Who will be on Rand's ticket for VP?

Who will be on the ticket as Rand's VP?

  • Justin Amash

    Votes: 7 8.0%
  • Bob Barr

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Jeb Bush

    Votes: 1 1.1%
  • Russell Feingold

    Votes: 1 1.1%
  • Barry Goldwater, Jr.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Glenn Jacobs

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Gary Johnson

    Votes: 1 1.1%
  • Mike Lee

    Votes: 12 13.8%
  • Paul LePage

    Votes: 2 2.3%
  • Andrew Napolitano

    Votes: 8 9.2%
  • Sarah Palin

    Votes: 6 6.9%
  • Ron Paul

    Votes: 4 4.6%
  • Mark Sanford

    Votes: 1 1.1%
  • Jesse Ventura

    Votes: 1 1.1%
  • Scott Walker

    Votes: 14 16.1%
  • Ron Wyden

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • None of the above

    Votes: 29 33.3%

  • Total voters
    87
Palin was a governor, recall? Long story short it has to be someone that helps with the Hispanic vote, female vote, or influences a huge swing state. I don't think Carson fits the bill.


It will either be Cruz or Dr. Ben Carson.....or maybe a governor. It's a rather short list of viable VPs.
 
Palin was a governor, recall? Long story short it has to be someone that helps with the Hispanic vote, female vote, or influences a huge swing state. I don't think Carson fits the bill.

Carson has also declined to run for office. Unless he changes his mind it won't happen.
 
No, I had no direct involvement with it, but even if I did I wouldn't mind constructive criticism. I'd appreciate hearing any comments you care to make. In what ways were their methodologies flawed, and how could they have done better? How did their biases influence the outcome of the study, and how could they have prevented this?

Well, from memory without pulling it back up, they did a lot of "here is a standard test, but we are going to replace these data-points with those data-points that will make libertarian philosophies score more subjectively moral than objectively moral. Now here are the test results. Hey look! Libertarians are more subjectively moral! Imagine that."

That's the primary in-your-face issue I saw. A deliberate (and openly stated) manipulation of test questions to contrive a predetermined outcome. If they are willing to do that openly and disclose that they did it, then how much did that same bias effect other areas where they may not have even been aware of the effect of their bias?

I would have to go re-review the study to pull up more specifics, but there is a definite confirmation bias at work there, and while it was in several places I specifically remember the section on subjective vs objective morality where they discussed the alteration of specific questions that clearly put libertarian philosophies into the subjective end.
 
Well, from memory without pulling it back up, they did a lot of "here is a standard test, but we are going to replace these data-points with those data-points that will make libertarian philosophies score more subjectively moral than objectively moral. Now here are the test results. Hey look! Libertarians are more subjectively moral! Imagine that."

Which part of the publication are you referring to here? I just re-read it and didn't find anything like what you are describing.

That's the primary in-your-face issue I saw. A deliberate (and openly stated) manipulation of test questions to contrive a predetermined outcome. If they are willing to do that openly and disclose that they did it, then how much did that same bias effect other areas where they may not have even been aware of the effect of their bias?

Same question as above, I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about.

I would have to go re-review the study to pull up more specifics, but there is a definite confirmation bias at work there, and while it was in several places I specifically remember the section on subjective vs objective morality where they discussed the alteration of specific questions that clearly put libertarian philosophies into the subjective end.

You have yet to reference anything specific at all, so "more" specifics would certainly be nice. I am open to the idea that there's a confirmation bias at work, but I'd need to see at least a single scrap of evidence before agreeing with that conclusion.

To be honest, it sounds to me like you read the paper under the influence of an enormous amount of bias yourself. Do you have a negative opinion of psychiatrists and bristle at the thought of being psycho-analyzed? Amusingly, the paper predicts that libertarians will be prone to just those sorts of biases - as you can see from Figure 3,

fetchObject.action


libertarians score higher on psychological reactance than other political groups, indicating that they are more emotionally resistant to the advice and influence of others.

