Posted on 03/31/2005 7:37:48 PM PST by Congressman Billybob
The subjects this week concern the War in Iraq, saving Social Security, and the death of Terri Schiavo. To examine the logic of all three, we begin with poker.
For about four decades I’ve played low-stakes poker. I understand the game well, but at best just break even. Why?
Casual poker players are doomed by the fatal attraction of the inside straight. Two cards can win when you draw to an outside straight, one chance in six. But drawing to an inside straight, where only one card can complete it, has one in twelve odds.
The first is a good bet; the second is a sucker bet. Amateurs go broke chasing the inside straight. The logic, if you think about it, has three steps: This can be true. This ought to be true. This is true. Now, apply that lesson to three main issues this week.
Opponents of the War on Iraq are now less in number but more shrill, as Iraqis have shown their commitment to democracy and freedom, not oppression and mass murder. The main remaining argument against the war is that the blood cost is too high.
Six months ago I compared the death rate of Americans in this war with those rates in the other ten major US wars. This is our least bloody war.
Another comparison is also appropriate. The death rate of American men and women in Iraq is only slightly higher than if they were home and driving cars to bars on Saturday nights. In short, the argument that the blood cost of this war is “too high” is factually false. But some people want to believe that, and therefore do believe it.
A similar deception reared its ugly head this week on Social Security reform. AARP has launched a dishonest attack on the President’s position on this subject. The main attack is that we cannot afford “new debt” of $2 billion for the transition to private savings accounts.
Let’s examine that claim. The people whose SS benefits will be paid by those bonds, are already alive. The law that says how much they will get is already written. The position that this is “new” debt means AARP expects tens of millions of Americans to die suddenly, or it expects the government to default immediately on SS benefits, or that AARP is lying.
Unfortunately, the press is not printing the facts when reporting on AARP’s position. And millions of Americans believe the AARP canard only because they want to believe it.
The third major subject this week was the ultimate death of Terri Schiavo, who died of thirst in Florida after 13 days of no food and water, under a series of court orders. At the end, this was a terrible situation which could have no good outcome. But if we are to learn anything from her death that might benefit others, we need to figure out what went wrong here.
The press kept stating this as a contest between Terri Schiavo’s parents and her husband. The problem is embedded in that sentence. Terri Schiavo has no husband, not in any real sense.
Ten years ago, Michael Schiavo turned his back on his wife – except for occasional symbolism. He took a new “wife,” and had two children by her. His connection to his wife Terri was no longer with his mind or heart, it was only with his wallet. He had custody of a $1.6 million medical malpractice case because he was the husband of Terri. And starting then, it was in Michael’s financial interest that Terri die, rather than live.
People who see conservatives or the “religious right” behind any interference with the “necessary and appropriate” death of Terri Schiavo hang their hat on that label: husband. Of course, in such situations and in the absence of any written instructions, the surviving spouse should be the principal decision-maker. But in this case, Michael Schiavo should have been divorced as a husband and dismissed as a guardian a decade ago. People who want to believe otherwise reject such inconvenient facts.
Among the people who have a strong grasp of reality by playing poker for decades are Presidents Truman and Nixon, and Chief Justice Rehnquist. It minimizes the tendency to self-deception. As President Reagan said, borrowing a Will Rogers line, “It's not what they don't know that's the problem. It's what they know that ain't so.”
Personal Note: I will be a main speaker at the March for Justice II in DC, on 7 April at about 1:30 p.m., probably on C-SPAN after coverage of Congress ends. The subject is runaway judges.
About the Author: John Armor is a First Amendment attorney and author who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu
Don't buy insurance, it is a rip off. The chances the dealer will hit black jack are not good and most of the time you will lose the insurance and the bet.
The fatal attraction of an inside straight isn't the bet, it's the rush you get when you (rarely) hit it. This is as true for politics as it is poker, assuming that the two can be differentiated.
You're gettin' good, John! ... I'd love to play poker with you someday.
