Making Connections: The Dilemma of Persuasion

 

Decades ago, there was a television series by the BBC called “Connections.” Hosted by James Burke, it was an erudite tour de force through history showing how one thing leads to another. Burke literally connected the dots between the weaving machines and the digital computer.

This came to my mind as I was reading through the dissent by DC Circuit Judge Rao in Trump v Mazars USA, LLP and Committee on Oversight and Reform of the U.S. House of Representatives. This is the case where the House has subpoenaed President Trump’s tax records, not from Trump, but from his accountants. The subpoena was issued, not by a committee investigating impeachment, but by a committee purporting to oversee the operations of the Executive Branch.

And this is the crux of the dissent by Judge Rao: If Congress goes after evidence of wrongdoing by an impeachable officer, it must use impeachment processes (including safeguards for due process), not broader legislative processes. To do otherwise violates the Bill of Attainder provisions of the Constitution that prohibit Congress from meting out individual punishments — trial by legislature. If an officer is removed, the Executive and Judicial Branches can then deal with trial and punishment, as they do with all individuals.

Reading through the dissent, I think Judge Rao has done a fabulous job of making the correct legal judgment and setting out a roadmap for either the DC Circuit en banc or the Supreme Court to reverse the three-judge panel decision. But that is for lawyers. The bigger problem is how do you persuade the broader public of the rightness of a particular approach or decision? That brings me back to “Connections.”

It was a wonderful show, and it gave the public a better appreciation for how events interacted with one another to create the modern world. (It also was a great advertisement for History that seems so out of vogue with Progressive “education.”) But it is post facto or “Monday Morning Quarterbacking” to use a more common expression. It is what you see after things have happened.

The challenge of persuasion is to explain how the slotted cards that drove the English weaving machines in the early 19th century would likely result in digital computers, not that they did. When deciding public policy today or who to vote for that will embrace that policy the public must understand and believe in what is likely to come as a result. That is why politics is so unpredictable. And while the past is not destiny, it is trajectory, and remains important to both be taught and taught accurately. Revisionist historians like Howard Zinn do the public no favor by erasing dots and adding others that distort the trajectory of history.

This is the tension of the “originalist” vs. “living constitution” approach to law and policy. Judge Rao is an originalist — a believer that the Founders struggled with a human nature that was fundamental even though the world around it changed. “Living constitutionalists” presume that history has little or nothing to teach us and that we arise anew each day to make a better world. (To make a better world, Trump must be removed by any means necessary, therefore there are no constitutional restraints on that outcome.)

But conservatives, including Never Trumpers, know better. Humans are flawed and will continue to be flawed. Human institutions are also flawed and will continue to be flawed. Therefore power needs to be disbursed and restrained. Law must be tied to history and our legislators must honor that history, or all is lost. Judge Rao is not only arguing what the law requires, but what it is seeking to avoid — the unchecked power of a group of people to gang up on one. It must always be recalled that what can be done to another — no matter how detestable that other may be — can be done to you. And history shows that it will be if it is permitted to be. That is the connection that must be made for our citizens today.

Our citizens must be reminded that the world did not start the day they were born (else they would not have been born at all). Government is not your friend — at best it will be a compliant servant if you insist, and only if you insist, that it be so.

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  1. Barfly Member
    Barfly
    @Barfly

    Rodin: The challenge of persuasion is to explain how the slotted cards that drove the English weaving machines in the early 19th century would likely result in digital computers, not that they did.

    That’s right, and it explains the power of narrative. We humans don’t reason as such. Rather, our minds match patterns. 

    • #1
  2. CarolJoy, Above Top Secret Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret
    @CarolJoy

    Barfly (View Comment):

    Rodin: The challenge of persuasion is to explain how the slotted cards that drove the English weaving machines in the early 19th century would likely result in digital computers, not that they did.

    That’s right, and it explains the power of narrative. We humans don’t reason as such. Rather, our minds match patterns.

