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So Naive

Entry 2107, on 2021-02-10 at 21:31:35 (Rating 4, Politics)

Sometimes I forget that many people aren't rational, and take themselves far too seriously. I also forget that some people cannot treat a political discussion or debate in a resonable way, and take it all personally, or refuse to even consider any perspectives which vary from their existing ideas.

Back in the day there was a rule of social etiquette which stated something like: never discuss politics, money, or sex in polite company. There was a good reason for that rule at the time, but some people don't seem to have moved on.

As you have probably guessed by now, this introduction pertains to a specific incident in my life recently. I was visiting a friend to help him with a computer problem and I noticed that his wife was reading Obama's autobiography, "Barack Obama". So I asked her what it was like, because I have considered reading it myself, and she said something like "it's very good; he was a great leader, and he reveals how evil the Republics are; they only care about being re-elected and aren't interested in really improving anything."

Many people would have just let this pass, but I think this attitude is the source of many of today's biggest problems, so I decided to ignore the rule above and said "most of the Republicans believe they are doing the right thing; they just have a different way than the Democrats to achieve what they think is best. You shouldn't believe everything you read in a book written by a politician."

Now any reasonable person might hear that comment and think that I'm making a valid point. Obama was a politician, and his activism is still present even after he finished that role. He is hardly likely to be entirely unbiased when it comes to his opinions about the opposition party. Additionally, political division is very obvious in the US at the moment, so extreme, rhetorical, and high biased opinions of a person's opponents are to be expected.

But apparently that was not appreciated. She rejected my suspicions and implied that everything in the book was trustworthy, and that it really was as simple as the Democrats working for the good of the country and the Republicans just being malicious manipulators of the system for their own benefit.

When I said "you should be careful of what any politician says; in most cases it will be exaggerated or biased in other ways" she asked "so why should I believe you?" I said, "I'm not a politician", but at that stage she had had enough and stomped off.

There are several web sites which check the accuracy of statements made by politicians and I have used them in the past to check comments from various public figures. Needless to say, a large proportion of Trump's comments are "inaccurate", but a surprising number of Obama's are too. His ratio of true to false statements is better than Trump's, but not by as much as you might think, and he certainly can't be fully trusted.

So anyone who reads Obama's book (or a book by any other politician) and works on the assumption that everything there is fair and accurate is likely to finish the book in a position where they are probably worse informed than when they started.

I should say that it is possible that Obama decided to make the book as accurate as possible, and moved on from his misleading and untrue statements from the past, but I think that is very unlikely. If I read the book myself I will definitely be doing some fact checking along the way!

To finish this post, I want to briefly discuss the idea that some politicians or parties are inherently evil. In almost every case I really think that politicians are trying to do what they think is right, but obviously there are deliberate actions, which they should know are wrong, where political expediency dictates that they must do things which are suspect at best.

For example, supporting new laws which give an advantage to campaign donors happens on both sides in the US. Even then, the politicians involved have probably justified it to themselves by saying something like "this law helps my donor, but it is good for the country too, so I should support it".

So it is possible for two parties to have contrary views on an issue and for both of them to be fully justified in thinking they are doing the right thing. It's not as simple as good versus bad, at least not in most cases.

As an example, let's take one of the most controversial political issues: abortion. One side could think they are taking the moral side by saying that they want to give women the right to control their own lives, but conversely you could say that the unborn child deserves to be protected as well. Which of those is the more moral argument? I don't know, because I vacillate on this issue. Currently I think the anti-abortion view might actually be more moral. But even if you disagree, you should at least acknowledge that there are two sides to this debate, and that there is nothing evil about being on the side which opposes yours.

And this same problem exists for so many other issues too, such as whether affirmative action is a moral response (currently I say it isn't), whether free markets should be encouraged or central control is better (I say we need a bit of both), and whether military intervention is justified in foreign conflicts (I say sometimes, but be very careful about how it is used).

So you can see that many of the policies which might be more associated with the Republicans have a lot of merit in my opinion, even though I tend to identify more with moderately left politics. But I am a thinking voter and I know that all sides in modern democracies have some good and some bad ideas, and none of them should have their policies written off because they are "evil", especially just because an opposition politician says so. That is height of naivety, and it makes a mockery of the democratic process.

Finally, I have used the situation in the US as the basis for this post, because of the book being about a US ex-president, but I'm sure the same attitude applies elsewhere - probably to a lesser extent because the dichotomy between parties is less severe in most other countries. In fact, I have debated the merits of New Zealand's prime minister with this same person, and she has a similar attitude there. So naive!

Comment 1 (6330) by Jim on 2021-02-16 at 13:10:07:

Did you write the first paragraph about yourself?!

Comment 2 (6331) by OJB on 2021-02-16 at 15:25:00:

Not deliberately! Maybe I was projecting. I do try to show both sides and try to find a view which is not at the extremes. Do I always succeed? Probably not, but I hope I do better than most.

Comment 3 (6334) by Anonymous on 2021-02-18 at 12:59:36:

Yeah, first paragraph is either really arrogant, or deliberately provocative. You can engage in discussion without lobbing hand grenades you know...

Comment 4 (6335) by OJB on 2021-02-18 at 16:16:28:

I made a statement on what I consider true. I didn't try to smear a particular group with that criticism, because it happens everywhere. And sure, I am a bit arrogant, and I do engage in a certain amount of provocation. This is a blog, not an academic paper. I try to be a little bit controversial; it's more fun that way!

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