Campaign Finance, Bad Reporting

This article last Friday is particularly egregious, and therefore in line for savage refutation:

"The most coveted political seat in the state is being sold to the highest paying candidate, as the Republican gubernatorial primary race continues."

A) It's quite possible to argue that several other political seats (U.S. Senate, for instance) are coveted at least as much.
B) No it isn't. The gubernatorial seat in question will be determined by election. Saying otherwise is stupid. If this were an editorial, being stupid might be justified. However, since it's supposed to be news, it's just tacky.

"Quin Monson, assistant director for the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at BYU, said it is clear higher campaign spending will give the candidate the advantage of more votes.

"Every additional dollar a candidate spends will simply provide him with more visibility," Monson said. "Definitely, more money will translate into more visibility and more votes.""

Note that the reporter does not seem to understand Dr. Monson's point, which is that spending additional money increases a candidate's performance over what he would have gotten had he not spent the additional money. It does not, as the reporter tries to twist it, mean that spending more money than his opponent gives a candidate more votes than his opponent.

""We can never outspend the Huntsman family or Jon Jr.," Starks told The Salt Lake Tribune. "We don't believe the person who spends the most money is always the best candidate or always the winner."

However, history tells the story about the candidate with the deepest pockets. For example, in the 2000 presidential election, President George W. Bush raised more than $193 million while his Democratic opponent Al Gore raised only $132 million.

Closer to home, in the 2002 Second Congressional District race, Democrat Jim Matheson won raising $400,000 more than his opponent Republican John Swallow raised."

The reporter's thesis is undermined rather badly by these examples, properly considered. Gore won more popular votes than Bush, and just barely lost the election. The 2nd District race was also quite close. Dozens of other factors could have swung either race, regardless of money spent. Further undermining this approach, plenty of other examples exist in which the higher funded candidate lost.

Ultimately, money leads to visibility, which is essential to win elections. Spending more money than one otherwise would have spent thus gives one more visibility than one otherwise would have gotten, up to a point. Eventually, diminishing returns set in, and each additional dollar spent returns less added value. Furthermore, many other variables affect a candidate's standing--preexisting impressions, news coverage, etc.

Then there's the problem of sorting out correlation and causation. Looking at any broad campaign finance trend to prove the effects of money on elections is difficult, because it's easy to hypothesize that candidates who are more popular tend to have an easier time raising money.

Finally, using the gubernatorial race to try to prove that money is everything is particularly silly given that Lampropolous didn't even make it out of convention.

Election Polls

It seems worth noting what most of the media seems determined to ignore: most of the election polling going on right now is close to meaningless, at least insofar as pundits are trying to use the data. What the polls seem to show is that the electorate is fairly evenly divided. What pundits try to show (depending who you read) is that Bush/Kerry is doing better/worse in a significant way. Most of this is bogus, either because the difference is within the poll's margin of error or due to the simple fact that the election is five months off, and plenty can happen to change voters' perceptions between now and then (including but not limited to greater voter exposure to the Boston Fog Machine, developments in Iraq, other developments in international affairs, increased awareness of the strength of the economic recovery, developments in domestic politics, etc, etc).

But even putting aside those factors, we still should take polls with a grain of salt. In recent elections, polls have had limited use in predicting the outcomes. The SD special election a few days ago ended up a lot closer than most polls were showing in the preceding days, and LA governor's race faced similar problems last year. In 2002, almost every polling organization missed the Republican surge that led to Republicans retaking the Senate after winning several close races. And, perhaps most famously, the major media organizations completely blew it in trying to call the 2000 election (oscillating from "Gore won Florida" to "too close to call" to "Bush won Florida" to "too close to call" in the space of a few hours).

One of the major problems is figuring out who's going to vote in the first place. In an election that isn't terribly close, rough estimates (involving asking pollees if they voted in the last election and the like) can work to estimate likely voters. In a close election, though, this may break down. Both parties are running ever-more-sophisticated get-out-the-vote operations, and voter registration drives are a staple of election years. In years in which divisive and/or explosive factors are in play (Iraq, culture wars of various sorts, fever-swamps Bush-hatred), predicting turnout is probably much harder than in more 'normal' years.

Another problem is reaching people in the first place. Telephone surveys rely on people being A) home, and B) willing to talk to the pollster. In addition, increasing numbers of people are abandoning land lines in favor of mobile phones, while pollsters don't call, which could impact poll results in a statistically significant way.

Finally, it's worth noting that since the Electoral College vote is the one that counts, national polls between Bush/Kerry are rather useless. Polls of swing states matter more.

So the upshot of all of this is that, in my impression, any poll before the election that shows less than a 10-point gap between candidates is probably almost useless for purposes of prognostication. (And at that, some polls that purport to show huge differences may still be unreliable).

[Further note: I'm too lazy to provide links to most of this stuff, though perhaps if someone begged nicely in the comments I could be persuaded to change my mind].

Flag Burning & Politics

Today's SLTrib has an article claiming that Senator Hatch is planning on pushing a flag burning amendment again this year. I personally am against this amendment, as I think that Justice Scalia got it right in Texas v. Johnson [and the weakness of the dissents is even more striking]. However, as my personal distaste for the notion that doing anything other than ignoring flag-burners is an appropriate use of the monopoly of force is evidently not shared by a significant portion of the American electorate, reviving the issue in an election year may be effective politics. Anti-amenders are probably not going to be as numerous in basing their vote choice on this issue as pro-amenders, and few Congressmen relish the thought of running for reelection while being targeted by "Senator Smith supports flag-burning" commercials. The measure has evidently passed the House before and could probably easily do so again (290/435 votes required). The Senate (67/100 votes required, 63 ayes in 2000) is another matter, as Senators face reelection less frequently and enjoy larger electorates, in which a few issue voters make less of a difference.

The principal advantage Republicans gain from pushing the measure again this year is that Senator Kerry voted against the amendment last time the Senate voted on it. This evidently didn't hurt him in blue Massachusetts, but could potentially alienate swing voters who will decide the fate of his presidential ambitions in November.

On the other hand, a few Senators may be impacted by the vote this year as well. Incumbent Senators who go before the voters this year who voted "Nay" on the amendment in 2000 include Sens. Boxer (D-CA), Dodd (D-CT), Inouye (D-HI), Mikulski (D-MD), Dorgan (D-ND), Schumer (D-NY), Wyden (D-OR), Daschle (D-SD), Bennett (R-UT), Leahy (D-VT), Murray (D-WA), and Feingold (D-WI). Admittedly, most of these Senators are favored for easy reelection. Daschle is probably in closest fight right now, while Murray and Feingold could conceivably lose if Bush wins with strong coattails. It will be interesting to see if they change their positions if this comes up for vote this year. Note also that some who were facing reelection in 2000 who voted for the amendment may conveniently change their minds this year.

Violence II--Brightline Rules

The comments on my first post on violence have got me thinking further about brightline rules. The For the Strength of Youth pamphlet [**SPOILERS**] mentions four entertainment no-nos: "entertainment that is vulgar, immoral, violent, or pornographic in any way." Kevin and DP both argue that drawing an objective bright line may be impossible, which seems to make the application of 'in any way' to all four equally problematic.

Vulgar: difficult to quantify, in part because definitions [via Dictionary.com] vary from "crudely indecent" to "lacking cultivation or refinement" to "of or associated with the great masses of people." Even if we take the indecency approach, opinions and practices will vary. For instance, even in the hot-button LDS issue of profanity, different people use different standards. Levels of tolerance vary up the scale from f*tch to cr*p to d*mn to b*st*rd to even worse words. [Personally, while occasional bouts of temper may provoke me to the next level higher, I take solace in the fact that damn and hell were over-the-pulpit words in the country of my mission]. In any event, quantifying vulgarity seems quite tricky, and the stricter the definition, the greater the likelihood of excluding the vast majority of today's entertainment [opinions may vary as to the desirability of that, of course].

Immoral: complicated by the distinctions between depicting immorality and advocating immorality [if you haven't yet, immediately go read OSC's A Mormon Writer Looks at the Problem of Evil in Fiction]. Further complicated by the difficulty of deciding what advocates morality. For instance, do Robin Hobb's [**Spoilers**] Farseer books advocate fornication, because the FitzChivalry is unapologetic in it, or do they condemn it, because the harsh consequences that follow and warp the rest of his life? I don't know that anyone, even the author, can authoritatively say exactly what moral position a particular story advocates in all cases. Finally, in the case of more complex works, it's hard to tell which side of the line it will fall on before reading/watching. Perhaps in this case, the FSY standard can only help on the reread list.

Violent: the more I think about it, the worse trying to craft a brightline rule gets. Martial arts sparring, while it can be physically painful, is far less disturbing than heated words spoken in anger, which may not be strictly violent, but seem to be troubling in the same sort of way as many forms of violence. Even if the "in any way" clause doesn't apply to violence, though, it's still hard to know what 'too much' violence would be, other than by personal taste. The worry, though, is that if violence is desensitizing, one's personal taste is probably unreliable. I can remember a time in distant childhood when even the thought of one fictional character killing another was troubling. Now a death scene has to be particularly poignant to even get my attention. On the other hand, the first time I saw someone, while playing a first person shooter, shoot someone in the head at point-blank range sending a spurt of blood into the air, I was horrified enough to decide to never play FPSs myself, regardless of what others chose, due to D&C 59:6. I can easily imagine that if I'd chosen differently, my memory of first watching a FPS would have faded to the emotional distance of my childhood memory.