    Our minds match patterns sometimes.

    But our minds can be convinced to ignore patterns. This is especially true  if the overwhelming onslaught of the printed word, the spoken and visual media, and of course, the hundreds of hours in classrooms where the developing brains of children and young adults are taught via a method akin to   brainwashing.

    Right now we are living inside a society in which the citizens’ minds have been carefully taught to ignore the patterns.

    • #2
  3. Barfly Member
    Barfly
    @Barfly

    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret (View Comment):

    Barfly (View Comment):

    Rodin: The challenge of persuasion is to explain how the slotted cards that drove the English weaving machines in the early 19th century would likely result in digital computers, not that they did.

    That’s right, and it explains the power of narrative. We humans don’t reason as such. Rather, our minds match patterns.

    Our minds match patterns sometimes.

    But our minds can be convinced to ignore patterns. This is especially true if the overwhelming onslaught of the printed word, the spoken and visual media, and of course, the hundreds of hours in classrooms where the developing brains of children and young adults are taught via a method akin to brainwashing.

    Right now we are living inside a society in which the citizens’ minds have been carefully taught to ignore the patterns.

    Hmm, that’s not what I’m talking about. At the most fundamental level, the way mammalian intelligence works is to match patterns. That’s how vision works, and all other sense processing, and how conscious thought works too. The distinction I mean is that while a quality trained mind can learn to simulate reason by matching patterns it finds in nature which is rational itself, no mind is naturally rational.

    But that fact of how the mind works, by matching patterns, makes it vulnerable to narratives. Narratives fill in the spaces between the points where we observe the real world; a narrative’s cohesion helps us to match our mind to it. 

    • #3
  4. CarolJoy, Above Top Secret Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret
    @CarolJoy

    Barfly (View Comment):

    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret (View Comment):

    Barfly (View Comment):

    Rodin: The challenge of persuasion is to explain how the slotted cards that drove the English weaving machines in the early 19th century would likely result in digital computers, not that they did.

    That’s right, and it explains the power of narrative. We humans don’t reason as such. Rather, our minds match patterns.

    Our minds match patterns sometimes.

    But our minds can be convinced to ignore patterns. This is especially true if the overwhelming onslaught of the printed word, the spoken and visual media, and of course, the hundreds of hours in classrooms where the developing brains of children and young adults are taught via a method akin to brainwashing.

    Right now we are living inside a society in which the citizens’ minds have been carefully taught to ignore the patterns.

    Hmm, that’s not what I’m talking about. At the most fundamental level, the way mammalian intelligence works is to match patterns. That’s how vision works, and all other sense processing, and how conscious thought works too. The distinction I mean is that while a quality trained mind can learn to simulate reason by matching patterns it finds in nature which is rational itself, no mind is naturally rational.

    But that fact of how the mind works, by matching patterns, makes it vulnerable to narratives. Narratives fill in the spaces between the points where we observe the real world; a narrative’s cohesion helps us to match our mind to it.

    @rodin

    I got what you are saying, truly I did.

    And the way the brain works naturally is a beautiful thing in and of itself. Your essay and the information it exposed is important.

    That inherent beauty is why it is all the more tragic how forces of Evil, be they mere greed for power, money, control or simply demonic Evil, have learned via Edward Bernays the easiest and most effective methods of brainwashing a population  via propaganda.

    • #4
  5. David Foster Member
    David Foster
    @DavidFoster

    If a decision *works* that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good decision…If you play Russian Roulette and survive, the experience doesn’t prove that it’s a good idea to play Russian Roulette! If a court uses questionable legal reasoning to support a decision you like, that doesn’t mean you will be happy with other decisions based on that type of reasoning.  It is necessary to consider not only the outcome, but the strategy on which the outcome was based, and how that strategy might have led, and still might lead, to other outcomes.

    Nassim Taleb has written about this in a financial context.  

