Emotional Capture

Dr Peter Venkman: Ray has gone bye bye, Egon. What have you got left?
Dr Egon Spengler: Sorry, Venkman. I'm terrified beyond all capacity for rational thought.
--Ghostbusters

Emotional capture involves situations where people can be persuaded to support actions that they would not support otherwise because they are emotionally distraught. For example, an economic crisis might cause people to condone unilateral interventions in markets because people fear for their livelihoods.

A school shooting might drive some individuals to sanction laws that impair people's right to defend themselves with firearms.

Personally, I was emotionally captured following the 9/11 attacks to support war on other countries out of feelings of rage and revenge.

Policymakers understand the power of emotional capture. During the credit market meltdown, President Obama's former chief of staff famously uttered that "you never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is that it is an opportunity to do things you think that you could not do before."

The State is motivated to create situations that enable it to prey on people's emotions.

Gun Violence and Emotional Capture

Mandy's in the back room handing out the Valium
Sheriff's on the air waves talking to the DJs
Forty-seven heartbeats beating like a drum
Got to live it up, live it up
Ronnie's got a new gun
--Escape Club

There may be no event more capable of eliciting emotional capture than mass shootings similar to the San Bernandino shootings earlier this week. Gun grabbers use the event to gin up support for stricter gun control laws. Pro-gun entities use the event to rally their base. The actions of both sides serve to goose gun sales in the near term.

The media plays their part as well, as reporting of events, often in a slanted manner, serves to elevate popular perceptions of gun violence to unrealistic levels. Think tank Pew Research Center recently reported that a majority of people believe that gun violence in the US is on the rise even though it has been, as these pages have similarly observed, declining for two decades.

Perceptions about the frequency of mass shootings (definitional issues notwithstanding), which have not meaningfully changed for 25 years, are similarly skewed.

All of this against a backdrop of increasing gun ownership and concealed carry.

An environment fertile for System 1 thinking and for those willing to exploit it.

Surveys and Emotional Capture

John Cutter: Am I supposed to trust you?
Charles Rane: Trust your instincts.
John Cutter: My instincts are to wax your ass all over this floor.
Charles Rane: Those are your emotions acting without the benefit of intellect.
--Passenger 57

As these pages have previously noted, few events stimulate emotional capture more than mass school shootings. Politicians know it.

So do their media lackeys, particularly those who make it a habit of surveying people about their views on gun violence just after a mass shooting, and then report huge increases in percentages of people who favor increased gun control measures. Example here.

What they won't report is that such surveys always show spikes higher immediately following a mass shooting event. In fact, any poll taken in the wake of a tragedy is prone to indicate that more people are willing to cede liberty to government in the name of security.

Then, as time unfolds and people gather their wits, the survey numbers recede as emotions wane and reasoning processes are re-engaged.

Beware the People Weeping

Ed Harrison: And, yeah, we'll put the old boy on himself. You know, the forgotten man angle. Tear their hearts out.
Bob Wallace: Sorry, Ed, but that's out. We're not capitalizing on the old man's hard luck. No chance.
--White Christmas

Judge Nap adds to our recent discussion of emotional capture and institutional failure in the context of gun control. Of course, he does it in a much more eloquent manner than these pages ever could. In my view, this is one of the Judge's more insightful pieces (and that's saying something). Reading and re-reading is recommended.

I would like to discuss several of his thoughts here.

Putting traumatized kids before television cameras soon after a tragedy virtually guarantees emotional capture, or what the Judge calls 'madness' among the children and onlookers. Madness in this sense is "the passionate and stubborn refusal to accept reason." Madness is common after a tragedy. The Judge cites poet Herman Melville, who after witnessing the railroading of individuals accused of being involved with President Lincoln's assassination, wrote, "Beware the People weeping. When they bare the iron hand."

The lesson: it is nearly impossible to argue rationally with tears and pain. Take a step back from a tragedy before addressing it with 'legalized' force.

The concept of natural rights can be viewed religiously or aesthetically. Those who believe in an all loving God see natural rights as the claims and privileges attached to humanity by Him. For those who do not accept the existence of a Supreme Being, the argument for natural rights still holds. Because it is obvious that humans are the superior rational beings on earth, our exercise of reason leads us to the exercise of freedoms that are integral to our humanity and independent of government. The first among these is our right to life--the right to be and to remain alive.

The right to life implies the right to defend one's life. Our founding ancestors recognized this right when they ratified the Second Amendment. They wrote it to ensure that all governments (in place then and in the future) would respect the right to keep and bear arms as a natural extension of the right to self-defense.

