Do you wonder why Democrats have gone from a significant victory in 2008 to looking at big losses in Congress in 2010? Do you wonder what it is the Republicans know and what the Democrats need to learn to avoid losing in 2012?

I’ve referenced author George Lakoff in my postings several times, and he has another message for Democrats that could help stop or maybe reverse these trends.

It’s about morale systems – not interest-based arguments.

In the conservative moral system, the highest value is preserving and extending the moral system itself. That is why they keep saying no to Obama’s proposals, even voting against their own ideas when Obama accepts them. To give Obama any victory at all would be a blow to their moral system. Their moral system requires non-cooperation. That is a major thing the Obama administration has not understood.

Lakoff’s solution is:

It is morality, not just the right policy, that excites voters, that moves them to action — that creates movements. Legislative action must come from a moral center, with moral language repeated over and over.

What should be avoided, besides policy-wonk and pure-policy discourse? Again, the answer comes from Neuroscience 101. Offense not defense. Argue for your values. Frame all issues in terms of your values. Avoid their language, even in arguing against them. … Don’t list their arguments and argue against them using their language. It just activates their arguments in the brains of listeners.

Don’t move to the right in your discourse or action. That will just strengthen the conservative moral system in the brains of swing thinkers. Frame your arguments from your moral position.

In addition, beware of the same pollsters and focus-group-dialers who missed Scott Brown’s moral message to the swing-thinkers in Massachusetts and claimed that Martha Coakley would win so handily that she could go on vacation. Just because a message plays well in focus-group-dialing doesn’t mean it will win elections.

Finally, Democrats need a truly effective communication system. They need unified, morally-based framing of issues. They need to train spokespeople all over the country in using such framing and avoiding mistakes. They need to organize those spokespeople. And they need to book them, as conservatives do, on radio, TV, in civic and religious groups, in schools and universities. This is doable, but this late, it will take resolve from the top.

The Obama campaign promoted progressive morale values and won the elections. The Obama administration has resorted to policyspeak and interest-based arguments and has been losing or barely winning.

The population of Lebanon is 95 percent Arab and is mostly of the Muslim faith with a large Christian population, but only around 200 Jews:

Muslim 59.7% (Shia, Sunni, Druze, Isma’ilite, Alawite or Nusayri), Christian 39% (Maronite Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Melkite Catholic, Armenian Orthodox, Syrian Catholic, Armenian Catholic, Syrian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Chaldean, Assyrian, Copt, Protestant), other 1.3%

While we Americans are feuding over converting an old building last used by Burlington Coat Factory into a Muslim community center with prayer rooms, Lebanon is allowing the restoration of a Jewish synagogue in Beirut.

If Muslims are allowing this in the capitol of Lebanon, why can’t ‘Christian’ Americans allow Sufi Muslims to finish their community center in New York?

At the end of today’s GPS on CNN, Fareed Zakaria, posed the following question, “Who do you trust more these days? Government or big business?”

I have more trust for our government, as represented by our elected representatives, to do what’s best for citizens. I have both access to my representatives and can hold them accountable for their actions. (For this to work, though, citizens must vote and not be denied the right to vote.)

Trust requires access between citizens and those who run the institutions. Voters have many ways to access their elected representatives. This is not true for other man-made institutions like big business. Limit personal access, as has happened between the members of the two parties in our Congress, and trust is hard to attain.

Trust also requires accountability from those responsible for operating the institution to those impacted by the actions of the institution. Our elected representatives are directly accountable to their constituents. On the other hand, trust is out of reach when those responsible are primarily accountable to profit and shareholders, where affected citizen’s rights are seldom protected by the business operating plan. Profit can, has, and will, in those cases, subjugate citizens rights. When it does, we must trust our accessible and accountable elected officials to correct the violations of citizen’s rights.

Access and accountability are two sides of the trust coin.

(This article is dedicated to the former Libertarian in our software development team who just retired and has provided the seed for other postings.)

To what extent should the government protect its citizens?

Conservatives without Conscience (CWCs), including Libertarians, want citizen protection by the government limited to national defense. CWCs even start wars on false pretenses and empower their enemies – anyone not like them – by exaggerating their capabilities and intensions. They also can’t say “9/11,” weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), or “war on terror” enough times in any given discussion about national security.

Beyond protection from foreign invaders, CWCs leave protection up to each individual citizen – “you’re on your own” and you deserve the consequences of ‘your’ failures not to get protection.

To give them some credit, however, the CWCs are very willing to provide a free enterprise solution for many forms of self protection. Insurance is one example. In fact, once in a while they even allow a government form of insurance. This is only for special situations where free enterprise can’t charge enough to make a profit – like flood insurance.

However, even here CWCs are more interesting in protecting free enterprise over the best interests of the citizen. They have allowed limited government-backed flood insurance. However, it’s a unanimous “NO” to limited government backed health insurance.

Leaving protection up to the individual also explains why CWCs are against gun control. Individuals must provide for their own defense. Remember, “you’re on your own.” Combine gun ownership with their desire to protect citizens from international terrorists and you get: Weapons are great but WMD’s are not. (This reminds me of a quote from comedian George Carlin back when ‘the enemy’ was communism, “Gabby Hayes had whiskers! Lenin had a beard!” Whiskers are good, a beard is bad.)

