Camelot

 

In July of 1999 on the CBS Evening News, the disingenuously "independent" Dan Rather broke down as he remembered the Kennedy administration ("Age of Celebrity" report by Richard Rodriguez on PBS.org).  You can hear a recording of that moment in the broadcast on Hark.com, complete with sobs.  He quotes a line from the Lerner and Loewe musical:  "Once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot."   

The American Camelot myth that endures so nostalgically is a fusion of a legend with the memory of a presidency that, given a chance to fulfill its promise, would probably have been one of the greatest in our brief history.  But in this, the memory of the Kennedy administration is not blended with the tales of Le Morte d'Artur, but rather with the 1960 play.   

The Arthur of the musical is a wise, all-powerful and benevolent ruler.  He is so powerful, in fact, he seems to have the ability to dictate the terms of the weather.  Here are the lyrics from the song, "Camelot:" 

ARTHUR:
It's true! It's true! The crown has made it clear.
The climate must be perfect all the year.

A law was made a distant moon ago here:
July and August cannot be too hot.
And there's a legal limit to the snow here
In Camelot.

The winter is forbidden till December
And exits March the second on the dot.
By order, summer lingers through September
In Camelot.

Camelot! Camelot!
I know it sounds a bit bizarre,
But in Camelot, Camelot
That's how conditions are.
The rain may never fall till after sundown.
By eight, the morning fog must disappear.
In short, there's simply not
A more congenial spot
For happily-ever-aftering than here
In Camelot.

Camelot! Camelot!
I know it gives a person pause,
But in Camelot, Camelot
Those are the legal laws.
The snow may never slush upon the hillside.
By nine p.m. the moonlight must appear.
In short, there's simply not
A more congenial spot
For happily-ever-aftering than here
In Camelot. 

When I was an adolescent my parents took me to the play at a dinner theater in Norfolk, Virginia.  I loved it then, and I still do.  I have also always been an admirer of President Kennedy (see my blog "My Left from my Right," November 2010).  The blending of Kennedy with Arthur from the musical is a construct I find disturbing, however.   

The tearful yearning for the Camelot of the Kennedy administration is a window into the hearts of present-day Americans.  Not only do we long to be ruled by a benevolent king, but we wish to live in a realm where we can make laws to modify reality.  We don't like heat, we make a law against it.  We don't like snow, we make a law against that, too.  But if you just put down the bong for a moment, you can see that not only are these laws ridiculous, they are harmful.   

We have made laws against homosexuality, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and racism.  We have made laws against hate, cigarettes, poverty and wealth.  In no case, however, have we eliminated these behaviors and attitudes, and in most cases we make them worse.  In other cases we have engaged in wholesale oppression (homosexuality).  We have more of our citizens imprisoned, both by absolute numbers and by a percentage of our population, than any of the totalitarian nations we despise, including Iran and Venezuela.  When I was a kid it was often said, "well, it's a free country."  Now I never hear that expression anymore, as it is no longer true.   

The wistfulness of Americans like Dan Rather to be ruled by a benevolent king alarms me more than anything else.  To have a king, you must have a monarchy, and to have a monarchy, you must concentrate tremendous power into the office of one person.  That power can be used equally for good and for evil; for every Marcus Aurelius you will have at least one Nero.  It is the nature of power, we are taught by history, to call forth the darker character of the human will.   We would do well to remember that in the play, everything went to hell in the end, and in our desperation to recreate it politically, it will certainly go the same way. 

 

Copyright 2012, Robert Albanese

"Experts Say"

  

An article titled "Is the era of oil nearing its end?" appeared in the Idaho Statesman a week ago (8/12/2012). It was from McClatchy Newspapers (the Statesman is a McClatchy paper) and written by Greg Gordon. It concerned the fear that despite the assurances of the energy companies and the bland lack of alarm on the part of the current administration and the one just past, we are speeding into very frightening times from a petroleum perspective. Mr. Gordon employed a phrase in the article that always irks me: "Experts say...."

Our era exemplifies of one of the fundamental errors in the proper use of reasoning: argumentum ad hominem. This principle identifies the tendency we have to consider any opinion false if it is articulated by someone we don't like. If we are Republicans, anything Barrack Obama says is a lie. If we are Democrats, anything Mitt Romney says is a lie. If Mitt Romney says the sky is blue and we are Democrats, it is most assuredly green. And vice-versa of course.