Pornographic: this may be the easiest brightline rule in one sense: anything which is sexually stimulating ought not be sought out. On the other hand, since what an individual finds to be sexually stimulating can vary tremendously, any hope of crafting an objective rule breaks down quickly. The 'in any way' clause appears to fit here best, though, subjective though it may be.

Objective standards, or objective bright-line rules, thus seem to be difficult to come by. While this is a good excuse to not judge the choices of others, it does not seem to be a good excuse to ignore the issue for ourselves. However, I sense a tension between the necessity of personal discretion in setting these standards and the argued desensitizing effects that wrong choices have. Is there any way around this dilemma? Part of my trouble stems from my personal impression that the members I've known who are most fastidious in their entertainment choices also seem to be the ones who are most troubled when they encounter something outside their comfort zone. Thus, I think a healthy level of desensitization might be good, given that we're going to have to interact with a fallen world at least enough to try to convert it. Perhaps I'm mistaken in this, though.

Ironically enough, while getting the link to the D&C reference above, I noticed a new section on lds.org: Wise Media Use, a section with links to a variety of articles/talks/etc.

World's Biggest Problems?

Via Instapundit, here's a link to the Copenhagen Consensus website and PDF report, which summarizes the work of a panel of economists using cost-benefit analysis to try to figure out which of the world's problems most deserve our attention and resources. Read the whole report to get a feel for the methodology (some projects couldn't be ranked, etc).

In Defense of "Polarization"

It seems I've been hearing/reading a lot of complaints lately about how the '50-50' division in the electorate is causing all sorts of bad things, from spam to global warming. The theory seems to be that if half the country is Republican and half Democrat, then the two halves will somehow have nothing in common and a second Civil War (or similarly catastrophic) will result if something isn't done (and the suggestions about what should be done usually seem to be comically self-interested).

Now perhaps if half the country really does have nothing in common with the other half, disaster may be brewing. However, it's quite a logical leap to go from 'electoral results are coming in close to 50-50 D/R' to 'half of the people in the country have nothing in common with the other half.' For starters, plenty of people don't bother voting in the first place, and thus can be presumed to be satisfied with either party. Next, many people vote more based on the issues of the moment (economy, Iraq, etc), regardless of long term ideological outlook (or long term rationality). Then there's the fact that American parties tend to be quite moderate compared to other countries (in part as a result of our electoral system, which rewards broad coalitions). Finally, partisan identification can be quite variable--many (the majority, probably) will never switch, but some do as circumstances change (and circumstances are always changing--the defining issues of the moment are different than those of 20, 40, or 60 years ago, and will be different still in 20 years).

So 50-50 election returns aren't by definition indication of divisive polarization. On the contrary, they may be quite good. After all, our system (in theory) is supposed to enact the will of the majority. In addition, we tend to like moderate results over extreme ones. Hence, a 50-50 split might be evidence that the system is working quite well--both parties are putting forth positions that are so competitive that swing voters are being listened to more than ever. If one party drifts away from the median voter, the other party should be able to, with minor corrections at most, amass a majority and win the next election. 50-50 elections mean that both parties are competitive enough that majority will matters--60-40 elections would mean that a good chunk of the moderate swing voters could be safely ignored, and policies that are more ideologically extreme would be enacted.

Of course, the situation may be slightly more complex than that (particularly given that median voter theory works best on single-dimension policies, while governance is depressingly multidimensional). And one may have strong objections to the resulting policy that is enacted--but that simply indicates that that person strongly disagrees with the American median voter. And the solution to that is either to mobilize like-minded nonvoters or to change the minds of a significant number of other voters (or, perhaps, to abandon the notion of majority rule in the American polity).

UT-3 Debate

Desnews
SLTrib

Throckmorten doesn't seem to have abandoned his xenophobia scare tactics, or his opposition to the president on NCLB. Interestingly enough, Cannon is starting to talk about abolishing the Department of Education (do we need any more proof that a primary challenge in UT-3 from the right is highly comical?).

Cannon's use of "freakin' federal government" is moderately amusing or highly frightening. Or perhaps both.

As for the immigration issue, Tyler Cowen's series of posts (see here and here for the last couple) on the subject seem as reasonable as anything else I've read.

Violence

The Baron of Deseret discusses Violent Movies and the Passion, which reminds me of an item I've had on my list of things to wonder about since the last Passion debates.

The For the Strength of Youth pamphlet (which, in my last ward at least, was held up as some sort of universal standard for BYU students as well as youth, though that debate is only of limited relevance for purposes of this post) has the following to say about violence in its "Entertainment and the Media" section:

"Do not attend, view, or participate in entertainment that is vulgar, immoral, violent, or pornographic in any way. Do not participate in entertainment that in any way presents immorality or violent behavior as acceptable.

...

"Depictions of violence often glamorize vicious behavior. They offend the Spirit and make you less able to respond to others in a sensitive, caring way. They contradict the Savior's message of love for one another."

Most of this is pretty straightforward. However, the budding lawyer in me notices the phrasing of "do not ... participate in entertainment that is ... violent ... in any way. Taken literally, wouldn't this preclude:
*watching fictional vampires get dusted on Buffy
*reading Fool's Fate, which, while not focused solely on violence, has the occasional violent scene (as does most of my reading of choice, come to think of it)
*smacking the Princess with a red shell on Mario Kart
*killing animated monsters by whacking them with a sword in Zelda
*killing animated monsters by swinging a sword in their general direction in some earlier graphics-challenged RPGs
*reading Ender’s Game (interstellar war), Saints (attempted rape), Red Prophet (massacres and mutilations), etc.
*and so on... (we can exclude the war chapters in the BOM or the Armor of God seminary video as being intended for non-entertainment purposes)

Now perhaps all of these things are wrong, and I'm just a gross sinner. But on the other hand, considering how many LDS youth (and adults) do these things, one would thing the message to not do these things would be a bit more strident if they were genuinely wrong in the same way that the vulgar, immoral, and pornographic entertainment decried in that section are. Or one could argue that perhaps the literal meaning is not intended in the above-quoted passage--but past experience has suggested to me that the Brethren do pay careful attention to word choice and literal meanings in Important Publications (the discussions, at least). Or perhaps using violence for entertainment in any way is wrong, but the mild forms aren't very wrong compared to everything else we need to repent of, so they don't get much focus.

This Ensign article from last June discusses violence, but not in a way that seems to resolve the question of where exactly the bright line is drawn (if line-drawing is even possible).

SSM on the Ballot

This article discusses an interesting factor to watch in the elections this fall--the presence of SSM-related provisions on several state ballots, including in potentially critical states such as Missouri, Oregon, Georgia, Michigan, and Ohio. Pundits' first pass at the issue is to suggest that it will help Bush and Republicans, as the conservative religious vote may mobilize to defeat those measures. Since the depression of that vote by the DUI late hit in 2000 seemed to be a factor in the closeness of the 2000 election, that could be important.

Stuff Of Note

Things I've Noticed Recently, But Been Too Lazy To Link To Until Now

Nauvoo has a new look, a new weekly column, and a new rant by OSC (on R-rated movies). They've also finally provided an easy link to the Charter (which hopefully will be followed better). Sadly, no new edition of Vigor yet.

lds.org has a new Church music site, which looks interesting, though I haven't had time to play around with it yet.

Grasshopper, on the other hand, appears to have far too much free time on his hands, as he is not only keeping up his frantic pace of interesting blogging, but is taking a stint as a guest-blogger on T&S.

Would that I could be that prolific, but alas, I made the horrible mistake of picking up Robin Hobb last week, and still have 2 1/2 books to go to regain my free time.

We Get Results

Twelve days ago, we asked:

"suppose the silly suggestion that McCain would accept a VP slot with Kerry actually came to be, and the Senate did split 50-50. Which way would McCain cast the tiebreaking vote?"

Today Best of the Web asks:

"Suppose the Republicans, who currently have a 51-49 majority in the Senate, were to have a net loss of two Senate seats in November. A Kerry victory would hand one seat back to the GOP, since Massachusetts' Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, would appoint the president-elect's replacement. Result: a 50-50 split, just as after the 2000 election--which means that when the Senate convenes to elect a majority leader, the deciding vote would be cast by Vice President McCain. For whom would he vote, Tom Daschle or Bill Frist?"

It's also worth noting that four days before BOTW called for Kerry to resign, I more or less made the same call.

I wonder if Opinionjournal is hiring.

Troubling Commentary on Collegiate 'Journalism'

Link.

UPDATE: Since I posted this, two different times I've seen someone pull up the webpage, see the story, and express shock/outrage/etc.

Libertarians On The Web

Utahpolitics.org has reset their mock strawpoll with only the post-convention candidates, the current leader (winning outright in the first round, with more votes than all other candidates combined) is Richard Mack (L). This seems to say something amusing about either the Mack campaign's strategy (stack the meaningless polls!) or the prevalence of libertarians on the web, or perhaps both.

The Condescension Of Us?

Now instead of moving on to Urban Planning in Zion, which I had put on my List of Things To Think About Later, writing the below post has triggered a different, lower, item on the list.