Progressives, on the other hand, know that there are factors in every individuals life that are beyond their control. Because progressives understand systemic causation, they realize that citizen protection by the government is much broader than national defense. Citizens not only need protection from actual – not imaginary – enemies of the state, they need protection from other forms of abuse that can grow out of concentrated power.

These abuses can exist in any manmade institution where no checks and balances exist to prevent them. Checks and balances are necessary to protect citizens from: any of our three branches of government, an abusive spouse, an abusive employer, an abusive preacher, an abusive producer or manufacturer that puts profit before the health and safety of citizens, banks too big to fail, or health insurance companies that deny coverage and drop citizens to maintain profit.

Despite popular dogma, progressives know that profit is necessary and vital to the success of the nation. That’s why the government must protect that ability by providing a court system. Combine the protection of profit with profit that abuses citizens and you get: Profits are great but PMDs, profits of mass destruction, are not.

And now with the recent decision by our activist United States Supreme Court and its five CWCs to eliminate the checks and balances on corporate political contributions, we also need protection from laws of mass destruction (LMDs). Add this decision to the actions of the GWB’s unitary presidency like wire tapping citizens, excessive signing statements that ignored Congressional law and the torture memos of John Yoo, and citizens have lost many of their hard won progressive protections.

Because of this broader view of protection of the citizenry, progressives not only want to protect citizens from WMDs, they want to protect citizens from PMDs, LMDs and many other elements of mass destruction.

In American, personal wealth will be redistributed one of two ways: taxation and accountability, or the lack thereof. Will redistribution recreate a wealthy aristocracy this nation rebelled against long ago, or will it provide for the common good and give all citizens an equal chance at creating their own wealth?

America’s wealth redistribution will either benefit all of us or a select few at the expense of all of us. America’s wealth redistribution will either raise all boats or only those that can be well maintained. America’s wealth redistribution will either enrich the common good or engorge the well off. America’s wealth redistribution will either create and maintain a foundation for our democracy and our infrastructure, or let both crumble for the sake of self-interest. America’s wealth redistribution will either protect citizens and their shared resources from abuse or empower the abusers as they ravage the shared resources and protect their ‘individual’ gains. America’s wealth redistribution will either empower all citizens to become wealthy or empower a few to control most of the nation’s wealth. America’s wealth redistribution will either provide for a broad based common wealth, which gives all citizens a equal chance for success and building personal wealth, or will concentrate wealth and power in a very wealthy aristocracy.

For the last 60 years, our tax laws have favored the very wealthy at the expense of other Americans not like them. The tax cuts for the wealthy are highlighted by the chart below which shows the drop in the highest tax rate between 1945 and 2008.

60 Years of Tax Cuts for the Rich

As detailed in another posting, the impact of the above tax cuts has given 16 percent of American families, those who make over $105,000, a 361 percent greater tax cut than the other 84 percent of American families. America’s growing, but young, plutocracy is becoming wealthier and more powerful.

To these tax cuts, add the surreptitious use of privateering. Privateering takes a portion of the remaining tax revenues and diverts it to companies like Blackwater and other sole-source defense contractors, or to ‘too-big-to-fail’ banks. And so the wealthy CEOs get richer still and more powerful.

This redistribution of the nation’s wealth to the wealthy is also shown by the chart below. It shows how family income distribution has changed from 1945 (blue) to 1970 (green) to 2008 (yellow). (All incomes were adjusted to 2008 dollars.)

Through Tax Reduction The Nation’s Income Goes to the Rich

(Data for this chart were obtained from the Census Bureau: 1945, 1970 to 2008.)

In 1945, while all citizens were helping to fund their share of the common wealth, only 6.6 percent of the nation’s income wealth was distributed to those making more than $75,000. (In 1945, taxation was based on funding the common wealth to protect and empower all citizens. This progressive taxation also took into account the effects of systemic causation. This progressive taxation was exemplified by the tax rates during WWII, which included up to 32 brackets and rates that ranged from 10 percent to 94 percent.)

By 1970, after the highest tax rate was dropped by more than 30 percent, that same group tripled their share of the nation’s income to 18.3 percent. By 2008, even more favorable tax cuts allowed the wealthy to keep even more of their income. Now they capture 32.4 percent of the nation’s income wealth – about a five fold increase from 1945.

Of course, while this transfer of wealth to the rich was happening, the funding of our common wealth was reduced just as dramatically. Now a college education is becoming affordable for only the very rich and grades K-12 are underfunded and failing in more and more public school districts as tax cuts rule. Now citizens die from food poisoning and inadequately tested drugs due to lack of independent inspectors which are paid with falling tax revenues. Now our nation and state infrastructures are literally falling down or being overwhelmed by nature and citizens die as a direct result of tax cuts. Now we have to borrow from other nations to pay our war bills and bank CEO’s bonuses. Now we have corporations that build facilities that electrocute our troops so they can maximize their profit. Now we have a health insurance system that lets 45,000 Americans die to maximize CEO bonuses.