And now we have also created an interesting corollary to argumentum ad hominem: The Cult of the Expert. If we bestow the title of "Expert" on individuals, whatever they say regarding the subject on which they are an expert is true. If a person is not an "Expert," his or her opinion on the topic in question is of no value. In contrast to argumentum ad hominem, which is employed by everyone in just about every context, Cult of the Expert is observed almost exclusively in political debates and in journalism. It is used like a hammer to try to silence opposing views, but it does not reflect objective reality to the extent hoped for by those who brandish it.

To journalists the "Expert" is virtually always a tweed-jacketed university professor who has written a book about the issue in question. It's not too unreasonable an assumption. Professors are always intelligent, often brilliant, and you can get an idea about how accomplished they are from their peers. There are less well known people in the private sector, however, who may have as much or more expertise on a subject than an academic. The academic environment requires the professor to publish papers, but industry requires tangible results. Even if measurable results do not rise to the level of publishing a paper in a peer-review journal, and that would be a difficult argument, industry experts should not be summarily dismissed by journalists. And yet they are.

In the article I referenced above, Gordon implies that whatever the industry people say is probably false because of their strong financial interest in the ongoing use of fossil fuels. The assumption is that an academic would be free of that kind of bias in the formulation of their opinions. It is a dangerous assumption.

Academics, just like everyone else, have interests they have a need to protect. Among them are career, income and funding for their research. Biases they are not fully aware of can insinuate themselves into their theories and influence elements of their research. We once had a spirited discussion at Journal Club at the Medical University of South Carolina. The resident physicians and medical students were discussing an article written by a VA physician comparing new, expensive antipsychotics to the older, cheaper ones. The author of the paper described data demonstrating that the older antipsychotics were tolerated as well as the more expensive ones but they did not cause nearly as much weight gain, a serious problem for patients with mental illness. The resident physicians and medical students eagerly embraced the results of this article because the academic VA researcher would have less bias than researchers who worked for the pharmaceutical companies. "If this researcher can show that cheaper medications work as well as the newer ones with less side effects," I pointed out, "his career and reputation will skyrocket." Career is a powerful motivator in the world of academics, and every researcher seeks in his or her work to identify the need for yet more funding.

A Special Report in the September 2012 edition of Consumer Reports "On Health" provides advice to lay people on how to read news stories about medical science ("Should you trust that medical news?"). Among questions we are urged to ask include whether or not other sources are queried and who exactly is quoted and what are their credentials. These kinds of questions are ways to discern whether or not there is an undetermined bias in the opinion at the center of the reporting.

It is not reasonable to say that because a researcher works for a pharmaceutical company, his or her research demonstrating the value of the company's new drug is not useful. That would be argumentum ad hominem, would it not? We recognize however the possibility of bias and anticipate other studies confirming the findings. It would also be argumentum ad hominem to assume that the work of university professors is so influenced by their need to be promoted and tenured that their work is worthless as well. But to assume that because an academic is not directly supported by industry (a huge percentage of them in fact are) that there is no bias in their work is misinformed.

The use of the phrase "Experts say" is based on the assumption that virtually all of the Experts in a particular field agree. This assumption ignores one of the great truths of academic life: You don't get a Nobel Prize by agreeing with what everyone else in your field says. While university professors tend to speak with one voice on scientific issues that are heavily politicized, the laboratory and conference room witness constant argument and debate. When journalists cite the opinions of experts, they generally do not do a good job of telling us how much confidence we should have in an Expert's opinion and why. We do not get a sense of how much dissent there is among colleagues on the topic in question and what the stakes are for each camp. If you read science journalism critically, the phrase "Experts say" seems to have essentially one meaning: "In my opinion."

(c) Copyright 2012 Robert Albanese

The End of the Civic Society

There was an article in the Idaho Statesman today about a school in Idaho's rural dairy country.  It is a charter school with an educational emphasis on patriotism, capitalism, and individual freedoms.  It was a newsworthy story precisely because of how unusual the school is in its philosophical character.  Even in very red-state Idaho.  There was a subliminal implication in the reporting that state education officials harbor concerns about so radical an approach to teaching young people.    

Of course when I was a kid in Virginia and later North Carolina, our schools were just like North Valley Academy.  We said the Pledge of Allegiance, we sang "Our Country 'tis of Thee" and we studied Civics.   

In Civics class we examined the philosophies of the Founding Fathers, the Structure of Government, and most important, The Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  The concept underlying education in Civics seems to have been that in order for America to maintain her dominant world economic, political and cultural position, her young students had to be educated in the doctrines that made America the giant that she had become.  Our minds were to be shaped, to some extent, according to the image of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.  We were taught that liberty was the most important value, the keystone concept of our ethical world view.   

