unless you are absolutely certain that the grounds for your invasion are valid. We were far from absolutely certain.

Second, there is now substantial evidence that Bush was told there were no WMDs prior to the invasion, and he chose to ignore that information. Statements by various administration officials, including Deputy Director of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, suggest that the decision to invade Iraq was made first, with WMDs becoming important only as a means to gain public support.

It has been said many times: Bush lied, and people died.

Lies about the Iraq invasion are perhaps particularly troublesome for me because I publically supported the invasion. Believe me – this is not an easy thing to do on a University campus. In fact, at the time of the invasion I believe I was the only faculty member on campus willing to openly support invasion. I put my ass on the line supporting Bush – and took a fair amount of heat for it. He lied to me. He used me. That is hard to forgive.

The Iraq invasion and its aftermath were the final straw. I finally stopped calling myself a moderate and embraced the liberal label. I voted for Kerry in 2004 – the first time I had ever voted for the Democratic nominee. (Lest you get the wrong idea, I voted for Nader in 2000 – but it was a protest vote against what I considered to be two very poor candidates. Thus, I do not have Bush II on my soul).

In retrospect, while it is true that my political views moved leftward from 1976 through 2004, this isn’t the entire story. It is also apparent that the center moved rightward – right out from under my feet. What were once considered moderate positions are now considered “Socialist” or “Marxist” ideas. A moderate and intelligent Republican like David Frum is now considered a RINO by the new right. I am amazed at how often I am now labeled a socialist or a Marxist – often by people who would not be able to define the terms. That would not have occurred 10 years ago. Now, Palin and Limbaugh and Bech and Pravda-FOX are redefining the vocabulary. Yes – I have moved to the left – but the center has also shifted.

As I close, here is an interesting question for me to contemplate. Am I stuck where I am, or will there be additional movement in the future? Could I ever head back to the right?

I don’t know. I would certainly move back toward the right if Obama and other Democrats actually started acting like socialists – if they tried to nationalize Boeing or Microsoft of the airline industry. Yeah – that might send me to the right – but I don’t expect it will happen.

Still, an interesting question, yes?

Perhaps I will write an update in 10 years or so and assess things again. I suspect that there will be some surprises.

When we last met out intrepid hero (me), he had survived a childhood in which he learned that Liberals and Democrats were evil, stupid and dishonest – a bunch of cheaters who were stooges of the Soviet Union, determined to destroy this great nation of ours. That was all before he reached the age of 16.

How does one go from being a strong conservative at age 16 to being a raging liberal at age 46? How can so much change occur in a mere 30 years?

If I had to summarize it in one word, it would be experiences. I could go on at length about philosophical empiricism, and its prediction that all of our ideas emerge out of the experiences we have. But, that is an academic discussion for another day – and frankly you will be happy if I never get there.

It was my familial experiences that led me to be a conservative at age 16. Different, more diverse experiences gradually led me away. It didn’t happen overnight. In fact, it did take something like 30 years to arrive where I am now.

What was my first liberal attitude?

Rabid Environmentalism. The first liberal attitude I acquired was that of enviro-wacko-tree-hugger.

I have made the claim above that it is all about experience – that our attitudes develop and our thinking is shaped by experience. What experiences led me to be a tree-hugger? What people or organizations most influenced me?

I bet you can’t guess what organization was the first to set me on my course to becoming an environmental wacko?

The Boy Scouts of America.

Ok, to be fair, it was the Boy Scouts and my father.

You didn’t guess, did you? It seems absurd – after all the Boy Scouts are a paramilitary organization that preaches conservative values. Well, that isn’t entirely true. The Scouts also preach conservation and a love of nature.

Seattle is a physically beautiful city, with even more spectacular natural beauty to be found less than an hour’s drive from town. My father was an avid outdoorsman, so he had me hiking and skiing and exploring the region’s natural beauty from the time I was able to walk. The Scouts took me even further afield – on week-long trips into the backcountry – trips on which we were urged to take only photographs and leave nothing behind but your footprints.

Cognitive Psychology tells that olfactory memories (those involving the sense of smell) are long lasting, persistent, and often emotionally intense. This is certainly true for me. There is nothing so powerful as cool, crisp mountain air, subtly infused with the scent of wildflowers. It is the smell of nature.

It was in the mountains of Washington State that I first experienced such exceptional natural beauty – juxtaposed with exceptional ugliness that man could create. Have you ever seen a clearcut? If not, here is what one looks like.