As the wealthy have become disproportionately wealthier and more powerful, what has happened to accountability for the nation’s wealth between 1945 and 2008? In 1945, with highest tax rates at 94 percent, all families were proportionately funding our common wealth – our elected officials were accountable to the voters for our common wealth and used it to protect and empower all citizens. In 2008, with the highest tax rate at 39 percent, mega rich individuals, who have gained the most from the nation’s common wealth, became accountable – to themselves and to shareholders.

This difference in the distribution of wealth and whose accountability for the redistribution is explained by the strict father family model of conservatives without conscience (CWC) and the nurturant family model of progressives. As stated by George Lakoff in Making Accountability Accountable ” To progressives, it [accountability] means social as well as personal responsibility — responsibility for both oneself and everyone else who could be harmed by one’s failure. To conservatives, it means individual responsibility only.”

In other words, for CWCs, the individual is solely accountable for their wealth and they have no responsibility for other Americans not like them. Nor do they believe that other factors have an impact on their wealth. They believe they are in control. For progressives, the individual and various systemic factors like the family you were born into and the availability of a good education, contribute to an individuals wealth. Progressives also believe we are all accountable for our effects on others. They that hold our elected officials are accountable for America’s common wealth and will not support those officials that show favoritism with our common wealth.

As political power has shifted from progressive elected officials to CWCs, funding for the common wealth was reduced significantly by substantial tax cuts for the plutocrats. The result has been a slow drift toward “you’re on your own” society where most citizens suffer more abuse and find it more and more difficult to get ahead. Increasing taxes on the mega rich is the only way to defund the rising plutocracy and re-fund the common wealth This in turn will provide for the protection and empowerment of all citizens to create their own wealth based on their abilities, better K-12 basic education, equal access to higher education, protecting our common resources like land, air and water, an infrastructure that enables equal, and safe access to the nations common wealth.

In summary, America’s common wealth has been hit by a triple whammy: tax cuts for the rich far larger that can be considered fair, tax refunds to the rich via privateering, and by a shift of household income into the excessively reduced upper tax brackets. In addition, accountability for the nation’s common wealth has been transferred from our elected representatives and handed over to rich individuals mostly accountable to themselves and corporate CEOs who are only accountable to shareholders. The ultimate effect of all this transfer of income and accountability is that our government is less able to protect and empower its citizens.

It’s time we all realize that privateering and tax cuts favoring the very wealthy are not what America needs. Just look at where they have gotten us – The Great Recession, a growing plutocracy, consumer debt at 100 percent of GDP, banks too big to fail, and ultimately the deaths of fellow citizens.

The following was based on a new article by George Lakoff.

Populating the Administration with people from inside the beltway will help in some ways and hurt in others. Progressives are losing the health care reform effort because the inside the beltway team is using methods that have always failed in the past.

They have failed to use the methods from President Obama’s successful election campaign. They are fighting the conservative opposition the same way they always have. They are preaching to the choir while fearful members flee to join the other ‘church.’

Instead of trying to negate the lies of the other ‘church,’ but only reinforcing their lies instead, or talking about the logical interests of of the health care customers, everyone should be talking about what is wrong with the current health care system – The American Health Insurance Failure. It’s broken and needs fixing. The American Health Insurance Failure should be pointed out over and over and over, and consistently from every member of the Administration. They should also explaining how this failed system can be fixed.

Rename the reform effort – The American Plan. The “public option” only helps the other ‘church’ by making it the government option and how the other ‘church’ hates the government. The American Plan will fix our failed health insurance system.

We have a significant health care emergency. Tens of millions must resort to expensive emergency rooms for lack of insurance. Twenty thousand Americans die each year because the can’t get health care. Costs of health care have been, and are, growing faster than wages or inflation while quality suffers from birth to death. Other nations cover all citizens for half the cost. The American Plan is a response to this emergency.

Just because you have health care coverage via your employer doesn’t mean your insured. Loss your job – lose your coverage. And unless you are really rich and can afford to buy your own insurance, you are stuck with what your employer provides. You have no choice. The American Plan is about coverage if you become unemployed or have a preexisting condition when you change jobs. It is about choice.

For profit health insurance is about denying care. Even if you’re wealthy and can afford your own insurance, an insurance company doesn’t have to insure you – it’s their choice not yours. If you’re healthy, maybe they will choose you? The American Plan takes choice away from the insurance company and gives it to every citizen.

Health insurance is about delaying expensive health care. “I was, diagnosed with a terminal illness, and I had to wait 6 weeks to get an appointment … … I could have died by then. … I later discovered, my insurance company would have been very happy with that outcome.” Twenty percent of doctor recommended treatments are denied by health insurance companies.

Twenty to thirty percent of what is paid to insurance companies goes to denial of care and adding to the bottom line. This high fee constitutes a private tax on citizens which only benefits insurance company executives and investors. This is taxation without representation. The American Plan will provide relief from this unfair tax.

Doctors care about your health – they know you, insurance companies don’t care – they don’t know you. Corporations have no empathy. The American Plan is about helping doctors provide better care with higher quality and lower cost.

