Rich Lowry points out that many people polled want the country to go in a "new direction." He also points out the vapidity of the assumption of many in the press that such folk, like those who think the country is on the "wrong track" or disapprove of the president's job, will be Kerry voters. I've also pointed this out before.

I disapprove of the president's performance, on many levels, think the country needs a new direction, and is on the wrong track. Am I going to be voting for Kerry? Of course not, because I'm afraid he'll derail the train completely.

I was amused yesterday, driving down the coast of Florida, as I listened to Sean Hannity's "man (and woman) in the street interviews" in which none of the Kerry supporters could identify a single accomplishment in his career, or a single position that he took that they agreed with, that would cause them to vote for him. Many didn't even know the name of his running mate. It was simply sufficient for him to not be George Bush. If I'd been doing the interviews, I'd have asked how they knew that they wouldn't be making things worse by electing a guy they admittedly knew absolutely nothing about. But Sean is never quite that quick on the uptake. In any event, one suspects that many of the empty vessels he interviewed won't bother to vote, despite their stated support for Kerry.

Anyway, this foolish tendency of the media to translate in their minds unhappiness with George Bush into automatic support for Kerry is one of the reasons that they continue to fool themselves about the latter's prospects in November. I suspect they're in for a shock.

The problem is that human preferences ARE NOT TRANSITIVE. For example, if you ask a person whether he prefers Alice or Betty, he tells you Alice. Then you ask whether he prefers Betty or Carol, he says Betty. Then you ask whether he prefers Alice or Carol? Logically, he should prefer Alice, but this person prefers Carol to Alice. Why?

Human preferences do not adhere to the rules of logic. This is why all polls are inherently flawed. If you change questions ever so slightly you get hugely different opinions.

These days I'm going around describing my views as conservative progressive democratic libertarian. This pisses off the purists of all stripes.

Since a fair number of libertarians read this blog, I'll describe a bit what is pissing me off about libertarians. Some months ago I read a book review about a book on the history of the FDA on the Reason website. While the review was mostly negative, the reviewer seemed surprised to learn that the FDA was actually created to solve some real problems. It might not have been the optimum solution, but it was a real solution to real problems. The FDA today might be totally out of control, but it arguably wasn't when it was started.

Earlier this month Kling on TCS wrote a piece about the "Happiness Police" who want to tell you how much time you can spend at work. As opposed to many crackpot employers who seem to think as much as possible? There's evidence to support the idea that Americans are significantly overworked today, with all sorts of real world consequences.

Libertarians -- along with others of various political stripes -- seem to use anything someone else says to reject wholesale everything they say. Leftists might have an axe to grind on the overwork issue, but that doesn't make everything they say invalid. Their solution might not be the best, but at least they are addressing the problem. I would have a great deal more respect for libertarians if they would do things like admit there is a problem, point out the flaws in the proposed solution and suggest one of their own. With regard to the overwork situation, libertarians could start showing employees how to challenge management, not just tell them "find another job if you don't like management."

The same can be said about all the other political groupings.

Why don't you require libertarians suggest a solution to death and taxes while you're at it?

Dude, the fact that employers don't give a damn about their employees (and vice versa I might add) is called "man's inhumanity to man." It stems from the same inherent qualities of homo sapiens as does the buyer's generic desire to gouge the seller, the seller's desire to steal from the buyer, war, terrorism, divorce, child abuse, blah blah blah.

There are NO solutions to these problems, short of wholesale genetic redesign of the species. No form of government ever has or ever will "solve" cheating, exploitation, poverty, prejudice or violence. These things are inherent to us as men.

But that doesn't mean government can't make them WORSE. If you can't easily change jobs because some Stalinist has decreed how many people will work where, then your ability to get out of a bad job and into a better is compromised. If you can't change your doctor or your kids' school, because there IS only one health-care system or school system, run by the government, then your ability to get you or your kid out of a bad situation is compromised.

Any time government compromises your freedom to choose how you RESPOND to the inhumanity of others -- including your boss or your employee -- then your chances of solving your own problems are compromised.

And, the bottom line is, I'm sorry to say, that only you the individual can "solve" the existential problems: how to reconcile yourself to mortality and the presence of evil in your fellow man, how to make friends and avoid enemies, and how to maximize your happiness given the sad fact that quite often increasing your happiness means decreasing the happiness of others -- and, yeah, finding a job you like working with colleagues you respect and a boss who treats you like a human being.

Tonight (9/3) an MSNBC After Hours panel wondered why, if a majority of the public believe the country is going in the wrong direction, Bush is ahead. The answer is simple. Say 1/3 believes the country is going too far to the left and 1/3 believes it is going too far to the right. Then assuming that the Democrats and Kerry are perceived as more liberal than the Republicans and Bush, only 1/3 see a Kerry presidency as an improvement.