US Election 2004

In comments, bhasksan made an interesting statement, “…you said ‘This blog provides an independent perspective on the 2004 American Elections’ It would be hard to convince me that your blog isn’t partisan...”  While I do not have an obligation to convince, it is such an interesting point that I would like to put the observation in context.

For those who assume this has been a partisan pro-Bush site, I suggest they go back and read the posts prior to 10/22 when I endorsed Bush’s re-election.  When I made that endorsement, I considered modifying the description of the blog to state that it was Anti-Bushite for Bush; however, on considering the description I recognized that such an endorsement did not change the independence of this site.

In comments, azwick2 asserted in effect that to be independent this blog would not make a choice between candidates and would offer both perspectives as if I were subject to a FCC equal time rule.  I could not disagree more.

In September when USE2004 was featured on AOL’s Political Panel, I posted:

Your first question may be whether this is a pro-Bush or pro-Kerry site.  Simply put, it is neither.  At the moment, neither candidate has been endorsed by the site.  

So if the site is not a candidate or party tool, what is it about?  The site is about the same thing this election is about: the intersection of politics, ideas, and our lives.  In this regard, both candidates are highly flawed.  However, you have probably already noticed that.

To say that this blog is independent simply means that it reflects my judgment without allowing others to think for me.  Thus, the statement in the description about being independent was directly related to the human virtue of independence.  As Ayn Rand described it:

Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it—that no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life—that the vilest form of self-abasement and self-desctruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as a middle-man between your consciousness and your existence.  [A. Rand, “Galt’s Speech,” For the New Intellectual (New York: Signet, 1961), p. 128; via Lexicon]

Some argue that because no one can know everything that independence is an illusion, and that we must have faith in experts like politicians to make the right choices.  In response to this postmodernist cant, Dr. Hurd has written:

This view is an over-reaction, as well as a distortion of the actual facts.  It is true that you have to, in a sense, “hand over” your first-hand judgment when relying upon a surgeon, a stock broker, or any other expert with specialized knowledge.  But you still can—and, indeed, must—use your first-hand judgment to assess the expert’s character, his reputation, his track record, and whether or not his recommendations make any logical sense.  In our complex, division-of-labor society, delegating to others the task of learning specialized knowledge is both logical and necessary.  To delegate, however, is not the same as to surrender independent thought altogether.  Quite the contrary; in a complex society, a continuous focus on reality with the user of independent, rational judgment, is more essential than ever.  We all must make day-to-day choices about whose expertise to solicit and whose to ignore.  [M. Hurd, Grow Up America! (Washington, DC: Living Resources Press, 2000, p. 21]

As Edwin Locke observed independence is a life and death choice:

The virtue of independence refers to one’s acceptance of the responsibility of using one’s own judgment for the purpose of sustaining one’s own life.  The need for this virtue stems from the fact that every mind and every body is individual.  Anyone who defaults on this responsibility can only live as a parasite on the thinking and effort of other people.  This undermines one’s capacity to live.  [E. Locke, The Prime Movers (New York: American Management Association, 2000), p.151]

In his book on the rational basis for morality, Craig Biddle explains the independent thinker:

The independent thinker’s primary orientation is toward reality, not toward other people.  He is guided by the use of this own mind, not by the views of others.  He puts his own observations and judgments in first place; he faces reality directly and deals with it first-hand.

An independent thinker demands rational evidence for every idea he accepts.  He does not accept (or reject) ideas on the grounds that others believe them to be true (as do religionists, social subjectivists, and second-handers).  Nor does he accept ideas just because he wants them to be true (as do personal subjectivists).  Rather, he accepts ideas only if he understands them to be true—by means of this own reality-oriented, logical thinking…In sum, an independent thinker considers ideas only insofar as they are relevant to his life, are supported by some degree of evidence, and do not contradict anything he rationally knows to be true.  [C. Biddle, Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It  (Richmond, VA: Glen Allen Press, 2002), p. 91.]

Curious Specimen (10/27/2004)

Image Source: Cox and Forkum

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