Our Problem is

We have the attention spans of goldfish. If something is broadcast that confirms our beliefs or our suspicions we accept it without further thought. Actually investigating the basis for our beliefs and opinions risks disconfirmation, something we are ill-equipped to deal with.

The case in point is the Liberal/Moderate contempt for the Fox News network and it's viewers:

Are Fox News Viewers Misinformed?

This is a great example of:

Are Fox News Viewers Misinformed?

This is a great example of how the internet undermines the biased academic class.



Via Roger Ho.

(Via Lex Communis.)

Thought and Prejudice

In this instance I'm struck by the reflexive approval of most, if not all, things homosexual. When I started on a reasoned argument (rant) about why homosexual unions should not be elevated to equality with marriage, my daughters, bless them, were embarrassed and demanded we stop talking about the subject. It didn't help this was in a public place (a restaurant for Sunday Brunch).

Their aversion to disagreements with the homosexual agenda puzzles me. They have or are getting a University education. Shouldn't reasoned disagreement be the heart and soul of their intellectual life? Even if they strongly disagree with me, I'm wanting reasoned arguments and facts. They seem to recognize no value to these things independent of achieving the results they have chosen to endorse. Is this how far the intellectual rigour has fallen at Universities?

Ok, rant mode off. Here is an interesting article about how research itself is produced and disseminated in a doctrinaire fashion to promote the ideology of the day:

Who could possibly have predicted this?:

Research showing the risks of lesbian and gay parenting is ignored in the race to make a political case

(Via Catholic and Enjoying It!.)

Abortion and Economics

The other night a friend mentioned the Freakonomics hypothesis that Roe v. Wade had led to a decrease in the crime rate. The idea is that crime comes from the poor and abortions tend to reduce the number of the poor, ergo a decrease in the crime rate.

I couldn't remember the details on that one, but I did suggest a counter example: the decrease in the population from abortions may be having a devastating impact on our economy. Lo and behold:

Researcher: Abortion is $38.5 Trillion Drag on the Economy:

In its latest estimate on the economic impact of abortion, the Movement for a Better America is reporting that the abortion toll is projected to climb to a new high of 52,333,000 as of January 22, 2010, the 37th anniversary of Roe V. Wade.

Read the whole thing.

(Via Catholic Exchange.)

Economics 100

One of my many deficits is in Economics. The basic courses were always on my Gee-If-Only-I-Could list, never quite making it into whatever working plan I had at the time. Indeed, my oldest is taking the Microeconomics introductory course now. So are the ten propositions almost all Economists agree on prepared for in these intro courses?

RealClearMarkets - 10 Things Economists Believe:

10 Things Economists Believe

Read the whole thing.

(Via Campaign Standard.)

Are the People Who Got Us Into This Recession

giving advice on how to get back out? If so, should we be really trusting them all that much?

You'd Think We'd Learn from Japan...:

...but it appears we haven't:

The Japanese tried every trick in the Keynesian playbook. Zero interest rates, public works projects tax rebates and tax decreases.

Read the whole thing.

(Via Video meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor.)

Small is Beautiful

The dominance of big governments, big corporations, big unions (don't get me wrong--I'm a strong unionist; I just prefer small unions) and big science is driving the decline of democracy. Distributism is one attempt to avoid the twin perils of Socialism and Capitalism.

Here is an introduction to the concepts involved:

InsideCatholic.com - Capitalist? Socialist? Distributist.: Small is beautiful. Or, the bigger the business, the bigger the bailout.
 
Congress has promised over $1 trillion from our hands to "rescue" gargantuan businesses. When corporations demand the largest free ride in our history, it's time to rethink economies of scale. Socialism is a silly solution -- there, everything becomes one gargantuan business. We need a real solution: distributism.
 
As G. K. Chesterton wrote, "the cure for centralization is decentralization. It has been described as a paradox." In contrast to both socialism and capitalism, distributism aims for a wide distribution of private property. G. K.'s brother Cecil explained:
 
[A Socialist] desires the means of production to be the property of the community and to be administered by its political officers. A Distributist . . . desires that they should, generally speaking, remain private property, but that their ownership should be so distributed that the determining mass of families -- ideally every family -- should have an efficient share therein. That is Distributism, and nothing else is Distributism.
 

Read the whole thing...

(Via Catholic and Enjoying It.)

China

Not the kind you get out for Thanksgiving Dinner. (Felicitations to our American friends who are about to celebrate.) Rather the country and it's future: bleak. Try growing an economy while the population shrinks: can't be done over the medium and long-term. This has been an observation of mine for years (as my poor, harassed daughters will attest). This article was an excuse to renew the assertion here.

I'm getting the usual pre-test jitters (Mid-Term #2). I'll try to get through the paralysis and do creditably well on Monday. Anyway, that's the excuse for the lull in blogging.

The two issues to be dealt with on the mid-term are Abortion and Euthanasia, as my readers no doubt have noticed. I'm at least better prepared than the average fresh-out-of-high-school classmate, in that I've done reading and thinking about these topics for some decades. But formulating and properly critiquing arguments to a freshman standard is a challenge. But that's the point of an education, right? (To be intellectually challenged, I mean.)

Who Reads More?

Professor Miller of First Things considers a NYT article [log-in required] that effectively praises the price-controls on books in Germany. Miller argues that freer markets better serve the general reading public, even if publishers thereby publish fewer books. (And, thus, criticizing the NYT author's argument.

It's interesting that he uses the parallel of the now largely unregulated air travel industry as an example of good things happening for the consumers. It just reminded me of how unhappy some of the airline employees are now, feeling that their jobs have been degraded in pursuit of the bottom-line lowest price.

In any case, the title question has some ambiguity in it. Apparently there are more books published in Germany than in the U.S., even though the U.S. has four times the population. So do Germans read more than Americans? Or do some Germans (the relatively wealthy) skew the publishing numbers because the effective cartel-pricing imposed by the government, causes competition in otherwise more expensive titles?

Trouble is, I'm still wrestling with some of the pro-abortion arguments. And today we started grappling with euthanasia arguments. No room in this old-style processor for so much input. But it is intriguing.