Remind me sometime to write you back about evolution and complexity. There is such thing as complexity in biology, it has a specific meaning, and it's not just anthropomorphism that makes people say that a mouse is more complex (in terms of biology and behavior) than a snail. Also, while generally vertebrates are more complex than invertebrates -- this is not just a visceral "ick, a bug" reaction -- there are exceptions. Octopuses are more complex than mice, for instance.

Right -- "more evolved" is a misnomer. However, natural selection does have a certain directionality -- a "bias" towards increasing complexity over time, because it takes a certain amount of complexity for a species to be able to survive even small changes in its environment.

Bacteria are successful mutators. So if the environment shifts, the current generation of bacteria are pretty much screwed, but subsequent generations (the descendants of the bacteria that survive the suddenly-harsh environment) will become gradually better adapted for the new environment.

But rats, for instance, don't need to wait for mutations in subsequent generations to adapt to ever-changing urban environments. They don't have to wait for generations of natural selection to run its course -- you can take an adult rural rat and drop him in the middle of a city (or vice versa) and he'll do pretty well.

Similarly with mass extinctions during ice ages, etc.

Anyway, Dan Dennett has a much more thorough explanation of complexity and natural selection's inherent directionality in Darwin's Dangerous Idea.

Thanks for the link -- generally good article, although the opening passage is symptomatic of the kind of faux-scrupulous even-handedness that drives me nuts:

Glastris feels he has to open an article that is largely critical of the right by establishing his "fair and balanced" cred by bashing the left. [1] Now, I'll grant you, there's been a lot of stupidity on the academic left (especially in the seventies and eighties), and maybe Glastris has some specific incidents of intimidation in mind, but most of the really egregious stuff I can remember has come from students -- who inherently lack power compared to tenured professors, who are naturally going to lack judgment and maturity, etc. And so blaming left-wing student activists for political polarization on campus is like blaming the Democratic Party for every slogan on every hand-painted placard at every anti-Bush rally.

Anyway, the academic culture wars don't really have anything to do with the article, which is otherwise pretty good, especially as a catalogue of recent Republican dirty tricks. One of the most infuriating things about being a genuine leftist in this country is that it's just so obvious that the Republicans are going to call even the most moderate Democrat (like, say, John Edwards) a flaming liberal, "outside the mainstream," etc. That being the case, why bother bending over backwards to appear moderate and reasonable and bipartisan, etc.? If your party is going to get called a bastion of far-left radicalism no matter what you do, why not actually embrace "far-left radicalism" (which, in America, means mainstream Canadian-European social democracy)? [2] The longer we Democrats keep striving for "bipartisanship," the further the country lurches to the right. And moving the goalposts is a key part of the Republican strategy -- who would have believed that environmentalists would now look back fondly on the Nixon administration?

I should add that I respect intelligent, principled moderates such as yourself. But I'm also frustrated that pretty much everyone in the Democratic party is forced to position themselves as a moderate, regardless of what they actually believe.

For instance, the evidence seems to be that Clinton didn't actually believe in his (IMO heinous) "welfare reform" bill on its merits -- it was intended as part one of a two-part initiative. "Welfare reform" was meant to shore up his credibility among moderates and conservatives by proving, essentially, that Clinton was willing to be "tough" on poor people. Once that passed, he would have more latitude to bring in programs to help low-income families and individuals (by raising the minimum wage and expanding subsidized health care, education, job training, housing, etc) -- or at least, that was the plan. According to Robert Reich, welfare reform was supposed to be a wedge that Democrats could use to drive in social programs that would actually help the working poor. Unfortunately, due to Gingrich's Contract on America [sic] crew, Clinton was only able to implement the first part of that plan.

I should add -- it is not in the best interest of moderates or liberals to allow the right to define sensible, middle-of-the-road proposals like single-payer health care or emissions controls as "far left" and "outside the mainstream." You consider yourself a moderate, and I consider you a moderate, but to a large (and, I fear, increasing) number of Americans, your ideas mark you as a dangerous liberal extremist.