I've been thinking lately, to a degree, that in one sense our mission to Proclaim the Gospel isn't too different from our mission to Perfect the Saints. PtG, when done right, doesn't consist of shoving a BOM at a nonmember and telling him to read Moroni 10:3-5, read the whole book, and pray. Rather, it seems to consist of honestly evaluating said nonmember's spiritual state and readiness, and inviting him to consider something that will bring him closer to the restored Gospel [regardless of whether or not it brings him into the Church--we are interested in reducing every form of transgression, and in helping all understand as much of the path to happiness as they can handle]. Similarly, our duty to PtS doesn't consist mainly of prodding people until they go to the Temple, but rather of helping people (including ourselves) better understand and live the commandments and find a more enriching relationship with the Divine. Neither exercise consists only of telling someone what to do and leaving him to carry out the whole program; both involve estimating what next step the person can handle, and inviting him to take it. While both processes have quantifiable milestones, neither can be easily captured by the statistical models we use. Our interest is ultimately in conversion, not in numbers. And our actions, when done properly, reflect that higher interest.

Herein lies the problem. It's arrogant (if understandable) in one sense to solemnly proclaim that others need to be baptized, go to the Temple, etc, to be saved. Such arrogance, though, is based on a simple, quantifiable model: X is necessary for salvation. You haven't done X. Therefore, you must do X to be saved. It seems, at the next level, far more arrogant to say: Y is an attribute of perfection. You haven't achieved Y perfectly, or even sufficiently (in my opinion). Therefore, you must improve Y to be perfect.

In a sense, it seems supremely arrogant to go around telling others "You really ought to stop smoking, whether or not you ever join the Church," or "Your idleness is leading you to fritter away time you could spend anxiously engaged in some better cause," or "Your lack of charity is most disappointing and ought to be rectified at the first available opportunity." And indeed, our calling to perfect others is not mainly a call to go around pointing out their sins to them. Others are usually A) perfectly aware of their sins and working on them on their own schedule, or B) not inclined to start viewing certain actions as sins just because I said so.

However, often we aren't aware of our shortcomings, and someone can capture in words a problem we've been struggling with without being able to define (or perhaps simply haven't fixed because we weren't aware of). And often our understanding of proper behavior can be enhanced when others gently let us know why something we do may not be entirely proper (perhaps we've simply never considered it before, or were unaware of how it made others feel, or whatever, but when presented with new understanding, are perfectly willing to change our behavior for the better). So I think we often do have a duty to help those around us become better. I easily recognize my own shortcomings in this department, but cannot abandon the notion because the most Christlike people I've known have seemed to faithfully undertake this duty and help me become better, whether or not they were aware of it.

Perhaps awareness is the key--if those who really have advanced farther are humble enough to not be aware of it, then arrogance isn't a problem. Or perhaps simply remembering that different individuals have different talents is sufficient to remind us that while we can help someone in one area, he can help us in another.

But perhaps the model is better expressed in terms of autonomy. Parents have a duty to teach their children how to seek after righteousness, but once the children become adults, they become the masters of their fate; if as adults they choose to seek out ways to become better, they can, but everyone is forbidden from taking note of their obvious shortcomings and offering to help them overcome them, because we aren't called to point out the faults in others, only ourselves. We simply offer others goodness, and it's up to them to take it.

But this model doesn't seem quite right to me, if only for the problem of knowing which goodness to offer others. Deciding how to act towards others always involves judging what they want to/are prepared to accept. I treat one of my freshman students asking about something differently than I treat a senior in my major discussing the same question. Spiritually, I often find myself making judgments about whether someone is a 'freshman' or 'senior,' and tailoring my response accordingly. And as I expect others to do the same to me, I can't quite abandon the notion that we must use appropriate judgment, or at least discernment, in our dealings with others. And since we are called to help others become better, we are naturally going to have to judge areas in which they need improvement. Which seems awfully condescending.

Perhaps the reason my list of truly Christlike people that I've met is so short is because the balance is exceedingly difficult to pull off properly. But it seems worth attempting [though it's probably better to err on the side of humility, when in doubt].

Our Responsibility for Others' Impressions

Kaimi at T&S posted on a pet peeve of his, when others claim:

that any statement which could be interpreted in a way potentially critical or embarrassing to the church is a violation of the member's Duty to Present the Church in a Favorable Light at All Times, Just in Case a Non-Member Happens to be Listening.

Interestingly enough, this parallels a pet peeve of mine, namely, many members' Obliviousness to the Impressions They Send Off About My Religion. Which is not to say that I don't get annoyed by overly uptight members either--but I think there's something of a tension here, and Kaimi's otherwise excellent post only addresses one side of the equation.

Kaimi's three broad points (which really should be read over at T&S before continuing, if you haven't yet):

First, it seems like a sneaky, backhanded way to foreclose any critical discussion.
...Second, this idea is incredibly condescending towards non-members (as well as members).
...My final complaint is that showing things in a favorable light only tells part of the story.

I think all of these are valid in many circumstances. However, I also think they may not apply in other situations. Foreclosing others' critical discussion simply because one doesn't oneself like critical thinking is silly, of course, But engaging in critical discussion just for the sake of being critical (negative) instead of being critical (analytical) is also silly, and potentially as destructive. For the second point, I think there's a difference between condescension and empathy. It's one thing to think "I can't possibly tell him about X, because he'd never understand." It's something else to think, "he's probably not ready for X yet, at least not without understanding V and W first." As to the final point, sometimes we only should tell part of the story, in keeping with seeking after the virtuous, lovely, &tc.

The example Kaimi uses, of discussing why sacrament meetings can be boring, is enlightening. On the one hand, it's quite liberating the first time one realizes that not every sacrament meeting is necessarily going to be a Wonderfully Uplifting Spiritual Experience, or perhaps that others don't always feel that way [perhaps I'm mistaken on this point, but if Being Bored in SM is a sin, it doesn't outrank on my Repentance List several others that I've been committing left and right lately]. On the other hand, my personality is such that I often allow others' perceptions to influence me, to a degree. If every testimony bearer talks about what a wonderful spirit has hit everyone except me over the head, it doesn't affect me much. But if someone later mentions something specific that he got out of the meeting, it helps me see things in a new light. Thus, I think I function best when those around me focus on the positive, without overdoing it. Which perhaps is the answer to the dilemma. Which is not where this post was originally going, which, I suppose, shows the value of writing this stuff down. Not that it will stop me from continuing with the rest of my scattered thoughts.

There's two other areas in which I think we need to exercise caution in the way we portray the Church, both to members and nonmembers. One deals with our actions, and one deals with the way we handle others' shortcomings.

I look back on some of my mission experiences with horror, looking at how some missionaries behaved. I'm not talking about God's Army level pranks and irreverence. Rather, there were several incidents of missionaries not respecting nonmembers--doing things like browbeating people while tracting, trying to catch people in lies, ignoring investigators' requests for no further contact, ignoring investigators' genuine questions in misguided attempts to stick to the discussion dialog, looking for opportunities to bash, etc. None of those actions seemed particularly Christlike, and all seemed likely to leave people with a negative impression of the Church and its missionaries [not that I was free from my own shortcomings, of course]. These sorts of actions--when we act in obviously unChristlike ways when representing the Church--do violate a member's duty to present the Church in a good way, I think. Other nonmission parallels that come to mind revolve around false doctrine--members saying things that are either wrong or simply misleading about important doctrinal issues. Among the times I've been most horrified at how a member portrays the Church have been when someone has said something particularly misguided or wrong about sensitive topics such as the Temple, polygamy, priesthood and race, same-sex attraction, [insert favorite hot-button topic here]. For every sensible, nuanced answer to a question about those topics is an equally unsensible, wrong, and libelous answer which will likely leave the uninformed with a very wrong impression of what the Church actually teaches. So while I don't think that the Church needs to cultivate an image of its members as being perfect (quite the opposite), I think members do have a duty to present the Church and its teachings faithfully, or, if unable, to make it clear that their words and actions do not represent the Church.

The other point of concern I have deals with the difficulties of discussing those who have wronged us. Two examples: 1) Member A says or does something thoughtless which hurts/offends me. 2) Priesthood Leader B, while exercising authority over me, does something which I feel is very wrong, and which seems to have been done deliberately.

Here, I think, our doctrine imposes barriers to being too free with our discussion. In the first place, we are commanded, when we have a problem with another, to try to resolve it in private with the person. In the second place, we are commanded to forgive regardless of the outcome (and shouting the other person's sins from the housetops has never seemed terribly compatible with the whole forgiveness notion to me, in most cases). And in the third place, we believe (or at least GAs have said that they believe) that certain categories of experiences are sacred enough that they should not be shared casually.

Given these doctrinal constraints, I think there are certain categories of public discussions which are largely off limits (regardless of any duties about presenting the Church in any sort of light). Talking about Member A's shortcomings with others rarely solves the problem, though it often turns into backbiting and gossip. Talking with one or two people in confidence may help one move to a more forgiving mindset, but it seems unlikely if one makes it a practice to discuss the incident with everyone. And finally, while the first two reasons also can apply to the case of Priesthood Leader B, it seems to me (for now, anyway), that this sort of experience may frequently fall into the third category. If God chooses to allow some to experience the sore trials of faith that may come when flawed priesthood leaders make tragically wrong decisions (either through sin or through human frailty, which in many cases we are unequipped to judge), I suspect it is because he wants the individuals involved to have the experiences necessary in working through it themselves--and very few of those experiences are fit for public discussion, just as some of life's most sacred experiences are unfit for public discussion. The experience itself is powerful enough that sharing it too casually diminishes it.

