Pollution of Public Discourse

Anonymous commented last November, "You seem to be infatuated with Dan Fagan." I had been wondering myself why I was spending so much time on this guy.

Pollution of Public Discourse.

What's that? Suppose some chemical seeps into the water system. You can't drink the water anymore til you take the time to clean out the whole system, if it's even possible.  Or you can drink it and sooner or later it makes you sick.

Well, when we have civic debate, theoretically, the idea is that through debate we can work out our disagreements. Say Sam makes a proposal of some sort. We should do X and these are the reasons why. Ben tries to find flaws in the argument, questions Sam on a few points. Sam responds. He explains his reasoning, pulls out his supporting facts. Ben might challenge the facts, or even the underlying assumptions. They go on until they eventually get to a point where they've worked out a way to do the thing Sam wants to do without messing up Ben's needs.

When people come to the public forum, but insult their fellow citizens, spout half truths and complete lies, don't learn the complexity of issues, they are really civic outlaws who pollute the public forum. I see Dan Fagan in this sort of role. His columns aren't a part of a discourse. They're simple ranting and raving. He's not interested in hearing what others think, he's just interested in venting. I stopped writing about his columns because they were so totally ridiculous, but a few people told me that my posts helped them see the holes in his arguments. That they just hadn't known enough to see through his misleading arguments.

When someone like Fagan makes up facts or throws out false generalizations, he pollutes the public square. Our progress to finding alternatives that we can all reasonably live with is thwarted. Instead, the public forum is cluttered with rhetorical litter - lies, falsehoods - that have to be cleaned up before we can go on. But it's not as simple as picking up trash. We have to disinfect the brains of those who have found his platitudes convenient excuses to continue being noisy and selfish civic outlaws.

Thus, Fagan's column is not some harmless set of paragraphs that shows up in the paper every Sunday. Instead it pollutes our discourse. It pisses off some because of its arrogance and bombast. It encourages others who want to believe simplistic nonsense about how people should live. Our public forum has to be unFaganed before we can have a civil discussion on how to work through the challenges facing the citizens of Anchorage.

OK, I've made some generalizations, let me give some examples from Sunday's column.
[For more detailed critiques of other Fagan columns go here. Then skip down past this post.]

Of all the lessons history teaches, none is more clear than this. When government punishes good decisions and rewards bad ones, that society is doomed to economic failure.

He just says this sort of thing all the time. How did this become the the clearest lesson history teaches us? Simply because Fagan declared it so. I've never heard this one before. Examples please? Not just the historical examples that prove government punishes good decisions, but the other lessons that history teaches us so we can compare to see if there is none more clear.

The problem with the American dream of home ownership: It's not attainable. As least not in Anchorage.

Alaska Housing Finance Corporation's 2004 Annual Report says:

Alaska’s homeownership rate reached an all-time high of 70 percent, exceeding the national rate of 68.3 percent, according to the latest U.S. Census data. Alaska’s homeownership rate was higher than the nation’s once previously, in 1997.

Harvard's diversity data site tells us that in 2000:

HOUSING OPPORTUNITIES: Home ownership rate: 2000 by Race/Ethnicity, 2000
Metro Area
Hispanic 41.9%
Non-Hispanic White 65.3%
Non-Hispanic Black 36.8%
Non-Hispanic Asian 51.3%

Definition: The share of occupied housing units that are owner occupied.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2000 Census Summary File 2

We seemed to be doing pretty well nationally, and Non-Hispanics Whites aren't doing badly at all. Of course, we'd have to compare a lot of things like age, level of education, how long they've been in Anchorage, etc. to figure out what this all means. But contrary to what Fagan says, home ownership seems to be attainable to more Alaskans than in at least half the other states.

So if for the most part poverty is self-inflicted, what business does government have punishing those who make good decisions and rewarding those making bad ones?

He never made anywhere near a convincing argument that most poverty is self-inflicted, and his other idea, that property taxes is government punishing those who make good decisions is another one of his made up truisms. It's true because he says so. First, we are the government. Second, the tax payers approved of the property tax rate. Third,

Alaska was ranked as the most tax-friendly state in the nation, with Alaskans paying 6.3 percent of their income towards taxes. [source]

and if Anchorage property taxes are somewhere in the middle, so what? It's the only tax we pay to an Alaskan entity. And many families get enough through their permanent fund dividend to pay most if not all of their property tax. Dan's solution is an 8% sales tax instead of property tax. Of course, he maybe forgot President Bush said

Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of our economy

so as patriotic Americans keeping the economy going we should all be out shopping. If we have to pay a sales tax, it would only be "punishing people for making good decisions." Consistency isn't one of Fagan's weaknesses.

But it's clear that there's a whole political industry creating out-and-out lies (Swiftboat type stuff) to pollute the public forum so that every truth is questioned to divert from realities that might hurt one's position. If you can't win through logic and facts, then trash your opponent to distract people's attention. Everything is about winning, truth has no role. Unless people grow up and face inconvenient truths, the US as we know it will disappear. The Dan Fagans of the world are part of this disintegration of public discourse, the backbone of democracy.


Charles Fox and Hugh Miller suggested some conditions for participation in a public discourse. The participants should all possess the following:

• Sincerity - authentic discourse requires trust between participants that they are being honest and truly wish to find a solution.