The high levels of reactance expressed by libertarians fit well with the value they place on liberty as a moral foundation. It is of course possible that libertarians' responses to the scale are primarily expressions of their current political beliefs, but it is also possible that people who have the strongest visceral reactions to interference from others are also the people most drawn to the ideals and identity of libertarianism. Reactance may in fact function as a moral emotion that draws individuals toward the ideal of negative liberty. Reactance scores were negatively correlated with measures of empathy (Big Five Agreeableness: r = −.38, Baron-Cohen Empathizer: r = −.32, IRI Empathic Concern: r = −.15; p<.001 in all cases) that are most associated with conceptions of positive liberty [18], which perhaps suggests why, in the US, libertarianism is more commonly associated with conservative, as opposed to liberal policies.
 
I think Tom McClintock would be a reasonable and awesome pick. I don't know if they have any relationship though or if McClintock would even be interested.
 
Which part of the publication are you referring to here? I just re-read it and didn't find anything like what you are describing.



Same question as above, I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about.



You have yet to reference anything specific at all, so "more" specifics would certainly be nice. I am open to the idea that there's a confirmation bias at work, but I'd need to see at least a single scrap of evidence before agreeing with that conclusion.

To be honest, it sounds to me like you read the paper under the influence of an enormous amount of bias yourself. Do you have a negative opinion of psychiatrists and bristle at the thought of being psycho-analyzed? Amusingly, the paper predicts that libertarians will be prone to just those sorts of biases - as you can see from Figure 3,

fetchObject.action


libertarians score higher on psychological reactance than other political groups, indicating that they are more emotionally resistant to the advice and influence of others.

The high levels of reactance expressed by libertarians fit well with the value they place on liberty as a moral foundation. It is of course possible that libertarians' responses to the scale are primarily expressions of their current political beliefs, but it is also possible that people who have the strongest visceral reactions to interference from others are also the people most drawn to the ideals and identity of libertarianism. Reactance may in fact function as a moral emotion that draws individuals toward the ideal of negative liberty. Reactance scores were negatively correlated with measures of empathy (Big Five Agreeableness: r = −.38, Baron-Cohen Empathizer: r = −.32, IRI Empathic Concern: r = −.15; p<.001 in all cases) that are most associated with conceptions of positive liberty [18], which perhaps suggests why, in the US, libertarianism is more commonly associated with conservative, as opposed to liberal policies.

Actually no, I love science. I am fascinated with Myers-Briggs personality types, anjoy the study of sociology and psychology, and I don't care whether I get shrunk or not. I am a big fan of the scientific method, and my complaint is driven by the study's need to formulate conclusions that support their predictions.

They make predictions:

We begin with three general predictions.

  1. Libertarians will value liberty more strongly and consistently than liberals or conservatives, at the expense of other moral concerns. This expectation is based on the explicit writings of libertarian authors (e.g. the Libertarian party website at lp.org, with the title “The Party of Principle: Minimum Government, Maximum Freedom”).
  2. Libertarians will rely upon emotion less – and reason more – than will either liberals or conservatives. This expectation is based upon previous research on the affective origins of moral judgment [8], as well as libertarians' own self-characterizations. For example, one of the main libertarian magazines is called, simply, Reason.
  3. Libertarians will be more individualistic and less collectivist compared to both liberals and conservatives. This expectation is based upon previous research concerning the social function of moral judgment [17], [29], [33]. Libertarians often refer to the “right to be left alone” [38], and show strong reactance toward social or legal pressures to join groups or assume obligations toward others that are not freely chosen [39].
We evaluate these predictions in three studies using large web-based samples and a variety of measures related to morality, cognition, emotion, and social relatedness. Each “study” is actually a collection of separate studies that were conducted via a data collection website (described below), but for presentation purposes, we group them together based on the predictions they address.

Manipulate the data:

In the original conception of Moral Foundations Theory, concerns about liberty (or autonomy or freedom) were not measured. But as we began to collect data on libertarians and to hear objections from libertarians that their core value was not well represented, we created questions related to liberty in the style of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire. We generated 11 items about several forms of liberty (see Appendix S1) and collected responses from 3,732 participants (2,105 men; 2,181 liberals, 573 conservatives, and 525 libertarians).
We examined a model in which dispositional effects on ideological identification are mediated by value orientations, as measured by the Moral Foundations Questionnaire with questions concerning liberty added.