In addition to all of that reasons, I think it's possible to make a compelling case for a Duty To Not Try To Teach Calculus To Those Who Haven't Mastered Addition Yet, and a Duty To Not Have Every Mission Story Involve Some Missionary's Stupidity And/Or Apostasy, Even If It Does Make For Stories More Exciting Than Most of the Work Itself, and perhaps a Duty To Not Spread Lots of Stories For Antis To Collect and Use To Tear Down Others, but those are probably less important duties, and I'll refrain from developing them further at the moment.

Blogger's new stuff

The new interface may take some getting used to, but hasn't managed to completely turn me off yet.

The new block quote feature could come in handy.

The irony of their adding comments right after I started with Haloscan is not lost on me. However, their requirement of logging in before posting comments seems troublesome enough that I'm not inclined to switch just yet. I'll watch Grasshopper's experience with the Blogger comments with interest to see what develops. I'm inclined initially to view any additional barrier to commenting negatively, at least with comments at the level they are now. In a higher traffic environment (or faced with more hostile/spammish comments) I can see the value of registration, though. There's a post brewing somewhere here about the differences between blog communities and internet bulletin board communities, but I don't think I'll develop it tonight.

Billboards

One lingering political thought: I was somewhat surprised recently to see billboards for three different gubernatorial candidates--Walker, Stephens, and Lampropolous. Given that at the point those billboards were up, only the opinions of the 3500 Republican delegates mattered to any of them, and given how few of those delegates lived in Utah County where they were likely to see said billboards regularly, it seemed like an extravagantly wasteful use of campaign funds (which, admittedly, does describe many aspects of Utah's pre-convention phase). Thus, I was amused to note that none of the three made it out of convention.

Of course, now someone's going to point out some Huntsman or Karras billboard that I didn't see...

President Samuelson's focus

I just came across this BYU President's Report on lds.org, and thought this section in particular was interesting:

"IMPROVING ACADEMIC INFRASTRUCTURE

Any time change occurs in an organization, questions naturally arise. Some have asked where my attention will be focused. As I consider where I might best focus my discretional energies here at BYU, I look forward to the opportunity to contribute to what I call our soft, or academic, infrastructure. I want it to be as solid as the wonderful physical, or hard, infrastructure of this beautifully appointed, well-equipped campus.

I am not saying that we will not build any new buildings while I am here. We will complete our current building projects, and they will bless us all. Other building projects will develop, which we will undertake with board approval if and when full funds are raised. But the physical infrastructure may be less my initial focus precisely because we are already quite well provisioned for. I want us to be as good as we say we are and as others think we should be. "

Convention analysis

Utahpolitics.org has one account, including the IRV totals for the gubernatorial nomination race.

Without spending a lot of time on it, the most interest features of the vote totals seem to be the degree to which candidates received support from defeated candidates. It looks to me like Stephens, Walker, and Lampropolous each came in with a core group of supporters, but didn't do a good job picking up support from defeated candidates (though L did get a big chuck of Stephens' delegates). Huntsman did better, but Karras outperformed him in every round in terms of picking up additional delegates.

Game theorists will be disappointed to note that Huntsman and Karras were 1-2 in the standings as of round 1, and in almost every round thereafter (Lampropolous pulled into second briefly after picking up more of Stephens' delegates, but right after that most of Walker's delegates moved to Karras, and Lampropolous was eliminated). Thus, we don't have any obvious entertaining paradoxes (though if the state party were to publish statistics on all ballots cast, we could determine whether a Condorcet paradox existed, or probably devise a Borda count that would enable one of the eliminated candidates to place in the top 2).

Sometimes I wonder...

The quality of BYU political discourse, though rarely very impressive, is occasionally amusing.

"Elect Kerry 04. Because he is man enough to admit to his war crimes."

Convention Results

SLTrib
Desnews

Karras v. Huntsman

Bridgewater v. Matheson

Cannon v. Throckmorton

I suspect Huntsman's name ID will be a huge advantage in the primary, though I really prefer Karras.

Bridgewater won in convention again. What do the delegates know that the voters don't?

The Third District results are disappointing, I think. Why force Cannon to spend money fighting off a primary challenger who A) hasn't done a good job articulating why anything's wrong with him, B) won't have Cannon's seniority or experience, and C) is forcing him to spend money that could be donated to races that matter to the party?

It's Amazing What $0 Will Buy You These Days

Nate Cardon has kindly pointed out to me that HaloScan provides free comments compatible with Blogger's also-free annoying-Google-ad supported accounts. I have no idea how HaloScan makes their money [edit: okay, fine, they also use annoying-Google-ads to justify my shameless exploitation], but I'll take it anyway. At least, assuming people respond, as I suspect that empty comments fields would be even more depressing than empty email inboxes (or an inbox whose spam to content ratio is beginning to climb dangerously). Unless, of course, I assume that my faithful readers are so overawed with my obvious correctness that no further commenting is necessary... Yes, that must be it. [/delusion].

Speaking of which, given that my comment total is, as of right now, approximately 0, I haven't had must experience on long-term comment policies, but I suspect that any obscenity, blasphemy, stupidity, or illiteracy will be deleted. Or at least mocked.

Utah Political Scene Notes II

I've never particularly cared for Swallow. Anyone who can lose a Congressional seat specifically gerrymandered for Republicans in Utah would seem to have serious problems (and his campaign literature is annoying). In looking over the last week's worth of political articles in Utah's "major" papers, I see no reason to change my opinion. Commenting on the RNC's apparent backstabbing of Bridgewater, he says "Maybe I shouldn't say this, but whomever the candidate is who comes out of this race has to have the support of the party this time to fight Jim Matheson." Usually, if you find yourself saying 'maybe I shouldn't say this,' a good place to put the period is after the 'this.' Furthermore, Swallow's excuse for losing in 2002 was that he didn't have national party support. It takes some gall to preemptively accuse his opponent of his own past mistakes, particularly given that Bridgewater apparently has actual ties with national Republicans (whereas Swallow can only boast Club for Growth support, which seems highly likely to transfer to Bridgewater after he wins the nomination).

In addition, the SLTrib runs an article about Swallow's tendency to go negative for a late hit right before an election. Swallow's response? "As far as I'm concerned, 2002 is in the history books. Let's move on to 2004." The only problem is that most of Swallow's campaign, as far as I've seen, has been centered around the notion that he came so close in 2K2 that surely, having learned from his mistakes and being willing to Try Even Harder, he'll someone win. If we wipe the 2002 race from our memory, then his primary justification for being the 'front-runner' goes up in smoke--there's no more reason to nominate him now than there was in 2002 (when he lost in convention).

Meanwhile, sometimes you have to wonder if the reporters are smarter than they let on, as they occasionally come up with something devious like this. In the middle of an otherwise dull article about campaign funding: " Lampropoulos: The gregarious CEO has set a new record in wooing state delegates. He's invited them down to Tuacahn, paid for a concert by Beatles impersonators and arranged for discounted hotel rooms. Most contributions beyond his own come from his partners and officers in Merit Medical and his son Bryan. But even his ex-wife gave him money. I was surprised to see Lampropoulos pulling up in the polls, since I'd written him off as unelectable ever since hearing that he was twice-divorced (not popular in Utah Republican circles). I suspect now that what support he has gathered is insufficient to get him out of convention; if it is, he seems likely to either lose the primary or be quite vulnerable in the general. Matheson (who has been rather bland and unimpressive so far) could have a field day, simply by playing up the 'family' theme.

As far as the rest of the field goes, from my limited observations, I tend to like Karras and Hansen, and to a degree Stephens. All seem to have the experience and credentials to do a good job (and Hansen, at least, would only stick around for one term, which is probably a good idea after the 12 years of one governor). Both Huntsman and Lampropoulos strike me as lightweights depending on money and name recognition rather than substantive experience--if they really wanted to make a difference, why didn't they start with lower offices and work their way up? As for Walker, I'm unimpressed by her decision to wait to announce, and can't see that she's done anything spectacular enough to justify leapfrogging over those who have been campaigning for far longer.

Then there's the Third District, in which we have the unseemly spectacle of xenophobic outside groups trying to convince Utah that Rep. Cannon isn't quite conservative enough. It makes about as much sense as Nader challenging Kerry for being insufficiently liberal, and I do hope the delegates don't allow the xenophobes to carry the day. If either of Cannon's challengers had hoped to earn my respect, they would have needed to forcibly denounce the darker agenda of some of the anti-Cannon groups; their failure to do so, while continuing to only talk about one or two cherry-picked issues, utterly fails to impress me (which reminds me of one amusing note from the LDDinner shindig in February--at least one of Cannon's opponents (as I recall) had a typical campaign flier; Cannon himself had a couple of detailed position papers about issues he was currently working on. A welcome contrast).

Kerry Senate Seat II

A Weekly Standard piece today on the prospects of a Democratic Senate manages to not answer my earlier question about what Kerry will do with his Senate seat.