Fagan's outrageous statements - both made up homilies and nasty tirades - mean there is absolutely no sincerity in his participation in public discourse. His is a one way rant.

• Focus on specific issue - not simply ideological posturing without reference to some specific situation.

Well, he touches down momentarily on an issue, like property taxes, but then goes off on his ideological tirades that have no link to the world most of us live in.

• Willing attention - Sincerely interested in the problem, willing to do the work necessary to get through the issues seriously, including listening attentively to what others say.

Well, he may be interested in the issue - getting rid of property tax - but he's not willing to listen to someone who would reframe the issue into "How do we fund the services the market can't provide nearly as well as government can?" He's a one track bulldog, he grabs his target and won't let go. No matter how reasonable anyone else is.

• Substantive Contribution - having a unique point of view, specific expertise, or something that helps the discussion move along - even just the ability to express the concerns of a class of people.

The only column I read of his that had a substantive contribution was one about Vic Kohring, because he added his own personal knowledge of Vic's interactions. Otherwise, there is nothing but ill will that Dan contributes.

Basically, Fagan is about winning, not about learning.

That's why I've written so much. To point out the nonsense for those who've watched so much tv that they have trouble thinking critically, but aren't so far gone that they can't see the path toward reason when someone points it out. I don't claim to know all the answers, but I do have a sense of logic and consistency and I know how to look up facts.

Dan Fagan, Again

I've written a few posts about Dan Fagan's ADN columns. Last week I didn't have much time to even look at his column on the Supreme Court's decision on the Parental Consent Law. It begins this way:

Gas pipeline, who cares? Raise taxes on the oil industry, go ahead. Mat Maid, dogs on ball fields, the IM program, city budget, fireworks ban, irrelevant.

There is only one issue facing Alaskans and it is this. A 13-year-old girl can today walk into Planned Parenthood and get an abortion without her parents’ knowledge or permission.

Let me rephrase that. A 13-year-old girl can legally have her unborn baby killed without her parents ever knowing about it.

Either Fagan didn't read the Supreme Court ruling, he didn't understand it, or he just lied about it.

This is a contentious enough issue without totally misrepresenting what was decided. The court did strike down the requirement that the parents must give permission, but strongly affirmed that they must be informed. I posted about this case earlier this week.

But such looseness with the facts is evident again this week. And he seems to have changed his mind about the relevance of raising oil and gas taxes. I don't know how to write about this one without giving you the whole column along with my comments. I'll indent his column and put it in italics so it is clear what he says and what I say. (I would hope that would be clear if I did neither, but just in case.)

The anti-oil populist movement is not new to Alaska. The so-called “backbone” folks have always been with us. But now they are in charge. And that has led us to an all-out war with the oil industry.

“Anti-oil populist movement” what exactly does that mean? They are against oil? They are against oil companies? Populists are politicians who speak and work for the people as opposed to those who speak and work for the the power elite (like big oil companies.) So it would seem that being a populist isn’t such a bad thing. Though some have used the term to mean people who PRETEND to speak and work for the poor but really are working for the rich. I’m sure we have a number of fake populists in the legislature. Certainly Pete Kott, the hardwood floor installer (who happened to also be pulling Air Force retirement and had a masters degree;  I see nothing wrong with either of those things, but he was more than a blue collar working eking out a living) and sheet rocker Vic Kohring both offered a populist stance, but were working for their rich big oil friends. And Dan Fagan who talks on the radio like the salt of the earth, warts and all, is writing these articles that make big oil into a deity being abused by legislative ingrates, certainly seems to fit into that pseudo populist category.

"Now they are in charge." And whose been in charge for all these years until now? Finally people not owned by the oil companies are in charge. Why am I having a problem with Fagan's logic?

“All out war with the oil industry.” Come on Dan. You believe in the free market. As I said in a previous post, in an ideal free market there is a buyer and a seller. The state here, as the owner of the oil, is the seller. The oil companies are the buyers. They each negotiate the best deal they can. If the state blows it by taxing too high, the oil companies can walk away. If the people of Alaska are willing to support legislators who stand up to the oil companies a little bit more than our previous governor because they saw tapes of oil industry representatives giving money to legislators to vote for the oil industry’s preferred tax level, then the oil companies have only themselves to blame. They didn’t play their hand well. This is not war. This is simply the give and take of your sacred free market system. True, it does happen that one of the players is a government body, but each of the big three oil companies made net profits that were higher than the Alaska state budget last year. The oil companies are not victims. You even wrote a column about standing up to bullies. I would think most Alaskans see Sarah Palin as doing just that.

The first attack: The governor gets legislation passed shutting out the producers from the process of building the gas pipeline. This will end up hurting us more than them because the oil industry can go other places to get gas to market.

I’m not quite sure what action of our governor he is referring to since he only gives generalizations and no specifics. Even if Fagan's assertion is the true, is that worse than how the previous governor worked out the original PPT bill “in closed-door negotiations with the three major oil companies on a contract for fiscal terms for a pipeline” shutting out the legislature and the public?

But the governor’s second major offensive in her “Operation Oil Companies Bad” campaign will hit the industry hardest.

High school students make less slanted arguments than this. To see how another journalist writes about the Governor’s strategy team, read Tom Kizzia’s piece on Marty Rutherford, apparently one of the governor's ‘oil companies bad’ lackeys.