What about the insurance company bureaucrats? They put profit before health care. They ration care. They delay care. They deny care. The American Plan will put a stop to this.

Care is rationed by insurance companies. They have to authorize medical procedures – that takes time – and may be disapproved. They force your doctor to rush through your exam and get to the next patient by negotiating lower reimbursement fees for each patient. You have to pay more for each visit, so you don’t see your doctor as often?

Insurance companies are inefficient and wasteful. Their administration costs are 8 time higher than government provided medicare.

The American Plan is about doctor-patient care and making it better.

Let The White House know they are losing the health insurance reform battle to fear mongers and that they need to change their approach. They need a new plan – The American Plan.

Before deciding what freedom is worth to us in this time of financial catastrophe and preemptive war, let’s take a look at what freedom was worth to another generation of Americans.

The table below shows the U.S. tax rates and brackets for the final two years of WWII. They were only slightly less during the previous two years.

It also shows preserving freedom costs every citizen with earned income and, more importantly, the more they earned, the more they paid for preserving that freedom.

A couple of important aspects of the table above is the number of tax brackets and the maximum tax rate. There are six times as many brackets as we have today and the maximum tax rate was 2.7 times higher in 1945 than the highest rate for 2005.

Note that the above tax brackets are in 1944 dollars. To make this a little more relevant, here is the same table updated to 2005 dollars. For additional relevance, the 2005 tax brackets have been merged into the table. (The year 2005 is used to coincide with the 2005 household income information that is referenced later in this posting.)

The table below compares the 1945 and 2005 tax rates from the above table. The third column shows the reduction in the tax rate. As you can see, the reduction is not uniform and grows as income increases. These non-uniform reductions are highlighted in the last column by comparing all tax rate reductions in column three to the lowest reduction of four percent. The highest reduction is almost fourteen times greater than the lowest.

The table below groups and averages the information from the above table. There are three breakpoints based on the number of households above and below that point.

As you can see from the RICHER GAIN row, the RICHER have gotten, on average, three times greater tax breaks than the POORER, regardless of the breakpoint chosen. At the $105,000 breakpoint, 16 percent of the richest households got 361 percent bigger tax breaks than the other 84 percent of households.

A fourth breakpoint at $63K shows that 37 percent of the RICHER households got a 342 percent bigger tax break than the POORER households.

In my previous posting, I used systemic causation to show that paying taxes contributes to the success of all citizens by trying to provide a basic foundation from which we could all grow. I also stated in the article that, “Cutting taxes, especially for the rich, only increases the chances of success for the rich … while it reduces the chances of success for the rest of America’s citizenry ….”

What the tables above show is that the funds for creating our common good infrastructure have been cut drastically over the last 60 years. That means not only are our chances for success significantly reduced, but so is our ability to maintain our freedom.

Freedom from harm requires our protection. Freedom to grow and succeed requires our empowerment. Protection and empowerment require our government (Freedom cannot be subjugated to free enterprise profits.) and sufficient tax revenue.

• Disproportionate tax breaks for the rich means fewer funds for citizen protection: fewer police, fewer firemen, fewer EMTs, fewer civil service workers to keep an eye on profit-before-morals enterprises, roads and public utilities that can’t be upgraded, a public education system that only works for the rich, fewer air traffic controllers to watch the skies, less funding for scientific research that leads to new employment opportunities, a broken banking system that can’t fund new opportunities, less funding for responding to epidemics and large natural disasters, loss of civil liberties, etc.
• Disproportionate tax breaks for the rich also means fewer funds for citizen empowerment: less funding for proper and free elections, less capable public education for more and more citizens, unbuilt and unmaintained roads for mobility, failing communications and internet services needed for information, brown outs and black outs that reduce business and employment, dwindling water supplies, closed libraries, shorter hours for public services, less stable banking and securities systems, a less fair labor market, etc.

So, taxes improve the possibility of citizen success by allowing our government to protect (freedom from harm) and to empower (freedom to grow) us.

What are we willing to pay for freedom? How about our fair share of citizenship dues – taxes not unlike those of WWII? I suggest we raise the 33 percent tax rate to 35, let the 35 return to 39.6 percent, and add several more brackets for those making more than $500,000.

I made the following statements at the end of an exchange with a libertarian coworker on one of current favorite fear phrases of Conservatives without Conscience – Gangster Government.

Here is how I see our disagreement.

You believe free enterprise is rational and self correcting. I believe free enterprise is, like any other man-made enterprise – including the government, imperfect and in need of a watchdog. The citizens are the watchdog of the government and the government is the watchdog of corporations on behalf of the citizens who lack the power to take on negligent [or abusive] corporations.

You believe government is the problem. I believe that any man-made institution is as good or bad as those in control of the institution, including small businesses, religion, family, corporations, etc. Man is not perfect and therefore any of his creations are not.

GM and the ‘entire’ economy are in trouble? I think the profits of the defense or oil industries disproves that. Also, Walmart is still making a profit: . If that is not enough, take a look at the profits for the industries listed here: . Healthcare tops the list at 10.84% for the mrq.

As for Bachmann, she is just not a reliable source of impartial information.