"Democrats need to net two seats if President Bush is re-elected or only one if John Kerry wins the White House. Either way, that would flip the current 51-49 Republican advantage to 51-49 for Democrats."

Well, technically, a net of one seat and a Kerry victory would lead to a 50-50 split, with Kerry's Mystery Veep casting the tiebreaking vote. [Amusing aside: suppose the silly suggestion that McCain would accept a VP slot with Kerry actually came to be, and the Senate did split 50-50. Which way would McCain cast the tiebreaking vote?]

But the entire article never assumes that Kerry's seat is in play: "To pull it off--and assuming a two-seat gain is required--Democrats must achieve three goals. First, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle must be re-elected in South Dakota. Second, Democrats have to limit their loss of Senate seats in the South to two. Third, they need to capture all four of the vulnerable Republican seats."

We have discussion of SD, the South, and the vulnerable Republican seats, but not a word about MA. Suppose the Dems do manage to meet the requirements above, and Kerry wins. He must resign his Senate seat, which takes the chamber to 50-50 instead of 51-49 (as Governor Romney would appoint a Republican). This still leaves Democratic control (barely), but means that the Dems need to net two seats regardless of who wins the presidency if they want to control the Senate.

Update: Liberal blog PoliticalWire seems to indicate that this was indeed an error in the WS article.

Utah Political Scene Update (Sort Of)

While I was caught up in end-of-semester activities, Gary Herbert joined Huntsman's ticket as his LG choice. One report suggests that Huntsman didn't seem to be helped by the move, at least in Utah County.

My personal impression (without having looked at the race much lately) is that Herbert probably miscalculated in assuming his support would transfer, given that he'd been hitting the Gary Herbert Is Not Deluded, But Really Can Win, and He Is Not Running For LG theme pretty hard in his campaign. I had some respect for his David vs Goliath image as a country officer with a long track record of success in a less visible office. However, the impression I get now is more an image of Whatever It Takes To Get Higher Office. The press release does little to resolve those concerns.

As an aside, the http://www.utahpolitics.org/ site is fairly interesting.

Heh

At a meeting I attended recently, someone selected an obscure hymn (obscure enough that even I have never browbeat anyone into singing it), and told us we'd enjoy it as it was from the sealed portion of the hymnbook.

Stats Revisited--Unit Growth

On a Nauvoo discussion of stats, someone suggested looking at the relationship between growth in Church membership and growth in Church units to analyze retention rates. While I agree that the two are related, I think enough other intervening variables complicate things as to undermine any conclusions we could try to make (as a bonus, this position means there's no reason for me to go digging into lds.org archives to calculate a bunch more ratios).

In a bit of shameless cross-posting, here's what I replied there:

While the general idea may be on track, I donÂ’t know that we can make too much of it in any given case. Other factors affect the aggregate number of units besides simple straight-line growth. For instance, if two or three small branches are merged into one ward, chances are it would imply good things about the growth of the Church, even though the absolute number of operating units would decrease. Likewise, foreign language units, singles units, etc, can muddy the statistics.

Even more importantly, growth trends for an entire area may influence the numbers. In my mission, my impression was that wards and stakes were divided as quickly as possible, generating units that were far smaller numerically than in America, though they tended to average larger geographically. This made sense to me—while there are costs to having a smallish ward (and there certainly were...), there are also costs to having a geographically large ward (more difficult home teaching, etc). Thus, my impression was that the Church was poised to be able to grow considerably without much change in the number of units—adding another hundred active members per ward would have resulted in the need for very few ward divisions, and probably no stake divisions.

Change

Nauvoo poster Pink Floyd points to apparent changes in curriculum and Church administration, as well as a Church News article about the formation of the Sixth Quorum of the Seventy. I don't know that enough detail is provided for me to form a coherent opinion beyond that it will be interesting to see what develops. And perhaps that certain CES employees' opinions to the contrary, it's probably not necessary to assume that every major change in Church administration is a Major Sign of the Second Coming.

Eagerness to Baptize & the Risk of Error

This post on Let Us Reason has got me thinking about attitudes toward baptism (and here I'm supposed to be thinking about European social welfare policy, alas). Baptism for the living, this time. My mission experiences have suggested to me that missionaries are quite reluctant to turn down a candidate for baptism during the baptismal interview. Grasshopper suggests a similar effect at work in baptizing children of record. One can wonder whether this is a good thing or not.

Scientists like to distinguish between types of errors with the oh-so-insightfully named Type I and Type II errors, referring to false positives and false negatives, respectively. A Type I error occurs when your process calls something a problem when it isn't. A Type II error occurs when your process calls something fine when it's a problem. Your process is almost certainly not going to be foolproof, but you can err in one direction or the other. For example, the costs of harassing travelers who weren't terrorists (a Type I error) looked high enough to us that we employed lax airport security pre-9/11. Post 9/11, the costs of allowing another terrorist attack seem high enough that we are willing to tolerate a lot of harassment of non-terrorist travelers to attempt to avoid another Type II error of letting terrorists through the security system [I have opinions about how effective this is, but will forebear for now]. In this and any public policy question, whether it be drug approval, judicial safeguards, welfare generosity, etc, the tradeoffs are often perceived differently by different people, depending who sees which type of error as more serious.

A baptismal interview, which is supposed to screen out unprepared candidates for baptism, can err in either direction. The interview could prevent a worthy and prepared person from being baptized (Type I error), or could fail to stop an unworthy or unprepared person from being baptized (Type II error). My impression is that we in the Church are so eager to baptize that we are willing to tolerate a depressingly high rate of Type II errors to prevent a Type I error. One could argue that this is similar to the American 'better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent be falsely convicted' approach to justice, but I'm not convinced that the analogy holds. Theologically, we're supposed to take baptismal covenants seriously enough that we withhold them from the unprepared. One could try to get around this with arguments about second chances in the next life, or with the even lamer 'well, the home teachers might reactivate him [or 'activate him in the first place'] someday' excuse, but I don't think I've ever seen either done convincingly.

Note that I don't necessarily have a problem with the Church's current policies as written (except perhaps for my skepticism about the supervising DL/ZL's ability to be truly objective in assessing the worthiness of the people he's been trying to get his missionaries to baptize for the past umpteen weeks), but more how we seem to implement them. At least, I've met a depressing number of less-active members who don't seem to have ever been converted in the first place.

It's also interesting to speculate about circumstances that might require changing Church policy in one direction or the other. For instance, if the quality of parents' teaching of their children deteriorated enough, the Church might find it advisable to raise the standards for baptism of children of record. Similarly, if significant nonspiritual benefits were attached to joining the Church, a nontrivial number of people might be motivated to seek baptism for less than pure motives, which could require the Church to increase the level of scrutiny it gives investigators to prevent too many Type II errors. Could this happen with the PEF or a similar program? I'm inclined to think it isn't currently a problem, but don't have enough firsthand knowledge to be sure.

Nibley's Eleventh Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Commit Sociology

The current issue of BYU Magazine has an article about the closing of Geneva Steel with which I have some issues. While it does raise some valid points, it has some problems as well.

Perhaps the first reason I'm inclined to view the article less than charitably is its word choice in the first paragraph. The characterization of Geneva going under due to "cheap foreign imports" is suspicious. "Cheap" is a word in English with connotations affecting both quality and price. However, the more perfectly competitive the market, the less relevance quality has, as the commodity in question will not vary as much by quality. In my understanding, most steel production trends toward the more perfectly competitive end of the spectrum. In this context, "less expensive" is probably a better way to describe foreign-produced steel that is identical to Geneva's, only differing in that it costs less. Better yet might be "more efficient." "Cheap" seems designed to play on fears of inferior shabby foreign products--at a bare minimum, using the word "cheaper" would be slightly more accurate.

The next problem is the rather limited focus of the researchers' choice to "[study] the steelworkers' experience from many angles." Talking about "reemployment prospects, financial status, and marital, physical, and mental health" of steelworkers is fine as far as it goes, but hardly gives the whole picture if we're interested in whether or not "the costs are high." One obvious factor to consider is the economic effect of less expensive steel (and hence, all sorts of less expensive products for the American consumer). Thus, for instance, studies have shown that the Bush steel tariffs cost more jobs than they helped preserve, due to increase prices of steel inputs in a host of industries. The problem with protectionism is that it always leads to deadweight social loss; in this particular case, we were faced with the moral absurdity of deciding that steelworkers were Special enough that we had to protect their jobs at the expense of more jobs belonging to other, less politically Special individuals. There are other factors to consider as well (wasn't Geneva's air pollution the bane of environmentalists, including Nibley?). Thus, while the BYU sociologists' study may document some specific costs, their analysis is neither complete nor helpful without analyzing accompanying benefits.

A final interesting question is raised by the stats documenting an increase in depression among the unemployed workers. While depressed individuals deserve sympathy, I wonder about the mindset that facilitates depression for this reason. It seems to me that it can be dangerous to put too much faith in the assumption that one's present job will always be there, unchanged. Perhaps it was just because of the nature of the times in which I was raised, but I've always had the impression that it was my job to find a job in which I could create value, and that my employer(s) had no obligation beyond the letter of the contract I signed. The cliche I can remember being told at least as far back as junior high was that I could expect to change jobs many times, and that the notion of working for one company for one's entire life was out of date already. Because of this, I can see how losing a job would be depressing, but view it as my responsibility to go out and find another one. And hence, I get suspicious when discussion of job loss turns into searching for scapegoats and villians other than the laws of economics (can we say "Benedict Arnold CEOs?"), and get downright hostile when talk turns to protecting other people's inefficient jobs by levying direct and indirect taxes on me. I can never recall being told that the universe owes me a job, and thus get resentful when others try to enact public policy based on that curious notion applying to themselves.

