There Are Two Choices in Politics: Both Are Bad

If you haven’t noticed, in politics there is a common view that one side has the ‘right’ answer on an issue and the other has the ‘wrong’ answer. [An aside: I would hope that the use of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ provided a self-evident meaning of these terms in the non-political sense. If you aligned either or both terms to a political entity, then the rationale for this aside is hopefully helpful.] This is seen daily in news coverage of our elected officials at the federal, state, and local levels. The partisan alignment of “truth, justice and the American way” that turns every issue, question, or policy into an “Either-Or” confrontation is particularly visible when the media provides politicians or their spokespersons with any bandwidth on a topic. But forget about the “Either-Or” of the topic on display, what is the reason, logic, or intelligence of the “Either-Or” perspective? That politicians use this strategy so predictably is, in and of itself, an almost self-evident proof that it is an ill-informed and inappropriate way to understand or deal with the issues.

Besides the inane strategy of force-fitting any and every issue into a choice between “this” side or “that” side, there is just no logical basis for why that concept would be valid in the real world on most issues. As often as we happen upon the “Either-Or” phenomena, how often is there an issue which is so simple and basic that it has only one of two choices? Take an issue where there is even some moderate degree of complexity and ask yourself: “Is it is reasonable to conclude that the laws of physics, principles of economics, or an area of scientific knowledge which would suggest that the issue divides into only one of two sides/cases?”

If you believe most of reality works on an “Either-Or” basis, then tossing a coin would be a good way to model most of the questions, issues, and policies that you have to make your decisions on. Consider applying that model to your life. If it does not work there, why would it work for larger issues and circumstances in your community, society, or government? Is buying a car something you could easily do by flipping a coin? Yes, you can do it that way, but do you actually? How about buying a house or renting an apartment? Surely when you go to the grocery store you can use a coin-toss to buy or not buy items. Unless you are planning to have something specific for a meal and require specific ingredients. Maybe deciding to have a baby is simple enough to use a coin to decide. Now I am not trying to claim that there are ‘no’ decisions, choices, or situations where a coin-toss would not work perfectly well. Who goes first in a two-person game for instance, or who’s going to pay for lunch (unless there are other factors that are relevant even to paying for lunch). There are some conditions and situations where a coin-toss (“Either-Or”) is fine, but there are many more where it just isn’t rational.

Reality requires dealing with more complexity than the simple-mined “either-or” tunnel-vision politicians force upon themselves and others with ideological blinders. On almost every issue, perhaps actually on every issue; it would be more intelligent for politicians to think in terms of the answers to an issue as being presented by a die. The die might be four, six, eight, …, or perhaps to keep the concept within a politician’s ken no more than a dodecahedron (that is a 12-sided die, for politicians). The purpose of this die-based conceptual approach is to encourage politicians, their political parties, and their advisers who may themselves struggle to see outside their own self-imposed blinders to try and see the world as requiring one to think about what the actual problem is rather than trying to fit it into a pre-ordained box.

The “Either-Or” problem is about how does one solve the propensity for people, especially politicians, to put every question into a forced “Either-Or” choice?  Applying this bifurcation rule is a foolish way to try and solve problems. Making everything an “Either-Or” question will rarely deliver a sound, reasoned and informed solution. Believing that you can force reality into an “Either-Or” choice in order to satisfy a “them vs us” political box is a pretty good definition of a “fool’s errand” or idiocy; and is thus quite reasonably to be expected of politicians. Solving the “Either-Or” problem has readily available strategies, and lots of practical methods and techniques.

The solution would be to do what any semi-competent STEM-educated individual would advise. Use STEM-based problem-solving. This begins with understanding the problem without bias, identifying/defining what your objectives and goals are (and not pre-constrained by an ideological bias), and then look for and at all the solutions and approaches that you are capable of thinking up, and then assess which solution options are best able to satisfy the objectives you have. Once you have at least one option to solve the problem, and for which you can see a path that can be implemented to achieve those goals, then you can determine what would make your choose among alternative solutions to guide your selection (hopefully while still avoiding a pre-set because of an ideological preference).

This will be a herculean challenge for any politician, since it requires that you remove the blinders, open your eyes to all the ways in which an issue can be solved, and then perhaps most importantly assess the benefits and costs without regard for whether they conform to and confirm your ideological principles. When ideological principles contradict smart and intelligent solutions, it would be best to follow the advice of John Maynard Keynes. Or, if you have heard this phrase recently: “Let the science guide us” then you can hopefully prevent the pre-conceived answer, solution, or policy from degrading or preventing get to the benefits you were seeking.

What validates the need to avoid or solve the “Either-Or” problem? Just think of some of the issues that occupy our nation regularly or constantly. Who, beside a politician, actually thinks that any of the following issues, problems or topics can be answered or solved with an “Either-Or” answer/solution?