It is an area in which the logging industry has removed virtually every tree, leaving nothing but stumps and scrub brush.

Imagine that you are hiking through an area of old-growth forest – the narrow trail winding its way through a magnificent stand of trees – reaching as far as you can see into the sky and literally blocking out the sun. You turn a corner in the trail and it is suddenly it is much brighter, and the magnificent trees are replaced by ugly stumps. Man has met nature and nature has lost. It will be hundreds of years before that forest has recovered its former glory.

If you come back next year even more of your trail is likely to be gone.

And for what?

Oh – it has been explained to me many times – how those clear cuts were an economic necessity, that the loggers needed jobs, that we needed wood so we could build things, so we could progress – not to mention sell it to Japan at a tidy profit. Oh, and to allow fat cat executives from Weyerhauser to have an extra mansion or so.

I don’t care about the jobs and the progress and most certainly I don’t care about the Weyerhauser execs. Nature is priceless. It is a thing to be preserved.

OK, I admit it. That was emotional and irrational. So what if my environmentalism is emotional and irrational? My attitudes are what they are.

Of course, I could also mention that preservation of old growth forest is a critical part of the solution to global warming – and that concept is most certainly not emotional and irrational. But, I didn’t know about global warming when I was 16. When I was 16, the sheer beauty of nature was all that mattered.

And thus, I became an environmental-wacko-tree-hugger. Call it irrational and crazy and emotional, but it is what it is.

So, off to college I went, an ultra-conservative tree hugger. That was the Fall of 1976. It was an election year – and my first chance to vote in a Presidential election. Jimmy Carter was running against Gerald Ford, with the Republican John Anderson running as an independent candidate. I voted for Anderson – but I rooted for Ford. I stayed up late on the night of the election, finally going to bed depressed when Ford conceded. On my way upstairs to my room I posted a note on the bulletin board. It said: I hope that America is still here in four years to correct the mistake we have made tonight. It was almost cute in its naivety.

It was the first of six consecutive elections in which I voted for a Republican. I am not sure that I have ever admitted that in public before. Some old friends will be shocked.

That is not to say that my political views were not shifting. They were – it is just that my voting behavior lagged a bit behind.

College is certainly a formative time – a life-changing experience for many students. Conventional conservative wisdom will tell you that this is because students in college are indoctrinated by a bunch of ultra-left-wing Marxist professors. Indeed, many students become more liberal during college, but I maintain that it isn’t because of any indoctrination.

It is because of exposure to diversity – diversity of peoples and cultures and ideas. In college you are exposed to a huge assortment of people holding a myriad of different beliefs.. In college you learn that the world is a much bigger and much more complex place than you had ever imagined. Some of this you discover via books and in the classroom – but even more of it you discover by interacting with new people – professors and fellow students, all of whom bring in entirely new outlooks on life.

In Psychology we have a concept called cognitive dissonance. I suspect you have heard of it before – the concept has made its way into popular culture. Cognitive dissonance occurs when you attempt to hold two mutually exclusive attitudes. Cognitive dissonance is a very uncomfortable thing – and the typical result is that you end up changing one or both attitudes.

Imagine the cognitive dissonance that might be experienced by an ultra conservative (yet tree hugging) 18-year-old in the first weeks of college. All of your life you have learned conservative principles – but now that you are experiencing some diversity – well – none of it quite fits. There is that kid from California down the hall who plays guitar and who you enjoy playing music with – and yeah – his ideas are well to the left of anything you have experienced before – but damn – the music is fun. There is that black guy who is an RA and damn is he funny…. And then there are all of those crazy Hawaiians who talk surfing and smoke lots of weed and light farts and call you (affectionately) fuck’in haoli.

It isn’t about professors indoctrinating you. It is about opening your eyes and seeing that here is more to the world than you had ever thought. A conservative kid can hold to the orthodox views with which he was raised, and reject his new experiences as somehow evil and perverted. Or, the conservative kid can open his eyes and question those orthodox views.

Thankfully, I took the later route.

There were lots of cognitive mini-dissonances in my college years. There was one cognitive mega-dissonance.

During my sophomore year, I had developed a strong friendship with a guy from down the hall in my dorm. We had similar interests – particularly hiking and camping. Plus, we had several classes together. The friendship developed quickly and naturally, and before to long we were spending much of our free time together. In fact, it was one of the closest friendships I had ever developed. We made plans to be roommates during our Junior year.