Now, however, Civics has been replaced by Social Studies. The National Council for the Social Studies (socialstudies.org) is an educational clearing house for teachers at every level, elementary through college/university.  The Council, composed of educators, views itself as responsible for formulating the educational objectives of Social Studies education, and they have published a Position Paper called "Curriculum Guidelines for Social Studies Teaching and Learning." It can be found at:

 http://www.socialstudies.org/system/files/Curriculum_Guidelines_SocialStudies_Teaching_and_Learning.pdf 

It is interesting to read the document, and everyone should.  I would draw my readers' attention to Section 3, where education in Social Studies is required to be Value-Based.  It reads as follows:   

The social studies program should consider the ethical dimensions of topics and address controversial issues while providing an arena for reflective development of concern for the common good* and the application of democratic**  values.

3.1 The program should help students understand the role that values play in decision making.

3.2 The program should give students the opportunity to think critically and make value-based decisions.

3.3 The program should support different points of view, respect for well-supported positions***, and sensitivity to cultural similarities and differences.

3.4 The program should encourage students to develop a commitment to social responsibility, justice****, and action.

3.5 The program should encourage students to examine and evaluate policy and its implications.

3.6 The program should give students the opportunity to think critically and make value-based decisions about related social issues. 

*As defined by whom?

**Please see my blog:  Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Choice.

***Supported by whom?

**** Please see my blog:  Liberty and Justice. 

The italics are mine.  As you can see, the philosophical orientation of Social Studies teaching is very different from that of Civics, and its goal is to shape minds very differently to those of Washington, Jefferson and Adams.  The emphasis is not on liberty, it is on justice; the word liberty does not appear in the document at all and the word freedom appears only once, as academic freedom for the teachers.  It occurred to me even as a youngster, when Social Studies replaced Civics, that perhaps my teachers do not want to teach us The Constitution because they do not agree with it.  They view it as an obstacle to the world they are trying to build, they blame it for the injustices of the past.   

I do not believe that American educators have nefarious intent the way many conservatives do.  Teachers vote according to self-interest, just like everyone else, and since their salaries and the conditions under which they work are determined by The State, it would be disingenuous to be shocked that the vast majority of them are Statists.  I do not blame them for the steady decline in the intellectual levels of American youth; that falls squarely on the parents and our increasingly doofus culture.  Teachers are lion-hearted professionals who endure disrespect and even sometimes aggression in the ordinary pursuit of their duties.  It is beyond doubt an honorable calling.   

I think the change in philosophical direction marked by the shift from Civics to Social Studies has to do with the fact that teachers believe it is theirs as a profession to determine what must be taught, and they should be free from external influence (see the last sentence in the aforementioned Position Paper).  One could argue though is that it is precisely external influence that created Social(ist) Studies.  It is a derivation of a euro-globalist formula that derides patriotism and replaces it with a kind of world consciousness, one that conforms well to environmentalism, justice through the redistribution of poverty to the Middle Class, and the redistribution of political power from the individual to The State.   As a snobby europhile myself, I see in the American educator class a contempt for individual liberty that reminds me of my own disdain for certain American culinary traditions, like the abominable Bartlett pear half from a can, positioned on a leaf of iceberg lettuce, with a dollop of mayonnaise in the hollow center.   

Although I strenuously disagree with Social Statism, it is a well-reasoned school with many intelligent, thoughtful adherents.  The same can be said for the libertarianism of our Founding Fathers, however, and it would be a great example of respect for well-supported positions were American educators to give young minds similar access to those ideas as well.  Our political ancestors certainly had areas of shocking moral blindness; they did not see in The Constitution protection for the rights of women and black slaves, for example.  But Social Statism, logically extrapolated, has surpassed religion as the source of the greatest slaughters in world history (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Mussolini, Pol Pot, etc.).   