     

    • #5
  6. DonG Coolidge
    DonG
    @DonG

    The Dems have been engaging in the twin evils of tyranny and corruption.  It is times like this that separate the patriots from the posers. 

    • #6
  7. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    DonG (View Comment):

    The Dems have been engaging in the twin evils of tyranny and corruption. It is times like this that separate the patriots from the posers.

    Indeed.

    • #7
  8. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Rodin: But conservatives, including Never Trumpers, know better. Humans are flawed and will continue to be flawed. Human institutions are also flawed and will continue to be flawed. Therefore power needs to be disbursed and restrained. Law must be tied to history and our legislators must honor that history, or all is lost. Judge Rao is not only arguing what the law requires, but what it is seeking to avoid — the unchecked power of a group of people to gang up on one. It must always be recalled that what can be done to another — no matter how detestable that other may be — can be done to you. And history shows that it will be if it is permitted to be. That is the connection that must be made for our citizens today.

    Excellent post, @rodin. This is the crux of the argument. I’m always baffled at the idea of the “living constitution” and how readily the Left is prepared to change a document that has stood the test of time, because they know what the constitution should say for our times. What happens when the next court times decide they were wrong, or that the times are once again different (as they likely will be)? Does anyone really believe that the Constitution can be changed willy-nilly because arrogant jurists knows what is best for the country?? Good grief.

    • #8
  9. CarolJoy, Above Top Secret Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret
    @CarolJoy

    DonG (View Comment):

    The Dems have been engaging in the twin evils of tyranny and corruption. It is times like this that separate the patriots from the posers.

    Great observation. Those twin evils are the foundation of their platform.

    Plus we can add their relentless drive for total censorship of what we say, write or think to the twin evils you mention.

    • #9
  10. Douglas Pratt Coolidge
    Douglas Pratt
    @DouglasPratt

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Excellent post, @rodin. This is the crux of the argument. I’m always baffled at the idea of the “living constitution” and how readily the Left is prepared to change a document that has stood the test of time, because they know what the constitution should say for our times. What happens when the next court times decide they were wrong, or that the times are once again different (as they likely will be)? Does anyone really believe that the Constitution can be changed willy-nilly because arrogant jurists knows what is best for the country?? Good grief.

    That is why they have been systematically altering the country’s history and treating it with contempt where they couldn’t alter it. If history is irrelevant you can do what you like. 

    I forget who said that if you control the past, you control the future. Probably Orwell.

    • #10
  11. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    I really liked that show, but the “connections” were often fairly weak, as you note.  

    • #11
  12. Rodin Member
    Rodin
    @Rodin

    Douglas Pratt (View Comment):
    I forget who said that if you control the past, you control the future. Probably Orwell.

    “Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future.”

    George Orwell, 1984

    The unholy alliance of progressive academics, media and politicians.

    • #12
  13. Barfly Member
    Barfly
    @Barfly

    Skyler (View Comment):

    I really liked that show, but the “connections” were often fairly weak, as you note.

    Yeah, I often thought he was either forcing it or just showing off. 

    • #13
  14. David Foster Member
    David Foster
    @DavidFoster

    Rodin: The challenge of persuasion is to explain how the slotted cards that drove the English weaving machines in the early 19th century would likely result in digital computers, not that they did.

    Would the Jacquard Loom have led to punched card machines and to the computer IF there had not also been a rising demand for calculation throughout the economy?  Not clear.

    IIRC, Hollerith’s invention of the punched card system was inspired largely by his observation of the way that railroad conductors were punching passenger tickets…to avoid the possibility of fraud by passing the same ticket around among customers, the tickets were punched with visual people-identifiers indicating things like sex, hair color, etc.  This flowed into the initial application for punched card systems, which was census data processing.  It seems that Hollerith was also influenced by hearing about the Jacquards, and possibly seeing one of them, but perhaps the RR ticket punching would have been sufficient by itself to give him the idea.

     

     

    • #14
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