Thus, while I have a limited degree of sympathy for those left unemployed in the wake of Geneva's collapse (and may even have a limited degree of sympathy for social programs designed to help them readjust their lives and find more productive work), I think I can muster far greater sympathy for starving Third World children and others who are helpless in the face of life's challenges and unfairness.

Spellchecks

In posting the last, I discovered that Blogger's own spellchecker (never terribly impressive) refuses to recognize the verb "blogging," instead suggesting "flogging." I suppose there's some degree of overlap...

Google Ads

A while back Nate Cardon pointed out the amusing nature of the Google ads Blogger pastes across the top of this site. I do appreciate the fact that Blogger manages to provide this service free for me, but I react with a combination of bemusement and horror at some of the ads. If I post on same-sex marriage, I promptly get all sorts of pro-SSM ads. If I post on baptisms for the dead, I get anti-Mormon sites. And I shudder to think what might happen if I post anything on p*rnography.

Some questions arise. Is it a better idea to simply ignore such ads, or would clicking through (on the non-obscene ones) perhaps be more fun (don't they pay Google per clickthrough?)? And why don't the anti-SSM forces do a better job of advertising, anyway? When I first started blogging about SSM issues, I got the impression that there weren't very many interest groups out there defending marriage. Now I've picked up on enough leads (some of which are in my 'to-research' pile) that I'm starting to think that there are plenty, but that most of them don't do a very good job.

In other Google-related news, they're now offering Gmail beta-test opportunities to anyone with a Blogger account. I'm trying to decide whether to start using that instead of Yahoo (which I've decided I don't like much), though The Volokh Conspiracy points out a potential problem.

BYU Refunds Tuition For Half Of Its Graduates?

According to the DU's account of President Samuelson's commencement remarks, "49 percent of the graduating class is married and 16 percent have children, with an average age of 24.3 for the graduates." I wouldn't have guessed that over half of the student body graduates unwed, though I think he did say something (not reported by the DU) about how many would wed in the next few months (and, given that my own mother graduated and got married the next day, the figure may already be changing).

The DU also reports that 4678 students graduated last week, and 1777 last December.

My personal experience with graduation this time around was to skip the first half (except for a bit of the beginning overheard on a radio), and attend one college's convocation. It was, I'm afraid, so utterly noninteresting that I'm already making plans for how to get away with skipping my own next year.

Ratings

Speaking of end-of-semester adventures, I've wondered in the past about the practice of giving class credit for filling out teacher evaluations. The Daily Universe ran an article a while back which mentioned that an associate academic vice president opposes the practice:

""If I had my personal say-so I wouldn't have them do it because I don't think it's related to course content," Williams said. "I would much rather that this all be done because students feel responsible and faculty feel responsible.""

My question is not why the university wants feedback from students who don't want to bother. It's free to request it if it thinks it valuable. My question is why the university allows the giving of academic credit for merely filling out the evaluations. It doesn't seem like it would be terribly difficult to set up the computer system so as to prevent giving a student a grade on any course for which he has not filled out an evaluation. Fill out the evaluation, and AIM spits out your grade. This would not only maintain the double-blind nature of the exercise, but would avoid the silliness of professors giving obscene amounts of extra credit in return for an activity with no bearing on the actual course material.

And We're Back...

In the past couple of weeks blogging has been light for a variety of reasons, including finals [BYU not only has the power to turn Tuesdays into Mondays, but it now can turn Saturdays into weekdays, and cause me to spend the better part of a weekend grading freshman finals...], moving, sibling graduation, etc.

Thanks to all of my faithful readers, who allowed the triumph of hope over experience as they kept checking daily for nonexistent new posts. We'll be better in the immediate future. For now, we'll go on to the pile of stuff that hasn't aged too badly while being shuffled from pile to pile and apartment to apartment.

While we're on the subject of thanks, thanks to The Baron of Deseret and Grasshopper's Let Us Reason, who have joined the esteemed company of Nate Cardon's This Liberal, A Soft Answer, and the formidable Times and Seasons in the Category of Blogs Of Such Penetrating Insight That They Decided To Link To Things To Act.

Baptisms for the Dead

A Hatrack thread is at 15 pages after three days and still going [to 16 in the time in took me to write this post]. AP article that explains the how the latest kerfuffle got underway. I thought about doing a meta-analysis essay, but am settling for a few ruminations, plus some mandatory DU bashing.

A Public Relations Black Eye--for the Activists. Are these the same people who thought that accusing The Passion of antiSemitism was smart? The AP article leaves them looking pretty bad:

"If not, Michel said, his group will consider other options, "possibly legal steps."" Can we say "First Amendment?" All together now, "Congress shall make no law respecting the free exercise of religion." That wasn't so hard, was it? Any law attempting to stop baptisms for the dead would be so clearly unconstitutional that anyone even hinting at such a step (or some 'legal steps' under existing law) is mind-bogglingly dumb. [And think of the fun 'excessive entanglement' we'd get from trying to enforce it. Monetary fines for proxy baptisms? What standards of proof? Federal marshals raiding temples? What about proxy baptisms performed in utter secrecy with no record kept? Let's think about how well the (unconstitutional) efforts to stamp out polygamy (a much more far-reaching practice in daily life) went...]

""It's ridiculous for people to pretend they have the key to heaven," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. "And even if they say they want to do somebody a favor ... it's not a symbol of love. It's a symbol of arrogance."" Arrogance... as in the first part of that statement? I could point out the arrogance of pretending one has the key to arrogance, but it's too obvious.

""The Jews have to either accept what the Mormons are doing or take legal action," Radkey said." Well, if one has totally bought into the hyper-litigious mentality that we budding lawyers find profitable. Or if, under some strange twisted new definition, accept now means "not like, but realize that freedom requires living with the choices of others."

Confusion of Harms and Offenses. I can't quite wrap my mind around the mentality that because someone finds something offensive, there must be some way to ban it. [We'll put aside for now general LDS inability to wrap the mind around the concept of BFTD being offensive, as that doesn't have bearing on the present issue]. All sorts of things offend me, not least the outrageous and false beliefs of others. Of course, I only have the right to seek legal recourse when others' offenses actually do me some sort of quantifiable harm. The law can punish theft, assault, libel [though not easily in the US], etc, but won't punish in the absence of harm [we'll also put aside the libertarian 'victimless crime' debate, as that doesn't have bearing on the point at hand either]. The First Amendment protects not only religious practice, but also freedom of conscience. Part of the costs I get for living in a society in which I'm free to believe and worship as I please are that I must put up with others' exercising of that same freedom in ways I find distasteful. But it takes courage to live in a free society, and, on the whole, I prefer freedom to its absence. It's also worth noting that once we start criminalizing actions that cause offense, almost all actions may become criminalized. Volokh did a good job illustrating the absurdity a few months ago.

Overlooked Scriptural Implications. Much bandwidth has been spent on the question of the alleged arrogance of the alleged refusing to accept nonmembers' choices. Putting aside the absurdities of the careless form of this argument (which often assumes that every individual had a complete chance to hear and accept the gospel on earth), some propose (on Hatrack, and doubtless elsewhere) a forum by which individuals could state their express desires to not have BFTD performed for them after their decease. While this idea is a bit silly, it does touch at a sensitive issue, and I've been bothered in the past by some members' apparent casual disregard for the desires of (and their promises to) the deceased. However, it recently occurred to me to apply D&C 132:7 to this concept:

"...All covenants, contracts, bonds, obligations, oaths, vows, performances, connections, associations, or expectations, that are not made and entered into and sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, of him who is anointed, both as well for time and for all eternity, and that too most holy, by revelation and commandment through the medium of mine anointed...are of no efficacy, virtue, or force in and after the resurrection from the dead; for all contracts that are not made unto this end have an end when men are dead."

This suggests several things: In our theology, an individual's contracts (and by extension, even stated intentions) do not have force after death absent a sealing ordinance. Thus, an individual's statement "Don't perform proxy baptism for me," cannot be seen as having force in the world to come (which makes sense, given the rather dramatic revelatory nature of death (though it is by no means certain how much knowledge will be revealed while crossing the veil, it seems logical to assume that continued existence in whatever form will give some answers and raise new questions)). This, of course, does not excuse the living from honoring their contracts, as they are not yet dead (which solves the problem of what to do with inheritance laws and the like, as they are as much contracts among the living as with the dead). Theologically, any 'contract' or legal request can't have force after death. Practically, since we believe that individuals who refuse the gospel are by and large doing so on the basis of incomplete information, assuming they have full capacity to contract with respect to this issue can be problematic as well.

Privacy & Counterfactuals. Just for fun, how should we analyze the following scenario: I found a new religion, calling it The Church of the Holy Proletariat. A foundational belief is that all forms of property ownership are immoral. A key ritual of this religion is to ensure the damnation of property-owning blasphemers, unless they repent and renounce their ways. Since a depressingly small number of individuals convert in life, we also help those on the other side by scouring public records for copies of legal transactions involving property ownership. In a sacred ritual, we carefully copy every such legal deed we can find that names an individual, and then burn the deed in an ordinance designed to allow the person to spiritually renounce his crass materialism.