“Conservatives Without Conscience” is the title of a book by John Dean from the Nixon administration. It goes into great detail about these politicians, their methods, how they compare to those who helped bring Hitler to power, and how they have become what is often referred to as “the base” of The Republican Party.

You have quite a few one liners – at least one is yours. However, you never validate them with any concrete information. It just looks like your copying from a Rupert Murdoch or Frank Luntz script.

You’re right about the IOUs. This nation has quite a few of them. One reason for that is that we keep cutting taxes – three times as much for the rich (>$200K) as the rest of us since the end of WWII. (I’ll be detailing this lopsided Paris Hilton Tax Break in a blog posting soon.) So, without taxes, we borrow. Without taxes to pay for the problems we create and for the preemptive wars the neocons want, we have to ask the world to pay for our mistakes. Why shouldn’t we the people pay for our mistakes and wars? Because if we had to, we would be less likely to make them in the first place.

Don’t trouble us with taxes. Let me shop. Let me go into debt to keep the money flowing to free enterprise, which will keep it, unless you own stock that pays dividends. I’ve gotten more tax rebates than refunds from shopping.

You’re concerned about to much your money going to ‘big bad government.’ I’m concerned about excessive shopping enabled by free enterprise’s credit cards and equity loans. Household debt is now equivalent to our GDP for the first time since The Great Depression.

You believe free enterprise is the answer for everything. I believe that free enterprise, like government, has its place, but when a moral issue that affects my life, liberty and pursuit of happiness is involved, that moral issue should never be subjugated to profit.

No single death of a citizen is acceptable for the sake of profit and too many citizens have been killed by free enterprise and profit above all else. Those deaths require action by our government, not just the imperfect enterprise that caused them.

Any man made institution can become a gangster without a watchdog.

What causes an individual to be successful? Are there a multitude of factors including the talents of the individual or is it entirely individual talent? Does society contribute to an individuals success?

George Lakoff wrote the following in The Political Mind:

One of the most profound differences between strict and nurturant modes of thought is the area of causation. In the strict father model, there is individual responsibility and direct action operating: the father gives a directive, the child is expected to carry it out, and if not, the father punishes. Causation is direct and individual.

In the nurturant parent model, causation is sometimes direct and individual, but just as often it is systemic. Nurturance involves developing attachment, empathizing with and forming connections to others. The more absolutes are Help, Don’t Harm, Do Unto Others. … You have to function as part of a social and interpersonal system less governed by specific rules and more “felt out” in terms of how you relate to others and sense their needs and requirements [empathize].

In Thinking Points, Mr. Lakoff states, “Pure conservative philosophy is the application of the strict father model – and only that model – to politics.” He also observes the “appearance of the authoritarian conservative, who applies the strict father model not just to all issues but to governing itself.” John Dean refers to these individuals as Conservatives Without Conscience (CWC).

In other words, CWCs are driven by “individual responsibility and direct action.” Mr. Lakoff restates this as their “Individual Responsibility Principle” in Thinking Points:

All of us are individually responsible for our own destiny. If you succeed, it’s because you deserve it; if you fail it’s your own fault. You’re on your own, and you should be. No coddling.

…

In surveying conservative and progressive arguments, we have noticed another important regularity. Conservatives seem to argue on the basis of direct, individual causation, while progressives tend to argue on the basis of systemic, complex causation.

The two worldviews described by Dr. Lakoff see causation differently. What evidence exists to give credence to either the strict father or the nurturant causation statements made by Professor Lakoff?

The answer is found in the many examples of success documented in Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. In part 1 of Outliers, Gladwell reviews the different individual and systemic causes of success for several groups and individuals.

Discussed below are summaries of successful individuals and the individual and systemic factors that contributed to their success.

The Matthew Effect shows how setting cutoff dates gives individuals born closest to that date an advantage over others born later.

Championship Canadian Hockey Teams – from age 10 to professional hockey player – were determined by the following external factors:

• They had to be born in Canada
• They had to be born shortly after some arbitrary cutoff date – the closer the better. In this case, January first.
• Their innate talent and early start got them on the “rep squad” which lead to more practice sessions and games to enhance their talents
• They had a physical advantage over others when the differences between 10 year olds over a 12 month period can be significant.

Analysis of successful Canadian hockey teams shows that their members were composed of players with birthdays in the following groups:

• Jan-Mar – 40%
• Apr-Jun – 30%
• Jul-Sep – 20%
• Oct-Dec – 10%

When the researchers looked at individual months, they found more successful team members were born in January than any other month. Second in number of successful players was February and then March.

In the United States, there is a cutoff date of July 31 for baseball. Well, guess what? More major league players are born in August than any other month. Similar statistics exist for European soccer teams.

There were similar results for math testing of fourth graders. The older fourth graders scored 4 to 12% higher.

Research has also showed that not all those born in January become successful team players. Innate talent is also required. But this innate talent is given a significant boost if you are born in January in Canada and you want to play hockey. “Achievement is talent plus preparation” and those with the most preparation become champions.

One researcher said, “It’s outlandish that our arbitrary choice of cutoff dates is causing these long-lasting effects and no one seems to care about them.”