The Supreme Court has characterized this right as 'pre-political'--meaning that the right pre-existed government. If it pre-existed government, then it must be a natural right, i.e., it must come from our human nature. When Judge Nap asked the late Justice Antonin Scalia why he used the term 'pre-political' instead of 'natural' when authoring the majority opinion in the landmark District of Columbia v. Heller case, Scalia replied, "You and I know they mean the same thing, but 'natural' sounds too Catholic, and I am interpreting the Constitution, not Aquinas."

The Heller opinion also recognized that the Second Amendment was written soon after a war had been fought against a king and an army that was regarded as the most powerful army on earth. That war would surely have been lost had not the colonists borne arms equal to or better than those of the British troops.

The Second Amendment was not written to protect the right to shoot deer. It was written to protect the right to defend against acts of aggression, whether those acts are perpetrated by bad guys, crazy people, or tyrannical government. Heller articulated that the right to self defense means that individuals have the right to use guns that are of the same level of sophistication as their adversaries.

Gun grabbers are unwilling to accept this. A colleague recently asked the Judge on air: Suppose we confiscated all guns? Wouldn't that keep us safe? The Judge replied that we'd need to start with the government's guns. No, his colleague said. What if we confiscated guns from the civilian population only?

An extension of this question would be: What if we confiscated 'assault style' weapons from civilians but left them in the hands of government?

To the reasoning mind that grasps the concept of institutional failure, the answer is obvious.

Kids as Political Pawns

Another night in any town
You can hear the thunder of their cry
Ahead of their time
They wonder why
--Journey

Herbert long ago observed that as stakes rise associated with controlling the massive power of a democratic state, factions in competition for that power will become increasingly polarized. Moreover, those factions will become increasingly motivated to use all possible means to capture and retain state power.

This includes employing kids as political pawns.

In many ways, kids are ideal political instruments. Generally speaking, their reasoning powers are not fully developed, leaving them gullible to half baked arguments. They have not yet learned to fully control their feelings, making them susceptible to emotional capture. They are dependent on grown-ups for both tangible and psychic resources, making them open to adult influence in order to obtain what they need.

Perhaps the most desirable feature that kids possess for political operatives is the strong influence that kids, particularly perceived as innocent and victimized, can have on others. A crying child attracts more attention than a crying adult. While kids are prone to being emotionally captured themselves, they also possess tremendous capacity for emotionally capturing others.

Stated differently, kids can serve as excellent marketers for political agendas.

Thus, appeals for passing laws or government programs 'for the children' become increasingly common--as dubious as the underlying logic may be. More recently, those desperate to gain control of state power are trotting out kids as central participants in organized political protests--first on college campuses and now in high schools.

This should not be surprising. In fact, we should expect demand for children as political pawns to escalate as do the stakes associated with control of the state.

That does not mean, however, that individuals should sit idly while kids are being manipulated by political operatives.

Crisis and Liberty

Vasily Borodin: The crew know about the saboteur and they are afraid.
Captain Marko Ramius: That could be useful when the time comes.
--The Hunt for Red October

Why are people prone to surrender liberty in times of crisis? One theoretical explanation is grounded in threat-rigidity theory. Under conditions of threat, people become more 'rigid' in their thinking. They tend to look at less alternatives and centralize decision-making authority.

Stated differently, critical thinking goes down and willingness to cede power to government goes up.

This theory is complemented by research on judgment and decision-making. When we are threatened, our minds remain fixed in fast-thinking mode. We are reactive, emotional, and less rational. It is difficult to reason well.

In this mode, we are subject to emotional capture by opportunistic statists.

Although they rarely admit it, big government proponents look forward to the next terrorist attack, the next mass shooting, et al. The committed ones may try to facilitate the occurrence of such events. They understand theory about how the masses are likely to respond in times of threat. They know that serious statists never let a good crisis go to waste.

Evaluating Healthcare Policy Consequences

I read the news today, oh boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
--The Beatles

One of the best books someone can read to improve their economic thought process, particularly w.r.t. evaluating economic policy, is Henry Hazlitt's classic Economics in One Lesson.

Using various policy topics (e.g., minimum wage, tariffs, welfare programs), Hazlitt repeatedly demonstrates how to apply Bastiat's analysis of 'that which is seen and that which is not seen.' Hazlitt prompts the reader to look beyond outcomes that typically make headlines (e.g., "layoffs resulting from process automation") to the less discussed but usually important consequences (e.g., long run effects on prosperity from productivity improvement projects).