•   ·       Lowering taxation policies are better for an economy. Or its counterpart: Raising taxation policies are worse for an economy.
•   ·         Gun-violence or Gun-control laws are a violation of the 2^nd Amendment.
•   ·         The government (federal or state) cannot require the public to get vaccinated.
•   ·         Climate Change is real and humans contribute to it. Or, its counter-claim: Climate Change is not impacted by human activities.
•   ·         Abortion policy: It is either total legal or totally illegal. Or an obscuring issue: No federal tax dollars can go to any activity with any connection to an abortion related event.
•   ·         Tariffs: Either the other party pays the costs, or you do.
•   ·         Other issues: Perhaps your favorite issue meets the “Either-Or” category.

Now as nice as clear, simple and opinion-confirming “Either-Or” answers are to a problem there is no requirement that a problem has a clear, simple or opinion-confirming answer and especially not an “Either-Or” one. Certainly, there is no Law of Physics that requires this, and our experiences from the STEM world is that even what seems simple can become quite complex and not so “Either-Or”-based as thought.

The reason that it is important to question “Either-Or” answers, solutions or decisions is that it is in those questions that we can learn something that might be critical to what matters. After all, just because you have an answer, solution or have made a decision that is no guarantee that the answer is right, or that the solution will accomplish your objective, or that the decision will serve your interests.

We can see this aspect of human self-awareness (on those rare occasions when humans show self-awareness) just by how they make statements regarding an answer, solution, or decision. How often have you heard something akin to the following:

·         Given the information available, this is the best answer we can get.

·         We do not know how else to solve this problem.

·         We do not have time to find another solution.

·         Based on what we know today, this seems to be the right decision.

I am sure that you could generate your own ‘qualifying’ statements about facts you have heard that are more semi-facts than absolute “this and only this” facts; or answers that you are not so sure of, a solution that has other paths that might work as well (or even better), and decisions that you had to make but not between what was ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ but where it was just necessary to make a decision (like in voting in an election).

At this point, lets drop back to one of the oft heard “Either-Or” issues fought over between our politicians and political parties: Taxation policy.

Is the economy better with lower taxes or higher taxes? Simple question, right? Then there must be a simple ‘right’ answer and therefore a simple ‘wrong’ answer. This has been a long-standing “Either-Or” issue. Some assert or shout that “Taxes are too high.” And there are others claiming and haranguing that “The wealthy need to pay more taxes.” [Note: “more taxes” can mean higher in a number of different ways but the net meaning is a greater amount than is currently incurred by this sub-group of the population.] One can get a sense of the “Either-Or” positions from these opposing views. There would apparently be some point between them that would satisfy both sides if there is an “Either-Or” solution. Except, we have never found it. Taxes have been higher, they have been lower, and they have varied in a multitude of ways across a variety of dimensions. Yet, none of the political parties and certainly not both have found a means to find the proverbial “Either-Or” sweet spot. The easiest answer is of an Occam’s razor type and would be: “There isn’t one.” For those who of are not familiar with Occam’s razor it asserts basically that the ‘simplest answer is often the right one’. What makes it relevant here is that contains an implicit warning about “Either-Or” answers; it contains the salient term “often”.

To ascertain the ‘right’ answer to the taxation issue one must understand the problem. Taxation policy is a solution to societal problems that are deemed in need of solutions: How should the costs of societal needs be accounted for and distributed? There is no answer to this problem unless you answer or define what the ‘societal problems’ are. There are some societal needs that even politicians and parties both agree upon. There needs to be some governmental entities and activities that must exist and perform their functions. The US Constitution itself provides simple proof is this requirement. But even the Constitution does not answer the questions about what all those societal needs are.

If what is required of a government is not self-evident. If the government and its responsibilities are not fixed and unchanging. If the circumstances under which the government must operate are not constant. Then the ‘right’ taxation policy(ies) surely must adapt to needs of reality; just as history has demonstrated over and over, despite the ideological positions of politicians, political parties and even economists some of whom cannot seem to adapt to failures in their preferred economic theories, models and principles.

Perhaps relying upon “Either-Or” answers is not something that an informed, rational, and democratic nation should aspire to be. “Either-Or” may be all that politicians or political parties are able to do; but like any other problem they can be solved. Politicians can be replaced with someone who is less bound to an ideological “Theory of Everything” that fails most if not all tests. Political parties can be forced to evolve by the proper exercise of Darwinian selection. And the public could benefit from having issues of the day presented and explained in terms of the reasoning and decisions that are being made rather than in “Either-Or” ideological themes of what ‘is hoped to be true’ rather than ‘what is true.’