Okay, but I'm not really sure what difference this makes, or is supposed to make. What distinction are you trying to draw here? Do you think that a conservative ideologue would really say, "Oh, I used to think Mark was some kind o' pinko un-American type on account of he believes in socialized med'cine an' all that, but now that I know he only believes in it 'cause he thinks in this case, the government is an effective vehicle for promoting the general welfare in a way that it is not as effectively promoted individually, I guess I gotta respect his point of view." [1]

I don't believe in the notion of rights at all -- or at least, I don't believe in any a priori rights that are not rationally defensible (like, for instance, property rights). I only believe in utility. But there are some practices that are so widely detrimental to utility, in almost every instance -- like, for instance, slavery, or censorship -- that it makes sense to refer to the right to not be held in bondage, or the right to free speech. [2]

And I do feel that, diseases being contagious and all that, when a state doesn't ensure that all citizens have access to medical care, then all citizens suffer as a result. Does that mean I believe in a "right" to health care? I don't know, and honestly, I don't care. The bottom line is that health care is something -- like education, like police protection, etc. -- that I think the state has a responsibility to provide. [3]

Not especially, no, but the article you linked was about political discourse, and how the Republicans have successfully shifted the definition of "moderate" from actual moderate policies to "whatever's halfway between Tom DeLay and Zell Miller" or, better -- "whatever's halfway between CNN and Fox News." I thought we were still talking about that shift, and how it makes even moderates like you look like extremists to many, many Americans.

You should. Really. I sincerely respect that you are almost exclusively interested in policy, to the exclusion of strategy, and I admire that. I wish everyone was like you. Unfortunately, this administration and this Republican party has decided that they are only interested in strategy, to the exclusion of policy, and they have effectively caught all of us policy wonks with our pants down. If we're going to fight them, we're going to have to fight strategically, and unfortunately we are long past the day (if that day ever existed) where people could be swayed by rational argument alone. Most people are only willing to consider ideas that are mainstream -- as opposed to moderate -- so when the perception of what's mainstream shifts significantly to the right (as it has these past twenty-five years or so), genuine moderates become perceived as "left-wing extremists," and then it makes it much harder for you to get your agenda passed.

Well, look, as I said, I think deontological (rights-based) ethics are all bullshit. Regardless of what the Second Amendment does or doesn't say, on any reasonable moral and rational grounds I think the "right to bear arms" is completely indefensible.

But regardless, in the Grand List of Things That Annoy Me About Politics Today, Democrats referring to health care as "a right, not a privilege" is way down in the bottom 0.001st percentile. If talking about health care as a "right" makes people more amenable to the best policy (single-payer), that's fine by me.

Let me give you another example. I don't know about your religious beliefs or lack thereof, but I happen to be an atheist. As such, I have a viscerally bad reaction to politicians injecting religion into their speeches. Everyone else seems to have nothing but good things to say about Barack Obama's keynote at the DNC, and I agree it was a very good speech -- but near the end, when he talked about the importance of "faith in things not seen," I wanted to throw something at the screen. But regardless, I'm sane enough to realize that people of faith are the majority in America, and it's going to take alliances with people of faith in order to get rational health, economic, scientific, and social policies. If that means putting up with a truckload religious pandering in every public speech, so that Democrats can prove to evangelicals that they aren't actually the party of Satan, well, that's a very small price to pay. [1]

Can you give me a current example of leftist ideology leading to bad policy choices? [2]

Well, I can tell you, if you're willing to endure a little background philosophy. Basically, when it comes to ethics, on one side you've got deontologists (like Kant), who believe in adherence to independent moral rules, duties, etc. -- and then you've got consequentialists (like John Stuart Mill), who believe that the end justifies the means. The most historically influential form of consequentialism is utilitarianism, which basically reduces to "the greatest good for the greatest number."

This makes for genuine real-world differences. A deontologist would probably say, "Torture is always wrong -- we should never do it, under any circumstances" whereas a consequentalist would say, "Well, sure, we all agree torture is a bad thing, but right here and now we've got someone in custody who has planted a nuclear time bomb somewhere in the bowels of the Manhattan subway system. Are we likelier to find out where it is in time to disarm it if we use torture? If so, the disutility of torturing this person is probably outweighed by the utility of saving millions of lives."

Of course, a consequentalist may conclude that state-sanctioned torture is still bad policy (because of its almost unlimited potential for abuse) -- but he may still be willing to endorse torture in exceptional cases like the ever-popular "ticking time bomb" scenario I outlined above.

I'm sure that's true. But I'm curious what things you actually believe the government is in fact responsible for? [3]

I think the ads are targeted at the Wall Street crowd -- stock traders, analysts, and the senior executives of major companies. These people can talk up or down the Boeing and Xerox share prices, decide their company will buy whatever it is that Xerox sells and use the financial services that Royal Bank of Scotland presumably offers to businesses in the U.S., and as individuals buy the fine motor vehicles that GMC sells.

The companies are paying for their target viewers to see the ads. The fact that you also see them (or, rather, saw them the one time you watched a network that clearly isn't targeted at you) is irrelevant.