Politics and Politicians
Part One
When The Owl was in college, there was a course called Logic. Here’s a compilation of descriptions of Logic that The Owl found on the internet:
“Logic is the study of argument. College logic is a contemporary name for Logic presented as a pedagogic subject, in a tradition that goes back two millennia. In Logic courses you learn how to formalize information and reason systematically to produce logical conclusions. Logic is one of the oldest intellectual disciplines in human history. It dates back to the times of Aristotle. It has been studied through the centuries. Logic shows how to reason systematically with information to produce all logical conclusions and only logical conclusions.”
Being a logical person, this subject appealed to The Owl. There was a book that was required reading for the course. At the beginning of the book, in the first chapter, there were “riddles” that were exercises in logical thinking. The very first riddle was similar to the below:
“You live in a country that has politicians and non-politicians. In this country, all politicians lie and all non-politicians tell the truth. You are walking down a road on your way to the Emerald City when you come to a fork in the road. One road emanating from the fork in the road goes to the Emerald City; the other goes to a country with crazed cannibals. At the fork there are two people: one is a politician and one is a non-politician. You don’t know which way to go. You can only ask one of the people which way to go. You don’t know which person is a politician and which one isn’t (i.e., you can’t reliably ask the non-politician). What question do you ask only one person that will tell you the right way to go regardless of which person you ask?” (Answer at the end of this post!)
Although this is a riddle in a Logic book, it is subliminally revealing about what people generally think of politicians. They always lie.
Unfortunately, what The Owl found out from personal experience over 50 years is, the Logic book is correct. No matter how honest you think a politician is, they all lie. The Owl came to the opinion that you should never trust a politician. They are pathological liars.
The Owl interfaced with politicians in four states in which The Owl has lived. The Owl personally caught politicians lying, although there was generally nothing you could do about it because, well, they are politicians and have more power and influence than you do.
There are plenty of examples you can find in the news. Presidents lie, Presidential candidates lie, Governors lie, Mayors lie. The politicians and government officials in Flint Michigan lied about the water.
It’s so pervasive regarding politicians lying that it made the Logic book! How many times have you heard politicians who have been called out for something nefarious say that whatever it is never happened and then eventually confess that they did what they were accused of in the first place. Remember “I did not have sexual relations with that woman?” And the famous response “It depends on what the definition of is is” to weasel out of giving a truthful answer to a question.
The Owl is not implying with the above example that only Democrats lie. It’s just a famous example. How about Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew? Nixon should have gone to jail for lying and other nefarious acts and Spiro Agnew actually did, after lying a lot! The famous quote, “I am not a crook” by Richard Nixon was a total lie. He dodged jail due to an executive pardon by Gerald Ford. If you ever want to see how crappy the election and political process can get, Google the Wikipedia 1972 Presidential election and then Nixon’s presidency.
Democrats and Republicans and any other politicians would lie equally as much to save their positions. After all, being a politician is a lucrative profession. The Owl will get to that in later posts, but you probably know how already.
So, in The Owl’s opinion, this is the baseline that shapes the way our government operates. As long as you don’t actually violate a law or the constitution, you are allowed to lie. To get people to vote for you, as a politician, you lie. It’s euphemistically called “pandering”. To get your bill passed, you lie.
Emotion rules in politics
The second significant politician flaw is that politicians do not act on facts. It’s emotion and perception. And all politicians are swayed more by emotion and perception and they ignore the facts. (this is not discounting the power of money, later on that).
The Owl has seen this in action personally on many occasions. Here’s a couple of stories:
The Owl was involved in assisting optometrists moving a bill through a state legislature that would allow optometrists (OD’s) to prescribe most types of eye-drops and eye ointments for patients with certain eye ailments. That state wasn’t the first state to implement such a law and there was a lot of data from other states with statistical analyses amassed by the optometrists that showed that passage of such a law created more access for patients with eye illnesses and there was no evidence that there was an increase in adverse events due to optometrists prescribing the subset of medicines that were in the bill (mainly eye infection treatments and glaucoma treatment). The Ophthalmologists (MD’s) felt that the OD’s were encroaching on their “turf” and allowing OD’s to prescribe would reduce their income. Of course, they never said that in public.
