Some words:

Dose: It seems America has forgotten the concept of dose. If it is bad in any amount it is bad all together, and likewise, if it is good in any amount, it is completely good. This is just missing the point. What ever happened to all things in moderation (including moderation)?

Shame: There is a set of people who believe that shame is an awful thing and should be avoided. This is to bad, as it is the primary way most people are incentivised to do the right thing. It seems a child molester SHOULD feel shame. That of course is an extreme example, but it can follow to other places as well. We have lost this.

incentive: All things are economics. I do not mean money, but behavior leading to the perceived greatest outcome. Now, this could mean the greatest happiness. People will do more of things they have incentive to do, and do less of things they have disincentive to do. This is one reason we tax things like cigarettes, it is to reduce consumption. This is also how you make change. Change takes time, and it will move towards where the incentives are. In the 90s, many companies did illegal things (read Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing) because they were incentivised to extend their earnings growth. When natural earnings growth stopped in about 1998, they started cooking the books to make it LOOK like they were still growing.

Bias: Everyone is biased. It is a basic part of being human. Those of us who believe we are not biased are just fooling ourselves, or just too sure of ourselves and arrogant to recognize this. The simplest and most common form of bias is confirmation bias. This is the case where we hear two things, and the one that supports our belief we notice, and the one that contradicts it we ignore.

Equilibrium: As I said before, change takes time. The reason for this is that the world continually seeks equilibrium. This does not mean the world is equal, it simply means that when things get out of whack, it trends toward the center. When there is an incentive toward a behavior different from the prevailing one, behavior tends to change towards the incentive. This also works for supply and demand. One fallacy of people understanding of economics is that supply and demand is an instant thing. This is not true. What it means is that when there is more demand than supply, prices go up to seek equilibrium where demand decreases to meet supply. This then inspires more supply and the cost goes down again. This takes time, but it is the way it works. Of course supply and demand are continuously changing in any market so this is never settled. This works socially as well. When there are forces that influence people to behave is a certain way, they trend towards that behavior, but they often over shoot. An example of this is a prudish society may beget children who fight against that prudishness. This then starts a trend away from prudishness. At first this force takes the society back to an equilibrium, but the momentum often take the society way past the mark, creating a new type of debauchery. This is then fought against to bring the society back to center, and then again back to prudishness. Take a look at the past and this is repeated over and over, and it is a result of society attempting to seek balance and continually overshooting like a pendulum. This is society seeking equilibrium, but overshooting the mark.

Belief: We all have our beliefs. For some it is the belief in a higher power; for others it is the belief in science; and for others it is the belief in a conspiracy. Now, all of our views of the world are shaped by our beliefs, and we all have them. It is part of our bias. These beliefs are part of our point of view. They are based on our experiences and out knowledge. Many of us do not recognize this as belief. Some of us try to differenciate beliefs such as Bush lied with Jesus is the son of God. If you examine this, however, you can see that they are both rooted in the same fervent faith in a belief. Just because one is associated with God, some people disregard it at foolish and mythical. Many of these same people have an equally fervent view that the world is coming to an end, and it is all Bush's fault. Both of these views are based on belief, and require some denial of various facts. These tend to be strong beliefs, but they illustrate the type of thing that shapes the conversation in this country.