Political Divide

[xoxoxoBruce]

Everyone knows our political system is more polarized than ever — or at least more polarized than it has been in a good long while. (The fall of 1860 was probably worse.) But do we recognize what really divides the parties? Sure, we like to think it's ideology. Big government versus small government, more regulation versus less regulation, "yay!" for same-sex marriage versus "boo!" for same-sex marriage. You get the idea.

At the risk of sounding like I'm doing a David Brooks impersonation, I'd like to suggest that there is another, perhaps more fundamental division at work in our political system.

Ladies and gentlemen: I give you the Rule Followers and Do Gooders.

A good explanation of the political divide at The Week.

[Lamplighter]

Mitch McConnell's incessant war with Obama moves into the coal fields...

Move to Fight Obama’s Climate Plan Started Early
NY Times - CORAL DAVENPORT and JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS 0 AUG. 3, 2015

WASHINGTON — In the early months of 2014, a group of about 30 corporate lawyers,
coal lobbyists and Republican political strategists began meeting regularly in the headquarters
of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, often, according to some of the participants
in a conference room overlooking the White House.

Their task was to start devising a legal strategy for dismantling the climate change regulations
they feared were coming from President Obama.
...
In devising its strategy, the group worked closely with the office of Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky,
the majority leader whose coal-producing home state also stands to suffer under the regulation.
While Mr. McConnell opposes the climate change regulations, his advisers knew
that he had little chance of enacting legislation to block them in Congress.
Instead, Mr. McConnell has taken the unusual step of reaching out directly to governors and attorneys general,
urging them to refuse to submit compliance plans for the regulations,
and encouraging a state-by-state rejection of the rules.

But here is a less reactionary Opinion article using ACID-RAIN as the model issue...

Obama’s Flexible Fix to Climate Change
Joe Nocera 8/4/15

[In the mid-1980’s, acid rain was a growing environmental problem…]

The answer was that the administration of the first President George Bush,
working hand in glove with the Environmental Defense Fund, devised a market-based plan,
now known as cap-and-trade, to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions.

Congress passed it in 1990. The brilliance of the scheme is that while it set emissions targets,
it did not tell power companies how to meet those targets, allowing them a great deal of flexibility.
It also provided a financial incentive: Companies that cut their pollution beyond their caps
could trade their leftover emission allowances to companies that were having trouble staying under the limit.

Today, average levels of sulfur dioxide pollution are 76 percent lower than they were in 1990.
The cost has been far less than the critics feared.
…
But just as with the acid rain controversy, the opponents of the new emission-reduction rules have it exactly backward.
The E.P.A. rules have a far greater chance of creating jobs,
being less burdensome and epitomizing sound public policy than the opposite.
...
The single most important fact about the new regulations is that they don’t tell utilities how
to get their emissions down. Instead, they allow the states flexibility to figure out how to lower their own emissions.

Some may choose a cap-and-trade system — as California and nine states in the Northeast
have already done to great effect. (In California, for instance, carbon intensity —
the amount of carbon pollution per million dollars of gross domestic product — is down 23 percent from 2001,
while its G.D.P. has grown.)

They can stress energy efficiency or renewable energy.
They can offer incentives to push innovations that would make carbon capture more affordable,
which would allow for the continued use of coal, still America’s most plentiful energy source.
Or they can do all of the above.

Since many of these things are already happening, the new government policy is really
just giving industry an extra shove in the right direction.
...

[tw]

Originally Posted by tw

Ironcially, that coal industry could innovate if it wanted (if it was patriotic). IGCC technology is but one example. Big coal has done no innovation for 40 years. Last industry innovation may be the high thermodynamically efficient plant built in Philly some 50 years ago. Coal industry is downsizing and has a reputation that it deserves.

Iinnovations that did not happen 20 years previously create job losses today. Need we cite General Motors, Aker's IBM, Fiorina's HP, Nardelli's Chrysler, the many fabric and shoe companies, the many US Steel manufacturers (who feared electric arc furnaces), or Esber's Ashton-Tate (world's biggest PC software manufacturer) as classic examples?