Such perspective is invaluable when making sense of public policy issues, such as the current healthcare debate. Proponents of state-run healthcare splash headlines with threats that millions of people will die, or at least lose their healthcare coverage, if Obamacare is repealed and/or replaced. Such claims, of course, are dubious to begin with (e.g., here, here, here) and smacks of emotional capture propaganda.

But even if those claims contained elements of truth, a complete and honest analysis involves evaluating other policy. What has been the effect of Obamacare on jobs, for instance? On the availability of healthcare resources? On health insurance premiums? On healthcare productivity and innovation?

Consider as well the social consequences of forcing some people to produce healthcare resources for the benefit of others? And what would have happened had those resources not been forcibly diverted?

Small minds respond to what is fed to them about healthcare. Inquiring minds go beyond.

Rhetoric of Death

In my head, the voice is waiting
Waiting for me to set it free
--Russ Ballard

Of the many strategies that have unraveled on the left, one that has been laid bare for all to see is the practice of accusing political opponents of 'violent rhetoric' that subsequently spawns violent action.

When Democratic congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot in 2011, leftists first claimed that the shooter had Tea Party ties which helped motive the crime due to the Tea Party's alleged violent underpinnings. When the associated mainstream media frenzy refused to reveal any Tea Party links to the shooter, accusations shifted to Republican Sarah Palin's recent communications that 'targeted' various Democratic political districts for action using a crosshairs motif. When it became clear that the alleged shooter had a long record of unstable behavior and affinities to the writings of Hitler and Marx, the party line shifted once more to the harsh political rhetoric alleged to be spewed by Republicans, and the potential of these words to compel unstable individuals toward violent acts.

The left has rolled out similar narratives in the face of other high profile events, including the Benghazi disaster and even the Boston Marathon bombing, to little avail.

That these narratives had no factual basis, of course, matters little to the left. They help rile the base thru processes of gaslighting and emotional capture.

Since last fall's presidential election, it has been the left that has been spewing increasingly violent rhetoric. The most eyepopping examples come from left wing entertainers. Snoop Dogg shooting a character dressed as Donald Trump in the head in a music video. Madonna confessing on stage that she has thought about blowing up the White House. A comedian posting a video of herself holding a bloody Donald Trump head severed ISIS-style. A NYC play depicting Trump as a modern-day Julius Caesar getting stabbed to death on stage.

Leftist groups have called for various programs of 'resistance' and even war. Demonstrations have morphed into riots.

Democratic politicians have gotten into the act as well. Claims to the effect that "People are going to die" have been uttered by Democrats in opposition to nearly all Trump and GOP actions. If Obamacare is repealed, people are going to die. If the US steps away from global warming treaties, people are going to die. Etc.

This past week, the tables turned even more on the left when a leftist partisan who was obviously plugged into this stream, as exemplified by his social media trail, shot up a GOP baseball practice and injured several, including the third ranking Republican in the House. Did someone who repeatedly heard that 'People will die' if Republican policies were implemented think that he could save lives by gunning down some GOP policymakers?

We'll never know for certain as the shooter is dead. And even if that shooter did take the words of others to heart, it is doubtful that he will be able to lay off blame for his actions when he stands accountable before God.

However, it is becoming apparent is that the derangement of the left is increasingly being expressed by a rhetoric of death, and that this rhetoric could inspire action. Individuals would be foolish not to prepare for the potential consequences should this behavior continue.

Orchestration

Borderline
Feels like I'm going to lose my mind
You just keep on pushing my love
Over the borderline
--Madonna

The recent hysteria involving separation of children from adults (not necessarily parents) seeking to cross the southern border illegally demonstrates once again that few social events with political overtones are random. Rather, they are premeditated. Planned and often funded by groups with political agendas to elicit a sympathetic response from onlookers--particularly those who vote.

Stated differently, most sociopolitical events that grab headlines are not spontaneous, but orchestrated. A primary goal of orchestration is emotional capture.

A complicit media fans the flames. And kids commonly serve as political pawns.

Victimhood Markets

I heard about you and that man
There's just one thing that I don't understand
You say he's a liar and he put out your fire
How come you still got his gun in your hand?
--Eagles

Victim mentality and victimhood culture go hand in hand with markets for victimhood. On one side of the market are the sellers--people who want to trade their position as a victim or perceived victim for something of value.

Victims might value material wealth, as in the case of an accident victim suing for damages. In other cases, victims might welcome psychic income from people who sympathize with their victimhood. Victims might also gain social status if the culture tends to worship or otherwise elevate victimhood.

