Of all places, a Toronto Star article about the proposed handgun ban brought together for me a bunch of issues I’ve written about here.

The article argues that public policy should be evaluated based on its expected outcome, not its stated intentions. Pause a moment and think about that. It’s basic but it’s deep.

The neat thing about this idea is that it applies all over the place, not just to public policy. All the following truisms express the same respect (or disrespect) for reality:

truism	falsism
actions speak louder than words	it’s the thought that counts
criminals are bad	guns are bad
form a plan and follow it through1	pray and hope
fortune favours the prepared	buy these lucky charms
science is respectable	creationism is respectable
deliver a good product	create public relations buzz
make tough decisions	hold an opinion survey
steady management	announce new direction each week

Over a short time, many get away by internalizing the falsisms. They feel good. They are simple. However, feeling good and being simple are not necessary principles for operating within this universe.

In the real world, we have tough decisions about complex situations. We guess, we predict, and we may be right or wrong in the end. If we apply our minds, and honestly revise our ideas as experience accumulates, we can try to duplicate the success of the scientific enterprise in other spheres of life. We would have a whole lot less bullshit in the world.

¹ ‘cause that’s what Brian Boitano’d do.