Broken Mental Models

Ted Anthony, a patient, kind-hearted and highly proficient AP writer, made the mistake of asking me a question.

That’s a really interesting statement. Can you elaborate?

— Ted Anthony (@anthonyted) June 20, 2020

To borrow from G. K. Chesterton, it's probably a bad idea to ask for clarification from someone only too ready to write blog posts on the slightest provocation, but Ted did it and now I must respond.

Here's a data point that I feel is instructive. If the embedded video is fussy, here's the direct link to it.

There was a better one from Tucker's Friday show that I can't find online, so I will summarize it. A business owner in Charleston, SC, had his shop attacked by Black Lives Matter rioters while his staff and customers were still in it. Calling 911 accomplished nothing. The people managed to escape out the back, but his shop was destroyed.

In the name of Social Justice, left wing political leaders knowingly chose the left wing mobs over the shop owners. There are mountains of problems with their mental models, but I'll pick three of them for this post.

Ragged Red Rules

Why do you have police? Police exist to enforce the law. How do you get laws? Laws are enacted by the democratically elected legislature, signed by the executive and interpreted by the courts. Remove the police, either through defunding, withdrawal for racial reasons or simply stop responding to 911 calls and you have no laws. Without enforcement, the laws become words on paper.

If you've invested your life in a fixed asset like a shop or a factory and the police vanish, what's left to you other than arming yourself and your employees and enforcing your own laws? How many people know the rules regarding defense of life, home or business? Remove the police and you'll end up with 100 heavily armed shop owners interpreting the laws on the spot. The results will be mixed, to say the least. Mixed with a lot of blood.

The left has no model for this. When I watch interviews with store owners who have been burned out by the left's own BLM / ANTIFA crowd, the end result is blindingly obvious. Either the merchants are going to leave or they're going to arm themselves. The blue cities are in this position because they lacked the mental framework to predict this. That shines out as clear as day when you listen to the Chicago aldermen talk to their mayor during the riots.

Gratuitous paragraph: Part of the broken mental model of the left is the source of wealth. All wealth comes from people engaged in private commerce. The government gets its money by taxing said private commerce. That's it. There is no other source. Progressives think money comes from the government and are regularly shocked at what happens when businesses leave. That's part of why they don't protect them. They don't understand the owners and they don't understand their value to the community.

Countering Violence With Retreat

The recent destruction of monuments in San Francisco are the perfect example of this broken mental model. It's indescribably delicious because the final monument whacked was one for Ulysses S. Grant. Dig this.

And Francis Scott Key is down, *right* as a police officer says “you’ve made your point, we’re not gonna let you pull this statue down,” with the crowd cheering and shouting “next one!” pic.twitter.com/8sbjmhMRXf

— Joe Rivano Barros (@jrivanob) June 20, 2020

Oh, so they're not going to let them tear down another statue, are they? And just how do they propose to stop the BLM / ANTIFA goons? Words. Talking. An open dialogue. It's all in the left wing mental model. If we just understand one another, if we try to get along with the other side, we'll find common ground and come to a mutually-beneficial agreement.

Grant came down directly afterwards.

The mob is willing to use violence. If you aren't, you'll lose. It's really simple and the mob can see it. At some point in time, you're going to have to bust heads and / or shoot people to stop this. Allowing it to continue is incredibly corrosive to society. Most people pulled over by the cops for a traffic violation are going to think of the rioters smashing and looting and see that there are two sets of rules. The BLM / ANTIFA mob gets to do what they want while you have to follow the law. Where does that lead?

Nothing Is Changing

In the end, it's the fundamental flaw in the left's mental model that makes all this pointless. The problem isn't race and it isn't racism, it's the loss of the traditional family. Dig these two data points.

Reading proficiency scores from South Senior High School in Minneapolis.

Reading proficiency scores from East High School in Cheyenne.

I didn't take the time to find more dramatic examples from Great Schools, but this tracks with the 60 or so schools I've sampled.

Here are two problems for the race-crazed among us.

1. If racism is such a huge problem, why are black kids doing better in ultra-white, Trump +40 Wyoming than in ultra-progressive, pluralistic Minneapolis? With nothing to slow down the redneck KKK there, wouldn't you expect the black children to be brutalized to the point of catatonia? How can they study with all that hate? It's almost like racism, particularly on the right, is not a big factor.
2. If blacks were inferior, why would they excel anywhere? They're doing it in Cheyenne. It's almost like race is irrelevant. Crazy!

The next time you want to wave racial data around, whether that's crime or education or income, take a look at family structure data as well and ask yourself which one seems to be a better indicator of performance. Spoiler: It's family structure.

That means the entire lefty worldview, the one that sounds like it came from a Mein Kampf madlib where the races are the blanks, is seriously flawed. The solutions we're pursuing will result in no changes unless they accidentally change marriage rates.

Summary

This is a stream-of-consciousness hobbyist blog and I'm tired of this post. I want to go have breakfast and then take the dogs for a run so I'm quitting here.

Oh, wait, that's not a summary. How about this one to answer the original question.

The Democrats own the education industry and outside of Fox and maybe the WSJ, they own the news media. Through those institutions, they taught our children that America is full of racism and hate and, as currently constructed, is illegitimate. We need to fundamentally transform it! That was great because it got the Democrats votes. Unfortunately, they went a bit too far and now the little monsters are telling the Democrats trying to manage the blue cities that America is full of racism and hate and is illegitimate. Burn it all down!

Lacking accurate mental models, the Democrat establishment can't cope with the violence and is about to get whacked upside the head by the fiscal repercussions while accomplishing nothing.

That's why they're in last place on the scoreboard.