It's Like Eating Potato Chips

There's a reason why I can't stop posting comments on various New York Times blogs: I keep reading them.

My life would be much simpler if I could just wean myself off news and the blogs that are now inevitably attached to the opinion pages. And, of course, that's where my problem lies: I read the opinion pages most of all, and I do this for the very simple reason that I have too many opinions and want to see what's on the minds of other people who suffer from the same malady. Birds of a feather, I suppose.

I have cut back to the point at which I'm only likely to submit a comment if I see something that's factually wrong, such as the instance quoted in this post. The gentleman I was responding to was relying on secondhand information and not delving into the relevant statistics or the possible prejudices of his sources.

For example, take his statement that "there’s much debate as to whether on balance they [New Deal programs] prolonged/deepened it." Now, I just did a small amount of research on Wikipedia and came up with this:

The majority of historians and economists believe that the New Deal helped resolve the Great Depression, but a significant minority of economists believes that it worsened the depression. A 1995 survey of economic historians and economists asked "Taken as a whole, government policies of the New Deal served to lengthen and deepen the Great Depression." Of the economists 27% agreed and 51% disagreed. Of the economic historians, only 6% agreed and 74% disagreed. ([T]he rest were in the partly agree/disagree group).

What this shows is that very few economists and almost no historians have signed on to this notion that the Depression was either prolonged, deepened, or both by The New Deal. In other words, the "debate" over the effect of The New Deal on the Depression is probably nonexistent. And, in fact, simply contradicting a mainstream theory isn't having a "debate." Anyone (and this is something I really know something about) can contradict accepted theory. The question is: Can you back it up? If you can, you just might find yourself in a debate. If not, chances are that you are a partisan hack hoping to put enough smoke in the air to cover whatever nonsense your ideological masters are up to.

Actually, the problem usually arises from people believing in an ideology to the point where it becomes a religion for them. Whatever contradicts their precious theories becomes the enemy and must be fought at every turn, regardless of what sort of tripe or cooked books they have to come up with in order to justify the attack.

I've long said that I think it something less than a coincidence that the words "ideology" and "idiot" begin with the same syllable. My advice? Don't get in line. Think for yourself and get your own information whenever possible. Mull it over. Come to your own conclusions.

And if you ever find yourself calling a radio program merely to say, "Ditto," check yourself in for deprogramming and spare your loved ones the trouble and expense.