Interpret results according to predeterminations:

Ethics Position Questionnaire[h=4]The Ethics Position Questionnaire [44] is composed of two 10-item subscales measuring moral idealism and moral relativism. Idealism reflects the extent to which a concern for the welfare of others is at the heart of an individual's moral code (e.g. “People should make certain that their actions never intentionally harm another even to a small degree.”). Relativism concerns whether or not an individual believes that moral principles are universal (e.g. “What is ethical varies from one situation and society to another.”). The scale is commonly used in the business ethics literature and has been shown to predict immoral behavior in ethical situations[45]. The Ethics Position Questionnaire was completed by 8,078 participants (4,785 men; 4,991 liberals, 1,240 conservatives, and 1,001 libertarians).[/h][h=5]Results.

Table 2
shows that libertarians score moderately lower than liberals and slightly lower than conservatives on moral idealism. Libertarians score moderately higher than conservatives (d = .58), and similar but lower than liberals (d = −.25), on moral relativism.[/h][h=5]Interpretation.

According to Forsyth's [44] classification system, individuals who score high in relativism and low on idealism — the pattern found for libertarians — are labeled “subjectivists” who “reject moral rules” and “base moral judgments on personal feelings about the action and the setting.” Subjectivists have been found to be more lenient in judging individuals who violate moral norms [46]. This result is consistent with our findings on the MFQ and Schwartz Values Scale measures, in that libertarians appear to live in a world where traditional moral concerns (e.g., altruism, respect for authority) are not assigned much importance.
[/h]
And support their predictions:

Once again, we see that libertarians look somewhat like liberals, but assign lower importance to values related to the welfare or suffering of others–the benevolence value (which Schwartz defines as: “Preservation and enhancement of the welfare of people with whom one is in frequent personal contact”) and universalism (defined as “Understanding, appreciation, tolerance, and protection for the welfare of all people and for nature”).
 
Actually no, I love science. I am fascinated with Myers-Briggs personality types, anjoy the study of sociology and psychology, and I don't care whether I get shrunk or not. I am a big fan of the scientific method, and my complaint is driven by the study's need to formulate conclusions that support their predictions.

What could they have done differently that would not have allowed you to levy this complaint?

They make predictions:

Should they not have made any predictions? Are predictions not part of the scientific method?

Manipulate the data:

Do the words "manipulate" and "collect" seem synonymous to you?

The Moral Foundations Questionnaire has absolutely nothing to do with the subjectivity or objectivity of one's morals; you are confusing it with the Ethics Position Questionnaire (click the link if you want to take it yourself), which did not undergo revision at any point during the study. Libertarians are more likely to be moral subjectivists than are conservatives or liberals, which means that they are more likely to "reject moral rules" and "base moral judgments on personal feelings about the action and the setting." No manipulation of any sort was required to reach this conclusion; all they did was ask people to self-identify politically and take the questionnaire.

Furthermore, the results from the original MFQ were never altered or omitted. The only "manipulation" to occur was the addition of liberty-based questions for the purpose of measuring the degree to which people of various political backgrounds held moral beliefs about liberty issues. In the absence of those questions, it had appeared that libertarians lacked any moral foundation whatsoever, which when combined with other results obtained during the study basically painted them as complete sociopaths. This seemed wrong to the researchers, so they asked some more questions to see if libertarians were simply moralizing an issue they hadn't studied yet, which in fact turned out to be the case.

Do you think that instead of gathering more data, they ought to have concluded that libertarians lacked any moral foundation whatsoever, and published that result? Would doing so have shielded them from the accusation of data manipulation?


Interpret results according to predeterminations:

How do you think they should have interpreted these results instead? I cannot think of another reasonable conclusion they could have drawn. Can you?

And support their predictions:

Their predictions were borne out by the data. What else could they have ethically done? Should they have falsified survey results or misrepresented them in their summaries in order not to have to admit that their predictions were correct?
 
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Palin was a governor, recall? Long story short it has to be someone that helps with the Hispanic vote, female vote, or influences a huge swing state. I don't think Carson fits the bill.

Quote Originally Posted by Bastiat's The Law View Post
It will either be Cruz or Dr. Ben Carson.....or maybe a governor. It's a rather short list of viable VPs.

You missed a key word in there.
 
Not sure about Rubio, but I am thinking either swing state or woman. I also tend to think he would go with a Governor over a Senator.
Kasich? He's no neocon, he comes from a swing state, and he's fighting for a balanced budget amendment.
 
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