So, successful sports players had innate talent, but that talent was boosted because of when and where the player was born. This luck of the draw then lead to more chances to practice and play more games and thus boost their success and natural talent, if they had any.

The 10,000 Hour Rule:

Mr. Gladwell then goes on to point out that preparation for successful individuals takes about 10,000 hours. People at the top had to “work much, much harder.” Talent is there but experience is a major factor.

This experience requirement was part of the success of The Beatles, Bill Joy of Sun Microsystems, Bill Gates and many others. After reviewing details on innate talents, who they knew that provided a distinct advantage, what family they were born into and who the parents knew, and how they gained their relevant 10,000 hours of experience in a short time, Mr. Gladwell then looked at when they were born. Again a common factor about birth was part of the systemic causes for success. But again, birth is just one factor that contributed to success. “Lucky breaks” for these successful billionaires or The Beatles or star athletes “seem like the rule.”

Mr. Gladwell then listed the 75 richest people in human history based on current US dollars. Whatever the other factors, talents, or lucky breaks were for these 75 people, this list included 14 Americans that were all born within 9 years of each other. Twenty percent of this group comes from one century and one country – lucky breaks.

They were all born between 1831 and 1840. During this era railroads were starting; Wall Street was born; and industrial manufacturing started in a major way. All the economic rules were broken and remade. It really matters if you are born in a time of major transformations and get those lucky breaks.

This same kind of transformation, the personal computer age, was starting just in time for Bill Joy and BIll Gates. If you were born before 1952 and working in computers, your future was in main frames and time sharing, and you wore a black tie and white shirt. If you were born after 1958, you didn’t have time to get your 10,000 hours of computer programming experience.

Opportunity and the right experience are major systemic factors for successful people. Major opportunities occur during the right time for lucky individuals with sufficient experience plus innate talent. But it must all come together just so and at the right time for significant success to occur. But what about innate talent? Does it have limits?

The Effect of High IQ on Success:
Mr. Gladwell reviewed the value of IQ scores, a measure of innate talent, and it’s effect on success. The research shows that those with an IQ of 120 are just as likely to be successful as anyone with an IQ higher than 120.

Just after World War I, Lewis Terman, a Stanford professor, identified 1,528 individuals with an IQ of at least 140. They became known as the “Termites.” Their ages ranged from 3 to 28. A Stanford article on the termites concludes with the following:

As for what IQ scores can predict about a person’s future, Hastorf offers a middle-of-the road position: the tests are pretty good at identifying “school-bright” children, those likely to perform well in ordinary school settings, but “on the issue of what makes you school-bright, it’s obviously a combination of variables — your genetic constitution, your biological health, the motivation that your parents put into you, chance.”

Professor Terman tracked his Termites for years. When most had become adults, he reviewed the success of 730 males. He split them into three groups. The highly successful A group – top 20 percent. Ninety-eight percent of them had advanced degrees. The B group – the middle 60 percent – succeeded satisfactorily. The C group – the bottom 20 percent – were not very successful even though their IQs were 140 or more. Only a quarter of them graduated from high school and only eight earned graduate degrees. Further analysis showed the A’s were from middle and upper class families. The C’s were from the “other side of the tracks.” They all had innate talent, but the Cs lacked the other systemic factors that would foster success.

Mr. Gladwell discussed one such systemic factor that contributed to success for those with high IQs: the “motivation that your parents put into you.” “Concerted cultivation” is more relevant to success than an IQ above 120. If you can’t work with others, it doesn’t matter if your IQ is 195 – you’re not likely to be successful. Christopher Langan, discussed extensively in Outliers, is an example of someone with a high IQ but who had little success in life.

It is unfortunate, but concerted cultivation is typically missing from poor broken families, but it has nothing to do with genetics. It is cultural. The wealthy feel “entitled” to what they have. The poor learn “constraint.” The high IQ poor are less likely to be successful because they lack a “community around them that [could have] prepared them properly for the world.”

Mr. Gladwell provides ample evidence that there are systemic factors that contribute to the success of a talented individual. But there are still more …

In addition to the Matthew Effect, the requirement for 10,000 hours of experience, the luck of when and where you were born, innate talent, social connections, and having sufficient but not necessarily excessive talent – there are still the systemic factors provided by society through its government.

Here is an insightful quote from Warren Buffet (net worth around $46,000,000,000) on societal causation:

I personally think that society is responsible for a very significant percentage of what I’ve earned. If you stick me down in the middle of Bangladesh or Peru or someplace, you find out how much this talent is going to produce in the wrong kind of soil… I work in a market system that happens to reward what I do very well – disproportionately well. Mike Tyson, too. If you can knock a guy out in 10 seconds and earn $10 million for it, this world will pay a lot for that. If you can bat .360, this world will pay a lot for that. If you’re a marvelous teacher, this world won’t pay a lot for it. If you are a terrific nurse, this world will not pay a lot for it. Now, am I going to try to come up with some comparable worth system that somehow (re)distributes that. No, I don’t think you can do that. But I do think that when you’re treated enormously well by this market system, where in effect the market system showers the ability to buy goods and services on you because of some peculiar talent – maybe your adenoids are a certain way, so you can sing and everybody will pay you enormous sums to be on television or whatever – I think society has a big claim on that.