Innovation that does not exist even a decade ago means that industry must be bankrupted. Or, in the case of automobile tires, sold to many foreign owners who then undo harm created by business school types who hate and stifle innovation.

Why is the American auto industry still alive? Every innovation in a GM car in the past 40 years only exists because it was required by government regulators.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

A good explanation of the political divide at The Week.

I read the article you linked to xoB, and I liked the article, but I disagreed with the hypothesis that there are two groups, "Do-Gooders" and "Rule-Followers".

Indeed those tendencies are found in all of us to some degree or another, and the article even mentions clear cases when the same person justifies their decision by one of those principles and then the other. I believe that *all* such decisions are made in the spirit of "doing good". I think the outcomes of such contests are really a battle between people who have different ideas about what is good, or about which good is more important. I often want to do good, have a chance to take an action, and I have to choose which good I want to do. It's a matter of prioritization, in my head. And it's just the same in each of the heads of the justices, but they then have to work together to come to a joint decision as a court. Think of all the individual choices and voices we see and hear from them.

I think people try to do good all the time. Even when rule following is used as a justification, I think it's really saying that the good done by this decision includes preservation of the system of rules we have in place, and coincidentally, it complements the good outcome I've chosen. Double good outcomes when it also can be justified by the rules. "*Bonus*, see, the rules are supported!"

Our disagreements are more about what constitutes good, or which good is better, and the rules are just another justification for our decisions. Someone who says they're doing it just because the rules say so reminds me of Sergeant Schultz, "I vas *chust* following orDERS!"

[DanaC]

Mostly - I'd say I am a do-gooder - inasmuch as I am a bleeding heart liberal. And in some ways, I am a rulebreaker.

On the other hand I am very rulesy in some matters. If a sign says do not walk on the grass, I won't walk on the grass. Doesn't matter if there are no people or cameras to see.

[BigV]

When walking on the path and not the grass, don't you think you're doing good, too? Respecting the rules is the good I see there, plus the preservation of the grass, eh?

Maybe I'm just really good at justification and rationalization.

[DanaC]

No - I just feel really uncomfortable being somewhere I am not supposed to be. That goes for doors I'm not supposed to open, parking spaces or access roads the car shouldn't be in (when i am a passenger - I don't drive) and so on.

The one exception to this is standing outside stations for a cigarette - I will take my chances on not getting shooed away rather than walk all the way to the smoking shelter and risk missing my bus/train - and if lots of people are ignoring the signs because that changes the social rules. If there's a sign telling me not to go on the grass, and there are loads of people casually strolling around on the grass, then I go with the apparent social ruling, rather than the sign.

It's all about not wanting to be somewhere I am not welcome, I think.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Someone who says they're doing it just because the rules say so reminds me of Sergeant Schultz, "I vas *chust* following orDERS!"

Maybe so, but there's a shitload of them.

[whine] Thinking is hard. I might make a mistake. So everyone should do X because, my church, my political party, my peers, or my spouse, said that was the right thing. That way I don't want to have to think about it. [/whine]

[BigV]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

snip--

[whine] Thinking is hard. I might make a mistake. So everyone should do X because, my church, my political party, my peers, or my spouse, said that was the right thing. That way I don't want to have to think about it. [/whine]

OMG. Get out of my head.

I was thinking *exactly that*.

I'd add "trusted media voice" to that list (and I find that trust is often given for a range of reasons, but charisma, physical appearance, and loudness/repetition are high on that list, sadly, above reason. Because reason is hard.)

[xoxoxoBruce]

Oh, good point! FOX News said, I heard on talk radio...

[DanaC]

Yehbut, it's kind of helpful that people do that - 'cause as soon as they say 'Fox News said' - then you know you can tune them out and stop listening :p

[Big Sarge]

I don't trust Fox News. They have been infiltrated by the the leftist. I rely on Alex Jones for the truth!

[xoxoxoBruce]

Some are buying access...

[Happy Monkey]

Brett and Leon may find that the 2700 to Hillary lost a bit of value when this was published.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Iran, youran, weran.