On Bias

Tom Tancredo doesn't read my blog. Apparently, he should.

Although I've covered the subject of voting tests before, I think there's an additional point to be made – especially if someone in our government still thinks they are a good idea.

One of the difficulties that we face with our modern society is one of scale. There are so many people, with so much going on, that we realistically perceive only a slice of all that is occurring. If you are like me, you attempt to gather more information than just what's on the 5 o'clock news. But, if we're honest with ourselves, despite our sometimes voracious appetites for information, we're only gathering a subset. We don't know all the laws, all the interactions between the government and the population, all the intended and unintended consequences of those interactions.

And so, to a degree, we trust in the working of the institutions upon which our Constitutional Democracy is based. We trust that if the legislative branch passes a law that undermines our rights unduly, that would create inequality, or give too much power to groups rather than maintain it spread amongst all the people, that the executive branch would step in with its veto. If that doesn't happen, laws are challenged in court, and again, the judicial branch would rule against any law that doesn't comport with our ideals as set out in our Constitution.

One has to admit that it has worked fairly well. Despite the rather myopic understanding of personal freedom and democracy exhibited by our founding fathers, (John Adams ignoring his wife's pleas to “remember the ladies,” the 2/5ths clause concerning slavery, landowning requirements for voting), our institutions have endured, and in using them, participation in the process of democracy has been increased. Previously discriminated groups have had some of the most egregious discrimination lifted. Women no longer have to stay in poor, abusive, or violent marriages for financial reasons – they are recognized participants with rights to own and purchase property, work, and vote.

While it seems plausible that everyone should have some understanding of the workings and history of our government, since none of us can gather it all: Which subset is the important subset over which we should test? Does it really matter if someone can't name a single dead white guy who once held the office of president? If you've never had to go to court, and can't name the local judge, is your understanding of government deficient? If you can't recite the fifteenth amendment to the constitution in its entirety, trusting instead that those who study and practice law can, should you no longer able to participate in democracy?

Through my life's experiences, through the people I've met, the subjects I've studied, I find myself most interested in how we can build a society of equality. My empathy for those who don't start out with the gifts of money, my perception that groups too often wield unreasonable power, that a modern corporation resembles not our ideal of democracy but rather a feudal oligarchy lead me to study those aspects of government and its interactions that could redefine society and allow greater opportunities to all. Were I to design a voting test, through no intention, but due to the history and ideas that I find most compelling; if it were to impart a bias upon its takers, it would be a liberal bias that matches my own.

Tom Tancredo, by his own admission, recognizes that a test designed by him would naturally cover those subjects that he finds compelling, those subjects that would impart a conservative bias.

Only a very naive person would make the mistake of thinking that if only Mr. Tancredo and I could get together and jointly design a test that it would somehow be neutral. Although you could draw a line between my position and his, we are not just two points in a one-dimensional world. Rather, we are two points somewhere inside a three-dimensional box: There is no reason to believe that the midpoint of the line between us represents any meaningful position inside that box, that it's in any way close to the center, or that the center itself is meaningful.

All voting tests would represent the bias (or biases) of their author or authors. Since individual bias is built on impartial knowledge, and the only group that actually encompasses all knowledge is the complete group (all members of society), the only way to leverage all of society's knowledge is to allow all of its members to participate in the governing process. Any test, by its very nature, would eliminate those individuals who don't possess a specific subset, but there is no reason to suspect (or prove) that the knowledge they do have isn't valuable.

It's also one of the tenets of our democracy: No matter who you are, no matter where you came from, no matter the circumstances of your life, you have a right to participate in matters that concern you. Any exclusion of full participation creates an oligarchy – antithetic to our ideals.

So, let's put the ideas of voting tests behind us for good. Building an inclusive society is hard. But, in looking at the expansions in freedoms for individual members made over the last 200 years, surely it is rewarding and worthwhile.