After the industry has already invested $50 billion in infrastructure in our state and pumped close to $80 billion into state coffers, the governor has cut them down at their knees.

Let me get this straight. Exxon’s annual net profit for 2006 was $39.5 billion, BP’s annual net profit for 2006 was $22 billion. And Conoco-Phillips’ was a mere $15.5 billion. Three of the largest corporations in the world have been cut down at their knees by a 43 year old former mayor of Wasilla, first term Republican governor who still hasn’t been able to oust Randy Ruedrich from the chair of the Alaska Republican party? I can see them hobbling around on their bloody stumps right now. Yeah, right Dan.

According to Tim Bradner in the Alaska Journal of Commerce “Wood Mackenzie, a prestigious London-based consulting group, has ranked Alaska 99th out of 103 petroleum-producing regions surveyed in terms of political stability in fiscal terms on oil and gas. Only Venezuela, Russia, Bolivia and Argentina ranked lower than Alaska” If this is true, then the oil companies have 98 other petroleum-producing regions to get their oil from. Cut off at the knees? Do you even believe that Dan?

The tax increase coming out of Juneau last week is enormous. It proves the governor’s strategy is now abundantly clear. Higher taxes, bigger government are the keys to our economic future.

Well, at least the governor does something right - she has a clear strategy. Is that bad? I think “higher taxes, bigger government” was Vic Kohring’s scare chant too. He’s the guy you accused of selling out in a column two weeks ago about which I said your writing had improved.

The governor has allies in the Legislature made up of three camps. There are those like the governor who believe some consultants who say higher taxes do not influence investment. The problem is these consultants come from the world of theories, not real life.

Dan, please give me the name of one legislator who believes that higher taxes do not influence investment. Just show me one quote where the governor says that. Show me the quote from the consultants you say said that. They don’t exist. They all know that taxes affect investment. They just don’t believe the sky-is-falling rhetoric that oil companies and their friends, like Dan Fagan, are spreading. They are looking at more than the investment climate rating and seeing that those other 98 places all have their downsides too. Fagan is now an expert on real life?

Politicians who fall into the taxes-don’t-affect-investment theory believe they are doing the right thing but are not real bright. The second camp is made up of pure socialists, those who think “corporate America bad, government good.”

How about some names here Dan ‘McCarthy’ Fagan? Who are the pure socialist legislators? Do you even know what a pure socialist is? Again, show me some evidence. And even if there were such simple minded legislators, how is that any less simplistic than your own chant of “Business is good, government is bad?” There has to be a balance between those two sectors, plus room for other organizations and individuals who don’t fit in either camp. Reasonable people understand this and they may debate about where the appropriate balance of power is. But they don’t chant either extreme.

Rep. Les Gara said on my talk show he thinks we should tax the oil companies at 80 percent.

Under the former PPT plan, the industry paid about 63 percent to government. The governor’s new PPT plan raised the rate to about 68 percent. But on Friday the Legislature’s version of the governor’s bill raised the government share to more than 70 percent. That leaves only one branch of government, the judiciary, to make Gara’s 80 percent rate dream come true. With this Supreme Court, anything is possible.

Huh? Can you explain how the judiciary can raise the rate proposed by the governor and set by the legislature? Why would you even say this? Maybe I’m missing something, but I can’t imagine any scenario where the Supreme Court could raise the tax. Please, spell out how this could happen. Can you say red herring?

The third camp of tax-and-spend politicians is the one that bothers me the most. They do it to increase their power. These panderers know the billions of extra cash they are transferring from the private sector to government will allow them to make the media and big labor happy by growing the operating budget even more.

Wait. Originally there were just “allies in the Legislature made up of three camps.” Now you are saying there are three camps of ‘tax and spend” spend politicians. It’s really hard for me to not get sarcastic here. In fact I've failed utterly to keep an objective tone. I’ve been criticized by a few for being too even handed and not explicitly spelling out my conclusions. It’s hard to not make those judgments here about what was written, but I certainly have nothing that would allow me to conclude what Dan Fagan’s motivation is. I can only make hypotheses based on the evidence. Does he truly believe what he’s writing? Is this simply talk show hyperbole to jack up ratings? Is he getting favors from the oil companies for these free screeds in the ADN now that the Voice of the Times is only on the web? I only know that this is as one-sided, simplistic, and full of unsubstantiated allegations that totally distort reality as any thing I can remember reading. That's pretty strong language for me, but that is why I'm going through this paragraph by paragraph. And now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, let me finish the rest of this.

This special session will end up being a windfall not for the public, but for the state’s public employee unions.

For the average Alaskan going to work every day, trying to support a family, hoping their kids’ kids will have a future here, this massive tax increase represents a huge risk.

Here’s Dan the populist coming out. It's those nasty state public employees who do nothing for the public. Who are these average Alaskans? Oil industry employees who might lose their jobs or get transferred to a part of the world with a more stable investment climate? Like Nigeria? Or Myanmar? Well, only about 3.5% of Alaska employees work in the oil and gas industry according to the Alaska Department of Labor. (Well you have to work the numbers, but they say there were 333,100 non-farm employees in September 2007 and of those there were 11,600 in the oil and gas industry. Go here then in the drop down window get "Alaska 2001 to present (excel file).")

