Magical thinking

They think that lowering taxes will bring in more revenue.

They think that arming more people with guns will result in less gun violence.

Make work projects

Now and then, I like to quote illustrious authors who agree with my own exalted opinions.  In this case, the subject is New Deal programs that put people from all walks in life to work.  Conservatives don't like the government spending money on things like this.  I guess they think government money is somehow impure, unlike private sector money.  Or maybe they think it makes us soft.  My opinion is, things needed to be done, people needed work, and a lot of wonderful things got done.  There's no shame in any of that.  Nobody got a handout.  They worked, and they felt useful once again.

You will recall that even artists and writers got paid for jobs they did for the government.  Here is John Steinbeck on the subject, from Travels With Charley.

If there had been room in Rocinante, I would have packed the W.P.A. Guides to the States, all forty-eight volumes of them.  I have all of them, and some are very rare.  If I remember correctly, North Dakota printed only eight hundred copies and South Dakota about five hundred.  The complete set comprises the most comprehensive account of the United States ever got together, and nothing since has even approached it.  It was compiled during the depression by the best writers in America, who were, if that is possible, more depressed than any other group while maintaining their inalienable instinct for eating.  But these books were detested by Mr. Roosevelt's opposition.  If W.P.A. workers leaned on their shovels, the writers leaned on their pens.  The result was that in some states the plates were broken up after a few copies were printed, and that is a shame because they were reservoirs of organized, documented, and well-written information, geological, historical, and economic.  If I had carried my guides along, for example, I would have looked up Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, where I stopped, and would have known why it is called Detroit Lakes, who named it, when, and why.  I stopped near there late at night, and so did Charley, and I don't know any more about it than he does.

Further bafflement

I know I've gone on about this before, but I am still baffled that people continue to lie in defense of their positions.  I mean, I understand that sometimes people believe that their false beliefs are true, but that's not what I'm talking about.  I mean people who have made false statements, been shown that their statements were false, and yet gone on repeating them.

Isn't a belief that has to be proven by lies a worthless thing?  Why continue to defend it?

A friend of mine is an Obama hater.  I will advance no opinion as to why he hates Obama.  Recently, he passed along a piece of propaganda that you may have seen going around the internet.  It goes like this:

Since its construction, only three times have presidents failed to go to the D-Day Monument that honors the soldiers killed on D-Day.  Those three presidents were:

1. Barack Obama 2010

2. Barack Obama 2011

3. Barack Obama 2012

I don't know who originated this little tidbit, but similar items are foisted on the public more than occasionally.  If you're in agreement with the originator, you nod your head sagely and say your Tut tuts.  We all do at least a little of this, believing things that support our way of thinking, disbelieving things that don't.  But if someone can demonstrate the falsity of a claim, why do some people continue to make the claim?

I ask because this friend of mine posted the above item in a forum a while back, and was directed to the Snopes page that debunks it.  Aside from the fact that the above mentioned "D-Day monument" is not clearly identified, Snopes points out that, in fact, presidential visits to any of the possible D-Day monuments have been the exception, rather than the rule, since Ronald Reagan made his only visit to Normandy in 1984.

Ronald Reagan visited Normandy once (40th anniversary of D-Day).

Bill Clinton visited Normandy once (50th anniversary).

George W. Bush visited Normandy twice (60th anniversary of D-Day, and also a Memorial Day visit).

Barack Obama visited Normandy once (65th anniversary).

This same friend of mine recently reposted the claim in another cyber-venue as though it were true.  Now, does my friend just hate Obama so much that he will make any statement about him that might influence others to not vote for him?  Or did my friend just start disbelieving anything published on Snopes because he wanted so much to believe what was demonstrably false?

People can have any opinion they want to, but facts are checkable.