On the other side of the market are the buyers--those who seek to benefit from the victimhood of others. Overt examples are ambulance chasing attorneys who take on victimized clients under the auspices of obtaining a slice of a legal settlement.

More subtle are charitable people who wish to help others perceived as victimized. In exchange for their assistance, charitable people gain psychic income from the satisfaction of helping others. If they believe in God, charitable people might also gain a spiritual sense that they have strengthened their case for progressing to the afterlife.

Increasingly active on the buy side of victimhood markets are political factions. These groups seek to leverage the victimhood of others to gain political capital that will help them advance their agendas. By acquiring elements of victimhood and the emotional capture that comes with it, political factions calculate that they will gain votes or similar assets that they can ultimately convert into control of the strong arm of government.

When political factions are involved, victimhood markets are a means for gaining power and authority over others.

Hysteria Again

I get hysterical
Hysteria
Oh can you feel it?
Do you believe it?
--Def Leppard

Acute situations foster System 1 thinking rather than reasoned thinking. System 1 thinking presents opportunity for politicians to engage in emotional capture.

It should therefore not be surprising that gun grabbers are once again coming out of the woodwork following recent episodes of mass shootings. They betray any semblance of sincerity by their hysterical idiocy.

These pages have previously suggested that, if they really wanted to sponsor 'serious' conversations about the positions they advocate, anti-gunners would benefit from better understanding of the firearms they target, and of their utility in self-defense situations.

That gun grabbers consistently fail to do so suggests that they believe the calm, reasoned approach to be a losing strategy.

So they continue down the path of hysteria.

Murder and Morality

Forty seven deadbeats living in the back street
North, east, west, south all in the same house
Sitting in a back room waiting for the big boom
I'm in a bedroom waiting for my baby
--Escape Club

Prof Williams lends some reasoned thoughts to offset recent gun-related emotional capture. Some mortality statistics:

Vehicle deaths where alcohol is involved: about 30/day
Deaths due to stabbing or hacking: more than 1500/yr
Deaths due to shotgun or rifle: about 550

If the thinking is that comprehensive background checks would reduce rifle related deaths, then why aren't federal background checks and waiting periods required for purchasing a car, for getting a driver's license, or for buying a knife?

Williams also observes that gun availability is far more limited now than in the past. A 1902 Sears catalog included 35 pages of firearms that could be purchased by mail. In the 1940-1960 period, magazines were full of gun ads directed at both adults and youngsters. Few states had advertisements on buying guns, and firearm transfers to juveniles was largely unrestricted.

His point is that current levels of murder, mayhem, and other forms of anti-social behavior are no more gun-related than they are car- or knife-related. Uncivilized behavior increases when moral standards decrease. And moral standards have been under siege in the US for more than half a century.

Because morality is the first line of defense against anti-social behavior, Williams argues that problems of murder et al. will continue until we regain our moral footing.

Age Discrimination and Guns

They're seeing through the promises
And all the lies they dare to tell
Is it heaven or hell?
They know very well
--Journey

In the wave of emotional capture following the Valentines Day school shooting in Florida, some retailers, most notably Dick's Sporting Goods, have proclaimed that they will no longer sell 'assault-style' rifles. It is, of course, completely within a seller's rights to do so. No one can put a gun to retailers' heads and order them to sell...guns.

Other retailers who do sell guns have announced that they will raise the minimum age for gun and ammo purchase to 21. Under federal law the minimum age for firearm purchase is 18.

No problem here either, you say. Just like no one can force a retailer what to sell, no one should be able to force a retailer who to sell to.

In a free market environment, this would be true. People should be free to associate with whomever they wish--including associations for business transactions.

The counterargument has been that freedom of association breeds discrimination, and discrimination should not be allowed. Even if, say, a baker does not care to bake a cake for a gay couple, legally the baker should be forced to do so.

Consequently, freedom of association has not been permitted. Laws have been put on the books that prohibit discrimination when selling goods and services.

It is not difficult to apply the discrimination argument to the case of young people and guns. If it is legal to sell guns to 18 year olds, and a retailer chooses to sell guns, then why isn't that retailer legally obligated to sell guns to 18, 19, and 20 year olds?

This is different, you might argue. It is an issue of maturity, and those younger than 21 are not really adults yet. They are generally not mature enough to own and operate guns.

That is a difficult argument to make given what people of that age group are legally allowed to do. For instance, they are permitted to drive cars, to vote, and, ironically, to join the military.