What’s a huge risk for you Dan? Do you think the evidence that the oil companies will abandon Alaska because of the tax increase is greater than the risk of global warming due to human causes? If so, could you show me how you analyzed both?

The oil industry as a whole paid $1 billion in production taxes in fiscal year 2006. With the new PPT plan the industry will next year pay $4.5 billion dollars in production taxes.

Let me ask you a simple question. Would a 400 percent tax increase affect your ability to invest your money? This is not brain surgery, folks.

Everything is simple to you Dan, isn’t it? It also depends on how you play with the numbers. 400 percent is pretty impressive. But there are other ways to think about those numbers. How about comparing their tax burden (I’ll accept your numbers for this exercise) to their net profit last year? $1 billion divided by $77 billion. That’s just the big three. I know you’ll complain that I didn’t isolate their Alaska profits from their worldwide profits, but you know where that will lead, don’t you? To the fact that Exxon won’t tell us their Alaska profits. But since you’re so cozy with these guys, maybe you can ask them for the rest of us. Besides, this is NET profit, what they made AFTER taxes. OK, this isn’t perfect, but it’s the best I can do for the moment and it is close enough to make my point. So their taxes will go from 1.3% ($1 billion tax on $77 billion net profit) to 5.8% ($4.5 billion tax on $77 billion net profit). Looking at it that way it’s only a 5% increase. Now I’ll grant you that their Alaska gross income might not be $77 billion, but even if it were only $30 billion their tax would go from 3.3% to 15%. A 12% increase is certainly not anything close to a 400% increase. We can all play with numbers. And I have no idea where you got the $1 billion and $4.5 billion figures to start with. We do know that the PPT tax this year was raised from 22.5% to 25%. That is a 2.5% increase in the last year. So, Dan, there are lots of ways to figure out the percentage increase and each side will come up with numbers that make their argument sound better. But the wisest heads will know which ones are pure whimsy and which ones make some sense.

But the worst part of the new PPT plan is the standard deduction. It severely limits the industry from deducting expenses, making future projects far less attractive. But that’s not what this is all about anyway: future investments. It’s nothing more than a money grab. With this new plan, the state is expected to bring in a total of almost $8 billion in revenue from the industry in fiscal year 2008.

You think the governor is popular now, wait until she starts divvying up all those billions to those with their hands out. Public employee unions may erect a Sarah Palin shrine. They can place it next to the one the media built.

Of course when the oil industry bargains in private meetings with the former governor to come up with a plan they like and then buys legislators to push the plan through the legislature and blankets the state with misleading advertisements that's not a money grab. That's, what, Dan, just doing business? And how about all the private sector company employees that work on contract for the state, building roads, bridges, schools, doing oil forecasts, unsuccessfully lobbying Congress to open ANWR year after year,etc.?

But I believe history will prove this shortsighted tax-increasing frenzy will lead to real pain and heartache down the road. I know this is a radical concept anymore in America, but the truth is that taxes do deter investment. Taxation is the power to destroy. I am confident we will someday reverse what was done last week in the Legislature. The only question is, will it be in time to save our economy?

Well, Dan, at least here we partially agree - in a few years we’ll be able to see whether your dire predictions come true. Maybe. There are lots of factors that go into this that have nothing to do with this tax plan. Ultimately, we will not be able to parse out what would have happened if.... But we will see if the oil companies pack up their marbles and leave Dodge.

Dan Fagan on Vic Kohring

I've given Dan a bad time now and then here about his ADN column, so it's only fair that I give him credit for a decent column. Yesterday's column on Kohring actually offered a little more insight into what makes Vic tick.

Often, Dan's column has fallen into a category I'd call rhetorical pollution. By that I mean, when we discuss politics and other important issues in the public square, the ideal is to shed light, clarify positions, add new facts, so that we can come to understandings of how things work and what is the best policy. Unfortunately, there are people who have gained little corners of the public square who have used that soap box, not to enlighten, but to litter the public square with invective against people and institutions, with uninformed opinion, and often home made facts. People like this do actual harm, just as people who litter do harm. We have to clean up the mess they made before we move forward in solving public problems. We have to reestablish the facts, challenge the biased opinions, and basically undo the pollution in the pursuit of public truths. I've only listened to Dan's radio show a couple of times on the radio - internet actually - but I found his newspaper columns to mostly be in the rhetorical pollution category.

But yesterday's column wasn't in that category. It actually made interesting observations - comparing Kohring's public optimism as he faces prison to a character int he Shawshank Redemption who kept hope alive in prison. That guy was innocent Dan wrote, does Vic have hope because he thinks he's innocent? Insightful. Then Dan talked about his own observations of Vic's habit of eating other people's food. Yet, while being critical -

[t]he jury had no choice but to find Kohring guilty. He traded on the power we entrusted him with as a public servant.

- Dan is also compassionate about a fellow human being in trouble.

Dan adds enough anecdotes in addition to what others have related and to the trial evidence - that Vic was always on the lookout for a free meal - for me to speculate with a reasonable level of confidence that Vic has some deep seated issues around food and money. [OK, some of you are saying, "took you long enough," but I only really have any direct contact with Vic through the trial, and I think trying to understand who people are based on what they've experienced is a valid approach]

Vic is about 6'7" so he does have a lot more body to nourish than most of us. He's also a middle child - an older brother and sister and a younger brother and sister - he told us during a break in the trial. It doesn't sound like there was a lot of money in the Kohring household and with four siblings, maybe Vic actually went to bed hungry some nights. Many people who lived through the depression became almost stingy with how they spent their money for the rest of their lives. Possibly Vic has tapes playing in his head - maybe he can hear his father telling him not to waste money. I don't know, these things work in strange ways. Some, who were poor, spend like crazy when they get a little money. Others are always afraid of being poor again and just stash it. Pete Kott had $30,000 in cash in a closet when the FBI searched where he was living in Juneau.