Here is how George Lakoff describes how our society, through its government, helps cause citizen success.

America’s government has at least two fundamental functions, protection and empowerment. Protection includes the police, firefighters, emergency services, public health, the military, and so on. Empowerment includes the infrastructure needed for business and everyday life: roads, communications systems, water supplies, public education, the banking system for loans and economic stability, the SEC for the stock market, the courts for enforcing contracts, air traffic control, support for basic science, our national parks and public buildings, and more. We are usually aware of protection. But the empowerment infrastructure, provided by taxes, is usually taken for granted, hidden, or ignored. Yet it is absolutely crucial, a fundamental truth about America and why America provides opportunity [for success].

Taxes are part of our common wealth, what we all share. Protection and empowerment serve the common good. Because of our common wealth, we are all protected and America’s empowering infrastructure is available to all. That is a fundamental America value: the common wealth should serve the common good. It benefits everyone.

Citizens are financially responsible to maintain this common wealth [by paying taxes in proportion to their gains from society]. If we shirked this responsibility, we could not maintain our roads, fund our schools, protect ourselves from military threats, enforce our laws, and so on. Equally important, we could not create prosperity [success] for ourselves, because we would have no protection of our intellectual property, no oversight of our markets, no means to enforce our contracts, no way to educate most of our children.

Gladwell details many of the specific factors that helped cause the wealth of Bill Gates and Bill Joy. Professor Lakoff explains some of the societal factors that contributed to the success of these talented and lucky citizens:

He [Bill Gates] started Microsoft as a college dropout and has become the world’s richest person. Though he has undoubtedly benefited from his unusual intelligence and business acumen, he could not have created or sustained his personal wealth without the common wealth. The legal system protected Microsoft’s intellectual property and contracts. The tax-supported financial infrastructure enabled him to access capital markets and trade his stock in a market in which investors have confidence. He built his company with many employees educated in public schools and universities. Tax-funded research helped develop computer science and the internet. Trade laws negotiated and enforced by the government protect his ability to sell his products abroad. These are but a few of the ways in which Mr. Gates’ accumulation of wealth was empowered by the common wealth and by taxation.

The research of Lakoff and Gladwell supports the progressive worldview on the causes of success – it’s much more than individual talent. Gladwell emphasizes the technical more determinant causes of success while Lakoff highlights that “the empowerment infrastructure [of our society through its government], provided by taxes, is usually taken for granted, hidden, or ignored.”

Paying taxes supports America’s infrastructure and improves the chances of success for all its citizens. This contradicts the claim of CWCs that cutting taxes, like Nixon, Reagan and Bush did, will solve our problems. Cutting taxes, especially for the rich, only increases the chances of success for the rich – like bonuses and/or continued employment for the CEOs of banks too big to fail – while it reduces the chances of success for the rest of America’s citizenry – now losing their jobs and homes.

The title says a lot about where we were going during the few last decades of rule by conservatives without conscience (CWC). It also suggests there is something we can do about it.

What is it about the CWCs that brought us to this point where fixing a wrong is not an option?

These CWCs are more about “me” than “we the people.” If you’re not like them, “you’re on your own.” They love labels and label all those not like them as an enemy. They have so many enemies, they need unrestricted wiretapping to keep an eye on them.

They made the rich the mega rich. They see not just progressive taxes but ANY taxes as evil instead of the foundation for the common good of the nation. They are so into ‘me’ and individual responsibility, they see taxes as theft. It’s mine. How dare your take it for protecting and empowering everyone?

They approved torture but when torture came to light they hid behind those they had put in the “bad barrel” called Abu Ghraib. They’ve lied so many times, and continue to do so, we’ve given up counting.

They are all about staying the course regardless of any evidence to the contrary.

They contribute to or are members of some of the most powerful lobbying groups, such as the NRA, yet they insist that lobbyists have no effect on our ‘individual’ congressmen. They also claim that government makes businesses do stupid things – yeah, like creating credit default swaps.

They need wars and a broken public education system to control the masses. They don’t listen, they tell you what you need to understand and will repeat it as often as necessary. The Noble Lie is a favorite tool. Dick Cheney has finally come out of his undisclosed location to defend the indefensible – over and over.

They have had the empathy beaten out of them by strict fathers and believe unquestioningly in the purity of profit. They are so intent on individual responsibility and discipline, so you’re on your own, and so devoid of empathy, they can’t comprehend that they are affected by many outside forces. For them, systemic causation doesn’t exist.

Some want their religion for all – regardless of freedom of choice. They hold science in low esteem, especially when it conflicts with their beliefs.

They believe in corporate welfare and that they too will become rich, but ‘you deserve what you get’ since you’re not like them. They are not their brother’s keeper. They deplore checks and balances on getting rich, abusing power, rewarding their friends, or limiting ‘their’ individual freedoms like owning guns to protect themselves from those not like them.

They create issues that aren’t: CO2 is not a pollutant. Who said it was? It is, and always has been, a greenhouse gas. Obama’s supreme court nominee is too insert-your-favorite-descriptor. But there is no nominee. Senator Obama “is a Moslem.” How many times does he have to disprove that?