Does, a 20 yr old single mom who wants to protect her home have a legal case against a retailer that refuses to sell her an AR-15 from the gun rack in the store because of her age? Under extant laws that prohibit discrimination in retail sales, I believe that she might.

Pawning CRT

"Look at my life. The life you tried to take. There was Annapolis, Vietnam, so on. I missed the Sixties. And I believe if I had been there--to contribute--everything would've been fine."
--William Strannix (Under Siege)

Two articles from a weekend spread on the always interesting American Greatness website about growing public pushback against 'critical race theory' (CRT). The first one touches on the Marxist roots of CRT. When the Marxian 'class war' hypothesis was falsified, proponents pivoted toward cultural rationales to spark unrest. As these pages have recounted, that pivot spawned CRT.

The second article argues that CRT is primarily a product of leftist baby boomer regret/guilt about the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Many of them sat out the movement. Now, they are projecting their shame on others by creating a new civil rights movement that rallies against concocted bogeymen.

In reality, these two threads are related. Cultural Marxism is constantly in search of narratives with capacity to recruit useful idiots to take up the cause of social disorder. These narratives lean heavily on mechanisms of superstition and emotional capture. Similar to climate change and corona fables, CRT narratives conveniently serve to mobilize the weak-minded as pawns for cultural Marxists.

Borderline Thoughts

Stop driving me away
I just want to stay
There's something I just got to say
--Madonna

Interesting questions raised by Pat Buchanan and other about US immigration policy have me thinking once again about the role of borders in society and government's role in maintaining them. Searching these pages for previous missives on the subject, I was surprised by how often, and how long ago, this topic has been on my mind.

This post serves as a lander page of sorts for these previous thoughts that might serve as a useful reference point in the future.

Role of borders in society. Boundaries have been drawn since the early days of civilized society--suggesting a natural tendency of human beings to do so. Possible reasons for doing so include selfishness (inappropriately possessive), security, economic (e.g., facilitate trade), or social (preference for living with similar individuals).

Desirability for borders as a means for creating political competition and choice. The idea is that differing political systems operating in each bordered society compete with each other for citizens. People will leave societies with less desirable political systems in favor of the better ones. Some believe this should benefit liberty over time.

An interesting thought experiment related to the 'borders as political competition' idea above is to imagine that the geography of the continental US is split at the Mississippi River into two countries. One side houses people who believe in liberty. On the other side are those who believe in state-sponsored 'equality.' Over time, the prosperity realized by Liberty will attract people who have become impoverished in Equality. At some point, Equality will have to erect exit barriers to stem the outflow--or, of course, throw off its totalitarian state. On the other hand, Liberty's destiny will depend on the extent to which its citizens can limit the scope of its government.

That conclusion--i.e., the success of a society founded on the principles of liberty is dependent on limiting scope of government--has led to several posts (here, here, here, here) that essentially consider the 'open border' problem. The central conclusion is this. When property rights are well respected and not confiscated to fund welfare programs available to all, then open borders are preferred. Open borders create competition and mobilize labor seeking opportunity. Prosperity will increase. However, if property is being confiscated to fund welfare programs, then borders cannot be open. People seeking a free ride, as well as those ideologically opposed to the notion of liberty, will cross borders (and/or encourage others to cross borders) to consume resources that they did not earn. If borders are not secured, then the welfare state grows ever larger under such circumstances until it collapses under its own weight.

This leads to an issue that has sparked much public debate recently: the erection of physical barriers such as walls as deterrents to unwanted border crossing. One camp likes to argue that 'wall don't work.' Because people can climb, tunnel, fly over, go around them, wall don't keep people out. What this camp conveniently omits from its argument are the words 'all' and 'some.' While walls certainly don't keep all out, they certainly keep some out. We can be sure that most of the very same people who argue against building border walls have fences around their yards, security systems in their houses, and locks on their doors. Few of these people are naive enough to expect these security measures to keep out the most hardened and dedicated criminals. But they will slow some down and deter others. The more formidable the wall, the greater the deterrent to illegal border crossing.

That said, there is a very good case to be made for alternatives to walls. Reduce trade barriers. Barriers such as tariffs increase cost of doing business and motivate locals to cross borders in search of better opportunity. Existing laws that restrain illegal immigration could also be more fully enforced. Finally, reduce welfare state incentives that attract immigrants seeking to live off the production of others.

Most recently, these pages have considered how orchestrated efforts have magnified the border problem. Politically motivated groups are using children as pawns and a complicit media to capture emotional support for conditions that, as noted above, are certain to sink the system: porous borders in tandem with an inclusive welfare state.