The Lotto Effect and the Selling of Terrorism

One of my favorite quotes (origin unknown) is: “Someone is going to win Lotto; it just ain’t going to be you”. Of course this is a paradoxical statement, but quite true in the real world. It is a reality that in the practical application of statistics, when the odds of something happening become increasingly infinitesimal, at some point they become the equivalent of zero without actually getting there.  

There is virtually no risk a sane person wouldn’t take if the chance of a negative outcome was only 1 out of 259 million, which just happens to be the odds of winning the Megamillions jackpot. The inverse should also be true, that there is no risk a sane person would take knowing success was also 1 in 259 million, even if that risk is just one dollar.

Yet that’s not what happens. There are millions of perfectly sane people who take that irrational risk every day. The proponents of public lotteries have successfully argued that it is really just a form of entertainment, an innocent application of fantasy, or even (gulp) a social form of charity - a 21^st Century offshoot of a raffle at the church bazaar. Not really.

Actually, it’s simply a form of regressive taxation, since the proceeds in every state go to their general budgets, through the front door or the back. But that’s a topic for another time. Here I want to look at why individuals, disproportionately poor and/or undereducated, find lotteries so attractive…what I call The Lotto Effect.

Regardless of the sensation it engenders, akin to entertainment or fantasy, most all people who purchase a ticket or tickets have an expectation of winning, however small it might be. No one buys a ticket knowing they are going to lose. Even though that expectation might be tucked away in a corner of the brain separated from reality, it is most definitely there.  It is that expectation which is the real product being sold by the public lottery industry and it is accomplished by making the winning a public event.

Suppose in the process of running a lottery no player ever saw or even heard of anyone winning, including actors in commercials pretending they were winners. The only indication of winning would be the sudden drop in the jackpot. Add to that a demonstrably clear explanation of the odds. How long would the lottery be profitable?  You see, the key to selling the lottery is to make obvious the first part of the paradox - someone is going to win - and make invisible the second part - it just ain’t going to be you.

The rocket fast and entirely invasive nature of communication in today’s world makes this sales job easier than it’s ever been.

The Lotto Effect doesn’t just deal with lotteries. We can find it all over the space in which the expectations being “sold” bear little resemblance to reality.  However unlike the lottery, such sales primarily trade on people’s fears: germs, disease, crime, safety e.g.. The ratings and profits that feed news service’s coverage of a tragedy demonstrate that someone will or indeed did experience it, with endless displays of victims’ miseries.  However, there won’t be much coverage (or none) on the fact that there is almost no chance it could happen to you.

One of the more insidious applications of The Lotto Effect is the use of Terrorism as a means of promoting news ratings and political futures.

The true definition of Terrorism is an act of violence or threatened violence which creates a reaction disproportionate to its threat and for no other purpose than the reaction itself.  To the extent the reaction is not disproportionate it is simply a crime.  In other words, if people unaffected by the crime do not react in terror, it is not Terrorism.  

Terrorism certainly existed before the destruction of the World Trade Center, but it was that event that turned it into an industry in the US.  The Beltway Snipers who killed 10 people in 2002 nearly shut down the Mid-Atlantic, an area with about 25 million people. It was indeed domestic Terrorism.  For weeks people hundreds of miles from the crimes questioned whether they should buy gas or let their children go to school. But once the snipers were caught the fear ended.

Not so with the World Trade Center. The Terrorism that began then has not abated to this day. It has, in fact, gotten worse. Why? It is primarily because it is good business, for the media and politicians.

Even the World Trade Center tragedy, which was accomplished with only a little training in aeronautics and some box cutters, had practically no direct affect on the workings of American business, government, or society and yet it profoundly changed all three.  Our entire nation became color-coded, as if we were preparing for the Huns to land on Myrtle Beach.

The handful of domestic crimes in the US since 9/11 that sought to promote Terrorism have been wildly successful, not because of the damage and misfortune they caused, but rather because of the extraordinary publicity they received, and the use of those tragedies by politicians.

The media and politicians have fed the fear of terrorists for their own ends. The goal is to make every American fear that they and their loved ones are at risk.  The Lotto Effect, that this could happen to you, was front and center, never mind that out of 330 million people you maybe have a better chance of being licked to death by puppies.