Anyway, Dan's column adds a bit to what we know. It's in the positive contribution side of the scale.

It would have been really interesting if Dan had talked about the many times (according to the court testimony) Veco got Vic air time on Dan's radio show. Both Dan and Vic have been stalwart supporters of the oil industry. Dan, working in the private sector, doesn't have to report any support he gets. But what did he think of Vic at the time - besides his eating habits? A little more insight into what he thought of his guest at the time and how he might handle political guests in the future would have made this column yet better.

Who's Writing Dan Fagan's Oil Columns?

Today's Dan Fagan column was, what, his third or fourth on oil? Has anyone besides me noticed that when he writes about oil his style changes completely? The normal stream of conscious ramble that we hear on his radio shows and the rest of his columns is gone. When he writes about oil the columns have a real structure, lines of argument with supporting facts. (Remember facts don't have to be true, but they are concrete enough to be tested for truth.) The closing lines actually bring some closure by referencing the beginning. Today he starts with a McCarthyism theme and brings us back to it at the end.

So, does the ADN have some kind of written agreement with their regular columnists in which the writers say that what they write is their own writing, and they aren't having others supply them with a draft or more? I don't know for sure that Fagan has ghost writers, but the difference in style between most of the articles and the oil articles is really pronounced.

So who might be writing the oil pieces? The Voice of the Times regularly represented the oil industry in their columns, in fact they were owned by Veco, now CH2M Hill. OK, so Allen and Smith are out of the picture now, but they probably had people writing the columns for them anyway. Are those folks still at it, helping Fagan now?

The basic points seem to be:

* The PPT tax is giving Alaska an extra billion so why change it?
* Tax high and you get nothing, tax low and you get a lot
* Government is bad, oil companies are good
* Keep the tax climate stable
* Sarah Palin's an idiot to want to change the PPT tax (on the other hand she's clever, go figure)
* The tax wasn't corrupted by VECO, they didn't get what they wanted.

Here's a comparison of what appear to be oil industry talking points.

Notes: Fagan Column Sept 2, 2007
John Shively, President Resource Development Council, August President's message
Gail Phillips, Voice of the Times, 10/6/07

Of course, 20% was the amount the oil companies agreed on with the Governor Murkowski. We know that good bargainers don't start out with what they are willing to accept. They probably would have been happy with 25% or even 30%. But I'm not here to argue the facts, but the style and the lack of originality of the columns. Here's another comparison:



Notes: Fagan Column Oct. 7, 2007
Alaska Oil and Gas Association (AOGA) Pioneer TV Spot
Gail Phillips, same link as above

My point is that even if someone else isn't giving Dan a draft to work from, he's not being an original columnist on oil, but is merely giving us the oil company's talking points. We had that with the Voice of the Times. And after the Veco, I mean, Kott trial, we know that they were doing more than passing out talking points. Isn't this enough reason to give Dan his pink slip?


If not, there's another problem. Dan is starting to repeat himself. Below you can see what was in the June 17 column and what reappeared in the October 7 column.


June 17, 2007

In Canada the government wanted more cash out of companies developing oil sands in Alberta. So Canadian politicians lowered royalty rates.

That's right, lowered them. What happened? Alberta's oil sands royalty revenue increased 12-fold in just three years. Lowering royalty rates made oil sand development palatable for industry so they invested more.

Then again on October 7, 2007

Remember what happened in Canada? The government wanted more cash out of companies developing oil sands in Alberta so it lowered royalty rates. Lowered them. Those politicians must have been shills of the industry, corrupt and anti-Canadian.

What happened when royalty rates dropped? Within three years, Alberta's oil sands revenue increased 12-fold.

I don't agree with the people who want Fagan's column cut because of his views. But if he's not really writing his own stuff, if he's getting drafts or talking points from the oil industry, then he shouldn't be a regular columnist. And if he's running out of things to say and has to pad his columns with things he wrote just a few months ago, then it's time to bring in someone fresh, someone who can write original, thoughtful columns.

Poor Dan Fagan

I thought maybe that all of the criticism of Dan Fagan had caused him to work on his writing, or at least find others to help him clean it up. But yesterday's article was like the first one. Just a lot of inconsistent ranting. But I have this hypothesis that might help explain Dan's problem. I even went online to listen to his radio show. It says June 4th, but it talked about preparing yesterday's article so it wasn't June 4. And as I'm checking it now, it sounds like it's today's show.

Anyway, if we look at last week's article, we see Dan praising his Dad as this great man, who modeled for him what a man should be. And then he went on to lament that men aren't like that. But what did his dad model?

He modeled a life of character, integrity and honesty. But most importantly he showed me how to treat a woman.

When a man is a real man, he does more to help build a better society than a hundred thousand government programs.

Manhood is not about I. It's about service, sacrifice, devotion, selflessness.

