This Just In: Experts Possess Experise

The fact that experts possess a level of knowledge not possessed by those who are not, you know, experts should not be a news item.  The giveaway is right there in the name:  expert. 

But for many years, Americans have denounced these "know-somethings" because, umm, well I really can't say.  But it is a political reality in (let's face it) Red America that having a recognized proficiency or a studied credential or wealth of recognized professional knowledge in something makes you suspect. 

This is the famed Mr. Knowledge, the egg-head who tells you that them bugs in your yard are endangered so you can't use the DDT on them.  That river is a feed to the water system so your sewage will have to go some place else - after all these years!  And on a larger scale, Mr. & Mrs. Knowledge are telling you that the world is being killed by a bunch of stuff that you can't understand.  Hell, if Global Warming is real why do all those Jews retire to Florida?  AmIright?

In America, all you have to do is follow the money.  Money has bought itself free of governmental control because most (all?) politicians have a price.  And that price is expressed in money. And so Money has become Citizen One of the United States.  Money bought the Executive Branch to the tune of two Regan terms and three Bush terms, and so paid for the appointments of Money Men to the Judicial Branch (the women Judges come from the sane States). 

The Money Judges gave us corporate personhood which led to the Citizens United decision.  Together, they mean that Money is officially in charge of you and I.  It wasn't enough that we are bound to a corporate zombie-job for life.  Now that corporation that owns your livelihood and holds your mortgage also owns your Senator.  That, my friend, is the efficiency of oligarchy.  And if you want to know how oligarchies work out in the end, just ask the Roman Empire - oops, I mean the Roman Republic. 

Money doesn't believe in experts because in the words of the great Stephen Colbert, "reality has a well-known liberal bias." 

Facts get in the way and are often a bummer, as are those who deliver these 'facts.'  Yes, Experts.

Experts tell you facts about how the pollution is hurting the kids.  About how the laws say you can't do things - even if you really really want to do them.  Even if you'll make buckets of more - yes! - Money.  Even Al Gore (Al Gorehitler?) relies on them.  The Inconvenient Truth?  You can't tell the CEO an Inconvenient Truth about making less Money.  He'll make you Inconveniently Fired. 

So if you already know everything you need to know by pretending that you read the Bible and purporting that you were raised up good an proper by some salt of the earth variety parents, there's no need for expertise.  So your mining operations knock the tops off mountains to fill a few rivers - don't give me a big song and dance about the environment.  It's the same environment, it's just now making a dirt dam rather than holding up trees at the top of a hill.  You can't put that ahead of progress (read:  Money). 

But here's the thing that sane people already know:  experts know stuff.  And it's not just the stuff they know, it's how they know it.  That means that in their field, most real experts will tell the truth rather than have their professional opinion swayed by their political leanings. 

In a study reported in the WaPo, state-level judges were tested against lawyers, students, and the general public on how their answers measure up to an objective truth when a political element was in play to swing the answer one way or another.  The study showed that, thought possibly biased in other areas of their views, they stuck to the facts of a legal case remarkably closely and came out with well-grounded legal opinions.

Clearly these judges have no future in their profession, as federal judges (appointed under Reagan and the Bushes) are as mean radical union-busting gay-stomping patriots as you'll find.  Show up to federal court without an axe to grind and you'll deserve what you get. 

I was reading this and thinking about a Fox editorial I'd read recently by former Judge Andrew P. Napolitano.  He's the judicial whackdoodle that Fox calls upon to denounce what needs to be denounced right fucking now - judicially.  He'd written an editorial on the "Religious Freedom Act" in Indiana (you know - the one where you can discriminate against the gays all you want right up until you go out of business). 

And you know what?  He said it's unconstitutional.  I mean, here's the guy who wrote a book called Suicide Pact about how Obama has ruined the presidency by being all Obama-y and making executive orders and all that, without noticing that Bush did far worse while judge Nap was, you know, right there.  And that the scorched-earth Republicans killed anything Obama tried in Congress so he did what he needed to do within his executive authority.  Stuff like that. 

But clearly the Indiana hate law is in breech of the constitution, as are all laws that allow religion to excuse law-breaking.  So if you get Judge Nap on terra firma, you get a straight answer.  Get him on terra foxa, and not so much.

So I went back to the Wholly Land (Fox News site) to get a link to the Judge Nap non-crazy bit.  But it's not there.  There are pages for their opinion heads, but no past opinions.  It's like the Memory Hole is a living thing at Fox.  Today's opinion is yesterdays opinion.  We've always loved that place.  We've always hated that place.  Whatever we say today is the enduring truth for all past and future.  And that statement remains true for anything we say - if it's different, it's always been true.

So I went to Judge Naps Facebook page to find the article, among his Benghazi Crazy and his Jerry Brown Crazy and assorted other nuts.  There's a TV segment, but not the original.  I'm sure I could find it out there on the interwebs, but Fox made it's point loudly enough:  stop thinking!

And don't trust the experts - even our own.