Finally, a disclaimer.  I hate making disclaimers, but I feel like I have to do it because, and I know this makes me sound like a euro-snob, Americans seem to have trouble with nuanced thinking.  I am not on the Left-Right spectrum; I am not arguing for the Right Wing.  I am not a Capitalist.  Like G.K. Chesterton, I believe that the problem with Capitalism is that it creates too few capitalists, not too many.  I agree with Chesterton that the best economic system ("distributionism") is one where the owners of the means of production are as small in scale and as many as possible, in other words, small business over big business.  Under the current state of affairs, the politicians of the Left and the Right facilitate the condensation of megacorporations, largely by eliminating competition and regulating small companies out of business.  Wealth is thus concentrated to a fantastic extent, and that wealth is in turn employed to support politicians friendly to General Electric, General Motors, Walmart, etc.  How else can you explain the relationship of left-of-center President Obama to GE, GM, and Wall Street?  It is what has been called "Crony Capitalism," and both sides of the aisle are equally contaminated.  It is the greatest example of the hypocrisy of Republicans, who preach the virtues of competition and then seek to destroy it, and of the Democrats, rich people who somehow acquire political power through public condemnation of their own class.  In an economy unadulterated by political power, corporations would not grow so large; they can only do so by the influence of government.   

If we wish to bring on the extinction of the United States in its current form and fuse our nation into some kind of a World Government community, I think the Social Studies curriculum is an excellent pathway.  It realigns the thinking of the young in precisely that direction.  I would favor building on our spectacular achievements, however, by restoring Civics.  Civics has Liberty as its core value, and Liberty is much easier to define than Justice, the core value of Social Studies.  It is not Justice or Fairness or Social Consciousness that has made America the greatest nation in history; it is our historical willingness to tolerate the freedom of the individual to a degree never known in human history.  The Civics curriculum I would design would not only concern itself with our successes, but also our failures, including why women and blacks did not have the status of full citizens, and why we permitted Civics to be replaced by Social Studies. 

Copyright 2012 Robert Albanese

The Federal Reserve

When I was seventeen I went with our high school Beta Club on a trip to Washington, D.C.  We toured the city and saw many of the edifices and institutions that are essential to the experience of going to the Nation's Capital:  The Smithsonian, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, the White House and so on.  And of course we saw the Federal Reserve Building.  I remember thinking that the Federal Reserve Building looked like what I had imagined to be the appearance of the Temple of Solomon.

At that time and for many years thereafter I thought, like most Americans, that the Federal Reserve was a branch of the U.S. government.  I believed that it printed our currency and protected large quantities of gold and silver and huge stacks of paper money in readiness in case they should be needed by the American people.  After all, this is what is implied by "Federal" and "Reserve," is it not?

What I was not taught in school, however, is that the Federal Reserve is a Central Bank, a group of private bankers.  I was also not taught that the Federal Reserve does not print our currency; that is a function of the Bureau of Printing and Engraving.  And I was not taught that the Federal Reserve does not store anything tangible for the American people. 

I was well into adulthood before I learned that the Federal Reserve is private.  Well good, I thought; as a Libertarian, I was happy to have relegated to some private concern any function that might normally go to the government.  After all, the private sector is more efficient than the federal government and perhaps also less susceptible to corruption and political influence.  It was not until many years later, however, after I was deep into middle age, that I discovered the true nature of our Central Bank. 

If the Federal Reserve does not print our money, and if it does not keep anything of value in reserve, what exactly does it do? 

1. It lends our own currency to us at interest. 

2. It controls the supply, or quantity, of money and therefore also its value. 

Before 1913, the U.S. government printed our money and it was backed by gold.  Therefore the value of our currency was relatively stable as the supply of gold was relatively stable.  If you did a days' worth of work and got a dollar, that dollar was yours as the product of your labor.  You could redeem that dollar for a quantity of gold, but no one really bothered doing it because, by virtue of being backed by gold, the dollar was sound.  "Sound as the dollar" was a common phrase once upon a time. 

Fast forward to today.  You do a day's work, and someone gives you five twenty dollar bills.  Take a look at one of those twenty dollar bills.  At the top it says "Federal Reserve Note."  A note is a debt, is it not?  That twenty dollar bill represents what the U.S. Government owes to the Federal Reserve, and therefore what you owe to the U.S. Government.  So in exchange for your work, instead of getting something of value free and clear, you get an obligation.  Two other interesting points come out of this comparison.  The first is that since the Federal Reserve can control the value of our money, it has caused our money to be worth less and less over time.  The value of a dollar in 1913 was a lot higher than the value of a dollar today, for you could buy a day of work from a man with a dollar back then and it takes a hundred or so of them to purchase the same amount of work today.  The second point has to do with the image on the twenty dollar bill:  Andrew Jackson. 

Andrew Jackson, like Thomas Jefferson before him, believed that a Central Bank existed primarily for the rich to steal from the poor and the middle class.  After terrible struggles with very powerful bankers, he ultimately did away with the institution and restored the function to the government.  His administration went from being in debt to having a surplus, as it was no longer necessary to pay huge sums of money to the bankers for lending us our own currency.  His successor, Martin Van Buren, actually redistributed funds back to the states. 