Manhood is about respecting, honoring, and yes, even loving.

Now if you read these columns and listen to Dan on the radio, which of these did he learn?

I guess we can give him credit for honest - I believe that he believes what he says. At least the moment he's saying it. And he doesn't hide what he's thinking, no matter how outrageous. And he certainly believes that government is useless. But what about the rest?

Treating a woman? Well, on the show, one caller said that Dan always said he was terrified of women. Dan protested and said he certainly didn't understand them and said they were emotional and often crazy. Hmmmmm. Is that how his Dad said to treat women? Is that respect? honoring? He did claim that he loved everything about women - just before he started saying they were emotional and not understandable. I suspect Dan if your dad really did teach you how to treat a woman (and he really knew how) then women would be falling all over you and you wouldn't still, at your age, be out looking for "a woman willing to procreate with [you]." I don't think he scores high here.

What about service, devotion, and selflessness? Again, that quote, "If I ever find a woman willing to procreate with me..." I take it he isn't doing his service, devotion, and selflessness at home with his family. And he certainly isn't doing it on his talk radio. On his radio show, contrary to what he says his father modeled, Dan is all about "I". It's his unexamined, self-centered opinions, and his own made up facts. ("Hand-made" is often a good thing Dan, but not when it comes to facts.) In fact (you could check it, but the tape's not online anymore) one comment on the radio show I heard was about liberals taking off from work to go protest the Knik Arm Bridge. "They all probably work for non-profits so they can take off work, not like a real job." So, people working selflessly, in service to others don't have real jobs? That's completely not what he wrote last week about what his Dad modeled.


On the Friday show, his dad calls in, and afterward he tells his co-host, that his father loved everyone and made friends easily and he wishes he could be like his father that way. Hmmm.


So, my hypothesis is that Dan doesn't feel too good about himself. His role model was this perfect man (at least in Dan's mind) whom everyone loved, and who treated his wife and daughters with constant compliments. (What about his son? Dan didn't mention the son getting compliments.) He worked hard and selflessly for his family.

But Dan is still looking for a wife. So he's failed already in being a good family man. He's not respectful, he's not selfless. He's so into "I" that he can't even imagine how those evil liberals could possibly believe the nonsense they believe. Dan is far smarter than any of them. He has it all figured out. Oh dear. Dan just doesn't live up to that great role model he's just praised as the kind of man we need to make this country work right." Is Dan really ranting against the world because he can't face the fact that he doesn't live up to the expectations set by his Dad? According to Wikipedia

psychological projection (or projection bias) is a defense mechanism in which one attributes to others one’s own unacceptable or unwanted thoughts or/and emotions. Projection reduces anxiety by allowing the expression of the unwanted subconscious impulses/desires without letting the ego recognize them.

Could this be Dan really talking about himself:

But where are the men today? Why are so many obsessed with their own needs instead of their families?

Unlike Dan, I'm just speculating a possible interpretation. I'm not offering my speculation as the Truth. I'm just putting together the evidence that shows his inconsistencies, shows that what he writes or says in one place, does not reflect what he writes and says other places. As I see it, he professes one set of values, but his behaviors demonstrate another.

Dan Fagan is Now Selling Happiness

Today's Fagan column ends with:

Happiness is like the flu. It spreads. It has a domino effect. And that's a good thing.

Next, he's going to change his radio show theme song to John Lennon's "Love, Love, Love"

But for all his ranting against materialism -

I say the following with an unblemished record of being a staunch lifelong capitalist. I fear we are in the grip of materialism

- he hasn't come completely over to the dark side. He doesn't mention capitalism or even corporations as a cause for our materialism. He doesn't 'bellyache' about CEO's getting paid $50 million when their companies lose money, or corporate America's search to cover the last empty space with advertising to create all these wants in people who have to max their credit cards at 20% and higher interest rates to pay for it. He doesn't say corporations are the problem. Instead, Fagan says

government is not helping with the wants verses [sic] needs problems.

It's all the money government gives to welfare recipients to meet their wants, not their needs. Things like cell phones and Big Bird. Again, there's no mention of how much cellphones and Big Bird cost, compared to, say, for starters, what Haliburton has gotten from the government in shoddy, or uncompleted, contract work in Iraq.

But let's give Dan some credit here. He even recognizes some subtleties - that some people are unhappy because of chemical imbalances or real tragedies. Dan's taken some big steps in his articles. And in today's he tells us that spreading happiness is much more important than 'bellyaching.'

Dan, are you going to follow your advice and spread happiness on the air, or are you going to keep bellyaching?

[Dan, a note on your metaphors and similes. You're trying to create a postive image here. Yes, the flu spreads quickly, but it isn't something that people want. And what exactly is 'a domino effect"? One thing knocking down another and then another and then another? Again, not exactly a positive image. I know, I'm having trouble too coming up with images of things spreading quickly that are happy. A beautiful song? What about peanut butter on bread? These don't quite catch the spreading image of the flu, but they are a lot more positive. So a good writer here, if she couldn't come up with a positive metaphor, would try to find a totally different way of making the point instead of using problematic metaphors.]