Donald Trump has fashioned nearly his entire campaign around promoting such fears to gain support and, regrettably, it has worked. Even as the few terrorist attacks this Nation has experienced since 9/11 have been domestic, he has focused his campaign on foreign and non-Christian nationals as the source for an anxiety he is working to create. The media, primarily interested in profitable ratings, unwittingly helps him and other Terrorism profiteers at every turn.

The Lotto Effect manipulates too many Americans, the proof of which is the very existence Trump himself.

As a Nation we can’t seem to focus on the real risks. The American public is more concerned about a deranged individual spreading a few pressure cookers about than they are with the deranged leader of North Korea having access to nuclear weapons. Everyday gun violence gets only spotty coverage. Neither North Korea nor gun proliferation demonstrates the The Lotto Effect because people’s expectations are so low, even as the reality of being affected (by guns) or the massive affect of a threat (nuclear weapons) is strikingly real.

I recently toured the 9/11 Museum and Memorial in NYC.  It is an incredible exhibit and fitting testimony to the innocents that were killed and injured in that attack.  I couldn’t help wondering, though, in the light of all that has happened since; the lifestyle changes, government controls, massive surveillance, the Iraq War, the Afghanistan War, the concentrations of wealth and power, social divisiveness, public and personal anxieties, and trillions of dollars, if this Museum was as much a testimony to how we surrender to Terrorism than how we grow from it.

Politicians are eviscerated anytime they even hint that small scale attacks meant to terrorize cannot be stopped entirely. Ask John Kerry who suggested such in 2004.  The fact is that as long as we react irrationally (Lotto Effect) and the perpetrators get almost endless news coverage the incentive for such attacks is baked in. The only way to neutralize Terrorism is not to be terrorized. The real winners of Lotto are the ones who never play.

The Art of the Sour Deal

A lesser understood promise by Donald Trump and the Republican Party has to do with their pledge to repeal the so called “Johnson Amendment”.  Despite that it was included in the Republican Party platform, addressed by Trump in his acceptance speech, and introduced to the “thousands” of readers of this blog it still garners essentially no attention by anyone other than those who want to see it eliminated – evangelical Christian organizations.

It has become red meat on Fox News for those who believe that anyone who doesn’t actively support “patriotic” Conservatism has the singular desire to take away every gun in the Country and ban the words Merry Christmas from the American lexicon.

Part of the reason the subject is not embraced by those who are not evangelical Christians is that they, including the news media, don’t have a working understanding of what it is. If the topic arises in the news it is passed off as “the law that restricts Churches from engaging in politics” (that is verbatim).  No, no, no, no, NO!!!

This issue is an excellent example of what is wrong with the dissemination of information by news organizations.

Christian organizations, notably televangelist and religious colleges & universities, know exactly what it means.  However, when people like Jerry Falwell, Jr. (son of Jerry Falwell, leader of the Thomas Rhoads Baptist televangelist group, and president of Liberty University) speak on Fox News they fashion their rage as a government restriction of their freedom and an oppressive violation of their First Amendment rights.

Such fits neatly into the Fox News basket.

What they are not confessing is that their desire to eliminate the “Johnson Amendment” really has to do with the most sacred aspect of their ministries – money.

There are NO government or legal restrictions that keep any church or university from pursuing any political issue or candidate that they want to. Do I need to repeat that?  The First Amendment protects such organizations as much as it does for any individual…another reason to be proud of this Country.

What the “Johnson Amendment” does is keep YOU from taking a tax deduction if YOU give money to a charitable (501(c)3) organization that engages in such political activity. That’s it. It does this by requiring the IRS to revoke the organization’s 501(c)3 status if they so engage. It does NOT mean that such church, University, or other charitable organization would have to start paying taxes nor does it restrict them from engaging in any political activity, as long as it's not their primary activity.

Why is this law important and why are evangelical churches and universities so zealous in their desire to eliminate it?  The answers to both are interwoven.

Far from ethical questions regarding free speech, the motivation for Jerry Falwell Jr. and his ilk is free money and lots of it.  If they were allowed to actively engage in partisan politics and still retain their charitable tax status they would become magnets for political contributions.

If I am David Koch with a few million dollars to drop on a issue or candidate, which is my better choice: a  PAC or Liberty University that would accomplish the same as the PAC only I’m able to get a 40% tax deduction?