I didn’t see much of my friend during the summer – we lived far enough apart and had different work schedules, and these were the days before email and twitter and cell phones and all of the easy ways that kids can keep up with each other now. Every time we did talk things seemed to be pretty normal. Thus, I was shocked when, two weeks before the start of the semester, I received a letter from him telling me he wasn’t coming back to college, and what’s more, he was gay.

If you are younger than I am, you have to understand something about the times. In those days, gay people were rarely out of the closet. Thankfully, things are different today – my teenage daughter has a dozen or so gay friends – all comfortably out of the closet. By comparison, here I was entering my third year of college and I was experiencing the word “gay” modifying “friend” for the very first time in my life. It wasn’t so much that I was homophobic. I was just shocked and didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know anything about gay people – all I had were the stereotypes I had learned in childhood.

Cognitive MEGA-dissonance.

I had always been told that gay people were weird, bizarre, disgusting abominations….

Yet, one of my very best friends is gay.

Some type of attitude change had to occur. Thankfully, it was my attitude toward homosexuality that changed, rather than my opinion of my friend.

He and I lost track of each other in the year that followed – this was in the time before Facebook when losing somebody was easy to do. I have always wondered what happened to him – and have secretly feared he is dead. He first came out during those terrible years when AIDs was spreading through the gay community but nobody knew it yet.

That is how I became a social liberal. It required an experience of tremendous cognitive dissonance. It required coming to terms with two irreconcilable ideas: a conventional belief that homosexuality was some kind of abomination, and my belief that my friend was a damned good guy and an exemplar of everything that friendship is supposed to mean.

I chose the later – and a social liberal was born.

But, I wasn’t all the way there yet. Sure, when I graduated from college I was a enviro-wacko-tree hugger, and in Shaun Penn’s words I was a homo-loving social liberal. But I still had five more elections of voting Republican before I would lose my economic and foreign policy conservatism.

This is already too long, so that will have to wait until the next chapter….

(to be continued)

I used to be a conservative.

I am now a liberal.

This is my story.

To be honest, this article may not be of interest to anyone but me. It describes changes in my political views that have occurred over the course of 40 years or so. There may or may not be some insights in here – insights that might apply to politics in general. Regardless, I feel the need to write this – partly because I want to get some of it off my chest, but also because I increasingly find myself having to defend my peculiar political trajectory.

Birth of a Conservative

Conservatives are born, not made…..

I suspect I would have difficulty backing that statement up – but in my case it applies. I was a conservative in my younger days because I was born into a conservative family, lived in a conservative neighborhood, played with conservative children, and went to conservative schools. I would be unusual – perhaps even inexplicable – if I had started out any other way.

When I say I was born into a conservative family, I mean a very conservative family – in fact a very conservative military family. My grandfather and great uncle were Annapolis grads and had both retired as Admirals. My mother was in Honolulu when Pearl Harbor was bombed, and later met my father (a Naval Reserve officer) there. I don’t need to go into details on my family military background (I have written about it here) – but I do want to establish that I grew up in a family with conservative military values.

I also grew up in a conservative neighborhood – a wealthy suburb of Seattle. To give some perspective, the house I grew up in is about a mile from where Bill Gates now lives, and the church I attended as a child is the one now attended by Melinda Gates. I am not trying to brag – it is what it is. In fact, my parents were far from wealthy – they had moved to the neighborhood when it was a cheap place to live out in the country. The suburb grew up around them.

Of course, there is also the conservative school – a conservative white school. Although Seattle had a substantial minority population, they didn’t live where I lived. In fact, the only black kids in my school were the children of basketball star Lenny Wilkens.

My father was a moderate conservative – very conservative on economic and military issues but more moderate on social issues. I suspect he would have been called a RINO in today’s political environment. My mother, by comparison, was a raving Southern conservative. I can’t really think of a single liberal position she held. She also had the louder political voice in the family (my father would roll his eyes when she took to ranting) – so she established the political environment in the home.

And so, I grew up with all of the archetypal conservative stories… how Joe McCarthy was a hero, how Kennedy had stolen the 1960 election, how the press hated Nixon because of Nixon’s treatment of Alger Hiss. In fact, the press in general were just a bunch of liberal apologists. One of my most vivid childhood memories is of sitting with my mother, watching the Watergate hearings and seeing her throwing things at the TV every time something was said against Nixon. Later, she and I cried together when Nixon resigned.

