Reality is a consequence-driven, cold-hearted, uncaring, unwavering beast who always laughs last
CONSEQUENCE CURVES
The Consequence Curve is an immutable and inescapable Law of Logical Reality that Conservative leaders routinely ignore at their supporter’s peril, but sadly, yet instructively, rarely their own.
For an IT developer (yes, I’ve written and debugged millions of lines of code), the need to debug a program, process, or system is typically triggered when a negative consequence becomes apparent, whether that be a critical error like a program crash or a report whose values are so obviously wrong that those who rely on the report for decision making raise the alarm.
The entire purpose of the debug process is to find the root cause of the error because without finding and fixing that, the negative consequences are certain to continue. Simple, and obvious, you say. So what?
Before I get to my point regarding the Consequence Curve and its relationship to political policy, it is important to keep in mind that the root cause of the negative consequence triggering the need for a debug is not always found in the same place that the error or issue is noticed. Successful debugging is a step by step analytical process that moves backward through all the related and intermediate steps until the source of the problem is properly identified, and of course, fixed.
Debugging is always a consequence driven analysis because consequences matter! Consequences are indicative of the value of the logical process and the information that it utilizes. Bad consequences mean bad logic or bad data, every time. As mentioned, consequences are tied to an immutable and inescapable truth, they reflect the Law of Logical Reality.
POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES ARE NOT IMMUNE
This principle remains in force with respect to political policies and programs, meaning that the consequences that fall out of the implementation of any political policy reflect the value of the information used to form that policy and the capability of those who implement the program.
Assuming for a moment (I know, I KNOW!) that the bureaucracy is competent enough to capably manage the program rollout and that the intention behind the program is good, it follows that political programs that generate Negative Unintended Consequences must speak to the value, usefulness, and accuracy of the information and rationales used to support and promote that policy.
Once again, simple and obvious, right? So, how does one explain long term political policy that consistently delivers negative consequences detrimental to those it’s intended to help? How is it that society, particularly an educated and smart society, willingly accept such ongoing and devastating failure? Worse still, why will that society not only accept such lasting failure but often take to the streets to demand more of it? What in the absolute hell is going on?
This brings me to the relevancy of the immutable and inescapable Consequence Curve as shown in the Policy Consequences Model, which in this case represents the opposing tracks of Donald Trump’s oil-and-gas driven economic boom and Justin Trudeau’s oil-and-gas hating economic malaise, which has been disproportionately injurious to Albertans and the West.
Policy Consequences Model
Carbon taxes are based on unsupportable and incorrect factual falsehoods
Obviously, Trump’s economy is delivering positive and beneficial consequences to all classes of Americans and driving his opponents nuts. Comparatively, Trudeau’s economy is delivering negative and harmful consequences to Albertans and is driving them to despair, and WEXIT.
The reason the consequence lines curve is due to the accumulative impact of the policy consequences over time. In a sense, both tracks accrue “interest” by adding to consequences of the policy, like interest on savings or interest on debt.
I do not have to be a Climate Science expert like Greta or an economist of any kind (micro, macro, velcro – attached to and dependent on the government’s swollen teat) to understand that the problem ties directly to the policies and arguments used to push Carbon taxes. It’s Logic 101.
And I can state with 100% certainty that Carbon taxes are based on unsupportable and incorrect factual falsehoods. This is because of the immutable and inescapable Law of Logical Reality and its direct relationship to consequences, both good and bad.
Ask yourself what motivates a politician who succeeds in getting elected based on policy that generates Negative Unexpected Consequences? Will they be inspired to run against the policy that got them elected in the first place, or will they double down and insist on more of it, then flush even more taxpayer money in a futile and sure-to-fail attempt at reversing the harmful consequences? Then, ask yourself how they get re-elected pushing a failed and detrimental policy WITHOUT that policy’s negative consequences being buried and hidden by the media? But I digress.
The Conservative Conundumb
The “X” on the Policy Consequence Model above represents a position where society is suffering Negative Unexpected Consequences due to the implementation of a political program. In this case, the damage delivered by the fraudulent belief that CO2 is a Climate Killer.
The question to ask is, what are our Conservative leaders doing to stop it? How many of them, other than the reviled Donald Trump and possibly the rejected Maxime Bernier, have debugged the problem back to its root cause, the scientific disinformation used to support the assault on Carbon Dioxide and the oil-and-gas industry?
Instead, most Conservative leaders take what can be deemed the “ Capitulate and Mitigate” approach, which, due to the immutable and inescapable Law of Logical Reality, is doomed to fail us because it does not address the root cause of the problem and keeps society struggling along the Negative Unexpected Consequences track.
The “Capitulate and Mitigate” approach is a perfect example of one step forward, two steps back. The one step forward is wresting back political power, however temporarily and it forms the basis of the mentality behind the “we need to win the election first” argument used to placate voters into supporting them at election time.
Unfortunately, as already explained, it leaves society mired on the wrong track where mitigation efforts will at best succeed only at slowing the rate of negative damage being done but at worst, will simply result in the throwing of “stupid money after horrific”, to co-opt a well known phrase. Sadly, this first step back is the least bad of the two.
Law of Logical Reality
The second step backward simply doesn’t land on solid ground because it legitimizes the false premises used to push the failing policy in the first place. It cedes the logical and moral argument to the delusional! There’s a winning plan! With friendly and principled leadership like that, who needs enemies? The capitulators are simply winning a minor battle, mostly for their own benefit, while they lose the major war for ours. This is what they offer and expect thanks for. It must end.
We deserve better. We need to demand better, otherwise, Canada’s and the media’s top Climate Scientist, Green Guru Greta, will drive our future into the ground and the Negative Unexpected Consequences hammering Alberta will spread across the country.
We need to derail this train and get if off the Negative Consequences track but, who the hell am I to suggest it, right?
Well, it really isn’t me talking, it’s the immutable and inescapable Law of Logical Reality and none can rightly deny that Reality is a consequence-driven, cold-hearted, uncaring, unwavering beast who always laughs last.
Right now, the beast is laughing at us, not with us.
Mark Gray -- Bio and
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Mark Gray hails from the Kirkland Lake, Ontario area and has spent over 30 years as an Analyst/Developer in Big IT, mostly in Calgary’s Oil-And-Gas Sector. Creator of an non-partisan, analytical methodology that seeks out and identifies Bias and Deceit embedded in weaponized information.
