George Handlery on the week that was. Hand-outs that undermine the economy. Sovereign debt and politics’ inability to stop the bleeding. How to use science to generate hot air for politics’ balloon? How to get accused of hate speech without an effort?

1. Social policy likes to spend on the governors’ favorites. Reelection is in this case more important than is the project into which the money is funneled. Predictably, the temptation produces negative outcomes. Here everybody will think of the allocation of money to activities that make no sense – a practice, which guarantees that the supposed beneficiaries remain dependent of support payments. The reward-for-failure policy also creates deficits. That undermines the currency’s value. It also results in barriers that limit efficient producers whose contribution has to pay for the outlays. An additional consequence deserves mentioning. In time, such squandering creates a crisis and undermines society’s ability to cope with the economic earthquake once bankruptcy cannot be hidden any more. We are now witnessing several cases in which the ability of government to remedy the ailment it had caused is impeded.

Greece, Germany and Iceland are all states with damaged public finances. Other candidates are dancing on the edge of the precipice. In all these cases, the course to avoid a hard landing is clearly stated by economics as a science. Especially in the case of Greece, the ability of the governors to act effectively is limited by the threatened mass disobedience (as in “general strike”) of the beneficiaries of over spending.

As a discipline striving to be objective, economics, as well as other Euro-users warn Greece to cut expenditures and to collect taxes. The latter is difficult where, according to the declarations filed, even the rich are paupers. Raising taxes is no medicine as evasion has become a natural right. More serious than the income gap is the ailment of inflated expenditures. Now politics is to correct the chaos caused by its fantasy-fueled finances. However, politicians, as of candidates seeking a mandate, can hardly afford to do what is expected of them. Welfare spending –in the extended meaning of the term- has created numerous constituencies. The beneficiaries might even be a majority, addicted to receiving more than it is giving.

The worse result of past sins is not the debt to be serviced. Really damaging is the inability of majority-dependent governments to implement corrections. Typical are the paralyzing strikes in Greece. By now, Iceland’s rejection to debt repayment is in. Even if offered favorable conditions, the voters are unwilling to pay a debt incurred by a bank whose deposits the country guaranteed. (The consequences of the vote are not subject to balloting. They could bring more hardship than negotiated repayment would have.) In this, as well as in other yet to emerge cases, peoples that used to “get” from government are, not without logic, unwilling to pay for past sins. Not even when they benefited from economic magic once promoted as a realistic strategy. This makes out of the crisis that looms around sovereign debt an acute problem. It impairs the credit worthiness of countries and qualifies the doctrines of spending.

 

2. Regardless of the attempt to manage the issue by under-reporting it, climate gate has become the topic of discussion. Here a reconstruction of the process by which the climate hysteria and its ongoing deflation have come about.

I. A thesis is proposed. By the rules of scientific inquiry, it is questionable which is why science demands that initially every thesis is to be doubted.

II. It might happen, as it did in case of the predicted climate catastrophe, that the postulate confirms the hard-core doctrine of a political theory. If the needs of a political network that is short of confirming arguments are met, the thesis – originally an open question – becomes PC. With that, the thesis ceases to be a thesis in the scientific sense of the term. It will be elevated to the level of an article of faith.

III. The advocates of the “cause” isolate and exclude those scientists that question the theory. With that, no officially “serious” challengers remain on the market place of ideas. As a dogma, the original postulate will, attain “fact” status.

IV. Becoming an instrument in public affairs, what might have originally been decent science, deteriorates as is hitches its cart to politics in exchange for funding.

V. Pure politics is now confirmed by prestigious “science” that affirms its case. The upshot: a concept of significant political utility. At this stage, a community crystallizes around the originally scientific thesis. For this association science is secondary, while the contribution to its political agenda is of primary importance. Everything that is of use has a value. Accordingly, money is injected into the circle that bolsters the validity of the theory. Officially, the funds will flow to further research. In fact, the hope of the funders will not be better science but “research” results that confirms its politics. Therefore, the search is not for objective facts but to confirm a party’s agenda.

VI. The engaged scientist’s stake in the cause is fortified by pecuniary advantage. A role is played by the honors that politics can confer upon those who fight for its “good cause”. We had example confirming the generalization when a certain politician received a prize for advancing science by giving it political support. He shared the honor with a scientist who delivered ammunition for politics.

VII. Distortions are three-legged dogs: it is easy to catch up with them. One has to hope that this can happen in time. For being late, the illustrative cases are of Nazi Rassenlehre and Stalinist biology or cybernetics. In time, exaggerations lead to irrepressible contradictory data. The reaction is to suppress it with help from politics.

VIII. At this stage, the current state of “climate-gate” enters the picture. Uppity experts and the society’s general skeptics rally. The “convenient truth by consensus” is gradually rebutted. The defensive response is to invent proof that supports the thesis that has firmed into a dogma. This means that facts are created and that correctness is confirmed by elevating doubtful statistics into unchallengeable proof. This is the process in which bad science becomes good politics. Until you are caught, that is.

 

3. How to be accused of hate speech while the charge implies automatic sentencing? It is easy. Zero in on a problem. Make it one that all think exists and which is, therefore, anathema to local elites. Discover, as you look for the causes, a group that is, besides its professed ideas and actions identifiable by correlating with an ethnic background or a religion. Surmise to your misfortune that, the group’s ideas and activities amount to an attempt to reduce your freedom, security and well-being. Having drawn your conclusions, you will want to air your concerns. Doing so, you are not necessarily guilty of anything beyond raising an unpleasant question. Nevertheless, you will now be accused of hate speech.

Hate speech does exist in the real world. So does the lawless encouragement of violence against groups with characteristic traits. However, finding such elements to be intent on damaging non-members, or alleging that they are advocating ideas that would cause you unwanted curtailments, is not a rallying call for hate. If there are plausible grounds for leveling the charge then, if proper procedures are applied, the allegation is investigated. Hate and persecution is present when such fact-finding is skipped.

By leveling a charge all we have is, at worst, an error in judgment. Hate speech is when the charge is not only untrue but is known to the accuser to be libelous. Oh, yes, in this case the litigant will also use his power to prevent inquiries that could prove him wrong.