Is it a surprising that, growing up in a conservative house, I inherited and assimilated conservative values? It isn’t surprising at all. It would be almost inexplicable had I not taken on those values as my own. But I need to emphasize the strength of those values a bit.

I wasn’t just taught that the Republican position was stronger than that of Democrats. I was taught that Democrats were evil, stupid, and dishonest. I was taught that they were nothing but liars and cheaters who wanted nothing more than to bring down our nation. They were un-American.

Some irony: In the 10+ months I have been blogging I have been called all of these things, or worse. Apparently modern conservatives haven’t changed much in their attitudes toward liberals.

Some additional irony: It is the strength of the negativity with which I was raised that eventually enabled me to eventually lose these values as I grew older and matured.

(To be continued)

An offer he can’t refuse.

A classic line from a classic movie.

To be honest, an over-used classic line from a classic movie.

In the process of searching for the clip above, I discovered dozens of articles incorporating the line into their title. I am going to add one more here because I already had this written and I am not going to start over from scratch.

An offer he can’t refuse.

By now, we all know that last week President Obama negotiated an agreement with British Petroleum to set aside 20 billion dollars as a proactive fund from which reparations for the gulf oil disaster might be paid.

It was a brilliant move on Obama’s part. History tells us what would happen if Obama had not obtained the money up-front. The Exxon Valdez spill – tiny in comparison to the current spill in the gulf – occurred in March of 1989. How long did it take for reparations to be paid in that case? Ahhh…. It is a trick question. The case is still in court.

Is that what we want to see happen in the gulf? Do we want to see payments delayed for decades as BP uses every available legal tactic to delay paying for the damage it has done?

The answer seems obvious. Of course it is better to get the payment up front.

Obvious, of course, to everyone except conservatives, the lap dogs of big oil.

If you follow political blogs you will know what I am talking about. Cries of Obama’s “unconstitutional shakedown” abound.

Unconstitutional? Seriously?

I will grant you one thing. The constitution does not give the President the power to confiscate money from a private corporation. In fact, protection of due process and provisions against unlawful seizure clearly protect corporations from having their funds confiscated.

So, here is the question nobody seems to be talking about. If Obama does not have the constitutional power to seize assets – then how did he manage to do it? How did he manage to get BP to go along? Why didn’t BP just say “No, sorry, see you in court….”

Because he made them an offer they couldn’t refuse – and thank goodness he had the guts to do so.

We don’t know what went on behind those closed doors. We may never know. I think it is safe to guess, though, that BP was presented with some options. They were told to set aside the 20 billion, or there would be consequences. Perhaps there would be criminal litigation. Perhaps BPs existing drilling contracts would be reviewed. Perhaps no new contracts would be written. Whatever was on the table, the evidence suggests that setting aside the 20 billion was a better alternative for BP than whatever else was on the table.

I can sense that some of my right-wing friends are already snickering. They love to claim that President Obama is merely a thug – that he engages in the heavy-handed and brutal street politics for which Chicago is famous. They will claim that I have played right into their hands when by invoking The Godfather.

Cut the BS. Or, more precisely, quit playing petty politics.

What Obama has done would be considered “tough negotiation” if done by someone on the right. It is only called “thuggish” when the opposition does it. I never cease to be amazed at the way the right-wing can spin an Obama victory into something unsavory. They complain that he does nothing, but when he does something they complain too.

I guess that is just the way we play politics – petty.

I have one additional twist on this story.

Obama’s critics are quick to note that he can engage in tough negotiations with a private corporation – but refuses to do so with our enemies, like Iran. They wonder why he is so willing to go toe to toe with Heyworth but not with Ahmadinejad. Perhaps, they suggest, it is because Obama is a secret Muslim?

Let’s go back to The Godfather. Why was Don Corleone able to make that unrefusable offer? Because he had Luca Brassi standing there holding the gun. You can only make the unrefusable offer if you have the ability to back it up.

In negotiations with BP, Obama had the gun in his hand. He could make his offer stick because he had the ability to back it up.

It is a lot harder to deal with Iran because we don’t hold the gun. We don’t have the ability to project much power in the region. We can’t make unrefusable offers because we squandered what little influence we had in the region to begin with.

But, that is a story for another day.