So now we know that:

1. The Federal Reserve is a Central Bank, in other words, it is private. 

2. The Federal Reserve makes huge sums of money in interest payments for wealthy and powerful people to do little or nothing. 

3. The Federal Reserve controls the value of our money, decreasing its value to us and thereby also increasing its value to them.  This is called inflation. 

Now if the Federal Reserve only does bad things, why do we have it?  Well one answer is that it is not bad to everyone, just ordinary people.  For the politically powerful and the ultra-rich, the Federal Reserve system is a fantastic source of a continuous stream of wealth.  These are the people, after all, who establish law and policy; why should they not do so in a manner that benefits them directly?  But that is admittedly somewhat cynical.  Why would more or less reasonable people love the Central Bank?

Politicians love the Federal Reserve because it allows them to obtain funds that they do not have to raise in taxes, at least not during their terms of office.  Let's say the liberals in government want to create a new social program whereby everyone who is somewhat ugly gets plastic surgery so they will be better-looking, and the conservatives want to create a fleet of battle ships that can fly as well as float.  The conservatives won't vote for the surgery without getting the battleships, and the liberals will not vote for the battleships without getting the plastic surgery funded.  Both groups want to give these to the American people because the people will love them for these benefits and will reelect them continuously to their narcotic positions of power (mysteriously always accompanied by increasing wealth).  The problem is the politicians cannot raise the revenue by taxation; if they try that the people will realize how these programs are not "free" and they will be crushed by the weight of the taxes.  So the politicians borrow the money from the Federal Reserve at interest, to be repaid by the children and the grandchildren of those who benefit from the programs, and if they can't raise the revenue by normal taxation they use the other form of taxation:  inflation.  We see this happening now.  The debt is so high that our taxes are barely enough to cover the interest on the debt; the government then urges the Federal Reserve to decrease the value of our currency through inflation so it can raise revenue for other operating costs.  People are working harder and harder for less and less wealth. 

Some people might say we need the Federal Reserve because it makes the money supply flexible; who knows when you might need more or less money?  What if there was a run on the banks?  Wouldn't it be good then for the Federal Reserve to print more money?  Well that potential did not prevent the Great Depression!  Remember that the Federal Reserve was created before the Great Depression.  There are serious individuals who believe that the Central Bank did not prevent the Depression because it was not in the interest of these bankers to do so!  They believe, as did Thomas Jefferson, that the Central Bank creates booms during which common people create huge quantities of goods and services of great value and then the bankers create busts during which they can purchase those goods and services at a fraction of their worth.  You don't need a Federal Reserve, however, to change the money supply.  The government should be very capable of that by itself.  You can argue that such a process should not be politicized, and that makes sense, but we have agencies of the government that operate more or less outside of the usual kinds of political influence.  We do not know, for example, whether the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is a Republican or a Democrat and it is hard to imagine it being of any particular concern. 

I may have been inaccurate in one of my contentions above, that the Central Bank does not store anything of value.  Some believe that the Federal Reserve holds massive quantities of gold.  Many people believe that the gold that was once in Fort Knox is now in the Federal Reserve, not held in safe keeping for the American people, but held in collateral for our massive government debt.  Because some Americans are suspicious that this is indeed the case, they have called for adherence to the law by having an audit of Fort Knox.  The government and the Federal Reserve have both ignored this demand. 

I am a physician, not an economist or a politician, so I bring little more than a layman's appreciation for the issues discussed above.  What shocks me, however, is how ignorant I was of the truth of the Central Bank, even at a high level of education.  How, after so many years at the university, do I know so little?  Now I see the same stupefied expression on my family, friends and colleagues when I urge them to consider the implications of the existence of the Federal Reserve.  Whether the Central Bank is a good thing or a bad thing, and I fear it is the latter by a huge degree, the stakes are too high for us to languish in the dark.  

More Advice to the Young

Beguilement is often the tail of the comet of instability and even madness.  By all means date fascinating people, but do not marry one. 

As a corrollary, remember that it is not a gift to a dysfunctional person to add your life as kindling to the conflagration of their own.  The only purpose that serves is to assuage the guilt of the unbroken person for not being broken. 

Above:  Real mugshot of an attractive lady.  Dang it she is taller than me. 

(c) Copyright 2012 Robert Albanese. 

