Push Me Off the Ledge

I am home now, but still on the ledge.  I told the women we stayed with in Albuquerque that I had a blog called Talk Me Off The Ledge.  Later, she asked me for more information about it and referred to it as Push Me Off The Ledge.  It got me thinking.

There are two things that put me on the ledge.  To refresh, the ledge is whether I want to stay involved in politics and this toxic culture or to drop out and go tend my garden, as Candide did. 

About a year ago, I read a study, which showed that when people are confronted with facts that disprove a closely held belief, then they will cling to that belief even tighter.  This was disturbing to me, since I work with facts, examine facts and, often, will rely on facts.  What other tools do I have to convince someone? 

I teach a logic section to my students and study the fallacies that have to do with the appeal to emotions and the appeal to pity.  These appeals to emotion run rampant in the political ads, especially in an election year.   Appeals to fear, mostly, but not entirely. 

There is also a huge misuse of facts and statistics.  Again, I teach a section on statistics and use, as a reference, Huff’s How to Lie with Statistics.  A neat little book, even if it is over 50 years old.  Understand simple things like the difference between mean, median and mode can go a long way to help interpret facts that are thrown at us.

My mother had a post card that we used to laugh about.  It said, “My mind’s made up.  Don’t confuse me with facts.”  I am heartbroken and discourage to find out how true that is.  If I can’t convince people with facts, well, why not just give up?

The other thing that has nudged me toward the ledge is the Law of Unintended Consequences.  I know a lot of people who vote their conscience.  Voting for a third party helps them make a statement and register their dislike of either candidate.  The consequence is that the candidate they like least is the one to get elected.  Another example is just what The Suz talked about with ranked choice voting.  It is a mechanism to be able to vote your conscience, but the consequence of that was to have someone elected that no one really wanted because people didn’t understand that they didn’t have to mark his name at all.

So, what would be the consequence of achieving the current political aim that I have?  I am active in the Move To Amend – Tacoma affiliate.  We want to amend the Constitution to say that corporations are not people and money is not speech.  It sounds good to me.  So far, I can’t see any downside to it.  It would allow corporations to be regulated so that we can make some environmental changes as well as allow us to get corporate money out of our elections. 

But you never know, do you?  Maybe some are right when they say let it all go to hell, tear it down and start over.  You never know. 

Is it time for me to jump?  Or will I get pushed?