Now some people may object to this on various grounds. Some may believe that the ritual has actual power, and thus object to its supposed harms of the deceased. They would have as much difficulty proving their case as those who feel threatened by voodoo practitioners, soul-stealing video cameras, or whatever. Others may feel the ritual is disrespectful to the deceased, though perhaps their offense is based in a misunderstanding of what the ritual actually entails (after all, minority religions often are misrepresented in the public mind). Still others might, I suppose, work to limit the uses of information in the public domain, though their efforts would face serious First Amendment concerns, not only due to freedom of the press but due to the fact that their efforts would be clearly aimed at suppressing religious practice they find distasteful, constitutionally forbidden and enforced as recently as the Florida animal sacrifice case. In any event, it looks to me that those who object to the practice have no legal means to go about stopping it, other than attempting, through their own protected expression, to convince those doing it that they are wrong or misguided. I suspect, however, that a significant number of pragmatists would merely ignore the whole thing as harmless.

Perhaps this isn't helping. But I still can't really wrap my mind around the notion that others think they have a right to stop these sorts of religious practices. As far as I can tell, the only shadow of any legal reason to care is the fact that the ritual uses the name of an actual person--but since said name is a matter of public record, it's hard to see how that's relevant (and laws forbidding the usage of others' names in religious ritual would be laughably unenforceable (given how many people pray for others, whether by name or not) and unconstitutional (see Amendment 1)).

Speaking of Privacy. I'm suddenly confused as to why this is even much of an issue. As I recall, the Church puts ordinance information behind a firewall, which is why you need your membership record # and confirmation date to check the status of ordinance work in the IGI. Thus, I can't even think how a nonmember would legitimately get his hands on the information of who has been BFTD and who hasn't. It's not like we're shouting it from the housetops (there went the last faint flickering hope for some grounds for some sort of libel case...). As far as I can tell, the church is taking information (including names) from the public domain and performing private rituals. The rituals are constitutionally protected; publicizing them is as well, barring certain narrow exceptions (such as obscenity, libel, etc) but we don't even publicize them, except in the general sense that we do BFTD, and we make specific information available to members who accept the practice anyway.

Mandatory DU Bashing. Rushing to the rescue with its particular brand of moral clarity, the DU saw fit to address the issue yesterday, in an editorial entitled "Lobbying for the church?" Since they don't seem to believe in publishing dumb editorials online, I'll have to excerpt:

"[on the Clinton/Hatch meeting] But the actions that follow are where the situation gets shady. Society has always begged for the separation of church and state, so why would Clinton join efforts with the Jewish community to end the practice of baptizing Holocaust victims? Clinton's expectations of Hatch seem skewed. It is wrong for her to expect him to lobby for the church. Even Hatch--one of the most prominent and powerful LDS members in Utah--should separate his religion from his job. His job as a senator is to legislate for his state, not his church."

Where to begin? Well, first with the AP article the DU ran (a longer version of the one linked above). Said article said the following about C&H: outraged NY organization 'asked C to intervene.' C met with H in early March. Neither commented on the meeting, except C's comment that "it was a private meeting between two senators." Activist claims C is 'involved in planning our next step." C found out her father had been BFTD after meeting with H. No comment about whether future meetings planned.

Based on this scanty information, the DU leaps to all sorts of conclusions, which are not supported by the data (unless the DU has other data, but one would think that a responsible 'news' organization would be interested in oh, say, printing such data...). Whether or not C has 'joined efforts' with anyone is far from clear--Senators spend lots of time meeting with interest groups, and not as much time actually doing anything about what the groups want as said groups would like (one reason so many bills get introduced only to die in committee, unmourned by even the sponsor). It's not as if C is even introducing a bill, she's just meeting with constituents and meeting with another senator on the issue. The fact that she's not meeting with church leaders is also indicative--it looks to me much more like a situation where's she's gathering information (from a conveniently placed fellow senator, who can give insight into the LDS perspective), rather than actually doing anything substantive. But of course I don't know her motives for sure, not having access to the Ouiji board by which the DU learned of her 'expectations.' That they then jump on H (mixing up 'lobbying on behalf of' with 'lobbying a person/institution') for doing NOTHING WHATSOEVER except meeting with a fellow Senator (the sort of courtesy extended by normal people) is absurd.

And, while I agree with the sentiment that H and his fellow Utah delegates represent the state and not the church, I find it amusing that the DU seems to be calling for the separation of religion from work. We'll see if they hold to that stance the next time some high-profile LDS businessman gets indicted for fraud or something.

Sister Hinckley

Desnews and SLTrib now have articles up.

Also, poking around on BYU's site yields this article on the establishment of the Marjorie Pay Hinckley Chair in Social Work and Social Sciences last year:

"According to Dean David B. Magleby of the College of Family, Home and Social Sciences, the Hinckley Chair will serve four main purposes: to focus on the family through research and education, to expand learning by lectures and mentored-learning experiences for students, to increase community involvement in family issues and to provide service."

"For more information on the chair and the endowment, contact the BYU College of Family, Home and Social Sciences, (801) 422-2083."

Marriage Amendment Debates

A helpful reader sends me the link to this NRO article which continues to take The Weekly Standard's Maggie Gallagher to task for her attacks on Senator Hatch's proposal. The article itself is relevant, but I find the framing of the larger debate quite relevant as well. Some excerpts:

"For this idea, he was subjected to some fairly harsh attacks on his motives from the likes of the Family Research Council. For the time being, the opponents of Hatch's idea have won this battle. They continue, however, to lose the war. It still seems highly unlikely that the Congress will vote for the FMA by the necessary two-thirds margin."

"To repeat a point I made in response to Gallagher's last blast: Who are the 20 Democratic senators who might even in theory be willing to support the FMA? The social-conservative groups are circling the wagons now and trashing Hatch. I have seen joint letters against Hatch including signatures from people who three weeks ago were saying they liked Hatch's idea. They were open to the idea, that is, when they didn't have other social-conservative groups looking over their shoulders. If the social groups want to have a debate whose purpose is to prove that there's nobody more opposed to same-sex marriage than they are, that's fine. It will probably make them all some money. It is less likely to result in an actual amendment to the Constitution."

I find this particularly significant as the professor I work for researches this sort of framing conflict in other contexts (such as environmental politics). History is replete with examples of those who gamble and win spectacularly, and those who refuse to compromise and end up losing everything. The trick, of course, is sorting out which case is which. Thus far, I'm inclined to think that the FMA might be overreaching at this point, at least without much more of a concerted public campaign for it (which would provoke a significant backlash as well). Family groups need to realize that they're not playing defense anymore, and solidarity amongst themselves is not enough to get their way. If they can't convince majorities, they'll lose.

Catfight! BYUSA vs. The Daily Universe

The DU ran a series of articles exploring BYUSA (some referenced below). Evidently, some members of BYUSA didn't take too kindly to public accountability (even of the tame sort provided by the DU). Today's editorial page contained two reporters' editorials defending their work, and one letter from four BYUSA VPs.

We'll take the BYUSA letter first. They attack the DU ("unethical and fallacious reporting of The Daily Universe"), then turn to attacking BYUSA presidents ("the failures of impossible promises"). Also, either the DU edited their letter to make them look dumb(er), or else of four BYUSA VPs, none is afraid to sign his name to a letter demonstrating serious defects in literacy ("we took from the stories the student body's need to be heard," "they are the president BYUSA," "their desires for success will come as they lead the organization").

Notable, of course, is the lack of any attempt to factually rebut whatever the "unethical" and "fallacious" charges against BYUSA were. Also notable is the evident dislike of the BYUSA presidents by the VPs. Since the DU just ran an article on how the new president-elect gets to pick the VPs, this seems puzzling. Either he's prevented from stacking it with his friends (length of service requirements?), or it's sore-loser election sour grapes or something. Sounds like an angle for more investigative journalism either way.

I'm also bemused by the sense of entitlement and self-righteous indignation coming from the VPs. Perhaps our farcial electoral system isn't as bad as I thought. We may not be able to vote against incumbents, but we have something of a semblance of democratic accountability--student body presidents can leave knowing that they wouldn't have been reelected! Or perhaps the root problem is still the self-selection of BYUSA officers of all stripes.

Moving on, Reporter #1's editorial is interesting. I won't bother with a detailed analysis, as he obviously isn't a neutral party, so it's probably better to read his defense in his own words.

One paragraph is worth noting for other reasons: "I feel that in many ways the reporting was misconstrued, especially with the headline, "Survey says students find BYUSA pointless." I don't think BYUSA is pointless. " Proof for my theory that the reporters hate the headline writers!

Reporter #2's editorial is not online. At great personal sacrifice for the Public Good, I'll excerpt some of the more interesting bits (while renewing my longstanding policy of frequent criticism of newsnet's inability to get content up promptly):

"Most of the negative emails I have received (a grand total of four--all from people associated with BYUSA) stem from a "stop the hate" e-mail campaign that apparently didn't work too well." Four emails--four irate VPs. Coincidence?

"If I did anything unethical in my reporting, it was spending my time searching for a positive comment from someone not affiliated with the organization." Heh.