Lifestyle, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Choice

On 1/27/2012, an Associated Press article appeared on the Fox News web page with the following headline: 

"Actress' claim to be gay by choice riles activists" 

In the article, actress Cynthia Nixon says: 

"I understand that for many people it's not, but for me it's a choice, and you don't get to define my gayness for me," Nixon said while recounting some of the flak gay rights activists previously had given her for treading in similar territory. "A certain section of our community is very concerned that it not be seen as a choice, because if it's a choice, then we could opt out. I say it doesn't matter if we flew here or we swam here, it matters that we are here and we are one group and let us stop trying to make a litmus test for who is considered gay and who is not."

The agents of correct thinking would not allow such heresy to go unanswered.  Soon Ms. Nixon was assailed by some "friends" of the LGBT (1) cause and she had to publish a retraction.  This article appeared on 1/31/2012 on the Fox News web page: 

"Actress clarifies remark about being gay by choice"

After some gay rights activists complained that Nixon's remarks could be used to deny a biological basis for homosexuality, the actress on Monday released a statement to The Advocate magazine explaining she is technically bisexual, and not by choice.

Nixon told the magazine: "What I have 'chosen' is to be in a gay relationship."

Now ever since I was in medical school I have been aware of the disturbing character of the way science and medicine have dealt with the issue of homosexuality.  It is by now well known that American psychiatry, at a time when it was dominated by psychoanalytic Freudians, had pathologized homosexuality.  In other words, as far as psychiatrists were concerned, it was a disease, an aberration.  What is not as well known is that Freud himself, often detested by homosexuals for his perceived part in their oppression, in 1935 wrote this in a letter to a woman who had asked him to help her son: 

I gather from your letter that your son is a homosexual. I am most impressed by the fact that you do not mention this term yourself in your information about him. May I question you, why you avoid it? Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation, it cannot be classified as an illness; we consider it to be a variation of the sexual function produced by a certain arrest (2) of sexual development. Many highly respectable individuals of ancient and modern times have been homosexuals, several of the greatest men among them (Plato, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, etc.). It is a great injustice to persecute homosexuality as a crime, and cruelty too (3).  

So the Freudians had departed from Freud himself on the issue of homosexuality in American psychiatry, and they developed treatments they believed would alleviate this condition.  What is almost as deplorable, however, is that the American Psychiatric Association changed their collective mind in 1973 and removed the "diagnosis" only under the heat of political pressure, not the cool florescent light of reason.  My profession sports a well-deserved black eye over it to this day.   

Unfortunately, however, the politicization of science remains in full stride, not least of all on the question of homosexuality.  For it is clear to me that the scientific community does not want to learn why some people are homosexuals, they want to prove a genetic cause.   

True science cannot be conducted in this manner.  When a question is posed, hypotheses must be developed and tested without deference to external influences.  All relevant hypotheses must be permitted to compete in the laboratory of science, not just selected ones.  I read once, for example, a critique of an influential study.  In this case the hypothesis was proposed:  Drug A is superior to drug B in the treatment of condition X.  An experiment was designed and executed and according to the findings, drug A was in fact superior to drug B for the treatment of condition X.  The problem however, according to some of the critics of the study, was that to determine the truth, the authors should also have designed the study to test the opposite hypothesis, that drug B was superior to drug A.  Since until then no such study had been carried out, the full truth could not be determined about which medicine was better.  The pharmaceutical company had avoided asking a question they did not want to know the answer to.   

Besides the ongoing contamination of science with politics, however, the quest to prove homosexuality to be biologically determined has several logical problems.   

The first problem is within what I perceive to be the origin of the irreversibility concept.  Many people believe that in order to justify the notion that homosexuality is irreversible, it must be proven to have its origins exclusively in genetics.  It is not necessary to find a gene, however, to justify the belief that sexuality is not primarily a matter of choice.  There are critical times in neuropsychological development where the subject is at a crossroads, and once one commences down a certain path, there is no going back.  Let us say that a child is born to an American father and a French mother.  The parents decide that the child will learn only English.  When the child is eleven years old, they change their minds and decide to begin to expose the child to French.  Because learning a new language happens for this child at an age past ten years old, it is exceedingly unlikely that he will be able to speak French without an accent.  Had they started earlier, the child would have the capacity to speak French naturally and fluently, like a native.  As Margaret Mahler wrote, the process of the psychological birth of a human being starts at physical birth, it is not completed there.  Therefore many characteristics may be acquired in early childhood that later are not, strictly speaking, changeable.   