They consider empathy a four-letter-word. But that shouldn’t be a surprise since those without a conscience lack the ability to empathize. Their strict father upbringing ‘beat’ it out of them.

They have Fox Noise, Talk Radio, Christian based law schools, and Rupert Murdoch’s mega media machine to promote their cognitive policy. They know and repeat the daily ‘talking points.’ They love to spread fear with television and emails because they know fearful people will do stupid things – like believe their lies. (These tools of fear, and other high tech tools, were not around in November 1963. What might these tools contribute to now or in the future? See table below.)

And, they are not going away. They were the Loyalists during the American Revolution. They fought to keep slaves during our civil war. Later they wore white robs as they lynched those not like them. Now, a few wear suits in our Congress and governor’s mansions, or claim to be a rich plumber.

John Dean described them this way in Conservatives Without Conscience:

Probably about 20 to 25 percent of the adult American population is so right-wing authoritarian, so scared, so self-righteous, so ill-informed, and so dogmatic that nothing you can say or do will change their minds. They would march America into a dictatorship and probably feel that things had improved as a result. … And they are so submissive to their leaders that they will believe and do virtually anything they are told. They are not going to let up and they are not going away.

They are a seething threat upon which we must keep a very alert eye. They still have a well established, but floundering, conservative worldview music box that will continue playing their tune. Like a pied piper, they intend to recapture the minds of those who have strayed and add others who have yet to hear their siren.

What to do?

Here’s how George Lakoff puts it in The Political Mind:

Progressives have a lot of tilling to do – and maybe some heavy-duty roto-tilling in conservative soil [soil that has taken over 35 years to prepare.]. It will take time and concerted effort.

Lakoff also provides these suggestions for getting started:

What ever the topic is, bring in the progressive moral vision and what the role of government is. American is about empathy and responsibility: people caring both for themselves and for one another, and acting responsibly on that sense of care Government has two roles: protection and empowerment for all its citizens. Nobody makes it on his own …. And then frame whatever the issue is in these terms. Taxes pay for continued protection and empowerment …

If progressives can stick to these basics, activate empathy in our fellow citizens, and frame issues so that they notice all the protection and empowerment that government affords in their every day lives, then we have a fighting chance that the minds and brains of our countrymen will align once more with the fundamental values and goals of American democracy. We need to say over and over that this is what true patriotism is.

Here are some frames Lakoff suggests to emphasize how the progressive worldview is constructive to our democracy:

America says we are all in the same boat.

America makes the least of us secure.

America says you are safe from government oppression.

America says your personal life is your own.

American stands for liberty.

Until progressives quickly learn that conservatives have perfected their cognitive policy over the previous 40 years, we, as empathetic and responsible citizens, can’t relax and wait for the next election.

Progressives need to develop and promote a progressive cognitive policy to erase the neural connections of the conservative, strict father, conscienceless worldview and reinforce the weakened connections for responsible and empathetic progressive concepts like common wealth for the common good.

Progressives need to emphasize that we are each not just responsible for ourselves but for others – there is no place for “me” in “we the people.” We need to reframe the discussion from government that is big, expensive and wasteful into a discussion of how our government should be protecting and empowering (the common good) all of its citizens – not just the mega rich. We should be emphasizing the need for progressive taxes to build the common wealth and fund the national programs that will protect and empower us: checks and balances, education, Internet, energy independence, reversing climate change caused by consuming fossil fuels and other national infrastructure. We don’t need more tax breaks for the Paris Hilton’s of the world?

How would would we recognize the success of a new progressive cognitive policy?

Here are some guidelines from the last chapter of The Political Mind:

We would understand that our brains evolved for empathy, for cooperation, for connection to each other and to the earth.

We would embrace the fact that empathy is at the heart of American democracy.

We would see how empathy is also at the heart of ecological consciousness.

We would recognize that the two major American modes of political thought – strict and nurturant – exist, but in nonintersecting realms.

Progressive thought would be understood as having as its moral base the politics of empathy, with the responsibility and strength to act on that empathy. The role of government would be seen as protection and empowerment.

Conservative politics would be recognized as being the politics of authority, discipline and obedience: …

It would be understood that conservatives are not going to go away, … The question of whether American politics should be based on empathy or authority will not disappear.

The vital importance of childrearing would be recognized. … Advocates of strict father upbringing – like James Dobson and Dr. Laura – would be recognized as harmful to children.

Privateering would be a recognizable conservative strategy. … Deregulation and privatization would be understood not as the elimination of government, but as a shift from a government with accountability to the public to a government without accountability to the public, from public government with a moral mission (protection and empowerment) to private government with only the mission of maximizing profits.

Health would be seen as a matter of protection, not insurance.

Education would be seen as a matter of empowerment … Teaching to the test would be abandoned, replaced by the teaching to think on one’s own.

The immorality of the vast divide between the ultra-wealthy and the middle and lower classes would be manifest.

For more on what to do, checkout The Rockridge Institute and Cognitive Policy Works. You and also google for other articles by George Lakoff and watch his videos on YouTube.