After the OD’s presented a series of graphs and statistical slides, the Ophthalmologists had two people testify that they had a bad eye outcome and had seen an OD first and then an Ophthalmostat. The Ophthalmologists, without presenting any evidence supporting their conclusion, stated that the outcome was bad because the OD saw the patient first, that if the patients had seen an Ophthalmologist first, the bad outcome would have been avoided. That was the sum total of their argument. No data that showed OD’s prescribing eye-drops statistically caused more adverse outcomes. No data proving the outcome would have been better if the persons they presented were seen only by Ophthalmologists.
The committee voted to deep-six the bill. Based solely on two emotional anecdotal stories that may have had the same outcome even if they only saw an Ophthalmologist.
Here’s another to prove the point.
The Owl is now in another state. There had been numerous times that a sports referee or umpire, serving especially amateur sports like YAFL, Little League, Youth Hockey, etc., was physically attacked by someone from the spectator stands, mostly parents of children playing in the game. A YAFL referee got a state legislator to write a bill that included stiffer penalties for attacking a referee or umpire. In order to get the bill passed the referee had to meet with state legislators and plead his case.
He met with one state senator whose vote was crucial. The senator was very sympathetic to the cause and told the referee he would certainly vote for the bill when the bill came up in session.
The referee attended the session when the bill came up for vote. It was a very close vote. When they got to the senator who had promised to vote for the bill, he voted against it!! The referee was furious and disappointed. The bill didn’t pass. He approached the senator later in the day and asked him why he changed his mind.
The senator said that another senator he did not like and who always had opposing views to his and usually voted opposite of the way he voted was ahead of him in the roll call for the vote and he voted for the bill. So, the senator who promised his vote to the referee said he couldn’t vote for the same thing that the other senator did, so he voted against the bill, even though, morally, he liked the bill. His vote was determined only by the fact that a senator he disliked voted for it!! He had to vote opposite that other guy!!
See what The Owl means? Totally emotional voting. Not to mention lying! The Owl could go on and on about this, but it would begin to get boring, It happens every day.
It’s all about them
As The Owl said before, he’s dined with and met with multiple politicians. What was initially a bit of surprise to The Owl was their attitude.
When you make an appointment to meet with a sitting politician, you have to define what you want to talk to them about. You are usually advocating for one of three things: 1) you want them to vote a certain way on a bill, or 2. You want them to sponsor a bill, 3. You want them to support something publicly (like the #MeToo movement).
Then you should (The Owl always did) send a packet of information well before your appointment so the politician and his/her staff/aides can review the information so the politician understands the issue for the meeting.
What The Owl found out is, all of that is a total waste of time.
When you get to the meeting, you usually have 15 minutes. You’re lucky if you have 30. The politician has not reviewed your information, nor an executive summary prepared by the staff/aides. You tell the politician why you are there, then spend the rest of the time responding to their fishing for compliments. They are basically expecting you to stroke their egos. The Owl has never been in a face to face meeting with a politician where The Owl and the politician actually talked about the issue for which the meeting was scheduled. It was all about the politician.
And they are not subtle about what they are looking for.
Lastly, if you aren’t forking over any money, it’s mainly a social event. They already know what they are going to do, your effort is generally worthless unless the politician sees something in it for them. Their aides may review your information, but they only relate something to the politician if they think there is some meaningful surprise information that the politician should know about. The meeting is mainly for show and ego stroking.
But, everybody meets with politicians anyway. Naïve people think it is valuable. Veteran people know it’s a crap shoot. The Owl always left these meetings shaking his head about the total lack of conversation about the position or the issue The Owl would be advocating for. Not a very satisfying encounter.
OK, that’s enough for this post. Now for the answer to the logic riddle:
The question to ask either person (since you don’t know which one is a politician and which one isn’t) is: Which way would the other person tell me to go if I asked them what was the wrong way to the Emerald City?
If you happened to ask the politician, they would tell you the right way because they always lie (the opposite of what the non-politician would say).
If you asked the non-politician, they will tell you the right way because they know the politician would tell you the opposite of the wrong way and they would truthfully tell you that.
So, from either person, the answer would be the right way. And off you go to see the Wizard of Oz!