The Way It Iz

Let me start off by saying that I don’t want to talk about this. The Democratic primary is heating up, President Trump launched his reelection campaign, and oh, the US is potentially on the brink of war with Iran. But apparently, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made a statement that has the entire Jewish population talking. AOC stated outright that the United States is operating concentration camps at the US-Mexico border. She also invoked the “never again” slogan associated with the Holocaust. This caused a massive debate in the media, as well as on social media, as to whether or not this is an apt comparison. But to tell you the truth, AOC’s comments shouldn’t have caused any firestorm whatsoever.

April 26, 1974. The Baltimore Orioles defeated the Oakland Athletics 6-5 in 15 innings. The game pitted the two teams that would meet later in the season for a chance to go to the World Series, and featured future Hall-of-Famers Reggie Jackson, Jim Palmer, Rollie Fingers, and Brooks Robinson. It also featured one of the greatest anomalies in baseball history. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Last week, a story about Keanu Reeves made the rounds on social media. Some fans of the actor started noticing that while posing for pictures with fans, or even fellow celebrities, Reeves does not touch women. Reeves maintains a hands-off approach with women in order to remove any potential awkwardness from unwanted touching during an encounter. This approach is in stark contrast to the first “meeting” between pop star Ke$ha, and comedian Jerry Seinfeld back in 2017. During that encounter, Ke$ha (and I can’t tell you how annoying that name is to type) tried to kiss Seinfeld three different times, each time being politely denied. Ke$ha, not having the misfortune of being male, never received any negative press for this. Reeves’ method eliminates such awkwardness.

Over the past three months, Georgia, Ohio, Mississippi, Kentucky, and, most controversially, Alabama, have all begun their attack on the legality of abortions. Each state has passed a law that restricts abortion in their states, with Alabama being the most stringent: criminalizing all abortions with no exceptions made for rape and incest. These laws have steered the national conversation away from the environment, which had been the previous hot topic of the day thanks to the Green New Deal. Now all political conversations from the mainstream media to social media revolve around the future of Roe v. Wade.

Individual biases exist. I have them. You have them. Even scientists conducting fact-based experiments have them. The old thinking in behavioral economics was that people tended to analyze data, and based on their analysis they make their decisions. However, more recent studies suggest that this is not the case. Political economist at Stanford University Francis Fukuyama explains that people tend to “start out with an emotional commitment to a certain idea, and then they use their formidable cognitive powers to organize facts to support what they want to believe anyhow. So the partisan affiliation comes first, and the reasoning process by which you justify it comes second.” In other words, people believe what they want to believe, and when faced with facts, they either accept them as proving their beliefs, try to make them fit their world view, or discard them as inaccurate.

Earlier this month, in an attempt to out-progressive all of her Democratic presidential candidates, Senator Elizabeth Warren rolled out her tuition forgiveness plan, which can eliminate up to $50,000 of student loan debt per person. I promise. I’m only going to spend a short time explaining why this is a dumb idea, and then get into actual good ideas that Republicans can use to combat this.