I'd link this to his Comment piece, but I'm having trouble getting to it tonight. If I can, I'll add the link in later. [Fixed - link at top]

Dan Fagan, Billy Muldoon, and Bogus Quotations on the Internet

After reading today's Comment by Dan Fagan, my first reaction was, "Wow, after last week's rambling condemnation of surrendering (and my having to read it carefully to post on it), this week's piece is well organized and actually has an argument, with supporting statements." Basically it's a worthy replacement of the VECO space since it tells us we shouldn't mess with the oil companies. I thought it interesting too, after telling us last week that we shouldn't surrender to bullies, this week he's telling us to roll over to the gang who told Alaskan legislators (taped by the FBI) "I own your ass." He talks about alleged (no specific names here) bureaucratic harassment of small businesses and then extrapolates that to harassing the big three oil companies. These are the guys who made more profit than our state budget last year. Given the radical difference in writing style between last week's Comment and this week's I can't help wondering if he had some help writing this one.

As I was starting to google around to check on what he wrote, the first site I found was Tribal Fires who wrote under the title " He could of looked it up!":

If, like Billy [Muldoon, the blogger], you ripped open this morning's ADN to read the latest from Dandy Dan Fagan, you may have thrilled to the righteous thunder of this passage in his opening paragraph:

In 1797, George Washington said it this way; "Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. Government is force; like fire it is a dangerous servant, and a fearful master.

?Hay problema? !Si!

As mentioned previously on the Fires, any time Dan gets within spittin' distance of a testable proposition, he's apt to get it wrong, and this is another such case. It turns out that the Father of Our Country never said no such of a thang! You can read the debunker here at an excellent reality-check site called Bartleby.com

I went to comment on the good catch and read Anonymous' comment:

Methinks Billy is wrong. Here's a link for ya: http://en.thinkexist.com/quotes/george_washington/

So, I googled "Government is not reason" and found that there are lots of people quoting George on this. No precise sources, in fact very few sources at all.

I did find this site which said it was a bogus quote:

Bogus Quotes Attributed to the Founders

SAF [The Second Amendment Foundation] mentions another fabricated George Washington quote:

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.

SAF's analysis from the same page follows:

While this quote is often attributed to George Washington in his Farewell Address, this quote cannot be found there. Many people have tried to verify its origin, but cannot confirm its authenticity.

Dan Gifford tried to track this quote down but was unsuccessful for his article. See: "The Conceptual Foundations of Anglo-American Jurisprudence in Religion and Reason", The Tennessee Law Review: A Second Amendment Symposium Issue, Page 801, footnote 201. This issue of the Tennessee Law Review is part of the SAF bookshelf.

Perhaps the American Freedom Library available from Laissez Faire Books features the best history of this alleged quote on their Version 3.1 CD-ROM. The searchable CD-ROM notes that the above statement is:

"Attributed to George Washington.--Frank J. Wilstach, A Dictionary of Similes, 2d ed., p. 526 (1924). This can be found with minor variations in wording and in punctuation, and with 'fearful' for 'troublesome,' in George Seldes, The Great Quotations, p. 727 (1966). Unverified. In his most recent book of quotations, The Great Thoughts (1985), Seldes Says, p. 441, col. 2, footnote, this paragraph 'although credited to the 'Farewell' [address] cannot be found in it. Lawson Hamblin, who owns a facsimile, and Horace Peck, America's foremost authority on quotations, informed me this paragraph is apocryphal [fake].'"

http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndbog.html

This is from a site that is AGAINST gun control but they debunked this quote and some others touting gun use, so I give them credit for not perpetuating these bogus quotations that would help their cause. And this is pretty similar to the Bartleby citation that Tribal Fires first used to say it was a fake.


But I finally found one with a source.

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a
troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action."
-- George Washington, in a speech of January 7, 1790
http://www.catb.org/~esr/fortunes/liberty

So I looked for George Washington speeches of January 7, 1790. Couldn't find such a speech, though a number of people actually cited "George Washington, speech of January 7, 1790 in the Boston Independent Chronicle, January 14, 1790"

So everyone is blindly quoting each other when they find something they like.

But Washington did give (well I found it on several sites, two from major universities so I'm guessing it's accurate) what is now listed under the first "State of the Union" speech, then called his "First Annual Message to Congress" on January 8, 1790 (not January 7). I'm not an expert on that time of American history, but as I recall, things were still pretty shaky, and the government was far from strong. The British were going to return in 1812 to burn Washington DC. In fact he spoke in this address about the need for government. Here's a part:

Knowledge is in every Country the surest basis of public happiness. In one, in which the measures of Government recieve their impression so immediately from the sense of the Community as in our's, it is proportionably essential. To the security of a free Constitution it contributes in various ways: . . . And by teaching the people themselves to know and to value their own rights; to discern and provide against invasions of them; to distinguish between oppression and the necessary exercise of lawful authority; between burthens proceeding from a disregard to their convenience and those resulting from the inevitable exigencies of Society; to discriminate the spirit of liberty from that of licentiousness, cherishing the first, avoiding the last, and uniting a speedy, but temperate vigilence against encroachments, with an inviolable respect to the laws. [Emphasis mine]

http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/union/state1.html

So in this case I think Billy Muldoon may be a little harsh on Dan Fagan. It's pretty easy to get sucked into that quote - it's all over the place. But then my standards may have been lowered by last week's Fagan Comment. At least he didn't totally make it up. Others are also confused. But my hat's off to Billy for spotting it.

