Do Actual Facts and Evidence Matter Anymore?

One of the frustrations I have when I get into political (or many other kinds of) arguments is the essentially fact-free nature of the discussions. 

Not so much when it comes to discussing problems we want to solve, although often enough, the problems are exaggerated or completely made up (like the whole “gender confusion” debate), but on the other hand, whether proposed “solutions” actually work. 

It often seems that gauzy, empathetic-sounding slogans are sufficient to move people to accept the most absurd arguments, claims of fact, and to ignore the obviously bad or useless results of whatever “solution” was created. 

Think about some of the most pressing issues of the day, or just about any public policy proposal that people push. 

Homelessness is a great example. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been poured into “solving” the homeless crisis, yet the problem only seems to get worse, and the actual plight of those who live on the streets gets worse. Cities are turned into trash heaps, people are dying on the streets, and petty crime skyrockets wherever the homeless congregate. 

And the crime isn’t only petty at times. 

Yet politicians like Gavin Newsom only have to wax poetic about his plan to eradicate homelessness, and he gets applause, and taxpayers keep writing checks to fund a homeless industrial complex that is making bank while things get worse. 

Drug abuse is the same. As people die in the streets, “harm reduction” programs give away free needles, crack pipes, and even drugs in some cases, on the claim that helping people rot to death is a kind solution. 

Transportation? Everybody is frustrated by traffic congestion, but billions of dollars are poured into “traffic calming,” which has the explicit goal of driving cars off the streets by increasing congestion. Billions are poured into flashy projects, but in many cases, the congestion gets worse, the streets are ill-maintained, and the only result is higher taxes and more spending on projects that are designed to fail. 

California High Speed Rail, anybody? 

What about “affordable housing?” People have been talking about “affordable housing” for decades, but most of the laws and regulations are designed to provide subsidized but very expensive housing to government clients, while raising prices on new home construction. Urban planners set zoning rules and implement plans that, on their face, are designed to spread Democratic voters to formerly Republican areas (notice how the suburbs went from Red to Blue as “affordable housing” was built in these areas?), and suburban areas in many areas start getting problems that used to be urban?

I get particularly frustrated because the evidence is there for all to see, but the response from people who refuse to see it boils down to this: it is “mean” to oppose these efforts that obviously don’t work. Liberals talk about compassion, or “the children,” but the results they provide are always more expensive and much worse than before. 

Have I no compassion?

It’s absurd. We keep pouring money into school systems that perform worse every year, and produce an ever-more-confused and mentally ill generation of kids who can’t decide what sex they are. That is even harder for them to figure out than who was president during the Civil War—if they even know America had one. 

Instead, liberals start talking about making public schools full-service mental and physical health facilities, promoting “Social and Emotional Learning” to children they have made as anti-resilient as possible in the first place. 

Give us money to “solve” the problems we created. 

Government is an industry that thrives on failure because it is rewarded. The worse things get, the more it can take in taxes to “fix” the problem. What Department of Transportation DOESN’T want you frustrated by traffic congestion? It’s hard to ask for tax increases unless people are angry enough about how bad the system is to agree to it. 

Lots of homeless people on the streets? We have a program for that. Let’s spend more!

All of this is obvious, yet somehow the words liberals spew matter more than the facts before our eyes. It’s as if empathetic words are magical incantations, and hard truths are too difficult to face. 

This, I think, is why all the warnings in the world about obviously dangerous consequences of stupid policies get ignored. Nobody wants to say that providing thousands of dollars a month in EBT cards, free housing, and all the benefits of welfare for years will encourage sloth. 

It’s obviously true—it’s human nature—but it’s mean to say it. 

Multiply this attitude across all the major societal discontents, and you get an increasingly dysfunctional society. Results don’t matter, so in government nobody aims to get good ones. 

Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.

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