To me it seems that many homosexuals cling to the belief that should their sexual preferences ever be shown to be genetic, evangelical Christians will humbly ask for forgiveness and approve of the gay lifestyle.  That will not happen.  Remember that among the evangelicals are the Calvinists, who believe that God selects whom he shall save and deliver to eternal life, and that he does this without any action on the part of those who are among the "elect."  To many of these Christians financial success, attractiveness, and stable heterosexual marriages are evidence that one has been saved.  Your homosexuality, genetic or not, is simply evidence to them that God has chosen not to number you among his most beloved.   

What I like least about the "genetics alone" agenda is that it may smell faintly of internalized societal disapproval.  The need to believe that one has no choice in being homosexual conjures the implication that if one could in fact choose one's sexuality, one would then choose not to be gay (as Ms. Nixon noted above).  Is that the message homosexuals want to convey to their spouses and partners, that they have chosen their lovers only because they could not succeed at loving members of the opposite sex?     

The greatest problem for the advocates of a genetic causality for homosexuality, however, is that there has so far not been any complex behavior attributable to any specific gene.  As far as we know, every clinical entity is a complex interaction between genes and environment.  No particular gene has been found to be responsible for gregariousness, for example, and no gene has been found to be the cause of shyness.  In those cases where relationships between certain characteristics and certain genes are found, there are always those who have the gene and do not have the characteristic, and those who have the characteristic but do not have the gene.  And when a very strong relationship exists between a behavior and a genetic mutation, and these cases are rare indeed, the phenomenology of the affected individuals and the magnitude of the expression of the traits vary widely.  It was believed for many years that those males who by accident receive an extra Y chromosome (the so-called XYY males) were likely to become criminals; this hypothesis has not been borne out by observation.  Where is the gene for intelligence?  Where is the gene for creativity?   We cannot find them, because those characteristics like everything else (including sexuality) are products of complex interactions between various genes and impossibly diverse environmental stimuli.   

Of course there are influential political groups dedicated to advocacy for homosexuals and I have observed that most of the members of these groups are champions of the genetic determinism theory.  This is a frightening paradigm indeed.  Because like almost all other political organizations, these groups ultimately seek to increase the power of government to advance their interests at the expense of their opponents.  Gay groups want a powerful central government to force their will upon conservative Christians (4), and conservative Christians want a powerful central government to force their will upon gays.  Under the influence of these two and many other interests, power has been rapidly diffusing into the hands of a relatively few Americans, and soon it may be that political power will become so concentrated that ordinary individuals will have no ability to influence its views.  It is not inconceivable that a strong central authority may one day determine that because of dwindling birthrates, homosexuality will henceforth be punishable by involuntary psychiatric hospitalization, sentencing to prison "reeducation" camps, or extermination.  They may very well justify this tyranny on the grounds of the very genetic theory that is now being advanced by the gays themselves, citing it as evidence of a gene-based inferiority or "defect" that must be eliminated from the gene pool. Was not this the very same defectiveness concept used by the Nazis to round up and eliminate homosexuals?  And let us not for one moment forget that the Nazis came to power by the very same kind of  legal, democratic means employed by political factions in America today (5).   

Another nightmare scenario played itself out in Russia in the early 20th century.  Homosexual "liberals" saw in Communism an escape from the oppression of the Tsarist regime and they supported it with great enthusiasm.  When the leaders of the party became so powerful they were no longer accountable to ordinary citizens, however, they changed their minds and returned  homosexuality to the status of a criminal offense.  How bitter must have been the tears of the homosexuals sent to the gulags knowing that it was their very own political activities that ultimately contributed to their interminable suffering.  The very same political warhammer they had forged for use upon the skulls of their enemies had now been turned against them, as history tells us is always the case.   

A more poignant and perhaps more important truth, however, is that the LGBT community in America does not enjoy full legal franchise in spite of "democracy," but rather because of it.  For as Alex Jones has remarked, democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for supper, and Ayn Rand noted that "majority rule" is nothing more than "majority tyranny."  Gays and lesbians do not have the right to marry in most jurisdictions simply because the majority of Americans disagree with them having that right.  When the majority of Americans thought that blacks should not vote, they were not permitted to vote.  In many cases in history democracy has been used to subjugate and disenfranchise minorities; our blind devotion to the concept, branded onto our brains by our teachers in elementary school, makes invisible to us its implementation for the malevolent exercise of political force.   