Don't Surrender to Dan Fagan

Dan Fagan’s first piece as a regular journalist in the ADN appeared to today. This is part of preserving the ‘diversity’ of opinions offered by the agreement that gave the long defunct Anchorage Times a half page in the Opinion section of the ADN. Of course, that was basically a diversity of right wing opinions, that became an oil industry platform when VECO took it over. Now that the top two people at VECO have pled guilty to bribery, extortion, etc. the ADN finally ended the deal. One wonders how much they were paid to drag that deal out so long. Anyway, I’ve only heard Dan Fagan’s radio talk show a few times, so rather than lean on the opinions of others, I’ll just work from what he wrote today.

Basically his message was:

Surrender has become mainstream.
The school districts teach students to surrender (to walk away from bullies.)
We surrender to the thought police. (Can’t say lots of words or T.P. call you bad things)
We surrender our rights to government to think for us. And pay for it with 1/3 of our income.

We surrender to Muslim terrorists. "War is hell. Surrender is easy."
We surrender to personal vices.

Surrender is the path to bondage, slavery, oppression

This piece is short on facts and long on unsubstantiated opinion. . One of his rants here is against ‘thought police.’ If you’re against redefining marriage, he writes, “the thought police call you a homophobe, bigot, someone who discriminates.” So, is he saying that someone who stands up for what he believes is the ‘thought police?’ Someone who doesn’t surrender to what he sees as injustice is the ‘thought police?’ Why isn’t that free speech? Or is it ‘thought police’ and ‘political correctness’ only when the ideas are those Dan doesn’t agree with?

My idea of thought police comes from George Orwell’s book, 1984.

Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

This is a far cry from someone calling you a homophobe. But we do have people working hard to shape how people think today. The best funded and most disciplined attempt to shape thought I know comes from the well organized Republican Party’s Talking Points where right wing politicians and media repeat the same message agreed upon by the Party tacticians each day. Yes, there are now Democratic Talking Points too, as they copied what they see as a too effective form of Republican thought control.

Given Dan’s repetition of the word ‘surrender’ 21 times ('is' 16 times, 'and' 17 times) in this 700 word essay, one has to wonder whether Dan is part of the Republican thought control program, since ‘surrender’ is one of their current favored terms. As in, “Withdrawal from Iraq is surrender to the terrorists.” In this piece he made everything so called liberals believe an act of surrender, then finally writing, "Surrender is the path to bondage, slavery, oppression." If we believe this as an absolute, then, yeah, surrender is the worst thing you could do. If he, along with countless other foot soldiers for the right wing, can get this to stick, then whenever the word ‘surrender’ is used, people will think of Democrats and bondage, slavery, oppression. Now, that is thought control.

The essay begins with the schools teaching kids to walk away from bullies as an example of everyone being taught to surrender. Then he goes on to say that we surrender everything to let government take over our lives and that we surrender 1/3 of our income in taxes for them to do it with. If Dan’s paying 1/3 of his income in taxes, he needs a new accountant. And it seems to me a lot of the tax money is going to fight that war in Iraq he doesn’t want us to ‘surrender.’ But I agree to a certain extent that Republicans generally can’t spend too much on police or national defense and bridges, while Democrats can’t spend too much to help the helpless.

But the whole idea of surrender here is being distorted. First, surrender isn’t all or nothing. But after making it an all or nothing concept, Fagan stretches it to cover all sorts of situations of negotiation and compromise. He seems to live in a world where if he doesn’t get his way 100%, he has surrendered, which leads to bondage, etc. Dan might want to look up game theory and the ideas of zero-sum and variable-sum games as game theory defines them. It’s Dan’s zero-sum type of thinking that has kept the Israelis and Palestinians killing each other rather than starting to move toward peace and security and economic prosperity. If every single insult is returned, there is no end to the feud. But, I understand the reasoning that says you have to stand up to a bully and partially accept it. But there are different ways to take down a bully. While there isn't agreement on bullying, it does seem reasonable that in many cases "[b]ullying is a learned behavior, not a character trait. Bullies can learn new ways to curb their aggression and handle conflicts." And for the cases of psychopaths, the community, not victims need to intervene. One option is the one Dan implies – beat the shit out of the bully and he leaves you alone. But what if he thrashes you? But even if you win, the bully goes on to pick on someone else. Another option is to give the non-psychopath bully some ways to gain respect, be fairly treated, and to have some power over his world.

But let me get back to the idea of thought police. If you read Dan’s piece carefully, it appears that people who disagree with Dan Fagan are ‘thought police,’ but when Dan tries to insinuate 'they' are all surrendering sissies, Dan isn't a 'thought policeman' he's just standing up for what he believes. Neat trick, but it doesn’t work. Nor does the following twisted logic. “Voters agreed and upheld the smoking ban. They said you can’t trust people…Government knows best.” Excuse me? Actually, it is Dan Fagan saying that you can’t trust the people, because they stupidly surrendered by voting for a smoking ban.

This piece is a lot of emotional words strung together in a way that should fire up Dan Fagan’s co-believers and piss off the rest. There’s no cohesive logical argument, nothing you could actually act on since ‘surrender’ is such a vague term. There’s no attempt to understand or explain, rather it is all declarative sentences or rhetorical questions about what Dan generally feels is good and what he generally feels is bad. The Veco Times may be gone in name, but Dan Fagan is now in place to carry on their tradition.