My father, a lifelong poker player, calls that "I came to play! syndrome." As long as you view your gambling as entertainment, you haven't "lost" unless you're short more money than you would have spent on dinner and a movie, the opera, or a baseball game.
The players there will be intent on skinning my cat. So my playing strategy has to change there, also. John / Billybob
Exactly. You can only fold so many hands before you "just have to play" some hands. Tournament play is a little different though as they last several days and you are going to see a lot of hands. But as the antes and blinds are raised you have to start playing marginal to junk hands or your going to go like Broomcorn's Uncle. (He anted himself to death).
The "I came to play" applies to my golf game as well. If I have a shot at reaching a par 5 in 2, even if the odds are heavily against me because of a poor drive, bad lie, or other factor 90% of the time I will still go for it. I always say, "I didn't come here to lay up."
As long as you view your gambling as entertainment, you haven't "lost" unless you're short more money than you would have spent on dinner and a movie, the opera, or a baseball game.
Bingo. I enjoy gambling a great deal. I will gamble on anything that I am personally involved with and have a modicum or control over the outcome. Such as golf and cards to name two. Sports? I have zero influence on the outcome so I won't bet.
Some of my friends and family are opposed to gambling or just won't gamble because they don't want to "lose" money. I look at it the way you posted. How much can I reasonably expect to spend if I go out on the town for the night? $50? $100? Pretty easy to do without any effort. So if I play poker for 4 or 5 hours with my buddies and end up losing $50 I am in the exact same place as if I went to a bar to have food, beer, and watch "the game."
Only split aces, and double-down when the dealer shows 3, 4, or 5 and you have 11 or less.
Consider that judges are lawyers, but more so. To my experience, the only profession that matches the usual arrogance of judges, is that of surgeons. I have highest respect for the minority of judges who are capable of reconsidering their own, prior decisions.
John / Billybob
Oooh... I know that feeling all too well. If I can make it, I feel I must try it. At least I've gotten to the point where I recognize this, and ask Mrs. kevkrom to make a mark of the scorecard for "Kevin being stupid" before I take such a shot, so I can remember later why I wound up with that 8 or 9.
Ah, HAH! I now have you pegged as a realist!!!!
I'd say "well done" but they always are.
I think I've read about another President who has a reputation for being a pretty good poker player-- it seems that some people have a tendency to "misunderestimate" him...
: ^ )
They were available in 2003 when the renewed fight to have the tube removed was started.
Greer refused to consider anything other than that Michael Schiavo was still married to Terri, legally.
I place a lot of blame on him for his blindness to any mitigating factors.
Re: Poker...luck has a lot to do with it, too. We have been playing for a couple months on Poker Stars [yes, as seen on TV] and thank goodness its free. We have days when the cards seem to fall like manna and others where you can't buy a pot.
Also, the bullying of the AFL-CIO is nothing but grandstanding, media-driven extortion. The campaign of a has-been like John Sweeney is sickening because it adds nothing to the debate about what will become of retirement planning long after he and his ilk are gone. The media lets him get away with saying that Wall Street firms will make a trillion dollars from fees from private accounts. Such a lie--and never confronted.
It guess that it ultimately boils down to the power of the media. The more people know about the details of the Schiavo case, the less inclined they were to support her husband's position. That is why the polls showed a 13% drop in support of ending her life from the first week of March to her death. Even Morton Kondracke, who said on a Friday night FNC show "Pull the plug", corrected himself the next day by admitting that his research into the case had changed his opinion. Did people know that she really wasn't hooked up to anything? Did people know that she probably wasn't in pain until the starvation began? Did people really know that she would not have died a natural death soon unless she had been starved to death? Do people know that this isn't so dissimilar from thousands of other cases of disabled citizens and court-mandated forced starvation for her sets a precedent for alot of other people? Were people aware of the timeline of Michael's interest in his wife, her condition, the money settlement, his new girlfriend and the sudden "reclaimed memory" of her comment about a tv movie about life support?
Whoever controls the media, controls the message.
Great Article.
I think that's what I said.
If you don't like the results, change the state laws.
So9
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