Homosexuals, because they are a minority, will always be especially vulnerable to the malignant use of power.  Communism and Fascism will certainly not protect them!  And as we have seen, Democracy per se is invariably aligned with political expediency and tragically, this is only revealed to most people by a distant historical perspective.  History has been trying to teach us that there is only one road leading to a truly just society and that is the Constitutional Republic.  Built upon the foundation of a citizenry armed with education and an enlightened philosophy (and yes also guns I suppose), such a nation protects the rights of all of its people, not just certain individuals.  Our nation almost got there once, and even though we didn't quite make it, all the glory we have to this day unfurled is ultimately due to the willingness of our ancestors to put the banner of liberty before all others.   Neither compassion, a sense of justice, or wars of conquest have made us who we have become.  What made us great was the bedrock of belief that the individual has certain unalienable rights.  That right includes the right to do things not everyone approves of; no majority should ever be able to rule against it.   

To me, the view that homosexuality is biologically determined has to some extent the character of the tragic; it is evocative of a caste system in which gays represent the sexual Untouchables.  The view articulated by Cynthia Nixon (before she was shouted down of course), on the other hand, is that choice is sacred and that her lifestyle is therefore a sacred choice.  In a Classical Liberal society what choices one makes, as long as they do not damage the person or property of others, are above and beyond critical opinion, learned or idiotic.  And there are Classical Liberals among us today in the form of libertarians, struggling against Authority to create a society where unalienable rights include gun ownership, free speech, drinking and smoking, and marrying whomever one chooses.  We Classical Liberals believe that no matter whether we agree or disagree with homosexuality, or whether we believe it is simply no one else's business, having the choice is worth fighting for.  I will never understand why people, especially gays, would align themselves with any other political movement.   

Homosexuality, like every other sexuality, and like every other behavior, must necessarily exist on a spectrum.  There are certainly those for whom attraction to the opposite sex is completely lacking and cannot be cultivated; there must also be those for whom the attraction is primarily to the same sex but meaningful intimate relationships with opposite sex partners is possible.  Then there are those for whom the gender of the object of desire is immaterial.  We are, after all, talking about human beings who, despite every effort by thought police, cannot be defined in simple binary terms.  Since sexuality is on a continuum, so must also be the degree to which choice is an element.  Even if choice only represents a small part of sexuality, however, I would argue that a focus on a person's agency (6) as opposed to their biological programming is more humanistic, triumphant, and ultimately reflective of the fundamental equality of individuals in a free society.  Our ability and our right to choose the character of our lives raises us above the frogs and salamanders, whose lives are biologically determined.  It is this perspective on the issue of sexuality that, in my opinion, is suitable to a species that explores space, writes poetry, and builds breathtaking places of worship.

(1) Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual. 
(2) The term "arrest" in this passage is no doubt a source of irritation for many, but I would urge those who read these lines to consider the totality of what Freud is saying. 

(3) Kaplan and Saddock, Psychiatry, Ninth Edition.

(4) This may sound extreme, but when I have asked gay friends and acquaintances whether they would like to see the State use force to compel churches to ordain gay clergy and perform gay marriages, most of them have answered in the affirmative. 
(5) The most harmful and woefully misinformed prevalent belief in 21st Century America is that tyranny is not possible in the U.S.  We have only to look at our own past to see that our government is capable of dreadful misuse of power!  Because we believe it cannot happen here, we are utterly blind to the rapid pace at which we are hurtling in the direction of an all-powerful state.  The Patriot Act, NDAA, PIPA and SOPA are all legislative actions that have undermined or would if enacted further undermine the fundamental concepts of constitutional republicanism. 
(6) "Free will."

(c) Copyright 2012 Robert Albanese. 

Party of Two

The U.S. Government reminds me of the married couple who realize they are deeply in debt.  The husband resolves that henceforth, he will purchase neither high heels shoes or dresses.  The wife is firm in her commitment to purchase neither tools nor golf clubs.  For some reason they are surprised when, one year later, they are yet deeper in debt than they were before.

Republicans want to balance the budget as long as military spending is not reduced.  The Democrats are willing to decrease spending as long as it does not include entitlement programs.  Our national debt increases from year to year because when the Republicans are in power they increase military spending, but they do not decrease entitlement spending.  The converse is true for Democrats.

You could make a case that the Two Party System would work if the parties effectively opposed each other.  The problem is that they are too similar, they both agree on an economy based on continuous warfare and debt.  Ultimately, though, you have to blame the American Public, who have not been willing to demand better.