A million dollar contribution, in that case, would only cost David $600,000. The remaining $400,000 is nicely picked up by the American Taxpayer (in lost tax revenue). It’d be a sweet deal for the Kochster, an even sweeter deal for Liberty University, and Trump (about as religious as Genghis Khan) gets the votes of the Christian devout. It's a sour deal for everyone else.

The ramifications of this effort to change our tax law to benefit the wealthy and concentrate wealth with America’s extreme voices are appalling.  It would be the biggest undermining of American Democracy since the Citizen’s United judgment.  Not only would there be a free-for-all of Charities entering the political process and the creation of phony “churches” with doctrines that are solely political, but it would further blur the secular nature of American government, abandoning the foundation on which this Nation was created.

Imagine, if you will, every political candidate having his/her own “church” or “churches” campaigning on their behalf and, by necessity, integrating their religion with their politics.

This Johnson Amendment, so named after Lyndon Johnson who as a Senator from Texas in the 1950s fought for its passage, is very important to the American people.  The charitable deduction, created in 1917, is nearly as old as the modern income tax itself.  It has evolved and survived primarily as an incentive to donors to assist charitable organizations with their beneficial purposes.

To combine the consolidation of political power within those purposes serves neither the Nation’s wellbeing nor its charitable spirit. It is just another reason why today’s Republican Party needs to be rejected and reborn.

Feel the Love

I first noticed it with the Democrats.  Hillary Clinton used it on more than one interview and public address, including her DNC acceptance speech. It was always preceded by the slightest little accenting pause. Now I’ve heard it emanating from, of all places, the muck fashioned lips of Donald Trump. I’m referring to the use of the term love.  What’s going on here?

It’s worth a thought. I struggle to remember any past politicians using the term love as an image to support their candidacy. Yet here we are, entering the final leg of perhaps the most unsophisticated and insolent Presidential contests in modern times and we hear the call to love.

Granted, the candidates do introduce the love from different directions, essentially from opposite corners.

Clinton and her surrogates have used it as a representation of what we need to add to our national consciousness in order to bring about the changes they advocate, especially regarding the treatment of illegal aliens.  Not really like singing the Beatles tune All You Need is Love, rather more like Mary Poppins suggesting we need to add Just a Spoon Full of Sugar.

Trump, on the other hand, is not advocating that love is missing from our collective body politic, quite the contrary.  He promotes the idea that the American people are just fine (at least the ones packing his rallies), but it’s those pesky fir-ah-ners wanting to get into this Country that need the love.  He actually implies the need for a love test (along with blood and religion, I assume) proving that they “love us”.

I suppose for Donald it would be perfectly fitting to have Cuba Gooding at the immigration line shouting “SHOW..ME..THE LOVE”, as he did with “money” in Jerry McGuire.  To the extent the applicants fist-bumped or high fived before they proceeded to their faith examination might be test enough.

Using love within in the context of rhetoric that more simply asks “vote for me” may be a metaphor for a darker side of these Presidential campaigns.

The Trump side is easy to see.  His authoritarian demand that immigrants to the US “love us” flies in the face of one of the dearest siren songs for Conservatives…Freedom.  It is precisely that we don’t demand to be loved that makes a free society so compelling, even if that freedom carries with it a potential for conflict. 

Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco 49ers is ostracized by “freedom loving” Conservatives as a personal affront to their patriotism, yet they fail to reflect an iota on the free part of freedom, which they should take pride in.  I’m guessing he wouldn’t gain admission to a Trump Nation regardless how well he threw a football.

Note that the absence of love is not hate; however the paradox is that the more you demand love the more potential there is to generate hate.

Clinton’s misappropriation of love is more subtle. The underlying theme when she suggests that love is a missing ingredient to the well being of Americans is a call to be better citizens, as if a tasteless cake that has been served up by our Government bakery is missing a touch of salt. She’s selling her own Progressive siren song that self-interest needs to be supplanted by compassion.

Although feeling the love may be a Progressive motivator and land on a few signs at a Bernie rally, it can be counter-productive to objective governance. The fact is that love, a strong and important driver of human behavior, is essentially another form of self-interest and can be used to undermine the freedom not to love.

The very fact that these candidates have chosen to include love in their arsenal of attack tools is a testimony to the rancor that has been this political season to date.

The great American experiment to create a secular nation of agreed upon laws that everyone can love without it (the Nation) demanding to be loved is not furthered by politicians advocating their candidacy as a call to devotion…for Americans or those who want to be.