"One e-mail said our articles must have stemmed from "an inside leak," as if BYUSA had something to hide." The idea of BYUSA whistleblowers leaking Top Secret Damaging Information strikes me as quite comical.

My conclusion: The logical follow-up to all of this is that the DU should investigate itself as well. Greater transparency for everyone!

Semi-Shocking Ignorance of History

While I hardly make it a practice to debunk every stupid letter to the DU (I do, after all, have two jobs, 14.5 credits, two callings, etc. to hold down), every once in a while something sets off my Annoyance Meter:

"In the days of Nauvoo, Joseph Smith would tell the members who to vote for ... They would vote republican in one election, then democrat in the next and whig in the following."

The Republican Party was, of course, founded in the 1850s, some time after Joseph's death and the westward exodus.

Hey, It's a Slanted NYT Story That Doesn't Attack Bush!

Linkage.

In addition to the reporter's direct jab ("Mr. Kerry apparently meant John XXIII, as there is no Pius XXIII."), the article contains this gem:

"...and said that he expected to win some states in the South, although he declined to name them."

Is this "International Man of Mystery" Round II? "Oh, I've talked to various Southern governors who are really pulling for me to win this, but it wouldn't be proper for me to name names..."

And of course, I'm paranoid enough to think that the reporter's inclusion of Kerry's ""Who are they?" he demanded of his questioner. "Name them" a mere three paragraphs later is no accident. Still, who'd have thought that equal-opportunity bias would rear its ugly head at the NYT?

Sister Hinckley Passes Away

lds.org press release. Desnews and SLTrib don't seem to have anything yet.

General Conference Stats

Just for fun, I whipped up an Excel table of the stats for the last several years (1996-2003). If anyone knows if Blogger will post embedded files, let me know, but I can't see a way, so I'll just excerpt interesting bits. Well, interesting to me, anyway.

Stakes: Growth under 2% since 1998 (and even negative in 2002). Not much seems to be going on here. Districts, missions, and W&B don't seem to have dramatic swings either.

Growth in membership

2003: 2.2%
2002: 2.9%
2001: 2.9%
2000: 2.9%
1999: 3.9%
1998: 2.8%
1997: 3.9%

Of course, membership by itself doesn't take many factors into account. The Church doesn't release activity rates, and even the listing of members of record is probably overstated as less-actives who die aren't as likely to have their records cancelled promptly (and recording of deaths itself depends on local ward clerks, whose diligence varies dramatically). Trying to work out the death rate is also interesting. I tried, based on the assumption that children of record are included in the membership totals, and got the following:

Membership minus last year's minus converts minus increase in COR (should equal deaths?)
2003: -78,674
2002: -37,244
2001: -36,473
2000: -39,548
1999: 8,456
1998: -92,246
1997: -17,037

The problem being, of course, that negative 8000 people seem to have died in 1999, so one of my assumptions seems to be wrong somewhere (maybe 8K excommunicated members were rebaptised?). Trying again:

Membership minus last year's minus converts (should equal 8-year old baptisms minus deaths?)
2003: 20,783
2003: 43,888
2002: 33,049
2001: 41,902
2000: 92,574
1999: -15,417
1998: 58,177

This still gives some wild swings, but at least it's more plausible, if less useful. Interestingly, the Church used to list 8-year old baptisms, but switched to increase in COR.

Speaking of COR, the last several years:
2003: 99,457
2002: 81,132
2001: 69,522
2000: 81,450
1999: 84,118
1998: 76,829
1997: 75,214

I don't know enough about demographics to even speculate about the differences from year to year.

Convert baptisms had a high of 321,385 in 1996 on my table (maybe it was higher before that, but I'm not going to bother to look). The numbers have gone down, but with two upticks (1999 and 2001), but plenty can affect that, not least the practice of GA's going around to various missions and telling them to stop stat-baptising (on my mission, a Seventy told us how on his previous assignment, they had worked to bring the baptism rate down, as retention was horrible. I view this decrease as a good thing). Absent data on activity rates, I'm inclined to view a lower number as nothing to worry about, as I suspect that retention is up, percentagewise.

Full-time missionaries rose to a high of 61,638 in 2002, to drop to 56,237 in 2003--evidently an artifact of the 'raising the bar' standards. In my mission, at least, I suspect that at least 8.9% of the missionaries were slackers, so I don't view this drop as anything to worry about either (particularly as some who were prevented from going last year may yet qualify themselves, and be better missionaries for it).

Another measure of missionary effectiveness would be converts per missionary:
2003: 4.3
2002: 4.6
2001: 4.8
2000: 4.5
1999: 5.22
1998: 5.17
1997: 5.6

The general trend here seems to have been downward the last several years. It’ll be interesting to see if the long-term impact of raising the bar (which should simultaneously raise missionary quality while lowering the number of missionaries serving) is enough to reverse that trend. Other unknown variables, of course, include the number of individuals prepared to join the Church in the countries in which we currently proselytize, as well as the effectiveness of members in sharing the gospel.

Not Quite LiveBlogging: General Conference Report

Conference on TV in Utah is an interesting exercise in contrasts. As the session ends, you go from spirituality to crass consumerism about 'spirituality.' Buying commercial time immediately before or after GC seems like such a hideously tacky thing to do that perhaps someone should organize a boycott of all LDS retailers who have the bad taste to do so.

President Hinckley's Saturday morning talks are getting awfully predictable. Good thing they're still true, and uplifting.

The Primary counselor who spoke is the odds-on favorite to win the 'Most Frightening Eyebrows' award. Her talk turned out to be pretty good, though (of course, after the bar set by the "Exclamation Points" talk, almost anything seems good).

'The recent decision to not have 70s in SS and YM presidencies' was said like he expected us to have heard about it, which I hadn't. An interesting change.

Elders Haight (understandably) and Maxwell weren't on the stand during the sustainings camera-pan. I was therefore surprised to see Elder Maxwell speak in the PS, and am now entertaining bizarre theories about an 'apostle in reserve' in case of terrorist attacks, or something.

The stats, as I caught them (roommate talking may have glitched one or two, so caveat emptor):
As of 31Dec2003:
Stakes: 2624
Missions: 337
Districts: 644
Wards & Branches: 26,237
Members: 11,985,254
Increase in Children of Record: 99,457 (this is the most likely candidate for a glitch)
Convert Confirmations: 242,923
FT Missionaries: 56,237
Temples dedicated in 2K3: 2
Temples Operational: 116

I spent a good portion of President Faust's PS talk working out the following: If my recollections of basic kinematics are correct, the kid would have hit the water at a velocity of approximately 40 meters/second, assuming a starting height of 80 meters, except that it was probably 80 feet, which I just realized, to my embarrassment (the perils of doing physics during Conference). So the corrected figure would be approximately 27 m height for an entrance velocity of around 20-25 meters per second. Some days I'm less theologically drenched than others.

President Hinckley's stats:
563,000 days of labor donated to welfare projects
$98 million in cash and in-kind donated to humanitarian projects last year, for $643 million [?] over the last 18 years.
PEF operating in 23 countries.
Over 10,000 individuals now being assisted by the PEF.
Early returns indicate an increase in potential income by a factor of 3-4.

Reader Response: Headline Bias

A reader comments on my NYT-bashing below: I have to say that I don't think that the "Setback" headline is as bad you suppose. Maybe I've been indoctrinated for too long, but it strikes that the term is appropriate in the context. Saying that a setback has been dealt to gay marriage is true. It is not necessarily a value judgment, just a statement of fact: the gay marriage movement has been dealt a setback, just as the deficit hawks have been dealt setbacks by the Bush administration. I agree that the author probably has a definite position favoring gay marriage, but that bias was not necessarily reflected in the titling.

My response: First, the headline didn't actually address the core news of the article, namely that the MA legislature had passed a proposed amendment. Not actually addressing the content of the article is one of my pet peeves, so I tend to whine about bad headline writing in any news context.

Second, if the Times is strictly objective, it shouldn't be overeager to either frame stories as either/or clashes or to be biased against the status quo. The first phenomenon consists of taking a complex issue and trying to boil it down to two opposing sides. Conflict is a news value, but most issues are (dare we say) nuanced enough that a simple either/or perspective doesn't work well. Supporters of 'gay marriage' might support the MA legislature's action, for whatever reason (such as keeping the issue in the news), or opponents oppose it (for favoring civil unions, perhaps), but you won't learn that from the Times' oversimplification. Instead, your first impression on looking at the story is of a clash between two positions (one of which must be Right and the other Wrong, and the Times gives a broad hint which it favors). Second, any departure from the assumption of the status quo opens the possibility of bias. We don't hear about setbacks to 'prohibition' or 'free silver,' and would assume that any paper that chose to run such stories would probably have an ax to grind. Emerging social trends are, of course, news, but they should be framed as possibly emerging, not taken for granted. A headline such as 'SSM Advocacy Group X Sees MA Amendment as Setback' could be valid, as it would reflect actual news (though of a probably trivial sort, depending on the group), but the headline as it stands is no more appropriate than 'MA Legislature Defends Marriage.' Both imply a value judgment, and neither communicates actual news.

Disturbing Trends at the Library?

This letter seems to be illustrating that reaction to a nonproblem I mentioned before is now making the library harder to use for its intended purpose.